My top 50 tracks of 2010

Late as usual, but it's occasionally hard finding a computer with a USB port over in India from which to run certain software not available in India, and in the brave new technological world of 2010, a list of songs not accompanied by a Spotify playlist basically amounted to a big slap in God's face. Click here to see and hopefully listen to my festive 50, plus check out three slabs of marvellousness below that had the audacity to not appear on Spotify.







Wait, so 46 songs on the Spotify playlist, three YouTubed above... That leaves one, right? Yup - it's Prince's 'Untitled', the only great track from his album 20Ten, given away with the Daily Mirror, and totally unavailable anywhere.

So instead, here's a brief message from the self-proclaimed Purple Yoda ("straight outta Minnesota!"): "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it... Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." Um, if numbers are so bad, why call your LP 20Ten? Huh? ANSWER ME, PRINCE.

If you hate Glasvegas this quote will probably not help matters

"Somebody was saying, 'What's your problem with the album?' I said the problem is that it sounds like a band. They said, 'What's your problem with that? What do you want it to sound like?' I said, 'A dream.'"

Glasvegas singer James Allan in NME's Christmas edition

On the train to Kanyakumari

Sarah: "Listen to this: more water is used to make a hamburger than to shower for seven minutes a day for six months."
Will: "Wow. Hamburgers must have a lot of water in them."
Sarah: [Sighs]

Only in India etc etc

"Today, when the prescriptive frame of caste is loosening, and many Brahmins are doing very well in business and management, it is tempting to speculate that their success is only a continuation of the commercial acumen of their more traditional predecessors. In the holy city of Pushkar, the hereditary priests of the Savitri Devi temple have gone to court to compel the guardians of the nearby Brahma temple to share the offerings received from devotees. Their argument is that Brahma, the creator of the world, had 'divorced' his wife Savitri because she did not arrive in time to participate in his yagna (ritual sacrifice) to create the world. As such - so lawyers were arguing in the local court in the year 2001 - the Creator should be made to pay alimony to the Goddess! This attempt to marry mythology to alimony in the quest to raise income must certainly have very few parallels in the world!"

Pavan K Varma, Being Indian (London: Penguin, 2005), p69.

India part 7: Trivandrum

How could I have forgotten the Indian Coffee House in Trivandrum? Also known as "that weird red spiral staircase restaurant near the station", their menu offers "liquid coffee", "oval tea" and the not-so-nice-sounding "milk water". It's a filthy place, but when you can flag down a waiter, you can get your mitts on delicious paratha and friend chicken ("chicken fry") with red onion and a hot sauce. "A Trivandrum institution" sayeth the Rough Guide.

We only spent a day in the Keralan capital, but we did manage to pay a visit to the Napier Museum and zoo, where we saw some disturbing and utterly unmoving birds, and crocodiles, who seemed even more motionless.

As a treat, we also went to see the new Harry Potter film at a packed-out cinema, with a quintessentially Indian audience. There was much cheering when the boy wizard appeared onscreen and excited applause followed each hi-octane set piece. Plus the obligatory man in the cheap seats who spends much of the movie barking like a rabid dog. The film itself was a bit disappointing, very uneven, and Radcliffe, Watson and Grint - all decent enough actors on their own - are awfully stilted whenever they're together, visibly waiting for cues and (Hermione particularly) frequently pulling tortured, worried faces.

Afterwards, we went back to our hotel and watched I Love You, Man on the telly, which is far better, and bizarrely, featured a running joke about the high quality of HBO's Sunday night programming (it was on HBO, and it was a Sunday night).

Then we went to an ashram, where there was very little HBO, Harry Potter or fried chicken.

A Keralan haiku

Varkala sunset,
Wedded with the hawker's cry:
"Please sir, see my shop."

India part 6: Varkala

Signs I have seen #94

Um, excuse me, it's spelt... Oh, never mind.

India part 5.5: The Backwaters

India part 5: Kochi

I think I ran out of steam camera-wise in Kochi... Don't worry, there will be words of unsurpassed lyricism soon, the pictures are nearly up to date. In the meantime, here's an elephant we overtook as we left, a rickshaw rank, a boat under a tree, and a crow. There are loads of crows in India. I was here in 2003, and I don't remember there being crows.