2016 has thrown up so many things which are worthy of a good chortle, and that’s leaving aside all the political stupidities. Let’s follow the scheme of the last couple of years.

Product of the Year
Three contenders for this year’s accolade:
Little Rooster Vaginal Alarm Clock
Camel Balls
Deep-fried Curry-filled Doughnuts which are buried deeply in http://londonist.com/2015/08/w-a-cafe-quirky-japanese-savouries-and-patisserie-in-ealing

Best Unintended Consequence
The prize this year goes to the Scandinavian stationery company Locum for their excellent logo:

Auction Item of the Year (from our local auction house)
This year’s three winners are:
Third: A Brookes Champion Standard B17 reproduction penny farthing
Second: A vintage Agricastrol hand delivery pump for oil in original green cabinet

First: An unusual Edward VIII commemorative toilet roll holder, circa 1936, with an unopened pack of Tri-Sol medicated toilet paper (price 6d)

Poseur of the Year
This award has to go to politician Ed Balls for “Strictly has released my inner Beyoncé“.

Name of the Year
This year’s winner is Dr Wendy Chan She Ping Delfos, a Dietician quoted in Daily Telegraph back on 23 September.

Organisation Name of the Year
The medal goes to the 1920s American firm of architects Corbett Harrison MacMurray Hood Fouilhoux & Crane.

Best Neologism
The prize here has to go to whoever perpetrated gentrification of the mind.

Best Oxymoron
This year’s prize to the National Liberal Club for Afternoon tea is served between 3.30pm and 5.30pm in the (non smoking) Smoking Room

Best Paint Shade
It’s been a difficult year for interior designers, after all they have to comne up with new names for the plethora of paint shades available. Manufacturers Crown and Dulux share the award for the following shades:
Fairy Dust (Crown)
Lavender Cupcake (Crown)
Potting Shed (Crown)
Secret Escape (Crown)
Botanical Extract (Crown)
Chatterbox (Crown)
Scrumptious (Crown)
Berry Smoothie (Dulux)
Wellbeing (Dulux)
Purple Pout (Dulux)
Muddy Puddle (Dulux)
Muddy Puddle (Dulux)

Best Book Title
This is always a popular category and this year we have two winners:
How to Live with a Calculating Cat by Eric Gurney
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

Best Academic Paper Title
There was really only one contender this year: Perilous patches and pitstaches: Imagined versus lived experiences of women’s body hair growth.

Best Research Topic
The two awards in this category go to:
‘Unperformable’ music — an ontological approach
101 uses for the sacred foreskin

Most Unusual Sport
Following on from last year’s Elephant Polo, this year we have Tuk-Tuk Polo, which avoids the problems of elephants going on the rampage.

Most Crass Media Statement
Oh dear, there are just so many of these from which to choose, but the jury finally agreed that the award goes to the Guardian headline:

Outstanding News Headlines
Three medals are awarded this year to:
Large Hadron Collider: Weasel causes shutdown (actually the unfortunate animal turned out to be a Beech Marten.
Passengers evacuated at Purley station after train crashes into pheasant
Hitler’s wife’s knickers sold at auction

Best Marketing Bollocks

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO OR FROM THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION WHERE IT IS UNLAWFUL TO RELEASE, PUBLISH OR DISTRIBUTE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT.
[From a government email about sale of Lloyds shares; 28 January 2016]

Hand picked by artisan farmers
[The Real Olive Company tub of Organic Kalamata Olives]

From the sweeping 100ft balcony through to the iconic bed and integrated open fire, The May Fair’s signature Penthouse Suite is a 200-square metre exercise in light, space and opulent style.
[Quoted by Londonist]

And finally we come to …
Do what?
Where we celebrate the intelligibly unintelligible. This year the winner is:

The philosophy of tiddlers is that we maximise the possibilities for re-use by slicing information up into the smallest semantically meaningful units with rich modelling of relationships between them. Then we use aggregation and composition to weave the fragments together to present narrative stories.
TiddlyWiki aspires to provide an algebra for tiddlers, a concise way of expressing and exploring the relationships between items of information.
[From Philosophy of Tiddlers]

Let me know your favourite amusements of the year — and don’t forget to start collecting for 2017!

