Hello there, dear readers tumbleweed! --and welcome to what has now become a bit of a tradition round my parts; namely my making a set of hopeless predictions for the year ahead, at the turn of the year. I’ll be making my risible predictions for next year tomorrow, but for now let’s see how I got on last year. Those of you out there of a gambling bent will soon realise that a good strategy to maximise your profitibility for the forthcoming solar soujourn is to note down my fuck-arsed visions of the future and then bet heavily on whatever the opposite of them all is. So let’s see how brilliantly I did in Nostradamus Corner 2014. In brief, I predicted the following:
1: US/UK will bomb 3rd world country [most likely in Middle East].
Well, that’s a bit of a safe bet. Take your pick from Syria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mind you, I think my crystal ball gazing was predicting more of an invasion than a going after "terrists".
2: Prince Phillip will snuff it.
No such luck. Gotta hand it to them Lizard People, they’re long lived.
3: The Scots will wimp out and fail to vote for independence by an embarrassingly wide margin
Back of the net!
4: Jolla will bring out a breakthrough model. What’s-left-of-Nokia will be forced to release a few Android handsets
I’m giving myself half a point for this one. No Jolla breakthrough, however Microsoft/Nokia have released some Android compatible phones.
5: India’s Mangalyaan Mars probe will unfortunately ‘do a Beagle’ and disappear whilst attempting a landing.
Whoops! --fuckwitt schoolboy error on this one. The probe was never meant to attempt a landing. It is an orbiter [and it’s orbiting very nicely, thank you]. If only I’d remembered the Rosetta/Philea mission when making this prediction, I might have just about squeezed a point!
6: The biggest cultural hit of the year will be a film/series/dance craze, paying homage to the Second World War era.
Nul points!
7: Outbreak of civil strife in South Africa
Not that I’ve heard of. Oh dear, we’re falling at the final hurdles here. Should have said 'Ukraine'.
8: Major diplomatic incident caused but after a ship sinking incident in the region of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.
Well, we’ve had disappearing Malaysian aeroplanes in roughly that neck of the woods, but no Sino/Japanese ship sinkings.
9: Humongous shale gas discovery in Scotland will intensify the pre-referendum political fighting.
He shoots! He misses!
10: 2014 will finally be “The Year of Linux on The Desktop” [Sorry. Only joking. Couldn’t resist!]
That one doesn’t count!
Oh dear. Only 2 1/2 points out of a possible nine. I’ve seen more uncannily accurate visions of the future printed in a tabloid horoscope. well, I’m definitely taking this Crystal Ball back for a refund if it doesn’t buck its ideas up this year. So folks, don’t forget to tune in tomorrow to find out what everyone’s favourite Kwik-Save Mystic Meg is predicting for 2015.