Top 40 Greatest TV Moments of 2006 #10-1

01)The Guy Goma Interview

So what is it that makes the #1 on my list. An Emmy award winning drama? A moment of genius from the World Cup? Nah, it's a moment of televisual genius that will embarrass the BBC for years that isn't even long enough to be a moment really. It is of course the moment when Guy Goma, who went for a job interview at the BBC, ended up being mistaken for a spokesperson on downloading.

Now if this had happened to anyone else, I'm sure it would have been quite amusing but would have probably been forgotten about after a couple of showings on Auntie's Bloomers. But it's his multitude of hilarious facial expressions when the presenter is announcing her intended guest that makes it one of the best all-time TV cock-ups.

Almost as funny is when the man on the outside broadcast actually refers back to something Goma said, as if everything he said made absolute sense. Somehow, he didn't get the job he actually went for. If it was up to me, I'd have given him his own show.

02) The UK Apprentice
Just as good, if not better than the first series, the UK Apprentice was just unmissable TV from start to finish.

Ruth Badger, who was robbed in the final, was the star of the show, but other characters such as manic Jo, unbelievably pompous Paul (who didn’t cheer when he was ripped to shreds in his interview?) and Syed, the male equivalent of last year’s Saira, provided just as much entertainment.

Highlights included Matt Lucas’ cousin ordering an entire chicken for each pizza in a restaurant task, one team making a rather pornographic advert for a credit card and the most cringeworthy piece of TV all year, Nargiss’ woefully inept pitch for her group’s kitten calendar.

03) Celebrity Big Brother
While not as good as last year’s inspired casting of John McRirick, Jackie “yeah Brackie” Stallone and Germaine Greer, this year’s lot were just as Z-list, controversial and diverse as ever.

Of course, the star of the show was Chantelle, a girl who’s been lumped in with the Jade Goodys and Nikki Grahames of this world, but was far more likeable, grounded and intelligent – she held her own against George Galloway on several occasions and seemed genuinely humbled to have won.

Like this year's normal BB, the celebrity version also had an undercurrent of nastiness, the bullying of Jodie Marsh, Pete Burns vile attack on Tracy Bingham and basically just the presence of Michael Barrymore but on the whole was far more entertaining and less contrived. Let's hope the next one, starting in a few days, will be just as good.

04) Malcolm In The Middle
And so the most under-rated sitcom of this decade came to an end. Like a human version of the Simpsons, at its best MITM was the most inventive, chaotic and laugh-out-loud comedy on TV. Yet moved around the BBC2 schedules, it’s never caught on as much as it should have done in the UK.

The last couple of series have been patchy, with its increasing surrealism not really working. But the tenth and final series just about got it together to give it a proper send-off. The final episode tied up all the loose ends - Malcolm going to uni, Reese leaving home, Hal & Lois having another baby, without resorting to going over the top. Lois, who remains one of the best comedy characters of all time, will be sorely missed.

05) Desperate Housewives
It wasn't as compelling as the first series, and the whole Applewhites storyline didn't really work at all, but it was still pretty unmissable TV thanks mainly to Bree, the undisputed star of the show whose struggle with alcohol, coping with her husband's death and relationships with her husband's killer, her sex addict confidant and her devil incarnate son were brilliantly written and performed. Let's hope we have more of the same next series and less of the increasingly irritating Susan.

06) The final The Royle Family
I've only ever cried at two programmes/films, the Eastenders episode where Ethel died and more embarrassingly, Macauley Culkin's rather traumatic bee-sting death in My Girl (I was only ten at the time.) But the excellent Royle Family one-off special almost made it three.It may have been obvious from the first five minutes that Nana would end up carking it but the superb performances and poignant script meant it didn't make it any less upsetting when it finally happened.

The scenes where Nana told Barbara she was glad she wasn't in a home, where Barbara thought she had died in her bed, and where all her family kissed Nana goodbye in hospital were both beautifully written and heartbreaking at the same time. Both Liz Smith and Sue Johnston deserve BAFTA nominations next year.

It felt like more of a drama than a comedy but there were still flashes of the usual brilliant Royle Family humour, Jim ranting about "gays on television", Cheryl's hilarious lonely hearts dates, Denise wanting to palm off her son to watch Jeremy Kyle episodes she'd Sky +d. Overall, it showed Only Fools & Horses how to do a comeback special and was a fitting finale to what is one of the most innovative, funny and well-written sitcoms of the last ten years.

07) Sinchronicity
BBC3 only ever seems to serve as an outlet for endless repeats of Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps. That was until Sinchronicity, a sort of adult version of As If, featuring two of its stars, Jemima Rooper and Paul Chequer which came onto our screens in August.

Using Sliding Doors-style different scenarios, flashbacks and characters addressing the camera Alfie-Style, it told the story of best friends Nathan, Jase and Fi, involved in a complicated love triangle which became a square when Jase started a gay affair with doctor Mani.

Featuring an excellent soundtrack, convincing performances and characters who you actually cared about, why this was tucked away on digital I don’t know, but like last year’s equally as brilliant Conviction, it shows that BBC3 can make quality, innovative programmes when they want to.

08)The Box Sign Language Videos
Music channels aren’t exactly renowned for their innovative ideas but The Box made the genius decision to start signing videos late at night for the benefit of deaf people and the even more genius decision to hire middle aged women to do it.

It may be considered un-PC to find this funny but I'm not laughing AT the middle aged women trying desperately to sign in time to the likes of Usher's "Yeah" or Sean Paul's "We Be Burnin," I'm laughing WITH them. The expressions on their faces as they really throw themselves into it really is a joy to watch.

09) Big Brother
It’s strange to put a show that I watched religiously for three months only at #9 but I had to ask myself did I actually enjoy it, and the answer was for the most part, no.

