This in itself is not that impressive. What makes this newsworthy, however, is Merrill’s past… as CIO and vice president of engineering at Google.

Google’s corporate information site says of Merrill (for now, at least):

Douglas Merrill joined Google late in 2003 as Senior Director of Information Systems. In this capacity he led multiple strategic efforts including Google’s 2004 IPO and its related regulatory activities. He holds direct line accountability for all internal engineering and support worldwide.

Previously, Douglas was senior vice president at Charles Schwab and Co., Inc, a multinational financial services company. At Schwab, he was responsible for such functions as information security, common infrastructure, and human resources strategy and operations. Prior to his tenure there, Douglas worked at Price Waterhouse as a senior manager, ultimately becoming a leader in security implementation practices. Before that, he was an information scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he studied topics such as computer simulation in education, team dynamics and organizational effectiveness.

Douglas holds a BA from the University of Tulsa in Social and Political Organization, and an MA and Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University.

I for one think this is great news. With the music industry in deep trouble and constantly being crushed by new technologies, they need new ideas… and fast. Litigation is only going to go so far in helping a struggling company to increase its profits.

As I’ve said before; “we can’t hold back technological advancement and especially the evolution of music and its distribution“. With that said, what the big labels need to do is not sue, but evolve. A ‘digital business model‘ is what is required to revive the industry and with this move it seems that EMI have realised this glaringly obvious fact.

“Don’t think because I’m not saying much that I wouldn’t like to say a lot.”

Of course, Lawrence isn’t anyone I know; he’s a character played by Bill Nighy in Richard Curtis’ The Girl in the Café and – unlike the films Curtis usually pens – it isn’t so much a rom com as a rom pol – a word I would like to take credit for, meaning romantic-political-drama.

How I came to watch The Girl is almost as interesting as the film itself: randomly traversing the Interwebs one day I passed through LifeHack and onto Ingrid’s wonderful online home. Captivated by her quirky, funky e-cards and her beautiful photographs, I read on and duly added the site as one of my regular reads, soon succumbing and joining The Girl on Tour. I’ll let Ingrid explain:

I think this is a wonderful and important film that needs to be seen by as many people as possible. That’s why I decided to send my The Girl In The Cafe DVD on a tour. The Girl has been on tour for more than a year now, she has visited more than 60 people already, and is planning to visit people in 20 (and counting) different countries. If you want to participate all you have to do is send an email to be put on the list. And when the film gets to you, you watch it, write a review on your blog and send it to the next person on the list.

The mighty Bill Nighy has called this project “very cool” and “very admirable”.

So, what’s it about, and is it any good?

In short, the film charts the unlikely and troublesome relationship between Lawrence (a high-profile civil servant, played by Nighy) and Gina (the delectable Kelly Macdonald – Trainspotting and No Country for Old Men). In truth, however, it’s a story about standing up for your beliefs no matter what the consequences, governmental bureaucracy as an inherent problem within the G8, and the ongoing struggle of trying to solve one of the most important global problems of our time: extreme poverty.

Lawrence works for the Chancellor of the Exchequer as part of the British contingent working on solving the first of the eight Millennium Development Goals. As the film progresses we see Gina confront a number of high profile politicians over what she sees as their lack of action, and it is here where the film turns into not-so-much a political drama, as an advert for the admirable MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign (or the ONE campaign, as it is better known in the U.S.).

I’m unsure about the numerous confrontation scenes and the over-simplification of such an important issue, but I suppose it is a film and as such it has to make economics and politics enjoyable! The message, of course, is much more important than any film can be: if you read at an average pace, 40 people have died of causes directly linked to extreme poverty since you started reading my post. That is what the film is about.

“Look, you wouldn’t care, perhaps, to meet again?”

