It's all in the list

I wonder who devised the first Top Ten List.

My gut feeling is that whoever did write the first one, well, it was probably written during the formative years of Mesopotamia, the earliest known complex civilisation thousands of years B (Before) C (The Big Man).

So that's way before the Ten Commandments, and even more way before I started writing to Santa Claus.

It could have been a list of laws, of people, maybe of groceries. It could have contained any number of things, well, 10 things in any event. It could even have just represented the only 10 words in the written language that existed at the time.

Either way, the Top Ten List has its place in history. Since the first, many have been written, debated, fought over. It's become quite important really, and if the world needs anything in these credit-crunched, axis-of-evilled, environmentally-doomed times, it's the ability to collect what we know or what we want into a list, something that can be ticked off to make us feel a little safer.

It's all in the list.

As we near the demise of 2008 therefore, I've been mulling over my own Top Ten List, and how you can look at the year in any number of ways.

For example, here's one way:

1. Holiday to Portugal was cancelled.
2. Car rolled into Loch Lomond and was written off.
3. Our other car coughed and spluttered and we had to cough and splutter up £1,300 to fix it.
4. Oven broke, had to buy a new one.
5. Boiler took a turn for the worse.
6. Fridge/Freezer met an untimely death, as did the contents.
7. Our satellite TV took on a mind of its own and now works whenever it feels like it.
8. As with most of you out there, money's been tighter than usual this year.
9. I've never been busier at work.
10. The weather's been nothing but pants for most of the year.

But then, here's another:

1. Ourselves, our family & friends are healthy and, for the most part, happy.
2. We've enjoyed a busier and more enjoyable social life than ever.
3. We've managed to get away on a few holidays, despite one having been cancelled.
4. The website's pulling in thousands of visitors a month & increasing all the time, even though I've had hardly any time to write on it.
5. We started the podcast and again have attracted thousands of listeners already, with the Facebook and MySpace sites growing every day (remember to join if you've not done so already).
6. I've never been busier at work!
7. We saw our mates getting married in Andalucia.
8. With all the things in the other list, has come some great stories to tell.
9. We've had some great Christmas lunches & dinners already and the big one's still to come.
10. Having enjoyed a packed year we've a superb 2009 to look forward to.

So like I say, it's all in the list, and it's up to you to choose what to put in it.

I couldn't tell you who wrote the first Top Ten List, or even the second, but what I can tell you is that I can't wait to see what next year's will include.

(hopefully something a bit more amusing, you might say...)