1. Look, is it OK if I whinge for a bit? Because I'm feeling a bit flat, if truth be told. I've been in a state of constant tiredness for the last few days; a sort of trashed-out fuzziness, both physical and mental. It's been getting in the way of life, leaving me feeling lethargic and unenthusiastic, viewing every small action as a major chore.

2. I know where it's come from: I've been keeping overly irregular hours. Too many late drinks (oh go on, just one more), late nights (I'll just swing by the study and check my mail), grudging early starts, just-another-half-hour lie-ins... no pattern, no discipline. Manageable for a while, but ultimately unsustainable.

3. It's a Nottingham thing, as well. The one snag with escaping to the cottage every weekend is the shadow that this casts over the rest of the week. And with three nights over there to four nights over here, there's little spare time/energy/motivation for improving things here. To-do lists stay undone; the paper mountain in the kitchen stacks up; whole evenings are glumly mooched away, parked in front of the telly, on the uncomfortable leather sofa, in the stark, gloomy, high-walled, awkwardly-shaped sitting room that we've never managed to get quite right.

4. We should move, of course. We know that. We've been here far too long already: almost thirteen years, and we only ever meant to stay for five. What looked fresh and new in 1992 now looks tired and stale in 2005. Things have got tatty round the edges. Walls need painting; fixtures need fixing; clutter needs clearing. (All that accumulated detritus: too old to need, too good to chuck.) With all of our entertaining taking place at weekends, nobody comes round any more. Not ever. So why bother, when no-one even sees the place?

5. We should move, of course. But the timing is never right. Can't do this until this happens. The flood-damaged flooring still needs replacing, but progress is slow. Dithering over what to do in the abandoned and overgrown yards outside, which would put anybody off before they'd even made it through the door. Waiting until things settle down with K's new company, so we can plan ahead with confidence. Trying to work out what we want - how much or how little space, what price range, what area - looking around, but never finding anything that feels right. Because, underneath it all, we've grown weary of Nottingham itself - and no smart new gaff is going to change any of that.

6. Ten years ago, at the height of my mad-fer-it hedonistic days, I lived for the freedom and release of the weekend. Ten years on, with pre-occupations and priorities so radically revised, I find myself slipping back into an oddly familiar dichotomy. For every Friday night, when the car gets the other side of Derby, and we bear left onto the minor road, instantly swapping pinched suburbia for lush open countryside, I feel my entire sense of self shifting. And by the time we get past Carsington Water and onto the tiny, winding Bradbourne road, and the hills start rising around us in the early evening light - reassuringly familiar and yet stimulatingly different, as we take in all the subtle seasonal developments, unseen since the previous week - I have shed my city skin entirely, giving my Nottingham life barely another thought until Monday morning rolls around again.

7. Sorry, what was I saying earlier on? Oh, that. Well, never mind about all of that now. There are clothes to be folded, bags to be packed, a boot to load up, our journalist friend to pick up... and we don't want to hang around any later than we have to. Perhaps we'll call in for a quick pit-stop pint at The Gate along the way. Anyway, nearly there now. Nearly there.

(Because I never got round to publishing them all before. Thanks to Debster for the reminder.)

Originally, I asked you to name the first Beatles song that came into your head. 92 of you replied, and 42 different songs were nominated. When analysing the results, I then confidently hypothesised that you wouldn't find the same spread of different songs for any other act.

A couple of you then suggested that I test the hypothesis, by running the same experiment on David Bowie and the Rolling Stones. And I am nothing if not eager to please.

This time round, 71 of you voted. 31 Bowie songs were nominated, and just 20 songs by the Stones. Comparing averages for the three acts:

• Each Beatles song received an average of 2.19 nominations.
• Each Bowie song received an average of 2.29 nominations.
• Each Stones song received an average of 3.55 nominations.

Conclusion: the original hypothesis stands, but Bowie came closer than I had expected.

This is borne out when looking at the popularity tables for each act:

• 50% of the Beatles songs were nominated more than once.
• 52% of the Bowie songs were nominated more than once.
• 77% of the Stones songs were nominated more than once.

Here's how the voting stacked up for the Bowie & Stones songs.Surprisingly, the most nominated Bowie song (Changes) was never a single, while one of the other leaders (Diamond Dogs) was only a minor hit. As for the Stones: there were three clear leaders, which finished well ahead of the pack, picking up a combined total of 45% of all nominations cast. This suggests that at least where the Stones are concerned, there is such a thing as a "typical" song.

Breaking down Bowie's votes by year, the 1970s score the most highly, with 53 votes (75%) and 21 songs (68%). The 1980s take most of the rest, with just one song nominated from the 1960s (The Laughing Gnome) and two from the 2000s (Heathen, Bring Me The Disco King). However, the 1990s (Bowie's "difficult" period) poll no votes at all, with a complete gap from 1985 to 2001 inclusive.

Looking at the 1970s, the bulk of the votes went to the period from 1971 to 1974, i.e. from Hunky Dory to Diamond Dogs. Of the albums, the clear winner was Hunky Dory, with 17 votes spread over 5 tracks - whereas Station To Station, Low and Lodger polled no votes between them.

