Charlie Brooker’s end-of-the-year Wipes have become essential viewing. They are the best way of making some kind of sense of the mess the world is in today. And this year’s edition was no exception.

Except there was a problem. 2015 is probably the bleakest year since Brooker has been doing these shows. It was a year bookended by two tragedies in Paris and somehow our guide had to negotiate a path that was both funny and sensitive. It was a tough call but he did it pretty well.

There were omissions. I didn’t spot any mention of Sepp Blatter and not much coverage of sport in general. And presumably the programme was filmed too early to mention the Miss Universe cock-up which was definitely fertile ground for comedy. In fact talking of cock-ups, I don’t think he mentioned the Lenny Henry/Ainsley Harriott fiasco either.

But when Brooker homes in on something boy can he pick the right words and put them together in the right order. On the outpouring of sympathy for Cecil he pointed out that the lion was hardly squeaky clean when it came to violence; "Cecil had attended the opening of thousands of gazelles”. And I think it was for the clip of Ed “hell yes” Miliband trying to be cool that he coined the phrase "Set perineum to cringe”. I may be wrong though. I dropped my pen I was laughing so much at that point.

And of course it was fun to see Brooker liberally sprinkling the programme with deadpan Piggate puns. It was as if he had been told by his bosses not to mention it so he was subversively slipping them in anyway. But then towards the end it came to covering the story proper and he really stuck his snout in the trough. As he pointed out, it had particular resonance for him because the alleged incident bore similarity to his own Black Mirror episode a few years ago. 

Good stuff on Clarkson and Corbyn too. I guess this was the year of Two Jeremys. And sometimes Brooker is so sharply satirical it is hard to know when the reality ends and the lampooning takes over. Was there really an ITV1 programme called Flockstars, which was essentially Celebrity Sheepherding hosted by Gabby Logan? Apparently yes. Who needs to invent stories when the real stories are bizarre enough already?

Watch Charlie Brooker's 2015 Wipe on iPlayer here.