The Best 30 Albums Of The Decade (kind of)

Over the next month Huw Davies' Week Spot will become Huw Davies' Decade Spot, as I count down the Best 30 Albums Of The Decade.

Naturally, the immediate question is - what are my qualifications to make such a decision? This will impact hugely on the world of music. Bands whose latest effort doesn't make the cut might give up entirely and split, causing no end of pain among their fans. Such is the power of...well, me. It's OK, I'm humble about it.

Of course, this list isn't going to be definitive. I've not heard every album in the world released over the past 10 years (sorry, I'm just not that committed to the cause). And I've not even heard all the important ones: real music journalists like this fella will roll their eyes and berate the lack of Grizzly Bear and such, but hey, I've just not heard the albums, all right? Get off my back. Bastards.

And the list will be subjective. Obviously. There's no point in my trying to be 'cool' - I like some awfully trendy bands, but I don't like a whole world of others.

What I will say is this list is likely to be on the commercial side of hip (can't believe I just wrote that), by which I mean the average non-muso will recognise most of the bands mentioned.

So basically, I suppose what I'm saying is you have no reason to read this list at all. And it's going to be written over a month - one per day, starting December 1st, ending December 31st (excluding Christmas Day, OBVS) - so if you're not interested, you're going to find this place a bit of a hole for a while.

Oh well.

So, yes - starting Tuesday, I will be counting down the Top 30 Albums Released This Decade What I've Heard And Like But Obviously It's Not Definitive And Not Even That Objective But Hey It Might Be Interesting.

Be here or be curious.

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Move along, nothing to see here

I try to avoid self-publicising on this blog (well, apart from the About Me section, obviously), but I would like to point people towards this - my weekly Premier League predictions blog on fourfourtwo.com.

This week I let the predictions become a thinly-veiled attack on a certain French footballer (which, if this is anything to go by, is a nice way of putting it (nasty words within)).

So...yeah.

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Come on, come on. Come on, come on. Come on, come on, Gabon

So, tomorrow's football.

For those caring less about England's friendly with Brazil and more about a game that actually matters, the eyes will presumably be swivelling towards the first leg of Europe's final World Cup qualifiers, and specifically Ireland vs France. Can the Irish overcome the former world champions to reach the finals in South Africa? Was it right for the play-offs to be seeded so they had such a tough game? And is there any basis of truth in this exchange at all?

Elsewhere in Europe, Ronaldo's Portugal have a tricky encounter against Bosnia-Herzegovina, erstwhile European champs Greece look to restore some pride against the Ukraine and Russia take on Slovenia.

But to be honest, I don't care. Because tomorrow, World Cup history could be made in a completely different part of the world. So does anyone know a pub anywhere in the UK that will be showing Togo vs Gabon?


After an epic two-year tournament, the African qualifying stages come to an end tomorrow with a flurry of teams trying to book a last-minute berth. Some of the big names are through (Ghana; Cote d'Ivoire); some are not (Nigeria and Egypt both need to win and hope results go their way).

The biggest fixtures, though, come in Group A - the Group Of Death.


Only one of the group's four teams can make the World Cup Finals, and three qualify for the African Cup of Nations. So when Gabon, a medium-sized west African country with around a million and a half inhabitants, none of whom have played in the World Cup Finals before, drew in their group Cameroon (featuring Samuel Eto'o, traditionally Africa's best team), Tunisia (regular qualifiers) and Togo (uh, Emmanuel Adebayor), it's fair to say they had the shortest odds on making neither tournament.

But amazingly, Gabon have a real chance. A chance to stop the likes of Samuel Eto'o and Alexandre Song playing on the world's biggest stage. A chance to stop Morocco even playing in the relatively minor African Cup of Nations.

A chance for this group of amateurs and semi-pros, whose most well-known player is probably Daniel Cousins of Hull, to play in the World Cup Finals for the very first time.

All the Black Panthers need to do is to beat Togo - which they did 3-0 at home - and hope Cameroon manage only a draw away to a Morocco team they couldn't beat on home turf. Gabon may need a result to go their way, but success is within their grasp.

So if you see me in a pub in Portsmouth tomorrow only keeping an idle eye on the England or Ireland game while frantically refreshing my phone's internet browser, you'll know why. I'll be keeping tabs on a team on the brink of making history.

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A hasty scrawl

This is just a brief respite from my enforced silence to highlight this story and the reporting of it.

First up, The Sun has reacted with typical understanding and calm, making a towering mountain out of the smallest of molehills by highlighting every alleged error. And yes, I do mean alleged. Bad handwriting is not a crime, and frankly I - yes, even I - can excuse a couple of spelling mistakes from a man with a lot on his mind.

It's another example of The Sun's, and most other tabloids', confused politics of war. They want to beat the big nasty terrorists, but they want Our Brave Boyz out of Iraq. They complain about soldiers having substandard equipment, but complain about military overspending (or at least tax, which falls easily under their 'Gordon Brown Iz Rubbish Innit' banner). And they want Brown to do everything at once, but take time out of his schedule to write a perfectly-constructed letter in iambic pentameter to grieving parents with a chip on their shoulder about the war even happening in the first place.

Secondly, both The Sun and the BBC included an addendum along the lines of, "Mr Brown has previously admitted problems with his eyesight." Because naturally THAT'S relevant.

Thirdly, all hail Number 10 spokespeople for yet another idiotic press statement - one of my favourite yet - which runs: "[Gordon Brown] would never knowingly misspell anyone's name." Brilliant. It's good to know that even in times of stress, our Prime Minister doesn't say to himself, "That David Cameron really pisses me off. I know what I'll do. I'll write him a letter addressed to 'Mr Camron'. That'll really get him."

Lastly, the woman complaining about the letter in the first place has found completely the wrong outlet for her grief, and shouldn't have been given the publicity (and certainly not with the grim picture The Sun arranged of her holding her son's photograph - it just reminds me of this brilliant website).

I just wish the reporters had included all of the spelling mistakes I am absolutely sure she committed in her own letter. Muphry's Law is an absolute gem.

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