Before I recycle my reliable Cats Protection advent calendar 2009, I thought I'd scan it for posterity. Cats Protection have had a tough year, coping with the £11.2 million they lost at the end of 2008 when the Icelandic banks went belly-up (that's about a third of their annual donations) and having to put building work on new adoption centres on ice (ha ha, not funny). I think they deserve a thought at a time of year when even more people are getting rid of unwanted kittens. Maybe give them a donation. (Enjoy, in particular, Lucky, Smithy, Dandy and Marcos.)

You don't deserve us. Or maybe we don't deserve you. One or the other. Richard is going on holiday to Mauritius to find a Dodo tomorrow and I am working right through to the end of January, yet still we manage to find time to record Podcast 96. Because I lost my voice on Sunday and am still awaiting its full return, I'm mainlining honey and lemon and cherry Strepsils; this still gives Rich the chance to dominate proceedings, as we discuss the Nigerian Pants Bomber, Hannah Waterman's amazing weight loss, Paul Hogan's amazing age gain, and the surprise fate of the Harry Potter movie franchise.

Cheer up, The Road, it might never happen. Oh yes, it did. That's the whole point. One of the most depressing books I've ever read, it was bound to be a fairly bleak film. To be fair, if it wasn't, then something would have gone horribly wrong on the road from page to screen. If you haven't read Cormac McCarthy's novel - and I'm no expert, it's the only one of his I've read - I wholeheartedly recommend it, unless you're in a fragile state: it's a relentless tale of basic human survival told as a Sisyphean ordeal in which, in some unspecified post-apocalyptic future, a father and son pick their way to the imagined sanctity of the coast, day by day, scavenging for scraps of food and doing their best to avoid other, possibly cannibalistic scavengers. It is a book - and now a film - about fatherhood, or parenthood, and the lengths we will go to to protect our offspring, even when the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked against us, they block out the sky. As I say, not a cheery story.

All credit, then, to director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall, for finding a workable film within McCarthy's deliberately dead-eyed prose, without sacrificing the nihilistic mood or the paucity of relief available to our two protagonists, played by Viggo Mortenson and 12-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee, who dominate the Picaresque action, while other characters are reduced to cameos (Rober Duvall as an old man, Michael K Williams - aka The Wire's Omar! - as a thief, even Charlize Theron, who only appears in pre-event flashback). Hillcoat and his amazing Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe work with a palette of muddy browns and greys that couldn't even be described as slate - the skies are overcast in this ruined world and the animals are essentially all dead; there are only two kinds of film to be made out of these scraps: a sci-fi action thriller, and an existential meditation. Hillcoat just about steers his through both, although the cleverly edited trailer - surprise, surprise! - suggests the former, by cutting together pre- and post-apocalypse to suggest we might be getting something a bit like 2012. Some hope.

In fact, one day, someone will compare the two films, in detail, and read into the similarities and differences something profound about the damaged American state of mind in the early 21st century. Me? I'm too depressed to do anything. I have seen The Road. I had to go and see something light and frothy and pureed afterwards, to decompress, and cheer up - specifically Nowhere Boy. ("John, meet George, he should be in your band!" - no, really.)

I would heartily recommend The Road (it's released on January 8), but only with a mental health warning attached. Let's all have a fantastic New Year. It could be a lot, lot worse.

Phew. Nearly became a BBC news story last night, driving home for Christmas after a trip up to see the family in Northampton. Left there at 16:18, arrived back in London, after what is usually a two-hour journey, at 20:42, having spent about two of those four and a half hours moving about two miles on a snowbound M40. It really was surreal to be out in the kind of weather that makes the news. What amazed me was how quickly it turned. The M40 is one of those major motorways in this country that doesn't have lights for long stretches, which always strikes me as phenomenally dangerous on a normal night, after dark, but when the climate changes, as it did yesterday afternoon and Chris Evans on Radio 2 starts to bang inappropriately on about how "magical" the weather is, it's actually quite terrifying.

