By December 2003 unsolicited email would become illegal in the UK but the laws wouldn’t have helped me in March when my mailbox was full of ways to make my life better. In reality, it’s friends who help make life better, and it’s even better that I have known many of my friends for years and years.

March also saw me get involved in my first blogging debate as it was related to online advertising, a subject I am always interested in, and the integrity of the medium (and my second debate about the use of trackbacks). It also saw me lament the changes to the online world for those of us employed by it.

March also saw the first phone-picture, the first mentions of the demise of Clause/Scetion 28, the arrival of Freedom Fries and a politician with integrity who resigned because of the war in Iraq.

The full March archive can be found here.

On this day…

2004: House Of Flying Daggers
2003: Review of 2003: April
2003: Review of 2003: February
2003: Review of 2003: January
2003: Listen To Musak in Review

February 2003 began with the feeling of shock at the loss of the space shuttle and the inevitable why?

In my own life, Listen To Musak moved hosts because of a previous server failure. I notice that I didn’t name them on the site back then but after eleven months with DreamHost I can say that I have found their service to be reliable and excellent value for the use I make of them.

February also saw me change jobs (which was not really referenced) but did result in me travelling more and, therefore, noting my travels in my words. Yesterday, I mentioned the need to archive weblogs and referenced Kenneth Williams, whose diaries I read in February 2003.

It appears mentions of Ben Affleck in tight leather did wonders for my reader numbers but the film I was referring to, Daredevil, did a lot less for me. The Hours or Catch Me If you Can seem to have been my choices in February.

Finally, John Brady Kiesling’s resignation letter seemed to be a pointer to things to come.

The full February archive can be found here.

On this day…

2004: House Of Flying Daggers
2003: Review of 2003: April
2003: Review of 2003: March
2003: Review of 2003: January
2003: Listen To Musak in Review

The first thing that struck me was that January 2003 allowed me to write some pieces which are longer than those at the end of the year. The second thing that I noticed was that I quite enjoyed reading some of them – which was a surprise and a feeling only distance from the words can bring. And thirdly I noticed how many of those words were mis-spelled. I know that I write in a very conversational style but I hadn’t realised quite how poor my own proof reading is (not always, just sometimes).

2003 began with a cinema feast. It would seem that I preferred Bowling For Columbine and Eminem above all the other films I saw at the start of the year (and I didn’t rate Harry Potter or Jennifer Aniston). I also seemed to have a bee in my bonnet about transportation (a theme which I still come back to) at the start of 2003 – planners and commuters being a big pain.

Radio is a theme I constantly come back to and I am sure it will happen more this year. LBC was back on air and, despite some criticisms, I became hooked – although I must say it wore off as the year went by. I see they are making some schedule changes again next week so I may return to the same theme.

Some things have changed. While the Digital Music Debate may not have been settled, iTunes has shown the way and later in 2003 I would admit to buying my first online tracks via the MSN Music Club. And in music, I was quite impressed by my own music reviews at the beginning of last year.

The full January archive can be found here.

On this day…

2004: House Of Flying Daggers
2003: Review of 2003: April
2003: Review of 2003: March
2003: Review of 2003: February
2003: Listen To Musak in Review

I wrote yesterday about the need to keep online diaries/journals as part of our social history. In the light of that I decided to re-read the last year’s worth of entries to my web site. I started at January and went on from there. So, the next few entries will be my presentation of Listen To Musak’s Review of 2003.

Review of the Year: January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December

On this day…

2004: House Of Flying Daggers
2003: Review of 2003: April
2003: Review of 2003: March
2003: Review of 2003: February
2003: Review of 2003: January

I enabled comments on the Man of the Moment pages to amuse myself more than anything. Dance over to Justin Timberlake’s pages right now to read about how someone claiming to be called Laura is a little fed up with people who put Justin right up there, “Ok I hear all these people saying Justin Is a God. Yeah he’s good, He’s hot and oh so cute! but Justin isn’t a GOD! There is the one and only God who we serve”.

