Oh my friends, it’s been a long, hard year. Brexit, a General Election, Cats the movie, Prince Andrew, Greggs vegan sausage rolls, and the celebrity version of The X Factor.
How did we survive such unabated horror?
As we stride through the darkness into the dawn of a new year, here are my heroes and villains of 2019.
Those who somehow made us glad to be alive despite the distress — plus those who made us flee for the hills…
HEROES
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
This was her year. And that joyous fact was captured in an inspirational photograph taken after she won a clutch of Emmy awards for Fleabag in September.
PWB was surrounded by her trophies, wearing a glorious dress while holding a cocktail and smoking a cigarette.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge poses with the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Series for ‘Fleabag’ during the 71st Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles on September 22
Fleabag may have started as a scruffy little one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival, but it ended up propelling Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Hollywood and beyond. She proved to hopefuls everywhere that small ideas can turn into big dreams if you’re prepared for the hard work.
J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’ Broadway Opening, New York, April, 2018
Few celebrities have dared to speak out about the gender debate, but J.K. Rowling is not one of them. Recently she tweeted support for Maya Forstater, who lost her job for expressing a not unreasonable view that human beings cannot change sex and that transwomen remain, despite their expressed gender identity, essentially male.
For this, Forstater was sacked from her job with the Centre for Global Development think-tank — and then, unthinkably, lost an employment tribunal.
J.K. Rowling (left) disagreed that the way forward in this fraught topic was to ‘force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real’. The abuse has been awful, but her truth endures.
More must speak out to stop this nonsense and bullying by the trans lobby.
The Queen
O come all ye faithful, for my love for this incredible woman does not dim. At the age of 93, Her Majesty has been forced to contend with some of the biggest crises of her 67-year reign.
‘The path is not always smooth,’ was how she put it, with characteristic understatement, in her Christmas broadcast.
None of the rocks in the road is her fault, of course.
‘The path is not always smooth,’ was how she put it, with characteristic understatement, in her Christmas broadcast
Her idiot son Andrew, her hot-headed grandson Harry and his modernising wife, plus the declining health of her husband, have all added up to another annus horribilis.
Yet still she endures, with grace, strength and not a trace of self-pity. Many royals could still learn from her example.
Katherine Jenkins
Earlier this month, darling Katherine went to the rescue of an elderly woman being mugged by two teenage girls in Chelsea, West London.
The classical singer scared off the muggers by singing an a cappella version of Time To Say Goodbye. NO SHE DID NOT! This is not a joking matter.
KJ showed considerable personal courage by stepping in to help and was subsequently mugged herself.
Christmas with Katherine Jenkins and Friends. Performing live at the Royal Albert Hall in London
Not everyone is courageous enough to intervene in such situations, so hats off to Katherine; mother, saint, slayer of muggers, diva and doll.
Classical music runner-up: In another act of reckless operatic bravery, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa wore a skirt made from a sheet to present the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World award in June. The £20 hydrangea-print flat sheet was from Zara Home and has now sold out, thank goodness.
Sup. Ted Hastings
No Jan-hero-list could be complete without an appearance by Old Testament Ted from Line Of Duty (BBC One).
Supt Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) has been the true north in the cop show’s moral compass for five series now, rooting out bent coppers with zeal, nerves of Irish steel and no little appeal.
No Jan-hero-list could be complete without an appearance by Old Testament Ted from Line Of Duty (BBC One)
LOD was one of the biggest shows on TV this year, with more than 13.5 million tuning in to find out if Ted was a bad egg himself, or being framed by darker forces.
It turned out that lawyer Gill Biggeloe (Polly Walker) was the rotten apple in the bent cop barrel. Mother of God, it was her all along!
She was the devious plotter trying to seduce/frame Ted to get him kicked off the force and have his beloved AC-12 unit shut down.
Why?
‘It’s complicated,’ she shrugged.
London Bridge Heroes
On November 4, the UK terrorism threat level was reduced from ‘severe’ to ‘substantial’ for the first time since 2014. Before the month was out, convicted terrorist Usman Khan murdered two people and injured more on a rampage in London.
