Tag Archives: Nick Clegg

December 31, 2014 · 7:28 pm

Avaragado’s 2014 predictions – results

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

  1. ✓ In the referendum on independence, Scotland votes No. [Correct!]
  2. ✗ Brazil grants asylum to Edward Snowden. [Nope: still in Russia.]
  3. ✗ The Lib Dems replace Nick Clegg as leader. [Nope.]
  4. ✓ 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.]
  5. ✗ An iconic building or monument is damaged in a freak/climate change weather event. [Couldn’t find anything.]
  6. ✗ Paul Dacre leaves his position as chief bigot/editor at the Daily Mail. [Nope.]
  7. ✗ 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

  1. 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.]
  2. ✗ Liverpool win the FA Premier League. [Manchester City.]
  3. ✗ Team GB win exactly one medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. [1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze.]
  4. ✗ Andy Murray loses in the semi-final of the men’s singles at Wimbledon. [Lost to Grigor Dimitrov in the quarter-final.]
  5. ✗ Wales win the rugby union Six Nations tournament. [Ireland.]
  6. ✗ Johnny Brownlee wins the ITU World Triathlon Series. [Third, behind Javier Gomez and Mario Mola.]

[Score: 0.5/6]

Science and technology

  1. ✓ Steve Ballmer is replaced as CEO of Microsoft by Satya Nadella. [Yes, on February 4.]
  2. ✗ The crew of the International Space Station is evacuated because of orbital debris. [Nope.]
  3. ✗ Apple announces a “revolutionary” (in their words) new TV device. [Nope.]
  4. ✗ The Nobel prize for physics is won by someone in the field of quantum computing/communication. [Nope: Blue LEDs]
  5. ✗ Google buys Oculus VR. [In March, Facebook agreed to acquire Oculus VR.]
  6. ✗ Webcam video of a celebrity, obtained covertly by an intelligence agency, leaks on the internet. [Don’t think so.]

[Score: 1/6]

Entertainment

  1. ✓ Best picture at the Oscars: 12 Years a Slave. [Yes.]
  2. ✗ Best actor at the Oscars: Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave. [Nope: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club]
  3. ✗ Best actress at the Oscars: Emma Thompson for Saving Mr Banks. [Nope: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine. Emma Thompson wasn’t even nominated.]
  4. ✓ Bruce Forsyth stops presenting Strictly Come Dancing. [Yep.]
  5. ✓ 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.]
  6. 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

  1. ✗ His Racist Highness Prince Philip, 92
  2. ✗ Nobel Peace Prize winner and war criminal Henry Kissinger, 90
  3. ✗ Thatcher defenestrator Lord (Geoffrey) Howe, 87
  4. ✓ Swivel-eyed Ulster firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, 87 [Died September 12th]
  5. ✗ Oh no, it’s Yoko Ono, 80
  6. ✗ Fifties teen idol and Half a Sixpence crooner Tommy Steele, 77
  7. ✗ Much better than the last one Pope Francis, 77
  8. ✗ Founder of CNN and all-round not-Murdoch Ted Turner, 75
  9. ✗ Nobody did it better than Carly Simon, 68
  10. ✗ Free software evangelist and beardy gnu-lover Richard Stallman, 60
  11. ✗ Wayward ex-gurner and Gazza Paul Gascoigne, 46
  12. ✗ 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.

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December 31, 2013 · 9:08 pm

Avaragado’s 2014 predictions

Here they are: the 2014 predictions literally everyone hasn’t been waiting for. Please return regularly to check my progress and coincidentally bump the readership stats on my blog to make me feel better.

News

  1. In the referendum on independence, Scotland votes No.
  2. Brazil grants asylum to Edward Snowden.
  3. The Lib Dems replace Nick Clegg as leader.
  4. UKIP wins more MEPs in the European Parliamentary Elections than the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems.
  5. An iconic building or monument is damaged in a freak/climate change weather event.
  6. Paul Dacre leaves his position as chief bigot/editor at the Daily Mail.
  7. More than 50% of Daily Express front page main headlines are about the weather.

Sport

  1. Brazil win the World Cup. England don’t qualify from the group stage.
  2. Liverpool win the FA Premier League.
  3. Team GB win exactly one medal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
  4. Andy Murray loses in the semi-final of the men’s singles at Wimbledon.
  5. Wales win the rugby union Six Nations tournament.
  6. Johnny Brownlee wins the ITU World Triathlon Series.

Science and technology

  1. Steve Ballmer is replaced as CEO of Microsoft by Satya Nadella.
  2. The crew of the International Space Station is evacuated because of orbital debris.
  3. Apple announces a “revolutionary” (in their words) new TV device.
  4. The Nobel prize for physics is won by someone in the field of quantum computing/communication.
  5. Google buys Oculus VR.
  6. Webcam video of a celebrity, obtained covertly by an intelligence agency, leaks on the internet.

