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Cartoons feature strongly throughout. The Eye has some of the best artists in the country working for it and most are represented here, ranging from the black humour of McLachlan and Honeysett, whose scratchy line drawings have a beautiful delicacy which renders their subjects all the more disturbing, to the keenly observed social commentary of Heath, Pilbrow and Ken Pyne.

In the cartoon which forms the frontispiece of the annual Hunter observes that "A book is not just for Christmas". Although the Private Eye Annual is often to be found under the tree on Christmas morning, it gives pleasure throughout the year. --Anoushka Alexander
A satirical swipe from the masters of m (That's enough. -Ed), 2001-01-04
As the sun sets on the old millennium (or is it just the first year of the new millennium? I'm too old to remember) the Private Eye team, headed by editor Ian Hislop, show once and for all that they are far superior to Mohammed Al-Fugger's millions of unsold copies of the humorous magazine 'Punch'. That glossy rag is only one of the Eye's favourite targets, along with countless others that are guaranteed to make your in-jokes unintelligible to dinner-party guests. Buy two and give one to your partner - so there's someone else who'll understand your references. Private Eye mocks so many areas of society and political views that one has to wonder whether contributors have any beliefs at all. Lookalikes, E.J. Thribb poems, I-Spy and newspaper cuttings all appear regularly, as do columnists Glenda Slagg, Polly Filler and the ubiquitous Phil Space, who sets about the daunting task of churning out thousands of words on any current news item (from 'Man On TV Splits Up With Blonde Wife' to 'Woman Who Used To Be On TV But Isn't Any More Isn't As Fat Now As She Was Before') to fill up the pages of such papers as the Sexpress, the Grauniad, the Indescribablyboring and the Spectacularlystupid. The Eye takes no prisoners whilst satirising, so after coverage of a major tragedy you can expect to see four or five letters from disgusted, sensitive souls from Tunbridge Wells saying how they're sympathetically cancelling their subscriptions. But Private Eye also has a serious side. It regularly exposes major cant and corruption, and gives serious criticism of anything worth commenting upon; sadly, only the articles and cartoons find their way into the annual. This is still a good enough reason for buying the book: at best, Private Eye is a hilarious work of genius; at worst, only very, very funny. (Will this do? -O.L.)