I have a book. It is small and red with a broken spine. Its edges are tatty and worn and it has absent-minded scribbles on the outside, mainly of eyes with splendid lashes. I have a book, it is small and battered and a little bit broken but it is full. It is full to bursting with scribbled thoughts and pained lines that I can barely read back but I try from time to time and it reminds me of how far I have come in a year and how far I have still to go.

I have a book that is full of all the words I wanted to say to your people on the days of significance; birthday’s, anniversaries, your deathday, only to have come unstuck at the keyboard every single time. So I wonder why it is that I should be able to write today – I wonder this because to me it is somehow the least significant date of all. It’s the one I feel almost ambivalent about, the one where you were sent away and turned to a pile of dust, the one where your pieces were finally taken, the one where I supposedly said goodbye (although I know now I will probably never do that).

But perhaps that is the very reason I can write today. Because even though our anniversary was a bittersweet affair in retrospect, the day was love filled and the tears spilled were of happiness. Because even though your birthday was hard, it was a reminder that you were here, you were born, you grew up, you walked this earth and you loved, you bore children, you had a life no matter how short. Because even though to think of your deathday and the moment you finally left me is, without doubt, the most difficult, painful memory of all, at least you were alive for most of that day. Because even when you left, in the days that preceded your funeral, your essence still filled the rooms.

So perhaps it is the life of you within these moments that I have found so hard to write about. A funeral is none of these things. It is about a void, an ebbing, a release and a going, memories, a flicker of a flame and the loss of that light. You are gone and I know that I know that, but a year on you are still as alive to me as ever. That is pain and pleasure in one.

So in homage to you going I want to publish your playlist from the funeral. You sat one night and reeled off these tracks and I was amazed at your abilityto conjour tracks from mental oblivion – mine would be so bland in contrast. But you did and here they are. For those of you on Face book I will try and link the track list through that. I include in this uncorrected mistakes in this list - it makes it a more fulfilling journey of discovery.......

Listen and remember him and above all else – ENJOY!!

The Cure Just like heaven – 12” version (not live)

Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart

Sonic Youth Teenage Riot

The Church Under the Milkyway

Nancy Sinatra Jackson

& Lee Hazelwood

The Jam Thick As Thieves

Candy Station You’ve Got The Love

Massive Attack Unfinished Sympathy

Lee Hazelwood Poor Man

Simple Minds Speed Your Love

Blondie Union City Blue

Royksopp 49%

Pogues Sally Mcnally

Radio Head An Airbag Saved My Life

Jimmy Cliff Many Rivers To Cross

New Order Everythings Gone Green

Jesus And Mary Chain Just Like Honey

Johnny Cash Ring Of Fire

Elvis Suspitious Minds

Grandmaster Flash White Lines

The Stranglers Always The Sun

The Killers Read My Mind

Stakker Humanoid Stakker Humanoid

Bowie Changes

Soft Cell What

Lotus Eaters First Picture Of You

Echo And The B Killing Moon

Clint Eastwood and Stop That Train

General Saint

NWA Express Yourself

Generation X Dancing With Myself

My Bloody Valentine You Made Me Realise

My Bloody Valentine The Drive

My Bloody Valentine Cigarette In My Bed

House Of Love Christine

Sound Garden Black Hole Sun

Radiohead No Surprise’s

The Specials Gangsters

Doctor Almintado Poison Flower

Foxy Brown Fastcar

Wheatus Little Respect

The Smiths The Is A Light That Never Goes Out

A Guy Called Gerald Voodoo Ray

Primal Screen Loaded

Inner City Good Life

The Damned Smash It Up

Ladyhawke Back Of The Van

Kings Of Leon The Bucket

Dolly Parton Jolene

Kenny Rogers Ruby

I Hate Hate Razzy

Adam And The Ants Stand And Deliver

Madness Must Be Love

Faithless Insomnia

OT Quartet Hold That Sucker Down

Marvin Gaye Your All I Need To Get By

The Pixies Monkey Gone To Heaven

Madonna Like A Prayer

Five Get On Up

Tony Basil Hey Micky

Blondie The Hardest Part

Jackson Five Blame It On The Boogie

O’Jays Lovetrain

Beachboys I can Hear Music

Prodigy Your No Good

Moby Feeling So Real

Richie Havens Without Love

Lou Reed Vicious

The Only Ones Another Girl Another Planet

Groove Armada Blue Skies

Daft Punk Da Funk

Talking Heads Born Under Punches (Remain in Light version)

Flock Of Seagulls Wishing

Billy brag New England

Leftfield Storm 3000

The Cure In Between Days

Game/50 Cent Hate It Or Love It

De La Soul Eye Know

Motorhead Ace Of Spades

Nirvana In Bloom

RadioHead Creep

Depeche Mode New Life

The View Don’t look back into the *

Elton John Your Song

Joy Divsion Don’t Walk Away

Rod Stewart Baby Jane

John Lennon Starting Over

It’s Immaterial Driving Away From Home

The Smiths Please Please Let Me Get What I want

Bowie Sound And Vision