Amidst the gloom…[head to any website of choice…] lots of amazing things in the world for WYA to reflect on this year, not least the friendship of some very special people and the encouragement of even more.  Writing moved ahead: Leicester Square was speedily finished and now in the safe hands of the veritable Tony Allen at Big Time Pictures, with lots of smart people kicking the project around and seeing what might be done with that particular vision of London's past. We will see what emerges and hope to make some announcements about this very soon

Pop Music. We were bowled over last week to hear that Dave Laurie's wonderful Memory Tapes will now need to be known as 'Grammy Nominated Memory Tapes' [see blog on Dave Hawke and his music] after the video for Yes I Know was nominated for Grammy last week. If you have not see it, it's a disturbing piece of visual poetry and worth wallowing in, for a few moments. Dave Laurie's ever ace SIC Records are now working with the Swedish song writing Emil Svanängen, better known as Loney Dear. His song My Heart is one of the tunes of the year. You can see him here, re-record the song live with a microphone taped to a goose. Also, some great albums by Wild Beats, Noah and The Whale, Bombay Bicycle Club, Wu Lfy, Foster The People, Snow Patrol, Cloud Control, Guillemots, The Phoenix Foundation and teasingly ahead of debut album, the emerging wonderfulness that is Clock Opera.

But overblown disappointment from Florence + Machine, who forgot about making tunes amidst all the bombast and bluster. She could have learned much from a stripped down caffeine fuelled Kate Bush, wearing fingerless gloves at a piano, who delivered not just one, but two albums (one a remake of three previous albums). Anyway, song of the year, was this. Clock Opera, Belongings. Get to 3.46 and just try not to completely love it. Clock Opera go head to head with Dry The River and US band Milagres in the first quarter of 2012 for best new band around. Should be quite a scrap. 

Best Films this year…oh, that's a toughie. Some of the best and worst goes a bit like this:

Tree of Life sent Cannes into a frenzy of introspection, the deepest reverie about a dysfunctional father-son relationships since Finding Nemo. Director of Moon, David Jones posted the wonderful re-joinder: "never had so much fuss being made about a kid moving house" [or pithy words to that effect, since removed from Twitter]. Sublimely made, but Film of the Year, sorry no. Absolutely loved Super 8 which felt fresh for being retro and cliched and using a four-note Giaccomo motif that is as good as he has ever done. Tintin was a step forward (amidst a thousand back) for 3D, while Rise of The Planet of the Apes blurred the line between performance and animation (for Andy Serkis) further still. Of Gods and Men (this year I think…) was dull and long. I admired, but did not enjoy Attack the Block. Joe Cornish spoke at the London Screenwriters Festival and was bombarded with adoration from the audience - but a "modern A Clockwork Orange with a new patwa, to match Burgess's take on the underclasses language…", arm no. Nice alien though and my son loved it. Brighton Rock was terrific, visceral and uncomfortable. HP7.2 was the worst of the series. HP7.1 suggested a darker, greyed out uncertainty that just got stretched into meaningless Michael-Bay-with-wands schlep in the last 90 minutes. Captain America was utterly shit. A waste of all energy. Marginally better was Thor. As "warm-up" segments for the overblown Avengers movie next year, the words 'bode' and 'well' are not happy bed fellows. Finally, managed to go a whole full year and avoid watching The Kings Speech. Inexcusable for a writer, I know. Still don't care. 

So Film of the Year? In a word: Senna. Senna is brilliant. Even though you know how it ends, nothing really prepares you for him hitting the wall. And then, when it has you blubbing like a child, up pops the story at the end about the "best driver you ever raced against?" and Senna tells of being a 19 year old kid and an older British adversary…Kleenex should have sponsored that genius splicing, editing and construction of archive footage. Made by Asif Kapadia and writer Manish Pandey, I have recommended to more people than anything else seen this year. I've not yet seen The Descendents, Shame, Drive, The Artist, Another Year or indeed, Another Earth, so much more to be seen before Awards season, but I do hope Senna rings all sorts of gongs in 2012.

Gig of the Year. Easy this one. The Boxer Rebellion in London at Heaven in London were brilliant. Not just because they were and were met with a cacophony for every song, but because before they came on stage the bar was raised SO MUCH HIGHER by the astonishing performance of We Are Augustines - a new New Jersey band which have emerged from the wreckage of another. No one in the room was quite prepared for that performance. Check out Chapel Song, the best possible mix of guitars and snogging you will have seen in a while.