Ian Hislop must have felt like a child in a sweetshop at times this year thanks to the bad behaviour, ranting and raving of the great and the good.
The witty team captain of Have I Got News For You and long-standing editor of satirical magazine Private Eye admits the plethora of political misdeeds and celebrity outrages have left him spoiled for choice.
Asked for his favourite stories of the year, he replies: "The total implosion of the Government would have to be fairly high up. I know it's been a fantastically gloomy year but often that's good for Private Eye in a perverse way.
"People appreciate a laugh at the people they think are probably responsible for taking us into this depression.
"There was a terrific story which was the MPs' expenses. Then there was the amazing Susan Boyle and people going completely mad, the death of Michael Jackson, which created hysteria, and there was a lot of canonising the dead - St Jade the Goody left us. That ability for people to go over the top was all a bit post-Diana."
Politicians have been as colourful as ever, he muses. "The Speaker (Michael Martin), who had been a figure of fun, turned out to be the person trying to block any reform of expenses and then being the first one in 500 years to be dragged screaming from the chair.
"Gordon Brown has got greyer and greyer. The Queen, looking at him the other day, thought he was getting very old and shouldn't be doing the job any more. She looked very sprightly, I thought.
"They've been hit by a tidal wave of financial ineptitude and crisis. Trying to manoeuvre out of it without admitting that a lot of it was their fault is very difficult."
The Eye has seen a lot of black humour this year. "We are still in two countries at war, which is a fairly extraordinary thought. Eight years in Afghanistan is twice as long as the First World War but we are still there."
Few of those whose scandals, gaffes and blunders have been exposed this year have escaped mentions in the Private Eye Annual 2009.
The Eye's subjects of ridicule include Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, 'St Joanna of Lumley' and Sarah Palin, while subjects range from swine flu to Twitter.
Though he might hate it, Hislop forces himself to watch a certain amount of reality TV to keep up with the nation's insatiable appetite for celebrity.
"I try and watch enough TV to know what I'm talking about. You don't want to be the High Court judge who says, 'Who is Katie Price?' or 'I've never heard of Jedward'. One has to try and keep up."
There are no topics he won't tackle if there's something to say.
"People often write in saying, 'How dare you mention Baby P' or other subjects, but if you are writing a piece which is trying to point out the history around them or the media treatment of them or you have some point in the middle of it, then I think you can."
He receives lots of complaints during the year, he admits, with the BNP horror mask front page bringing in a flurry of criticism.
"Some people thought it shouldn't have been on the front cover. But it was the special Halloween edition of the magazine with a Nick Griffin horror mask you could cut out and keep. I thought it was funny, but a number of people thought it was in very poor taste."
His villain of this year is Gordon Brown by a mile, he says.
"Everybody else has come out of their depression, we're still not technically in recovery yet, despite Gordon telling us we were best placed to weather the storm. It's just another slip of the tongue."
The outlook may be bleak next year but Hislop promises that Private Eye will certainly make the most of it.
"My guess is that the new Prime Minister, Vince Cable (Lib Dem), will be very much in our sights," he chortles.
"My guess is that it will be another fairly miserable year with everyone telling us that the recession's going to continue and that we've a year of cuts and raised taxes. Jokes are going to be much in demand."
Hislop, 49, originally from Swansea, became involved with the Eye as a student at Oxford when he went to interview the owner, Peter Cook, over lunch.
The young student didn't realise that lunch with Cook didn't involve any food and some hours - and several drinks - later they became firm friends and he started writing for the magazine.
He joined straight from graduating with an English degree, became editor at the age of 26 is now the longest-serving editor of the magazine.
He also remains the most sued man in British legal history, most famously when Sonia Sutcliffe, the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, won £600,000 in libel damages from the Eye, reduced to £60,000 on appeal.
Hislop told reporters waiting outside the High Court: "If that was justice then I'm a banana."
He's amazed that he's stayed at the magazine for so long. "I think I said I would do a couple of years but I had no idea how much fun it would be or that no-one else would ever offer me a job! I can't think of anything better to do."
There have been many famous targets - James Goldsmith, Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Al Fayed and Rupert Murdoch, to name but a few.
"There were some very mad times," he recalls, "and the battles go on. The legal instruments for the great and the bad to try and stop us are still there, but essentially it's the same struggle."
He lives in Kent with his wife, best-selling novelist Victoria Hislop, and their two children. Unlike some couples, the Hislops don't compete for success or the limelight.
"There's no competition because I've lost," he says bluntly. "She's much more famous than me."
Yet he is recognised when they're out and about, thanks to HIGNFY and to a number of historical TV documentaries he has made.
"People on the whole are incredibly nice because they like the show on the telly and the magazine. I wish I could say that fame was a terrible burden, darling, but it isn't."
He's looking forward to the New Year and a new set of obvious targets.
"Well, Sarah Palin's back, which is good news obviously, because with Obama there's a certain good sense that was threatening to return to American politics.
"But I think if Palin gets going and Mr Murdoch and Fox News keep going, then the loonies will be back.
"Oh, and it might be the end of Jordan, with any luck."