Beerfest
The problem with Beerfest (and Broken Lizard in general) is, in my opinion, Super Troopers. If you start your comedy career creating a cult-classic, pretty much everything else you do is going to have to either live up to that or be better. The chances of that are obviously pretty slim, and with Beerfest they were way off. It could have been an enjoyable film – the premise sets the scene for a great no-brainer comedy and there’s enough of a storyline to keep you watching – if only for the next ‘joke’. However, I think Ty Burr from The Boston Globe said it best: “Making a comedy that celebrates binge drinking and cretinous behavior isn’t a crime against nature. Making one that’s as brutally unfunny as ‘Beerfest’ is.”

Knocked Up
Not your typical straight-laced comedy, Knocked Up definitely doesn’t fit into the ‘teen movie’ genre, even though it comes from the same team that wrote and produced Superbad and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. In my opinion it’s midway between both of these films; nowhere near as funny and witty as the former and (thankfully) not as base as the latter. It reminds me of Melinda and Melinda – but a more male-centric version.

Sunshine (2007)
One of the most impressive science fiction films I’ve had the pleasure to watch in a long time.
You can tell it comes from the pen of Alex Garland (The Beach) and was created under the direction of Danny Boyle (Trainspotting and 28 Days Later) – and they are both definitely good things. The problem with it, though? I think the ending was completely unnecessary.

The Simpsons Movie
Blasphemous, I know – but in my opinion The Simpsons definitely didn’t translate well to the big screen. I would have much preferred to have created a 90 minute playlist of my favourite episodes and watch them all consecutively. It’s not that it was bad; it was disappointing because I was expecting great things.

Juno
At first I couldn’t think of a single reason not to give this film five stars – it’s an incredibly beautiful and hip comedy/drama. With an amazing cast astonishing in their idiosyncratic youth; cinematography that’s as funky as hell; and with a flawless script to boot (the dialogue’s intelligent, quirky, and ever quotable), Juno was a pleasure to watch. However, I always reserve an entire star to be given on the basis of whether or not I think about the film days, weeks, or even months later. With Juno, I told people it was awesome, but a week or so later I stopped thinking about it: for that it gets half a star taken off. I’ll be watching it again though – it’s too human not too.

10 Items or Less
Everything I could say about this film has already been said perfectly on Metacritic. To save you a couple of clicks, here are a few choice critical quotes:
Ty Burr, Boston Globe: “10 Items or Less is nearly an acting class exercise.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: “An amiable demonstration of how two charismatic actors and a relaxed writer-director can squeeze an enjoyable movie out of practically nothing.”
Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: “Proceeds at that pace to an ending that is as inevitable as it is poignant.”

Away From Her
As the feature debut of a 28-year-old, Away From Her is an incredible achievement. I could list a thousand adjectives describing this film: beautiful; haunting; unafraid; comforting; the list goes on. This film of love lost – and love found – is a poignant reminder of how fragile the human spirit is and the sacrifices we will all – at some point in our life – have to make. It shows that letting go is the hardest thing to do, but a necessary step, nonetheless.

Me and You and Everyone We Know
Damn, Miranda July is so cool! Billed as “a poetic and penetrating observation of how people struggle to connect with one another in an isolating and contemporary world“, Me and You has triggered something in me – it has made me realise how fragile relationships can be. I’m taking drastic steps because of this film – you’ll see… in a couple of days.

Thank You for Smoking
A textbook example of critical thinking, perfect retorts, negotiation, spin, and satirical dark comedy. Smoking is a hilarious look at the life of a tobacco lobbyist. I loved this.

