There's not much to laugh at in 2024. It was a year dominated by an escalating conflict in the Middle East, the continuing war in Ukraine and extreme weather events across the globe. Also, while I tend to focus on events in the US and UK, there were elections in over 80 counties around the world.

Probably as an escape from reality, 2024 features some quite upbeat songs. There are some contrasting emotions in this episode. I hope you enjoy the ride.

As a youngster, on the way to my grandparents, there was a hill completely covered with trees except a small clearing in the middle and down one side. I remember thinking that it would be an ideal place to build a perfect house, white and overlooking the valley below.

I only realized relatively recently that childhood memory stayed with me and subconsciously resurfaced when we saw a Victorian gothic revival house for sale in Pennsylvania. It was white, perched on a hill with a view of a creek in the small valley below.

As 2008 began, our second child was born and our offer on the house was accepted. The high-school drop-out from the Cotswolds, survivor of Cheltenham's drug-fueled excesses of the 1980s and 90s, was happily married with two kids, working in Silicon Valley with more stock options than he new what to do with and, by April was living in his dream house with beautiful views of the Pennsylvania countryside.

The job in California still meant traveling out there once a month and the first monthly trip after we moved wasn't timed well. Leaving a wife with a baby and a two-year-old in a run-down house with no phone or running water did not go down well!

Like a lot of people at that time, we thought we were financially indestructible. We'd bought the new house without selling our old one, thinking that would inevitably happen soon after. The global financial situation had other ideas. While Americans are focused on the campaigns for a presidential election in November, there are major red flags being waved in the automotive, insurance and financial industries.

Get ready for a fall. Welcome to 2008.

The iPhone debuts, Doctor Who blinks & a financial crisis is afoot. The Wombats dance to Joy Division & Tall Pony are your boyfriend now.

Becoming a first time dad at 40 was exhausting. I felt too old, yet knew I had been too immature to have done it earlier.

Our son was NOT a good sleeper. People often asked how I had the time to record a weekly online radio show. But it was the perfect thing to do during those sleepless nights. I was getting sent so many demoes and suggestions that I always had something new to listen to and organize. I would sit up all night rocking Daniel to sleep while listening to music. Surprisingly the boy seemed to find Shitmat's Killa Babylon Kutz album strangely relaxing!

So join me as we revisit my sleepless trauma of 2006.

The year begins with George W Bush celebrating a second term as US president while the world mourns and prays for those effected by the massive Indian Ocean tsunami at the end of 2004.

On the personal front, by February, we were pregnant again and, after many nervous months, this time it stuck. Looking back, I don't remember a direct connection but find it hard to believe it's a coincidence that I wanted to do something musical and creative while we were expecting.

I was experiencing a slow realization that I no longer liked the music that I liked, if that makes any sense. I didn't want to listen to the music that was being offered through mainstream outlets so I started searching out new and interesting music, not paying attention to whether it was actually released by a record label. That concept of “record label” was disappearing and the DIY essence of punk rock that I fell in love with as a teenager was once again to the fore, more so than ever. Folks could record whatever they wanted in their bedrooms, basements and garages and make it available to the world on the internet and new sites such as MySpace. The Wrong Music collective in the UK was even being referred to as “the new punk” and, with surprisingly impeccable timing, I was becoming involved in a new golden age of music.

In hindsight, likely because of impending fatherhood fostering a sense of “legacy” and I'm sure because of John Peel's passing the year before, I wanted to share my musical discoveries with an audience. So in June, with no clue what I was doing, I launched Brierly Hill 90210 as a weekly, 1-hour online radio show on Live365. By the end of the year, a handful of like-minded individuals had discovered the show, liked what I was doing and started to contribute suggestions. That improved the quality of the show and one or two more people would find me. I don't want to say audience figures snowballed as episodes often had a listnership that could be countered on the fingers of one elbow! But I felt part of something bigger and of “community” that I'd never experienced since listening to John Peel under the bed covers many years earlier. About to turn 40, I was like a kid with a new toy and new friends.

Welcome to a whole new world of discovery and adventure. Welcome to 2005.

It's hard to imagine now but in the late 90s, Apple were on the verge of going out of business. Things changed with the return of Steve Jobs and the introduction of new software and services such as iTunes and new hardware such as the iPod. The iPhone was not even a twinkle in anyone's eye yet. In 2003, I liked what I was seeing from Apple, switched my home computer from Windows to Mac and bought by first iPod. It was still the early days of online music and Apple had “New Music Tuesday” when they would give away a newly released track and would list all of the albums that had been made available in iTunes that week. It was a small enough number that I could scan through each Tuesday to see what was new. Looking back, it was probably the start of my rediscovered love of new music. That came to a head in 2005 which we'll cover in that episode but the trend starts in 2003 and you'll hear an eclectic mix of music I was listening to at the time and that I discovered since.

BillBoard magazine describes 2000 as a “year that would bring a totally different sound befitting the turn of a new millennium” and John Peel described it as “a great year for music”. But I was too wrapped up in seismic personal changes to notice.

We had been married 6 months and I broke out on my own to become a self-employed software developer. My first gig was in the US mid-west where Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota all meet. Not only is that part of the world incredibly cold in January, I was working in a meat processing plant and slaughter house so it smelled awful too. The people I worked with were terrible and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Luckily, it only lasted a few months before I was able to escape back to work with old friends in Ohio (so could take in more Major League Soccer with the Columbus Crew) and California. Silicon Valley does not smell of cows and death.

Personal events will forever shape my memories of 2023. My father passed away in September, just shy of his 84th birthday. While I was pleased I got over to the UK the previous year to see him, I will always regret not going back again while he was ill. I did rush over to help out with funeral arrangements, and ended up staying for a month. Even though it was for a very sad reason, I did enjoy that time spent mostly with family and there is a large chunk of this episode heavily influenced by that time spent in the UK.

Brierly Hill 90210 presents... 1975

I was 8-years old as the year began so was mostly interested in riding my bike, climbing on the backs of tractors as the summer harvest was brought in, waiting until prompted to yell “Crackerjack” at the TV and thinking how much fun it would be to hang out with Jimmy Saville. I have a vague recollection that there was to be a referendum on the UK staying in the European Community but was fairly oblivious to anything else going on in the world.

It's hard to believe that, less than 50 years ago, a major Western European nation, Spain, was still living under a dictatorship. Equally hard to believe was that the Vietnam War was still going on.

But you better believe... it's 1975

1973 is another of those years that feels like one chapter is ending as another begins. That may have something to do with personal memories. I turned 7 and, while I certainly have earlier memories, they're just glimpses and fragments. There are stories in this 1973 episode that have a concrete “time and place” to them.

But there's a flip side to this. While I have distinct memories of Australia and New Zealand protesting French nuclear testing, the energy crisis, Goodies and the Beanstalk and a host of the other TV sound-bites, I am struck by how many times I found myself saying, “how did I not know this?”.

I did not know that there was a referendum in Northern Ireland about whether to remain in the UK or not. I have visited Bermuda several times but never knew that the Governor was assassinated in 1973. I vaguely remember Skylab but did not know that Skylab 1 was shortly followed by Skylab 2, launched to repair Skylab 1.

I did not know about an arson attack on a gay bar in New Orleans that killed 32 or the fire that swept an Isle of Man amusement center killing 51. I had never thought through the fact that Nixon was elected with Spiro Agnew as his vice-president but that Gerald Ford was VP when Nixon resigned the following year (sorry for the spoiler by the way). Agnew resigned before Nixon because of his own challenges with bribery, extortion and tax fraud.

See if you spot these and other memories as you sit back and enjoy the world of 1973.