(JP: 'For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Festive Fifty, these are the top fifty records chosen by you, the listener, in a nationwide poll. It used to be, in the golden age of the Festive Fifty, which started way back in the reign of William and Mary, about half the nation's population would vote in it. These days, of course, rather fewer people do. I think people are fed up with democracy, by and large, and who can blame them?')
49: Freddy Fresh, 'You Can See The Paint (CD-Have Records Will Travel)' (Howlin')
(JP: 'God save us from unsupervised teenagers, that's all I can say...this is the first of several records in the Festive Fifty that's gonna cause some sort of controversy amongst those who are interested, anyway, in that it's difficult to know exactly when it was released. You get records coming out in the States on white label or something like that, and then, like a year or so later, they'll be issued on sheep's breath grey vinyl in New Zealand only, so really, the release of them's been spread out over two or three years, and that came out as a single quite some time ago, but resurfaced this year on an LP. That was the first time ever, I think, in doing the Festive Fifty, that I've actually given the name of the artist prior to playing the track. A very serious mistake.') John's latter assertion is easy to disprove: he had done so many times over the years.
48: Blizzard Boys, 'Ain't No Stoppin This (12")' (Blizzard Tracks)
47: Camera Obscura, 'Keep It Clean (LP-Underachievers Please Try Harder)' (Elefant)
43: Belle And Sebastian, 'Stay Loose (LP-Dear Catastrophe Waitress)' (Rough Trade)
(JP: 'I'm not 100 per cent certain that I ever played that before tonight. I mean, I listened to it here at home, but never played it on the programme.')
(JP: 'I remember hearing Andy Peebles, he used to work for Radio 1, doing a chart rundown at some stage, and he said, "In that all-important number 17 spot", and that's something that has stayed with me forever, so, in that all-important number 40 spot...')
39: Cat Power, 'Werewolf (CD-You Are Free)' (Matador)
38: ballboy, 'Born In The USA (CD-The Sash My Father Wore And Other Stories)' (SL)
37: Radiohead, 'There There (CD-Hail To The Thief)' (Parlophone)
(JP: 'Another track which I don't remember playing, in fact I didn't play it on the radio...Excellent stuff, and I can understand why you voted for that too. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I'd not even heard the LP until I went out and bought myself a copy a couple of weeks ago.')
36: French, 'Gabriel In The Airport (LP-Local Information)' (Too Pure)
(JP: 'At number 31, the record about which I spent more time answering questions in the past month than any other.')
31: Amsterdam, 'Does This Train Stop On Merseyside (CD single)' (Beat Crazy)
(JP: Well, that would be in my top five (sounds somewhat choked up), that upsets me every time I hear it...Why do I get like this? Perhaps I need psychiatric help.')[1]
30: Camera Obscura, 'Suspended From Class (CD-Underachievers Please Try Harder)' (Elefant)