Athlete – “El Salvador”. This is Athlete’s second single from their Mercury Music prize nominated first album, Vehicles and Animals. Admittedly, the lyrics are “Fly to El Salvador, I don’t know why and I don’t know what for”.
Sash! – “Ecuador”. This is the third time a Sash! song has appeared in a Playlist of the Month. This may have something to do with me running an unofficial Sash! web site on Geocities back at the turn of the millennium. There’s an old Jon Richardson joke about the Ecuadorian Embassy in London having sash windows.
Rammstein – “Amerika”. Rammstein famously sing primarily in German, but this incorporates some Denglisch. It’s also not particularly complementary about the USA.
Madonna – “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”. Madonna sung this version when she starred in the film adaptation of the musical Evita in 1996, and as such it’s more well-known than the 1976 original by Julie Covington.
Kim Wilde – “Cambodia”. I actually know the song better as the 2001 cover by Pulsedriver, but Kim Wilde released the original as her fourth single in 1981.
David Bowie – “China Girl”. Not one of Bowie’s better known singles, but it’s typical Bowie with a smooth guitar solo.
Men at Work – “Down Under”. Whilst this doesn’t specifically mention Australia in its title, it’s all about an Australian travelling across Europe and Asia.
Alestorm – “Mexico”. Alestorm is another band that has appeared before in these playlists (unsurprisingly in the Alcohol playlist). This is from one of their later albums and isn’t among their best songs, in my opinion, but it fits the theme.
Bangles – “Walk Like An Egyptian”. This is also a song that I know more from a cover version – specifically, a novelty 1998 Christmas single featuring Yo-Hans, a professional yo-yo champion, called Walk (The Dog) Like An Egyptian. There’s a YouTube video.
Monty Python – “Finland”. Every time someone talks about Finland in the presence of me or Christine, the chorus of this song normally gets sung.
In honour of the England Men’s team making the Football World Cup Semi-Finals for only the fourth time ever, this month’s playlist is all about football songs.
I haven’t been watching the games – mainly because they’re mostly on late at night or early in the morning UK time, but also because England tend to play better when I don’t watch. So hopefully the fact that I won’t be watching tonight’s game may mean that England qualify for only their second World Cup Final ever, and the first in 60 years.
“Three Lions” by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds. It’s been thirty years since thirty years of hurt. This was the official song for Euro 96, when England hosted the UEFA European Football Championship two years after failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup (which was also in the USA). That year, England turned a corner and made it to the semi-finals, and have since qualified for every subsequent World Cup. The 1998 re-release was better in my view but this is the original.
“(How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World” by England United. Controversially, the 1998 re-release of Three Lions beat this song, the official England anthem for the 1998 World Cup in France, to number one in the singles chart. ‘England United’ consisted of Echo & The Bunnymen, Ocean Colour Scene, Space and the Spice Girls, making it an interesting snapshot of late 1990s British pop music.
“Carnaval de Paris” by Dario G. Another 1998 World Cup song, this time featuring instruments from each country playing in the tournament. Including bagpipes, as this was one of the few years when Scotland qualified. Also re-released in 2002, but without the bagpipes. It’s worth watching the Top of the Pops performance.
“Vindaloo” by Fat Les. We’re still in 1998, heading to Waterloo with my mum, my dad and my gran and a bucket of vindaloo. A ridiculous song whose video satirises the video for The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Fat Les was a collaboration between Alex James from Blur, the actor Keith Allen (father to Lily Allen) and the artist Damien Hirst. Two years later, they would record a version of Jerusalem which was the official England anthem for Euro 2000.
“Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan. This wasn’t the official song for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, but was instead Coca-Cola’s promotional song. The official song was by Shakira, who is not from Africa, whereas K’Naan hails from Somalia and so it probably should have been the official song.