This year’s Big Brother was the most unpleasant, vindinctive and contrived reality show in the genre’s history. Grace has to be the most unlikeable contestant ever, Sezer was sleaze personified, Spiral was even sleazier, Mikey was misogynistic and Glyn, the “loveable” moron has to be the most moronic person I’ve ever seen. Not knowing how to make a sandwich at 18 isn’t adorable or naïve, it’s mind-numbingly stupid. The show completely jumped the shark as well by allowing the public to vote the monstrous Nikki back in to win.

And Pete would have been a worthy winner up until the last week, when his inoffensive nice guy act crumbled around him as he cynically ployed for votes by getting so offended by Aisleyne’s mock speech, the dead best friend vision and then of course, that see-through relationship with Nikki. He’s become easily the most repulsive winner of BB yet.

So what did I like about it? Well Aisleyne stole the show for me. Maybe it was because the others were so abhorrent, but she stood out as the sole voice of reason in the nuthouse, was the only person to stick up properly for Suzie when Grace chucked water over her and provided some of the best facial expressions on final night when it was revealed Nikki, Jennie and Richard were going before her.

Suzie, who most wrongly thought was the most boring person in there, was so out-of-place she was actually one of the more entertaining. She may have been a contradiction – a tea,drinking, easily offended fame-hungry stripper but her "let’s make a cup of tea" reaction to everything conjured up images of a real-life Mrs Doyle and her treatment by Davina McCall in her final interview was shockingly unfair.

And there were many other fantastic moments, both Pete and Imogen’s songs, Imogen’s radio Hot Topics jingle, the look on Sezer’s face when he found out he was evicted, Nikki’s original diary-room rants before she got evicted and voted in again etc.

Like The X Factor, it's one of those shows that infuriates you as much as entertains you. Let's hope next year, they can stop the lame twists every five seconds, put some vaguely normal people in there and stop the blatant bias towards/against contestants. I doubt they will somehow.

10) Totally Boyband
MTV UK might be a load of Yank-centric rubbish most of the time (does anyone outside the US know who Master P is? So why do we need to see his "Cribs" about ten times every week?) but it really does excel when it comes to commissioning their own reality shows. After the excellent car-crash series that was Totally Scott-Lee comes the follow up, Totally Boyband.

The concept was simple. To follow around a newly-created boyband supergroup made up of five singers who combined have "apparently" sold 80 million records worldwide. But you wouldn't be able to laugh at the show if it were former pop stars who actually had talent, Gary Barlow, Tony Mortimer etc. So instead we got a group made up mostly of people who never actually sang on their records, Lee Latchford Evans, Danny Wood, Jimmy Constable.

Unfortunately despite their lowly status, most of them had rather large egos to say the least and despite Dane Bowers being the only vocally gifted member, in a huge lack of self-awareness, they decided to sack Lee for being talentless. Which made their dismal chart position (No.35) even more satisfying. Star of the show, like last year, was Concept Records' Roseann McBride, the bluntest woman on earth, whose effing, blinding and brutal honesty made the show even funnier.

Top 40 Greatest TV Moments #20-11

11) The X Factor

This was going to be much further down the list up until last Saturday's finale in the auditionees rendition of Earth Song where Lorraine missed her cue completely, providing one of the funniest moments of the year.

If only the rest of the series had been as entertaining. The thing is, for the first time since Will Young, I actually found someone, in fact two acts, worth rooting for in Leona, by far and away the best talent show contestant the UK has ever had and Eton Road, a boyband who understood the whole concept of pop music perfectly.

But the rest of it was so utterly contrived, mundane or both, it unfortunately cancelled the good points out. The sob-stories were exploitative in the extreme, the songs were the same songs we've heard the past three series (does anyone need to hear Somewhere Over The Rainbow or I Don't Want To Miss A Thing ever again?) and in the likes of Ray, the McDonald Brothers and Nikita, we had the most mediocre and unexciting set of contestants ever.

Thank God that sense prevailed and that Leona won, making watching the whole sorry mess worthwhile. Surely even Simon Cowell won't give her Westlife rejects for her album.

12) Lost
You tend to forget that we’ve actually gone through three series of Lost this year, what with the tail end of S1 at the beginning of the year, S2 in the Summer and then the opening six episodes on Sky One just recently. And yet we’re still no closer to finding out what the hell is going on. Surely the producers should have given us something by now? Anyway, despite it being utterly infuriating at times (why does no-one ever ask any questions?) when it’s good, it’s really good, and Michael shooting and killing Ana-Lucia and Libby was the most shocking and unexpected TV moment of the year.

13) Lee Otway’s Strop on Love Island
Don't get me wrong. This year's Love Island really did scrape the bottom of the barrel like it has never done before. You know you're in trouble when Bombhead from Hollyoaks is the most recognisable face in there. The likes of Chris Brosnan, Calum Best and Bianca Gascoigne proved you don't even need to be a Z-list celeb to be on a reality show, as long as you're related to someone famous, that's fine. I'm sure next year we'll see Claudia Winkelman's brother's dry cleaner in there.

Anyway, the show, not surprisingly, bombed but at times it was embarrassingly entertaining, mainly thanks to Sophie Anderton's daily breakdowns and the utter stupidity of Lady Victoria Hervey, who didn't know where America was on a map, even though she lived there. Best of all was Lee Otway's hilariously cringeworthy reaction to being rejected by an ex Playboy model, stomping his way around the diary room, breaking camera equipment and curling up his bottom lip in an almighty two-year-old style tantrum. He made Paul Danan look balanced.

14) The Keith Chegwin Extras episode

On the whole, the second series of Extras was a disappointment, relying on repetitive storylines (Maggie puts her foot in it…again) “have them for the sake of it” cameos and ludicrously unbelievable plots (a critically mauled sitcom star becomes as famous as The Pope). But the first episode promised so much, whether it was the Lenny Henry gag, Orlando Bloom’s vendetta against Johny Depp or Maggie being humiliated by a former extra. But the star of the show and the series was Keith Chegwin’s whose foul-mouthed racist send-up was on a par with last year’s Les Dennis nervous breakdown and showed you don’t need big stars for the cameos to work. If only the rest of the series hadn’t smugly disappeared up its own arse.

