As 2002 curls up its toes and attempts to shuffle off this mortal coil it's time to reflect on all those wonderful institutions that have entertained us these last twelve months. The bigotry, the hypocrisy, the misogyny, homophobia, racism, propaganda, spin, lies, misanthropy, greed, corruption and bullshit that has, once again, made this year as turgid with human failings as any of its equally lustreless predecessors.

So, dear readers, charge your glasses and raise a toast. Here's to Disney's "1001 Dead Dalmatians", a charming film about rescuing spotty puppies brought to you by the heartless bastards who, as soon as the real puppies were too old to film any more, had them all put to sleep. And here's to the wankers who, despite knowing this, still bothered to see the film.

Here's to Jeffrey Archer and his prison memoirs who once again proved that riding the gravy train is 100,000 times more financially rewarding than talent. And whilst we're on the subject of talentless twats, here's to Ulrika Johnson and Michael Barrymore and Anthea Turner and Jade and Michael Winner and all those other worthless, uninteresting, mindless, moronic television presenters about whom the newspapers have become fanatical since the "Queen of all Worthless Parasites", Princess Diana, kicked the Parisian bucket.

And here's to war and the oil wells in Iraq, soon to be divided between George the Conqueror and his money-grabbing, heartless, bastard-sons-of-bitches colleagues. Here's to ignorance, to football and the monarchy, to soap operas and Cilla Black, to pubs and golf and Stock, Aitkin and Waterman -- those never-changing institutions of the unthinking populace that keep progress at bay and stem the growth of self-awareness at its source.

Here's to New Labour who sold out its socialist policies for a taste of office and George Bush's ringpiece. Here's to arch manipulators such as Rupert Murdoch and Peter Mandleson and Greg Dyke. Here's to inequality across the social board where the lunatics are firmly in control of their asylums, where the rich get richer and the poor get pissed on, where charities take the place of income tax, where churches take the place of common sense, where self-deception, avarice and spasticity of the mind pervert the truth, bend the rules of aestheticism towards purple and yellow and shroud the feeble brain of the common cretin in the cotton-wool fleece of peer-group acceptance.

But most of all, here's to the average shit in the street. The sports fanatic and the lottery player, the politically ignorant and the sexually stunted, the illiterate, sideways-glancing, Tory-voting, tax-evading, self-congratulatory, celebrity-gossiping, American-film-watching, Christmas-celebrating, Harry-Potter-worshipping, common old dickhead without whom the world wouldn't be able to substantiate the divisions in wealth, in war and religion. Let's raise a bucket of frothing piss to all these things that have kept 2002 in the stinking dark ages and will no doubt continue to shit on the downtrodden through tasteless golden toilet seats in the year to come.

Folks...let's raise a tankard to ourselves. Happy Same Old Year!