Anyway, Chris soon changed his tune, when the traffic reports lengthened and became grave in tone. Now, I know that we're only talking a little bit of snow and temperatures as low as, ooh, minus one, and the big joke is how quickly this country grinds to a pathetic, oh-woe-is-me halt, but to be in the middle of it, with the motorway reduced from three lanes to two in a matter of about 30 minutes, it's less amusing. I read this morning that some motorists outside Basingstoke were out all night. There was certainly a point, some 30 miles outside London, where I wondered if the same might happen to us. All I had was two bottles of wine Mum and Dad had given us for Christmas. I wished at one point that they'd given us chocolates. Or perhaps Kendal Mint Cake.

I pity anybody turning off for the A404, as the tailbacks on the sliproad were, as Chris Rea sings, top to toe. Not that that makes any sense. Anyway, God bless Chris Evans for keeping us entertained, and then, when things started to speed up south of the M25 (which had actually been described earlier by the traffic lady as "a car park"), Smooth Radio's 70s hour at 7pm - hearing Harry Chapin's Cat's In The Cradle was a symbolically uplifting moment.

Weather report over.

In a craven attempt to recapture the ghost of Christmas past, we reunite with the mighty Phill and Phil aka Messrs Jupitus and Wilding in their fancy Central London studio to record another festive four-way pod-off, entitled The Perfect Twelve, in which we ponder a dozen listener-supplied Christmas Questions and, in one case, nurse a post-Hairspray Christmas party hangover. The professional, mixed, balanced, equalised, topped, tailed and Andre-Vincent-jingle-festooned version is available from The Perfect Ten on iTunes - but if you prefer the longer (1hr 6m 35s), lo-fi, jingle-free, Collings & Herrin version, this is it. With extras. (Thanks to Jeanette for the tinsel-bedecked photo of us, taken in Brighton. We forgot to take a special one with P&P, due to intake of evil Vitamin Water.) God bless us every one.

There'll be one more C&H podcast, available on December 31, that's New Year's Eve, and then we're taking a break for two weeks, while Richard is on holiday. I, meanwhile, will be on 6 Music, working through the festive period like a nurse or taxi driver:

Tues-Weds, December 22-23, Steve Lamacq slot, 4-7pm
Mon-Thurs, December 28-31, Cerys/Nemone slot, 1-4pm
Mon-Fri, January 4-8, Cerys/Nemone slot, 1-4pm
Mon-Fri, January 11-15, Cerys/Nemone slot, 1-4pm

Tune in.

Avatar. It's big. It's clever. It has fashionable things to say about indigenous populations and the exploitation thereof. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make and took ages. The 3D is state of the art; when the little bits of ash rain down after a fire some of them feel as if they are in the cinema with you. It lasts for two hours and 42 minutes. It has almost nobody famous in it and some of it is real, the rest is a cartoon. I watched it. I was impressed by it. But it left me cold.

OK, let's review this sucker. 2009 is drawing to a close, we've almost reached the big 25th rehomed cat in the Cats Protection advent calendar and the remainder of the year is dominated by 6 Music stints and the occasional pear cider. I shall call 2009 The Year Of Secret Dancing, Cylons and Pear Cider, and in order to make nominal sense of it, I present my Final Fives in a number of categories, plus an additional Significant Seven, where relevant, in no quantitative order, for each. (And if you don't get the Final Five and Significant Seven reference, you won't have watched number one in my Final Five: TV Programmes.)



