New format this time, instead of 100 arbitrary facts (I’m not that interesting) I present to you my top ten top ten lists. You can find other such posts here and here. This is a list of my favourites and may not be an indication of what is actually “best”. Booya.

List I: Top ten Bible books

I Ecclesiastes

II Gospel of John

III Revelation

IV Proverbs

V Genesis

VI Acts

VII Romans

VIII Ezekiel

IX Gospel of Luke

X Hebrews

List II: Top ten Non-religious books

XI L’étranger by Albert Camus

XII Lord of the Flies by William Golding

XIII La Peste by Albert Camus

XIV The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

XV Eureka! The Birth of Science by Andrew Gregory

XVI Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Snigh

XVII The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinnis

XVIII The Story of the World Cup by Brian Glanville

XIX Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

XX La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide

List III: Top ten Movies

XXI Terminator 2: Judgement Day

XXII The Terminator

XXIII Serial Lover

XXIV Return of the Jedi

XXV A Beautiful Mind

XXVI Juno

XXVII The Dark Knight

XXVIII Batman Begins

XXIX Spiderman 2

XXX Casino Royale

List IV: Top ten TV shows

XXXI Doctor Who

XXXII Peep Show

XXXIII Torchwood

XXXIV Mock the Week

XXXV Have I Got News for You

XXXVI QI

XXXVII Match of the Day

XXXVIII Give My Head Peace (RIP)

XXXIX Futurama

XL Gavin and Stacey

List V: Top Ten Radio Shows

XLI I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue (RIP Humph)

XLII The Now Show

XLIII The News Quiz

XLIV The Chris Moyles Show

XLV Sport on Five

XLVI The Scott Mills Show

XLVII Mark and Lard (I know it’s not on anymore, but still)

XLVIII Fighting Talk

XLIX Stephen Nolan

L Richard Bacon

List VI: Top ten Pet Hates

LI People standing at pedestrian crossings and waiting, having not pressed the button

LII Cyclists going through red lights & riding on Jawbone Walk

LIII Smug Mac users & Apple fanboyism generally

LIV People saying “3AM in the morning” or “5PM in the afternoon”

LV “Apostrophe’s” or, worse, “comma,s” where they aren’t supposed to be

LVI Windows Vista

LVII James Allen on ITV F1 coverage

LVIII People who shout “Come on [insert British player here]” at Wimbledon

LIX The general attitude towards Mathematics these days

LX The obsession with celebrities

List VII: Top ten music artists

LXI Muse

LXII Green Day

LXIII REM

LXIV Ting Tings

LXV Manu Chao

LXVI Arctic Monkeys

LXVII Amy MacDonald

LXVIII Snow Patrol

LXIX Blink 182

LXX Bloc Party

List VIII: Top ten countries other than the UK & Ireland I might want to live in

LXXI Canada

LXXII Monaco

LXXIII Germany

LXXIV New Zealand

LXXV Australia

LXXVI France

LXXVII Denmark

LXXVIII South Korea

LXXIX Luxembourg

LXXX Switzerland

List IX: Top ten on my iTunes most played

LXXXI Still Alive by GlaDos (from the Portal soundtrack)

LXXXII Machines by Biffy Clyro

LXXXIII Pork and Beans by Weezer

LXXXIV Folding Stars by Biffy Clyro

LXXXV Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day

LXXXVI Great DJ by Ting Tings

LXXXVII Imitation of Life by REM

LXXXVIII Supernatural Superserious by REM

LXXXIX Mr Rock & Roll by Amy MacDonald

XC From Despair to Where by Manic Street Preachers

List X: Random Facts

XCI I once played a former Romanian Olympic Table Tennis player. Surprisingly, I lost

XCII I’m currently watching “This Morning” in KB House

XCIII I like Roman Numerals

XCIV I couldn’t tell you exactly how long I’ve been a Christian for

XCV I don’t like it when it’s hot

XCVI My favourite Ice cream flavour is Mint Choc Chip

XCVII I don’t take as many photos as I used to

XCVIII The best thing to put on toast is peanut butter

XCIX Maps are great and I could look at one for hours

… and finally…

C Writing lots of things like this is really hard!

Thanks for reading, I don’t think I’ll be doing another one of these again somehow, but you never know! Cheerio!

Mastermind Sport was on tonight and I thought it would be cool if you could tell me:

A) what your three specialist subjects for sport would be and

B) what your three specialist subjects for non-sport Mastermind would be

(the reason I ask for three is that you need to win in three rounds to win the Mastermind title)

For the record, here are my choices:

Sport: Northern Ireland in the FIFA World Cup
The Formula One World Championship since 1996
The RBS Six Nations

Normal: The works of Albert Camus
Futurama (yes I know but David Blunkett did Harry Potter)
World Capitals

Considering I have seen “Professional tennis in Israel 1985 to the present day”  “Liechtenstein in the 20th century” and “Harry Potter” as even more bizarre subjects than these. But what are yours?

