It was my birthday. I was given books. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Unsurprisingly, the author ruined what would have been a fantastic story by a failure of an ending. The story was intricate, the characters interesting. Dr Iannis died pointlessly, his tale left untold. Why the author chose to neglect that and write about the rather boring moaning of Pelagia for a third of the book is beyond me. Killing him like that was also…saddening. Iannis was much, much more interesting than his daughter protagonist, who spends most of the book lamenting the fact that every male on the island seems to want her. She is a blank, the book revolving around her, so maintaining the blank and killing off everyone else is illogical.

I also received a sketchbook. Not an off-the-shelf one—Bella actually stitched each page together by hand. It’s beautiful. There are few things I have been more proud to own, that make me happy to see and use. I must admit, my drawing skills are limited, but I still savour it. Presents are rarely as thoughtful as that.

Ndubz wrote a book. I had no idea he was literate…

I’m now using Last.fm to track my music habits. It’s beautiful, I must admit. I have been doing desktop wallpapers based on my favourite artists due to the amount of pictures they make available. Apparently I listen to Paramore a lot more than I thought. And I don’t know why Cobra Starship are on there. Cobra Starship are awful.

Joanna and I are still together, though why she settles is unknown to me. I find myself watching the Matrix (the third one, whatever it’s called). I’d forgotten how progressively bad the series got. This one is the merde du merde.

I’m rambling again. I’m too tired to care. Too. Much. Work.

*finds none.*

Oh, alright. Well, English music is getting a bit stale. I mean, opening up iTunes now I get such fantastic artists such as Deadmau5, with “Random Album Title”. Try harder, Deadmau5. And spell your bloody name right whilst you’re at it.

What else…oh, the Jonas Brothers. Eugh. God. I don’t even need words to express how distressing the fact that they’re still alive is.

So, yes, quite a dull scene. Where else is there to look, then, but to the French? Alright, alright, you’re right, it does sound just slightly obnoxious (but less so than the Jonas Brothers.) It does bring to mind quite archaic sounds, too. But, you know, some of it sounds really good.

Forgive me, then, when I say when I clicked on the most interesting song, I was enthralled. Well, perhaps that’s not the best word, but I can’t think of a better adjective right now. Silenced! Wait. Too late. Damn.

Have a listen to it. (L’effet papillon, by Bénabar)

That’s the funniest video I’ve seen in a while. His expression! Ah.

Next, Le dîner, by Bénabar. I adore this song mainly because it speaks of a situation that doubtless any man has been in. Well, I’m not so sure about some guys, but, you know…

Fruitful though that is, I assume we should get some feminine voices into the mix. Being slightly less shallow—but only slightly, because I picked this for the album cover and that only—I picked up on the rather interestingly named Amandie Bourgeois with her latest single L’homme de la situation.

You’ll have to turn your speakers up for that one (NB: I’m not trying to trick you into deafening yourself. Okay, a little bit.) I like the fluffy man. He’s funny. Okay, less superficial…ly (is that even a word?), she has a good voice and the chorus is damn catchy, even if she has the really, really unfortunate affliction of not being able to pronounce the word je, which means “I” in French, instead misrepresenting it as “j’aie”, meaning “I have.” That’s just wrong.

Having been intrigued by Cœur de pirate, a bloody stupid name at the best times, I played Comme des enfants. It was so not what I was expecting. It was sweet. I know, how can an artist with “pirate” anywhere near its name produce something…nice? Eugh, it confounds me!

Well, I guess it just teaches you: never trust an album by its cover. Pfft, like I’d stop doing that. If you haven’t put the effort in to be pretty, you ain’t getting my money.

Anyway, having not learnt my lesson, I chose Ariane Moffatt as my next…experience. It was colourful, as you’ll soon find out. (Je veux tout.)

It does sound a bit weird—okay, a lot weird—but it’s actually pretty good once you get into it. It’s also brilliant because the French is very easy, so if you’re a GCSE student or something and want to enjoy a song you can actually understand, this is the one.

Finally (the crusades are approaching their end!), we find Indochine. These lot I’m not as fond of, I must admit. They belong to a group I like to call “White Noise Musicians”; that is, they make good music to listen to in the background, but it’s dull as hell if you’re actually, really…listening. Last one, now. It’s called Little Dolls (I really hate it when they put English in, you know. Eugh.)

Enjoy the sweet loads, my merry lads.

Oh well, at least I’ve come across a musician who can a) actually play and b) is quite nice to listen to as she does it, too. I used to post music up, but apparently I’m not allowed to do that anymore. YouTube to the rescue! It’s such a pity they removed music videos in the UK, though. What a way to lose market share. Bastards. Anyway, the lovely Lisa Mitchell is the one whom I speak about, and here is she with Neopolitan Dreams.

It’s still stuck in my head.

I have discovered RentACoder. I can well and truly say that I hate it. How could anyone undervalue their profession like that? $5 for a piece of coding? Come on, that’s awful! After their extortionate fee, that’s £3. THREE POUNDS. I could find that much money on the street! It makes you think, doesn’t it, about what the point is to learning this type of skill to a professional level if it’s going to be undervalued by a cheap, foreign “programmer” who outputs more invalid code than a monkey who’s handed a copy of Microsoft Word and a keyboard. Eugh. No wonder we’re in a crisis.