The Sloppy Dog 2009 Honours List

With the presents unwrapped and most likely exchanged, the seasonal goodwill replaced by too-much-time-with-the-family frustration, and the turkey a skeletal mess at the bottom of the dustbin, it’s clearly that awkward tween-Chrimbo period of nothing before New Year’s Day. However, that also means it’s time to wrap 2009 up with our annual Honours List, which, let’s face it, carries far more weight than the Queen’s ever does. See you in 2010!

Sara Cox
Finally clambering aboard the Twitterwagon has been incredibly beneficial for when we can’t be bollocksed to write a full blog post, but also as it’s opened up a world of hilarity. Special mention must go to Lee Gaze and Grace Dent, whose Tweets each induce many a megalol, but Sara Cox wins gold. This woman’s ramblings - about anything and everything, but mostly food and dogs - are mind-bogglingly hysterical.

Ash
Their choice to ditch albums altogether and just release a series of singles may have appeared peculiar at first (it certainly induced some cynical head-scratching round these parts) but the consistent brilliance of these singles so far has been a pleasant reminder of just how gifted Ash are, helped massively by their dynamic, entertaining and frankly ingenious A To Z Tour.

David Tennant
Although December has seen him reaching Barrowman/Klass levels of ubiquity, the aforementioned media saturation has cemented David Tennant as not only an awesome actor, but a jolly nice bloke you’d be delighted to go for a pint with. And it’s only fair to salute him as he bows out of his role as the Tenth Doctor – a role he’s absolutely nailed, leaving an incredibly hefty pair of shoes for Matt Smith to fill.

Dannii Minogue
For the third year running, Dannii Minogue has had the toughest time on the X Factor judging panel. However, she’s seen it through with decorum, shrugged off the bad press, and consistently played fair, even when her fellow judges have been sneaking low-blows. Meanwhile, her appearance on the generally-execrable Piers Morgan’s Life Stories underlined her status as an underdog done good, something we always like to see.

Jon & Tracy Morter
It’d be unfair to cite Rage Against The Machine as heroes of the recent Christmas No. 1 campaign – the true stars were its originators, Jon and Tracy Morter, whose efforts saw the dreadful Joe McElderry and his even worse single The Climb kept from the top. As well as achieving the desired results, the campaign will no doubt send a shellshocked Simon Cowell back to the drawing board and hopefully see some positive changes for next year’s X Factor.

Beyoncé
You’d be hard pushed to find a woman with as many strings to her bow as Beyoncé Knowles, so it’s even more of a pleasure to find she’s evidently still got her feet firmly on the ground and has a very human side beneath the layers of gloss. Her response to Kanye West’s depraved cry for attention at the VMAs in August was the very definition of dignified, saving the night not only for Taylor Swift, but giving the rest of us the warm ‘n’ fuzzies too.

Danny Boyle
Overshadowed in 2009 on the Boyle front by Susan and Frankie, perhaps, but a universe of kudos goes to Danny Boyle for creating the film of the year. Slumdog Millionaire was inventive, touching, entertaining and incredibly powerful, and proved to be Boyle’s finest work since the untouchable Trainspotting.

Stacey Solomon
Time for our Annual X Factor Contestant Entry, this year going to Stacey Solomon. By no means our favourite of the series, but it was a genuine pleasure to witness her journey – not many people can come out the other side of the X Factor mangle as humble and appreciative as Stacey did. That, and the fact she’s unintentionally freakin’ hilarious.

Adam Lambert
...And with every perennial placing for an X Factor contestant comes the annual Idol participant. While this year’s silver medallist may be flawed on many a level, it’s impossible to contest his talent, nor to have an ardent respect for someone who steadfastly refused to water themselves down under pressure from the gutter media and the glare of the Bible Belt. Sterling work.

Russell Howard
Russell Howard’s appearance here comes solely from the fact he’s capable of inducing unbecoming snort-laughter with little to no effort. His superb BBC Three show Russell Howard's Good News show may even trump Newswipe as our favourite satirical current affairs point-and-laughfest – anyone who describes Nick Griffin as looking like a Greggs sausage roll with learning difficulties is truly a comedy mastermind.