Saloon bar heroes

While we were off discovering the difference between proper Egg Nog and the evil stomach bile that comes with pictures of soldiers on the side, John Peel unveiled the Festive Fifty for the year. Thanks (that's as in "We've borrowed this in a deft cut and paste") to the Peel YahooGroup, here's this year's chart in full:

1 Saloon Girls are the New Boys
2 Cinerama Quick Before It Melts
3 Miss Black America Talk Hard
4 Nina Nastasia Ugly Face
5 Antihero Rolling Stones T-shirt
6 M.A.S.S. Hey Gravity
7 Laura Cantrell Too Late for Tonight
8 Pinhole So Over You
9 Marc Smith vs Safe 'n' Sound Identify the Beat
10 Ballboy All the Records on the Radio are Shite
11 Miss Black America Miss Black America
12 Yeah Yeah Yeahs Bangs
13 Cinerama Careless
14 Half Man Half Biscuit The Light at the End of the Tunnel
(is the Light of an Oncoming Train)
15 The White Stripes Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
16 Low In The Drugs
17 Asa-Chang & Junray Hana
18 Low Canada
19 Coin Op Democracies
20 Belle & Sebastian You Don't Send Me
21 The Datsuns In Love
22 The Fall Susan vs Youth Club
23 Jeffrey Lewis Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song
24 Ballboy Where Do the Nights of Sleep Go To
When They Do Not Come To Me?
25 Cornershop Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform
26 Saloon Have You Seen The Light?
27 The White Stripes Fell In Love With A Girl
28 The Cranebuilders Your Song
29 The Delgados Mr Bluesky
30 Bearsuit Drinkink
31 Ladytron Seventeen
32 Boom Bip and Dose One Mannequin Hand Trapdoor Reminder
33 The Von Bondies It Came From Japan
34 Wire 99.9
35 mclusky Alan is a Cowboy Killer
36 Low That's How You Sing Amazing Grace
37 Antihero You Got Nothing
38 Half Man Half Biscuit Breaking News
39 Cinerama Catgirl Tights
40 mclusky To Hell With Good Intentions
41 Burning Love Jumpsuit Cheerleader
42 Interpol Obstacle 1
43 Melys So Good
44 The Delgados Coming in from the Cold
45 Miss Black America Infinite Chinese Box
46 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster Celebrate Your Mother
47 The D4 Get Loose
48 Müm Green Grass of Tunnel
49 The Aphrodisiacs This is a Campaign
50 The Dawn Parade The Hole in my Heart

As ever, the winner is slightly controversial, although this year its more of a tactical voting scam rather than the full-on Jeb Bush riggage that has happened in the past (Fat Tulips, are you still in the corner looking ashamed?). It seems that, afraid of the split vote that has consistently prevented The Fall and various David Gedge projects from taking their positions at the top of the tree in previous years, Saloon asked their fans that, if they wanted to cast a vote for them, to vote for Girls Are The New Boys. It seems to have worked for them, but we're not entirely sure it's ethical. Luckily, we hear Kissinger's free again to investigate.