TEN BEST LISTS

A decade ago a lady got up to offer me her seat on the bus. I realised this was the beginning of the end. So I compiled a list of my ten favourite books before the Grim Reaper came calling, promising to follow it up with films and records.

I posted the list as this blog, and looking at it again ten years on, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I might comment that two years later the world suddenly recognised John Williams’ Stoner for the masterpiece it is, but it was virtually unknown when I wrote the blog. I’d read it in 1972, thanks to Sue Watt-Lawrence’s recommendation.

Of course I never got round to posting my favourite films and records. So now I shall make amends. Ten years later I’m still hale and hearty, and I thought — why leave it at films and records? I’m going to post my Top Ten of everything I can think of, starting with
Follies
Fonts
Films
Pop Records
Classical Pieces
Hymns & Carols
Welsh Tunes
Paintings
Trees
Wines
Beers
Dishes
Cars
and any more subjects I can think of where I can list my favourites. Because for certain these lists will not be the Ten Best Ever Of All Time, just ten of the things that have pleased me a lot.

So here goes. Let’s start with Films:

1946 A Matter of Life and Death (Powell & Pressburger)
1952 The Sound Barrier (Lean)
1953 Le Salaire de la Peur (Clouzot)
1954 Them! (Douglas)
1963 It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Kramer)
1966 Un Homme et Une Femme (Lelouch)
1999 L’Humanité (Dumont)
2001 Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
2006 The Lives of Others (von Donnersmarck)
2017 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (McDonagh)

It’s hard to choose just ten, isn’t it? Some crackers have been cast aside. But ten it is. I wonder what I’ll think in ten years time? I wonder what you think now?