Here we go! The year of our Lord 2025 got off to a wonderful start when I returned to work and found I was still able to fit inside my trousers and secure the top button of my shirt. Hooray! Given that Christmas lasted a full week and that I consumed more than my own bodyweight in ham, I consider this a Christmas miracle. But as we free ourselves from the smouldering wreckage that is 2024 and lift our eyes to the horizon, squinting at the year that lies before us, something in my gut – possibly ham – is telling me that there are more than a few road bumps ahead.
I’m no soothsayer, but there are a few predictions I’m willing to make.
I predict that in 2025, Elon Musk will finally realise that his name is an anagram of ‘Noel Skum’ and, given his penchant for renaming things, will insist of being referred to as ‘Noel Skum’ for the foreseeable future before eventually changing his mind and officially altering his name to either ‘Lord Custard Guts’ or ‘E = mc2’. But before then, ‘Noel Skum’ will continue to delight us all by throwing his not-inconsiderable weight around by skulking about on social media like a schoolyard bully, looking for someone to beat.
Donald Jezebel Trump will be the first sitting President to deliver the State of the Union address as an infomercial and will nominate Judge Dredd for a vacancy on the Supreme Court. In addition to annexing Greenland, he will also relocate Hawaii (too far to travel), carpet Rhode Island (so much better than sand!) and release the first volume of his political memoir entitled ‘The Art of the Steal’, a cookbook (‘The Art of the Meal’) and a short novella on his medical deferment from military service (‘The Art of the Heel’).
Actually, when it comes to the ol’ Trumpster, you can speculate as wildly as you like and still find that reality turns out to be far more outrageous than you ever dared to imagine. He could appoint Sherlock Holmes as the head of the FBI, or nominate a hamster named ‘Dennis’ as the new US ambassador to Lapland and no-one would be the least bit surprised.
I predict that this is the year that Elvis comes out of retirement. After wisely biding his time for the past forty-eight years, the King will return in a low-key kind of way with a Tuesday night slot at the Pier Hotel before word gets out and he lands a job with another Colonel, advertising KFC and singing ‘Love Me Chicken Tender.’
Just as people in the nineteen eighties were nostalgic for the sixties, in 2025 we’ll all be pining for the turn of the millennium. This means I’m going to be spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about the Y2K bug and sending out messages that predict the end of the world on my Blackberry whilst listening to the Backstreet Boys.
The appetite for nostalgia won’t stop there. Just as the digital age has inspired a generation of vinyl record enthusiasts, I predict that people will start dumping their NBN service in favour of dial up. The soothing sound of the modem as it wails and scratches in search of a signal will be a balm for those of us who long for a time when things were a little less hectic.
But it’s not all about the past. This will also be the year of astounding innovation. The people that brought us crypto currency will soon start selling the holes in donuts and the spaces between sentences. It won’t make any sense, but it will generate plenty of dollars as the market salivates at the thought of the emperor’s new donut hole.
The Boogieman and Bigfoot will turn out to be real and living together in a flat in Seaford. The Wu Tang Clan will register themselves as a political party and field candidates in every state in the upcoming Federal election using the slogan ‘Who can? The Wu Tang Clan can!’
Coldplay will release a metal album. Taylor Swift will form her own religion. Francis Ford Coppola will release a re-edited version of ‘Megalopolis’ that runs for ninety minutes and is a rom com. Donald Trump junior will star in a movie entitled ‘Magalopolis’ that runs for four years and ends in tragedy.
These predictions may or may not come true and it will be interesting to pick over the bones of 2025 once it’s done to see how I fared. What I predict with absolute certainty is how this year will end – I can confidently say that on New Year’s Eve in 2025 I will fall asleep long before midnight, much to the disgust of the other people in my life.
So let me end by simply saying, ‘Welcome 2025! We’ve been waiting for you’. Truth be told, I am happy to see the back of 2024 and am hopeful that the year to come will be more peaceful, productive and pleasant, in stark contrast to last year’s cataclysmic bin fire. Happy new year!