“Eat My Goal” by Collapsed Lung. Collapsed Lung were a bit of a one-hit wonder; they did record other songs, but this is the song most people would know them for. A former member of Collapsed Lung now performs as Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, who we would have seen in Leeds had it not been for me being in hospital.
“Sven Sven Sven” by Bell & Spurling. Sven-Göran Eriksson was the first England manager who wasn’t English and was a rather controversial hiring at the time. However, he led England through a reasonably good period in the early 2000s, including two World Cups in 2002 and 2006, and a 5-1 win over Germany in 2001. This song honoured that rather historic win.
“We’re on the Ball” by Ant & Dec. We’re back in 2002 and this was England’s official song for that year’s World Cup. Ant & Dec found fame as actors on the Children’s BBC series Byker Grove, but then had a music career in the mid 1990s. This, however, came out once they were well established as TV presenters.
“Southgate You’re The One (Football’s Coming Home Again)” by Atomic Kitten. “Whole Again” was one of Atomic Kitten’s better known singles from 2001; 20 years later, it was re-released for Euro 2020 – which, thanks to the pandemic, was delayed to 2021. This new version with changed lyrics honours Gareth Southgate, who managed England for 8 years between 2016 and 2024, including the last time England reached the World Cup semi-finals in 2018. Maybe I shouldn’t mention his missed penalty at Euro 96.
“All Together Now” by The Farm. A song about the Christmas Day Truce in the First World War, where both sides ended up playing football against each other, and later used by Sky Sports for their football coverage in the 2000s.
To help our ten-year-old get to sleep, we play some sleepy music in their bedroom each night. I’ve now automated this, using Home Assistant and a Zigbee scene button, so a single button press starts the automation and plays the correct Spotify playlist. Here’s how I went about it.
The button I bought offers two modes: single press, and double press. You can therefore trigger different automations in response to whether the button is pressed once or twice. The more expensive button from Amazon also supports a third mode, which is a five second long press.
Installing Music Assistant
Whilst Home Assistant has a Spotify integration, in my testing I couldn’t get it to play the correct playlist on the Google Nest Mini smart speaker that is in our ten-year-old’s room. So, a workaround is to install Music Assistant, which is a related project that is also run by the Open Home Foundation. This can be installed as an App in Home Assistant; once installed, you’ll need to add Spotify as a source. Music Assistant quickly found all of my Google Cast devices.
Next, you’ll need to install the Music Assistant integration in Home Assistant – it may be automatically discovered for you. If you already have your Google Cast devices added in Home Assistant, then you will end up with separate Music Assistant entries for them too.
Creating a timer helper
So that the music doesn’t keep playing all night, we can create a timer that can stop the music after a given time period has elapsed. I did this by creating a Helper, using the type timer and the default time of 1 hour 30 minutes.
You can also simply put a time delay in your automation, but using a helper allows you to cancel the timer before it completes – handy if our ten-year-old falls asleep quickly.
Creating the automation
I set this up using the Home Assistant UI, but here’s the YAML code:
The automation listens for the button press, and when it’s pressed once, it starts the music playing and starts the timer. The playlist URL is from Spotify – if you find the playlist you want, go to Share and then Copy URL, this is what you need.
I then have a second automation to trigger when the timer stops:
This actually works slightly differently, and tells Home Assistant to stop playback on all media players in a room, rather than the specific media player specified in the first automation.
Finally, I made use of the double-press mode of the button to cancel the timer early:
As a little flourish, in my first automation I have an initial first step which uses Chime TTS to announce, via the speaker, that it’s time for bed. It then starts playing the music afterwards.
My version of the automation also turns on a nightlight, as well as starting the music.
Rationale
We’ve been playing bedtime music for our ten-year-old for many years, but what prompted me was the Gemini upgrade for our Google Home smart speakers. On the whole, post-upgrade, our speakers have been more capable and offer better answers, but where they’ve fallen down is asking it to play a specific Spotify playlist. We have one playlist that we have used for years, but when we ask Google Gemini to play it, it ends up playing something else (often a different one each time) which is similar but not the same. I’m sure any parent of a neurodivergent child has experienced what can happen when you try to pass off something that isn’t quite what the child is used to as being the same.
