Christmas is over and so is the New Year, which means we have very little excuse to still be on holiday, which is why we’ve decided to kick our site back into full gear and start with a newsletter.

Of course there are always leftovers in the fridge from Christmas which have no real place being there, but they got hidden behind the margarine and so they’ve been enjoying developing mould for the past 3 weeks, proudly raising a rotten army which will eventually inspire you to throw out all the eggs, before you realise it’s actually that piece of broccoli that your grandfather wouldn’t eat because it reminded him of the war.  And if I’ve learnt anything this Christmas, it’s that you shouldn’t dress up broccoli to look like the secret police.

Among our leftovers from Christmas is our song we wrote for Graham Norton, and our special Christmas podcast, and our equally special New Years podcast.  If you’ve been away and missed those last few highlights of the year, be sure to click the links and catch-up now before we end up throwing them out with the Gestapo broccoli.

2010 is a year which holds so much for The Brothers Streep that just thinking about it has made our heads collectively explode three times this week.  And it’s only Monday.  But before we launch explosion-damaged-neck first into 2010, we should probably mention some highlights of 2009...

Last year we decided to get with the times and launch ourselves on that thing that everyone is calling ‘The Internet’.  Having a very limited understanding of how you transform coffee into a website, our good friend Hugh Lashbrooke helped us grind the java into a beautiful Brothers Streep portal called www.brothersstreep.com – thanks Hugh!  Thugh!

The Streep blog and its many articles fast become a highly respected academic source in Universities all around the world.  Scientists, biologists, historians and David Schwimmer, were flocking to the site to discover answers to important matters, such as why do people only care for animals slightly bigger than a goldfish, why ants and penguins should not be dismissed as potential rising animal armies bent on world domination, and why Tara Reid should be punched in the face.

When swine flu hit the world, the Brothers Streep blog was amongst the first to respond to this pandemic through an interesting thesis on home-made clinical trials, and pigs.

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games.  No-one will forget the 17th June 2009 when Richard Streep accidently broke the internet by posting his blog, ‘The Challenge’ – The Internet just wasn’t ready for it.  The blog was so groundbreaking that if you search for ‘The Challenge’ in Google, you won’t be able to find it because it’s too dangerous.  I’ve even taken a huge risk by linking to it now – I can only hope that the Internet police won’t notice because they are still busy investigating how Felica Mabuza Suttle managed to get four friends on Facebook.

Desperate to get free flavoured milk, we gained respect from everyone who has ever been to a school tuck-shop when we released The Steri-Stumpie Song.  This song proved so popular that we’ve heard rumours that someone made a CD which consisted entirely of that song - with the exception of the last song which was actually our first song, Thirty Rand Airtime MTN Please.  We don’t know who this person is, but if you’re reading this, we don’t mind paying for your therapy.

The song wasn’t enough though.  The public wanted more.  So we made a video for the song.  This split the public two ways.  Some people on YouTube loved it, leaving comments like “stuff of myths and legends” and “i couldnt stop laffin at the goldfish line because you pulled out a dolphin”.  Whilst others said “I reckon if you don't want your face to be seen, you shouldn't be in a band. Being the only guy to wear a mask makes the whole thing look stupid”.  A user named ‘FFFFUUUUUUUUU’ left his insight by saying: “FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU”.  I’m not entirely sure whether that is good or bad.

And then there was a blog called Dear Anna Paquin – an open letter which was meant to help Anna Paquin discover the song we had written about her.  This ended up being discovered by the people at The Graham Norton Show, and soon we made our first appearance on television – playing our song to Anna Paquin on BBC1.  Although Anna Paquin doesn’t seem to have read our second open letter to her, when we met Graham Norton at the end of last year, he mentioned that Anna Paquin’s fiancé really enjoyed the song – so all seems good, but if they call off the engagement we know why.

So... 2009 was a busy and exciting year for Streep, and we have no doubt 2010 is going to be amazing.  We’ll be releasing our debut full band album this year, we’ve got an Internet sitcom which we’re currently working on, and we’re looking at doing a tour in the UK.  So be sure to visit www.brothersstreep.com regularly and get involved with the band online – we’ll be updating the blog frequently, and our second podcast series will be kicking off soon, as well as a completely new section called Bad Advice.

But all that remains to say in this update is... thanks!  We are fortunate to have a lot of fans who are very gracious in their excitement and support of the many aspects of The Brothers Streep – we thank you so much for being a part of this community, and for coming along for the journey.