"Torture the data long enough," we used to say in the days when I was paid to extract commercial advantage from market research findings, "and sooner or later it will confess."

Of course, whenever we said things like that we were upbraided by the PC amongst us. "The word 'data' is plural," they would insist; "You should say: 'sooner or later they will confess'." PC? Philologically Correct, of course. You don't get many of the other kind in Marketing. Come to think of it, you don't get many of the philological kind either.

One finds as one grows older that all experience pays dividends eventually, or one finds ways of pretending that it does, and my years of experience as a professional data torturer have stood me in good stead in my declining years as a Ciaoist. Take this topic of Top Tens, for example. I fancy I know something about Top Tens. I was, after all, at one stage in my life intimately involved in the compilation of the UK Music Charts, a fact that may only go to show that fact is stranger than fiction, though whether this should be taken to mean that the Charts in those days were fact or fiction is something on which I am not going to comment.

What I am going to comment on is that intriguing section of the Ciao Café known as "Members' Picks". This section is one of my favourites, exemplifying as it does the character of Ciao that makes it so very superior to other opinionating sites of the Brand X variety. "Members' Picks" is just what it says on the label, a higgledy-piggledy set of topics suggested by members that gives them the opportunity to ride their hobby horses, enthuse over their enthusiasms, or rant about their pet bugbears. Once listed, of course, the topic is open to anyone, and some hobby horses have been mounted by so many riders that one fears for their well-being.

Among the 285 topics currently listed under "Members' Picks", no fewer than 198 follow the "Top 10" format, for example : "Top Ten Songs of All Time" or "Ten Most Annoying Celebrities" or "Ten Worst Films of the Decade". I have included in these 198 topics those that simply ask for 10 of the relevant item, rather than specifically for the Top 10, on the grounds that most people writing about them are more likely to enumerate their Top 10 than any old 10 selected at random.

In total 4377 reviews have been written about these 198 topics, an average of 22 each. The urge to compile lists of one's favourite or least favourite things evidently runs deep in the human - or at least the Ciaoist - psyche.

In fact, the more one analyses which topics have been most written about, the more revealing the light shed on the human - or at least the Ciaoist - psyche becomes.

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Let's start by ranking the 198 topics in descending order of the number of reviews devoted to them. This gives the following Top Ten Top Tens:

10 Things that Really Annoy Me - 320
Top 10 Foods - 189
Top 10 Songs of All Time - 168
10 Best-looking celebrities - 160
10 Things that Make me Happy - 127
10 Most Embarrassing Moments - 117
10 Worst Foods - 109
Top 10 Things you Couldn't Live Without - 108
10 Best Actors - 97
10 Signs you're Getting Old - 88

What a wealth of fascinating information there is to be found in this simple list. For a start, isn't it interesting that nearly twice as many people feel moved to write about the things that really annoy them than about any other subject? The removal of encumbrances from chests is evidently high on nearly everyone's agenda (and yes, in case you're wondering, this is a topic on which I have written myself, in one of my earliest reviews).

Two-and-a-half times as many people have been moved to tell the world, through Ciao, about the things that really annoy them than about the things that make them happy. I thought I might follow this finding up by comparing the total number of reviews that reflect negative emotions (like being annoyed) with those that reflect positive emotions (like being happy), but this proved surprisingly difficult. For example, how does one categorise "Things I Couldn't Do Without" - negative (by reason of dependency) or positive (by reason of supportive reliability)? However, in so far as it was feasible, this exercise indicated that the 2½:1::Negative:Positive ratio held good throughout the gamut of emotive topics, not just among those at the top of the table.

Before becoming terminally depressed at this prevailing negativity (among the "10 Things I Hate about the World Today" perhaps?), I decided to try to scan the list in search of more uplifting outcomes, and immediately began to find them.

For a start, there at number two in the chart, albeit trailing "Things that Annoy Me" by a distance, was "Top 10 Foods". Eating is one of life's great pleasures, and a world in which people are relishing their grub can't be all bad, can it? Especially when we see that "Top 10 Foods" is out-gunning "!0 Worst Foods" by 189:109, or nearly 2:1.

In fact, this is just the start towards uncovering a more optimistic aspect to the analysis. If, instead of looking at the emotionally charged topics (e.g. annoyance, happiness) we simply look at the "Best" against the equivalent "Worst" topics, we immediately see a sunnier side to the preoccupations of the Ciao Community. For example, following the model of the two food topics:

Top 10 Foods 189, 10 Worst Foods 109
Top 10 Songs of all Time 168, 10 Worst Songs of all Time 23
10 Best-Looking Celebrities 160, 10 Least Attractive Celebrities 16
10 Best Actors 97, Ten Worst Actors 4
Top 10 Films of all Time 66, 10 Most Over-rated Films 6
Top 10 Albums 54, 10 Worst Albums 3
Top 10 Gifts I'd like to Receive 41, 10 Worst Gifts 37
Top 10 Films of the Decade 26, 10 Worst Films of the Decade 14
Top 10 TV Commercials 12, 10 Worst TV Commercials 22
Top 10 Most Useful Items 16, Top 10 Most Useless Items 19

You don't need to employ the talents of James Alexander Gordon to read these scores to notice that home wins are in the ascendancy. The only exceptions are TV Commercials - which are hardly things you would choose to watch for preference, unless you happen to be involved in their creation, in which case it seems to me that you are more to be pitied than condemned - and Useless Items. In fact, the exceptions are among life's unavoidable little irritants, and could therefore be grouped in with "things that annoy us", which, as we know, is everyone's favourite subject.

