Look, I've been busy.

It's been a little while, hasn't it? November and December just vanished underneath me. One minute we were all laughing about a road sign in Wales and the next I was flying home from Paris and 2 months had passed. But now I'm back, back, back and I won't be going anywhere for a while. That's a Connolly promise. And a Connolly promise is worth.. em.. well essentially it's worthless but let's not dwell on that.

So here, briefly are a few things that I would've blogged about last year if i hadn't been too busy doing them!

Hunger, Steve McQueen's film about the hunger strikes in Belfast in the early 80s. Yes, it's a bit 'arty', there's very little dialogue and it doesn't follow your normal film narrative but don't let that put you off. It's fantastic. Probably the best thing I saw in 2008. Apart from Elegy which couldn't be further removed from what Hunger is all about. But hands-down the best scene in anything last year was surely the 18 minute single-take conversation between Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands and Liam Cunningham as the priest who comes to visit Sands in prison. The longer the scene goes on, and you realise it's all being shot in one take, the more the tension increases. See it for this alone.

Fleet Foxes at Vicar Street. Awful gig. The album is good and there's no questioning their talent but God, I've never seen a band with worse stage presence. Someone (me? probably not) came up with the expression 'negative stage presence' to describe bands like Fleet Foxes. Just endless tune-ups and muttering amongst themselves. And when the lead singer had nothing interesting to say (that'll be all the time) he just talked about Barack Obama and stood back as the room went nuts.. I spent the last 15 minutes in the bar.. Still you can't argue with this:

Of Time and the City, Terrence Davies' lovely documentary about growing up in post-war Liverpool was a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon. And as I was a little tired that day, it was most condusive to a little snoozy-time. I dozed off and didn't miss a thing!

W, Oliver Stone's confusing biopic of George Bush, should have put me to sleep but sadly didn't. What a strange, pointless film. Everyone is great in it but it all added up to not very much in the end. Guess what? Dubya drank a bit in his youth. And how about this - he's not very smart at all! No wait - this'll blow your head off - there were no WMDs in Iraq!! You get my point. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it made old Dubya seem rather likeable. That couldn't have been Oliver's Stone intention, could it?

Quantum of Solace. Oh goodness me.. What a load of boring old drivel..

Whose Line is it anyway? in Vicar Street. Great fun actually. They're coming back in April - you should go if you can.

Finished joint 2nd in a table quiz in Glasnevin. I single-handedly scored 10/10 in the music round. They played snippets of songs and you'd to name the song and singer. And a strange mix it was - Ultravox, Midge Ure (seriously where have you ever heard two Midge Ure songs in the one place?), Radiohead, Everything but the Girl and, most impressive of all, Adrian Gurvitz' timeless classic, em, 'Classic'! Unfortunately the shine was taken off my great achievement by my somewhat exuberant over-reaction to the answers. It turns out that nobody like a know-all! Still second is a significant leap from our mid-table finish last year. The pressure's on already for 2009!

Eli 'Paperboy' Reed in Whelans. I know it's a terrible name and I know that soul music isn't exactly the hot thing for 2008 or 2009 but all things considered it was a fantastic night's entertainment. If you don't know him, Eli is like an updated version of all those great Motown and Stax singers. He tours with a band called the True Loves and he put on a proper show on a damp November night in Whelans. As far from Fleet Foxes as you can possibly get, Eli whipped the crowd into a soul-clapping frenzy and literally wouldn't leave the stage til everyone was shouting for more. A proper showman in the James Brown/Springsteen mould. Have a look at this performance on Jools Holland's show in November. It may not be terribly original but in an age where very little is at least it's exciting, upbeat and even clowns like me can dance to it!

Elbow in Dingle. Now this was a treat. Every year RTE record a series of concerts in Dingle for the Other Voices tv show. It's recorded in a tiny church on the main street and they have 4 or 5 acts on each show. Thanks to a tip-off from Alfer we knew that Elbow and Richard Hawley were going to be on together on Sunday night. And so there we were, sitting in a 100 seater church in the middle of nowhere, as most critic's favourite band of last year sang One Day Like This, to all intents and purposes everyone's favourite song of last year. Earlier Richard Hawley delivered a lovely acoustic set which was preceded and followed by James Morrison (nice but dull and Hugh Cornwall (loud and great). I've managed to go to a lot of gigs this year but seeing Elbow and Richard Hawley singing Hawley's Coles Corner is definitely one for the books. One of many.. And afterwards all the bands, crew, fans and locals all headed over to the hotel across the street and drank until almost daybreak.

After a long night of rock and roll, it was time to run home through the streets of Dingle. Thinking about it now, this is what most of December looked like to me. I'm just coming back into focus now.

Tragic attempts at a moody album cover photo on the beach the following day. There's loads of these. They're all as bad as this one

And then there was Josh Ritter the following week at Vicar Street. Now look, I know Josh Ritter isn't cool and I know people don't care much for his music but I like him.. It shouldn't need justification! He's got a warm, engaging personality , he's got a great band and he was doing this gig with a 24 piece orchestra. And it was darned good. Good songs, a few beers and a nice Christmas buzz about the place. What could go wrong? Other people, that's what.. I've talked before about people talking at gigs. We all know it's not cool, right? What more needs to be said? We were stood beside a bunch of people who were there to hear one song and one song only. The rest of the time they were happy to chat loudly to each other. In fairness one of them was trying to listen to the gig and tried, on many occasions, to shush them but it wasn't to be. And then when he played Kathleen, the song they were there to hear, they just went nuts. Cos get this - one of their friend's names is Kathleen. So it was obviously very important that they should jump up and down and shout along, making vague attempts at what the lyrics might be, until they got to the one word of the song that they felt they could shout out at a great volume. And then they shouted. Oh God, they shouted.. If I was 10 years younger and 2 years singler and a lot braver/stupider I probably would have done something but instead I've kept it all inside until now! That'll show them!

In the end it comes down to this (taken from a pub in London, with thanks to Word blogger Retro Man)

And then all of a sudden it was Christmas and then it was New Year's Day and I was in Paris. You all know what Paris is like. It's fantastic. On this occasion it was cold. Bloody cold! And it snowed. So I bought a hat and some gloves. And took a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Well you have to, don't you?

Happy New Year