Welcome, my lovelies, to the final day of the 2000s.

It's a faintly disturbing thought that I have documented most of the decade, to a greater or lesser degree, on this here journal system. I started this lark in 2001 with what I acknowledge to be some humourless, downbeat writings, and have continued in that spirit to this day. As we approach 2010 (can you believe?) it seems an opportune moment to look back at the decade past to see how far I've travelled as a person. Plus some other shit.

Decade milestones
2002 - Graduation from university. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, in fact self-promotion is really not in my character at all, but I graduated in 2002 with a rather splendid degree from a rather splendid university. It was a combination of inspiration, perspiration and alcohol which I am extremely proud of. Looking back, I'm particularly impressed with the balancing act I pulled off in my final few months between work and play. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have taken my academic abilities further - I could have ended up making a living from doing something I really loved. But in truth that would almost certainly have entailed having to do things on a more or less day to day basis that I couldn't have done. Some academics view their teaching duties as an irritating chore, but for me I suspect it would have been unbearably stressful. I regret that things couldn't have been different, but I don't regret my decision, if you catch my drift.
2002 - British taxpayer. In the autumn of 2002, after months of disheartening failures to gain employment, somebody finally thought I was worth hiring. A misjudgement on their part, of course, but we've reached the end of the decade and they still can't get me off the payroll.
2006 - Home ownership. Having returned to live with my parents for nearly four years after leaving university, in 2006 I made the leap into home ownership and returned to living on my own (when I say "returned", I mean I spent three years-ish doing so at university, albeit in halls). (This was only made possible from a financial point of view by a promotion gained in 2005, which I decided did not merit seperate listing as a highlight as it only really involved going from a shit job to a slightly less shit job.) (I wonder if anyone has ever put three bracketed statements back to back like this? It's certainly unusual.) It's been a great move, as my location and the ability to do what I want, when I want has been essential in keeping me sane.

So I think that's about it as far as personal milestones go. In ten years, I've graduated, got a job and a home. So you see, I have gone somewhere in this decade. Not as far as virtually everybody else in their 20s goes, but I started the '00s as a poor student, flitting between university accommodation and my parents' abode, and end it as a homeowning, taxpaying, graduate. Though I hardly feel happy with my lot, I'd do well to reflect that though my progress has been meagre, there are some my age who won't be able to boast any of those things.

Of course, and yes, this story is old (but it goes on), the noughties have proved a spectacularly fruitless decade so far as finding the thing I desire most, i.e. somebody to love. I ought to be grateful for all the above personal milestones and maybe just accept my lot, although I'm reminded at this juncture of a wonderful Sean Hughes joke. This isn't verbatim, but the gist of it is as follows:-

I was watching Comic Relief [note to any foreign readers: it's a biennial charity telethon thingy] and they had a short film on an Ethiopian village. They were speaking to this malnourished man wearing rags and who lived in this little mud hut on arid land who was saying that, because of the drought, they desperately needed foreign food aid or he and his wife would die of starvation. And I thought, that's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever heard...how come even he's got a wife and I can't get one?

My most profuse apologies to Sean Hughes, who I'm sure is a regular reader, for probably making an arse of your material. ( Though I suppose that's better than making material out of your arse.) I think I've captured the spirit of it, though. Anyway, I love that joke, firstly because it's hilarious, as jokes are ideally meant to be, but also because it exposes and ridicules a whole gamut of negative human feelings, and hopefully leads one to put some perspective on their own self- obsessed worries.

So this grumbling about my solitude really will not do. Noughties, I salute you for that which you have given me (detailed above) and prostrate myself at your feet in gratitude for that which you have not taken away: for, most importantly of all, you have left me with my loved ones intact, and I pray your successor will be so kind.

Now, of course at any year end one will always find "best of lists", and these are even more popular at the end of decades, so I present to you below my own "Best of the Noughties" lists. Being terribly indecisive I must stress that these are strictly in alphabetical order, which will save me from agonising over which album was the fourth best of the decade and which was the fifth best. I hope you will enjoy, though suspect you will not.