La Science des Rêves (The Science of Sleep)
Distinctly Gondry, this is one of those films that changes dramatically depending on your current ‘real life’ circumstances (just like his previous feature, Eternal Sunshine). In that vein, I think I was at the perfect time of my life for The Science of Sleep when I saw it for the first time about a month ago (as I was when I saw Eternal Sunshine just over a year ago).
Gael García Bernal (Amores perros and The Motorcycle Diaries) does a great job portraying a young man whose dreams are greater, more fun, and happier than his less-than-perfect reality.
Finally – like Juno – it is ever quotable, and I leave you with a few of my favourites (in addition to this post’s title):
“In dreams, emotions are overwhelming.”
“Things will turn out the way you want, if you just stop doubting that I love you.”
“You have a serious problem of distorting reality. You could sleep with the entire planet and still feel rejected.”
“‘The Goat on the Cliff’, remember?”
“This girl is at once all the women that broke my heart. She is so beautiful and generous, and she’s asking me to leave… because she is dumping me. She’s dumping me because I am a cheap drug dealer, and I am a drug dealer because she wants to leave me. The police are going to get me now, this is all my fault.“

After doing some research and compiling a list of possible subscriptions, I’m presenting them here as a way to keep track of them and also in hope that you may chip in with your thoughts and recommendations to liven up my daily commute.

BBC Worldwide

• Anything from the BBC Radio 4 archives. Highlights include:
  • In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg – “The History of Ideas”
  • Analysis – “Making sense of the ideas that change the world”
  • All in the Mind – “Exploring the limits and potential of the mind”
  • The Reith Lectures – “Annual radio lectures, given by leading figures of the day”
  • From Our Own Correspondent – “Personal reflections by BBC correspondents around the world”
    
  • The Material World – “Reports on developments across the sciences”
    

• The Naked Scientists – “Stripping science down to its bare essentials” (in association with Cambridge University)

• BBC Newsnight - Not strictly a podcast, but you can’t miss Newsnight!
  

National Public Radio (US) a.k.a. NPR

• Intelligence Squared – also known as IQ2 U.S. While you’re at it, check out the live London Debates.
• RadioLab – “Science meets culture, and information sounds like music”
• Science Friday – “Making science user-friendly”
  
• Fresh Air – “Probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights”
• On the Media – “Explores how the media ‘sausage’ is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression”
  

CBC Radio One

• Quirks and Quarks – “Science that defi(n)es gravity”
• (The Best of) Ideas – “…About contemporary thought”

ABC Radio National (Australia)

• All in the Mind – “From dreaming to depression, addiction to artificial intelligence, consciousness to coma, psychoanalysis to psychopathy, free will to forgetting – exploring the human condition through the mind’s eye”
• Philosopher’s Zone – “Your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics”
• Big Ideas – “thinking on major social, cultural, scientific or political issues”

IdeaCast – “Breakthrough ideas and commentary from leading thinkers in business and management” from The Harvard Business Review

EconTalk from The Library of Economics and Liberty on “the economics behind current events, markets, free trade, and the curiosities of everyday decision-making”

…Open Source “Inverting the traditional relationship between broadcast and the web: not a podcast with a web community; a web community that produces a podcast”

Physics for Future Presidents with Richard Muller – “What every world leader needs to know”

Scientific American’s Science Talk – “Exploring cutting-edge breakthroughs and controversial issues with leading scientists”

Seminars About Long-term Thinking (SALT) – “promoting ‘slower/better’ thinking”. Part of The Long Now Foundation

The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe – “Your escape to reality”

Studio 360 and specifically its Design for the Real World segment – “Get inside the creative mind: a smart and surprising guide to what’s happening in pop culture and the arts”

Philosophy Talk with Stanford University’s Professors of Philosophy – “The program that questions everything… except your intelligence”

The CERN Podcast is recorded in situ at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider with special ‘celebrity’ guests – “A cocktail of entertaining chat shows with a bit of particle physics thrown in”

That’s quite a few isn’t it? Of course there are many more great ones I’ve missed that may be of equal or greater interest to me as all of the above, so if you know of any please let me know (yes, I am actually begging).

How about these popular ones that I left out of the above list purposefully – am I being foolish in demoting these to the footer: Slate’s ‘Daily Podcast’ or ‘Explainer’, This Week in Tech, The Glenn and Helen Show, Shire Network News, This American Life, World Beyond the Headlines, Common Sense, BrainStuff from HowStuffWorks, The Guardian’s Science Weekly, Selected Shorts, The Economist, The Writers’ Block, This Week in Science, Sex is Fun and Open Source Sex with Violet Blue. Regarding those last two: one’s on the physiology of sex and the other is written for women; both are supposed to be interesting; and I imagine they’re both super-NSFW.

