Distinct ordering problems

[SpiKeRs]

I am messing about with my forums. What I am wanting to achieve is to select the row with the latest date for each topic.

 

$query1 = "SELECT DISTINCT topic FROM $forum_table  WHERE status != \'Important\' AND status != \'Deleted\' ";

$result1 = mysql_db_query($database, $query1) or die ("Could not execute query: $query1. " . mysql_error() );



$query2 = "SELECT poster, subject, DATE_FORMAT(ADDDATE(date, INTERVAL 6 HOUR), \'%d %b %Y %k:%i\') as full_date FROM $forum_table  WHERE topic =\'$row1->topic\' ORDER BY date DESC";

 

The above code is what I have tried out. Its working fine apart from one problem. Query 1 basically takes 1 instance of each topic as I want but there is no way to order it so in the forums it is simply ordered by topic number and not the date so I get the impression I am not on the right track to dealing with this issue. Any help appreciated.