1. The Ladies Who Breakfast

Forget the Ladies Who Lunch - the girls who can't be bothered to get out of their pyjamas have become a peculiar trademark of this place.

What on earth possesses healthy young women to spend their daytime hours in striped flannelette? The 2007 version of the shell-suit took comfort dressing to a new level.

Minging, to be precise.

2. First we take Manhattan, then we buy up Berlin ¿

From being a cause celebre in New York the Northern Ireland peace process has now expanded into the property market. Relative stability here saw a massive boost in local property prices this year. And even though these have levelled out - ie, dropped a bit - in the last few months, the price of an average house in Northern Ireland is still not much short of the £200,000 mark.

What to do if you have some cash - but nothing on that scale? Buy foreign appears to be the answer. Among property bargains being sold here are houses and business premises in Spain, Morocco, Turkey and other sunny and fairly predictable destinations.

Also attracting considerable interest has been the surprisingly cheap (in real estate terms anyway) Berlin. Not necessarily an escape to the sun. But still presumably, a great escape.

3. Decommissioning of plastic bags

A local branch of M&S became the first shop in the UK to begin to charge for plastic bags. Meanwhile, other stores were encouraging us to use their 'bags for life' or recyclable bags in general.

Great for the environment, undoubtedly, not least in limiting the number of bags blowing around local hedgerows.

But what do you use now to line the pedal bin?

4. Polish food in the supermarkets

Strange-looking stews and sausage on the supermarket shelves. Nowy, lepszy smak! it says on the label. Whatever that means ¿ ?

What it may mean is that before too long a Polish takeaway may be as common as a Chinese take-away. There must be a niche in the market.

5. Pavement society

The smoking ban earlier in the year pushed smokers to the edge ... of pavements mainly. Pubs and eateries coped by installing continental style outdoor seating. Without the continental-style climate. The standard of provision varies. One Belfast hotel boasts a lavishly appointed 'Sitooterie'. In other places it's a metal table and an ashtray if you're lucky. But the chill factor doesn't seem to have deterred the smokers. Evidence perhaps of global warming. Or just the fact that smokers have got hardier.

6. Identity theft

Back in Victorian times parents used to worry about their children being taken by fairies. By the 1970s the concern had shifted to the threat of alien abduction.

These days it's body snatching by proxy. People want to steal your identity - and with it the contents of your bank account.

The Government has played an impressive role in assisting this aim by losing discs with our details and data left, right and centre. So much for all that care you took shredding your phone bill, then ¿

7. Fakery on TV

Can you believe everything you see on the box? It wasn't just the dodgy phone lines that got called into question but how some shows have been edited and presented. Where do you draw the line between providing good entertainment - and blatantly telling porkies? Ok, so some programmes deserved the drubbing they got.

But gradually the 'fakery' accusation became a bit, well, nit-picking. Questions were asked for example, about a wildlife show featuring a fox in what appeared to be rain. The 'rain' was actually coming from a hose. Did it matter? Hardly grand deceit.

8. Food Prices Rise ...

An odd one this in that it comes at a time when clothes and other goods have never been cheaper. A Sunday roast can now cost as much as a pair of jeans. And like the latter will even come with a security tag in some local supermarkets. Over Christmas one firm was flogging turkeys at £100 apiece. Now, that's a real designer chick.

9. ¿ Drink Prices (And Drinkers) Tumble

In the run-up to Christmas off-licence beer was cheaper than milk. The Government reacted to the obvious health implications with an ad campaign spelling out that you might feel bad the morning-after if you get sozzled the night before. A report suggests that far from putting young people off bingeing this campaign merely adds to the notion that it's cool.

Which leaves health chiefs with a major headache of their own. One which won't be easily remedied by a big fry and the plink-plink fizz.

10. Chuckling

A strange development on the political front, this. Ian Paisley beaming and Martin McGuinness coming over all Chuckle Ar La. The Ant and Dec of local politics have become the sunny new face of Northern Ireland attracting inward investment and, potentially, Donald Trump and a golf course. The odd couple? They don't come any odder.

11. New Troubles

The much lower level of violence has led to a changing news agenda. This year we were getting ourselves worked up about parking meters, bin emptying, the ideal length of a schoolboy's hair and how come it was so very difficult to get a ticket to see Bruce Springsteen in Belfast.

12. Proper Tourists

Not just your neighbour's brother-in-law who used to live here in the 70s. People who have never, ever been in Northern Ireland before, coming to see the place. People who genuinely need a map to get down Royal Avenue.

How intrigued they must be by our premier exhibit the Giant's Causeway. And by our row about who should build a visitors' centre there.

13. Lights, Camera, Superstar Action

Stars of the screen spotted in town this year have included Bill Murray, Shirley MacLaine, Meryl Streep, Mischa Barton ¿

Genuine 24 carat celebs. Some of them Closing the Ring. But all of them opening, hopefully, a new golden era for local film industry.

