1. 52 unmarried Malaysian couples were arrested by Malaysia’s Islamic morality police in hotel rooms in Selangor and charged with khalwat (close proximity). The police scheduled the raid for 1 January because they knew such celebrations would be going on. Perhaps this year, couples will have crossed the border into Thailand where such shenanigans go unpunished.

2.The January FIDE rankings put 19-year-old Magnus Carlsen as the youngest ever No 1 chess grandmaster.

3.Underground train riders around the world took off their trousers on No Pants Day. Will it have spread to the MRTA on 11 January this year? Be the first to bare your Y-fronts in the cause of ‘chaos and joy’.

4.10 US missionaries from the New Life Children’s Refuge of Idaho tried to take 33 ‘orphans’ out of earthquake ravaged Haiti. Most had living parents who had given up their children in the hope of gaining them a better life in the US. 8 of the missionaries were released after 2 weeks and the other 2 in March.

5.It was the Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe that sprang a surprise birthday party for President Mugabe. China does have considerable commercial interests in the country.

6.Wearing their gold medals, the Canadian Olympic women’s ice hockey team came back onto the ice to smoke cigars, drink beer and champagne (some of them being below drinking age in British Columbia) and generally behave in a boorish manner.

7.5000 people at the Sydney Opera House on the morning of 1 March took off their clothes to pose for photographs by the American artist Spencer Tunick.

8.The LA Galaxy’s David Beckham, on loan to AC Milan, ruptured an Achilles tendon playing against Chievo and went to see a specialist in Finland who ruled him out of England’s squad for the World Cup in South Africa. They’d still have lost.

9.Uninhabited New Moore Island (to the Indians) or South Talpatti Island (to the Bangladeshis) disappeared under rising seas, 30 years after it appeared and became the subject of disputed sovereignty between India and Bangladesh.

10.Ireland’s Intoxicating Liquor Act 1927 restricts the sale of alcohol on Good Friday (and Christmas). However, an exemption was allowed in Limerick when Good Friday coincided with the Munster vs Leinster rugby match.

11.Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque on 19 April, blamed women who dress improperly and who are sexually promiscuous for causing earthquakes.

12.A ‘brainstorm’ paper by junior Foreign Office officials contained ‘some blue-skies creative thinking’ about how to make a success of the Pope’s planned September visit to the UK.

13.No, the Thai Ministry of Culture didn’t call for a boycott of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The complaining Culture Minister was Italy’s Sandro Bondi, who was unhappy about a documentary on the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake.

14.Farmers covered the Champs-Elysees with 8000 plots of earth, 650 trees and 150,000 plants, turning it into a long field. When the protest ended, visitors could buy earth and plants for the own gardens.

15.The Rolling Stones’ re-release of their album Exile on Main Street, first issued in 1972, made number one in May. Their first album, The Rolling Stones, was a hit in April 1964.

16.16 people were injured in the crush to see a free World Cup warm-up game between Nigeria and North Korea at Makhulong Stadium in Johannesburg. FIFA washed its hands of the incident.

17.North Korea’s official news agency announced a drink made from 30 different plants that ‘helps improve mental and retentive faculties by multiplying brain cells’ and ‘protects skin from wrinkles and black spots’. They didn’t say if it makes you look like Kim Jong-il.

18.Georgian authorities quietly removed statues of Josef Stalin from the town of Tkibuli and his hometown of Gori.

19.A well-wrapped Nelson Mandela was driven onto the field at the World Cup closing ceremony. The 91-year-old then went home to watch the final.

20.Giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq, Baroness Manningham-Buller, who was at the time head of MI5, testified that the invasion “substantially” increased the terrorist threat to the UK.

21.The Plastiki, a 60 foot catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles, crossed the Pacific to highlight environmental issues.

22.Bristol Palin discovered that Levi Johnston, father of her son Tripp, may have fathered a child with another woman and called off her engagement to him. Again.

23.A young soldier was filmed shouting ‘We won’ as the last US combat brigade left Iraq for Kuwait. 50,000 US troops stayed behind in Iraq as “advise-and-assist” brigades.

24.The boxes of avocados leaving Kenya in fact contained more than 2 tonnes of elephant tusks and rhino horns.

25.Canterbury in New Zealand survived a powerful earthquake with no loss of life. Earthquake-proof building codes were credited with limiting damage.

26.Ed Miliband was elected leader of the recently defeated Labour Party in the UK on 25 September, winning the final round of voting by 50.65% to 49.35%. He was trailing in the first 3 rounds.

27.The Pentagon bought the entire first print run of Operation Dark Heart by Lt Col Anthony Shaffer, and pulped the lot, claiming that it divulged state secrets, despite having been cleared by his superiors.

28.The 70th anniversary of John Lennon’s birth was commemorated by a Google doodle (available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TYHCeUfoAnw)

29.Hanoi turned 1000 years old and threw a big celebration in its own honour. At least that was the excuse.

30.Saint Mary MacKillop was excommunicated in 1871 for alleged insubordination in connection with her role in exposing a priest accused of sexually abusing children. She was absolved in 1872 and later exonerated.

31.Italy’s President Silvio Berlusconi reportedly called Milan police to set free a 17-year-old belly dancer who calls herself Ruby Rubacuori (Heartrobber), who had received €7,000 from Berlusconi after attending two parties. Her real name is Karima El Mahroug (maybe) and she is Moroccan.

32.Dublin Zoo offered free entry during orang-utan week to any child with red hair. Some were upset at the connection.

33.Kim Aris met his mother Aung San Suu Kyi at Rangoon airport and, while the cameras rolled, took off his jacket to reveal on his arm a tattoo of the flag of the National League for Democracy.

34.The UK’s Prince William, Prime Minister David Cameron and David Beckham (husband of Posh Spice) fronted England’s failed bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

35.The world’s longest-running soap opera still in production, ITV’s Coronation Street, aired its first show on 9 December 1960. The 50th anniversary edition was 60 minutes long, rather than the normal 30.

36.Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez put up a Bedouin tent given to him by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in the grounds of the Milaflores Presidential Palace as 25 families made homeless by floods moved into his former offices.