Been busy for a while and meant to review some stuff. So now I am sort of on holiday for a bit, here goes…

1. Series review of Peep Show series 5.

Peep Show remains one of the funniest things on TV, but you can’t help but wonder if it’s lost direction since Mark and Sophie’s botched marriage. Whereas the previous series had some kind of event that it seemed to be leading up to (e.g. mark and sophie getting engaged, jeremy getting married, mark getting married etc), this one seemed to lack any kind of overall arc. This may not necessarily have been a bad thing, because it gives the writers a certain degree of freedom as to scenarios, but Mark’s obsession of finding “the one” (attempts include a girl who brings her own cheese to work and a woman who believes in the power of crystal skulls) didn’t seem to lead anywhere as you thought it might. Still, there are some brilliant scenarios like the scene in a stationery cupboard, and Jez trying to get aroused over a £20 note, and many other cringeworthy moments (“I haven’t been raped! She didn’t put anything up my bum!”) which make the show great. The lack of overall direction can be forgiven, however, when you hear Sophie’s bombshell at the end of the last episode. No surprises guessing what Series 6 is going to culminate in… So yes this is probably the weakest series to date, but it’s still miles better than a lot of other stuff out at the minute, especially anything that claims to be Mighty.

2. Lego Indiana Jones (PS3)

Or Lego Star Wars by any other name. This is more or less identical to its predecessor in every way, although obviously the stories, characters and their abilities are different. I shall start by saying it is entertaining, but it has many, many flaws.

The main one being it is extremely infuriating at times, and this coming largely from the fact that the rest of it is much too easy. I lost count of how many times we tried to do the mine cart section in “Temple of Doom” because there was a glitch that meant you couldn’t achieve one of the goals in co-op mode, or how many times Indy fell into the snakes or how many times I tried to kill that annoying woman in Temple of Doom and she came back to life.

That said, there are a lot of funny moments (although some imagery was toned down for kids) and it is a laugh when playing with a friend, but to be honest, it’s more suited for the bargain bin than as a full game in its own right. Basically, it’s a big advert for the new movie (which doesn’t appear in the game. How odd…)

3. Race Driver: Grid (PS3)

Gran Turismo 4 demanded too much. GT Racer sucked. Formula One Championship Edition was outdated when it arrived. Enter Race Driver:Grid.

There are many reasons why this can claim to be the new daddy of all the racers, a lot of which are to do with GT5 not being released until after my grandson graduates.

However, to compare it to an unreleased game is unfair, so let’s judge it on its own merits. To say it’s the best racer ever might be hyperbole, but it’s certainly up there, and for one very good reason. THE AI MAKES MISTAKES. Yes. I don’t know how long it’s been, but a game where the AI makes errors like you do has been long in the pipeline. GT4 occasionally showed flashes of it, but the AI generally only made mistakes because you nudged it out of the way and it ended up on the grass. Here, the cars go in too deep at corners, suffer from understeer and oversteer and cause pile-ups, the like of which I haven’t seen since Destruction Derby 2. Which reminds me that there is a brilliant Destruction Derby still “last man standing” event where you have to manoeuvre a car with hideous handling around a track with crossovers and mutliple pile-ups, which is a highlight for me.

As is the “Pro Tuned” category which has you haring around Japanese docks littered with loose boxes and tyres and “Touge” (a one-on-on race along a mountainside) which is probably a direct attempt to incorporate elements of “need for speed” into it.
It’s absolutely brilliant and I recommend it for whatever platform you might have, though I hear the DS version is a bit ropy.

I’ve been listening to NI radio online lately, and one thing that strikes me is that the adverts on the radio seem to be a lot more morbid than you get here.

There’s one I just heard, it has two girls talking to each other one the phone

“Hey Laura I had a great time last night.”
“Me too! I wonder if Gemma snogged that bloke we left her with last night?”
“No idea. I’ve been texting her all day and she hasn’t replied”
“That’s strange.. that’s not like her at all…”

Cut to a voiceover:
“When you’re drinking, stick together. Because when you realise what might have happened, it may be too late.”

Similarly there’s some clips of a man speaking to his mates in the pub

“This is Dave. He sounds okay… but he has problems deep down. Make the first step. Talk to someone.” I’ve never heard an advert like this in Scotland, but it’s perfectly logical as Northern Ireland’s suicide rate is too high for comfort.

And then you have the infamously graphic DOE adverts warning against speeding and drink driving, where the message seems to be “if you speed or drink drive lots of innocent people will die horribly”. The jury is out on whether the shock tactics work (the grim floral memorials on the Belfast-Bangor road are testament to this), but I guess there is only so much one can do.

But when you grow up surrounded by all these things, there’s little wonder NI people often have such a dark sense of humour.

Below is a DoE speeding advert: I advise caution when watching this.