Out There Awards: A random collection of some of the more amusing and unlikely moments of 2015

Looking back, looking forward, rounding up, winding down …. Yes, it’s that time of year again: the point at which we in the media get to shamelessly regurgitate – sorry, celebrate – those stories that caught the eye and/or touched the heart in the year gone by. Welcome, then, to the second annual Out There awards, a random collection of some of the more amusing and unlikely moments of 2015 …

Ripest for ridicule

The 2011 publication of E L James’s book had already set the parody machine in motion, but this year’s film version of Fifty Shades of Grey took things to a new level. First out of the blocks came a blog-post-turned-Twitter-account called 50 Shades of Gran which announced itself in January with the simple but effective: “She stared up at me, smiled seductively and slowly bit her lip. Those new dentures were taking a while to get used to.” Then, in September, came another Twitter account called 50 Nerds of Grey (opening gambit: “ ‘I just can’t get enough of your curves,’ he said, licking his lips and squirming with excitement. Kevin really liked the new Google logo”).

As one might say about the source material: it was funny at first, but enough now, OK?

Best columnist

No competition here, the winner is Derek Acorah, whose long-running “Pet Psychic” column in Soul & Spirit magazine was brought to my attention last April. “Every issue,” reads the blurb, “we send psychic medium Derek Acorah photographs of two pets, sent in by real readers. Using his divine talent, Derek tunes into their energies to provide us with the readings.”

Acorah’s “divine talent” leads to insights such as the following, about a cat called Ninja: “My first impression is that he wants to be the boss. [He’s] very independent. If a mouse was around then he would be a typical cat, true to his instincts – initially wanting to play with it and then killing it.”

And all that from a photo. There truly are more things in heaven and earth etc ….

Most misplaced outrage

The modern world is, as Jon Ronson’s latest book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed points out, stricken by a need to feel collectively outraged. And so it proved last summer, when MPs and media outlets from Channel 4 to the BBC to the Daily Mail expressed disgust at the cosmetics chain Lush for selling a product called Lavender Hill Mob, which claimed to be “inspired by the London riots of 2011”.

Fair enough and each to their own. But the strange thing about this moral superiority, as a Lush spokesperson told me at the time, was that the incense had been on sale in Lush’s shops for three years before anyone saw fit to point out how outrageous and distasteful it was.

Hashtag of the year

A crowded category, this, but my personal favourite came in April, when Twitter users decided to apply the rules of the internet to literary classics under the hashtag “clickbaitbooks”. Cue such enticing reads as: “Boy Asks For More Gruel – What Happened Next Will BLOW YOUR MIND”; and “You Will Not Believe What Gregor Samsa Found Himself Transformed Into”.

In the same month, Alan Sugar canvassed his Twitter followers for ideas for the title of his latest book. Strangely, Lord Sugar chose to ignore such ideas as “How To Get Something For Nothing – Like I Did With This Book Title” in favour of the frankly rather dull Unscripted: My Ten Years in Telly.

Top awkward moment

Shortly after the general election, the BBC presenter Jeremy Vine went to see one of his favourite singer-songwriters with a friend. All was going well, until the performer in question, Tom McRae, started slating the Tories from the stage.

When McRae’s sister saw Vine in the crowd after the show, she hastily gave him and his friend a copy of McRae’s latest CD. The companion in question? None other than Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s director of communications. “Sometimes the Devil really does have the best tunes,” was Oliver’s gracious response to this column’s request for a comment. Vine, meanwhile, told me that “next time it will be Spandau Ballet”.

The puff prize

In the first of these columns, back in 2013, I suggested that there was an opportunity for a TV show to be called Educating Joey Essex. Some months later, the show began airing on ITV2. Earlier this year, I wrote about “Looking for Adam”, a video posted on YouTube by Alex Lyngaas, a Norwegian, in order to find a partner for his 69-year-old mother. The story, I suggested, would make a great movie.

A few months ago I received an email from an American film producer called Mary Clare Griffin. She assured me that the film was “going to be huge”. You read it here first. Stay tuned and happy New Year.

Twitter: @simmyrichman