LISTS

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Golden Brown

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Land Of Hope And Glory

Pretty Vacant

all other verses of the current National Anthem

Swords Of A Thousand Men

There'll Always Be An England

TOP TEN NATIVE BRITISH BIRDS (not including planned reintroductions)

1: Raven

2: Osprey

3: Common Buzzard

4: Crow

5: Sea Eagle

6: Tawny Owl

7: Golden Eagle

8: Peregrine Falcon

9: Kestrel

10: Grey Heron

TOP 33 (and counting) ALBUMS OF THE MILLENNIUM

1: PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

2: Pearl Jam - Binaural

3: Muse - Black Holes & Revelations

4: Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf

5: Tool - Lateralus

6: Fugazi - The Argument

7: Pearl Jam - Backspacer

8: Muse - Origin Of Symmetry

9: Opeth - Blackwater Park

10: King's X - XV

11: Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows

12: Winterville - Everything In Moderation

13: Opeth - Heritage

14: Killing Joke - Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell

15: King's X - Live All Over The Place

16: Motorpsycho - Black Hole/Blank Canvas

17: Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia

18: Julian Cope: Black Sheep

19: HIM - Love Metal

20: Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions

21: Black Stone Cherry - Folklore & Superstition

22: System Of A Down - Toxicity

23: Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death

24: Chris Robinson - This Magnificent Distance

25: Monster Magnet - Monolithic Baby

26: Porcupine Tree - Deadwing

27: Nightwish - Once

28: Tool - 10,000 Days

29: Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam

30: Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit

31: Bad Religion - The Process Of Belief

32: PJ Harvey - White Chalk

33: The Pineapple Thief - Someone Here Is Missing

TOP 16 BEERS OF OUR ERA

List revised due to hazy recollections from Frocester Festival of the August bank holiday, and the previously eccentric numbering scheme that resulted in 13 entries to the top 12.

1: Orkney Dark Island

2: Uley Old Ric

3: Arran Dark

4: Mordue Workie Ticket

5: Beartown Brewery Polar Eclipse

6: Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted

7: St Peter's Mild

8: Cottleigh Peregrine

9: Hall & Woodhouse Tanglefoot

10:Wychwood Hobgoblin

11:Valhalla Sjolmet Stout

12: Phoenix Monkey Town Mild

13: Hampshire Edmund II Ironside Best

14: Isle Of Skye Black Cuillin

15: Gales HSB

16: Hepworth Iron Horse

TOP 18 (and counting) FILMS OF THE MILLENNIUM

The numerical order tends to change, so the order is approximate 

Being John Malkovich - barmy and unrelentingly funny from start to finish

Dog Soldiers - werewolves, swearing and a grand explosion to finish things off, plus regular references to other classics.

Lord Of The Rings series - hard to split the trio for quality, all are the dog's danglers. 

Four Lions - sublime satire from the Chris Morris stable married to cartoon slapstick of the idiots and explosions genre

Donnie Darko - armchair anarchist meets evil giant rabbit, gets better on the second view as so much is going on.

No Country For Old Men - everything turns out for the worst, repeatedly.

Downfall - epic lead performance by Bruno Ganz as Hitler, alternately polite and raging.

A Town Called Panic - it is about Cowboy, Indian, Horse and too many bricks, the rest is indescribably insane.

Into The Wild - a rare opportunity to say truthfully about a film, "based on a true story" and it is not dull as dishwater

The Last King Of Scotland - see Downfall. Except that the outstanding performances in surrounding madness do not involve Hitler.

In The Loop - The Thick Of It, but bigger, longer, madder and probably nearer reality than many would care to believe.

The Guard - Fish out of water/mismatched cop comedy capers are ten-a-penny, but very, very rarely executed with such excellence.

Sleepy Hollow - the ultimate gothoweird film, and an outstanding headless horseman

The Bourne Series: As per Lord of the Rings, they are treated as one, although a less than convincing number two (Supremacy) lets the side down.

Apocalypto: Mel Gibson tries to justify that the Aztecs deserved everything the Conquistadors did to them.

True Grit - the expected combo of violence, off-beat wit and Jeff Bridges.

