Tag Archives: 2015 predictions

A small but perfectly formed cadre of New Year’s Eve lunchers attended B Bar, AKA Baroosh, today to hear the results of my predictions for the year now blowing damply into the North Sea.

As ever, the tall but perfectly drunk Chris Walsh adjudicated. A double-check showed he gave me a point more than I deserved, which I’ve corrected. Commentary etc in square brackets.

News

• ✗ There is more than one UK general election.
• ✗ After one of the general elections, speaker John Bercow is deposed.
• ✗ The royal child-beast is of the girl persuasion, and called Elizabeth. [Charlotte Elizabeth Diana]
• ✓ Hillary Clinton confirms she will run for US President.
• ✗ Kim Jong Un is deposed as leader of North Korea.
• ✗ The record for the highest temperature in the UK is broken.

[Score: 1/6]

Sport

• ✗ Sepp Blatter is not re-elected as president of FIFA. [Re-elected, but then suspended]
• ✓ Chelsea win the English Premier League.
• ✗ Australia retain the Ashes. [Chris marked this one right, but it wasn’t]
• ✗ Germany win the women’s football World Cup in Canada. [USA]
• ✓ Oxford wins the University Boat Race, again.
• ✗ Cyprus comes top of the medal table in the keenly anticipated Games of the Small States of Europe in Reykjavik. [Iceland]

[Score: 2/6]

Science and technology

• ✗ Apple releases a MacBook Air with a retina display.
• ✗ The Dawn spacecraft discovers ice volcanoes on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres.
• ✓ The probe Philae on the surface of comet 67P emerges from hibernation sufficiently to send useful scientific data.
• ✗ Microsoft buys Fitbit. [IPO]
• ✓ Dick Costolo leaves his position as CEO of Twitter.
• ✗ YouTube users upload over 500 hours of video per minute on average. [Who knows?]

[Score: 2/6]

Entertainment

• ✗ Best Actor Oscar: Michael Keaton, Birdman. [Eddie Redmayne]
• ✓ Best Actress Oscar: Julianne Moore, Still Alice.
• ✓ Best Picture Oscar: Birdman.
• ✗ Best Director Oscar: Richard Linklater, Boyhood. [Birdman]
• ✓ Best Visual Effects Oscar: Interstellar.
• ✗ The BBC says BBC 4 will follow BBC 3 and move online.

[Score: 3/6]

Celebrity deathwatch

• ✗ Dodgy FIFA boss before the other dodgy FIFA boss, João Havelange (98)
• ✓ Avenger before the other Avengers, actor Patrick Macnee (92)
• ✓ Dracula, Scaramanga, Saruman, Dooku, actor Christopher Lee (92)
• ✗ I’ve met him you know, comics elder Stan Lee (92)
• ✗ President Bush before the other President Bush, George HW Bush (90)
• ✓ Spock before the other Spock, actor Leonard Nimoy (82)
• ✗ Run out, umpire Dickie Bird (81)
• ✗ War criminal, ex-veep Dick Cheney (73)
• ✗ Floating like an ex-butterfly, stinging like an ex-bee, boxer Muhammad Ali (72)

[Score: 3/9]

[Total score: 11/33 = 33% – up on last years 22%, but some way short of 2013’s 50%!]

Stay tuned to this bat-channel for Avaragado’s predictions for 2016.