Dazed In The Life

Another Year Over, A New One Just Begun – War Is Over…Oh Wait… January 4, 2012

Hello 2012 – you were a bad movie a couple of years ago, let’s hope you prove Hollywood wrong, eh?

And hello loyal and devoted followers. I’ve noticed that, despite my irregular postings lately, there are quite a lot of you visiting my little blog. I feel like I really ought to come up with a witty name for you all. That is assuming there is a multitude of you as opposed to just my Dad googling my name repeatedly. Maybe…the Dazed In The Lifers? A bit cumbersome. How about…The Lifers? Makes you sound like criminals which is really rather cool these days. Or perhaps…DITLERS? Like several Hitlers, only you regularly read an insignificant blog about random stuff with little impact on the modern world as opposed to trying to annex the whole of Europe and eliminate large portions of society. Which is preferable. Then again, whatever you get up to in your spare time is your own affair.

Well, my little Ditlers, this time last year I laid out my predictions for the year 2011 as discovered by relaying the PREVIOUS year’s news items into a very clever machine and examining the data it produced. I was a little perplexed to see that I was not far off with one or two of them (David Cameron DID actually appear on Masterchef and apparently there was a royal wedding…) This year, I’m going the Mystic Meg route. I’ve been watching the flight patterns of birds, cutting open chickens in search of informative entrails and consulting with the ancient mystic, the Arsehole Of Delphi – not a typo, just a guy I met on holiday called Georgeas. He’s a dick-head who punctured my waterbed and poured moussaka down my Speedos but he also happens to be able to see the future and was thus very helpful in compiling this blog entry. So brace yourselves, this could get satirical.

JANUARY: The spate of international dictators dying shows no sign of abating as Robert Mugabe pops his clogs and his fatter, eviler son steps in to the role. As in North Korea, Specsavers suffers most under this brutal regime change as the comedy glasses which sat so fashionably on the former head-of-state fall from favour. His successor’s penchant for comedy Elizabethan ruffs fails to catch on but a controversial joke from Ricky Gervais comparing the new president to a Vienetta ice-cream sees the comedian dropped from hosting the Golden Globes in favour of Eddie Murphy, who in turn is replaced by Billy Crystal, who is in turn replaced by Russell Brand. Brand spends most of the ceremony proposing to the Best Actress nominees and fails to hand out any actual awards, merely slips of paper with his phone-number on them.

FEBRUARY: The Queen celebrates her diamond jubilee but appears somewhat disappointed when given a commemorative diamond as a present, petulantly remarking “I have one of these already!” She is however lauded for appearing on a comedy roast hosted by Sir Bruce Forsyth where he congratulates her for reaching her landmark (“Didn’t she do well?”), thanks her for his knighthood (“It’s knight to see you, to see you KNIGHT”) and welcomes celebrity guests like Pippa Middleton (“Bend LOWER! LOWER!”). Brucie also shows his enduring soft-spot for the loveable losers, assuring Prince Charles and Camilla “You’re my favourites!”

MARCH: Continuing the trend started by Eddie Izzard and continued by David Walliams of comedians doing something quite hard for quite a long time in aid of charity, Michael McIntyre volunteers to stop speaking forever in aid of…someone… I’m not too sure who, I can’t hear over the resounding nationwide shouts of “YES!”

APRIL: More details emerge in the News International phone hacking scandal as it turns out that Rupert Murdoch was himself the subject of phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch. He issues a statement in which he proclaims it the “most humbling day of my life” but refuses to resign from being Rupert Murdoch and blames his subordinates, claiming his left hand carried out the hacking behind his back while his right hand was cheerfully engaged in a charity Puppy Stroke-a-thon. Then James Murdoch says something nobody believes and an economic crisis happens just in time to divert everyone’s attention anyway. Murdoch Senior ends the year as the caretaker president of Zimbabwe.

MAY: I turn 27 and patiently wait for the inevitable rock-star death to befall me as it has so many before me – Jim, Jimi, Janis, Jurt, Jamy (they all seem to start with a J, don’t they?). As nothing happens, I change my name to Jarry. Still nothing. In an increasingly wild attempt to become a rock icon adored for being irresponsible with my body, I take copious amounts of drugs, buy a gun and move in with Courtney Love. She turns out to be a sweet old lady of 74 who loves nothing better than to settle in for the evening with a packet of Wine Gums and repeats of The Great British Bake-Off. I am eventually found, very much alive, facedown in a pool of my own tears crying for poor Janet whose soufflé simply WOULD NOT rise.

JUNE: Euro 2012 happens. Ireland beat Spain, Italy and Croatia to emerge from their group before marching on past Germany and crushing England 5-0 in the final.