By building an automation, I can specify the exact URL of the desired playlist, so the correct playlist is played every time. And, having a button in their room means our ten-year-old can simply press it themselves when they’re ready for bed.
I’m still in my recovery period – I’m not allowed to lift anything for another three weeks – but I am going to post a few, short blog posts again to get myself used to typing again. So, here’s this month’s playlist, which should give you an idea about how my recovery is going. Here’s the link to Spotify.
“Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M.
“Broken Bones” by Love Inc
“The Drugs Don’t Work” by The Verve
“Give Me Novacaine” by Green Day
“I Need A Painkiller” by Armand van Helden
“Wonderful Life” by Hurts
“Insomnia” by Faithless
“Can’t Sleep” by Above and Beyond
No extra analysis this month, I’m afraid. I can’t type at my normal speed, and my accuracy is lower than usual. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed next month.
“London Calling” by The Clash. If you asked most people to name a song about London, this is probably the first one that they would name and is one of The Clash’s most popular song (third most played on Spotify).
“London Bridge” by Fergie. This refers more to the traditional song about London Bridge falling down, but the music video is at least set in London. Even if it focuses on Tower Bridge, rather than London Bridge, which, to be fair, is comparatively boring.
“Londinium” by Catatonia. Catatonia are famously very Welsh, and so this song is about everything that is wrong with London. “I come alive outside the M25” indeed.
“London Boy” by Taylor Swift. Considering how many songs Swift has written over the years, it’s not surprising that she has written a song about London. Ostensibly an album track, like much of Taylor’s work, it charted in some countries.
“LDN” by Lily Allen. This is from Allen’s first album and is about her cycling through London. It describes the shiny veneer of London, and its sometimes grimy reality.
“Take Me Back To London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy. Ed Sheeran has collaborated with just about everyone in recent years and so it’s no surprise that he’s collaborated with Stormzy for this song about London.
“Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks. Another classic pop song about London. It’s inspired by the view from St Thomas’ Hospital, looking along the River Thames by Waterloo Bridge.
“Warwick Avenue” by Duffy. Another Welsh pop act, this time singing about the famous street in West London, known for its markets.
“Brixton Briefcase” by Chase & Status featuring CeeLo Green. This song is about the Brixton riots of 2011, although having it sung by American singer CeeLo Green is certainly a choice.
“Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant. Finishing with another song about Brixton is this classic song by Eddy Grant, about the first market street to be lit by electric lights. I prefer the 2001 Ringbang Remix, but this isn’t on Spotify unfortunately.
This month’s playlist is all about uncredited guest vocalists. As in, songs released by bands and artists that feature another artist who doesn’t get a credit on the cover. Whilst collaborations are common in pop music – look at all the artists that have recorded with Ed Sheeran, for example – sometimes, the collaborating artist only receives a minor credit in the small print, if at all. That may be because the song was released before they were famous in their own right, due to contractual issues, or they may choose a pseudonym.
“Wrap Her Up” by Elton John(featuring George Michael and Kiki Dee). Nowadays, George Michael is credited on Spotify, in this song where he sings in falsetto all the way through. However, Bradford’s own Kiki Dee, who famously collaborated with Elton on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, doesn’t receive the same billing.
“Danger! High Voltage” by Electric Six(featuring Jack White). In the music video for this song, it’s presented as a duet between Electric Six’s lead singer, Dick Valentine, and the English actress Tina Kanarek. She doesn’t actually sing the vocals, however – they’re provided by Jack White, from the band The White Stripes, again in falsetto.
“Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M.(featuring Kate Pierson). It was listening to this song which prompted me to create this playlist, as R.E.M. is an all-male band. The female vocals are from Kate Pierson, better known as the female vocalist in the band The B52s.
