End of year lists tend to be neatly themed, top 10s to be referred to time and again and then filed away for future generations to refer back to and assess the cultural, political and sociological mood of the time.
But because all of that's well covered already, here's a pointless list of random thoughts on cultural frivolities from 2014, hardly researched at all and missing the important stuff – and which won't be of much use to future generations.
Frankly, it isn’t much use to anyone even now.
1. Beards: It is still raising vast amounts of money, but Movember didn't seem to be as much of a thing this year. It was hard to tell who had facial hair for charity, who had it because they like having it and who was wearing it to be ironic. Movember appears to have had an influence in pushing the Hipster facial hair into the mainstream, but as a consequence has seen that very trend erode the annual novelty of growing a moustache.
It’s clear we have reached peak Hipster. Just as the modern mullet hairstyle of a few years back has given way to neat, Great War haircuts, the rise of the beard must inevitably give way to clean-shaven faces.
2. Amber: The most hilarious television moment of the year remained the ending of this drama about the search for a missing schoolgirl. Showing it over four nights was a neat RTÉ marketing trick that kept viewers engaged in a way they wouldn't if they'd had a week between episodes. She just stepped off the tram. Cue throwing of shoes at TV screens across the country and throwing of strops on Twitter.
3. Media's Golden Rule: News abhors a Roy Keane vacuum.
4. Books of the Year Book of the Year: There are countless best books of 2014 lists, but one title that has shown up time and again is The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. Through various animals, she looks at the five great extinctions in earth's past – and how man is causing the sixth. The lists are right. It is a superb book – clear, gripping, endlessly fascinating about a deeply, deeply depressing subject.
5. Kids TV: You'll see The Lego Movie pop up on the best movie lists, but it remains perplexing that each great kids movie animation is treated with such delight when children's TV hosts a glut of smart, thoughtful and downright funny animation every day. The Cartoon Network's Amazing World of Gumball, Regular Show and – especially – Adventure Time are as sophisticated, ambitious, well written and brilliant as anything on television.
6. Pulled pork: Someone, somewhere's making a lot off that.
7. A true emergency: On the front door of Dublin's new Nespresso shop is a number for the 24-hour hotline in case, I suppose, you come in from the pub at three in the morning and accidentally mix up your Vivalto Lungo with your Volluto and need to talk to someone about it. In the meantime, Childline is struggling to keep its night-time service in operation. Is that a fair comparison? Not at all. But somehow it feels like it has to be pointed out.
8. Space: Ten years after launching a tiny spacecraft on a 6.4bn km journey through the solar system, we landed a probe on a comet 4km in diameter and travelling at 135,000km per hour.
In its few hours of life it took astounding pictures and made scientific discoveries that could fundamentally change how we think about how life on our own planet developed. It was front page news on some newspapers, tucked away inside others and, in general, everyone gave a kind of polite clap before checking their phones again. It is extraordinary how much of humanity just takes that kind of thing for granted now. We landed a spaceship on a comet, for crying out loud!
9. Ice Bucket Challenge: If you were a refusenik, there was about a week of the year when you were made to feel like a very bad person who clearly would prefer that people die rather than just go with the fun. You were nominated. Nominated!
10. Radio ads: "Dear 30-year-old me. You know those radio ads you hate? Well, when you're older you'll be doing one. And you'll be as patronising as possible, making you out to have been a bit of spendthrift eejit. Anyway, I'm going to nag you into getting a pension now so you might want to switch over to another station . . ."
11. Listicles: many traditional media outlets do them on their websites now, usually in poor mimicry of BuzzFeed. It's sad to see supposedly seriously commentary reduced to mere list making.
shegarty@irishtimes.com @shanehegarty