15) Chef’s Death in South Park
How to get your own back Trey Parker and Matt Stone style. When Isaac Hayes hypocritically announced he was quitting voicing Chef due to the show mocking his Scientology religion (when he’d been happy to appear in a show that had mocked every other religion, race and minority there is) the show’s creators got their revenge by giving Chef’s character probably the least graceful exit ever, turning him into a paedophile and giving him the most violent and undignified death imaginable. The most shockingly funny bit of TV this year.

16) Popworld
Forget Top Of The Pops or CDUK, the biggest loss to pop music TV came in April when the brilliantly subversive Popworld came to an end. OK, so Miquita Oliver often came across as pretentious and was nothing more than a spare part, but that doesn't matter when you've got Simon "hell-bent on showing up popstars" Amstell.

His finest moment will always remain attempting to chat up homophobic reggae star Beenie Man but each week you’d be guaranteed at least one popstar who just didn't get the joke. The final show avoided all the usual compilation cliches, and instead provided us with a finale where Simon and Miquita discovered that God was actually Daniel Bedingfield. The show continued with different presenters, Alexa Chung and Alex Zane, but no matter how hard they try, and they are getting better, it’s never going to be the same.

17) Dragon's Den

The first few series of Dragon's Den somehow completely passed me by and I only stumbled upon this one by accident. Set up like a businessman's Pop Idol, the show revolves around wannabe-entrepreneurs pitching their products in an attempt to persuade five successful multi-millionaires, the "dragons", to invest in their business. And like Pop Idol, it's the utterly clueless people thar provide the most entertainment.

The dragons themselves make Simon Cowell look like Fern Britton. Totally and utterly intimidating, it's not surprising that most people just fall apart when making their pitch. Two of them, Duncan and Theo, have to be the most obnoxious, patronising and grumpiest people on TV, but the other three, for the most part, are usually quite fair and offer constructive advice e.g. don't give up your day job, rather than just totally humiliating them. Along with The Apprentice, this showed that business programmes can be fun too.

18) Hotel Inspector
Another show which copied Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares formula, hotelier Ruth Watson tries to help ailing hotels boost their business usually by obvious things (nicer rooms, nicer food, better organisation etc.) The show is watchable but nothing outstanding. The reason why it’s so high up is due to two particular episodes, the first which centred around The Saxonia Hotel in Weston-Super-Mare run by a middle-aged couple, so bizarre they could have come from The League Of Gentlemen, who said in all seriousness that they would kill themselves if they weren’t awarded an extra star in their next inspection. The second and most disturbing was the Sparkles Hotel in Blackpool, a scary children's themed hotel which charges £500 for the privilege of sleeping in a room covered with Barbie dolls and frightening looking mannequins.

19) I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here
This year’s I’m A Celebrity was one of the most tedious so far thanks to its most Z-list cast, the stupid idea to break up the camp into males/females and the fact that most of them got on so well, the only thing the show seemed to consist of was them telling us how hungry they were. Of course there were a few moments of TV Gold: Lauren Booth’s Beenie Man moves, Phina and Scott’s bitch fight in the Treasure Chest, and of course the enigma that was David Gest whose tales of genitalia-named cleaners and one legged parents had everyone in fits of laughter and goes to show the media can completely twist someone’s persona. But of course, this year will always be remembered for one thing- Dean Gaffney’s near mental breakdown on his bush tuckertrial. Looking as though he’d literally been taken in against his will, he shrieked and yelped his way through every single part, and didn’t seem to have a clue where he was. The look on Ant and Dec’s faces said everything.

20) Porno, Preachers and Peddlers
A show which probably only one man and his dog saw, this was still the best documentary I saw all year and is surprisingly one of two BBC3 shows in the Top 20.

The programme followed the progress of three new cable channels in its opening months, I-Buy TV, a shopping channel in which its main host believed he could persuade someone to buy something by just staring into their eyes, Television X, an adult channel which had so few viewers for its text show, had to rely on the directors to message in themselves and most amusing of all, Revelations TV, a British Christian channel run by just one family, which made Live TV look like the pinnacle of British Broadcasting. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Viewers were asked to pray when their phone system went down during a phone-in for suicidal people, an explicit sex education video was accidentally shown in the middle of the afternoon. You couldn't make it up. This was a hilarious and eye-opening look behind the scenes at just a few of the seemingly never-ending amount of cheap, rubbish channels that are swarming satellite TV.

Top 40 Greatest TV Moments of 2006 #30-21

21) Screen Wipe
Charlie Brooker is without a doubt, the most truthful TV critic there is. His Screen Wipe book is offensively hilarious and his TV show, buried away on BBC4, is just as colourful. There are so many moments on Youtube that I could have chosen to illustrate this, but this introduction to British TV to a group of Americans sums up how his observations can be both funny and rather depressing at the same time.

22) Silvia Night's Eurovision tantrum
Eurovision was OK this year - a different winner, a half-decent UK entry and Terry Wogan on top form as usual. However, it's someone who didn't even make the final that makes this list. Silvia Night, who makes Bjork look like Dido, didn’t make the final, getting eliminated in the rather new idea of a semi-final. Not exactly the most gracious loser, she then decided to exact her revenge by slagging off the other contestants, calling an innocent journalist a slut for no reason at all and telling the press she will sue them and they will all go to jail. This was the funniest showbiz strop of the year. I don’t know anything about her but I’m assuming she’s some elaborate joke which some people aren’t quite in on.

23) 7 Stupidest Things To Escape From

I usually find the kind of shows where people deliberately inflict pain on themselves (Jackass, Dirty Sanchez) the most utterly moronic and unfunny shows on TV. The difference here was that escaplogist Jonathan Goodwin actually gives himself a chance to prevent injury, by setting himself timed tasks which he must complete in order to avoid both pain and embarrassment.

