Monthly Archives: January 2023

Avaragado and friends predict 2023

Well, 2022 was a year, wasn’t it? Two monarchs and about thirty-seven prime ministers. Still we crumble on, watching those Brexit benefits pile up on street corners.

On New Year’s Eve the usual suspects plus special guests gathered at the Town and Gown as usual to drink away the afternoon and rummage for predictions for the year ahead. Here we are, already two bottles to the wind:

Predictions

  • Louise: will China try to invade Taiwan?
    • Chef: no
    • Chris: China will invade Japan
    • Melanie: yes
    • AndyC: no
    • David. no
    • Louise: yes
  • Louise: will Putin die?
    • Chef: no
    • Chris: Who’s Putin? No
    • Melanie: no
    • AndyC: yes
    • David: yes
    • Louise: yes
  • Chris: who will be the Glastonbury headliners?
    • Chef: PinkPantheress. Doja Cat
    • Chris: Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys
    • Melanie: Dua Lipa, Harry Styles
    • AndyC: Eminem, Rihanna
    • David: Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift
    • Louise: pass
  • Chef: will the Bank of England base rate hit 5%?
    • Chef: no, 4.75%
    • Chris: no, 4.5%
    • Melanie: yes, 5%
    • AndyC: yes, 5.5%
    • David: yes, 6%
    • Louise: yes, 5%
  • David: when will Jeremy Hunt stop being Chancellor?
    • Chef: he won’t
    • Chris: he won’t
    • Melanie: he won’t
    • AndyC: he won’t
    • David: June
    • Louise: he won’t
  • AndyC: will the government do a Covid booster for under 50s?
    • Chef: yes
    • Chris: yes
    • Melanie: no
    • AndyC: yes
    • David: yes
    • Louise: no – but people will be able to pay to get one
  • Chef: will there be another Scottish referendum on independence?
    • Chef: yes
    • Chris: yes
    • Melanie: no
    • AndyC: no
    • David: no
    • Louise: no
  • AndyC: will the Cambridge congestion charge be approved?
    • Chef: no
    • Chris: not in its current form, yes eventually
    • Melanie: sadly yes
    • AndyC: yes but changed
    • David: yes
    • Louise: yes
  • Chef: nominate some celebrity deaths
    • Chef: Elton John, Robbie Williams
    • Chris: Barry Manilow, Greta Thunberg
    • Melanie: Dick van Dyke, Britney Spears
    • AndyC: Elon Musk, Michael Eavis, Joe Biden
    • David: Henry Kissinger, Piers Morgan
    • Louise: David Attenborough, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Apologies to those nominated. Some of them at least.

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Avaragado’s 2022 predictions – results

And so the Earth completes another ellipse around the Sun, and New Year’s Day arrives along with its traditions: the concert from Vienna with its polkas and waltzes, the wondering which shops will be open, and the results of last year’s predictions.

Here they are again, with my comments in bold in square brackets.

Predictions

  • Chef: Still Boris Johnson this time next year?
    • Chef: yes
    • Melanie: nope, he’ll be gone by March
    • David: no, July
    • [I believe Chris was too far gone to submit an opinion for this one. Melanie and I were both right – and Johnson did announce his resignation in July, although he stayed PM until September. None of us foresaw the ensuing chaos of Truss]
  • Chris wanted it on record for some reason that the four of us “will go out to eat at a vegan restaurant in 2022”
    • [Yes, we did]
  • David: Will the dear old queen make it to 2023?
    • Chris: yes
    • Melanie: yes
    • David: yes
    • Chef: no, she’ll pop off in October
    • [Chef was almost spot on! She died in September]
  • Chef thinks the James Webb Space Telescope deployment will fail in some way and it’ll be toast
    • [Chef was wrong. It’s fine, and producing amazing images]
  • Chris: Will ARM be bought by Nvidia?
    • Chris: yes, September
    • Melanie: yes, August
    • David: yes, July
    • Chef: yes, June
    • [None of us got this right. The takeover was abandoned]
  • Chris: Will WH Smith still exist on the high street?
    • Chris: no
    • Melanie: no
    • David: yes
    • Chef: yes
    • [No idea why we cared about WH Smith enough to predict its future. It still exists, so Chef and I are both right]
  • Melanie: Will Adrian have a job?
    • Consensus: nope
    • [Correct]
  • Melanie: Will Prince Andrew lose that civil case against him?
    • Chris: yes
    • Melanie: no
    • David: no
    • Chef: yes
    • [Technically he settled, deciding to pay millions to someone he claimed he’d never met. Seems legit]
  • David: What will be the name of the most recent major Covid variant?
    • Chris: Ting-tong
    • Melanie: Mut (Egyptian hieroglyph, Vulture)
    • David: Psi
    • Chef: Alpha-gamma
    • [It still seems to be Omicron]

In a bit: our predictions for 2023.

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