“Got Your Money” by ODB(featuring Kelis). Like with Wrap Her Up above, Kelis is now credited on Spotify, but she wasn’t at the time. This was released shortly before her debut single, and so she was a relative unknown back then.
“The Opera Song” by Jurgen Vries featuring CMC. Two pseudonyms here – Jurgen Vries is one of the many names used by Darren Tate (along with Angelic, DT8 Project, Citizen Caned and being one half of KOTA). CMC is a pseudonym used by Charlotte Church, who at the time was only a singer of classical music – her pop album, Tissues and Issues, had yet to be released.
“The Gathering” by Delain(featuring Marko Hietala). Marko popped up a few times in last month’s symphonic metal covers playlist, and here he is again, uncredited on this single from Delain’s first album. He’s subsequently collaborated on several other Delain songs, including Sing To Me and Your Body Is A Battleground, where he is credited.
“Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence(featuring Paul McCoy). I’ve mentioned in a previous playlist how the male vocal part was added to this song at the insistence of the record label; they’re not in the original demo version, or the re-recorded version from 2017. Paul McCoy, from the band 12 Stones, provides the additional vocals.
“Just Around The Hill” by Sash! (featuring Tina Cousins). Sash! are no strangers to collaborations, with most of their singles featuring credited guest vocalists. Just Around The Hill was their first attempt at a ballad, rather than the Eurodance that they were better known for, and features vocals from Tina Cousins who wasn’t credited on the cover. Which is odd, as she previously collaborated with Sash! on Mysterious Times, their sixth single, where she was credited.
“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” by The Righteous Brothers(featuring Cher). Way back at the beginning of her music career, over 60 years ago, Cher recorded backing vocals for this song before she was well-known in her own right.
“Killer” by Adamski (featuring Seal). Nowadays, Seal is credited on Spotify, but at release in 1990 he wasn’t, as this was before he was established as an act in his own right. Seal later recorded his own version of the song for his 1991 debut album. ATB covered Killer in 2000, and that version also has uncredited vocals from Drue Williams (who, to be fair, isn’t famous enough to have his own Wikipedia page).
This month’s playlist comes from me discovering the band Skameleon. They’re a German band who specialise in covering pop songs in the third-wave ska style.
I’ve long had a soft spot for ska music – a close friend of mine started to get into it when we were at college and so I passively listened to lots of his music. It was also popular when I get to university, as part of a broader alternative music scene along with metal and pop-punk. So, this month’s playlist starts with Skameleon, and includes various other ska cover versions by other bands. As usual, you can listen along on Spotify, and, if you want a longer playlist, here’s another one that I found.
“Rhythm Is A Dancer” by Skameleon. This is a cover of Snap’s 1992 dance hit. Skameleon have done a couple of albums of covers now and this is one of the better ones, but they’re all pretty good.
“Get Lucky” by Russkaja. Russkaja were a Russian-themed ska band from Austria, with some songs sung in Russian; they disbanded in 2023 following the war in Ukraine. This is a cover of the Daft Punk song with Pharrell Williams.
“Take On Me” by Reel Big Fish. You can’t have a third-wave ska playlist without at least one Reel Big Fish song on it, so here’s their cover of a-ha’s greatest hit.
“Hot N Cold” by Los Colorados. Speaking of Ukraine, this is a Ukrainian band that do covers – indeed, when they recorded this version of Katy Perry’s song, the lead singer didn’t actually speak English.
“Come On Eileen” by Save Ferris. This is a classic 2000s student union rock night staple, and a cover of the song by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
“Chop Suey!” by King Punch. Speaking of 2000s student union rock night staples, you would often come across this System Of A Down song. Here’s a ska version of it.
“The Final Countdown” by Furillo. Apparently the band Europe have released 11 studio albums, so to call them a one-hit wonder would be inaccurate, but I’ll admit this is the only song of theirs I can name.