Unfortunately Goodwin isn't the world's most prolific escapologist and so more often than not, ends up nearly having his nipples ripped off, being burned by an iron or worst of all, being seen naked and in full bondage gear in front of his immediate family. It’s still moronic but it’s done with a sense of humour, a nod to Harry Houdini and Goodwin comes across as a very likeable if someone who’s a glutton for punishment.

24) Numberwang
That Mitchell & Webb Look was inconsistent as a series, far too clever for its own good and many sketches forgot to add anything resembling humour. But it could also be hilarious at times, none more so than the piss-take of daytime quiz shows, the nonsensical Numberwang. Adam & Joe did it better on Quizzlesticks but this was still silly parody at its best.

25) US Apprentice
Not as enjoyable as the UK one but still ridiculously over-the-top entertainment, mainly due to seeing how many times the preposterous Donald Trump can shamelessly self-plug in one episode.

The contestants, were on the whole, pretty hateful people. Arrogant, cocky, no sense of self-awareness, they made the UK’s Syed look like a shy, retiring wallflower. It was hard to care who actually won they were all so unlikeable but it was fun watching them bitch and backstab their way to the top. In the end , Kendra, the most deserving contestant ended up the winner, beating the slightly neurotic Tana in the series’ first all women final.

26) The Hollyoaks Fire
Maybe I’m too old to still be watching this but I’ve actually found Hollyoaks far more watchable than any other soap this year. Yes it’s still terminally bad at times - the Irish cross-dresser is perhaps the most irritating character in soap history and some of the acting is never more than school play-standard. But when it goes ridiculously over-the-top, it does it in style.

The whole plotline may have been totally ludicrous - a mild-mannered guy gets lured into date-raping by his best friend and then becomes a mass-murdering psycho all within a few months. But it resulted in a spectacular finale which showed Emmerdale how to do an explosion, killed off several characters in one go and managed to be both moving (the twins deaths) and funny (Joe’s mobile ringing from a body bag) at the same time.

27) The Madness of Boy George
The madness in the title should be referring to him agreeing to take part in this often bizarre profile of one of the most colourful characters in pop music.

Trawling Gaydar for one night-stands, making odd home-made video diaries, slagging off the likes of Madonna and Elton John at any given opportunity, this Channel 4 show, following his community service for cocaine possession, only showed what a rather tragic and bitter if still very entertaining person he had become.

28) Girls Aloud: Off The Record
Who'd have thought it. A warts and all documentary about a pop group which did show every wart possible rather than a sanitised version the record company wanted you to see. Off The Record followed Britain's #2 girl group around for a few months and revealed exactly what they're all like. Nicola and Kimberley are lovely, Nadine couldn't look less bothered if she tried, Cheryl is a stroppy cow, and surprisingly, Sarah was the biggest diva of them all.

29) Shipwrecked
Sun, sea, sand, scripted reality TV – what more could you want for your Sunday afternoon viewing. The original castaway show returned but this time with a competition element which may have been a good idea on paper, but ultimately led to the most blatant scripting of a reality show I can remember.

The idea - two islands both start off with five castaways each. Each week, a new castaway would spend three days on each island and then choose which island they wanted to live on for the remainder of their stay. The winning island would share a rather paltry sum of £75,000 between them.

So how convenient then, that after 20-odd weeks, each island was even on the very last show. People joined islands for no given reason at all, fights were started with no provocation, every conversation started with a “So, how are you etc.” as if they were reading them off an autocue - everything was so utterly contrived. So why have I put it in? Well, it was still genuinely entertaining, there were several highly likeable and dislikeable characters and it helped to pass a couple of hours each Sunday for a few months.

30) Boys Will Be Girls
I’m not sure whether to include this in the Best or Worst list as it’s one of those jaw-droppingly bad ideas that somehow compels you to watch but leaves you feeling rather dirty after having watched it.

The concept – to find a new girlgroup, but with a twist – it had to be made up of ex-boyband members. You weren’t sure whether to feel contempt for them for doing absolutely anything for a bit of fame, or to feel sorry for them for being exploited by their cretin of a manager, Nathan Moore.

The band was made up of Austin Drage, a member of an unsigned boyband (that’s how low down the boyband food chain they had to go) who was the term “little shit” personified, Russ from Scooch, who’s about as feminine-looking as Geoff Capes and Martin from Fast Food Rockers, who looked worryingly good in drag and indeed, you get the feeling he'd be carrying on this little experiment long after the show finished.

The fact that this group couldn’t score a top 200 hit in their own gender didn’t seem to phase them and they bravely went for it culminating in the show’s climax, a gig at Butlin’s. Surprisingly only half of the audience guessed they weren’t of the fairer sex. Like a slightly warped Faking It, this was compulsive viewing and the actual song they recorded wasn’t bad at all. But considering it never got released, you have to ask what was the point of it all.

Top 40 Greatest TV Moments of 2006 #40-31

So now time for the Top 40 Greatest TV Moments of 2006. This might be a little premature as we've still got two weeks TV left but looking at the Christmas Radio Times, I can't see there being any major televisual events that will be missed out. Well, apart from the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures of course.

My Top 40 Singles list was pretty easy to compile thanks to sites like this, which lists every song that charted this year. Of course, there isn't any site that lists every single TV programme shown so I've had to do the unreliable thing and use my actual memory, which is why I'm sure there's some blatant omission. But anyway, whether it's a series, a particular episode or just a particular scene, these are the most entertaining TV moments that I can remember.

31) David Mitchell on TV Heaven, Telly Hell
Another generic rip-off of Room 101, TV Heaven, Telly Hell invited comedians to ramble on about their best and worst TV shows. Nothing too spectacular about that but when you give the likes of David Mitchell free reign, it becomes comedy gold. Mitchell comes across as just as anal and uptight as his Peep Show character and is all the funnier for it, particularly his rant about the banality of the Heaven and Earth show.

