Greetings from Space Year 2021, in which you can and often must do everything from the comfort of your own home except tell an investment bank that you’ve moved, which still requires written confirmation and a recent, original document that none of us receive anymore because we’ve all gone paperless.
Anyway, I shall take that up with my bank manager, a Mr Mainwaring of Walmington-on-Sea. He’ll sort it all out if I give him an orange.
For New Year’s Eve 2020 we followed the latest fashion trends and met virtually over Zoom. Our usual venue, née B Bar, lately Baroosh, and now The Town and Gown (not that one), is like most of the UK in COVID limbo. Cambridge is in tier 4, currently the most restrictive tier, officially labelled “stay at home” and more realistically known as “horse significantly bolted”.
Chris wrote a quiz for us this year, including a round in which we had to identify various TV shows with the heads of the main characters replaced with random weirdos:
The predictions were pretty random, along the lines of dear god when will this nightmare be over? Here they are, in the order we made them:
- Louise: Joe Biden dies before end of 2021
- Will Trump vacate the White House willingly?
- Group consensus: yes
- Who will replace Boris Johnson, because surely he’s toast in 2021?
- Chef: nobody – he’ll stay
- Adrian: Gove
- David: Priti Patel, because we haven’t suffered enough
- Chris: Craig from Big Brother 1
- Tokyo Olympics?
- Won’t happen – Chef, Melanie, Chris
- Will happen – Adrian
- Will happen, but cut down – David, Louise
- Glastonbury?
- Will happen – Chris
- Won’t happen – Chef, Melanie, Adrian, David, Louise
- When will the Bond film get released?
- November – Melanie, David
- August – Chef
- September – Adrian
- July virtually – Louise
- April – Chris
- When will you personally be vaccinated?
- Louise – July
- Melanie – June
- Chris – he won’t get it (I think he meant he wouldn’t be invited, not that he’d refuse)
- Chef – June
- Adrian – April
- David – May
- When will we as a group go for a proper dinner together again?
- Louise – June
- Melanie – August
- Chris – March
- Chef – April
- Adrian – May
- David – May
- Will anyone on this call leave the UK in 2021? (“UK” = UK + Scotland in case Scotland has ejected)
- Louise – yes – Lynda will go to Spain ASAP
- Melanie – yes, Lynda
- Chris – yes, Lynda and Chris/Melanie
- Chef – yes, Chris/Melanie, himself
- Adrian – no
- David – yes, Lynda
- In which month of 2021 will the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cease to be duke and duchess?
- Louise – not at all
- Melanie – October
- Chris – not at all
- Chef – not at all
- Adrian – June
- David – not at all
- Wimbledon?
- Louise – July
- Melanie – July but no crowd
- Chris – won’t happen
- Chef – August
- Adrian – July
- David – July but with smaller crowds
- This gathering next NYE?
- Chris: all of us, evening meal, posh hotel in London – specifically, The Ritz
- Chef: Town and Gown (not that one), lunchtime, but he thinks it’s a bit optimistic
Fingers crossed we’ll still all be here to mark ourselves at the end of the year.
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