Entertainment

  1. Best picture at the Oscars: 12 Years a Slave.
  2. Best actor at the Oscars: Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave.
  3. Best actress at the Oscars: Emma Thompson for Saving Mr Banks.
  4. Bruce Forsyth stops presenting Strictly Come Dancing.
  5. The BBC reboots a classic 1970s sitcom (eg Dad’s Army).
  6. 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.

Celebrity deathwatch

  1. His Racist Highness Prince Philip, 92
  2. Nobel Peace Prize winner and war criminal Henry Kissinger, 90
  3. Thatcher defenestrator Lord (Geoffrey) Howe, 87
  4. Swivel-eyed Ulster firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, 87
  5. Oh no, it’s Yoko Ono, 80
  6. Fifties teen idol and Half a Sixpence crooner Tommy Steele, 77
  7. Much better than the last one Pope Francis, 77
  8. Founder of CNN and all-round not-Murdoch Ted Turner, 75
  9. Nobody did it better than Carly Simon, 68
  10. Free software evangelist and beardy gnu-lover Richard Stallman, 60
  11. Wayward ex-gurner and Gazza Paul Gascoigne, 46
  12. Apprentice self-firing rent-a-gob Katie Hopkins, 38

Based on the pattern of previous years I’m expecting to get about 40% right. Join me this time next year to find out whether I’ve got that prediction wrong too.

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September 20, 2012 · 6:42 pm

A government in three acts

The three-act structure is a staple of the movie business. Look behind most popular movies and this structure reveals itself: beginning, middle, end. Or setup, confrontation, resolution.

In act one, we meet the protagonist and other major characters and the nature of the plot is revealed to us. The end of act one sets the story moving properly. Think Elliott meeting ET, or Dorothy landing in Oz.

Act two is about confrontation. The protagonist experiences setbacks and danger. The stakes rise. Things are tried, which fail. But there is forward motion: ET builds his machine from a Speak’n’Spell and starts to form a psychic link to Elliott. Dorothy meets new tin, fur and straw-based companions and skips towards the Emerald City and the wizard.

At the end of act two all seems lost. ET is captured and dies. The wizard turns out to be a man behind a curtain. And here, as at the end of act one, the story turns again. ET is resurrected. There is a way for Dorothy to get home.

Act three takes us from there to the final fade to black. ET escapes with Elliott and his mates, and is picked up by those who left him behind. Dorothy clicks her heels together and repeats “there’s no place like home” and wakes up in black-and-white Kansas.

It’s not just movies that have three acts of one form or another. Books often do. Lives do. Blog posts like this do (welcome to the end of act one). And so do governments.

The current government’s first act ended at about the time Nick Clegg abandoned the pledge not to raise tuition fees. Regardless of the merits or not of the final legislation, the story changed at that point. The honeymoon was over, if you like, and the mid-term blues set in: the act two confrontations of unpopular austerity policies, of riots, and disruption.

I haven’t mentioned one aspect of the theoretical second act: you’ll often find another pivoting point somewhere in the middle of the film, where something happens to raise the stakes or change the game. This helps to avoid the all-too-common second-act lull (second acts tend to be the longest). In ET, the midpoint is where we realise that ET and Elliott are linked — that wonderful sequence cutting between a schoolroom frog dissection and ET watching TV with a beer or two.

We’ve reached the midpoint of the government’s three acts about now. We’re about half-way through the five-year term, there’s just been a cabinet reshuffle, and we’ve had the massive mood-changers of the Olympics and Paralympics.

How these affect the story remains to be seen. It’s especially hard to judge whether London 2012 — in all its aspects — will have a lasting effect. As someone who attended both the Olympics and Paralympics as a spectator, I can only say that I came away with a huge sense of pride at all the achievements — in organisation, in delivery, in service, in sport. We can do better than we think. We have done better.

Do we want to return to the old ways?  To the petty bunfights and playground games of parliament? Will the rest of the second act of this government squander this midpoint twist with the reshuffle’s apparent lurch to the right? And then more cuts: slicing away the remaining safety nets, selling off chunks of the NHS, condemning another generation of schoolchildren to endless educational dogmatic tinkering.

Sadly, this seems inevitable.

But at some point, act three arrives. Something happens to allow the escape to the UFO, or the return to Kansas. The beauty of the three-act structure is that the acts can be as long or as short as they need to be. The “midpoint” needn’t be dead-centre. The act two twist can be right before the end of the movie.

So when does Nick Clegg return to Brussels?

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