Sources or: Where I Found These

• Digg’s Best Podcasts
• Open Culture’s Podcast Library (Open Culture is a great site I first got directed to back in May 2007 with their great collection of Foreign Language Learning Podcasts)
• Ask MetaFilter’s What are the most intellectually stimulating podcasts?

It’s no secret that I’m a huge Lord of the Rings fan, and when I first heard that Jackson was having a bit of a rift with New Line and may not direct the two planned prequels (The Hobbit will be shot as two films) I was slightly worried to say least. Jackson did an incredible job with the original trilogy and I couldn’t think of another director who could put the same passion into directing The Hobbit whilst keeping the feel of the movie so close to that of the book.

However, I think del Toro is perfect and I congratulate MGM, New Line, and Peter Jackson (he’s the executive producer) on their inspired choice – del Toro brought Pan’s Labyrinth to life as a work of visual art, and if the same emotion gets poured into The Hobbit, well, we’re all in for one hell of a treat.

Thinking back to when I first saw Pan’s Labyrinth I remember being amazed at the realism of this fantasy film and being blinded by the brilliance of the cinematography. I remember having the distinct feeling that I was reading a brand new – even darker – Lewis Carroll fairy-tale directed by an early Tim Burton; all enhanced by the glorious little cinema I saw it in. It was brilliant.

Pan’s Labyrinth
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

More films I’ve watched this month:

Superbad
The realists American Pie, one of the best comedies I’ve watched in a long time, and a film as funky as its soundtrack: Superbad is the coming-of-age movie that I wish was released when I was doing just that.
Being male may help in order to fully enjoy this film, but who cares: Superbad reinvigorates the tired movie stereotype of a bunch of inept teenagers attempting to score for the first time. My opinion may be biased due to the fact that Michael Cera is one of my favourite comedy actors, but I’ve already seen this film twice so you should see it at least once.

King of California
The slightly eccentric script keeps this film ticking along nicely but its the cast that makes it not just watchable, but enjoyable too. With Michael Douglas giving a heart-warming performance as a father recently released from a mental institute and Evan Rachel Wood as the daughter trying to keep both of their lives together, this most unlikely of stories is kept grounded through the reality of mental illness and familial bonds.

No Country for Old Men
Lacking both the dark comedy and memorable soundtrack that has typified the Coen brothers’ films since the mid 1990s, No Country for Old Men is a straight forward film noir parable. However, for a better take on the genre try Miller’s Crossing – a film where they didn’t have to rigidly stick to the original story.
This is a damn good film – I’m not denying that – I just don’t think it’s the classic it’s being made out to be.

Air Guitar Nation
The second ‘fringe’ documentary I’ve seen this month and by far the better of the two. When originally suggested to me I had no intention to watch this film – let alone enjoy it – but, after approaching with trepidation, my cynicism soon waned and I found myself totally engrossed in the stories unfolding before me. Strange? Definitely. Deep and meaningful? Maybe not. Peculiarly compelling? Definitely.

Everything’s Gone Green
I’ve had Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs (and JPod) highly recommended to me, so when I had the opportunity to watch Coupland’s debut screenplay I jumped at the chance – and I’m glad I did. An excellently quirky feature reminiscent of The Station Agent and Garden State, Green is a lush, feel-good movie, ideally suited to first dates or lazy nights in.

All-in-all, a good couple of weeks of film watching.

Gwoemul (The Host)
Think Jaws mixed with Godzilla… in South Korea. I had heard great things about this film, some said it was genre redefining, others that it was to be the “thinking person’s monster movie” (Entertainment Weekly). I beg to differ. There’s no doubt that the special effects are impressive, but it’s the veiled attempts at anti-American political satire that fall far short of the mark for me – it’s just a bit too obvious. Still, it left me satisfied.