Team America: World Police - worth watching simply for Kim Il-Jong singing "I'm So Ronery" and the rest is not too shoddy either.

Hot Rod - a rare combination of endearingly silly, but with enough subtleties to carry repeat viewing.

The Fighter - Not quite the true story it was billed as, the truer elements are the more improbable ones.

Gladiator - A big blockbuster box office film, but far better than average for the type, with added Oliver Reed.

BEST 8 CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL BEASTS

These are creatures thought to be i) mythological, ii) real but unproven or iii) potentially having survived official extinction. On this basis, some could argue for the including novice hurdlers that are trying from some stables, but that would be cruel, and the named people could be litigious...

1: Mongolian Death Worm (alghoi khorkhoi): A worm that can strike you dead just by the power of it's mind. It is one possible reason why Mongolia is sparsely populated 

2: Yeti/Bigfoot/Sasquatch: Because the idea of giant apes inhabiting the remote realms of the world is good fun

3: Skunk Ape: A variation on number 2 from south-east USA, but is worth a mention distinctly as it may just be a hippy

4: British Big Cats: I think we are just jealous because we have no predatory mammals bigger than a badger, which puts us joint 167th in the world mammal table with Vanuatu

5: Thylacine: It would be nice to think that attempts to exterminate it failed.

6: Strike Owl: On the whole, owls are pretty admirable beasts, so the idea that there is one haunting the Arctic lands so huge that it can hunt reindeer makes for a pretty decent prospect

7: Orang-Pendek: Another Sumatran large primate, supposedly a smaller version of the Orang-utan, and a fair possibility of actually existing

8: Anything giant, like the Moa, Lemurs, Ground Sloths, Anacondas etc: If they have survived and if they can be trained, we could race them.

TOP 7 CONSPIRACY THEORIES

1: Royal Family are Shape-Shifting Reptilian Bipeds: From the unappreciated genius that is David Icke. But do recent events show that Princess Anne's bull terrier is the real leader? It at least explains that odd, faraway expression in Icke's eyes when he used to say, "And now over to Julian Wilson at Haydock." And there's an odd conspiratorial connection...

2: Holy Blood, Holy Grail: Quite convincing this one. Talented and famous Jewish preacher becomes a target for establishment that he undermines in his teachings. Establishment wants rid of him. Fakes own death and does a runner. Where he has the edge on other fakers of his own death is the the authorities never caught up with him. Because they had no television news stations.

3: Kennedy Assassination: The argument is that Oswald's skills and equipment meant he could not have killed the president as events unfolded, unless it was a fluke shot. Perhaps it was! 

4: UFO Crash Cover-ups: A no lose scenario, as the lack of any evidence is proof of the cover-up. Supremely constructed to prevent any provable debunking. 

5: Diana Murder: The loudest protagonist a) employed the drunk driver, b) lost his son in the incident and c) has an ignominious history as far as integrity goes. Not exactly an objective witness then.

6: Bilderberg Group: A coven of high ranking businessmen and politicians in a media-excluded series of conferences to take over the world. Highly unethical for supposed guardians of democracy but maybe the businessmen involved are just taking the route to most easily guard their company's interests. And once your rivals are in, can you afford not to be? A bit like marketing, but cheaper and more in touch with reality.

7: AIDS a CIA invention: Assuming that the CIA has the wit to create a global plague, they would surely have made one that does it's jobs in years, or even months, not decades?

TOP 8 ADVERTISING-BASED REASON'S TO BOYCOTT A COMPANY'S PRODUCTS

1: It features fat-tongued mockney pseudo-chefs who are so deeply unpleasant that I cannot even name them

2: It features Ainsley Harriot

3: It features any other TV chef

4: It features anyone from a fly-on-the-wall documentary

5: It features a shoddy rerecording of a well-known song because they were too cheapskate to pay for the original (or in the case of Nescafe, does this to what was already a cover version!)

6: It takes a well-known pub or drinking game and sanitises it pathetically for an early evening audience

7: It tries to turn a series of ads into a a mini-series, usually populated by thoroughly nauseating individuals

8: It has one witty idea that then destroys it by being repeated 40,000 times per day