Predictions for 2015

Met Office panics again

Someone will do something blatantly sexist, and everyone will go "Hey, guys! It's 2015!"

The Met Office and the BBC will predict bad weather. People will be very scathing about the “panic”. Bad weather will arrive. We will claim that we walked to school through snow drifts aged four.

Journalists will write articles about:
Why does nobody ever think about the men who pay for sex?
Craft is back! The fuller figure is back! (Any year since 1962.)
At last! Sexy bras for large sizes. (Every year for 30 years.)
Masculinity is in crisis.
Class is much more “nuanced” now, and based on socio-economic groups.
Dating sites just introduce women to frogs. There are five women to every man. But look at these women who have found love!
Zeppelins are back! (HAV304 or Airlander promised for “later this year”. 2014)


Media will predict the death of social media: Atlantic claims “Twitter is entering its twilight” May 2014

Media will claim that social media makes no money.

Someone will announce the death of Twitter, Facebook, blogging, email, the internet.

People who don’t use Twitter will denigrate Twitter and complaining that it’s just pictures of food. "I always say Twittering because I hold it in very low regard." Ken Clarke on Question Time. People who do use Twitter will complain that Facebook and Instagram are just pictures of food.

People on Twitter will say: "Atheists, stop attacking Christianity! Stop shoving your religion down my throat!" (They mean “Stop saying you don’t believe in God.”)

They will also ask "Why isn't there a Men's Day?" and "When's White History Month?".

Gamergate will rumble on, becoming more and more misogynistic and reactionary.

Proponents of “whole language” reading methods (look and say) will continue fighting a bitter rearguard action for control of schools and the lucrative reading materials and training market in the teeth of overwhelming evidence that their method doesn’t work and teaching phonics does.

Someone will point out that one in five prisoners have reading difficulties.

Someone will reinvent speed reading. It will not catch on.

Faith schools will be found to be repressive and inefficient.

People will mention "British values" without defining them.


A dictionary will add a few items of modern slang. We will be very surprised, even though it happens every year.

Someone will suggest that we need a gender-neutral pronoun (ignoring “they/them” which has done the job for centuries).

People will complain about the news media.

Other people (or perhaps the same ones) will complain that the wrong people have control of the English language and that very soon it will be utterly destroyed and we will have to either speak Mandarin or communicate by gestures. (They like complaining about split infinitives, too.)

Many nice middle class people will enjoy themselves very much agreeing that everybody is illiterate these days – and what’s worse, they’re proud of it! They’re also proud of being bad at maths! In fact they are revelling in ignorance! (These nice people don’t mean “illiterate” (unable to read or write), they mean “uneducated” (makes a few grammatical mistakes).)
A politician will suggest dropping medieval studies as an undergraduate subject.

Someone will climb a mountain in flipflops, or go on a fun run in Dr Scholl’s.

Someone will rewrite a classic by Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie “for the 21st century”. It will be dire. (Clueless never made any pompous claims.)

We will wring our hands about domestic violence. (Every year for the past 30 years.) "A report shows that domestic violence victims are being failed by the police." (March 27 2014)  Some idiots will whine that there are almost as many male victims of domestic violence.

Someone will complain that fewer women play football every year.

A prominent woman will appear on the cover of Vogue – so photoshopped that she is unrecognisable.

Someone will announce the launch of a robot butler – soon. (But where's our robot pavement cleaner?)

Superyachts will get even more super. Gazillionaires will run out of features to add (helipads, slides, missile systems).

Someone will suggest a giant floating “world” on a specially adapted cruise ship. Buy a suite, become a citizen and get away from chavs, surveillance, laws, governments, the EU, immigrants etc etc etc

A teacher will tell children the truth about Santa Claus. Parents will be upset and will maunder on about the magic of Christmas and the look on their little faces, and the teacher will lose her job.

It’s the 80s/90s/00s/10s/teens – why don’t you ask HIM out?

Last year's predictions, and previous years'.