Daily catch-up: Another view of old London and a message from the marketing department

Top 10s, the Banned List and QTWTAINs (Questions To Which The Answer Is No)

Another view of old London via Sir William Davenant: "I give you Elephant and Castle with Newington Turnpike c.1825. A scene of tranquility much like today."

• The Top 10 in The New Review, the Independent on Sunday magazine, was Longest-Reigning British Monarchs. My favourite was number eight.

Peter Warner had an addition to my recent Top 10 Idioms From Other Languages. Dans la nuit, tous les chats sont gris. "At night, all cats are grey." As he says: "Multiple applications." As did Daniel Hannan: Mucho ruido y pocas nueces. ‏"Much noise, few nuts."

What is that you say? You want more Top 10s? It's the first of December and you're thinking about Christmas presents? Here you are: Listellany: A Miscellany of Very British Top Tens, from Politics to Pop.

• David Mills issued a statement yesterday, which I reproduce here as a public service: "I just used 'other' as a verb and am reporting myself to the Banned List. I will make no further comment at this time."

Another Christmas present selects itself: The Banned List: A manifesto against jargon and cliché.

• Still with the hard sell, a number of outstanding QTWTAIN were reported yesterday:

Is Hilary Benn about to become Labour’s very own Aung San Suu Kyi? From White Wednesday.

If some Labour MPs were as fiercely vocal against the Tories as they are against Jeremy Corbyn would we have won in 2015? From Adam Lent.

Does this picture prove aliens in a UFO watched the Moon landings? From Oliver Kamm.

And you can buy your own copy of Questions To Which The Answer Is No here.

• And finally, thanks to David O'Doherty ‏for this news:

"So many lambs don't even go outside anymore. They just stare at their computers doing online gambolling."