Blur, a band so fast you cant even read their name properly....except you can, there it is, right there on their shirts, their records and countless interviews that have invaded our lives over the last 25 years. 

Accused of everything from bandwagon jumping (there's no other way), to inspiring a nation of tired, backward looking musicians (britpop), to the rising birthrate of a hipster filled Camden Town, (im looking at you Graham), they have never been away......except for those 12 years when they did indeed......go away. 

So here are 10 of the best things that can happen when you lock a Tory cheesemaker, a Labour lawmaker, a low fi riff maker and a Damon Albarn into a studio together and then throw away the key for 20 odd years.

10. End of the Century (Parklife): "There's ants in the carpet, dirty little monsters". If you get the opening line right then nobody cares about the rest of the song, and therefore, this is a classic.

09. Sing (Leisure): Leisure was a rubbish record desperately hanging on to the coat tails of a long departed Madchester but this is nice, dreamy piano and pretty vocals that goes on for far too long.

08. To the End (Parklife): A pretty song off a cheap, shallow and ultimately forgettable album. "It looks like we might have made it", did the record finish? yes we did, good, can we put the orange album on now?

07. Caramel (13): This is miles away from the bouncy, banal days of britpop and is all the more glorious for it.

06. This Is a Low (Parklife): The ultimate Blur song, a tour around the UK with a trademark rousing earworm of a chorus, "The queen has gone round the bend and jumped off Lands End". That would have been an interesting video.

05. Ong Ong (The Magic Whip): Its Blur and so you need a la la la la song and i got it down to For Tomorrow or Ong Ong. The latter has a man dressed as an ice cream and the former has an artsy black and white video of the band in London so it is clearly an easy choice. Not to mention that it is by far the better song. The Magic Whip was an inspired comeback and this song captures the moment perfectly.

04. Out of Time (Think Tank): People don't much like this record but I do, its sonically much more interesting than Parklife and this is the crowning moment. A beautiful acoustic driven piece of introspective story telling. Wonderful.

03. There Are Too Many of Us (the Magic Whip): Well they aren't wrong.

02. The Universal (The Great Escape): Whether its the Clockwork Orange video or the glorious crescendo it gives us for a concert finale, this bleak glimpse of the not so distant media led future is quite prophetic and utterly gorgeous.

01. Beetlebum (Blur): Of course its Beetlebum, why would the greatest Blur song ever not be Beetlebum? from the bouncing delay on the opening acoustic riff to the noisy pavement like angular guitar solo to see the song out, this song is majestic pop. Britpop a thing of the past, the band is finally looking across the pond for inspiration rather than the sad plodding bore of Cool Britannia. 1997, a glorious year in music when we could all finally admit to liking Blur.

Words by Gordon Haswell