I hate forecasting. It is usually the province of accountants, politicians and the religious and they are all invariably wrong.
Budgets are always missed, better times never arrive and the second coming, or end of the world, always fails to materialise.
So I am not going to predict anything for 2012 and suggest you all do the same.
We all seem to live for what is going to happen, rather than what is happening. I am not saying don’t plan for anything, I am saying live for the present.
Ultimately that’s all we have, what is happening now.
The Euro may survive, may collapse and no-one can honestly tell which and which would be better. This Government may pull us out of the economic crisis or drive us deeper into it.
Some famous people will die, some will just put their foot in their mouths and some sit and whinge in a jungle.
The weather will be what the weather will be, which is impossible to predict on a daily basis.
In my list of people who forecast and invariably forecast wrong, could be added the weathermen, although I have a bit more sympathy for them.
We ask them to do it for us and they generally do it with less certainty and more humility.
And just remember it has been a lot worse and within living memory. My Grandad fought in the First World War and lived through the depression of the 1930s. He used to joke with me that he had seen more days than dinners. My dad fought in the Second World War, in the Far East, which was no picnic. He used to say that after walking through jungle for days, at 18 years old, with bad food, dysentery and the risk of being picked off by a Japanese sniper, not much could faze him.
In my lifetime there have been right-wing dictatorships in Europe and left-wing dictatorships in Europe. One of the reasons I gave up predicting is that I remember saying to the local Anti-Apartheid Group that it could be decades before Nelson Mandela and South Africa were free. I told them that in 1989.
Wars are still happening and men and women still dying for causes I do not fully understand.
For example one of the reasons we were told we are in Afghanistan was to track down Osama Bin Laden. That’s the Osama Bin Laden who was living in Pakistan and is now dead.
One of the less free aspects of modern life is its sentimentality, coupled with right-wing political correctness, where challenging wars is tantamount to attacking the armed forces and therefore beyond civic decency.
I am digressing. In 12 months’ time, the world may look completely different, or exactly the same. I am not saying we should not work to improve it and ourselves. I am saying that we should also cherish what we have and recognise what we are, good and bad. So while living for the present I shall also try to be kinder to Royalists, believers in God, accountants (especially at my bank) and politicians.
And remember the words of Rudyard Kipling, who would not normally be on my Christmas card list: ‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same,’ you might just get through it.
ONE girl who has been heavily criticised recently is Mekeeda Austin, for her joke letter to Santa. She has been described as selfish and of spoiling the fun of Christmas.
I think lots of people are suffering a humour bypass and failing to see that teenage humour is sometimes a bit drastic. Teenage cruel jokes shock. One writer also said her suggestion of cooking the reindeer and dishing them up as dinner for the homeless is not in the spirit of Christmas. In fact such a suggestion, were turkeys swapped for reindeer, could exactly be in the spirit of Christmas. It’s just that reindeer, like dolphins, and unlike turkeys and tuna, come in the category of cuddly animals.
So a Happy New Year to all teenagers - and everyone else.
