Coal was handed out. Heroes were named. And a horse made the list. Merry Christmas.
Ah, Christmas Eve. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. So, I’ve been writing my naughty and nice list and checking it twice.
There are plenty of both, because 2025 has been… a thing.
I started looking back on the year and didn’t know where to stop.
If you’ve been following me for a bit, you’ll know that I fall into the “Santa as sweary avenging angel” side of the equation. So, proceed with caution.
Here’s what I came up with. It’s part end-of-year political commentary, part scream into the void, and part doff-the-cap to those who kept the light on when things teetered on the brink of the abyss.
But I definitely left out some corkers. Add yours down below in the comments. Because I’d hate to miss out on dumping a curly one in the stockings of some deserving gobshites, or giving due credit to the saviours amongst us.
Without further ado…
Naughty list
The Neck-gina
More majora than minora, they were the pendulous wattles that mesmerised the world. Hints of a rash suggested a yeast infection requiring a topical cream, while debate raged about who in the administration was most likely to be enjoying the favours of those sweet, sweet skinfolds.
Oval Office redecorator
If less is more, the interior design of the Oval Office was once a masterclass in restraint. It conveyed dignity, strength, and power. Overnight, it became “what in Liberace’s gilded taint the fuck is going on here?”
It now looks like an enthusiastic pre-schooler has been set loose with a hot-glue gun, a box of resin decals, and some gold spray paint. And don’t get me started on the “Presidential Walk of Infamy.” There’s not enough sage in the world for the burning we’re going to need when this administration’s done.
Quiet piggy
If I included all fuckups perpetrated by the burlap sack rolled in Cheeto dust then stuffed with abattoir waste and foreskin scrapings, I’d be writing for months. But “quiet, piggy” deserves a mention. It was the moment the mask slipped, and we saw the ash-filled, dank, and desolate space that in most human beings is occupied by a soul.
Donald Trump’s medical team
For much of the year, he’s looked close to death.
You’ve made the list because you kept him going.
Cankles
You’re not working fast enough.
Epstein list redactors
It takes a particular type of person to review documentary evidence of industrial-scale child abuse. They’re usually the ones on the side of the angels, working to bring monsters to justice.
Then there are those who have been burning the midnight oil to wade through the sinkhole of shit that is the Epstein files to protect the identities of the perpetrators. How loudly can you say “aiding and abetting”?
They’re the same ones who are so stupid they used Adobe to redact the files, which as anyone over the age of six will tell you, means if you copy and paste the text into a Word document, you can read it. So now all the filthy muck they were trying to hide is out in the open.
Mar-a-Lago caterers
With an initiation fee of US$1 million, many say that the main attraction of a Mar-a-Lago membership is to gain access to The Great Fatsby. One thing’s for sure; they’re not going for the food.
The Trump Ballroom
Nobody needs that much ball room. Especially him. Just ask Stormy.
And don’t get me started on the East Wing.
The Circle-jerk Air-wank
I was torn with this one. Could have made either list. On the one hand, I die of second-hand embarrassment every time YMCA hits the loudspeakers, and he starts… whatever it is that he’s doing. But on the other, seeing stadiums of MAGA dingleberries cheering and doing the air-wank while singing a gay anthem about picking up dudes in a sports club never fails to amuse.
Mar-a-Lago face
Proving that money and taste are often mutually exclusive, MAGA women with money slapped down a ton of it to turn their faces into something that looks like a balloon animal crafted by a slow learner in first-year clown school.
Elon
Difficult to know where to start with this one. Between turning the White House into a car lot, using DOGE to defund USAID resulting in 800,000 deaths worldwide, the Nazi salute, and how many rockets did he blow up? I’ll give him this: he doesn’t do “fuckwit” by halves.
Threads
OK, this is personal. But that’s what these lists are all about. Threads makes the list for taking my money to be a verified account, but banning me not once, but three times for being a bot. Upside of this, an army of friends came to my aid and had me reinstated! Even turned me into a trending topic.
