LONDON - DUE TO THE CREDIT CRUNCH

My friend Cherise was in a cafe on the corner of Kingsland Road last week and next to each of the power sockets was a sign that said something like, “Due to the credit crunch we need to charge £1 per hour to anyone who needs to plug in their phone or laptop.” I like the way everything is now “due to the credit crunch.” People aren’t being stingy, oh no, they’re just being sensible. What next? Putting a fistful of coins in the meter before your local greasy spoon will fry you an egg? Paying for the washing up liquid so that you’ll get clean plates to eat it on? Bringing your own waitress to serve you the food? All this got me thinking so I sat down and tried to foresee some other things that will soon be happening “due to the credit crunch.”

LONDON - THE WORST, WEIRDEST AND MOST USELESS CHRISTMAS PRESENTS I GOT THIS YEAR

Christmas gets worse for me each year. I think it stopped being fun when I was 11 and my mum forced me to spend Christmas day wearing a bright purple Power Rangers tracksuit (that was so big there was room inside for both me and Barney the dinosaur), which my aunt had bought and was very keen to see me wearing. Over a decade on and things are still pretty dire. Here are some of the, erm, special and heartfelt gifts I was given by loved ones this year. If you were given a worse selection of presents, you win whatever you want from the list below.

LONDON - MORE RAP BEEF

If 2008 will be remembered for anything, it will go down as the year that faceless enigmas like Burial, Neckface and Banksy have been outed. You can now add my name to that list because my identity has just been revealed by Tinchy Stryder.

LONDON - THE RETURN OF CLARENCE STATELY (HOLMES)

Clarence Stately-Holmes is the alias I used to use for my (slightly embarrassing but very fun to write) Grimewatch column in Vice where I would write about stuff like Jammer's imaginary line of night-wear for kids, Py-Jammers. Yesterday I decided to Google the name and found that as well as an a emo teen from New Zealand using it as his screen name on Bebo, by strange coincidence, there is a real-life guy called Clarence Stately. He is a US soldier who has been stationed in Iraq, he seems to love Halo 3 and Silent Hill and we are now best mates on Facebook. He is currently back at home but has promised he will send me a regular war diary the next time he heads out for a stint in Iraq.

Here are some snaps he took in Baghdad earlier in the year.

PRANCEHALL

ARMENIA - GANGSHTA RAPS, BEBAY

Introducing Kro, Armenia's finest (possibly only) gangshta rapper. We're still yet to be convinced that this isn't Sacha Baron Cohen's latest character, but we love the song. All together now: "I be makin' Gs, like the real OGs overseas. Ahhh-ahh-ahhh-ah-ah-ahhhhhh..."

LONDON - BLACK MY BITCH UP

Photo by Max Bartram and Natalia Otero

There's nothing wrong with tailoring your look to suit the club night you are going to – we've all done it. You know, wearing some Air Max and a New Era if you are going to a grime night; really baggy snowboarding clothes and a visor beanie if you are going to a shitty drum & bass night; dressing like a sexually abused five-year-old girl for a night of psy-trance; that kind of thing.

But when we went to 90s hip-hop night Work It at the ICA on Saturday we found one woman who had maybe slightly overcompensated: she came fully blacked-up and was wearing an authentic African-style necklace. Presumably she thought this would fool people into believing she was black, which, in her twisted mind, would make her feel more comfortable. But what's with the hiking rucksack and the chemistry student glasses? They're a total giveaway that she's not black. Also, her reference points are way off if she thinks black people have yellowy-orange nipples.

PRANCEHALL

LONDON - DIZZEE RASCAL FOR PRIME MINISTER, YEAH

When the world has just witnessed the most significant and transformative political event of recent history, and a well-informed reaction is needed, it seems Andrew Marr just won't do. Instead, you need someone who really knows what they are talking about: Dizzee Rascal.

LONDON - BABY FOOD CONDOMS

We get sent a lot of free condoms here at Vice. It's pretty good because it saves us having to go to Boots to buy some off a woman in a hijab whose facial expression during the whole ordeal is 50 per cent mortified and embarrassed, and 50 per cent like she is picturing your body slowly burning in hell as you scream for the excrutiating pain to end. But today we got sent some condoms that were just not cool. I mean seriously not OK. We got sent condoms with "baby food" written on the front, which means they are baby food flavoured condoms, which means they are condoms that encourage babies to give you blow jobs. That is disgusting and totally illegal. In celebration of Guy Fawkes Night we will be strapping this packet of depraved paedophilia aids to a massive Roman candle and watching it explode into a million pieces in the sky over London.

LONDON – WHY I WILL NOT BE VOTING FOR OBAMA (APART FROM THE FACT THAT I AM BRITISH AND AM TOTALLY NOT ELIGIBLE TO VOTE IN THE US)

OK, while all you Americans are rubbing your hands together in preparation for an amazing new leader, you've totally forgotten one thing that's going to massively suffer if Obama gets in: political satire. As much as everyone hates George W. Bush, think of all the hilarious jokes you've had at his expense over the past seven-and-three-quarter years. There is no way Obama can even begin to follow this. I can't think of one funny thing to say about him.

LONDON - PRANCECOCK

Yep, I've finally made it, I've got my very own hate blog, Prancecock. It's brilliant in parts. It combines all the in-jokes from the comments on my blog into some quite funny gags that no one apart from me and about three other people will get. Below is an excerpt in which the author lists some reasons why he hates me.