Two Thousand and Eleven.

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This year will be your best one yet.

Hangovers have crawled back into their shells, party poppers have been swept up and everything feels distinctly similiar to last year. The new year is ten days old tomorrow and my 2011 post count is unsurprisingly at a whole round zero. I'm almost shocked.

Still, it's a new year and there's loads of things to look forward to even in the these dark pit months of January and February. Here's a little rundown of what falls into that category for me, from the top of my head, at 18:31 on this overcast Sunday.

If you do go to see Janelle Monae, make an effort and dress well forchristsake.

Amazing shows -Janelle Monae and Aziz Ansari both head to these recessed shores next month for the first time. Expect to dance until you're breathless at the former and laugh until you're in tears at the latter. Whatever you do, make sure you got to at least one of the aforementioned. They will be yardsticks you'll use to measure everything else you see during the rest of the year. Drake is also here in London, Manchester and Birmingham over the coming week. If you haven't got tickets to those dates yet then fully expect to be logging on to eBay and remortgaging your house in the near future.

Do you think Mila Kunis makes Culkin do the home alone face when they sleep together? The freak.

Amazing films - January is oscar month and 2011 sees two massive hotly anticipated releases. Darren Aranofsky is back with 'Black Swan' with Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman and the amazing Vincent Cassel. Christian Bale has (as always, the only variance is whether he's big or small) gone through an incredible body transformation to drop a third of his body weight for his role in 'The Fighter'. If you don't like films about ballet, you'll probably like films about boxing, right? This month, at the cinema, everyone is a winner. 'Black Swan' is released on January 21st, 'The Fighter' hits (geddit?) cinemas 4th February.

Pharoahe Monch bucks Hip-Hop stereotypes by posing for a photoshoot with a revolver.

Amazing records - The early part of the year sees new releases from The Decemberists, Iron & Wine, Pharoahe Monch, James Blake, Drive By Truckers, Wire, Talib Kweli and some sort of Glee release that they recommend you use for a coaster/frisbee to through at wild animals that trespass in your garden. The rest of the year could bring something from Radiohead, Gaga's 'Born This Way', Dre's 'Detox' (yeah, right), Jeezy's TM103 and the return of the best band on the planet, Okkervil River.

So yeah, plenty of things to make you hang around for a bit longer before you choose to hop off your mortal coil. Happy new year all of you mad men and women.