Amid lots of cheating, here are Steph's Top 5s of 2007:

TOP 5 DEBUT ALBUMS

1. The Good, The Bad & The Queen

2. "I Wish I Could Have Loved You More" - Candie Payne

3. "Girls and Weather" - The Rumble Strips

4. "Waiting For The Sonic Boom" - Ooberon

5. "Indigo Moss" - Indigo Moss

TOP 5 NON-DEBUT ALBUMS

1. "In Rainbows" - Radiohead

2. "Neon Bible" - Arcade Fire

3. "Our Earthly Pleasures" - Maxïmo Park

4. "Yours Truly, Angry Mob" - Kaiser Chiefs

5. "So Many Nights" - The Cat Empire

TOP 5 SINGLES

1. "Umbrella" - Rihanna

2. "Back To Black" - Amy Winehouse

3. "Grace Kelly" - Mika

4. "Valerie" - Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse

5. "Girls Who Play Guitars" - Maxïmo Park

TOP 5 CITIES

1. Liverpool

2. York

3. Newcastle

4. Wigan (okay, it's a large town)

5. Bath

TOP 5 GIGS IN LIVERPOOL

1. Maxïmo Park @The Mountford Hall, University of Liverpool

2. Ed Harcourt @ Liverpool Barfly Loft

3. Seasick Steve @ Liverpool Carling Academy 2

4. KT Tunstall @ The Mountford Hall, University of Liverpool

5. Candie Payne @ Liverpool Music Week, Alma de Cuba

TOP 5 GIGS OUTSIDE LIVERPOOL

1. Maxïmo Park @ Manchester Apollo

2. Kaiser Chiefs @ Cardiff International Arena

3. The Cat Empire @ Shepherds Bush Empire

4. The Feeling @ Delamere Forest

5. The Puppini Sisters @ Manchester Ritz

TOP 5 GIGS AT WORK

1. The Rumble Strips @ Academy 2

2. The Coral @ Academy 1

3. Echo and the Bunnymen @ Academy 1

4. John Butler Trio @ Academy 1

5. Mark Ronson @ Academy 1

TOP 5 SETS AT LATITUDE

1. Arcade Fire

2. Jarvis Cocker

3. Simon Armitage

4. The Good, The Bad & The Queen

5. Damien Rice

TOP 5 FAMOUS PEOPLE MET/ SEEN IN THE STREET

1. Jeremy Paxman

2. Paul Smith (the singer, not the fashion designer)

3. Charlie Waller

4. Gary Wilmott

5. Ricky Wilson

TOP 5 MISCELLANEOUS

1. Meeting Jeremy Paxman the first time

2. Meeting Jeremy Paxman the second time

3. Latitude

4. The multiple joys of pesto

5. Paul Collingwood being made ODI captain

and Toby

Top Five Novels
1. The Rain Before It Falls – Jonathan Coe

2. On Chesil Beach- Ian McEwan

As usual I haven’t read five books released in 2007- see hardback disclaimer etc. Not at all a fan of Ali Smith’s new ‘Girl Meets Boy’ either, which was the other new one, so here’s some others I read and enjoyed:

3. Things Falls Apart – Chinua Achebe
4. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow – Peter Hoeg (with one of those strikethroughs on the o).


Top 5 Films
1. Notes on a Scandal
2. Paris, je t’aime
3. Eastern Promises
4. Hot Fuzz
5. Atonement

Top 5 Films Not In Toby's Top 5 Films
1. Inland Empire
2. Death Proof
3. Ratatouille
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
5. The Golden Compass

Which incidentally is the first Christmas film to get a look in- they’re usually so unspeakably awful. I saw 21 films in 2007, so all of these make the top half.

Top 5 Holiday Cities
1. Rouen
2. New York
3. Rome
4. Toronto
5. London

Top 5 Home Cities

1. Birmingham

2. Liverpool

3. Worcester

4. Bristol

5. Exeter

Top 5 Norway Reunions...and so forth
1. Steph’s 21st
2. Spamalot
3. Latitude
4. Shula’s 21st
5. My birthday weekend

Top 5 Cricket moments (seen)
1. Pietersen’s jubilant century (Lord’s)
2. Right at the other end of the spectrum, Chanderpaul’s incredible grit (Edgbaston)
3. The hour and a half (only) it took the Lord’s ground staff to get play underway after a flash flood which disabled the rail network of England entirely for the rest of the day.
4. Tendulkar’s highest score at Lord’s (still under a half century)
5. Broad looking every inch a potential Test number eight (Edgbaston)

Top 5 Cricket moments (unseen)
1. Lara sadly, inevitably run out in his last cricket match- symptomatic of the West Indies malaise and how much he stood outside it.
2. Panesar’s 5 lbws, a record.
3. Kumble’s maiden Test century in his mid thirties
4. Jayawardena’s batting in general and weakness in the 190’s in particular.
5. The England Sri Lanka one day international where England lost faith they could win the world cup. But what a game.

Top 5 Theatre
1. Richard II, and the history cycle in general (Stratford on Avon)
2. The 25^th Annual Puttnam County Spelling Bee (Broadway)
3. Shirley Valentine (The Crescent Theatre)
4. Uncle Vanya (The Rep)
5. Spamalot (The West End)

Top 5 Performances (participated)
1. On Elgar’s 150^th birthday weekend, an ‘Apostles’ performance which was very difficult to stay sufficiently clear headed to finish. Amazing.
2. Christmas carol concert
3. The Music Maker
4. First wedding under the name En Chant.
5. The Kingdom, the day after The Apostles

Top 5 of Latitude

1. Steph heckling the poor people in the literature tent

2. The poetry tent, particularly Roger McGough, Simon Armitage and the smoothie man.

3. The Good, the Bad and the Queen

4. Seasick Steve

5. Good and bad Ian McKellen

(That was a tough one- so much memorable stuff. Honorary mentions to Bill Bailey and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the rain).

Top 5 miscellaneous
1. End of year happy endings
2. Tunnel vision
3. Olives; wine.
4. Thirteen hour road trips starting with a flat battery
5. Bacchus

And now, the Shiremonator!

TCH