what was the worst thing about 2009?

A sense of impending doom over next year’s inevitable victory for David Cameron's Tories, and the badness (worseness) that will follow. Feels like we're living in Orwell's Coming Up For Air.
Simon Murphy

Chas and Dave splitting up.
Iain Aitch

The continual, self-serving Brown tsunami of lies that is Nu-Labour.
Cathi Unsworth

Bankers and politicians. They created the global economic crisis and are making the masses pay for it while ripping us off with bonuses and expenses scams. If only Alan Moore’s anti-authoritarian terrorist-vigilante
V for Vendetta was real…
Miles Fielder

Exene Cervenka (former X vocalist, writer and spoken word performer – Ed) being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Graham Russell

Nebulous moral panics (terrorism, global warming, the “Far Right” etc); age-old strategies to demoralize and discombobulate the citizenry.
Cornelius Cullivan 

A toss up, but two sides of the same idiot coin; either the BNP or proposed marches calling for Sharia law in the UK. Both absurd. Although I do at least find Nick Griffin's face really, really amusing. He's like some oddball bastard chimera of Susan Boyle and a ferret. Can anyone else see it?
Rich Lehman

The government’s announcement of their intention to start cutting off filesharers’ internet access rather than sorting out and updating the copyright laws. How about a blanket license for digital files, same as we have TV licenses?
Stephen Prince

A depressing and frightening rise in homophobic attacks. Possibly the worst thing seems to be the young age of the attackers in a lot of cases. As the law and culture move forward, we assume society does too, but perhaps not.
Helen Skinner

Recession! Cuts to art budgets and jobs, more conservative “popular” fare in film and books. Although of course, it could lead to a rise in underground and anticonsumerist arts as recessions of the past have inspired great things.
Katie Allen

Aside from Everton losing the FA cup final to Chelsea, I found the whole controversy – particularly the protests outside the BBC - surrounding the appearance of the BNP’s Nick Griffin on Question Time, particularly depressing. For me, if you’ll forgive the unfortunate pun, it’s a black and white issue: if you believe in democracy – as many of those protesting his appearance profess to do so – then that democracy extends to all irrespective of the odiousnous of their views. Indeed, me thinks there was much that was gained in allowing Mr Griffin to make a complete and utter oaf of himself on national TV.
Ian Lowey

The death of JG Ballard. Certainly h’d lived a full life by the time of his final departure up the celestial M6 motorway. However, his passing denies us a future of striking imagery, uncomfortable observations, and a genre of fiction that was his alone. Anyone who can make Shepperton seem so psychologically gripping is a genius. One of the last great Englishmen.
Mark Fernyhough

British bands becoming more and more derivative. British indie rock is currently lost in a vacuum and mainstream pop – apart from Lilly Allen (she’s great) is just not catchy enough. The sorry state of British music is like Paris no longer being the fashion capital of the world or Frankfurt no longer being the city where you can find the tastiest sausages in the world. Wake up guys! 
Jean-Emmanuel Dubois

Swineflu paranoia every time I take a crowded bus and somebody coughs or sneezes.
Suzy Prince

The one-upmanship amongst fans of The Wire concerning which series they're currently watching. Of course it’s less of an issue now that it’s on real telly.
Simon Charterton

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best exhibition/ event

One Foot in the Grove, Portobello Road, London
The true spirit of Ladbroke Grove reasserted itself this autumn when the Mutoid Waste Company/ MuTATE Britain came on home to recast the Westway as a prole art riot, with an awesome assembly of firebreathing monsters, giant babies, stunning graffiti and passionate, highly politically charged, truly beautiful art.
Cathi Unsworth

A steampunky collection of freaky creatures, robots and installations created from scrap metal by the Mutoid Waste Company – security cameras, tractor treads, car parts, discarded tanks and lots and lots of welding, plus graffiti art, music and hot girls on stilts.
Katie Allen

above: One Foot in the Grove.
Photo: Tif Hunter

iSSHO Taiko Drummers
I saw them in February, and they took my breath away – I thought they'd be massive by the end of the year, but I was totally wrong. An unlikely mix of urgent, scratchy punk guitar with traditional Japanese solar-plexus thumping drums, from Glasgow! See ‘em if you can.
Simon Murphy

The Black Page, Shandy Hall, York
This exhibition celebrated the 250th anniversary of Volumes I and II of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, an experimental and comic novel much ahead of its time. Page 73 of Volume I is a black page which marks the death of one of the characters, and it is this page which formed the basis of the exhibition. Seventy-three artists and writers were each asked to create a “Black Page” for exhibition and sale by auction, beginning at £73. All were given the same initial page to work from, and the results ranged from a short film to intricate etchings and a rather rebellious white page. With participants as wide-ranging as Tom Phillips, J.M. Coetzee and Graham Rawle, every page was different and well worth the asking price.
Alexis Somerville

Sonisphere UK, Knebworth
Totally showing my age but what a superbly well laid out, thoughtful festival with every kind of “rock” you'd want! Kinda like Donnington only more grown up, y' know, people there with their families! But not in an irritating, sanitised upper middle class Glastonbury way. Only two days too which was nice, and it had Nine Inch Nails uber miserable, awesome last European performance ever!
Rich Lehman