Carlsberg don’t make football championships, but if they did, they’d probably taste disappointingly weak and faintly of urine, like their beer.

JULY: The Olympics begin in London. No news happens anywhere ever for the next 20 days apparently. The Olympic flame is lit by Boris Johnson accidentally when he chucks his fag-end into a convenient bowl. Team GB triumphs, but not the Team GB the British press had been hoping for as Gabon turns in a surprisingly strong performance across the board. The Russians win most of the medals with women who look like men, men who look like men and horses who have endured the harsh Soviet winters and militant post-Cold War training and laugh in the face of the English eventing courses and dressage judges. Usain Bolt is shot by an American sportsfan, convinced that his name sounds “a bit terroristy”. Paula Radcliffe completes the marathon in record-breaking time but everyone STILL hates her. Tom Daley looks hot but STILL nobody is allowed to say so.

AUGUST: In the wake of the Olympics, everyone leaves and the stadium is sold to o2 who place the Millenium Dome on top of it, thus combining two halves of an ancient amulet which was rumoured to give great power to whoever reunited the once-broken artefact. It turns out to be a load of bollocks and simply gives great acoustics for concerts but proves to be a expensive bugger to run. o2 is declared bankrupt and is shut down. Amazingly, their broadband quality immediately improves.

SEPTEMBER: Roberta White becomes this year’s Youtube figure-of-hate with her debut release “Thursday”, a song written, counter-intuitively, on a Friday. And on a napkin. Lyrics include “It’s Thursday, Thursday, gotta get up on Thursday, everybody’s lookin’ for their folder because they’ve got that big presentation today and they left all their notes in it, I know I left it down here somewhere, wait, is that it, no not that, THAT, behind the sofa, well I don’t know who would have left it there but it LOOKS like it, never mind that’s not it, well if I knew where the last place was that I had it then I wouldn’t be looking for it would I you idiot, well I never wanted to marry you anyway, your sister was the better looking one, stop, what are you doing, put down that gun, no, NO….” Twitter erupts with derision, jokes about her whiny annoying voice and threats to kill her in an outpouring of rage not seen since the Mississippi race riots of the late 60s. Meanwhile, Iran takes over most of the Middle East in a nuclear-fuelled invasion but nobody seems to notice because their focus is on Roberta and what a monstrous human being she truly is.

OCTOBER: The Euro finally collapses after Nicolas Sarkozy pinches Angela Merkel’s arse in an ill-advised impression of Silvio Berlusconi. The Germans pull the rug out from under the single currency and the entire EU returns to a barter system with iPads being exchanged for grandparents and cows selling at a going rate of five magic beans. Eventually people realise that this is impractical as it is difficult to carry livestock and elderly relatives in wallets, no matter how bony they may be, and the EU turns to Monopoly money. The upsurge in business for Hasbro games leads to hopes of an economic revival in Britain but in fact simply increases inflation and an unsustainable reliance on the tourism industry as hotels spring up everywhere from Park Lane to the Old Kent Road. Britain collapses in on itself and as a result declares Jenga the new national sport.

NOVEMBER: The US Presidential Election takes place and Barack Obama is defeated by a mutant Republican comprised of the head of Newt Gingrich, the voice of Mitt Romney, the body of Rick Perry and the tits of Sarah Palin. Gay marriage becomes the volleyball of choice during the debates preceding the election and is subsequently repealed in all US states, before being reinstated in some, declared blasphemous in others, punishable by death in Texas, punishable by trial by walrus in Alaska, proof of alien life in Utah, legal only between consenting heterosexuals in typically-crafty New York and obligatory in California. Disney releases a movie involving the first gay kiss in one of its films between a princess and her handmaiden after which the maiden turns into a frog and spends the rest of the film providing comic relief but always with a sad gleam in its eye as it remembers the time when it broke that glass ceiling. Thus far and no farther seems to be Disney’s message. The film is in 4D and cinema-goers wear full-body lycra suits in order to experience the super-dimensional, mind-bending magic of the movies. This is how we will spend the next five uncomfortable years watching films in dark, poorly-ventilated rooms being told that we are having our ‘movie-going experience enhanced’ by looking like twats.

DECEMBER: On the 21st of this month, the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar ends and the much-anticipated end-of-the-world as predicted by the Mayans fails to show up. The Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar declares it has been in the almanac business long enough and has decided to branch out. It is given its own chat show on Channel 4 where it witters on about shit music and asks teenage popstars of new boyband JLDirection what age they were when they lost their virginity and how big their cocks are. Alesha Dixon is a huge fan. Nobody else is. It is recommissioned for 16 series.

So that’s it my friends. What a year we have in store for us. I can’t wait, I might just get started right now. Time to start a rumour of a celebrity death on Twitter. Hmm. Now who’s old…