Predictions are a mug’s game. The US journalist Lincoln Steffens found this out the hard way when he returned from a trip to post-revolution Soviet Russia and declared, “I have been over into the future, and it works.”
Steffens was a sober, analytical leftist. That was his problem. Predictions are not science, they are voodoo. The only way to tap into the esoteric workings of fate and time, the hidden hoo-doo of future happenstance, is not to be sober at all.
So after half a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, here are my wild predictions about the coming year…
COVID
Omicron will be an omnishambles. Borders closed, borders open, more traffic lights than a New York intersection. Then after half the population get it and it gives them nothing more than a toddler-grade sniffle, Covid will just…fade away. Sure the media will still be beating the paranoia drum for a while after and Generation Wuss will still be wearing masks on their weekly sprint from their basements to the supermarket but the rest of us will go back to something pretty much resembling normality. Actually, I might keep wearing my mask – I’m one of those lucky people who look better with their face covered up.
INFLATION
Inflation will continue to soar, surge and spiral. The government will respond by setting up a Maori-only supermarket chain called ‘Brown Buys’ with prices set 20% lower, to make up for colonialism. Hone Harawira will be CEO and have a concession on fried-bread sales.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Driven by inflation, cryptocurrencies will become so accepted they will drop the ‘crypto’ part and go straight. Virtual money will be much more common than the real stuff, allowing us all to drive virtual Ferraris, eat virtual caviar and have virtual mistresses (as long as our real wives don’t find out). Also, NFTs will blockchain Bitcoin. At least I think that’s what my seventeen-year-old nephew said.
HE PUAPUA POOH POOHED
The government will continue its ‘Neapolitan ice cream’ political strategy: white and brown separated, with a pink ruling socialist elite on top. The He Puapua report will continue to be enacted. The media will continue to lie about its radical nature. But (large gulp of Johnnie’s needed here) 2022 will be the year when a courageous politician braves charges of racism, white supremacy and Hitler comparisons and actually leads opposition to this poisonous separatist agenda.
LUXON
Whether the politician mentioned above will be the John Key mini-me clone, Christopher Luxon, depends on how accurately National has cloned him. If they have replicated Key’s political spinelessness, we’re done for. Leaving the way for…
THE RETURN OF WINSTON
Prompted by the rising price of single-malt whisky, Winston Peters will rise from the political dead and stalk the land looking for populist issues to exploit. The He Puapua nonsense is a gift for him from the political gods.
ACT
David Seymour will continue to be confused with a libertarian. Whether he himself is confused as to what a libertarian believes, is a matter of conjecture. But I think he knows exactly how much liberty New Zealanders want, and unfortunately (given our Covid experience) that’s not a lot.
PRIME MINISTERIAL NUPTIALS
The Prime Minister’s wedding will be a small, modest affair involving a thousand of her closest women’s magazine editor/DJ/ international pop star/American billionaire/TV reporter friends.
MAYORAL ELECTIONS
I don’t know about the rest of the country but the Auckland mayoralty will be won by any candidate who can convince voters they will stop the inner-city looking like the final episode of the Walking Dead. Homeless ‘street people’ are out of control. A ten-storey homeless shelter, built on the site of Chloe Swarbrick’s K Road electorate office, is the only answer.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Joe Biden will be found dead, face down in an intern’s hair.
Donald Trump will take the opportunity to announce his marriage to Meghan Markle (after Harry and Melania die in a mysterious hang-gliding accident). Trump will declare himself God Emperor-King of both the UK and the US, reuniting them in an empire of ‘Unbelievably hugely awesome greatness’.
Leftists will react by moving to ‘shithole’ countries, then realise they are ‘shithole’ countries and move to Canada.
Xi Jinping will try to further destabilise the West by ordering all Chinese-owned $2 shops to raise their prices to $3.
Putin will invade the Ukraine. At a special meeting of the UN he will promise to withdraw if any of them can find it on a map.
THE CLIMATE
A long warm summer, allowing plenty of backyard barbecues, trips to the beach and family togetherness will be jumped on by climate creeps as proof we are all going to die. I recommend spraying them with a can of ice-cold Speights from your beach chair and yelling ‘The planet cool enough for you now, dickhead?’
The Emissions Reduction Plan will be announced, banning cows, cars and Mexican food.
And, as long as Elon Musk doesn’t knock us out of orbit, goofing around in space, the world will keep spinning…
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