As we've already mentioned elsewhere, 2011 was a big year for news. Revolutions, riots... you know the drill.
However, it also turns out that 2011 was a big year for 'Also In The News' - the weird, silly (and borderline-pointless) stories that usually appear somewhere in the right-hand rail of our main news page.
We dived into our stats to pull out 10 of the most-read 'Also In The News' stories that you enjoyed over the past 12 months.
There was also a lot of variation between the highest and lowest figures. As a rough guide, the most popular story on this list was viewed about 20 times as often as the last one on the list.
After late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's compound was stormed in Tripoli the consequences for North African politics were obvious. But many of our readers were more interested in the consequences for his fashionista daughter, a Western-educated, dyed-blonde lawyer who worked for the defence in the trial of Saddam Hussein. When her holiday snaps turned up in the rubble our gallery proved to be one of our most-clicked stories of the year.
Speaking of controversial women connected to dictatorial regimes, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson was in the news again this year. In 2010 she was caught on film attempting to sell access to powerful royals. In 2011 she was caught on camera storming out of an Aussie TV station when footage of the incident was played back in an interview. The latter proved almost as clickable as the former.
Along with pandas and polar bears, penguins were this year's most popular animals among Huffington Post UK readers. Next year either possums or peregrine falcons are expected to carry on the tradition.
This incredible picture of Heine Braeck's dolphin shoulder covering his amputated arm was enough to place it into our top 5 'Also In The News' stories of 2011.
Usually when you read a headline that claims aliens have been discovered somewhere, they haven't. A Russian woman's announcement in November that she had caught ET and stuck it in the fridge was no exception. It was clickable, however.
Benetton are no stranger to controversial ad campaigns, but this 'Unhate' series depicting world leaders kissing each other (including the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority smooching for peace) were more explosive than perhaps even they expected. One of the images, featuring Pope Benedict XVI snogging Mohammed Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand sheikh of al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, was almost immediately pulled after widespread anger.
When an artist can paint holes, valleys and mirrors on the ground so realistically that people consciously walk around them to avoid falling inside you've got an Internet gallery hit on your hands.
The second world-leaders-kissing-relating story to hit our top 10, this headline was a big clicker in November. True, nobody actually did any kissing. But the idea of Barry and Jules locking lips proved too tempting to resist for hundreds of thousands of you and your itchy mouse buttons.
In a year resplendent with excellent footballing videos, this was one of the best. Goal! Etc.
Rounding out the top 10 is everyone's favourite art scamp Banksy, whose new paintings found an immediate audience online. Once people actually found them in the real world, of course.