When, though, it comes down to consumer goods or services - and especially to matters of food or entertainment - as opposed to general mood and outlook, we are happy to look on the bright side and accentuate the positive. Which in turn is perhaps why, as a consumer site, Ciao does such a splendid job for all of us, by helping us focus on the things that we enjoy.

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So let us look next at those consumer categories. In the Top Ten topic ranking above, next after Food comes Song, and specifically "Top 10 Songs of All Time". I have to confess that my own personal predilections are more conventional, and I would have placed Wine and Women in their traditional pride of place ahead of Song, but who am I to question the combined wisdom of Ciaoists as expressed in their readiness to write reviews on the subject?

This led me to count the total number of reviews in general subject areas rather than by specific topics. Again, taking just the consumer categories to start with, we find the following Top Ten:

Music and song - 503
Food and drink - 398
Celebrities - 297
Films - 192
TV - 172
Actors - 119
Web/Hi Tech inc Games - 115
Ciao - 104
Gifts/Presents - 95
Books/Literature - 86
Sport - 48

Song it is then, ahead in this instance not only of Wine and Women, but of Food and Drink combined. If music be the food of love, and all that stuff. Beyond music, this chart illustrates our intense interest in popular culture generally, with such categories as Celebrities, Films, TV and Actors all up among the leading contenders.

Perhaps you may be thinking, this is only because these are the categories that are open for people to write about, but remember that they are all "Members' Picks" - the categories that members have themselves proposed, and that we reveal our preoccupations in what we propose as well as what we write about.

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So we've looked at our mood and outlook and we've looked at our consumer interests, what else do the Ciao charts show about us? To answer this question I tried grouping the remaining Top Tens under a set of heading so subjective and arbitrary that I shall not disclose exactly what went into each of them, except of course where it suits me to do so. The Top Ten among them, though, can be summarised as follows:

Confessions/Self Disclosure - 206
Nostalgia - 189
Other Personal Opinion - 176
General Interest - 173
Romance/Dating - 149
Pastimes - 130
Personal Needs - 121
Thrift/Spending Habits - 77
Jobs - 67
Humour - 65

Confessions. The data may have to be tortured if they are to confess, but Ciaoists seem to need no such encouragement. As we saw earlier, "10 Most Embarrassing Moments" is right up there among the leaders with 117 reviews, and almost everyone writing on this topic has done so from the viewpoint of their own embarrassing moments, not those of others, and all the more hilarious they are for being self-confessed. Similarly, "Top 10 Drunken Moments", which has been the subject of 27 reviews and "Top 10 Bad Habits" with 22. Why go to church and run the risk of all those Hail Marys when you can just post a review on Ciao?

Nostalgia, far from being less than what it used to be, seems to be in the rudest of health. Leading topics here are "Top 10 Things I Miss about my Childhood" (84) and "Top 10 School Memories" (38), but I have also included under this heading reviews on "10 things that remind me of" particular decades. As an interesting aside, the 80s are leading in this sub-category with 17, followed by the 60s and 90s, each with 7, the 70s (6) and the 50s (3). No one has yet written about the 40s or earlier; hurry up with your reminiscences, those among you who are even older than I am, while there is still time.

Talking of which, I have categorised "10 Signs You're Getting Old", which accounts for 88 reviews, under Other Personal Opinion. This is a topic I adore. There is nothing like reading people half your age bemoaning their descent towards decrepitude to make you feel young again. Sadly, though, more people (11) have written about "10 Reasons to be Glad you're no Longer a Teenager" than have written about "10 Things I Love about being a Teenager" (6). All you Teenagers out there, I beseech you to enjoy your youth to the full while you can. You'll never get a better chance.

General Interest is an interesting category generally, and probably in other ways as well. I've used it as a catchall for things like Quotations (43), Things to Put in a Time Capsule (21) and, similarly, Useless Items (19).

Romance and Dating you'd think would be a heart-warming, candle-lit, eye-twinkling, champagne-sipping category, but it doesn't look quite that way on closer analysis. Its largest single strand consists of the rather severe stipulations of "10 Things a Person Needs to do/not to do to have a Successful Date with Me" (69 reviews) with another 32 devoted to "10 Things Not to Do on a Date". This begins to smack of The Rules and similar abominations, and I regret to say I've also had to include here "Top 10 Ways to End a Relationship" (27 reviews).

Pastimes other than Romancing? In the immortal words of Ben Reich: "What is life for except to pass the time"? So it should be no surprise that "Things to Do before you Die" (70 reviews) tops this list, with "10 Things to Do on a Rainy Day" (36) and "Top 10 Ways to Waste Time" (24) also featuring.

Then come Personal Needs (almost entirely the 108 "10 Things I Couldn't Live Without"), Thrift (notably the 39 "Top 10 Penny-Pinching Little Ways"), Jobs (with "10 Things About My Job" and "10 Worst Jobs in the World" neck and neck at 35 and 32 respectively), and Humour, especially the 55 "Top 10 Best Jokes" reviews.

Do not be rendered glum by this apparently low level of interest in Humour, that human oddity that does so much to make life joyful, or bearable at least. Remember that there is another category elsewhere in the Ciao Café entirely dedicated to Jokes, in which are posted no fewer the 541 reviews, more even than Members' Picks in the Song and Music categories. Perhaps it is to this that we should next devote our attention.

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Enough. I think we have extracted from Members' Picks all we need for the time being, and without even having to lock them up uncharged for 90 days. I shall torture the data no longer, but go and write a review in praise of Amnesty International, or perhaps the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Numbers, as a penance instead.

© torr 2005

My 5 star overall product rating and recommendation are for charting as a pastime, which seems like harmless fun.