Shamelessly stolen from Stephen Tall as I see Google Analytics has been counting for me, here are the five most popular posts on this blog in 2006. Additional honourable mentions for my anal gig list (an anally-maintained list of musical gigs I’ve been to, let’s be clear), which would have made the top five were it a post, and Will’s kakuro masterclass, a perennial favourite from 2005 which remains the most popular post from the blog.

5. Don’t Get Me Started (September 5th) – popular with people trying to track down online copies of the TV programme in question, this was a brief post in praise of Stewart Lee’s documentary What’s Wrong With Blasphemy?

4. My Resignation Letter (April 27th) – a handy delete-as-applicable guide for shamed and/or incompetent Labour ministers which picked up a lot of hits from Google, presumably from people quitting their jobs who were hunting for a suitable form letter (sorry if, as is most likely, it wasn’t helpful)

3. Mark (January 21st) – from this blog’s busiest ever month, thanks to leadership shenanigans and people trying to find out what it was that Mark Oaten did, this was the obligatory “Oh dear” Oaten post

2. Webcameraon (October 1st) – not exactly an internet phenomenon but as close as this blog is ever likely to come, this was the first of my two YouTube videos spoofing David Cameron’s au naturelle (or au naturale?) home movies

1. Toby Stephens (April 10th) – and while everything else was going on, and probably unnoticed by regular readers, this throwaway post of little consequence has been quietly getting hit after hit. Entirely about the lineage of actor and not very good Bond villain Toby Stephens, it attracted loads of attention via Google after the actor in question appeared as Mr Rochester in the BBC’s Jane Eyre