The Final Five: Films

1 Moon (Duncan Jones)
2 Das weisse Band/The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
3 Up (Pete Docter)
4 Pranzo di Ferrogosto/Mid-August Lunch (Gianni di Gregorio)
5 Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold)

The Significant Seven:
Antichrist (Lars von Trier)
2012 (Roland Emmerich)
Bright Star (Jane Campion)
The Wrestler (Darren Aronovsky)
In The Loop (Armando Ianucci)
Star Trek (JJ Abrams)
The Hurt Locker (Katherine Bigelow)




The Final Five: TV Programmes

1 Battlestar Galactica, Seasons 1-4, DVD box set
2 House, Seasons 1, 5 and 6, Sky1; Hallmark; FiveUSA
3 Red Riding, C4
4 30 Rock, Seasons 1, 2 and 3, DVD box set; Five; Comedy Central
5 Modern Family, Season 1, Sky1

The Significant Seven:
True Blood (FX, Season 1)
Celebrity Masterchef (BBC1)
Garrow's Law (BBC1)
Prison Break (Fiver, Season 1)
The Thick Of It (BBC2)
Mad Men (BBC4, Season 2)
Arrested Development (DVD box set)




The Final Five: Songs

1 Cellz by Doom (Born Like This)
2 The Promise by Girls Aloud (Out Of Control) - BOO! Just found out this came out at the very end of 2008 but I'm leaving it in, because I got into it late, this year
3. Sticks'n'Stones by Jamie T (Kings & Queens)
4 Rave On by M Ward Ft. Zooey Deschanel (Hold Time)
5 Reflection Of The Television by The Twilight Sad (Forget The Night Ahead)

The Significant Seven:
Vlad The Impaler by Kasabian (West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum)
Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (It's Blitz)
I Felt Stupid by The Drums (Summertime!)
Teenage Body Count by Jim Bob (Goffam)
Daylight by Matt & Kim (Grand)
Just Like You by Ian Brown (My Way)
Mirror's Image by The Horrors (Primary Colours)




The Final Five: Albums*

1 Where The Wild Things Are by Karen O and the Kids
2 Born Like This by Doom
3. My Way by Ian Brown
4 Goffam by Jim Bob
5 Forget The Night Ahead by The Twilight Sad

Significant Other:
A late entry - I've been listening to Luke Haines' 21st Century Man all day, and it's a triumph!




The Final Five: Live events

1 Blur, Glastonbury Festival, June
2 Swamp/Come, Been & Gone by Michael Clark, the Barbican, London, November
3 Daniel Kitson, The Stand, Edinburgh, August
4 Hairspray, Shaftesbury Theatre, London
5 Hitler Moustache, Underbelly, Edinburgh, August

The Significant Seven:
The Specials, Glastonbury Festival, June
Karaoke Circus at the 100 Club, London, July, and the Pleasance Ace Dome, Edinburgh, August
Edwyn Collins, Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, August
Sarah Millican, Pleasance, Edinburgh, August
Robin Ince, Glastonbury Festival, June
John Otway, Glastonbury Festival, June
Alan Moore, Bloomsbury Theatre, London, December




The Final Five: Books

1 The Red Riding Quartet, 1974, David Peace (1999)
2 The Red Riding Quartet, 1977, David Peace (2000)
3 The Great Crash 1929, J.K. Galbraith (1954)
4 Bad Vibes, Luke Haines (2009)
5 The Red Riding Quartet, 1983, David Peace (2002)

The Significant Other**:
The Red Riding Quartet, 1980, David Peace (2001)




The Final Five: Heroes

1 Bonnie Greer, for dealing with Nick Griffin in a way that no other Question Time panelist could have done: calm, reasoned, intelligent, cool, patient and armed with the secret weapon of historical fact
2 The Green Party, for keeping me interested in politics and the environment when I might just as easily have given up on both
3 Alan Moore, for being a true original and uniting all who saw and met him at the Bloomsbury Theatre in December in the conclusion that sometimes you should meet your heroes and they won't let you down; also, for speaking in the Northampton accent of my grandparents and making me homesick by pronouncing "Einstein" correctly as "Oinstoin"
4 Robin Ince, for his tireless work in bringing together comedians and non-comedians, scientists and non-scientists in the name of genuinely stimulating entertainment for non-idiots
5 Seymour Hersch, Hendrik Hertzberg, Steve Coll and the "far flung correspondents" of the New Yorker, for showing me that there is more to American politics than posturing and disappointment




