After the global economy suffered another bad year and recovery looks to be slow and protracted, we look back at some of the lighter moments of 2009.

Pundits were divided over what shape the global slump would take: a W i.e. double-dip downturn, or a saxophone-shaped recovery, anyone?

Advertising magnate Sir Martin Sorrell reopened the debate in the autumn when he said the downturn was LUV shaped – with an L-shaped recovery for western Europe, a U-shaped one for North America and a V-shaped one for Brazil, Russia, India, China and other emerging economies. Unfortunately the UK is in the L camp.

Even Warren Buffett, known as the sage of Omaha, was not immune to the recession and found himself "demoted" to a mattress salesman (at least in a light-hearted video shown at his company's annual gathering of shareholders). The legendary stockpicker had his worst year ever and Berkshire Hathaway lost its triple-A credit rating.

Buffett was still cheered by investors, but others weren't so lucky. At other AGMs this side of the Atlantic, furious shareholders threw rotten eggs, shoes or smoke-bombs at company executives. In France some workers took their bosses hostage until they gave in to their demands.

In London, 15-year-old Matthew Robson made waves in the banking world when he dismissed Twitter in a research note during a summer internship at Morgan Stanley. The note, about teenagers' likes and dislikes, generated five times more responses than the team's usual research.

Also in the City, a commodities trader gambled $10m on oil futures after a long boozy lunch which nearly went down as the priciest lunch in history. The next day David Redmond miraculously managed to get out of the position without any losses – but still lost his job and was banned from working in the City for at least two years.

Disgraced US financier Bernard Madoff, whose $65bn Ponzi scheme defrauded thousands of people and institutions, became the face of Halloween. A face mask based on the jailed fraudster sold alongside handcuffs flew off the shelves in America.

The world's billionaires' club shrank by nearly a third as the financial crisis took its toll. The number of billionaires in US dollar terms dropped from 1,125 to 793. But for those who lost their home or job as a result of the downturn, this was scant comfort.

There was another bit of good news when Ryanair's threat to charge customers to use its onboard toilets turned out to be short-lived – because Boeing failed to come up with a suitable lock for the doors.