They included civil servant Darryn Frost who held off knifeman Khan with a narwhal tusk he’d grabbed from the wall in Fishmongers’ Hall where the attack started, and former prisoner John Crilly who wielded a fire extinguisher
The death toll would have been much worse had not members of the public stepped in to help.
They included civil servant Darryn Frost who held off knifeman Khan with a narwhal tusk he’d grabbed from the wall in Fishmongers’ Hall where the attack started, and former prisoner John Crilly who wielded a fire extinguisher.
These men could not have known, as they pursued him across London Bridge, that Khan’s suicide belt was fake. Both are to receive bravery awards. And a nation’s grateful thanks, too.
Boris Johnson
Hear me out. Prime Minister Boris may have his critics, but he was there when we needed him. Over one of the most fractious years in politics this country has ever seen, it was Boris who pulled us through.
Prime Minister Boris may have his critics, but he was there when we needed him (pictured: outside Downing Street after the election win)
After years of doom and Theresa May gloom, the electorate responded in kind to Johnson’s determination, confidence and optimism.
He romped home with a majority. Alone among leaders of other parties, he understood that people are still proud to be British and love their country.
Boris is not just a hero, he saved us from an alternative too awful to contemplate.
Morecambe and Wise
Still crazy after all these years — and still the funniest thing on television this Christmas. The only show that comes close are the old repeats of Father Ted.
Could everyone please try harder in 2020?
VILLAINS
John Bercow
Like the herring stitched inside the curtain lining, like the party guest who just won’t go, John Bercow hangs around like a bad smell.
Perhaps we should count ourselves lucky, as earlier this year he announced plans to stay on as Speaker until 2022 because it was just not ‘sensible to vacate the chair’ while ‘issues’ raged before Parliament. Whaaaat?
Speaker John Bercow gestures during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, London
Speaker Bercow did his best to thwart democracy in this country to suit his own agenda, and for that he will not easily be forgiven. On election night he proved himself to be a fluent political pundit, but a bad loser. A career in reality television surely beckons.
Extinction Rebellion
In October they were banned by the Met Police, but then won a High Court challenge to continue demonstrating and causing disruption in London. Can I make a suggestion?
Extinction Rebellion protestors demonstrate outside the Treasury building in London, Britain October 3
Next time they glue themselves to a bus or train, can we just suffer the disruption and leave them there?
The Bonfire of the Luvvies
Lily Allen’s tearful response to Labour’s election manifesto
Celebrities such as Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and Lily Allen all kept a high profile during the election.
The first two actively campaigned against the Conservatives, while Lily just wept. All three of them — and many of their like-minded chums — are simply incapable of hearing oppositional voices.
For amid the rigid mindset of luvvie groupthink there are no alternative opinions. Herd thinking is deeply entrenched. That is why so many television panel programmes featuring celebrities have become unwatchable, Tory bashing rants.
On a live Channel 4 show earlier this year, Sue Perkins described Theresa May as ‘s**t on a shoe’ and everyone involved thought that was fine.
Yet what the election proved is that this lot are so far removed from the concerns of ordinary people that they might as well be on another planet.
On a live Channel 4 show earlier this year, Sue Perkins described Theresa May as ‘s**t on a shoe’ and everyone involved thought that was fine
Hugh Grant and the gang spent much of the year telling everyone who didn’t agree with them that they were wrong, stupid, racist and intolerant.
They drove us all mad because they were the ones who didn’t understand what was really going on.
Thank goodness for the common sense of the British people, which prevailed in the end.
Guilt
Fancy a bit of Guilt? This black-hearted drama from BBC Scotland was not just one of the best things on television this year, it was crammed with the most marvellous cast of villains one could ever hope for.
Written by Neil Forsyth, it featured Mark Bonnar as a permanently furious lawyer, Ellie Haddington as a truly scary neighbour, and the mighty Bill Paterson oozing menace as a businessman with a history of violence.
I don’t want to give anything away, for all four episodes are back on BBC iPlayer and available for the next 12 days. Treat yourself!
Wishing you all a very Happy New Year.