“I Will Survive” by Me First And The Gimme Gimmes. Another band that typify third-wave ska, this is their cover of the Gloria Gaynor classic.
“Hotel California” by Skadaddyz. The Eagles’ original is quite a laid back song that converts quite easily to ska, courtesy of the Skadaddyz.
“YMCA” by The Skunks. Again, the use of brass instruments in the Village People original makes this a relatively straightforward conversion to ska.
For the third year running, I’m summarising all those end of year reviews that apps like Spotify and Goodreads offer you. You can take a look at 2024 and 2023 if you want.
Countries and counties visited
Unlike last year, I did manage to leave England a couple of times – Athens in June, and Wales in July. I also spent some time at Amsterdam Schipol Airport in the Netherlands, but as I was airside the whole time, I’m not really counting it.
Over the course of the year, I have spent at least some time in the following English counties:
West Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
East Yorkshire
Lincolnshire
Greater Manchester
Lancashire
Cheshire
Norfolk
County Durham
Merseyside
West Midlands
Oxfordshire
Northamptonshire
Staffordshire
Tyne & Wear
That’s a few more than last year – East Yorkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire and Tyne & Wear weren’t on last year’s list.
My trip to Athens was something of an outlier, but we also went further west than last year. Not so far north this time, though.
Methods of transport used
For the first time since doing this, I can include planes in this (Athens again). There was also a lot of driving, in our old and new cars, and I continued to mostly take the train to work. No trips to London last year, but I did travel by train to and from Manchester Airport, when heading to Athens, and to Leeds. Apart from those Manchester trips, which included time on Transpennine Express, all my journeys were with Northern. Speaking of which, I had 8 successful Delay Repay claims, totalling £6.25 (78p on average).
I’ve been on a few buses and trams as well. No ferries last year, but I did spend some time on a boat in Oxfordshire.
Music listened to
Over the year, I scrobbled 15,063 tracks on last.fm, which is more than the past few years. That’s a little over 41 songs per day, so on average I listened to six additional songs per day in 2025 compared to 2024. Assuming an average song is around three minutes, I listened to slightly over two hours of music every day on average. My ‘listening age’ was 42 – only out by a year, which is nice.
Whilst I don’t exclusively listen to music on Spotify, on there, trance was my top genre this year (it was pop last year), according to my Spotify Wrapped. My most-listened to song was Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra – look, a song that was released in 2025 – as it’s one of our (now) ten-year-old’s favourites. Similarly zeitgeisty was my top album – the soundtrack to K-Pop Demon Hunters.
My top artist was Alex Christensen, which is a weird outlier; he released several albums of classical cover versions of dance music which I marathon-listened to one day. Last year’s top, Armin van Buuren, was second.
Books read and listened to
According to My Goodreads Year in Books for 2025, I read 76 books this year, which is one less than last year (and 17 fewer than 2023). Unfortunately, I set my 2025 reading challenge at 80 books, so didn’t achieve it. Also, books ‘read’ include those that I have listened to as audiobooks.
The shortest book I read, at 64 pages long, was ‘Our Super Japanese Adventure‘ by Sarah Graley and Stef Purenins (not available on Amazon), who we met at Thought Bubble. Meanwhile, the longest book was ‘Rule of Cool‘ (sponsored link) by Matthew Siege at 479 pages, although I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Felicia Day over 12 and a half hours. The longest audiobook was ‘Neurotribes‘ (sponsored link) by Steve Silberman, which was over 20 hours and probably the longest audiobook I’ve ever listened to, although the print edition is 477 pages (two less than the Rule of Cool)
Overall, the average length of book that I read was 270 pages, which is 39 more than 2024. ‘A Brief History of Time‘ by Prof Stephen Hawking (sponsored link) was the most popular book that I read last year. Although, I found it a struggle in parts and, unsurprisingly, some of the science has changed in the 37 years since it was first published.
Beers and ciders consumed
I log the beers and ciders that I drink using Untappd, and these stats are from my year in beer. Like last year, I drank less than one per month (11 in total) and my main style was ‘non-alcoholic’.