Of Bowie's 22 UK Top 10 singles, only 9 failed to pick up a vote: Knock On Wood, Golden Years, Sound And Vision, Boys Keep Swinging, Fashion, Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy, Dancing In The Street, Absolute Beginners and Jump They Say.

As for the Stones, you firmly perceived them as a 1960s act, with 48 votes (68%) spread over 14 songs (70%). The top years were 1965 (20 votes) and 1968 (11 votes), with 1966 and 1967 filling in the gap (6 votes each). In contrast, only three years from the 1970s picked up any votes at all (1971, 1973 and 1978), while the 1980s were represented by just one song: Start Me Up, from 1981. As for anything released after 1981: forget it.

None of the Stones albums performed particularly well, with only Let It Bleed managing three songs nominated. Surprisingly, the double album which many regard as their classic, Exile On Main Street, didn't pick up a single vote.

You also gave the cold shoulder to just over half of the Stones UK Top 10 hits, with only 10 out of 21 being nominated. Of the 11 omissions, the most astonishing of all has to be Honky Tonk Women - a song which is surely as iconically Stones-like as it gets. And where was It's All Over Now? Or The Last Time? Or 19th Nervous Breakdown? Or Tumbling Dice? Or It's Only Rock And Roll? Or Miss You?

Job done, then. Our experiment is complete.

Well, almost...

Courtesy of Watksi and The Long Lost Lagomorph, here's a potentially cracking new blog-stunt thingy: Big Blogger 2005. Fifteen bloggers; various tasks; voting; elimination; and one eventual winner.

OK, so something similar has happened here before... and something similar is happening here right now... but I don't think there has ever been a UK-based version before. And I think that this has the potential to be a complete hoot.

The organisers are currently looking for contestants, and have put out a call for nominations. As there's nothing in the rules against it, I have duly nominated myself. So if you too have a ruthlessly competitive streak and are best motivated by fear of failure/enjoy creative collaborations with like-minded souls, in a nuturing and mutually supportive environment (I'd say "delete as appropriate", but in my case I actually think that both apply), then hurry on over and pimp your ass! Or somebody else's!

I once received a very pleasant and thoughtful e-mail from a passing stranger, which critiqued this site to a comfortable level of detail (just enough to show that he had been paying attention; not so much as to raise my Stalker Alarm), and in agreeably favourable terms (i.e. at a suitable mid-point between dutifully polite and queasily sycophantic). Then, right at the end of the e-mail, he revealed that he had stumbled across my site by typing "tony parsons is a twat" into Google.

Never having used this phrase - such brutally derogatory invective not being my usual stock in trade - I was initially a little taken aback by this. (Besides which, my views on Tony Parsons are not a matter of public record.) However, since the phrase "is a twat" occurs on every one of my archive pages, I could hardly be too surprised for too long. Sometimes, you get the Google traffic you deserve.

All of which is a very roundabout way of letting you know that I'm currently guest-blogging on Zoe's site, along with fellow guests anna, vitriolica and auntymarianne. One can only guess at the sort of Google-trade she has to contend with - but I bet it ain't pretty. Anyway, HELLO BELGIUM! Your Top Ten's rubbish, your Eurovision entry was worse, but who cares! Luvyatabits anyways!

Still suffering from Eurovision withdrawal symptoms? If so, then here's a chance to relive the glories of Saturday May 21st all over again, as Stylus magazine's panel of observers (including myself) offer a blow-by-blow "as live" commentary. Part Two Three follows tomorrow.

Also on Stylus today: this week's UK Singles Jukebox, in which you'll find my comments on new releases from Faithless (brutal desecration of lovely old album track), MC Lars (clever-clever music biz satire), Groove Coverage (I *heart* crappy low-rent Euro-dance cover versions!) and Ben Adams (former boybander strives for "maturity").

Because I abhor waste: here's a fifth review, which didn't make the final cut.

1. It's good to see the return of Guild Of Ghostwriters: a fine hand-illustrated doodle-blog, which disappeared completely for a while. Since the archives from the old site have disappeared, Dem is gradually re-posting some of the classics - including Treadmill, one of my all-time favourites.

2. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be: the former "Queen Of British Blogdom" ruminates on the early days, the A-list years, and where it all started to change.

3. Gig Etiquette: A Simple Guide. Pixeldiva doles out some sound advice for the sensitive mosh-pitter.

4. Gay Haiku: the book. Former guest-blogger Faustus M.D. (of The Search For Love In Manhattan) makes his dead-tree debut with a collection of seventeen-syllabled musings on the subject of gay dating, many of which first appeared on his blog a couple of years ago. Oh, and if you were wondering what he looks like...

I've added a number of sites to the Most Linked UK Weblogs chart, expanding the list to a Top 70 in the process.

With the political/non-political split (if we may be permitted to characterise it in a such crass binary fashion) now standing at 37 to 43, it is very tempting to follow Diamond Geezer's suggestion, and split the list into two separate charts. (Especially since this would place Troubled Diva back in the Top 40.) However, even my advanced state of Excel addiction has its limits.

Oh, and that Blogebrity site, as linked below? According to Tom's comment in the previous post, it's an entry in a competiton to get the most traffic/links, and is therefore not to be taken too seriously. Hmm. Whatever. Bored now. Next craze please.