2008. The Year That Was (Almost)

2008 was a year. What you want more than that? needy b&%£#@

2008 was a year of both spectacular success and miserable failure. Nothing can encapsulate this more neatly than the contrasting fortunes of those two stalwarts of the modern celebrity era: Kerry Katona and the England Football Team.

At the end of 2007, Kerry Katona, hero of many an Iceland Ad, looked set for another stellar year at the head of the celebrity D-List. In 2007 she had fulfilled many requirements of her "celebrity" status, including being held hostage, marrying a taxi driver she had known for two minutes, and a spell in The Priory, home of such famous drug addicts as 'that guy from Keane who's dad was a vicar but who still insists he's a rock star'. However, barely had the last words of Auld Lang Syne escaped the lips of the one person who actually knows all the words, than Kerry's life started slipping downhill. Early on she was ditched as a columnist in OK! magazine, often seen as the last refuge of the damned. or so it says in their PR. Following this were shock drug revelations, and an absolute slaughtering from that most vicious of comedians, Frankie Boyle. I mean, he almost literally ripped her to shreds. get on youtube if you don't believe me. And then, of course, this October came the most terrible news of them all; Kerry Katona went on This Morning drunk! The Horror! but then again, if you asked me to spend more than 14 seconds in a room with Fern Britton, I'd probably need to be half-cut before I even considered it. Anyway, it turned out she was an alcoholic, or something. Who really cares?

Onto something more interesting to 50% of the population;football! 2008 was a stellar year for English football: Man United winning the Champion's League, the Permiership once again asserting itself as the dominant force in League Football, and of course EURO 2008. oh. scrap that last one. Following the national football team's abject failure to qualify for the EUROs, the mood was hardly optimistic. This was not helped by Capello's first game in charge, against Switzerland, producing the dullest 90 minutes of football since Middlesborough v Anybody. However, after, it turned out that he was just tricking everyone into thinking we were awful, England amassed more goals in their first four qualifying matches than in the entire Euro 2004 campaign. And then we beat Germany. Which was nice.

Anyway, for those of you who were hoping for a celebrity blog, I'm sorry about the football bit. And for those of you who were hoping for a football blog, i'm sorry about the Kerry Katona thing. Anyway, to summarise, 2009 looks like a good year for everyone. Except Kerry Katona. And Bankers. And the 27'000 former employees of Woolworth's. And anyone who likes cheap petrol. Or who wants Rugby to become an interesting sport. So in actual fact, it looks like 2009 is going to be just awful. See you there :-)