Good grief, is it that time again? I’ve barely posted anything on my blog this year. Still, at today’s regular New Year’s Eve lunch official adjudicator Chris Walsh revealed just how appallingly inaccurate my 2014 predictions were. Here are the gory details – commentary etc in square brackets.
News
- ✓ In the referendum on independence, Scotland votes No. [Correct!]
- ✗ Brazil grants asylum to Edward Snowden. [Nope: still in Russia.]
- ✗ The Lib Dems replace Nick Clegg as leader. [Nope.]
- ✓ UKIP wins more MEPs in the European Parliamentary Elections than the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems. [Yes, considering the parties separately, not the combined total of the other parties.]
- ✗ An iconic building or monument is damaged in a freak/climate change weather event. [Couldn’t find anything.]
- ✗ Paul Dacre leaves his position as chief bigot/editor at the Daily Mail. [Nope.]
- ✗ More than 50% of Daily Express front page main headlines are about the weather. [Thought expressbingo.org.uk would have the answer, but it seems to stop on 5th Feb 2014. www.thepaperboy.com has front pages going back to September 2014. Taking all front pages from those sites, 22 out of 96 have weather-related headlines, which is 23%. Extrapolating: nope.]
[Score: 2/7]
Sport
- ½ Brazil win the World Cup. England don’t qualify from the group stage. [Chris ignored the bit about England and awarded no points. David thinks he deserves half a point.]
- ✗ Liverpool win the FA Premier League. [Manchester City.]
- ✗ Team GB win exactly one medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. [1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze.]
- ✗ Andy Murray loses in the semi-final of the men’s singles at Wimbledon. [Lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the quarter-final.]
- ✗ Wales win the rugby union Six Nations tournament. [Ireland.]
- ✗ Johnny Brownlee wins the ITU World Triathlon Series. [Third, behind Javier Gomez and Mario Mola.]
[Score: 0.5/6]
Science and technology
- ✓ Steve Ballmer is replaced as CEO of Microsoft by Satya Nadella. [Yes, on February 4.]
- ✗ The crew of the International Space Station is evacuated because of orbital debris. [Nope.]
- ✗ Apple announces a “revolutionary” (in their words) new TV device. [Nope.]
- ✗ The Nobel prize for physics is won by someone in the field of quantum computing/communication. [Nope: Blue LEDs]
- ✗ Google buys Oculus VR. [In March, Facebook agreed to acquire Oculus VR.]
- ✗ Webcam video of a celebrity, obtained covertly by an intelligence agency, leaks on the internet. [Don’t think so.]
[Score: 1/6]
Entertainment
- ✓ Best picture at the Oscars: 12 Years a Slave. [Yes.]
- ✗ Best actor at the Oscars: Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave. [Nope: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club]
- ✗ Best actress at the Oscars: Emma Thompson for Saving Mr Banks. [Nope: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine. Emma Thompson wasn’t even nominated.]
- ✓ Bruce Forsyth stops presenting Strictly Come Dancing. [Yep.]
- ✓ The BBC reboots a classic 1970s sitcom (eg Dad’s Army). [A film of Dad’s Army is in production, unrelated to the BBC, but the BBC has broadcast Still Open All Hours, based on the old sitcom Open All Hours.]
- ½ In one of those “celebrities doing stuff” shows (Splash, Strictly, Dancing on Wolves, etc) a celebrity does stuff that results in a nasty injury on live TV. [Some TOWIE woman received various bruises. Stretching the definitions of both “celebrity” and “nasty”: half a point.]
[Score: 3.5/6]
Celebrity deathwatch
- ✗ His Racist Highness Prince Philip, 92
- ✗ Nobel Peace Prize winner and war criminal Henry Kissinger, 90
- ✗ Thatcher defenestrator Lord (Geoffrey) Howe, 87
- ✓ Swivel-eyed Ulster firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, 87 [Died September 12th]
- ✗ Oh no, it’s Yoko Ono, 80
- ✗ Fifties teen idol and Half a Sixpence crooner Tommy Steele, 77
- ✗ Much better than the last one Pope Francis, 77
- ✗ Founder of CNN and all-round not-Murdoch Ted Turner, 75
- ✗ Nobody did it better than Carly Simon, 68
- ✗ Free software evangelist and beardy gnu-lover Richard Stallman, 60
- ✗ Wayward ex-gurner and Gazza Paul Gascoigne, 46
- ✗ Apprentice self-firing rent-a-gob Katie Hopkins, 38
[Score: 1/12]
[Total score: 8/37]
Not as good as previous years: a dismal 22%. Overall, the predictions were far too bold. But some of them were very close, in particular the Oculus VR purchase. Ah well.
Coming soon: 2015. And also, by coincidence, my predictions for 2015.
Avaragado's blog 