32) Time Trumpet - University Challenge Sketch
The Armando Ianucci Show is one of my favourite comedy shows of all time so there were high hopes for Time Trumpet, a spoof of all those I Love 1974-type shows, which was set in the year 2032, looking back at the TV of the noughties. Confusing, yes. But whereas Ianucci’s surrealism worked so well on his self-titled show, it all fell a bit flat here. It did have its moments though, the future lookalikes of Anne Robinson and David Beckham were spot on but it’s the University Challenge Venezuela sketch that was the highlight. Totally silly but hilarious at the same time.

33) Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Never Mind The Buzcocks stopped being funny about eight years ago – Mark Lamarr’s venemous humour coming across as vindinctive and cruel rather than funny. Which is why Simon Amstell’s appointment as his successor was perfect. He may have looked a little too young to host an “adult” show but he held his own against captains Phil Jupitus and Bill Bailey and also managed to tread the thin line between gently poking fun at guests like Vanessa and Anthea Turner and completely anhialating them. The booking of guests was also inspired, particularly the final show where the ever-catty Jamelia, calling Javine a slag for doing the dirty on her mate Alesha, and almost came to blows with "not sure whether to like her/loathe her" Lily Allen.

34) Trust Me... I’m A Holiday Rep
It may have been completely brainless viewing but Channel 5’ themed “let’s get celebrities to do some actual work” reality show provided quite a few memorable TV moments. Whether it was the original Clare from Hollyoaks acting all diva-like J-Lo-style, Rowland Rivron showing us more than anyone wanted to see or Paul Burrell proving that all the hatred towards him is fully jusfified. The star of the series though was Nancy Lam, who thanks to her broken English, became unintentionally hilarious and one of the most loveable reality stars this year.

35) Poker Face
ITV might as well be renamed the Ant and Dec Channel. As well as the usual Takeaway & I’m A Celeb, they’ve hosted Celebrity Football, Celebrity Golf and Poker Face, the best quiz show idea since Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

The idea is that the contestants don’t have to answer any questions right, they just have to make their opponents think they have. Unlike Millionaire, the week-long series guaranteed a millionaire at the end and unlike most quiz shows, you got to see the personality of the contestants which gave you someone to root for and someone, like the arrogant finalist Julian, who you were quite happy to see them go home with nothing.

36) Shameless
It may have suffered slightly from the departure of James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff, but Shameless is still the best homegrown drama on terrestrial TV. In a way, the absence of Steve and Fiona allowed other characters, such as Carl and Debbie to come to the forefront. The third series dealt with everything from teenage pregnancy, suicide and bodies under the patio but still manages to be hilarious as well as moving.

37) Chris Moyles’ elimination on The X Factor
Chris Moyles has always been egotistical but he somehow manages to get away with it on radio. But it’s a different story when he makes the transition to TV, where he becomes devoid of any sense of humour or personality. Despite soundng like a very average pub singer at best – he thought he had the Celebrity X Factor victory in the bag. Which is why his total disbelief at being eliminated in the semi-final is absolutely priceless.

38) Argentina World Cup Goal
This year’s World Cup was a bit of an anti-climax – another dismal England display, meaningless final group games, tedious “play-for-penalties” knockout stages and a lackulstre final between two countries far from their best. However, there were more breathtakingly superb goals than any other World Cup I can remember. Whether it was Lahm’s opening goal against Costa Rica, Czech Republic’s Rosicky’s stunner against USA or England’s very own Joe Cole’s volley against Sweden. The best though, and one which football purists are still probably harping on about is Argentina’s 2nd goal against Serbia and Montenegro. A goal which consisted of 24 straight passes finished off superbly by Campiasso, it will go down as one of the greatest World Cup team goals ever. They really did look unstoppable.

39) Nicki French's jaw-droppingly bad video

I'm not sure whether this should be classed as a TV moment as I’m pretty sure it’s not been on TV. I don’t think even Flaunt would touch this with a bargepole. Making Tracy Shaw’s legendary crappy video look like a Hype Williams multi-million dollar budget MTV award winner, the video to Nicki French’s never-ending re-release of her only hit “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” is tragically hilarious from start to finish. Whether it’s the circa 1992 computerised background or the grandma dancing at a wedding “choreography” everything about it is so utterly stupendously awful, it’s actually good.

40) Bo In The USA – The Pete Doherty biscuit sketch
Leigh Francis still hasn’t figured out that his rubber mask creations are the only thing worth watching in his otherwise painfully unfunny show. The first two series of Bo Selecta were comedy genius but since then, for some reason, the masks have been relegated to make way for the cringeworthy Keith Lemon and The Bear. But stuff like the Pete Doherty sketch makes wading through all the rubbish worthwhile. While not quite up to the classic standard of Trisha "when I say rice, you say and pea" Goddard, having the waste of space addicted to Nice Biscuits and Bourbon Creams was an inspired and very funny move.

The Worst Ten Singles of 2006

01) D4L – Laffy Taffy
I think I’ve only heard this about twice and yet it’s made such an impression on me that it’s still my worst single of the year. I have no idea who D4L are but they sum up everything that’s wrong with the absymal melody-less, tuneless, “crunk” that passes for R&B/hip-hop these days.

02) Fall Out Boy – Sugar We’re Going Down
The occasional Lostprophets or Panic At The Disco single I can stomach, but on the whole, I find the whole emo culture much more fake and cynically marketed than any manufactured pop group. Fall Out Boy are the worst culprits and this was their worst single, just a whiny mess of incoherent lyrics and nasal wailing with not a redeemable thing about it.

03) Black Eyed Peas – Pump It
When did the Black Eyed Peas become so excruciatingly unlistenable? This had the laziest and most uninspired use of a sample all year - remove it and you’re basically left with a big pile of nothingness.

04) Fratellis – Chelsea Dagger
Chas and Dave supported The Libertines a few years ago and I’m guessing The Fratellis were about the only group who thought a combination of the two would be a good idea. got their inspiration from. Chelsea Dagger was an awful type of leery, boozed up Cockney singalong with an irritating “duh-duh-duh” chorus which made my ears bleed every time I heard it. The kind of band the NME champion as the future of music, which tells you all you need to know.