Wristcutters: A Love Story
“Soon after I killed myself I found a job here at Kamikaze Pizza. It’s not a great job but it’ll do for a while.”
This offbeat, dark comedy is what I imagine Eternal Sunshine would be like if it was directed by the Coen brothers. Given its grizzly subject – an exploration of life and love after suicide – it’s eerily uplifting and optimistic. And don’t forget bizarre… after all, this film follows the ‘life’ of its protagonist, Zia, after committing suicide over his ex-girlfriend and it’s set in a place where others who have committed suicide also live. I found myself smiling from the very beginning. Well, not the very beginning, but shortly after the impressive opening scene.
“Who could think of a better punishment, really? Everything’s the same here, it’s just… a little worse.”

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
King of Kong is a documentary following the story of Steve Wiebe as he attempts the world record for the highest score in Donkey Kong. Yes, that’s Donkey Kong as in the arcade game.
Portraying Twin Galaxies (the organisation that tracks video game world records) as an elitist group who try dirty tricks to keep people outside their clique from obtaining high scores on classic games, King of Kong feels like true ‘car crash TV’: especially when – at the one hour mark – Mark Alpiger describes his glove choice: “This is actually, technically, a weight-lifting glove… I discovered in the 80s that you could buy a weight-lifting glove which was fingerless… See the double padding? Occasionally I use this to avoid callouses from certain joystick games.”
So why did this film get such high ratings on so many Internet movie databases? Because – let’s face it – 80′s arcade geeks love the Internet and this film is one of their own. If you’re also one of them, then you’ll love this film too.

Bottle Rocket
I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson so decided to check out his directorial debut from 1996. As it’s also the debut of Luke and Owen Wilson I was expecting good things, but now realise that I should have checked out IMDB’s listing for the film first. There – nestled away in the trivia section – it states that “The film scored the worst test screening points in the history of Columbia Pictures at the time.” Suffice to say, I can see why.
After a quirky, promising, and typically Wes Anderson beginning, it turned into a pretty lacklustre performance for all concerned.

Interview
Let’s look at the premise of this film: a remake of a Dutch classic – directed by Steve Buscemi – wherein a fading political journalist is forced to interview a US soap star “better known for who she’s sleeping with and her fluctuating breast size.” Two people. 90 minutes. Sounds intriguing: this could turn out to be pretentious as hell or a pretty good drama. When Steve Buscemi casts himself as the journalist, things start to look up, but then you notice that Sienna Miller is cast as the actress/interviewee. Hmmm…
However, she’s now dispelled any myths that she’s just a pretty face and can’t act: for what could easily be a painful hour and a half, this sometimes jaded script is brought to life and made not just watchable, but thoroughly enjoyable by some great acting.

I’m all ears if you’ve got any recommendations for week 2!

Regardless, below are my top 10 lists of 2007. You know the ones – they proclaim to contain the best 10-or-so of something from the 12 months that have just passed? Come, soak up the nostalgia:

• The Best 19 Movies You Didn’t See in 2007 – Looking for the best independent films of 2007 that didn’t make it big? Well then, this is the list for you. A great list to accompany this is /film‘s ingeniously compiled 25 Definitive Movies of 2007. A ‘glass-is-half-empty’ kinda person? Well how about the 9 Worst Movies of 2007?
• Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks – I love this stuff. While it’s got nothing to do with 2007, it’s got everything to do with making your life just that little bit easier. This is the reason why I once read Lifehacker religiously: reading this list makes me want to resubscribe to their RSS feed. In fact, I will.
  
• Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007 – Watching these videos you may laugh (Don’t Tase Me vs. MC Hammer), stare in amazement/puzzlement (Daft Hands/Prison Inmates Performing ‘Thriller’), or simply cringe and wonder how it all went so wrong (Miss South Carolina Teen USA). The list could be refined though: where’s Chocolate Rain, Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip and the Finger Painting Turtle-Kid?
• 10 of the Most Interesting and Entertaining Images of 2007 – The top 10 viral images of 2007. That means, that if you have an email address, you’ve undoubtedly seen these 10 times already.
  
