The Observer blog recongnises a trend when it sees one. The OFM list of top 50 foodie things to do triumphed on the site over the weekend and sparked impassioned debate on the blog last week. Meanwhile, Robert McCrum's list of the top 100 novels of all time is also doing brisk trade online.
Lists are big this month. But not as big as numbers. We're surprised the tediously non-numerical events of the world have managed to eke out a living in the corners of even the broadest broadsheet pages given how much space is devoted to Su Doku. (If you haven't heard of it, go buy any newspaper.) Euan Ferguson wrote about it a couple of months back and this weekend we ran a feature on the origins of the puzzle that apparently is to numbers 1-9 as crack is to the coca plant.
Numbers and lists. Together, surely they are dynamite. So, with great pleasure the Observer blog here presents the all time top ten best ever numbers from one to ten.
1. Two - It's a prime number and it's an even number. Elegant, simple, incredibly versatile - it's the face that launched a thousand times tables.
2. Three - No more no less, it's the magic number.
3. Nine - It lives in the shadow of ten, but the cognoscenti know it to be a quirky, low-key pre-teen charmer.
4. One - The original, the indivisible.
5. Seven - A no nonsense prime, a great place to rest when counting if you don't have the strength to go the full ten.
6. Ten - The daddy. Pillar of the decimal community.
7. Four - It takes four letters to spell it. It is twice two and two plus two. It exudes symmetry.
8. Eight - Numerically a bit dull, but a festival of swirl to write (or draw).
9. Six - A handsome number, but somehow too even. Divisible by both 2 and 3? That's just showing off.
10. Five - A clumsy building block of a number. Useful, but not beautiful.
