5. Dirt 3 – Xbox 360
Dirt 3 removed the few bad parts of Dirt 2 and introduced some great tracks and racing. The return of split screen gaming was fantastic and the multiplayer added a lot of value. Its just a shame they had to shoe horn in gymkhana nonsense.

4. F1 2011 – Xbox 360
This years game may be slightly buggy but this is a much more playable game than the first one and is actually enjoyable to play with friends. As above Codemasters saw the sense and added split screen multiplayer.

3. Batman Arkham City – Xbox 360
The first Arkham game was fantastic, I loved everything about it. The new game was very good but still felt disappointing. The new environment was not generally as good and the boss battles were not so strong. It was still a great game though.

2. Dark Souls – Xbox 360
I will be honest, I am not a long way through this tricky game but I can tell that it is fantastic and despite being very hard I have had fun with it so far.

1. Portal 2 – Xbox 360
A great game, the story is great and the gameplay is still very very enjoyable. It is rare for a game to make you laugh but this has humour in spades. Valve does it again.

Beth:
10. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
9. Senna
8. Source Code
7. Cars 2
6. Harry Potter
5. Horrible Bosses
4. Attack the Block
3. Sherlock Holmes
2. Bridesmaids
1. King’s Speech

Jonathan:

10. source code
9. horrible bosses
8. attack the block
7. Sherlock holmes
6. tinker tailor soldier spy
5. King’s Speech
4. Senna
3. bridesmaids
2. tintin

And at number 1:

1. Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol
It may be big and noisy as well as everything a film graduate should hate but I don’t care about any of that. I want to watch a film and have fun and Mission Impossible 4 was the film I had the most fun watching.

That logic is also what sees Tintin at number 2 and Bridesmaids at three. From there we have three of the films that have/should have critical acclaim, Senna was a good portrayal of a great racer while Kings Speech has already cleaned up an awards season.

Bring on 2012 with Batman and Bilbo!

Top 5 sportsmen of 2011
Drew Brees for breaking Dan Marino’s yardage record.
Jenson Button for coming ahead of everyone except Sebastian Vettel
Dai Greene for winning the world 400m Hurdles and for being Welsh
Nathan Cleverly for being Britain’s only remaining boxing World Champion (and for being Welsh)
Mark Cavendish for winning Sports Personality

Losers of the Year
Carlos Tevez – Perhaps it was too cold to play?
The three Pakistan cricketers convicted of match fixing.
Mike Tindall – He would have been put in the Tower 400 years ago.
Alain Rolland – For sending off Sam Warburton against France. I know he’s Irish but he sure sounds French.
Amir Khan – for losing when a Super-Fight was on the horizon.

Teams of the Years
AFC Wimbledon – well the first half of the year anyway.
Wales Rugby team – for being better than England.
England Cricket – for being better than everyone (in Test Cricket anyway).
Barcelona – for thrashing Man Utd in the Champions League Final
Oakland Raiders – well why not?

Special Mile High Messiah Award
Tim Tebow – no he’s not he’s just a naughty boy!

Note that there are no women listed, well its not really sport is it?

Trefor Little

5. Karting
While I won again that wasn’t the key thing. I had lots of fun with friends and family on the track at the meals afterwards and I hope that will continue in 2012 with races likely in February, August and November/December. I also had more experience of outdoor karting racing around Surbiton and Bayford Meadows. The latter is superb and gave me my first proper race against proper foes. Unfortunately the rain scuppered my opening race fourth place. Bring on 2012′s racing.

4. 48 hours in America

In October Beth and I flew to Chicago on a Friday and then flew back on a Sunday. This was not because we are mad (well maybe partially), but because Beth’s uncle Bob was marrying his fiancée Joanne. I did a pretty good job or staying in GMT for the trip, helped by the reception finishing around 9pm. The weekend was made the more enjoyable with a trip Saturday to the John Deere museum and the wedding itself was lovely despite a rock concert in the background and the punkin (pumpkin) people. The reception was nice and the company was good. The only downside really was the travel.

3. Becoming involved in American Football
For several years I have followed American Football quite strongly. I had knowledge of an British league but had never really researched it. Then in February 2011 the league’s forum advertised a webmaster position. I applied and found the position was already filled but was offered a role as the league’s news editor instead. As the season started the role consumed a lot of my time but was rarely a chore. I now have a good amount of knowledge of the sport in this country and am looking forward to my second season in the role while also now becoming the webmaster.

2. Moving house
In January we moved from our lopsided flat at one end of the high street to a bungalow on the other end. The new place is an improvement under almost all criteria. We now have a garden, a driveway and a study. The downside is that we had to invite fewer people for thanksgiving and the shower is a bit naff. Minor issues.

1. Denver
Two trips to Denver this year. The first saw a largely sport filled break. I went a little baseball mad, seeing three games in four days at Coors Field home of the Colorado Rockies. I then went to my first NHL and NBA games as well. We also saw some lovely scenery including the Garden of the Gods.

Our trip in December was just as good as I brought my parents along and we spent Christmas in a log cabin in Estes Park then spent a nice quiet week at casa des Blomberg with another NHL game added in for luck.

I am now 6-5 on watching the Denver sports teams. May more wins improve that further.

So that was my 2011, how was yours?

Congratulations also to 2011′s other newlyweds:
Demelza and Craig King, Laura and Simon Rafferty and Nicola and Michael Sharkey

The rolling start went better than it did in May. This time though we had the pack split in two with Beth, Bev and Ceri pulling away in the front. When the safety kart pulled in we all passed Cathy and Thomas fell back as well. By this time Beth started to get a lead as Beverley and Ceri learned the track. Then the front positions changed quickly with Beverley heading down the pack and an incident involving a backmarker sent Ceri slowly through the pitlane to avoid the accident. This allowed Jonathan past and into second but a previous spin stopped Patrick from following through. Jonathan set off after Beth, realising he was not in the lead yet. It took a good ten more laps to catch her, she was flying in the lead for the first time. The pass came after a couple more laps following an strong run onto the straight giving more speed that Beth’s line.

Eventually Ceri got close to Jonathan’s pace and that inevitably eventually gave him second with a pass on Beth. Jonathan meanwhile set the fastest lap having eventually worked out that the whole track can be taken completely flat and was happy going off into the distance.

Unfortunately I don’t know much about everyone else’s races, if something exciting happened to you then let me know.

I did take a video but surbiton does not seem conducive to my filming thanks to the high speed bumpy nature of the track it keeps getting bumped down my helmet. I figure its just best not to bother giving reader sea-sickness.