The Final Five: Places to be

1 HMVCurzon Wimbledon; Curzon Soho; Curzon Mayfair - these three buildings have made cinemagoing enjoyable again
2 RSPB Titchwell reserve, Norfolk
3 Richard Herring's attic, Shepherd's Bush, London
4 Duke Of York's Picturehouse, Brighton
5 Downstairs bar, Oriel, Sloane Square, London




The Final Five: Proudest moments

1 Secret Dancing in front of live audiences at the Duke Of York's, Camden Roundhouse, the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, the Phoenix Bar and the Bloomsbury Theatre - quite a "journey", as they'd say on The X Factor, while fanning their faces
2 Being given a glug of champagne by Mickey Rourke, and being hugged by Robert Downey Jr at the Baftas, February
3 Recording the audiobook of Where Did It All Go Right? in Cardiff with Chris and Gerald, February, blocked in by the snow - and seeing it onsale and being bought by nice people: an indie victory!
4 Being asked by the Times to speed-read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, overnight, a rare moment of Fleet Street journalism
5 Episode 2, Series 3, Not Going Out, Winner, BBC1, broadcast February

The Significant Seven:
Being on More4 News
Returning to 6 Music on a "holiday cover" basis
Being a small part of Mark Watson's 24-hour gig in Edinburgh
Being interviewed by Germaine Greer for The One Show
Hosting Q&As with Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton at the Edinburgh TV festival, the creators of Lost at the Curzon Mayfair, the makers of Bunny & The Bull at the Curzon Soho, and Shane Meadows at the Curzon Wimbledon
Being in the Top 10 Comedy Podcasts in the Guardian's otherwise rubbish Comedy Special
Thanks to Robin Ince and Martin White, sharing comedy/variety bills with Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Alexei Sayle, Waen Shepherd, John Otway, Ben Miller, Chris Addison, Barry Cryer, Jim Bob, Robyn Hitchcock, Simon Amstell and many, many more




The Final Five: Exhibitions

1 Rothko, Tate Modern
2 Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy
3 Futurism, Tate Modern
4 Wild Thing, Royal Academy
5 Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism, Tate Modern




The Final Five: New Things

1 Twitter
2 Pear cider
3 20-minute workout at new gym (thanks, Dom)
4 Oyster card - damn you!
5 Working with Iain Morris and Damon Beesley at BWark - the future of my sitcom career?

* Quite the worst year for albums in living memory; nothing outside of this Final Five (and one Significant Other) really merited being in my list - I'm sure you'll have loads of personal suggestions, but I fear the album is becoming a lost art and it pains me that so many promising artists fail to fill a whole two sides and keep my attention; still, it makes this six all the more precious, I think
** Didn't read enough books this year

It must be true as I've read it on some websites. Not Going Out, the audience sitcom that used to get as many as 3.9 million viewers at 9.30 on a Friday night on BBC1 when it should have been tipping the 4 million mark, has been reprieved. We learned in March this year that it had been cancelled by the BBC - I announced it here - and I must admit we were all very surprised, and very sorry, as we'd come through the potential minefield of a principal castmember leaving after Series 1 and, we felt, re-established it as a potential returning series in 2 and 3. It seems, then, that we are producing six new episodes for next autumn, which will air in a later slot, midweek, on BBC1, thus taking the pressure off us a bit - and raising the pressure a bit at the same time ie. we'd better make it work!

I personally can't wait to work with Lee and the rest of the gang again. This is some good news for 2010. And can I just offer a vote of thanks to all those who left messages of condolence and support, or signed petitions, or just came up to me and said how much they liked Not Going Out, whether from within the industry, or without. The people have spoken. I love the BBC.

Oh, and the spare Christmas episode from Series 3 - guest star: Bobby Ball - goes out on Wednesday, BBC1 at 10.45, to see how that later, midweek slot feels. What could have been a rather sad swansong has turned into a swan. Or something shit like that.