05) Shayne Ward – Stand By Me
A single which typified everything that is wrong with The X Factor. Great TV. Lousy after-product. Not content with making his artists release straight-forward cover versions of Unchained Melody, Simon Cowell is now making them release watered down rip-offs of Unchained Melody. Shayne Ward should have gone in the UK Justin Timberlake direction. Instead he’s gone down the one-man Westlife route.

06) Sandi Thom – I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker
It's still hard to believe that Sandi Thom has had a #1 album this year. What possessed people in their hundreds of thousands to go and buy an album from such a blatant novelty one-hit wonder? And what an awful one-hit wonder it was. Patronising sixth-form lyrics, instrument-less verses, the whole thing felt like an unfinished demo from some throwback hippy student.

07) Kelis – Bossy
How the mighty have fallen. Before this year, she could do no wrong in my eyes. Her debut Kaleidoscope is probably one of my top ten albums of all time. So it was sad to see her turn into the predictable bikini-clad cliche that she has become. The inventive and innovative R&B she’d produced with the Neptunes had been replaced by the kind of formulaic one-note, tuneless and unimaginative dirges such as this. The year’s most disappointing comeback by a long shot.

08) Lemar – It’s Not That Easy
Not the worst single of 2006, but definitely the laziest. Lemar showed so much promise with his first few singles, combining old-skool soul with modern R&B. But he seems to have abandoned all that for the kind of easy listening Al Green knock-offs that Smooth FM playlist to death.

09) Michelle Marsh - Don't Do

OK, so no-one was expecting Imagine part 2 from a glamour model turned singer via Celebrity X Factor. But it still doesn't excuse the sheer awfulness of this tacky, dated pop single with a monotonous, almost painful vocal from Ms Marsh herself. It makes Jordan's attempts at a pop career look classy.

10) Brian McFadden and Leann Rimes – Everybody’s Someone
The aural equivalent of watching paint dry. I’ve heard this on several occasions and can’t remember one distinguishing thing about it. Rimes is capable of producing the odd lovely ballad (I Need You) or pop classic (Can’t Fight The Moonlight) so what she’s doing with a washed up ex-boybander on a comatose-inducing song such as this is anyone’s guess.

Top 40 Singles of 2006 - #10-1

01) The Delays - Valentine
Amazingly the best pop song of the year didn’t come from Girls Aloud or Sugababes but from a long-haired indie band. Valentine is just an astounding single, packed full of choruses, a squelching bassline reminscent of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and an astonshing falsetto vocal from lead singer Greg Gilbert. It was a ballsy move that didn’t quite pay off chart-wise but has ended up in many end of year lists and has become almost ubiquitous on trailers for TV shows. This really should have been huge.

02) Captain – Broke
The second entry for Captain in this chart, and it so very nearly took the top spot. I really don’t get the comparisons with Deacon Blue other than they both have male and female vocalists - their uplifting harmonies have more in common with The Magic Numbers than anyone else. But unlike The Magic Numbers, they’re never twee or too derivative. Rik Flynn’s vocals combined perfectly with keyboardist Clare Szembek’s on this gloriously uplifting pop song.

03) CSS – Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above
Probably the most immediate single of the year, I first caught this on MTV2 while channel-hopping and was immediately hooked thanks to its fusion of disco, pop, glam-rock and cutesy vocals from Lovefoxx. This was a single that defied pigeon-holing and was just a joy to listen to.

04) Lorraine – I Feel It
Another single which undeservedly underperformed, I Feel It took the dark brooding vocals of Depeche Mode, the melodic piano-led rock of Keane and the synth pop of the Pet Shop Boys to create a majestic dreamy pop song with a mammoth chorus which promises much for next year's album.

05) Oakenfold featuring Brittany Murphy – Faster Kill Pussycat
Brittany Murphy can now be added to the short list of US actors who’ve managed to not embarrass themselves on record. Sure, it wasn’t exactly a challenging song to sing but she acquits herself well on this juggernaut of a dance record, which just like every dance record these days, seems to take its hook from Deep Dish’s Flashdance.

06) Plan B – Mama
Now for the most foul-mouthed song on the list. The Streets meets Eminem is how Ben Drew has been labelled. It’s a lazy description but it’s true. His tales of sex, drugs, violence are definitely from a British perspective but they’re also delivered with a snarling angry vocal. This may have been a tale about his mum’s crackhead boyfriend but was probably one of the softer moments on the excellent Who Needs Actions album thanks to the R&B chorus and deft use of a Hall & Oates sample.

07) Nelly Furtado – Maneater
The track that kickstarted her career again after the lacklustre performance of the Folklore album. There are so many small but great things about the record, whether it’s the open/close hi-hats, the yelping after each line in the verses, Nelly’s almost monotonous delivery, everything about it just fits together so well to make the quirkiest and best R&B record of the year.

08) All American Rejects – Move Along
I usually hate the type of US college rock bands that obligatory appear on stuff like the American Pie soundtracks. The All American Rejects are an exception. Move Along was a frenetically-paced rock single with about three stadium chant choruses which stayed just on the right side of emo and also came with a brilliantly edited video.

09) Goldfrapp – Fly Me Away

Goldfrapp had left me completely cold up until “Number One” last year. Since then, each single has been superior, culminating in the peak of this dreamy synth-pop, complete with discordant Casio keyboard solo, which is the closest thing they’ve done to a ballad.

10) Skye – Love Show
Just one of the loveliest songs of the year - this Dido-esque tale of unspoken love was proof that her split from Morcheeba did both parties the world of good. Unfortunately due to her record company faffing about, this got pushed back several times until both it and the album got completely lost.

