Kezia Dugdale is Person of the Year (probably); Quentin Tarantino is scripting Star Trek (hopefully); Jamie Oliver is in a mood (d

Instead, here is the final Dirty Diary list, which is the result of a comprehensive and complicated algorithm taking in national and international press coverage, social media reach, and the views of a range of influential commentators but mainly just the opinions of me. These are the people of 2017 who’ve offered some hope that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, common sense will, in the end, prevail. Here they are:

Kezia Dugdale: Because, believe it or not, there is something more disgusting than the sight of a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party crawling through a tunnel of entrails on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! and it’s the sight of smug critics suggesting that, somehow, an MSP who is serious about politics can’t also have a laugh. Dugdale makes the list for sticking it to the system.

Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan: This year we’ve had the glorious sight of gay marriage spreading further around the world: Finland, Guernsey, Malta, Germany, the Falkland Islands, Australia, and lots of others. But who’s standing up for total relationship rights? Answer: Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan. They may have lost their Court of Appeal case this year, but the campaign goes on: if gay people can enter a civil partnership, why can’t hetereosexual people? Steinfeld and Keidan make the list for sticking up for the straights.

Tony Blair: Brexit means Brexit if Brexit means economic, cultural, political, social, and diplomatic disaster. Thankfully, the former Labour prime minister is one of the few politicians who is actively trying to stop it. He can see the obvious fact that the UK cutting its ties with the EU to take back control of our economy is like someone hacking into a major artery to take back control of their bleeding. Blair makes it to the list for sticking to his guns and ignoring the will of the people.

Thomas Kerr: We thought we knew how Scottish politics worked and where the lines were, didn’t we? But then young politicians like Thomas Kerr came along. Kerr grew up in a high-rise in one of the most deprived parts of Glasgow and both his parents were drug addicts, yet here he is representing his community as the new Conservative councillor for Shettleston. Kerr, the final name on our list, makes the cut for sticking a finger up to the stereotypes.

Crowded housemates

The good news is that you can live in a beautiful 13th-century French castle surrounded by a moat and a 2,000-acre estate. The catch is that you have to share it with 6,500 other people.

That’s the arrangement at the Mothe-Chandeniers chateau, about 200 miles south-west of Paris, which was facing an uncertain future of decay and ruin until a crowdfunding appeal raised the 500,000 euros needed to save it. It means everyone has saved the building, but it also means everyone will have a say in the restoration and everyone will have the right to stay there.

But can it possibly work? Sharing a house with one person is bad enough, so what’s sharing it with 6,500 going to be like? How do you decide who gets the best room? Who does the dishes? And who puts out the rubbish? Perhaps it’ll all be fine, but that is going to be one hell of a cleaning rota.

Beam me up, Quenty

Rumour that we hope is true: Quentin Tarantino has come up with an idea for the next Star Trek movie and would like to direct it too. Should it go ahead, what would we get in the film I wonder? A Klingon cutting off Spock’s pointy ear to the sound of that well-known Klingon song Ej HumtaH 'ej DechtaH 'Iw? Will we also find out what they call a quarter-pounder with cheese on Vulcan? Tell you what: it makes me want to see it.

Talking bots

I wonder when the future got here. Probably when Google developed a programme that taught itself to be a chess champion within four hours. The breakthrough was announced last week, but couldn’t Google have spent some time on something a bit more useful?

Like a robot able to fire an all-consuming death ray at any driver who does not use their indicators. Or a robot that can find the start of a roll of Sellotape. Or a robot that can pre-screen predictive messages and correct any mistakes before sending them to your freaks … fiends ... friends. Or a robot that is able to hit “Forgotten your password?” go to your email, find the link, click on the link, reset the password, remember to use upper and lower case, a number, an exclamation mark, a symbol from the Greek alphabet, an x, and another x, remember to click the 37 pictures of stop signs in a street, and then repeat the same process the next time you try to log in. Any of those would do.

Universal moaners

Don’t you just hate it when you have to sit in first-class? Or have to makes millions of pounds from a food, television and restaurant business? Oh what a pain, oh what a drag. What a terrible nuisance it is to be lucky.

Or at least that’s the way it would appear to be with the singer Alison Moyet and the chef Jamie Oliver. Moyet was caught complaining last week about first class train travel. “First class trains are rubbish,” she said in a tweet. Oliver was also in a complaining mood. “I’ve been pretty miserable,” he said. “It isn’t nice. I don’t know if I’d prescribe my career to anyone else.”

The temptation is to have a go at the pampered, self-indulgent, never-had-it-so-lucky, bleating, whinging A-listers but maybe we should cut them some slack. Whinging and moaning is just a symptom of the kind of life we are expected to lead now, rich or poor, famous or non-famous, singer or chef, teacher or lawyer: a life that is over-crowded and over-connected, noisy and pushy, boastful and needy, social and sly and all of it photographed, tweeted and Facebooked and remember: Be successful! Be happy! Be thin! And Be young! Or you’ve failed No wonder Moyet and Oliver are feeling a bit grumpy and stressed. No wonder we all are.