Picking A Caterpillar To The Maypole

It's advent and time to light the first candle on my home made advent crown having just bent some wire coat hangers out of shape and wrapped in some possibly non flame retardant tinsel to mark the first of four* posts before Christmas. The final post will be marked by a big brass band marching into the studio and playing Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night and 911 is a Joke (actually I may have imagined the last one) and it all feeling Christmassy and stuff.

One of the features of this time of year is the end of year list or countdown. You are probably sick to death of end of year / decade lists by now, if you're not you will be. They are a great way to fill space during a quiet news period and do sometimes provoke a interesting debate.

A good end of year / decade / century list should have a number of entries which everyone agrees are classics, some which are debatable but have some merit, a few flavours of the month which every critic hypes up but will be deservedly forgotten, an "ironic" entry and something to make you exclaim WTF or words to that effect. In some ways its like Catch Phrase where there is a familiar saying like 'Up the garden path' and there is something which they've clearly made up out of nowhere like 'picking a caterpillar to the maypole' for which you were left thinking "nobody in the world has ever said that, ever".

This is not to be confused with the television list show which is just 50 clips which we could afford, randomly arranged.When it comes to books you just get reminded of how many good books you will probably never read in your lifetime even if I was a speed reader.In some ways I guess its like picking a caterpillar to the maypole.


*May not be four, my recent output hasn't been exactly prolific :).