• 7 Things We Should Pretend Never Happened – I knew I was going to agree with most of this list as soon as I read the headline for item number one: Huddled Masses Lining Up for Bullsh!t.
  
• D!ckheads of the Year – Like Ronseal, this list does exactly what it says on the tin. Erik Prince of Blackwater, College Republicans, Congressional Democrats and – of course – George Bush… all nominated by Rolling Stone for the honour of being ‘D!ckhead of the Year’.
• Top 10 Astronomy Pictures – I’ve never been a huge astronomy fan. Yeah, the Universe is fascinating and full of mystery; but there’s something inherently unknowable about it that – for some reason – distracts me from its splendour. Nonetheless, these images are truly captivating.
• Top 10 Most Pirated Movies and TV Shows of 2007 – Bored and trying to think of something to download and watch? I’m not as that’s illegal, but if I were (hypothetically speaking, of course) I would go here to see what films and TV shows were downloaded the most last year.
• Top 10 New Organisms of 2007 – From the Ashera GD hypo-allergenic cat to super CO2-absorbing trees, it’s been an interesting year in genetic engineering and Wired does the this round-up for us. If genetic engineering isn’t your scientific tipple, why not have a look at their Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007 instead?
  
• Best ‘Professional’ Photographs of 2007 – There’s UNICEF’s Photo of the Year, National Geographic News’ Top Ten Photos, and The Press Photographer’s Year Awards (my personal favourite, yet also the one with the worst website). Of course, it’s not just professionals who take captivating photographs, and so PhotoCompetitions.com has the definitive list of amateur and professional photography competition for your perusal.

As a bonus, have the following too:

• My favourite round-up of interesting links from the past year: Jason Kottke’s Best Links of 2007
• The best ‘personal’ round-up of the past year: The Girl in the Cafe’s The Year That Passed
• The best post detailing the biggest news stories of 2007: (cough-plug-cough) My Top 10 News Stories of 2007.
• Update (16th Jan) – The best single post of the entire year? It has to be Carl’s Why I moved from Boston to Nashville or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing Everything in Snowclones – you had me at ‘sliced lolcats’.
  

As 2007 comes to a close, I decided that it was time to have a round-up of the big stories of the year. I like to do this every year as I find that you’ll undoubtedly be surprised: either by a ‘big’ story that somehow managed to pass you by, or just by realising how fast the year has gone. So, how to do this summary of events? After all, a year is a long time in news and news is different everywhere you look!

One of the best barometers of stories that made it big on the Internet is, of course, Digg – the news aggregation service that I do not visit often enough. So, what were the big online stories of 2007? Here they are – in reverse order – according to Digg:

• Stand up for your rights, get arrested – 2007 saw a lot of people arrested for doing, well, nothing in particular. One story that made it big on Digg was a man who was arrested for using $2 bills in BestBuy.
• Net Neutrality – I’m not getting into this now, but here’s a Digg’d picture showing why it’s an important issue.
• The Nintendo Wii – ‘Nuff said.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force ‘terrorists’ and other Bostonian mishaps – In 2007, Boston definitely put the ‘error’ in ‘terror’: overreacting to so-called ‘hoax’ devices, blowing shit up, and prosecuting innocent people is the name of the game here. Refuse to be terrorised, people!
• PirateBay – 2007 was the year where piracy went mainstream. Too many stories to mention.
• Microsoft Surface – Pretty nifty look at the future of personal computing: the end of point-and-click. I first saw this technology being (better) demonstrated in Jeff Han’s 2006 TED talk.
• Paris Hilton – You can’t avoid this woman if you tried… 2007 saw her do ‘time’ in jail and the loss of her inheritance. Oh, and she’s still the most annoying person on the plant.
• Execution of Saddam Hussein – Executed 40 hours before 2007 began, the leaked video of the hanging was undoubtedly the first big online story of 2007.
• iPhone – Love it or loathe it, the iPhone arrived in 2007 to much fanfare. Well, at least it’s getting people thinking about design, right?
• 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0 – A vivid depiction of the Streisand effect. This is one story that showed – in no uncertain terms – the power of the Internet as a consumer tool: we don’t want restrictions on our music, our books, our television and (as this story makes abundantly clear) our HD-DVDs. This was the 21st Centuries ‘Digital Revolt’.