Back to the attic - in a brief but festive West London snowstorm! - for our 95th podcast, with a 25-minute section on bad breath, and most of the rest taken up with dissection of what Peter Kay's acceptance speech meant at the Comedy Awards and who is the most against sweatshops and torture out of Rage Against The Machine and X Factor's Joe McElderberry. There's a bit on Twiggy's eye bags and Tiger Woods' inappropriate violence against a man who hasn't got enough blades in his razor. Unfortunately for the latest one-star ingrate on iTunes, we don't have time to inspect the fluff from our navels and sod off the radio!

Thanks, as ever, to Andy McH, for this exclusive footage from last night's triumphant, end-of-run As It Occurs To Me at the Leicester Square Theatre, in front of a packed house of around 400 nerds.

For context: throughout the run, Richard Herring, to whom the sketch-based events have always occurred, has turned me - or a cartoon version of me - into a recurring character, along with Richard Whiteley, the "simples" Meerkat, Susan Boyle and the man in the queue behind Richard in Waitrose. (It really is a modern-day Fist Of Fun, without the being-on-television part.) I have secretly enjoyed the inaccurate impression of me by Dan Tetsell (based note for note on Ken Worthington rather than, say, me) and my fictional need to appear on the show reached a dramatic peak in show nine.

So I paid ten pounds for a ticket to the last show, and sat in the audience, as an audience member, with my friends Michael and James, and a pear cider in my hand, ready to be entertained. But ... I had secretly been down to the theatre in the afternoon to rehearse the climax of Richard's very well written Christmas Carol remake in which he visits the grave of Tiny Andrew Collings in a ghostly vision of the future and sees the error of his grumpy ways. Having been mocked by the Ken Worthington-voiced Dan Tetsell throughout the show, I was finally called up on stage. It was a bit like Al Pacino finally meeting Robert De Niro in Heat. Because I am a professional, and not just mucking about for Haribo sweets like Richard and Dan and Emma, I had learned my lines, thus giving the final denouement a patina of authentic spontaneity. I might win an Evening Standard Theatre Award to add to all my other awards.

Of course, I thoroughly enjoyed my brief moment in the spotlight, even though, ironically, every word I said had been written for me by Richard Herring.

... And here's a pic taken by James from Bath (who came all the way to Brighton from Bath last week, and all the way to London from Bath last night):

Well, we came - again - to Brighton, we saw - again - but did we conquer? Only you can decide, after listening to Collings & Herrin Live Podcast 94, recorded in front of a near-sellout crowd amid tinsel, prizes and Up-style balloons at the tremendous Duke Of York's Picturehouse, scene of our triumphant first full show in May, a triumph we foolishly hoped to replicate tonight. I'll be honest, it was an odd crowd. Many seemed on the verge of hysteria. There was, shall we say, an interactive vibe in the air. When Richard did a rendition of a special song, composed at the age of 10, very much pre-enlightenment, the audience went along with it (and indeed cheered to demonstrate their eagerness to hear it) until halfway through the second verse, which, to be honest, was no more shocking than the first verse. There is further juvenilia, including my own primitive, acoustic Profanity App, made in about 1973 and the public debut of Richard's story The Dectives. Perhaps these tested the patience of the audience and sent them over the edge. Maybe. But that's the fun of doing these live gigs. I hope the at-home version conveys some of the bizarre atmosphere.

Thanks to Jon and John at the Duke Of York's, for dressing the stage ("Who designed the stage set?" asked one man, loudly, during the ill-fated Q&A), packing them in, manning the controls and allowing us to run way past midnight, including a signing session at the end for the most devoted participants, many in appropriate t-shirts, and none of whom tried to punch or kill us. Below are some pics taken backstage during the interval, one posted up by Holly aka Project Lumino at our shop (she's the one in the Mitfords t-shirt), and a really bad one of the audience. A memorable evening, if a decidedly strange one. Thanks again, Brighton, you beguiling and up-for-it boho town.

Plus: here's one taken by MrJohnRain of my Secret Dancing demonstration from the first half, complete with five, that's five volunteers, all brilliant. I wish I could have seen it! (I can't remember all the dancers' name, so please come forward and claim your glory.)