Steps taken
My total steps taken was very similar to 2024 and 2023. Overall I took 3,455,761 steps, which is only slightly less than 2024. My average is 9,468 per day; January was my most sedentary month and July was my most active, but not by much.
Time spent learning French
I started Duolingo’s French course on the 1st January 2022 (so I have a four year streak now), and in 2025, I spent 3,560 minutes learning – that’s 59 hours in total. Compared to 2024, that’s 11 hours less, but we didn’t go to France again this year.
My Duolingo Score for French is 118, which means that I’m in the medium B2 level (‘vantage’) of the CEFR for French. Currently Duolingo’s maximum score for French is 130, which is high B2 level and should be sufficient to study a university course taught in French. I was expecting to have reached 130 by now, but clearly not.
Still, not much further to go. I’m probably going to switch to German next – I got an A* in GCSE German in 2000, but a quarter of a century has passed since then and I’ve forgotten most of it.
A new stat that I tracked in 2024 was an estimate of photos taken, although it will also include some screenshots as well. In 2025, I took 1536 photos, so less than 2024 but more than 2023.
So, that’s 2025 quantified, and a useful summary of the statistics from various web services that seem to spend their December telling me data they hold about me but in a nice way.
The last time I did a Christmas playlist, I included my favourite Christmas music. This isn’t quite the opposite of that, but instead it’s 10 novelty Christmas songs that wouldn’t really make sense to play at any other time of year. As per usual, you can listen along on Spotify – many of these songs are mercifully short and so the whole playlist is less than half an hour.
“Proper Crimbo” by Bo Selecta. Bo’ Selecta! was a British TV sketch show in the 2000s, which, at the time, I found hilarious but it really hasn’t aged well – especially its blackface depiction of Mel B, amongst others. This Christmas single was released at the height of its popularity where its creator, Leigh Francis, parodied Craig David, and was a #4 hit in 2003. You may know Leigh Francis better as Keith Lemon.
“Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo” by South Park. It turns out there’s a whole album of South Park Christmas music, if you like that sort of thing. It also peaked at #4, in the 1999 Christmas singles charts.
“Gift Vouchers” by The Lancashire Hotpots. A brand new song for 2025! It’s all about what to get for someone when you don’t know what present to buy for them.
“Once Upon a Christmas Song” by Peter Kay. The 2000s were indeed a weird time for comedy, as Peter Kay dragged himself up to play Geraldine McQueen in a parody of TV talent shows. It reached #5 in the 2008 Christmas singles chart.
“We Built This City (On Sausage Rolls)” by LadBaby. In 2018, LadBaby became the first YouTuber to get a Christmas #1 single, and this was it – a parody of the Starship song. This was a feat repeated for four subsequent years, and so LadBaby has now had more Christmas #1 singles in the UK than any other band or artist, beating even The Beatles. At least they were all charity singles for the Trussell Trust.
“Last Christmas” by Crazy Frog. Remember the days when people would pay to buy a ringtone? And yet, nowadays my phone is permanently on silent. This is a truly terrible cover version of the Wham! classic, the original of which finally made it to Christmas #1 in 2023 (after the rein of LadBaby) and again last year.
“Jingle Bells (Goat Edition)” by ActionAid. It’s Jingle Bells, but made up of samples of screaming goats. Indeed, there’s a whole album of them, from the charity ActionAid who raises funds to provide goats to poor families in third world countries.
“The Very First Christmas” by Spongebob Squarepants. This song is awful. Sorry (not sorry).
“The Night Santa Went Crazy” by Weird Al Yankovic. We can’t have a playlist of novelty songs without a bit of Weird Al. This is one of his earlier songs, from 1996.
“Present Face” by Garfunkel and Oates. This is a song all about the face you have to make when opening a present that you actually don’t like, but don’t want to offend the person giving it to you.