We can’t spend all our time online and ‘real world’ news is important too, right? So, here’s another list of the top 10 news stories from around the world, according to Time and The Times Online:

• Pakistan’s Political Crisis – From the pressuring of Musharraf to give up command of the Army to the assassination of Bhutto; Pakistan’s politics hasn’t been out of the news all year.
• US Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis – When the US housing bubble eventually popped it wasn’t just the US that suffered – markets around the world felt the impact as banks reeled in their debts.
• Burma Protests – A bad year for democracy in Burma. As tens of thousands of monks took to the streets to protest against a rise in petrol prices (and thus the price of other staples), the military junta cracked down by raiding monasteries and tackling the peaceful protests head on.
• Goodbye, Harry Potter – At last, it’s over!
  
• Iraq War - The Iraq war was for oil you say? The only surprising part of this ‘revelation’ is that it came from the man who was head of the US Federal Reserve for 18 years – Alan Greenspan.
• Chinese Toy Recall – Made in China took on a new meaning this year as millions of toys made there and exported to the US were recalled for using lead paint, having loose parts, and burning children. Of course “buying local” is still an alien concept to half the western world and a little mishap over some paint isn’t going to make a difference, is it?
  
• Virginia Tech Massacre – There was more to this story than just another school shooting. Not only did the gunman mail manifesto-style tapes to the media halfway through his rampage; he was also pronounced by a judge to be mentally ill and in need of hospitalisation – yet still managed to legally buy his arsenal of weapons.
• iPhone – Enough already!

Yes, I know that’s only 8 stories, but it was hard picking another two that had world-wide status: was the Madeleine McCann story known throughout the world? Was the saga of Alan Johnston’s capture and eventual release as big in the US as it was here in the UK? Can the rise and rise of Facebook be classed as ‘real-world news’ (it only went fully public in late 2006)? How about 2007′s ‘Data Chernobyl‘? It’s a tough choice.

The Sir Ian episode is a magnificent return to form for Gervais and it repeatedly hits my satire G-spot dead centre with it’s mix of sheer comedy genius and social commentary – but it’s the Christmas episode which really had me appreciate the series.

In it, Gervais’ character (Andy Millman) makes a final speech admonishing reality TV; the producers and networks that produce the shows; and more poignantly the viewers and the ‘celebrities’ involved in them who “hand in their dignity at the door” when they partake in this so-called entertainment.

It’s a great commentary on the current television landscape we often find ourselves watching and the public’s obsession with fame and celebrity. Searching for the quote to share with you, I came across the following which describes the moment perfectly – The New York Times: Going Out, Gervais Picks Bang Over Whimper:

“The Victorian freak show never went away,” Millman rails in a soliloquy that serves as a climax of the “Extras” final episode and a moment of redemption for the character, whose life and friendships have been corrupted by fame. “Now it’s called ‘Big Brother’ or ‘American Idol,’ where in the preliminary rounds we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multimillionaires.”

To the networks, he says: “You can’t wash your hands of this. You can’t keep going, ‘Oh, it’s exploitation, but it’s what the public wants.’ No.”

To the audience watching at home, he says: “Shame on you. And shame on me. I’m the worst of all. Cause I’m one of these people that goes, ‘I’m an entertainer, it’s in my blood.’ Yeah, it’s in my blood because a real job’s too hard.”