20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall celebrations
Great occasion to celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall, on a rainy night with a quiet yet happy crowd at Brandenburger Tor; festivities featuring politicians and celebrities, even though it would have been nice to center more on the ordinary people as it was them who made history in 1989; and in the same vein to have someone more relevant such as David Bowie (who himself has a living history with Berlin) to perform as opposed to Jon Bon Jovi.
Heike Schneider-Matzikeit

Photo by Heike Schneider-Matzigkeit

Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks at the Science Museum, London
A live re-imagining of Brian Eno’s soundtrack for the NASA documentary For All Mankind. Played live in the Imax cinema to an edit of the film. Really mesmerising as a whole and for the first time made me really appreciate the audacity of the space programme at that time.
Iain Aitch

Dialogue 09 by Sasha Waltz, Neues Museum, Berlin
It was splendid to watch one of Berlin's finest modern dance companies perform in the haunting empty shell of Berlin's Neues Museum which was at the time still not open to the public and long shorn of its exhibits (it had until recently remained permanently closed since sustaining damage in WW2).
Mark Fernyhough

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis at Roadrunner's Club, Berlin
Dynamic rock'n'roll show by three amazingly talented kids from Kentish Town – keep on rockin'!
Bruce Chippings

Helen Samuels: Man’s Tribute to Dead Fiance, Burgh House, Hampstead, London
Helen's paintings are a hauntingly lyrical take on the still life genre. With imagery drawn from existing museum and shop window displays, her work could perhaps be described as “romantic realism”.
Simon Charterton
 
Beyond Our Ken: The Multiverse of Ken Campbell, National Theatre, London
A successful evening of capers, memories and divine improvisation aiming to invoke the spirit of the late, great Ken Campbell.
Cornelius Cullivan

Nitzer Ebb at the Cosey Club, London
I know it shows my age but there was a good mixture of young and old folk and it was one of those rare moments when you look around at the blissful enjoyment and borderline worship of a crowd and go “ah, now I remember… this is what gigs are about”.
Stephen Prince

The Sexties: Crepax, Cuvelier, Forest and Peellaert, Bozar Palace of Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium
In Belgium comics are rightfully recognised as art, and this exhibition drew together four great purveyors of European erotic comics. Guy Peellaert borrowed the face of Françoise Hardy for his heroine Pravda (before he died he wanted to launch a Pravda 2 who would have been a Kate Moss lookalike). Peellaert’s Pravda was showcased alongside the work of Paul Cuvelier (a genius who impressed Tintin creator Hergé), Guido Crepax with his Valentina (a Louise Brooks lookalike) and last but not least, Jean-Claude Forest creator of the Barbarella comics which later inspired the film starring Jane Fonda.
Jean-Emmanuel Dubois

Pop Life: Art In A Material World at Tate Modern, London (until 17 January)
Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami under the same roof – what’s not to like?
Billy Chainsaw

Undoubtedly providing grist to the mill for all of those critics who bemoan the seeming shallowness of modern art, this Pop Life examines the notion of art as commodity and artist as modern celebrity and encompasses the work of such media manipulators and myth-makers as Andy Warhol, Jeff koons, Takashi Murakami, Keith Haring and Tracey Emin. Also included are some of Cosey Fanni Tutti’s graphic ‘magazine actions’ in which she appeared in pornographic spreads for mucky mags such as Fiesta and Playbirds, as well as Murakami’s fantastic pop video of actress Kirstin Dunst dressed as a manga princess performing The Vapors’ old new wave hit “Turning Japanese”.
Ian Lowey

I second the above nominations. A fantastic show, and just the kind of thing to get people back into galleries who might otherwise feel overwhelmed at the prospect. We loved it, and so did our 13 month old daughter!
Suzy Prince

Anish Kapoor, Royal Academy of Arts, London (until 11 December)
The Bombay-born, London-based sculptor has taken over the RA with bold site-specific exhibition that’s leaving visitors awestruck and smiling like happy fools. Sculpture has never been this much fun: a bulging ‘pregnant’ wall, it’s optical illusionary opposite, mirrors that magnify the viewer’s image the further away he/ she is, a canon that fires tonnes of wax shells through one gallery to explode in another, a wall of wax moving almost imperceptibly through four galleries. It’s sublime.
Miles Fielder

Grace Jones at the Roundhouse, London
After two decades in the musical wilderness, the death disco queen returned for a night of mesmerising performance art. The sight of Jones twirling a hula hoop during “Slave to the Rhythm” clad in little more than a thong and sequined cat mask stirred my brains with a spoon.
Graham Russell

Echo & The Bunnymen at the Roundhouse, London
Reporters of the demise of McCulloch’s voice should have been here; if it’s shot, it’s shot through with power, drama, emotional intensity and the ability to propel one out of oneself. Fuelling the propulsion and cascading around McCulloch’s voice like a Catherine Wheel, Will Sergeant’s innovative, highly influential, and much emulated guitar playing was equally on perfect form, ascending and transcending the Roundhouse in the most beautiful, kaleidoscopic spirals and dazzling shimmers.
Thirty one years after Echo & The Bunnymen first played live, you might be forgiven for – as Michelle the girl next to me said – “expecting less, but this is more; how have they become more?!” She was spot on!
Guy Sangster Adams

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