The year pending
PREDICTIONS are for mugs but for one week only (!), I'm prepared to be a mug and make some bold predictions for the year ahead. You should take them with a pinch of salt, however.
Elections will dominate the news cycle this year. On this side of the pond it will be local and Euro elections, while in the US it is the big one – the presidential election.
Polarised and trenchant they may be, meaning they'll back their man to the hilt, but one can't help but think that the two major voting blocks in the US are being short-changed when it comes to their candidates. In a country of over 330 million people, are Messrs Biden and Trump the best two to choose from to elect a leader? And does it make any sense that someone coming out of left field (right field, really – but hey, you know what I mean) could possibly be Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
Anyway, in an alternative universe, some decent, forward-thinking candidate would emerge and sweep all before him or her en route to the presidency. That's unlikely to happen, meaning one of Biden or Trump will be US president again following the election late in the year. On the basis that I couldn't stomach four more years (and he would likely try to engineer a way to make it longer than that) of Trump, I'll have to hope that Biden makes it back to the White House.
Taking it back home, it'll be interesting to see if online criticism of government parties will carry through to the ballot box. If so, Sinn Fein could benefit, though the population at large seems to be wavering a bit when it comes to Mary Lou's party.
Taking all that into consideration, it could be a bumper year for independents. That being the case, there could well be a rush among the big parties to serenade a few big name independents ahead of the next general election. Time will tell.
This is all a bit sterile and serious, so now we can have some fun. In sport, expect to see Roger Federer emerge from retirement and sensationally win a few majors, Tiger rise from the depths and similarly make a major mark on the golf courses again, and England win the UEFA Euro 2024 Championships (wait, that doesn't seem far-fetched at all).
In GAA, Mayo will win the league again but sensationally lose to New York in the Connacht Championship, and even worse for Green and Red fans, Galway will go on to win the All-Ireland in football in addition to hurling.
Galway's dominance will even extend to Association Football and the new League of Ireland season as they take the Premier Division by storm, while Manchester United will emerge from the pack to win the English Premier League, showing that the Glazers and Erik ten Hag knew what they were doing all along.
In music, Daniel O'Donnell will release a heavy metal album and be added to the Monsters of Rock 2024 Cruise bill, while Metallica will set off in the other direction, releasing a country album and finally taking to the Grand Ole Opry stage.
On TV, finally, Fair City will benefit from an influx of good actors but the upturn in fortunes for the soap opera will be brief as viewers quickly start to long for the old days of less accomplished thespianism.
Whatever 2024 holds in store for you, I hope it's a bumper year of good health and good fortune.