#01 One

What's happened this week? Let's find out, shall we?

I heard two fantastic albums this week. Starting right at the top, with Coldplay's third album X&Y on Monday. To be honest, there was a large part of me that wanted this album to be dire, just so I could rattle off loads of anti-Coldplay (OK, anti-Chris Martin) rants. Well fair play to the tree-hugging, no-drinking, rock-and-roll-less, "Make Trade Fair", "Save Africa", half-bit Bono rip-off, because it's pretty darn good. Yes, its pretentious, and some of the lyrics are a little bit suspect (how can you float on a tidal wave?), in terms of creating foot-tapping instantly-recogniseable tunes, you can't fault the man.

I didn't think I'd hear a better album all week. Boy, was I wrong! It's been out for quite a while, but somehow I'd managed to avoid the brilliant Maxïmo Park and their A Certain Trigger LP. This album rocks. It has all the ingredients for a perfect disk of music: There's the no-holes-barred screamers that you have to sing along to by law (The Coast Is Always Changing); the regional dialect (Geordie); all their singles; solid (but not great) filler tracks (I Want You To Stay); and one (no more, no less) sad, emotional, deep song (Acrobat). "I am not an acrobat/I can't perform those tricks for you" - a heartfelt apology and sense of desperate helplessness towards the one person you would attempt anything for - but in this case, just aren't good enough.

Also this week, my A-level exams 'proper' have begun. Physics was this morning (went quite well, no nasty shocks), and Business tomorrow morning. History and English loom on Monday and Tuesday... I know what I'm doing at the weekend! Attempts to revise are being made all the more difficult by the lure of 24-hour Big Brother on E4, and the arrival of my new digital camera, which arrived a week earlier than expected. Within three hours, I'd used up the batteries, so now my usage of the thing is limited to when the rechargables are ready!

Finally, this week I sent off the spare ticket I had for Damien Rice's solo gig in London to a random girl met on an internet forum. Well not totally random, (it was a Damien Rice fan site!), but still worth writing to add a little excitement. The arrival of the camera just makes me more and more excited about travelling to Paris the day after the exams finish to see him at Le Trianon. The Metro map has been printed, the euros are on order! Similarly, the arrival of a pair of cufflinks just makes me more excited about the Class of 2005 Ball for all us school-leavers. It's all just weeks away, but these exams really put a damper on things!!

That'll do for blog one, well done for reading this far!