I don't relish being the one to point out that the Emperor's bollocks are on show, but the FaceBook/Twitter "campaign" to artificially get Killing In The Name, a 17-year-old Rage Against The Machine single, to number one for Christmas, is at best "a bit of fun" (the defence many have made on Twitter) and at worst a deluded act of musical snobbery.

The theory goes: evil Simon Cowell has the singles chart sewn up and can claim the Christmas number one as his own no matter who wins The X Factor, which is cleverly timed to climax just before Christmas; ergo, if we (whoever "we" are) get together and all buy the Rage Against The Machine single in the key week beginning December 13, we can bring down his hegemony and put a record with the word "fuck" in it at the top spot, rather like last year, when "we" failed to get the Jeff Buckley Halleluyah to number one instead of Alexandra Burke's cover of his cover. Yay! #ratm4xmas!

I understand the NME and various other media outlets are supporting the "campaign." Why not? It's just a bit of fun. Maybe. The pair who started the campaign on FaceBook say: "None of the admins have anything to do with Sony music or Rage Against The Machine themselves. We're just 2 music fans who want to bring back the Christmas No.1 excitement to the UK
(plus we'd love to see a Christmas No.1 containing the word 'fuck.')"

1. They've dealt with this on the FaceBook page (they don't care!), but I'll restate it for those that don't know: Rage Against The Machine are - or were - signed to Epic, part of Sony Records. Simon Cowell's Syco Records is licensed through Sony BMG. Whether it's #ratm4xmas or #whoeverwinsxfactor4xmas, one of the largest music and entertainment conglomerates in the world pockets the lion's share of the cash. Actually, this is not important, as most music is released through a tiny handful of such media conglomerates, and it would be sweet if Rage got a few dollars, but it is ironic. If someone at Sony had started the #ratm4xmas campaign, they would have deserved the afternoon off. (By the way, I don't happen to think Rage Against The Machine's admirable and selfless political campaigns - they truly rage against sweat shops, torture, war criminals, Fox News, poverty, repression of Tibet etc. - are in any way diluted by the fact that they are - or were - signed to a major record company. There is something to be said from subverting from within.)

2. Some on Twitter seem to think that buying one single and not another one will topple "capitalist consumerism." Nothing needs to be added to that.

3. Others on Twitter seem to think that Simon Cowell's "empire" needs "toppling." Why not Google's empire? Or Amazon's empire? Or Microsoft's empire? Maybe they think those empires need toppling too. I suspect not. Because those empires provide things that people on the left approve of, whereas manufactured pop music - eek! - is for idiots and plebs, who are too stupid to know how bad the music they like is, and the choices they make on iTunes or in HMV are in some way inferior to the choices made by Rage Against The Machine fans. (By the way, the #ratm4xmas campaign seems to have little to do with Rage Against The Machine, and plenty to do with the fact that the song has "fuck" in it, which isn't magically going to be played on Radio 1 or the Christmas Top Of The Pops anyway.)

4. Since when did Zach de la Rocha and Tom Morello start worrying about who was number one at Christmas? In Britain? It's nice that the FaceBook "admins" want to get back the "excitement" of the Christmas number one, but wouldn't it be better if the "excitement" was based on who bought which single? There's no suggestion that Cowell is cheating his records into the charts, so surely the X Factor single has as much right to go to number one as a record being orchestrated into the chart by a FaceBook group. (About 230,000 have signed up to the group, so they must be counting on 230,000 sales - unless members are going to buy more than one, which really does make a mockery of the "excitement." A fixed chart is no longer a chart, surely?)

5. There is no harm in orchestrated block-voting, but organised direct action is far more powerful when it's to do with things like elections or civil rights or referendums, as opposed to the number of singles being sold in a week.

