Self-Indulgent Birthday List #3 - my favourite 49 films EVAH!

My favourite 49 Films of all time

1.       Nobody’s Fool

2.       Vanishing Point

3.       Paris, Texas

4.       Cinema Paradiso

5.       North by Northwest

6.       Booksmart

7.       Jaws

8.       Withnail and I

9.       Death Race 2000

10.   Miller’s Crossing

11.   The Conversation

12.   It’s A Wonderful Life

13.   Harold and Maude

14.   Silver Linings Playbook

15.   The Green Mile

16.   True Romance

17.   No Country for Old Men

18.   The Fugitive

19.   Raiders of the Lost Ark

20.   Erin Bronkovich

21.   Dave

22.   Die Hard

23.   Midnight Run

24.   The Dead Zone

25.   Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

26.   Seven Psychopaths

27.   Young Frankenstein

28.   The Princess Bride

29.   Good Will Hunting

30.   Badlands

31.   Night of the Demon

32.   Local Hero

33.   The Apartment

34.   A Matter of Life and Death

35.   Accidental Hero

36.   Enough Said

37.   Casablanca

38.   Toy Story 3

39.   The Royal Tenenbaums

40.   Rushmore

41.   Magnolia

42.   Silent Running

43.   Leon

44.   Dead Man’s Shoes

45.   Sideways

46.   Billy Liar

47.   Ameile

48.   Office Space

49.   The Straight Story

Self-Indulgent Birthday List #2 - My Favourite 49 TV Shows EVAH!

My favourite 49 TV Shows of all time

1.       Breaking Bad

2.       The Wire

3.       The Sopranos

4.       Chernobyl

5.       Cheers

6.       Six Feet Under

7.       The Leftovers

8.       Watchmen

9.       The Boys

10.   Seinfeld

11.   Blackadder (the whole lot)

12.   The Young Ones

13.   Tiswas

14.   Game of Thrones

15.   The Americans

16.   Jam

17.   The Day Today

18.   Brass Eye

19.   Black Books

20.   Friday Night Lights

21.   The Office

22.   Mum

23.   Fleabag

24.   Fargo

25.   Yes Minister

26.   The Thick of It

27.   Spitting Image

28.   The Mr. Men (original series)

29.   Bulman

30.   The Beiderbecke Affair

31.   Holding On

32.   The End of the F---------- World

33.   Top of the Pops

34.   The Channel 4 incarnation of Big Brother

35.   Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

36.   Mastermind

37.   Bored to Death

38.   The Rockford Files

39.   Get Shorty

40.   Father Ted

41.   The IT Crowd

42.   Better Things

43.   One Summer

44.   A Very British Coup

45.   GBH

46.   Barry

47.   Russian Doll

48.   Outnumbered

49.   Succession

Self-Indulgent Birthday List #1 - My Favourite 49 Songs EVAH

I'm 49 today so I'm not doing a #400steps update. Instead, bear with me, I've made three lists of my favourite songs, tv shows and films of all time. 49 of each as I'm erm 49 today. Did them off the top of my head - set myself 15 minutes to do it. And already I'm agonising.

My favourite 49 songs of all time.

1.       Walk Away Renee – Four Tops

2.       Temptation – New Order

3.       I’ve Been Waiting For You – Pixies

4.       Youth Against Fascism – Sonic Youth

5.       Girls of Summer – Arab Strap

6.       The Fall of Troy – Tom Waits

7.       Something on Your Mind – Karen Dalton

8.       Real Love – Big Thief

9.       Let’s Pretend – Tindersticks

10.   Send in the Clouds – Silver Jews

11.   Holes – Mercury Rev

12.   Rebel Without A Cause – Public Enemy

13.   4^th Chamber – Genius/GZA

14.   Always on my Mind – Willie Nelson

15.   Harry Irene – Captain Beefheart

16.   Fantasy Island – Tight Fit

17.   Scarlet Beautiful – Beloved

18.   Left to my Own Devices – Pet Shop Boys

19.   Rock & Roll – Velvet Underground

20.   I Don’t Know Why – Stevie Wonder

21.   We Have All The Time in the World – Louis Armstrong

22.   Ice Hockey Hair – Super Furry Animals

23.   War of Nerves – All Saints

24.   Stronger – Sugababes

25.   Down Down – Status Quo

26.   Drive-In Saturday – David Bowie

27.   Racing in the Street – Bruce Springsteen

28.   Kinky Afro – Happy Mondays

29.   Tell Me That It Isn’t True – Bob Dylan

30.   Blindness – The Fall

31.   So You’ll Aim Towards the Sky – Grandaddy

32.   California Soul – Marlena Shaw

33.   Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack

34.   What Time is Love – KLF

35.   Ibithaj - Rapsody

36.   Dirty Epic – Underworld

37.   Wild Night – Van Morrison

38.   I Gave You – Bonnie Prince Billy

39.   212 – Azalea Banks

40.   Video Games – Lana Del Rey

41.   Life in a Glasshouse – Radiohead

42.   A Day in the Life – Beatles

43.   Surf’s Up – Beach Boys

44.   You Shook Me All Night Long – AC/DC

45.   Head Over Heels – ABBA

46.   Maps – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

47.   Lazy Line Painter Jane – Belle and Sebastian

48.   Moments of Pleasure – Kate Bush

49.   The Only Living Boy in New York – Simon and Garfunkel

400 Steps - Update Three - Go Fuck A Sausage

Diet starts today. I weigh a disgusting 17 stone 4lbs.  If I was ripped like some sort of rugby player, this weight would be acceptable for a 6 foot lad but I’m not. I’m off the booze nearly a fortnight now but it’s time to shift the heavy furniture. I’m not going to go all Men’s Health and all that GQ body image bollocks. Fuck that noise. All these London based 50k trust fund cunts giving it the large because Daddy paid for their membership and diet pills. I’m nearly 50, I’d need steroids and extensive surgery to look like that. Take a day off lads. Eat a Twix. Go fuck a sausage.