ICE
For tearing families apart, terrorising communities, and not being man enough to do so unmasked.
Tariffs
As much as the rest of the world enjoyed their fat slices of schadenfreude pie with cream as MAGA went postal when they realised they were the ones paying the tariffs, the unhinged and shambolic way the program was rolled out caused global economic chaos.
JD Vance
For being duplicitous, self-serving, on a leash held by Peter Thiel, and most of all, out-and-proud in his racism while married to a woman, and father of children, who have Indian heritage. Upside being, he gave us plenty to laugh at. And his eternal vacation gave us something to protest, at home and abroad.
AI
Specifically, generative AI. In a general sense, for filling the world with slop while burning through the world’s drinking water and convincing every man and his dog that he can be the filmmaker or author he was meant to be but had neither the skills nor the talent to do so.
!Spoiler alert! He can’t.
And at a personal level, for stealing four of my books and being trained on them, all with the endgame of putting me out of a job.
FIFA
And its president, Gianni Infantino, for making us all sign up for membership of AntiFIFA after they invented a participation award for the world’s most petulant and over-indulged man-baby. I decided to join the party as well, and granted myself the inaugural FIFA prize for literature.
KKKarolyin’ Leavitt
For being the public face of the least transparent, most corrupt American administration in history, all the while making a show of her Christian faith while doing things that would inspire her god to come down and do a whole lot of smiting.
Billionaires
For sending Katy Perry into space. For bringing her back. For the wedding in Venice. For luxury bunkers being built to survive the pending apocalypse they are creating. For ushering in a new era of global servitude. For not paying taxes. For having more money than any one person could ever need, and for not doing anything truly worthwhile with it. For being capitalism’s endgame.
Nice list
Time Magazine
For creating the one, brutally honest, magazine cover you can be pretty fucking sure won’t be ending up framed on Trump’s fap-wall of infamy.
Whoever did this
Also, this
The only justifiable use of generative AI.
Diaper Diplomacy
The geniuses behind this account, which managed to come up with the only way many of us could bear listening to the stream of diarrhea spewing forth from his mouth anus.
Queen Maxima
Speaking of “mouth anus,” the Queen of the Netherlands did what we’re all thinking every time we’re forced to watch those pursed lips do their thing.
The British Cavalry horse
The Rapture that never happened
It came and went in September, and was the source of much-needed hilarity it as people sold their possessions and arranged post-Apocalyptic pet minding, only to be left here on earth with the rest of us sinners.
Mackenzie Scott
While the male billionaires have earned their place in infamy, the same can’t be said for Mackenzie Scott. She shows how it should be done by giving away US$26 billion since her divorce from Jeff Bezos, who traded down when he dumped this fine woman and took up with a bedazzled ziplock bag of silicone.
Otis, the United Nations escalator
The little escalator that could. It was his moment to shine. With his sidekick, the United Nations teleprompter, it only took malfunctioning equipment to stop a would-be dictator in his tracks. Whether it was accidental, or deliberate, we’ll never know. I choose to believe the latter.
Comedians
As so many powerful Americans dithered and played a demeaning game of “who can be the biggest suck-up,” comedians took up arms and manned the frontline. Despite threats and sackings, Kimmel, Colbert, Stewart, and the geniuses at Southpark found something for us to laugh about, even as the White House’s clown-car of cosplaying staffers did their very best to kill satire.
Portland
The people of Portland showed the only way to stand up to ICE. Between the inflatable suits, the rollerblades, and the dance parties, if ICE went in hard, the optics would have been terrible.
Honourable mention? The Portland frog.
Squeaky McTankface
Trump tried to pressgang the US army’s 250th celebrations into a birthday party for himself on a scale that would impress his authoritarian besties. It failed.
Squeaky McTankface was the mascot of the moment.
