This is my first post and I haven’t thought it through. I’m just doing it to teach myself how to, if you see what I mean. So it’s likely to be self-indulgent nonsense of no interest to anyone else, except perhaps mental health care professionals. Just like most of the other blogs out there.

If you’re still there I’ll take the opportunity to get some things off my chest. Words and that. Sometimes certain words or phrases become overused. Over the last zillion billion years it has been impossible to listen to any news report about Afghanistan or Iraq (or in the case of Heather Mills, Strictly Come Dancing) without hearing the phrase hearts and minds - yes I realise it sprung from the U.S. Vietnam campaign and I understand what it means but please stop saying it. Blah blah blah blah hearts and minds. It’s as if all politicians and journalists have been briefed to use the phrase and are living in fear of a Malcolm Tucker-style bollocking if they don’t. I no longer hear the content of news reports. I hear disconnected words echoing, swirling in-and-out against a loud tick-tick-ticking in my head until the inevitable we-have-to-win-over-the-hearts-and-minds bit arises. And then I scream.

But the word which is really getting right on my tits at the moment is the word random. It’s fashionable to say random. I know this because everyone says it. All of the time. With various meanings. People often say random when they don’t mean random, they sometimes say random when they sort of mean random, very occasionally they say random when they mean random but most of all they say random when they mean ooh look at me I say random      I’m like totally random        I just said random        random random random.

I genuinely apologise if you haven’t noticed the overuse, misuse, and almost random use of this word because you will. And now you will blame me. Try making what you think is a witty comment among a group of people of, say, more than 5. I guarantee one of them will respond by saying that was a bit random. No. It bloody wasn’t. They may also just say random. This proves that they are part of the randomscenti. It also proves they are idiots.

I was having a random drink. A random drink. A random drink. Eh? When I hear it I have competing physical reactions, one a dizzying nausea that leaves me on the edge of throwing up and one a violent energy urging me to twat the, er, randomist. I feel like a sleeper happily going about my business until the signal which sparks me into predetermined act of violent outrage. I’m just about keeping a lid on it but it’s getting worse. It’s spreading like a virus. And not even a good one.  The other day I was out with some randomers. You what?… must not throw up… must not batter them with a random object… don’t play into their hands.

At the weekend I (accidentally) heard a radio presenter hand over to coverage of The London International Horse Show by saying it was being held randomly in London. And this was on the BBfuckingC. One of the reasons 5Live’s Colin Murray said it was to be funny – because where else would a London event be held? – but to my ears it was obscured by the other reason which was oooh I just said random    I say random    I’m so random    I just randomly said random   don’t you even say random  I do    I’m a random person     I’m like randomly random    everyone listen to me say random    random random random    random random random random.

I need to lie down.

I was going to make up for the above with some videos from 2009 featuring the Vivian Girls, Camera Obscura, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, God Help The Girl, Atlas Sound, Grizzly Bear, Beck, Crystal Stilts, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Midlake, Animal Collective, Richard Hawley, Super Furry Animals, Wooden Shjips and Broadcast & The Focus Group. I saw was, as it was going to be my first go at embedding widgets. So I collected some videos using yubby.com and blinking wordpress won’t let me embed the channel and I can’t faffed to do it all over again using a different service on the ‘whitelist’

I told you I was this was my first go, so something was bound to go wrong. If you are arsed, watch them here:

http://www.yubby.com/i/twothousandandfine/channel/player/20518

None of them were chosen at random, nor with the intention to win over any hearts and minds.