New year, new start. Time to throw out all those repeats of Open All Hours and copycat makeover shows, to send Z-list celebrities back to obscurity and to lock Dick and Dom in da bungalow and throw away the key.

But first, we must rake over the embers of 2005 and name names - the good, the bad and the Carol Vordermans. Yes, it's time for the annual In The Picture awards to reward those who've delighted us and those who've made us press the fast forward button.

THE SLIPPING ON THE SOAP AWARD: Ross Kemp. He returned as hard man Grant Mitchell to EastEnders only to end up on the front pages after wife - and national newspaper editor - Rebekah Wade, above, allegedly thumped him during a domestic dispute. Rumours that scriptwriters wanted to include a scene in EastEnders where Grant is beaten up by Dot Cotton with one hand tied behind her back proved untrue.

THE VICTOR MELDREW "I DON'T BELIEVE IT" AWARD: Who'd have thought we'd ever see Jilly Goolden eating a kangaroo's penis? Or doing anything with its private parts, for that matter. Fortunately the animal was dead before they dished it up on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. It could have been worse - she might have been served Turkey Twizzlers.

THE KENNETH F***ING TYNAN F***ING AWARD FOR F***ING SWEARING ALL THE F***KING TIME AWARD: To BBC2 for screening Jerry Springer The Opera, provoking thousands of complaints and death threats against BBC executives. More than two million sinners switched on to the mix of sex, religion and four-letter words. Just like a day at the office.

THE HOKEY-C0KEY AWARD: To Jake Maskell, alias Danny Moon on EastEnders. No sooner had he come out (of the closet) and said he was gay than Albert Square bosses decided to axe his character. Now he's set to return. Talk about in, out, in, out, shake it all about.

THE I'M TOO SEXY FOR MY SHIRT AWARD: To Nigel Harman, alias Dennis Rickman of EastEnders. Alas, Dishy Dennis has departed and Harman is reportedly a changed man - he doesn't take his shirt off once in the London West End revival of the musical Guys And Dolls. Applications are invited for the vacant post of shirt remover (not to be confused with shirt lifter). Females in The Northern Echo features department have volunteered to personally examine the credentials of all hopefuls.

TITLES OF THE YEAR: Nothing to beat last year's Derek Tastes Of Earwax. Contenders included Old Enough To Be His Mother, The Child Who's Older Than Her Grandmother, The Man Who Slept For 19 Years, Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creatures, A Hundred Orgasms A Day, The Foetus Snatcher, Armed Robbery Orgasm and Death By Sex. Surprisingly, Two And A Half Men wasn't about people with a degenerative disease but a US comedy. The winner is Bollocks To Cancer, a documentary about a young man suffering from testicular cancer from film-maker Patrick Collerton, who made the award-winning The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off.

THE MOST MISLEADING TITLES: If the programme contains the words The Truth, The Unseen, or The Real then the chances are that whatever you're about to see is unauthorised or hearsay.

MASTERCHEF OF THE YEAR: Jamie Oliver for forcing the Government to do something to improve school meals after his campaigning series Jamie's School Dinners. Runner-up: Masterchef Goes Large which reworked a series as stale as last week's loaf and made it a ratings success.

THE TONY BLAIR IT'S TIME TO GO AWARD: Friends - they've outstayed their welcome with endless repeats on C4. You sometimes wonder if it shouldn't be renamed The Friends Channel.

MOST COURAGEOUS PERFORMANCE: The anthropologist on BBC2's The Tribe who not only ate saga gut (which he described as "an explosion of pus") but underwent the "inverting the penis" ritual in which his manhood was pushed back into the body.

BEST USE OF A DOMESTIC APPLIANCE: To the scriptwriter of Footballers Wives' Extra Time who had a woman apply what looked like a vacuum cleaner nozzle to a man's penis during sexplay. He wished she hadn't when she pressed the wrong switch and the machine began sucking instead of blowing.

THE MOST GRUESOME SIGHT: Seeing a man's face peeled from his skull on five's All New Cosmetic Surgery Live. It was worse than watching Vanessa Feltz present the programme.

THE SILLIEST IDEA AWARD: Getting children's TV presenters Dick and Dom (from Da Bungalow) to host a new-look Ask The Family but not let them cover contestants in gunge.

THE BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS HIM AWARD: Christopher Eccleston, who abandoned the Tardis after one series of the newly revived Doctor Who.

QUOTE OF THE YEAR: "Emma Noble is next to stimulate the stag while Lionel Blair sucks out the semen" - celebrities get down and dirty on five's reality show The Farm.

MOST POINTLESS SHOW OF THE YEAR: Celebrity Love Island. What's the attraction in watching a bunch of hasbeens and wanabees sunbathing on a tropical island.

THE HAVEN'T I SEEN YOU SOMEWHERE BEFORE AWARD?: To ITV1 which commissioned Doc Martin and Distant Shores - both drama series about London doctors who leave the capital to live and work in remote communities.

THE EARLY BATH AWARD: Celebrity Wrestling, ITV1's much-hyped bid to take control of Saturday night viewing which was moved to Sunday mornings after disastrous ratings. Davina McCall's, right, He's Having A Baby on BBC1 did equally badly and was moved to an earlier slot after a few weeks.

FOR SERVICES TO CHILDCARE: The makers of five's Three Celebs And A Baby in which the parenting skills of model Caprice and decorators Colin & Justin were tested by having them look after realistic animatronic babies. They cried, they vomited and they filled their pants - and that was only the celebrities.

Published: 31/12/2005