Canadian PM Carney
Canada’s Mark “Winky” Carney became the leader the world needs now; clever, warm, funny, charming, determined. I tried to negotiate a shared custody situation on behalf of Australia where we got to have him every second weekend, and promised to return him almost good as new. No luck.
Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots
Hold on, don’t shout. It’s on the “nice” list for a reason. Some of the funniest moments on the Australian interwebs this year came from our valiant attempts to rename our homegrown Temu Trump’s pathetic, and delightfully short-lived, political party. It was how we ended up with Crumpetholes of Straightwank, Bumtrumpets of Flatulents, Flugelhorn of Fuckwits, Crumpet of Apricots, and Highland Bagpipe of Hoofwanking Bumblecunts. Sigh. Good times.
The eyeroll
Putting aside her questionable politics, Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni earns a place in the nice list thanks to the epic eyeroll that said what the rest of us were thinking.
Anthony Joshua & Chase DeMoor
For taking one for the team and wiping the floor with two douchecanoes the rest of us would also love to clobber, given half the chance.
Ahmed al Ahmed
The unarmed Aussie hero who disarmed the gunman taking potshots at Jewish families gathered at Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah. He didn’t see race or religion. He saw fellow Australians being killed by two cowards with guns.
In case you’re wondering, the two skinsuits filled with meat who murdered fifteen Australians did not make the “naughty” list because they are subhuman and should be erased from history.
Zohran Mamdami
For giving right-minded Americans something to hope for. And for showing that “socialism” isn’t something to be feared. It’s what you call looking after each other. Ref: “Billionaires” in the naughty list.
No Kings protesters
Despite threats, the millions of Americans who stood up for those who could not.
Christopher Anderson
His portraits of the cosplaying White House administration for Vanity Fair stripped them bare. It’s a masterclass in portraiture. He captured them as they really are. Chaotic. Common. Messy. Inept. Bile oozing out of every gaping pore. Utterly out of their depth.
Women in the White House press pool
While their male colleagues simpered and kowtowed, the women in the White House press corps stood their ground, fought back, and showed the rest of them how to do it. Catherine Lucey. Mary Bruce. Kaitlan Collins. Katie Rogers.
Kennedy Family
For their grace under fire, as the bloviating tub of month-old hamburger mince and prawn heads dropped his diaper and shat all over their family legacy.
Needless to say, this honorific excludes the one family member on Team Trump: RFK Jnr; the desiccated nutsack I like to think of as microwaved Mel Gibson.
Australia
If we existed and were something other than a continent populated by things that want to kill you, drink you, or swear at you.
Because we stepped up at the ballot box and told our would-be clusterfuck of Tangerine Palpatines to fuck off, then keep fucking off until they ran out of places to fuck off too, only to look for yet another spot just beyond the horizon that warranted a fucking off to and keep going even then. Because we really don’t like Trump. We really, really, really don’t like him.
To add to that, when unimaginable evil came to Bondi, we rose to the occasion. Because that’s who we are. We look after each other.
Rescue kitten Aurora
Because, kitten. Also, kitten. And then more kitten. Always, kitten.
Bouncy son
For bouncing on a global level. For getting an ARIA nomination. For giving us something to cheer for.
Dad-joke-loving daughter
For the dad jokes. And, fuck knows, we need as many laughs as we can get.
Sunday Riley
Yes, she’s a fictional character, and one I invented. But it’s my list. I can do what I like. And a horse made the grade. So, a nod is due to the imaginary woman who let me channel my inner mania and put my feelings about the times I’m living through down on paper in my latest novel, SUNDAY RILEY IS ALL OUT OF F*CKS TO GIVE.
Friends on Threads and Substack…
Topping—or ending—the list, all my friends online who made this year bearable. You’ve helped me keep my sanity. Your wry humour, pithy responses, exemplary grammar and punctuation have renewed my faith in humanity. This year would have been far bleaker without you.
Thank you.
Be safe. Be happy. Be you.
Who did I leave off the list? Who made your naughty and nice list?