Top 40 Singles of 2006 - #20-11

11) Jamelia – Something About You
Forget David Hasselhoff getting to #3, or All Saints album getting to #40, Jamelia’s comeback single ended up with the most surprising chart position of the year. On first hearing, its radio-friendly R&B verses, Kelly Clarkson-style chorus and stylish video seemed like it was destined for #1 so it’s baffling why it only managed #9. She seems to be suffering from Rachel Stevens syndrome – great songs but no-one seems to care anymore. She’s one of the best pop stars we’ve got at the moment - opinionated, talented and not afraid to take risks, it’ll be a shame if she has to come back from the dumper yet again.

12) Nerina Pallot – Everybody’s Gone To War
After being dropped from her record company a few years ago, this year was when it finally happened for Nerina Pallot, even if she’s still not as big as she ought to be. That her breakthrough occurred with such an overtly political song was surprising but its vintage Sheryl Crow sound complete with a big chorus and excellent food fight video meant it was always destined to be a hit. One of the best additions to the plethora of singer-songwriters that broke through this year.

13) The Modern – Industry
On first listen, you’d think this was a track from the Top 40 Singles of 1983, not 2006. Easily the most authentic sounding retro-single of the year, this took electro-pop right back to its 80s roots - the only modern thing about it was its Gwen Stefani-type chorus. Unfortunately, this track was disqualified from the chart due to accusations of chart-rigging, and we’ve not heard of them since.

14) Corinne Bailey Rae – Trouble Sleeping
She may be getting labelled as a “coffee-table” act but that’s only down to her massive sales - there’s nothing bland about her voice, similar to a modern Ella Fitzgerald, nor indeed her songs, particularly on the lovely chillout soul of this third single, which I found far preferable to the overplayed Put Your Records On.

15) Solu Music featuring Kimblee – Fade
A Hed Kandi anthem for several years, this classic sounding house track, featuring vocals from Lisa Stansfield-soundalike Kimblee, finally got released in time to become the dance track of the Summer. Apparently the single remix butchered the original version but as I've never heard it, I'll remain blissfully ignorant.

16) India Arie – I Am Not My Hair
Her debut album Acoustic Soul managed to do the impossible by merging nu-soul with actual tunes and melodies. She managed an even more amazing feat by making Akon sound bearable on this, her most commercial single to date. I Am Not My Hair may have had a corny message (beauty is only skin deep etc) but thanks to her rich, soulful voice and unusual lyrics, namechecking Oprah Winfrey in the process, she managed to deliver it in her usual unique style.

17) Robbie Williams – Lovelight
The whole Rudebox project has been one of the most baffling things to happen in music this year. Was it a joke? Was Robbie trying to prove that he could release any old crap and it would still sell? Or was it a genuine attempt at reinventing himself? Listening to the album, the jury is out, but there’s no denying that Lovelight is easily his best single since "Feel" and indeed one of the best things he’s ever done. That it was met with such apathy on its release is probably down to the career-suicidal decision to release Rudebox first. But this Lewis Taylor cover, the kind of soul-pop George Michael used to do so well, deserved to be a much bigger hit than it was. No doubt he’ll go back to predictable MOR stadium anthems next year.

18) Captain – Glorious
A fitting title, Captain are the second of just two acts to have more than one song in the Top 40, and were probably my favourite new band of the year. This was their second consecutive brilliant single which was followed by a promising Trevor Horn-produced debut album but for some reason, they just haven’t captured the public’s imagination in the same way.

19) Michael Gray featuring Shelley Poole – Borderline
Shelley Poole must have some kind of affinity with the #12. She never had a top ten hit as part of Alisha’s Attic, reaching an agonisingly close #12 on three occasions. And she made it a fourth on this collaboration with Dutch producer Michael Gray. This may have been a tad formulaic and not too much of a departure from "The Weekend" but Poole's vocals added a touch of elegance missing from most chart dance hits this year.

20) Friday Hill – One More Night Alone
Embarrassing song #2. Blazin’ Squad, apart from the genius Flip Reverse, may have been one of the most excruciatingly bad pop acts of this decade. So it’s no surprise that three of its former members, would decide to distance themselves as much as possible in their new outfit. A cover of a D-Side album track may not sound too promising but this was an unpretentious guitar-pop song with a storming chorus which ended up being my guilty pleasure of the year. The ridiculous ad-libs from the ever-likeable Kenzie (“just buh-buh-buh-lieve me now”) only added to its charm.

Top 40 Singles of 2006 #30-21

21) Editors – All Sparks
Editors were the only act to have two singles in my Top 40 last year and they just miss out on a Top 20 placing in this year’s one, with one of the best tracks off the good but samey The Back Room album. They may have overdone the re-releases (three of their singles were re-released) but it was great to see a guitar band who weren’t trying to be Coldplay, managing to break through and get a top 3 album.

22) Faithless – Bombs
Another dance act who consistently produce the goods. I’ve always preferred Faithless when they’re doing their chillout low-key stuff rather than their thumping trance and it didn’t get more low-key than this. A surprising choice for a lead single, it left you completely underwhelmed at first but slowly won you around thanks to its Royksopp-style production, soulful vocals from Harry from Kubb and Maxi Jazz’s laid-back as ever words of wisdom.

23) Muse – Supermassive Black Hole
An even more surprising entry than Coldplay, Muse’s previous prog-rock sound had done absolutely nothing for me. This new direction was still as overblown as ever, but went down the very brave route of incorporating a pop element as well which may have alienated a few fans but gained many many more. A staggering likeness to Britney's "Do Something", this was one of the most "knock you for six when you first hear it" singles of the year.

24) Basement Jaxx – Take Me Back To Your House
You should always expect the unexpected on a Basement Jaxx record but they surpassed themselves in the "completely barmy" stakes with this second single from the under-achieving Crazy Itch Radio album. Accordians, banjos, helium-pitched “no-no-nos,” this was the most Russian-sounding dance single you’ll ever hear. A shame that it actually ended up as their lowest charting song.