I do not watch The X Factor, nor am I likely to buy one of its singles, but it's not because I am boycotting either, or because I think I am better than the people who do like it. I don't like The X Factor and I know I don't like it because I have watched it in the past; my dislike is not based on reflex snobbery. I don't like it because it manipulates the contestants who apply to be on it and exploits their desperation and sometimes their mental instability for entertainment. It also devalues crying, as everybody on it cries all the time - what will these people do if, say, a family member dies? Where will the extra tears come from? How much harder can they fan their faces? I object to the editing. And I object to the fact that it obviates the need for record companies to seek out talent and nurture it. It's a smash and grab on the charts, and if the hapless, stage-managed, madeover artist survives the year, that's a bonus.

It seems to me that Simon Cowell is a very, very astute record company executive and A&R man; he also just happens to be one whose giant ego allows him to play a pantomime version of himself in a talent show that's as tightly scripted and plotted as a soap. Fine. Let him have his fun. More people bought Susan Boyle's album in its first week than bought the Arctic Monkeys' debut album in its first week - so why are the people that bought the Arctic Monkeys album in some way more discerning than those who bought the Susan Boyle album? It's a lot of people in both cases, just from different demographic sectors. I scent snobbery here, and I don't like it. The X Factor is light entertainment. When I was little, summer-season artists like Bobby Crush and Lena Zavaroni got in the charts after being on Opportunity Knocks. The only thing that's changed is the sheer scale of the thing.

If the success of The X Factor drives more musicians underground to make their own angry response and put it out without Sony, then good. But herd-buying a song from 1992 to stop a song from 2009? Fuck you, I won't buy what you tell me.

Well, my three-week George Lamb/Cerys Matthews run on 6 Music ended with a bang today - well, with a fuck. Sylvain Sylvain, legendary, dapper, surprisingly well preserved guitarist with the New York Dolls and one of only two surviving members from the classic 70s lineup, came in for an interview which went really well - we even played in a clip of Morrissey introducing a Dolls track from Desert Island Discs. However, due to my innate ability to make interviewees relax, in the second part the good-natured, throaty and utterly professional Sylvain forgot himself and said "fuck" while telling an anecdote about driving with Malcolm McLaren from Florida to New York. If you want to hear the "fuck" it's around 1:21 on the iPlayer (apparently the current policy is not to edit the swears out, but warn of "language which may offend", which they have done).



In a way, it was the perfect end to a great week in the Cerys seat - live and dangerous! I apologised immediately, which is all a BBC presenter can do on live radio. Funnily enough, a week ago, in the Lamb slot, Paul King, director of Bunny & The Bull and The Mighty Boosh, said "pissed off" and I had to apologise for that too. I am Bill Grundy.

I've had a fantastic three weeks back at the old ranch. Today was Steve Lamacq's second annual Wear Your Old Band T-Shirt To Work Day, so I even got to be in a staff photo with all the people half my age who now work there. You may or may not be able to see that I am wearing a UB40 World Tour 1986-87 t-shirt. This is not mine. I borrowed it. Because I do not own a single band t-shirt.



And here's me in Sylvain's hat.

I'll be back on 6 Music, this time filling in for Steve, on December 22 and 23, then in the Cerys slot after Christmas before it reverts back to being the Nemone slot midway through January 2010. Thanks for all the supportive comments I've received by email, text and Tweet throughout the run. It makes all the difference.

WARNING! NOT AS GOOD AS LAST WEEK'S! In our 93rd podcast, we drift back into mediocrity after last week's unexpected peak of hilarity based upon the writings of a nine-year-old boy. This week, dozy on pear cider - and in Richard's case, "a couple" beforehand, like Christmas has come early or something - we go old school and sift through pages and pages of news, important and unimportant, like the sailors who accidentally sailed into Iran, the golfer who accidentally sailed into a cocktail waitress and the lookalike of Simon Cowell who accidentally sailed onto the front cover of the tear-powered Daily Mail. [Oh, and we forgot to take our photo afterwards, which is why Richard only appears in puppet form in this one. He's probably sleeping it off somewhere on a bed of five-star reviews.]