I suppose it all started when I first read David Wallechinskys Book of Lists in the early Eighties. He tapped into the fact that we all have this passion for lists. Psychologists tell us that this points out basic flaws in our toilet training and that those of us obsessed with reducing artefacts into ordered lists are stuck in an anal stage. Well what the hell. There is no way I’m going to re-potty train just to stop enjoying lists.
My list fixations were again fed with Ben Schotts Miscellany a couple of years ago and even more so with the recent Channel 4 Sunday night 100 Best….. Well you name it, comic movies, weepies etc etc .
All this inspired me, when I started my own blog on my website after I retired, to do a list of my own.
This started off as a list of my hundred favourite things, but sort of spread and most un-anally (maybe my mother got the toilet training right after all) became my 135 favourite things. This is mainly because, like a good scab, I just can’t leave this list alone, I keep adding and even subtracting things.
My prime anal moment (a moment which took nearly five weeks and caused Sile to really think I had, at last, lost it) was when I illustrated with a little picture every single thing on my list of favourites. This puts me in the same category of those nerds in primary school who couldn’t rest each year until they had coloured in every single picture in their catechism. You can see that here.

Well the result of all this listing is that I have been given a desire to list out even more lists and to break down the lists into smaller lists and that has made me finally come up with my notion of

Give Me Five

This is a list of five of my favourite things in any category that appeals to a momentary whimsy. Read down and you will see what I came up with after about an hour on the computer. These don’t have to be in order of preference or even to be definitive and can certainly be changed at will.
It doesn’t have to be five either, less or more if it suits you, and if you feel like giving reasons for your choice all the better.
To start the ball rolling I am going to list the first 17 categories which came to my head. If anyone would like to submit some of their own just press the comments button at the bottom of the page and do just that.
Who knows, Wallechinsky and Schott both made a fortune by exploiting their anal side.
Maybe its my turn.
PS I promise I wont add any pictures to these.

These are five of my favourite:

Musical Films

Some Like It Hot
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Cabaret
Guys and Dolls
Okalahoma

Places to visit in France

Mont St Michel
Albi Cathedral
Monaco
St Circ Lapoppie
Rasteau Village

Vegetables

Seakale
Swiss Chard
Asparagus
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Jerusalem Artichokes

Gilbert and Sullivan Operas

Patience
Mikado
Pirates of Penzance
HMS Pinafore
Yeoman of the Guard

Meals I’ve had in Ireland

Lunch in Thorntons
Dinner in Olde Post House in Cavan
Sunday Buffet in Ballymaloe
Lunch in Purple Heather in Kenmare(in ’73)
Dinners in Dwyers (Many)

Countries to holiday in

France
France Again
Italy
Spain
Ireland

Cheeses

Banon de Chevre
Gubbeen
Gorgonzola
Gruyere
Parmagiano

Paintings

Ihly’s Absinthe Drinker
Garzone’s Cherries
Monet’s Water Lilies
The Last Judgment by Roger Van Der Weyden
Bathers in Tramore by Celia Richards

Cook Books

French Provincal Cooking by Elizabeth David
Leaves from a Tuscan Kitchen Ross/Waterfield
Cookery by Constance Spry
Good Things Jane Grigson
Ballymaloe Cookbook Myrtle Allen

Beaches in Ireland

Derrynane in Kerry
Curracloe in Wexford
Foirnis in Connemara
Back Strand in Tramore
“Visitors” on Brownstown, Corbally Mor

Operas

Lucia di Lammermore
The Magic Flute
The Marriage of Figaro
La Traviata
Norma

Walks near Waterford

Up the Minaun
To Coomshangaun
Along The Old Dungarvan Railway
Along the river in Newtown
Cheekpoint to Passage East

Wines

White Macon
Good Reds from Southern Languedoc
Alsace Gewürztraminer
Beaune
Sancerre

Shakespeare’s Plays

Twelfth Night
A Comedy of Errors
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
Midsummer Night’s Dream

Things about Cork

Patricks Hill
The English Market
Visiting but not living there
UCC
The Lower Glanmire Road

Living People I Admire

Mary Boydell of the Glass Society
Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe
Jamie Oliver
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall
Mary Robinson

Famous People I Nearly Met

(stories provided on demand)

Paul Newman
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Tim Brooke Taylor
John F Kennedy
Frank Sinatra