My somewhat dismal forecasting results during the year have given rise to a certain amount of criticism from different quarters. However, I would remind you all that my forecasts for the year as a whole were absolutely spot on:
Old Duff's Almanack 2011 2012
Trouble!
More trouble!
Even more trouble!
Double trouble!
Trouble in the rubble!
Pretty damn good, I'd say! So now it is time to provide you all with a glimpse into 2013:
Old Duff's Almanack 2011 2012 2013
It will rain!
It will rain some more!
Then some more!
And just when you think it can't rain any more - it will rain!
These particular forecasts are based on the methodology much favoured by climate scientologists, it's called extrapolation. What you do is take a few carefully controlled observations and then extrapolate them into the future. Of course, them being swots and all that they cannot be allowed to fail and so if the predictions don't come up as ordered they simply change a few of the observation points. See, it's dead easy being a climate scientologist. However, this blog works on much tougher criteria. My observations are taken daily, every morning, out of my bedroom window - well, you don't expect me to actually go out and get soaked, do you? It's true that some of the Sunday morning observations are a bit dodgy given my bleary eyes, my thumping headache and the fact that in my confusion I sometimes forget to pull the curtains! Even so, you may place every confidence in my forecasts and my advice to you all is to go long on galoshes!
My second forecast concerns our beloved coalition government. It has now passed the halfway mark to the next election and I can absolutely and definitely forecast that:
a: It will split, or
b: It will stick together.
You see, this coalition resembles one of those titchy little particles they're always playing about with at the CERN Centre, you know, those ones that have a tremendous force driving them apart but an equal and opposite force glueing them together. So with our parliamentary 'Gluons' (to give them their scientific name), half the Tory party hates the Lib-Dems and strains to break away but the other half loves them and wants to marry them because they, and their leader, were, are and always will be Lib-Dems at heart but they cannot come out of the closet and say so because they know they will never be elected again and, my dears, they so, so love all those expenses. As for the Lib-Dems, they hate everyone, all the time, everywhere. They even hate each other and would like to break away from themselves. Well, it's what they do!
So, in the immortal words of the late Field Marshal Montgomery, 'I don't want any belly-aching', you have your forecasts for the year and may go forth with every confidence. In doing so, you are accompanied by my very best wishes to you all for a really boring 2013 - at my age I like 'boring', yes, 'boring' is better than 'interesting; and definitely preferable to 'exciting'!
