steph

TOP 5 ALBUMS
1. "You Could Have It So Much Better" - Franz Ferdinand
2. "Employment" - Kaiser Chiefs
3. "Two Shoes" - The Cat Empire
4. "X & Y" - Coldplay
5. "The Back Room" - Editors

TOP 5 SINGLES
1. "Hung Up" - Madonna
2. "Do You Want To" - Franz Ferdinand
3. "Sitting, Wishing, Waiting" - Jack Johnson
4. "Sly" - The Cat Empire
5. "All These Things I Done" - The Killers

TOP 5 FILMS
1. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
2. The Constant Gardener
3. Sin City
4. Serenity
5. The Island

TOP 5 CITIES
1. Liverpool
2. Adelaide
3. Hong Kong
4. Brisbane
5. Wellington

TOP 5 NORWAY REUNIONS
1. Miranda's 20th
2. The Shindig Weekend
3. Franz
4. Steph's kitchen party
5. Steph and Toby Do Liverpool

TOP 5 CRICKET MOMENTS
1. Billy Bowden knocking the bails off the stumps at the Oval.
2. At Old Trafford, Freddie saying, "Vaughnie, let me bowl. I'll do the job."
3. Beating the Aussies in the Twenty20 international (watched at 4am at Chateau Franz youth hostel in New Zealand).
4. Paul Collingwood becoming the greatest ever ODI player.
5. Andy Strauss's stunning slip catch.

TOP 5 GIGS
1. Franz Ferdinand @ the NEC
2. The Coral @ Liverpool Academy 1
3. Franz Ferdinand, the Magic Numbers, Graham Coxon and Kaiser Chiefs @ The RAH
4. Tom McRae @ Liverpool Academy 2
5. Holly Golightly @ Theatre, Liverpool Barfly

TOP 5 MISCELLANEOUS
1. Olives
2. Alias Season 4
3. New Zealand
4. JD and Coke
5. The Quiet Ginger One AKA Paul David Collingwood

andtoby

TOP 5 NOVELS
1. Saturday- Ian McEwan
2. The Closed Circle- Jonathan Coe
3. The Time Traveller's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
4. Cloud Atlas- David Mitchell
5. Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
Although it's true that two of these were first published in 2004, it's also true to say that they were first published in paperback in 2005, and that there are very few people whose books I buy when they're still in hardback, (McEwan, Rowling, the latter cos of peer pressure)

TOP 5 SINGLES
1. "Walk Away" - Franz Ferdinand*
2. "Is This The Way (To Amarillo)"- Tony Christie featuring Peter Kay**
3. "Ghetto Gosepl" - 2Pac feat Elton John***
4. "Jailhouse Rock"- Elvis Presley****
5. "You're Beautiful" - James Blunt*****
*- also wins the Peter Jackson award for An Almost Perfect Thing Spoilt By A Misjudged Ending
**- as it should be called. It's easy to forget now that the original Peter Kay video is actually comic genius now that all you remember is the bad taste of charity record.
***- the late 2Pac, which is fairly obvious, since no rapper in their right mind would let an aging queen sing 'And the red sun sinks at last into the hills of gold' over his rapping.
****- Why yes, Elvis did spend the first few months of the year getting to number one. It's all about the old people, you see.
*****- I could explain why, but I don't have the patience.

TOP 5 FILMS
1. A History of Violence
2. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
3. The Merchant of Venice
4. Batman Begins
5. Sin City

TOP 5 FILMS NOT IN TOBY's TOP 5 FILMS
1. Serenity
2. Sideways
3. Where The Truth Lies
4. King Kong
5. Vera Drake

TOP 5 CITIES
1. Bath
2. New York
3. Birmingham
4. Liverpool
5. Cambridge

TOP 5 NORWAY REUNIONS+
1. Orchestra Crash And Journey To Calne, March
2. Shula 19, August
3. Shindig, October
4. Magnum at Steph's, March
5. Cambridge Expedition, June
+- In proof that everyone's ludicrously good company, I had a list of nine which it took me ages to whittle down, and I got rid of some of them in the end almost purely because Steph had mentioned them already.

TOP 5 CRICKET MOMENTS
1. Hoggard clearing up the tail on the fourth morning of The Oval Test Match
2. 'England have won by TWO runs'
3. The gang watching the climax of the Trent Bridge test match.
4. Let us not forget who else we beat this year- the defeat of my least favourite international cricketer, Graeme Smith, in February.
5. The other great show of sportsmanship- everyone talks about Flintoff comforting Lee after Edgbaston, but the day before, when Flintoff scored his series-turning 80, Shane Warne called to him and said, "Well played, mate. Great innings". Watching him at Lord's was, no matter how much I hate what he stands for, a privilege, and he's the best cricketer I've ever seen.

TOP 5 GIGS
1. Holly Golightly, Barfly, Liverpool
2. The Pogues, NIA, Birmingham
3. Franz Ferdinand, NEC, Birmingham
4. White Stripes, Apollo, Manchester
5. Whoever the hell that was pretending to be John Lennon singing 'Twist and Shout' and failing honourably, The Cavern Club, Liverpool

TOP 5 MISCELLANEOUS
1. Alone At Last
2. The Wellington
3. The fourth to last episode of 'Six Feet Under'
4. Knitting
5. James Joyce Puppet

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