You’ve got a choice when you’re young. Rock and roll or gym and salad. Well, you did 30 years ago and clearly I chose the insensible thing. I chose the wrong thing every time and now my body stands before me, like Miss Lydia at the start of Fame, telling me it’s time to start paying.

Anyway, enough of that bullshit. Eat less, eat better, do more exercise. That’ll do. Let’s see where I’m at with this in a week.

Can you lose weight by crying? Things I’ve cried at this weekend. That Rugby League player who’s just been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease – when he came on the pitch for the last time this weekend. Cried at that. Cried at that video of that all star band at a tribute to George Harrison with Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and Prince showing the world what it’s about to miss too. George’s boy is in the background playing an acoustic and for a moment or too he’s lost in Prince’s genius, gawping like a fan again, like a kid again and all that sadness and pain is for a moment lost, or appears to be. I guess that’s all pop music can or should be, respite from all the shit, just for a moment. Cried at my daughter telling me she loves me too. Fucking hell. It’s all too much this life at times but I crave more. Much more.

Read COKETOWN. Just fucking buy it and read it. And then buy and read DRUNKEN BAKERS too.

Days of self-improvement left: 374.

400 Steps - Update Two - Control

I have very poor impulse control. Actually, that's overstating it. I have some control, but not as much as I'd like.

I don't know why. Something to do with growing up poor probably. Apparently you don't learn how to envisage potential potholes ahead properly. That's a lot of P words there sorry. Anyway, this control thing is at the heart of a lot of mistakes that I've made in all areas of my life. And it's absolutely at the heart of all the reasons I want to stop drinking for a while so I can recalibrate the old noodle, fucking work out what's at the dark heart of me. I keep saying heart, fuck knows why, I hate that station.

Anyway, Christmas is something I find stressful. Nothing bad has ever happened to me at that time of year but I don't like the pressure of it, the forced closeness of people. I like people all year round but for a few days each year I've got to somehow pretend that this is how I like it, got to join in with everybody else's sudden gregariousness. Then there's the money. I don't earn a great deal of money but even I feel pressured to spend what I don't have to feel like I've demonstrated a suitable amount of love on people who know how much I love them already. So many Christmas shopping trips have ended up with me, hammered, gift-free in a pub. I don't like crowds, I don't like panicking, I'll spot a fireside glow and a row of beer pumps and the consumerist hell is delayed.

I like to walk at Christmas, spend a bit of me time lost in a stroll somewhere. No music on the headphones, just a bit of quiet. I didn't get the time for that this year or rather I failed to make the time. I just spent time watching telly and getting fat instead and that didn't help me. I even failed at abstaining all of December but it was okay because I rationalised the choices ahead of me when a stranger offered me a glass of wine at a party on New Year's Eve.

I can a) say Yes. b) say No. b) means I might end up in a discussion with people who know addicts and want to tell you their story which is fine because my exercise in abstinence is just a tiny part of a wider conversation that people need to have with themselves and their loved ones and their colleagues about their own substance issues. All conversations have a context.

I'm torn. I've turned down several drinks over the last month because I wanted to. That is the crux of my problem. I've not listened often enough to what I needed. I've just wasted so much of my life getting drunk when I didn't really need to, when what I really could have done with is some quiet, sober time of self-reflection instead. And it's better to do that in the glow of not having drunk than in the existential aftermath of a hangover - the deep fug of post-poison gloom where you, already dealing with toxins wreaking havoc with your internal organs, now have to wrestle with the psychic defences having been breached.

So, my decision came down to all these other questions in my head. Did I feel like I could drink without getting drunk? Are people going to judge you whatever decision you make? Are you going to judge you? All of this stuff is bouncing around in the tired, end-of-year brain. And so I said Yes. And I had two small glasses in the space of four hours. And I went home. And the drink was nice. And I felt a little bit like I'd let myself down when I woke up. But I told myself this was the choice I'd made, and that I'd been restrained, and that I'd had a nice evening, and that no one had texted to ask if I was ok or chastise me for something I'd said or done the night before. And I can live with that.

I've reset the Days Since I've Drunk clock to zero again. And I will see how long I can go this time. Because I want to do this, I'm actually in control of it. And that's why you won't see me preaching about it because I have no idea how hard it is to give something up when you are addicted to it, properly snagged in it's nets. There won't be a 15 Tips to a Happier, Healthier You book. I'm no Puritan. This is purely about me saying I've got a lot of work to do on being happier and fitter and healthier in 400 odd days time. And if you read this and like it, fair play to you, thanks for the support. And if you don't read it, or don't like it, then that's good too.

To be honest, I'm more ashamed of having played fucking Charades.

Days of self-improvement left: 385