Remember when the Christmas number one used to be sacred? So do we.

It’s not any more, obviously – until Facebook waded in to fix things, 2009 looked set to go down as the year that an annoying boy with too many teeth got the Christmas number one with a piss-weak Miley Cyrus cover version. He didn’t manage it, but it sure was close.

Now that Rage Against The Machine have secured the Christmas number one spot, we should probably take a look back at years when we didn’t have it so good.

Oh, and we know that we only did a thing about the greatest Christmas number ones last week, but this is hecklerspray, damnit. Being nice about things confuses us.

10 – Leon Jackson, When You Believe (2007)

Rather than just list each festive Cowell atrocity one by one, we’ve decided to lump them all in together under 2007’s effort. An awful by-the-numbers aspirational ballad performed by a sobbing Scottish boy with about 14 different simultaneous haircuts. Worse still, unless he goes barmy and unloads a machine gun into a shopping centre, this is the only thing that Leon Jackson will ever be remembered for.

9 – Winifred Atwell, Let’s Have Another Party (1954)

There’s lots to like about Let’s Have Another Party. It’s upbeat. It has a title that suggests Winifred Atwell was a hollowed-out, exhausted-looking raver in her time. It isn’t by Cliff Richard. But is it the sort of thing you want to hear while you sit down to tuck into a nice Christmas dinner? No. If you’re playing a game of high-speed snooker or running away from the bobbies? Yes. But nothing Christmassy.

8 – Band Aid 20, Do They Know It’s Christmas? (2004)

Now, look. We know it was for a good cause and everything. We know that, alright? But, Jesus. Turning Do They Know It’s Christmas into a piano ballad? With Travis in it? With Dido in it? With Bono croaking out his line like he’s pooing and ejaculating at the same time? There’s a Dizzee Rascal rap in the middle, for crying out. We’re all up for eradicating poverty just so these chumps will be out of a job.

7 – Dickie Valentine, Christmas Alphabet (1955)

Right, number one – you’re not spelling out the alphabet, Dickie Valentine, you turd. You’re only spelling out the word ‘Christmas’. You should call it Christmas Mnemonic or Christmas Bloody Acronym or something. Number two, you don’t need to spell it out more than once. You really don’t. Jesus. Some people, eh?

6 – Renee & Renato, Save Your Love (1982)

An obvious choice, maybe, but if we wanted to hear an obese man with suspect facial hair shouting at a woman with zero fashion sense, we’d go and move back in with our old university landlord. Really, there’s no call for that.

5 – Cliff Richard, Mistletoe & Wine (1988)

Possibly everyone’s first choice of terrible Christmas number one, but let’s cut Cliff some slack. In a week and a half he won’t have had a number one record in every decade since the 1950s, something that he’ll probably sob about in his giant tropical bloody mansion. Still, swaying like a wanker? Peering into that kid’s window like some kind of terrible pervert? That hair? The weird emphasis on the word ‘fingers’? This isn’t just awful, this is textbook awful. We get 77 seconds in before we start wanting to hurt people. You?

4 – The Flying Pickets, Only You (1983)

Oi, Flying Pickets. You’re Christmas number, for God’s sake. Put a bit of effort into it. Don’t film the video in the back of some clapped out boozer. And don’t wear a leopardskin collar on your jacket. And tell your mate to stop dressing up as Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who. And stop obviously influencing the Flight Of The Conchords song Friends. Honestly, you make us sick.

3 – Mr Blobby, Mr Blobby (1993)

What? The TV character who was deliberately invented to be annoying turned out to be quite annoying? You don’t say. Still, though – this is exceptionally annoying. The only way that it could be more annoying is if was being sung directly to you by Noel Edmonds himself, from a throne made out of old Daily Mails, nude, and determined to softly stroke your cheek with the back of his hand. And Jeremy Clarkson’s in it. That’s never a good sign.

2 – Little Jimmy Osmond, Long Haired Lover From Liverpool (1972)

We have a recurring dream, you know. A dream that we’re walking through the city and we pass Little Jimmy Osmond in his horrible stripy jumper, waggling his head from side to side like some awful demonic little monster. “Be my friend, mister!” he says. We ignore him and walk on. But then he follows us. “Mister,” he says. “Mister, mister mister mister, hey mister!” he says as he tugs on our sleeve in an attempt to get us to look him in his incessantly cheery eyes. Long story short, we push him under a tram. He had it coming.

1 – Wings, Mull Of Kintyre (1977)

Why did this become Christmas number one? God knows. Maybe everyone was really miserable in 1977. The first half’s bad enough – if you wanted to recreate carbon monoxide suffocation with music, this is probably as close as you’re likely to get – but the bagpipes. Oh, the poxy bagpipes. And the fact that it NEVER ENDS. Screw you Paul McCartney. Screw you and your ratty mullet.

Oh, and merry Christmas and that, yeah?

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