February

End-of-year reviews are ten a penny, aren't they? What would be good is if they started in an arbitrarily-chosen month - say February - and continued in a similarly errant fashion until the person writing it stopped for some reason. Maybe, even, after February. With that in mind, here is everything - everything - that happened in February.

February saw the release of will.i.am's epoch-shattering opus 'THE (The Hardest Ever)'. As with almost all of the will.i.am 'oeuvre', and indeed most of all he ever utters, the piece was somewhat esoteric, destined to only be understood by will himself and the future generations he will no doubt come to inspire. It's kind of weird, really, that a man so sure that he is an innovative, futuristic trailblazer continues to make music that's almost exclusively derivative and generic. Wearing ludicrous spacesuits while livetweeting television programmes they're a part of does not, unfortunately, make a person Buck Rogers. (Actually he was from the past, wasn't he? You get the idea.)

Fortunately will has always had a back-up plan: if the time-traveller schtick won't wash then you can instead try and convince people that you're British. And so he did. Why else would he afford space to olden-days luddite Mick Jagger on the groundbreaking 'THE' alongside such forward-thinking artists as Jennifer Lopez and himself? In fact why, otherwise, would he allow Cheryl Cole to appear in the background of the videos of some of his solo releases (in selected territories)? And why would he be so willing to spend extended amounts of time with Jessie J and Tom Jones?

As it turned out the UK totally and utterly respected these attempts at absorbing himself into their culture, rewarding him with not one but two Number One singles in 2012, and that's just so far. In fact the country was endeared to him so much that his endeavours culminated with his selection as one of its Olympic torchbearers. Indeed, the people of Taunton's hearts swelled with pride as he paraded through their town with the flame, tweeting as he went, quite literally sending one message as he did the same with the embodiment of another.

#TWEETtheTORCH thank you coca.cola for this once in a life time experience to come to taunton and #runthetorch... twitter.com/iamwill/status…
— will.i.am (@iamwill) May 21, 2012

So inspirational.

Perhaps the most concise encapsulation of just how British will became in 2012 comes from the fact that by December he was capable of transfusing the nationality to Britney in his latest genre-transcending creation, 'Scream & Shout'.

Of course, this had all been done before by Madonna in her Mockney-marrying period. You know, Madonna - the one with the cones? No? Oh.

Don't worry, that last sentence was a very complicated 'bit of whimsy' (technical term) that was intended to highlight the fact that in 2012 people seemed to stop caring about Madonna's new material. In fact '2012 people' is almost an accurate description of' those in the UK who've actually heard 'Give Me All Your Luvin'.

This apathy was underlined, funnily enough, in February by the nation's favourite Radio One. For whatever reason (there were probably two main ones), they controversially snubbed the aforementioned 'Give Me All Your Luvin'', leaving it off their playlist.

Except it wasn't controversial at all. The media ruckus that some fools predicted might ensue didn't - they saved that for Robbie - and the world continued turning.

And that was everything that happened in February!

LadBanter Reconvene For New Single 'YOLO'; Album '#bantmobile'

Britain's premier bant combo return with new single 'YOLO (You Only Leave Once)' and album '#bantmobile'.

"You only leave once and you never come back; you look better in the dark with a face like that"

After a short period away LadBanter are back - and banter than ever.  It may have only been 9 months since the boys last penetrated the charts, but during that time much has changed.

"Obviously Chris has done his thing," says staunchly heterosexual heartthrob Danny, referring to his bantmate's success with solo effort 'Bernard's Watch', "and I've been away doing my thing, and the other two have been doing their thing, and we just thought, you know, it'd be nice to get back together to do a thing, for the fans, you know."

"A love that festered, grew like mould; you're 23 but you look twice as old"

Says Danny of 'YOLO': "It's an upbeat break-up song. It says: 'girls, we're single!'"

And what a catch any member of the group would be, not least sensitive charmer Chris, who co-wrote the track with up-and-coming production team PMQs, once again proving he not only has the words for head, but also a head for words.

As he explains, the song draws from experience. "I went out with this girl and then she left me," he explains, "and it's true, she was ugly." The split hit him hard. As he explains, "I just think people don't realise how hard it can be to be a man sometimes."

Thankfully, channeling his angst into the track proved a real help in moving on. "I've moved on now," he reveals. It's a process that's been aided, somewhat unusually, by music. "I've been listening to a lot of Dubstep and James Arthur recently. I just think that's what the UK music scene needs at the moment.

"One of the tracks on the album, 'The Mynx Effect', is actually sort of inspired by James," although, he hastens to add, "not in a gay way."

#bantmobile will be released on March 4 and features contributions from P Funktory, Kirk Norcross, Brian May and Tunde from the Lighthouse Family. 'YOLO (You Only Leave Once)' is out on Sunday.

"You only leave once; you only leave once; you only leave once; you better not come back"