I should have started this column a long time ago. Remember Nick Hornby's book "High Fidelity"? When I first read this book (only after watching the actually quite entertaining movie with John Cusack, although purists obviously would argue that you just can't take this essentially very British story to Chicago), I was delighted by his idea of creating a top five of... well, basically everything. The central theme of the book is his top five of girlfriends who broke his heart. But he also spends a lot of time thinking about his top five songs, films etc., with sub-categories like best side one tracks of all times (doesn't really work anymore these days, sadly), best Elvis Costello songs, best subtitled films and so on.
I got a bit obsessed with this for a little while and quite creative in inventing my own categories like the five most annoying things my children do, favourite words (this one I actually stole from the magnificent "Mary and Max"), best memories, most disagreeable noises... If you think about it, you can classify almost anything, which probably satisfies the secret nerd in me. But aren't you stunned like me when asked to name your three favourite books or the film that moved you most this year?
So, to cut a very long-winded story short, in this category (here it is again, the pleasing process of putting things into order) I will write down recent discoveries - be it a book, music, a clever quote or a beautiful poem.