We’ve not had any amusement recently from the catalogues of our local auction house. This is mainly because they have recently been relatively dull. But it’s time to catch up, so here are the highlights from the last two or three auctions, and as always it is not just the stuff that people sell but what gets lumped together to make a lot and sometimes the somewhat erratic descriptions. Presumably someone must buy this stuff or they wouldn’t sell it! Anyway, here goes (any emphasis is mine) …
A Venner time switch, a Metropolitan taxi meter, and a speed and power playback reel to reel tape deck
A treacle glazed pottery Toby jug, a dinosaur teapot plus three erotic netsuke in china and wood
A pair of cream ground elephant seats, a quantity of DVDs including Sex and The City, photo albums, a figurine of a rabbit, two modern dishes, wine bottle opener, and a coffee table
An antique native primitive bow of natural branch form with gut bow-string, and two quivers, one in bamboo with plain leather binding, the other in decorated leather, each containing bamboo arrows with barbed iron heads
A good collection of garden ornaments, incl. a dog holding a basket, a planter upon a cherub, vintage chimney marked Doulton & Co., Lambeth, and various cherub wall plaques and decoration, two male busts, mirrors, and a marble-topped table on metal base
A Suzuki MG25 marching Glockenspiel
[That’s worthy of Terry Pratchett; it must be a cousin of “The Luggage”!]
A charming Edwardian pram with Greek fabric detailing on inside of hood, a weatherproof covering for doll, and what appears to be a leather head support strap across the top of buggy, four spoked wheels on metal frame, a doll (one leg missing) with serial code AM Germany351/41/2 K on neck and rolling blue eyes, eyelash detailing, open mouth and in knitted blue dress and cardigan
[GOK why you would want a one-legged doll (though I guess it is politically correct); and are the spoked wheels part of the pram or separate items?]
A collapsible child’s micro scooter, also dumbbells, and a chest expander
A figure of Christ crucified
[Why?]
A pair of framed watercolours of birds, a set of old golf clubs, some hickory-shafted, vintage movie cameras, a Windsor model 71 voltometer, a collection of cameras incl. Kodak Brownie 127, a metal safety box, stoneware bottles, spirit levels, and a pair of aluminium ladders
2 hand-painted decorative saws depicting village scenes, a vintage lawn mower, a spade and a shovel
[Clearly an ancient art-form which has passed me by]
A pets bed styled as a miniature sofa in buttoned velvet, raised on shell carved cabriole legs
A bronze figure, Ancient Egyptian or later, on a stone base
[Basically it could be any date, but it looks Egyptian]
A Victorian stag hoof converted as an inkwell
A fine Victorian Indian ivory page turner carved with a pierced handle surrounding a maiden
An interesting lot of small items including an enamel-lidded glass jar, other jars, old buttons in a box, 2 old watches, miniature enamelled vases, a naval whistle, lizard claw, etc., all in a brass-faced box
An album of black and white adult photographs
A Lachenal & Co concertina, early 20th century, no. 160071, with 33 buttons to the pierced nickel-plated ends, wooden rests stamped with trade mark etc. and ‘steel reeds’, in ebonised wood box
[AKA a button accordion]
A one-string fiddle, home-made, with brass horn, and a violin bow
An impressive ceramic Quartz clock decorated with shell decoration and two handled on top
[A two handed what? Included also as it is so stunningly … impressive]
A leather Doctors bag and contents, plus a further leather Doctors bag complete with instruments, a Policeman’s helmet, and a Kodak Instant camera
[There’s a theme here, but I’m not at all sure what it is; maybe Agatha Christie?]
[And of course there had to be a collection of things stuffed. What is it about taxidermy?]
A taxidermy kestrel on rocky base enclosed in glazed wooden display case
A taxidermy kestrel on a mossy base in a glazed wooden cabinet
A taxidermy barn owl on rocky base enclosed in glazed wooden display case
A large quantity of china to include 19th century part tea services, a small collection of Wade figures including a lady and a blow up Dalmatian, further decorative wall plates, meat plates, ornaments, animal figurines, etc.
A Life Guard Trooper’s helmet, presumed circa 1900
A modern bronze group of two conjoined torsos
[Scrap metal?]
A wooden cased table organ with nine pull-outs and three and a half quavers, in aluminium carry case
[I suggest they mean 3½ octaves]
Three Union Jacks last displayed on VE day
[We know this?]
A cow skin, probably Charolais
A Laura Ashley red velvet quite with beaded trim edge, a Greek fabric national doll and a Spanish flamenco doll
Two 19th century powder-coated cartwheels
[Oh, really?]
Five vintage petrol cans …
More anon.