The first, we believe, and possibly the best pairing ever invented. Not that we believe in the Garden of Eden anyway, but if we did we imagine within seconds of Adam and Eve seeing each other, Penis met Vagina, and the whole human race sprang from there. How much more important do you want? This basic pairing (unless you are gay, in which case you have an alternative) remains the quintessential coupling experience, and one that we hope to be involved with for many years to come.

Where would we be without up and down? No league tables in football, no gravity to hold us on to the very Earth we love so much, no stairs, no moods, no sky above us. Nothing. There would be nothing without up and down. Up and down is what makes things different, and therefore better or worse. It is linked, in its way, to right and wrong and left and right, but up and down is the daddy. It’s the one we all need just to live.

There is something so honest, so righteous, so communal about the simple placement of butter (never margarine, never low fat spread) on a simple slice of bread. Not only is butter the glue that holds all sandwiches together, it is the democratic spread of choice for all good men, and therefore the glue that holds humanity together. Pip and Joe share bread and butter in Great Expectations every evening. It bonds them. When Pip stops sharing bread and butter he becomes a jumped up Tory. Fact.

There have been many, many couples through history who could have made this list, but Mr Clyde Chestnut Barrow and Ms Bonnie Elizabeth Parker are our favourites. These two outlaws didn’t just have outsider appeal, bombing around in their Ford V8 robbing banks, killing folk and generally raising Hell, they had sex appeal. They looked good and went down in a blaze of glory. How many of us can say that?

It used to be so simple. You came of age. You walked into pub. You ordered beer, took beer to table and sat with mates. You pulled out packet of cigarettes, lit cigarette, exhaled, swigged beer. Repeated. That simple sharing of hop with smoke was, we think, the second pairing in the Garden of Eden, despite the fact that no such place ever existed. The smoking ban in pubs is trying to crush this primal urge to share, but our intelligence suggests it’s actually coming back into favour with the young. Hoorah!

Look, Paul McCartney is a haird-dyed ponce with a disability fetish and Michael Jackson is a dead abuser, but the pair of them hit the nail on the head when they said ebony and ivory go together in perfect harmony. Just not the ivory (we like elephants) or ebony (we like trees) but the idea of black and white. Put the two together and they trump all other shade/colour combos. If you want to look mean, moody and magnificent you use black and white. Nuff said.

A genius pairing for its basic simplicity, and pure user satisfaction. In some places, peanut butter and chocolate or sour cream and chives are seen as natural bedfellows. We say no. Never. You take your cheese, you take your onion, you combine in either sandwich, crisp or savoury bake and you have heaven in your mouth. We’ve even heard there is a comedy double act in the north of England called Steve Cheese and Gary Onion, but we’re not convinced.

Yes, we tip our caps to Mssrs. Hip and Hop, but it is the twisted roots of Mr. Rock and Mr. Roll that really set our hearts racing. Before they introduced themselves to each other and kick started the whole shebang, there weren’t really teenagers. And we need teenagers, perhaps more now than ever, to kick against the tedium of their parents lifestyles and bring everything crashing down in glorious chaos. Just like rock and roll

The legendary Jonathan Richman summed up the dual attraction of the town and the country in his song City vs Country: I want to live close to downtown to be near my friends I want to be close to them, And still be out by the trees and the wind Havin' both will be hard to find I'm sure, But then ain't that the way of the world, I want the city but I want the country too. We want them both too. And so should you. The best of both worlds, that’s the way.

There was a time, less than one hundred years ago, when, if you placed all the cod that could spawn in a single year, and stopped fishing for a single year, you culd walk from Ireland to Nova Scotia on a beautiful carpet of live fish. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? A testament to just how perfect fish and chips is as a meal is the parlous state the world cods stocks are now in. We loved it so much we ate it all.