And to think I almost removed it. If it were a commercial message for a company I probably would delete it. But a commercial for God, well, I don’t really know what to say.

On this day…

2005: Regent Street Lights 2005
2004: Great London Food Market Revisited
2003: Do I Hear Fi?
2003: Another Month Another Man
2003: Bring A Smile
2002: Fly Accipiter, Fly

It’s a new month and as a tribute to the final episodes of Brookside that aired this week, Philip Olivier (aka Tim O’Leary) is this month’s Man of the Moment. If you’re a Philip fan then hop over to the Man of the Moment pages and leave us a message. If you’re not a fan then normal service will be resumed soon. If you have a suggestion for the Man of the Moment feature then why not leave a suggestion in the comments there?

On this day…

2005: Regent Street Lights 2005
2004: Great London Food Market Revisited
2003: Heavenly?
2003: Do I Hear Fi?
2003: Bring A Smile
2002: Fly Accipiter, Fly

Sadly, it’s time to lose the Dermot Watch link in the navigation bar of this site. I left it there after Big Brother had ended but now I guess it is time to think of something else to put there. Of course, if you really want to read more about Dermot O’Leary then you should check out the Man of the Moment section.

Oh, and did you know that Dermot OÂ’Leary was born in Colchester on 24 May 1973. After gaining a BA in Media and Television with a minor in Politics at Middlesex University he worked as a TV runner before going on to do the warm-up for Channel 4’s Light Lunch [Source: BBC]

On this day…

2005: Gay Life Is More Fun: Official
2004: A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum
2003: Queer Eye?
2002: The World May Not Revolve Around Me

Man of the Moment has been updated for September.

Stephen Gately was the first boy band star to ‘come out’ as a gay man. A couple of weeks ago he and his boyfriend had a commitment ceremony in Las Vegas and I decided to make him September’s Man of the Moment.

On this day…

2004: Listen To Musak August 2004
2002: Confusing, Image-Saturated Culture

I am looking at the stats for the month of August. As usual many visitors are heading for the Man of the Moment section of the site. Mark Owen is still tops (which, if you look at the number of comments, is unsurprising). Colin Farrell comes next – which means he is really moving up the table. The other guys still get a fair few visitors but Josh Hartnett doesn’t feature on the top stats list, despite having a new movie out.

On this day…

2006: Technology Overkill?
2004: Long Wave Is The Home Of Hit Music
2003: Now Reading
2002: The Joy of September

Looking back of July’s figures, I see that the success of the comments on Man of the Moment means my stats keep creeping upwards – which is nice. Man of the Moment was a little side-project (originally an experiment with multiple Movable Type blogs for one content site/set) that I quite liked playing with. I will, hopefully, continue because it’s also a fascinating insight into the trends of the world. At the start of last month I would have sworn that Dermot O’Leary would make the top slot on the stats – Big Brother was popular and he was getting by far the most hits. Little Mark Owen’s single release, however, has eclipsed all that. I wonder where latest Man, Josh Hartnett, will be by the end of next month? What I love about maintaining my blog is that I get to observe these trends at first hand.

Talking of Movable Type, I see they’ve just released the hosted version which is known as TypePad. Personally, I really enjoy maintaining my own web space but if you want a blogging tool and don’t want the hassle of installing it yourself, then TypePad looks like a great solution. Movable Type is great so I suspect TypePad will also be a quality tool. I just hope Six Apart get to add some of the great features they’ve put into TypePad into Movable Type – I for one would pay for them!

Perhaps I should also use Google’s new synonym feature to look for an alternative word to ‘great’ – but it’s far too late in the day for that sort of thing.

On this day…

2006: Button Is A Winner!
2005: London’s Living Room
2004: Saturday News
2003: RSS Feeds
2003: No More Clause 28
2002: Where Are You Now, Miss Boo?