Top Tens of the Decade
Toby:
Top 10 books
1. Atonement (Ian McEwan)
2. The Closed Circle (Jonathan Coe)
3. How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher (Simon Barnes)
4. Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
5. Dylan’s Visions of Sin (Christopher Ricks)
6. Nocturnes (Kazuo Ishiguro)
7. Hotel World (Ali Smith)
8. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
9. Feminine Gospels (Carol Ann Duffy)
10. Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)
Honorable mention: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Top 10 films:
This is going to be, hard. OK, so I probably saw roughly a hundred films over the decade which I thought ‘good’. So there are going to be quite a lot of films, maybe some we even saw together, whomsoever you are, that I was excited about afterwards and enjoyed watching, (I also actively enjoy watching films which are rubbish but interesting and completely lame, which is why I’m so obsessed with visiting the cinema).
So don’t worry that some films aren’t here: trust me I’ve worried enough myself. But I will put notes on things I really can’t stand not to say or compare to others.
As with the books the numbering here is almost completely meaningless, since they’re all very close to my heart.
1. Lost in Translation (Probably my favourite film ever. Definitely my favourite modern film. Better than Scarlett Johansson’s other great film of the decade, Woody Allen’s Spanish film of earlier this year).
2. Y Tu Mama Tambien (It almost physically pains me not to put in Azkaban or Paris: please see these too!)
3. Good Night and Good Luck (Because it has poetry)
4. A History of Violence (Eastern Promises is tremendous too)
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (grew on rewatching)
6. Notes on A Scandal (best acting of the decade, but God it was hard to put this in and not Milk)
7. A Prairie Home Companion (I love you, Robert Altman. Rest in peace).
8. Corpse Bride (The closest to a ‘children’s film’ that I have here. Which is ridiculous, since I adore Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Spirited Away and many, many others).
9. The Two Towers (I know I’m a freak, but it’s my favourite of the three. For hard-core argument, of the extended versions, I prefer Fellowship).
10. Mulholland Drive (Probably the cleverest film I’ve ever seen. Also beautiful. Just, slightly, better than The Prestige, which is brainier but less intelligent. Go figure).
Top 10 cricket moments (all):
This is very difficult. Cricket is so much a part of my life that I can divide reminiscences into lots of different types – those where I was at a cricket ground, those watching on television, those listening on radio, and even those, since cricket takes such a long time to play and all but those with the most sedentary lives can’t catch every ball, to moments that seem vital but I didn’t even know of at the time. I remember returning from some kind of appointment late in the summer of 1994, (goodness knows what I was doing), to hear that Devon Malcolm had taken 9-57. I still remember that, having not heard or seen a ball. That feeling of wonder.
Here I try to mix and match some moments in grounds to some witnessed from elsewhere.
1. Andrew Flintoff’s wonderful 95 at The Oval against South Africa in 2003. Still the most exciting innings I have ever witnessed.
2. Andrew Flintoff’s seven ball over to dismiss Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting in the second test v Australia in 2005.
3. The final fourth morning of the same Test match. ‘England have won by two runs!’
4. Pietersen’s impossibly bouncy century against India, 2007, witnessed at Lord’s. To get from 50 to 100 took him 60 balls. In a tight Test match, that’s extraordinary even now.
5. England coming of age, with their victory in Johannesburg in 2005, and Hoggard’s 12 for.
6. Steve Harmison’s 7-12 against West Indies, 2004. This, like Malcolm’s spell and seemingly every destructive spell of English pace bowling, was done whilst I did something else...
7. Strauss’s peerless 161* in this year’s Ashes.
8. The batting of Mahela Jayawardena, passim, but particularly at the first Test I went to at Edgbaston in 2002, and in a later Test match in 2006 at Lord’s: Steph’s first?
9. Brisbane. Joy comes only after the pits of despair.
10. And talking of which, the incredible 2002 ODI at Lord’s where Trescothick got a blissful hundred, Hussain got one too, the press got a three-fingered salute, England more than 320 runs, and still lost. Back then, that seemed impossible. An echo of something to come.
Top 10 albums:
I’ve got a bit more space with these categories due to my lesser knowledge, so hopefully this will be a bit easier than some of the others so far! I can promise that no one will have the same list as me here, pleasingly.
1. The Libertines, Up the Bracket
2. Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have Had It So Much Better With..
3. Maximo Park, Our Earthly Pleasures
4. Devendra Banhart, Nino Rojo
5. Bob Dylan, Love and Theft
6. Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, The Bairns
7. Martyn Joseph, Vegas
8. Ray LaMontagne, Till The Sun Turns Black
9. Anne-Marie Sanderson, Navigating By Stars
10. Mika, Life in Cartoon Motion
Top 10 singles:
1. These Words, Natasha Bedingfield. (Get over it.)
2. Music When the Lights Go Out, The Libertines, (the last we’ll ever see of the Pete Doherty who filled you with even a shred of belief that his leviathan talent transcended his behemoth [I hope a behemoth is bigger than a leviathan] problems?)
3. Warwick Avenue, Duffy, (from the file marked, ‘this reminds me of a time when’)
4. Shine, Take That. (This is probably one of the most chosen songs of the decade, but I’ve always loved Gary Barlow. Just not in that way).