14. And, finally, Getting Away From It All ...

¿ has never been easier. Well, cheaper anyway. Countless airlines are now offering to fly us to endless destinations. Of course you can't take your lip gloss in your hand luggage, the baggage allowance is tiny and you may have to pay for your bags. Oh, and you won't get anything to eat on board. But who cares about missing an airline sandwich when suddenly, the world's our lobster?

Lisa's new role? Er, she's a friend ...

Lisa Kudrow is musing aloud: "I don't know the real me. Wow, that's a statement! I'm kind of reserved I think." Although she's clearly reluctant to talk too deeply about herself, it's true to say that whoever she really is, Lisa is certainly funny, blessed with - according to the director of her latest film Richard LaGravenese anyway - perfect comic timing.

Post Friends, she's popped up in small but memorable film roles, like her latest role as Denise, the quirky pal of Hilary Swank's Holly in the big screen adaptation of Irish author Cecelia Ahern's chick lit novel, PS I Love You.

"It was Hilary Swank and then Ireland which attracted me to the role," says Lisa, who was keen to film on location. "I'd been to Ireland earlier in the year and really fell in love with it, so all those things put together, there was no way to say no."

The film follows Holly, who is in mourning for her happy-go-lucky husband Gerry (Gerard Butler) who died of a brain tumour. Her grief is interrupted by the arrival of letters from Gerry, each with a different request, which he intended her to receive following his death.

"When I read the script, I thought it was cruel, not romantic, that he was sending her letters so that she will remember him," says Lisa. " In that situation it's not very healthy because you can't really move on with your life.

"But then by the end you can see that wasn't really his intention. His intention was that she remember herself, through all the things he wanted her to do, and tells her to do in the letters. Go out with a friend, do karaoke, get outside of yourself, don't take yourself so seriously. Remember who you were when I met you."

In the meantime, Holly is faced with the prospect of finding love again with barman Daniel (Harry Connick Jnr), while Denise desperately and sometimes tactlessly tries to find a man of her own.

"It's more acceptable for women today to use pick up lines and say 'hello' in a nice way," says Lisa. "But the way Denise does it in the movie wouldn't do well for anybody, that's why it's funny. It's inappropriate."

Playing a singleton on the dating scene made Lisa relieved that she is happily settled. She's been married to advertising executive Michael Stern for 12 years and they live in Los Angeles with their nine-year-old son Julian.

"I didn't just need to read the script to feel it would be horrible to be in the dating pool, because I'm not very flirty anyway," says Lisa. " Dating in LA is difficult. No one is over 20 or larger than a size zero.

But I'm married so I'm not looking for anybody."

This must come as a bit of a relief, considering some of her past dating disasters.

"One date was a doctor in geriatric medicine," she recalls. " He took me to a hamburger joint and excused himself from the table because he had a 90-year-old patient to deal with. "Then he came back and said, 'You have to come with me to the hospital as I have to admit this guy. He took me to the Emergency Room on a Saturday night and it looked like a war zone.

"I'd no business being there. It was so I could see him work his magic with a 90-year-old man who was comfortably dying. When we got back into the car he said, 'So, do you ever see yourself getting married and having kids?' I said 'Yes, I do.' And he then said, 'We have so much in common because so do I!'" Luckily, Lisa never saw him again and ended up marrying Michael soon after the first season of Friends, giving birth to Julian in 1998.

And these days, she is content to see acting as a part-time job, having left the demanding hours of the hit sitcom, and later her critically-acclaimed HBO TV series The Comeback, behind.

"It's not hard to juggle at all," says Lisa. "My son is older so I don't get those heart-wrenching calls saying, 'Where are you?' But if I were to go back and do something like The Comeback, which was a solid year working every day - that would be hard.

"Motherhood is all surprises," she adds. "Nobody can really anticipate what parenthood is. It's been wonderful surprises and then tough surprises and a huge transition but hopefully I've adjusted."

Lisa also had to adjust to life after Friends, probably the most popular TV comedy in the world in the 1990s and early Noughties - and even today, thanks to endless re-runs.

"I look back on Friends fondly," she says. "We all still keep in touch although we don't see each other a lot. I miss certain things about the show like not being with those people every single day. Matthew Perry is one of the funniest people I've ever met and I miss just cracking up.

"It was a really happy good experience. And it's done, so we have to just move on. There are no regrets."

Such was its popularity that people still speculate about a Friends reunion, or a film version of the show, following in the footsteps of the recent Sex And The City movie.

"There's always been this rumour which isn't based on any kind of reality," says Lisa. "I know they're doing a Sex And The City movie, but that was filmed single camera - almost like a film anyway. Friends was multi-camera in front of an audience, so it's a very different tone and I don't know how that translates to film. "I think they should dump the whole idea. The writers would have to be on board and then get the six of us on board. And who's going to come up with all that money to talk everyone into doing it?

"I don't know if it's worth it. Ross and Rachel got together, Phoebe's married, Monica and Chandler moved to Connecticut. The series ended. It's not these six people living in New York being there for each other as family. They now have their own families; the story's over.

"Maybe in 30 years, other actors will do Friends and it will be a spoof and they'll be making fun of it. But I won't be in it. Or perhaps I'll be a grandma..."

PS, I Love You in cinemas from January 4