On February 6 a new Pet Shop Boys album, Format, is released, a collection of b-sides and bonus tracks from the years 1996 to 2009. (As such, it is a sequel to Alternative.) Chris noticed the word that became its title on the side of a large industrial shed somewhere in Scandinavia; the album does, of course, gather together songs that were released on the various ever-changing single formats over these years. “If you compare it with Alternative, I think the quality is as high, if not higher sometimes,” says Neil.

On March 25 a revised version of the ballet The Most Incredible Thing begins its second run at Sadler’s Wells before two performances in Austria.

A previously unreleased Pet Shop Boys song, “Listening”, appears on the album Out Of My Hands, by the former A-ha singer Morten Harket, after they had been approached and asked to contribute to his record. “When we wrote it we didn’t think it was very Pet Shop Boys, although we liked it,” says Neil. “So we sent it to him.”

On June 6, a video for a new song, “Invisible”, appears on the official Pet Shop Boys website and many other websites. “We just wanted to surprise people with a new song that gives them a taste of our new album and a video which really illustrates the song,” says Neil. The video is by Los Angeles-based artist, Brian Bress and a version of it, with no sound, was originally shown at his show in a Los Angeles gallery earlier in the year.

On August 6, a new Pet Shop Boys single, “Winner” – a song written during Take That’s stadium tour the previous summer after Chris suggested that they wrote a mid-tempo anthem – is released. “It’s about being in something like the X-Factor or Eurovision song contest – coming from nowhere and finding yourself a winner and the crowd is all cheering,” explains Neil. “Part of me was also thinking about when we got to number one with “West End girls” and we were winners, and I was wondering whether it was going to last. And Chris saying at Top Of The Pops when we were number one: ‘Don’t look triumphant.’ It’s a transience-of-fame song, really. It’s also saying: it’s not where you’ve got to, it’s how you got there that counts. It’s the camaraderie that is the really enjoyable thing, rather than just the blatant success that probably isn’t going to last.” While in the studio in May to recording extra tracks for the “Winner” single, the Bee Gee Robin Gibb died and the Pet Shop Boys immediately recorded “I started a joke”, a song Gibb wrote when he was seventeen, as a tribute.

On September 5 the Pet Shop Boys perform a one-off concert at Berlin Hebbel am Ufer 1, streamed live worldwide, to promote their forthcoming new album. Attendees received a special booklet and an exclusive seven-inch single featuring two mixes of “Winner”, one otherwise unavailable

On October 12, a new Pet Shop Boys single, “Leaving”, is released. “It’s looking at the old cliché of ‘love doesn’t die’, so familiar in pop songs, and looking at the death aspect of it. It’s comparing the idea of love not dying with the fact that when a person dies there’s a sense that they don’t really die because although they’re not physically present their memory is still present and therefore in a way they have a presence in your life. And so it concludes ‘I can still find some hope to believe in love’. I always think it’s about a man and a woman, and that the woman is leaving and the man doesn’t want her to leave, and he’s explaining why he doesn’t really believe that the relationship is over.”

On December 5 the Pet Shop Boys play a one-off concert at the BBC Media City in Salford, performing an eclectic selection of current and old songs accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert, broadcast the following day on BBC Radio 2, features the premiere of one piece, “He dreamed of machines”, from their work-in-progress about the late British scientist, mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing, A man from the future.