Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to the last column of 2018, wherein (as is now tradition) I take the opportunity to hand out a plethora of coveted awards for achievements I determine have been neglected by the wider world. Take a glass of prosecco from my tray and let us begin the opening of the envelopes!

Very hotly contested this year, not least by Piers Morgan himself for, well, everything he’s uttered between 1 January and today. But really, there was only ever one contender and that was the Dutch TV personality and “positivity guru” Emile Ratelband, who began a legal battle to reduce his age by 20 years to improve his chances on Tinder. I could say more, but why bother? It’s all in the award’s title.

Via Sofie Hagen, Danish comedian and host of podcasts Comedians Telling Stuff and Made Of Human: ‘overskud’. It literally means ‘profit’ or ‘surplus’ but Danes use it to describe the feeling of not having the emotional energy or resources to meet someone or do something.

This is my permanent state and I do not know how I got so far through life without this word. I’d move to Denmark but worry about this conundrum: if I live among people so thoroughly attuned to my personality that they have this word, I may always have the mental resources to do everything and then never have occasion to use ‘overskud’ again. I intend to ponder this until Brexit forces my hand.

To whoever described Loaf’s ‘Soot’ side table – I reiterate: a side table – thus: “the sort of scuff-kneed character that would have been amazing at conker fights in school. We think we’d have got on with him just brilliantly.” Take this award, a tablet and a soothing hot drink and go and have a long lie down.

The husband of legendary movie star Bette Davis divorced her partly on the grounds that he felt she read “to an unnecessary degree”. #2019goals.

Among FTSE 100 companies there are more chairmen called John than there are women called anything at all.

A hard choice this year. It was nearly Great British Bake Off illustrator Tom Hovey. No fuss was made about his migration with the show from BBC One to Channel 4 despite him being 10 times more crucial to its success than numpty Paul Hollywood. 

But, in the end, it had to be the anonymous woman who was viciously set upon after a post she wrote describing what kind of flatmate she was looking for went viral. She said she wanted someone who used door handles rather than just pushing doors closed with a bang, for example, and who didn’t have friends round three or more times a week or spend hours in the kitchen cooking. 

She was ABSOLUTELY RIGHT IN EVERYTHING SHE SAID and I will not cease my efforts to have her recognised as the last bastion of civilisation in a failing world. A very merry Christmas to you all, but especially to her. May the flatmate of your dreams be in your stocking soon.

Images: Unsplash