BEST MOVIE?
It sounds a bit nerdy but I’ll go with Downfall, the one about Hitler’s last days in the bunker. I only got back into watching movies a couple of weeks ago, and I really thought it was a fantastic film.
BEST RECORD?
I listened to American Idiot by Green Day a lot this year.
BEST BOOK?
I’m still trying to read the thing but it’s a book called Snow by a Turkish guy, Orhan Pamuk.
BEST TV PROGRAMME?
I discovered Six Feet Under on DVD. When I was in Baghdad, the journalists there were divided into two camps: those who were into Six Feet Under and those who liked Sex And The City. I hadn’t been in Ireland or the UK for so long that I never got to see them, so in Baghdad I caught up with my popular culture with the box-set DVDs.
HERO OF 2005?
A colleague I worked with, an Iraqi journalist from Basra called Fakher Haider who was murdered. He was a friend of mine, and he was just one of those fantastic people that you meet. I worked with him in June, and he impressed me as a wonderfully humane and compassionate guy who was a lot of fun and had a real sense of joy about him. He was one of the good guys. And then he was murdered a couple of months later, he was abducted and killed.
VILLAIN OF 2005?
Well, I guess the people who kidnapped me.
BEST PERSONAL MOMENT?
That would have to be when I was released. The previous day had probably been the worst day of my life, and the day I was released was the best day of my life.
BEST THING ABOUT THIS YEAR?
The free, fair and peaceful elections in Liberia which elected Africa’s first woman president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. I say this because I was in Liberia two years ago when it was horrible, there was famine and massacres, and now Liberia has actually got a chance.
FUNNY THING ABOUT 2005?
Being a celebrity in Ireland, that was really weird. Walking down the street and being recognised by strangers was the funniest thing. I hope I don’t have to get used to it though.
HOPE FOR NEXT YEAR?
To have a very soothing but fun year filled with good food, good wine and good company. It was one of the most interesting and challenging years of my life. In January I moved to Baghdad and spent nine months in Iraq, in the middle of a very strange and complicated situation, and it was my job to make sense of it. I only partially suceeded. It was a privilege to have a ring-side seat to what was happening there, as a journalist but also as someone who’s just living in this world. A lot of what is going on there is terrible, but there were some good things happening. It was something that I really cherish.