25) Mattafix – To And Fro
Another act criminally ignored and destined to be consigned to the dumper. This duo were largely responsible for Siobhan Donaghy’s excellent debut, and indeed she pops up on backing vocals here, a mellow R&B track full of haunting violins, electro squelches and a quite frankly bizarre rap. The album was just as good as well.

26) Mary J.Blige featuring U2 – One
One of the most opinion-dividing singles of the year, mainly because of narrow-minded U2 fans, how anyone can fail to be completely bowled over by Mary’s vocal performance, particularly in the final minute, is beyond me. The original may be a classic, but this added something else without ruining it. A rare feat. And it deservedly gave her her biggest hit to date.

27) Alesha – Knockdown
A Xenomania produced, Lily Allen soundalike single from the woman responsible for the immortal lines "M-M-Misteeq, we're coming back again/ Love of the music inside your membrane/I'm going to burn you with my lyrical flame". How could it fail? Well for some reason it did. Inexplicably ignored by Radio 1 and pretty much everyone else, it became another prime example of how a pop single, which would have sailed into the top ten a few years ago, now struggles to even make the Top 40.

28) Chicane featuring Tom Jones – Stoned In Love

The song responsible for Tom Jones’ sixteenth comeback, even though his vocals were completely distorted in the verses so it didn’t sound like him anyway. This was an uptempo guitar-led dance track a million miles away from the 90s chillout classics of Offshore & Sunstroke which also bore a slight resemblance to the chorus of Holly Valance’s career-saving single that never was, Desire.

29) Ashlee Simpson – Boyfriend
Embarrassing song #1. At least it’s not Jessica, I suppose. She may have copied the Kelly Clarkson formula down to a tee, but which young female artist isn’t these days. This is just an unashamedly disposable but fun guitar-pop song.

30) Kubb – Grow
They’re never going to win awards for originality but Kubb’s brand of melodic pop-rock produced one of the loveliest if slightly cliched ballads this year thanks to its spine-tingling gospel choir, Jeff Buckly-inspired vocals and soaring strings. This is not vocalist Harry Collier’s only appearance on the chart.

Top 40 Singles of 2006 #40-31

31) MYNC Project – Something On Your Mind
Faceless dance track #2. Well not quite faceless as it featured the vocals of Abi Titmuss lookalike Abigail Bailey, who was last seen on Herd & Fitz’s anthem I Just Can’t Get Enough, but near enough. And indeed it’s her vocals which set this track apart from all the other millions of Clubland compilation tracks you’ll see this next to. Reached the dizzy heights of #74 in the charts but deserved much better.

32) Starsailor – This Time
They’ve got a bit of a reputation as being “bedwetter music” but on anthemic, pounding songs like this, it’s hard to understand why - they’ve certainly got more “oomph” than a lot of their contemporaries. Another band who seem to have been totally forgotten about, which is surprising considering their last album was their most self-assured yet, and this second single was a huge radio hit at the start of the year.

33) Madonna – Jump
I’ve not been totally convinced by Madonna’s attempt at restoring her former glory with Confessions On A Dancefloor. For someone who is the Queen of Pop, I think you’re entitled to expect something better than the kind of stuff Rachel Stevens would have as B-sides. But her singles have gradually got better and Jump, the fourth from its parent album was the classiest and least contrived of the lot.

34) Coldplay - The Hardest Part
Certainly an act I never thought I’d be seeing in an end of year top 40, Coldplay, like Keane, Snow Patrol, etc are one of those bands that aren't particularly offensive but are nowhere near worthy enough of the critical acclaim or multi-million sales they get. The Hardest Part was a bit of a departure for them in that it wasn’t trying to be some U2-type stadium anthem (In My Place) or cynical life-affirming ballad, (Fix You) it was just a simple radio-friendly pop song with a great video that showed they don’t always take themselves too seriously. It’s also the first of three download only songs on this chart.

35) Shapeshifters - Incredible

Shapeshifters are a rare breed – a chart dance act which did more than just blatantly rehash their first single and had enough good material to actually release an album. Of course, everything they do will always be overshadowed by THAT song but it’s a shame that Incredible, another example of their soulful string-soaked house, and its subsequent single Sensitivity was pretty much ignored.

36) Nelly Furtado - Promiscuous

Her shift from acoustic folk to urban pop isn’t as much of a departure as people think – her first two albums both dallied with R&B. But working with Timbaland upped the ante considerably and it was a slightly courageous move that completely paid off. This slinky second single was a brilliantly executed call & answer track which showed Maneater wasn’t a fluke. It’s not the last we’ll see of Nelly and indeed she’s one of only two acts to have two songs in the top 40.

37) The Similou – All This Love
Destined to be a one-hit wonder, indeed this Scandinavian four-piece should have had a much bigger hit than the No.20 placing they did. An 80s retro pop-dance track with a wonderfully uplifting chorus that could have come straight from Gwen Stefani’s last album, this was the dance song of the late Summer.

38) Guillemots - Made Up Love Song #43

Another Mercury Music Prize nominee and another strange band, this time a mixture of folk, pop and makeshift instruments such as typewriters that could sound pretentious but instead sounds wonderfully eclectic.

This track seemed to appear in every TV drama going in the Summer, but its ubiquitousness doesn’t take away from what is a brilliant and unique love song.

39) Aaron Smith - Dancin

One of two rather faceless and generic dance songs making up the bottom half of this chart, there isn’t much to say about this record other than the fact it charted in the first week of this year and yet despite it being rather unremarkable, has still left some impression on me 12 months later.

40) Hot Chip - Over And Over

So we start with probably one of the most “credible” songs on the list and what a strange song it is. Combining electro pop with guitar solos, eye test recitals and lyrics about monkeys with miniature cymbals, it also came with a genius green-screen parody video.

The sight of the keyboardist, the most unlikely looking pop star ever, bouncing up and down is one of the joyous music video moments of the year. Their album, which was Mercury Prize nominated, was also just as infectious and provided one of the few high points in a rather barren year for pop music.