blur reunion confirmed

According to today's NME, the Blur reunion is now, at last, official - what wonderful news; they've been my favourite band for something like seventeen years now, and that love has never come close to fading. They remain, for me, the best British pop group of the last twenty years, bar none, and what's more they've got better and better rather than worse and worse, a more typical trajectory. Although not all of their fans agree, I'd pinpoint their 'Think Tank' as the best record of this decade so far, and one of their finest - and Damon's work since has not been far behind. So the prospect of them being back together, whether it's just onstage at Glastonbury or possibly even working on new material, fills me with happiness. Hurray.

Here's a lovely, sentimental quote from Graham on the Blur message-board:

"i have plunged headlong into self destruction as reaction to others doing what i have done many times- falling in love.it is a pathetic resentment...and after so many years of what can almost be considered (...having to make a few journies alone...) a coma of sorts all that we thought stuck to us, keeping us apart just fell away in seconds of seeing each other and a lightness replaced it all see...terrific relief....the festering and paranoid conjecture....the inferiority complexes..the double guessing...all seem such a waste of time...what the press called falling out and friction.... there was no friction...we never saw each other for there to be friction....that rubbing together and causing of heat/irritation......there came a time where we had to travel the path without each other's support. if it hadnt happened in 2001/2 it would have happened later. it was painful enough to realise we had forgotten how to look after each other....without those in the media telling us it was actually alot worse than it was!

its heavy....its a life regained...not just 4 friends but all those surrounding the friends..the surrogate family, the real family...the extended family, the tree...its many!!! not just 4."

Here's the cover of today's NME - masthead stripped out: