So I can't count - maths never was my strong point. Perhaps it should be retitled "Some of the most memorable moments from French news over the past year" but that seems a little long-winded and cumbersome.
And besides any top-10 list of what have been the highlights (and the lowlights) of a year's worth of news here in France, could probably be filled with a certain Nicolas Sarkozy - the French president, in case you were unaware.
He of course cannot be excluded, and indeed features strongly.
So without (too much) further ado, grab a glass of wine (French of course) and settle back for a taste of some of the stories that have made the headlines in France during 2008 - for better or for worse.
Some have links to pieces (in English) that might provide a little more meat to the story; others don't - so you'll just have to take my word for it.
The year started off pretty much as the previous one had ended, with Sarkozy's name and face plastered all over the front pages.
First up in January of course was his press conference to the nation's (and the world's) media in which he took everyone here by surprise by announcing the end of public advertising on French television for the beginning of 2009.
The head of French TV, Patrick de Carolis was as unprepared as anyone, but the only thing everyone present really wanted know was would he or wouldn't he marry - Carla of course.
A few weeks later another name hit the headlines - that of trader, Jérôme Kerviel, who lost a whopping €5 billion of Société Générale's dosh. Little did we know he was a something of a trendsetter for what would follow much later in the year.
In February Sarkozy fulfilled his promise (for once) from the previous month that we would only find out about his and Carla's nuptials after they had happened.
The two tied the knot barely three months into their whirlwind romance, and the country had a new First Lady.
But Sarkozy's PR honeymoon with the French didn't last too long, as just a couple of weeks later he was at his very best during the agricultural fair in Paris.
Few will forget those now infamous presidential words he uttered to a visitor who refused to shake his outstretched hand; "Casse toi alors, pauvre con."
March is always a month that promises much but delivers little - certainly in terms of the weather. Spring is around the corner, but winter hasn't really yet finished having its say.
The French went to the polls in local elections - gains for the Socialist party and some political spinning from the government after a less than encouraging performance.
The "party girl" justice minister, Rachida Dati, admitted what everyone knew - namely she enjoyed the trappings of office - when she confirmed reports that her department had already spent two thirds of its annual €200,000 entertainment budget.
But the month also marked the death at the grand old age of 110 of France's last surviving World War I veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, a man whose life was by any stretch of the imagination remarkable.
The official end of the "Bling Bling" presidency (as if) was announced by the creator himself in April as Sarkozy faced a barrage of questions from five "approved" journalists in a 90-minute prime time television interview.
He admitted having made mistakes - not in policy as much in delivery of the message - and promised to pull his socks up in an effort to improve his plummeting popularity ratings.
Jérôme Kerviel went back to work, a giant of French literature, Aimé Césaire, died at the age of 94 and there was a storm in a teacup moment as a 33-year-old electro-pop singer, Sébastien Tellier, was chosen to defend the nation's colours at the annual Eurovision song contest the following month - singing primarily in English. Zut alors!
It was also a month that saw the beginning of Sarkozy's somewhat - shall we say - diffident handling of relations with China and the Dalai Lama - a sort of one step forward, two steps back tale as the Olympic flame made its chaotic and truncated way through the streets of Paris, with little comment from the Elysée palace, and still no firm decision on whether the president would attend the opening of the games in Beijing.
The excellent Entre les Murs scooped top honours at Cannes in May - the first time a French film had won in 21 years
A sign that French cinema was on the up and up, especially after Marion Cotillard's Oscar for best actress in la Môme a couple of months earlier and the roaring success of the home-produced comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis, which was busy breaking all domestic box office records.
Sadly, Sébastien Tellier singing in English didn't help France much at Eurovision - he notched up just 27 points, and finished 19th....out of 25 countries.
Other more dubious cultural highlights in a month packed with them included the awarding of the country's highest honour, the Légion d'honneur, to the Canadian chanteuse Céline Dion, and Kylie Minogue became a chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et Lettres (a knight of the order of Arts and Letters)
Oh yes and Carla (Bruni-Sarkozy) confirmed she had a new album in the pipeline.
Les Bleus (the national soccer team) - runners up in the 2006 World cup just two years earlier, went home with early their collective tail between their legs from Euro 2008 in June, scoring just one goal in their three group matches.
Gaël Monfils had the country's hopes high in making it as far as the semi-finals of the French Open at Roland Garros, before losing to Roger Federer
Away from sport, the Irish rather put a dampener on Sarkozy's hopes for a successful stint as France prepared to take over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union the following month, when they voted "no" to the Lisbon treaty,
And more importantly (for some) Carla "revealed" almost all on how she and her husband had first met, in a new book - well summer was around the corner, and beach reading was required.
Summer arrived, and with it the long-promised release in July of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy's album Comme si de rien n'etait.
It quickly made its way to the top of the charts, going double gold in the process, but somehow magically failing actually to sell the required number of copies.
Meanwhile it was a busy month for her husband who took over the six month rotating presidency of the EU, informing the Irish that they should vote again. He didn't get very far.
During the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan at the beginning of the month Sarkozy looked (by general agreement) rather bored, but his demeanour changed somewhat a couple of weeks later when he officially launched his pet project, the Mediterranean Union, in Paris.
Although generally pooh-poohed by the other 26 members of the EU present, Sarkozy was in his element as he played host to leaders from Egypt, Israel and Syria, trying to put a gloss on their refusal to shake hands, but blusteringly confident that "Club Med" was the beginning of "something new and important".
Sarkozy finally finished dithering over whether he would attend the opening of the following month's Olympic games in Beijing by announcing to nobody's real surprise that he would.
Oh yes and on 25th, he played host to a certain Barack Obama, who stopped over in Paris on his whistle-stop tour that took in several European capitals.
Appearing in front of the television cameras, Obama looked all the part of a world statesman, while Sarkozy seemed in comparison - well, decidedly short.
Away from politics, there was another in a series of those so-called "run-of-the-mill" leaks at one of the country's nuclear power plants, and the month also saw the end of an era in French television as the country's long-serving prime time news anchor, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, made his final broadcast,
August is of course a time when virtually the whole of the country comes to a standstill - not because of the national pastime of striking, but because everyone goes on holiday.
For the residents of Hautemont in the north of the country and surrounding villages, those holidays were rudely interrupted by a tornado which wrecked the town, destroying 700 homes, killing three people and injuring 18.
Sarkozy made it to the opening ceremony of the Olympics, but the French team got off to the slowest of starts with a seeming interminable wait and much hand wringing from disappointed commentators before the country eventually struck gold. The final result - 40 medals in total, seven better than in Athens.
While Sarkozy was in China, the Dalai Lama was in France on a 12-day trip. Still not wanting to offend the authorities in Beijing, Sarkozy sent his wife, Carla, along to meet Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and she was joined at the last moment by two members of the government, the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, and the junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade.
It was also the month in which 10 French soldiers were killed and 21 injured in Afghanistan.
A few weeks later in September, there was outrage in France as the weekly magazine, Paris Match, published an interview with the leader of a faction of the Taliban responsible for the ambush.
Alongside appeared photographs in which members of that faction were dressed in the military uniform of some of the dead soldiers, and showing personal effects taken from the victims.
On 12th, Pope Benedict XVI arrived for a three-day visit and thousands turned out to catch at least a glimpse of the head of the Catholic church.
The justice minister, Rachida Dati, announced she was pregnant, but refused to name the father because "it's a complicated situation."
Jean Sarkozy, the younger of the French president's two grown up sons from his first marriage, took a leaf out of his father's book when, along with his wife, Jessica Sebaoun, he took legal action against two weekly magazines for publishing photographs of the couple's recent marriage, without their consent.
And French television aired what was probably one of the most touching documentaries of the year on Annie Girardot, a star of the big screen here in France during the 1970s and 80s, now living her own personal hell in the final stages of Alzheimer's.
October was a busy month for the French president by anyone's reckoning - both in France and worldwide.
By now Sarkozy had settled into his role of the EU's Big Cheese in his efforts to try to quell the dispute between Russia and Georgia, which had begin a couple of months earlier.
He had received fulsome praise from many quarters of the (French) media, and revelled once again in being thrust (or should that be thrusting himself?) back into the international limelight as he sought to save the world from financial meltdown - almost single handed.
When the French state helped bail out the Belgian bank Fortis and then a couple of days later the Belgian-French, Dexia, Sarkozy was hailed (not least by himself) as a hero.
But he fair blew a gasket on learning that the chief executive of Dexia, Axel Miller, would be receiving a golden handshake of €3,73 million and threatened to call the deal off unless Miller abandoned his claim. He did. The real end of Bling Bling?
And while the US president, George W Bush seemed paralysed, Sarkozy went into hyper drive to organise the G20 summit for the following month (his secret wish from July's G8 was coming true)
In the middle of saving the world, he still had time to turn his mind to matters closer to home - taking legal action seemingly whenever the mood suited, and in particular in his efforts to get that dratted voodoo doll (made in his image) removed from shop shelves.
In other news, French cycling wonder, Jeannie Longo turned 50, and there was more outrage, this time at the whistling that accompanied the singing of the French national anthem at the opening of a friendly soccer international in Paris against Tunisia.
For once politicians from all parties seemed united on something.
Then there was the death of one of this country's most exceptional and much-loved women.
Soeur Emmanuelle, who had dedicated her life to helping the poor, died just days short of what would have been her 100th birthday.
In November, the summit in the United States, convened to deal with financial meltdown, was almost pushed out of the headlines here in France - in spite of Sarkozy's role, because the month also ushered in the climax of the long-running saga also known as the battle for the leadership of the Socialist party.
It was a story that went on and on and on and on - and still many political commentators have the feeling that it's not quite over.
Somewhere in the middle of it all though, one of the main protagonists, Ségolène Royal, still found time to provide one of those golden moments of radio when being interviewed one morning.
After the presenter asked her whether she could think of anything Sarkozy (remember she lost to him in last year's presidential election) had done that she might consider worthy of praise, she thought. There was silence - never to be highly recommended on the airwaves, before she responded that she couldn't think of anything "apart from the drop in the number of deaths in accidents on the motorway."
So into December, which began with what had to be just about the most extraordinarily jaw-to-the-floor statement from that world famous humanitarian, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner.
In an interview with one of the country's daily newspapers, he turned around and said that it had been a mistake to appoint a junior minister responsible for human rights as "foreign policy cannot be conducted only in terms of how human rights functions".
Er..............
That statement was made on December 10 in Paris - a day which just happened to mark the 60th anniversary of the singing of the universal declaration on human rights.
Of course it was really just an attack on Rama Yade, the junior minister in question, who was being told off publicly for not agreeing to stand for the European elections next year as "instructed" by her big boss Sarkozy, which she described as "like being forced to marry Prince Albert (of Monaco)".
Proof perhaps that politicians do indeed have a sense of humour.
Sarkozy tied up the odds and ends to the French spell at the EU presidency (that'll now move on the Czech Republic) won "agreement" on a 27-nation Climate control plan, launched a financial plan that's supposed to save French industry, and is (probably) off to Brazil to sign deals and for his Christmas break with Carla.
That's it. A year's worth of some of the most memorable news stories here in France.
There's more, much more of course, but you've probably made it through to the end of a bottle of wine by now, let alone that glass.
Predictions for 2009? A cabinet reshuffle, Rachida Dati gives birth, more Sarkozy and even more Carla. It'll rain and there'll be strikes. Ségolène Royal won't go away and there'll be some surprises in the elections for the European parliament.
How's that for hedging my bets?
Pass the bottle.
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