I've never made a mix tape for anyone in my life.

I realise, in some circles, this is as bad as thinking Oliver Letwin has the right idea or looking speculatively at five year olds. I don't know that anyone who likes Morrissey will ever speak to me again. Nevertheless it is true. I am lazy and find merely asking if someone would like to fuck takes much less time and effort. You can always talk about music afterwards and if it turns out he owns more than one Coldplay album well, at least you got laid. Probably just the once though, eh?

Anyway, I appreciate that there may well be subtle pleasures in the actual creation of the tape itself and the whole process is not necessarily about marching inexorably to a fruity outcome. So I made one. For my own educational edification and absolutely not because everyone else is also doing it. And certainly not in order to attract the how's your father, but if your surname is Oldman, Rickman or Bowie I'm happy to open a dialogue on the matter. It gave me pleasure. Also a punctured toe, from dancing over a drawing pin.

It's not the soundtrack of my life because that is an ear-meltingly eye-gougingly face-punchable piece of linguistic titwank if there was ever one and besides which it's inaccurate; my life sounds like Ian Paisley doing the vocals for Aphex Twin and despite tireless efforts I couldn't find any of that on Limewire. But here. 12 songs that fill me up with the sherbet from seventy-two Dib Dabs and then shakes me until I froth. If you feel like taking your knickers off by the end that can only be a bonus.