However, unlike everyone else, Sam expresses this thoughtful impulse in an unusual way: he whips out his ginormous love truncheon, slaps it down on the table and then, caressing it with gentle strokes, lovingly purrs, “Thanks for a great year, big fella; here’s to the next one”. Then he buttons up and leaves the restaurant before anyone can call the cops.

Yes indeed, on a personal level, it was a splendid 12 months for the Snortian one – but then when you’re blessed with ravishing good looks, a fine, sophisticated wit and the biggest cock in Christendom, it’s easy to see why every day is Christmas Day (minus the brussels sprouts and children, obviously).

Unfortunately, in just about every other way, 2001 was a flat-out ballbuster, as horribilis an annus as any since the great vinyl shortage of ’73. Here, in no particular order of demerit, are Sam’s top five black spots of 2001.

Fucking Hobbits

The Lord Of The Rings. The fact that I haven’t seen this yet in no way impinges on my honest conviction that this is the greatest threat to our collective sanity since Yes released Tales From Topographic Oceans – and for much the same reason, come to think of it.

While it’s just about permissible to make allowances for people under the age of five in this regard, there is no reason at all to indulge adults who will insist on telling you that this is all a far cry from run of the mill sword and sorcery and that old JRR Tolkien was actually a visionary and literary genius who worked out this, like, rilly linguistically, like, accurate formula for evlish-speak, y’know?

Oh fuck off you twats.

These are serious times and lame brains droning on about how much better the world would be if only we all behaved like fucking hobbits, ought to be taken out and boiled in wax. Lord Of The Rings gives good dope a bad name and for that there is no excuse.

Harry Potter. All the above applies to this irritating little shit – only more so. Once again, there can be no excuse for adults who claim to enjoy this stuff (“the description of the quidditch match is simply exhilarating”). Look, it’s very simple: the only reason adults like kids’ books is because they’re simply too thick to understand Proust, Conrad, Joyce, Faulkner or, my favourite, Maeve Binchy.

Osama bin Laden. He may be only third in line as Villain Of The Year, behind Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter, but this mad bastard managed to complicate Sam’s world for no good reason, by seeing to it that there was major gridlock in the movement of Afghan black. Up the Khyber without a pass we were this year, and no mistake. Here’s hoping that with the bin man out of the picture, we can do business with the Alliance and Leicester, or whatever the new crowd of ruling headbangers are called.

Buttock Clenching

Car Ads. Excuse me, I think I’m going to puke. There are so many candidates here but the one that really yanks Sam’s tool is that crime against humanity in which a sweating midwife delivers a baby. Except of course, the midwife is male and the woman is an injun – sorry, a Native American chick. Meanwhile, the awful, swelling soundtrack has some dingbat emoting: “the higher you build your barrier, the taller I become”. Of course, if they’d used a proper barrier in the first place, your one would never have become pregnant and we’d all have been saved the embarrassment of watching another buttock-clenching ad for the Toyota Neurosis or whatever the fuck it’s called.

Ballymaloe Relish. What the fuck is that all about? Suddenly, you can’t order so much as a sausage anywhere in the country without a dollop of this shit turning up on your plate. Every time Sam picks up a fork these days, he’s haunted by the unnerving image of a strange woman wearing Denis Taylor’s glasses. Plus, on the poontang front, Sam has tried smearing his loved ones with Ballymaloe Relish and – take it from me - there’s no way it works as effectively as good old-fashioned brown sauce. So hold the relish

ma’am – and that fucking rocket lettuce while you’re at it.

So there you have it: Frodo Baggins, Harry Potter, Osama bin Laden, Car Ads and Ballymaloe Relish – all the things that would have made 2001 a miserable year for Sam Snort, if he didn’t attend his weekly anger-management class, do regular yoga sessions and get at least three blowjobs a day.

Here’s hoping that next year we get that up to four. Or even up for four, yes?

An’ ah thank the ladeez know jest what ahm a-talkin’ bout.

Your ever lovin’

Samuel J. Snort Esq