Top Five Treasured Memories
-- Boy With The Thorn, MA (2002) - Graduation was a special couple of days. It was an end, it was a beginning. The beginning of not very much, as it turned out, but I didn't know that at the time.
-- Greatest football game ever (2003) - I have a general policy of not mentioning which football team I support purely because it would make me much more identifiable should anybody I half-know stumble across this journal. (Which is to say: attendances do not tend to number in the thousands.) Not that I expect anybody I know to stumble across it, but anyway, I enjoy the anonimity and would rather not endanger that. One never knows what weird combination of words people might google. But I did witness the greatest game ever played. I just can't tell you anything about it.
--London Calling (2009) - I haven't had many holidays this decade...in fact I haven't had any holidays this decade...this is the closest I got. A really enjoyable weekend in London of sport, drinking, and just the almost-forgotten feeling of being a tourist and being somewhere different.
-- My brother's wedding (2004) - an all round great day, and I even managed not to make a complete pig's ear of being Best Man.
--On the lash (2008) - I've done a lot of drinking this decade, but probably my favourite drinking memory, and God knows there are many of them, was a thirty hour bender with a much-loved ex-colleague who was soon to depart these shores. We drank, we played pool, we drank, we abused the jukebox, we drank, we danced, we drank, we talked pish and we drank.

Top Five Things I Probably Didn't Love At The Start Of The Decade But Which I Love Now
-- Cricket (spectating)
-- Crosswords
-- Cycling (spectating)
-- Jamaican music
-- Tea

Top Five Gigs, with possibly incorrect dates cos I haven't double checked them
-- David Byrne, Glasgow, March 2009
-- Kraftwerk, Glasgow, June 2004
-- Morrissey, Glasgow, Nov 2002
-- New Order, Glasgow, October 2001
-- U2, Glasgow, June 2005

N.B. I will almost certainly have forgotten at least a dozen truly amazing concerts.

Top Five Albums
-- Arab Strap - Monday at the Hug and Pint
-- At The Drive-In - Relationship of Command
-- Four Tet - Rounds
-- LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
-- Radiohead - Kid A

Top Five Words I've Used In The 2000s [Censored for the faint of heart]
-- And
-- C*nt
-- F*ck
-- I
-- The

Top Five Ways of Killing Time
-- Pissing about on the internet
-- Playing Pro Evolution Soccer
-- Watching Hollyoaks
-- Working
-- Writing Moz-solo journal entries, then deciding that they're rubbish and not bothering posting them

Top Five Girls Who Could Have Been Girl With The Thorn, Had Only They Seen Any Worth In Me
-- American Girl - Briefly there might have been something there in the spring/summer of 2002, although it didn't take her long to work out that I was a worthless dickhead. She was far more clever and worldly than I, which I suppose it what put paid to this one. Still, meeting her was definitely good in that it helped me to get H (see below), who was shortly to depart my life forever, out of my system.
-- Brunette Pub Quiz Girl - Possibly mental barmaid who was, however, impossibly gorgeous, and the object of my desire 2004-05. Ended up shagging one of my mates. Such is life. In all honesty, thinking back, this one definitely wouldn't have worked because I think I'm probably too classy for her...ha!
-- Girl At Work - Ongoing since 2006, I tend to oscillate between periods where I think of her as a friend who happens to be an attractive female, and other periods where I am deeply infatuated with her. There were two, or three if you count my cowardice, very good reasons why I didn't make a move when she was single, one of which is of course the fact that she is a work colleague. Ergo, in my head I can defend my inaction; in my heart I regret deeply my disinclination to gamble. On occasion recently - and always after a drink, you understand - she will hug me and tell me that shes loves me. I am 99. 99999999% sure she means as a friend, which simultaneously warms and breaks my heart, as if it were an old paving stone in the Sahara.
-- H - I was, I think it's fair to say, absolutely besotted with her in my final year at university, 2001-2. Friendly and smiley and lovely. Small but perfectly formed with a posh home counties accent, and so pretty that even today it makes my heart ache to think of her. It would never have worked, of course, what with her being a classy bird from (I'm guessing) a rich family and me being a wee scrote from the Scottish central belt. She probably likes skiing and French cuisine, whereas I like football and Bovril.
-- Lovely Rita - The most recent object of my affections. I've only known her a matter of months but have made the mistake of really falling for her, so she sneaks into the top five. More at a later date, perhaps.

Right, that'll do. I'll see you in the next decade - may the new year, and beyond, bring you happiness.