Our weird web does not disappoint

Yahoo’s end-of-year analysis of the most popular web searches and questions is always good for a laugh... or not unusually a heavy groan of despair. The 2017 overview of what’s been regularly on UK minds doesn’t disappoint.

There’s the predictable roll-call of news searches, led by Mr Trump and Brexit, and an even more unsurprising list of celeb explorations.

As the antediluvian judge might be expected to ask: who are, exactly, Ed Sheeran and Cheryl, why doesn’t Cheryl have a surname, and who is this Debbie McGee whose age is important?

These lists are really interesting for the glimpse they allow into the grimmer crevices of the human psyche, the question most asked being: “how to make slime?”

Google will give you a mere 11.4m results, but not all of them might be useful answers. A question conspicuous by its absence is: “What is the meaning of life?”

That will get you no fewer than 603m results, but it’s likely that most of them will be about someone — not very famous — called Brian.