5. Must Be Santa, Bob Dylan, (what a way to dance out a decade)
6. Somebody Told Me, The Killers, (for so few reasons, and yet)
7. Ghetto Gospel, Tupac Shakur feat Elton John (Has that weird exactness of place that many not-very-good, never seen again singles have. That’s all I can say to explain).
8. Hard to Explain, The Strokes (Instantly transports me back to early university in a way that otherwise only the Smooth Criminal remix does).
9. Never Be the Same Again, Melanie C, feat Lisa Lopes (One of the only answers out of all one hundred and some that is genuinely early, happening in early 2000).
10. Sound of the Underground, Girls Aloud (Though it’s not their version I’m most fond of).
Top 10 gigs:
As agreed with Steph, or festival sets. I’ve managed to get together ten things which are pretty much gigs, even if some are a bit folky. These lists have taken me so long (this is my penultimate one), that I’m not going to include long list of classical music. Suffice to say that the best concert I’ve been to was the incredible rendition of Shostakovich’s first violin concerto at Symphony Hall, and my favourite concert to sing in was The Apostles by Elgar at the same location, which reduced me to tears.
1. The Libertines, Kentish Town
2. Maximo Park, Manchester Apollo
3. Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, Birmingham Town Hall
4. The Pogues, NIA
5. Franz Ferdinand, NEC
6. Seasick Steve, Latitude Festival
7. Holly Golightly, Liverpool Barfly
8. Seth Lakeman, Moseley Folk Festival
9. The Good, the Bad and the Queen, Latitude Festival
10. The White Stripes, Manchester Apollo
Top 10 cities:
1. Birmingham
2. Bath
3. New York
4. Liverpool
5. Exeter
6. Bristol
7. Bergen
8. San Francisco
9. Florence
10. Edinburgh
11. Rome
I’ve tried, but I have too many significant, beautiful memories from each of these to omit any.
Top 10 Norway reunions:
To make this a bit easier, I’ve decided that Norway was not a Norway reunion. Still picked 15 on a first pass though. Oh de-ar. In chronological order:
1. Tuesday April 2, 2002: Hilperton- at the Hodges' house. The beginning of a legend.
2. Sunday August 3, 2003: Bournemouth, 24 at Steph's. The photograph of all photographs, and the postcard of all postcards.
3. Sunday September 7, 2003: England v South Africa, Flintoff's 95, my favourite reunion ever. (I think I wrote that comment in 2004, for the record, but it remains my favourite cricket-based day).
4. Sunday August 8th, 2004: Shula's 18th Birthday at the Talbot (with the Twenty20, just an amazing weekend).
5. Monday, December 20, 2004: The Phantom of the Opera, Thai food, penguins, Bath (I’m also using this to represent the many Christmas gatherings, though this was my favourite).
6. Friday 21st October- Sunday 23rd October, 2005: Shindig Weekend. The Wharf and The Reservoir, Birmingham. Cracker. Diskery. Sushi. Corpse Bride. Bill Bailey. Shindig. John. Salt cellars. (I’m picking this partly to excuse missing out my 2007 birthday weekend, which was also ace).
7. Saturday 31st December 2005- Sunday 1st January 2006: New Year's Eve comes to Freshfields after WSYO concert and interlude at 'The Rising Sun'. As I’ve said to a lot of people, probably something more memorable to me personally for the weird timey-wimey stuff than for anyone else, but still, it’s my list.
8. Friday 3rd- Sunday 5th November, 2006: London weekend. Every Acton in the world. Fireworks. Britney Spears. Covent Garden, Camden, Clapham, Canary Wharf, Cockfosters. The Thames. Sparklers.
9. Saturday 17th February- Monday 19th February, 2007: Steph's 21st birthday in Liverpool, with her Top of the Pops birthday party on the upper deck of Revolutions in the Cavern Quarter. I think I have to say, for a variety of reasons, this is probably one of my favourite reunions ever. Definitely top three.
10. Friday 18 September - Sunday 20 September 2009: Liverpool weekend. Karaoke, silent disco, the docks in all their glory, Guitar Hero, tea, renaissance.
An honourable mention to Miranda’s birthday weekend in 2005, which, though it has passed into legend, may not have done so for the right reasons... ;-)
Top 10 people:
I’d like to record that Steph suggested this. As a way of doing this, I’ve tried to base my choices on people who were particularly significant over a whole decade, but particularly in the year which ends with the associated number, if that makes sense to you. Just like Darz is, 10 is a wildcard. Largely because 2000’s a long time ago, and arguably not in the decade in question (my choices so far don’t seem to acknowledge it)...
1. Nasser Hussain
2. Steph
3. Simon Barnes
4. Alfonso Cuaron
5. Stephen
6. Shula
7. Meg
8. Barack Obama
9. George
10. Darz
Top 10 miscellaneous:
1. Singing and singers
2. (The end of) actuarial exams
3. Joss Whedon and his acolytes
4. Obscenity
5. The Wellington
6. Northumberland, the Isle of Man, Norfolk, the North York Moors and the lesser praised wildernesses of Britain
7. PacMan
8. Reading poetry, with a special nod to George Herbert, in Bradford-on-Avon
9. Silence and pie in King Edward’s Wharf
10. Team Elgar