IT was a quiet New Year's Eve in the village - thanks largely to Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno "Louis" Lamoer's efforts to protect us from ourselves and prevent people from having fun.
We were not ungrateful. Such was the alarm at reports of the "ring of steel" with which Lamoer intended to corral revellers into specially-designed party animal pens where they could mill about and low to one another in forced gaiety that we felt it wiser if we just decamped, once more, to the Mahogany Ridge and there, far from that madding crowd, see in 2015.
With that out the way, it was down to the serious business of looking at the year ahead. It is not an easy business, this predictions lark, but our money's on 2015 being marginally better than last year. Or at least marginally better for some. But, fingers crossed and loins duly girded, this is how it will unfold.
Next month marks the 25th anniversary of the unbanning of the liberation movements. The ruling party, still smarting at the gouging it received from the City of Cape Town over the hiring of Cape Town Stadium for its birthday bash and faced with growing disillusion among its supporters, will attempt to make something of the occasion and the official line from Luthuli House will be that the apartheid regime had no part in the unbannings.
President Jacob Zuma will declare that, because the ANC was the biggest of the unbanned parties, it was more unbanned than others. He will once again suggest that the party will rule until the Second Coming. This is despite his call last month to Christian leaders that they pray to God to send Jesus back to Earth most pronto because of the many sins in the country. Jesus will once more excuse Himself from our affairs.
Elsewhere on the faith front, the cult of Thuli Madonsela, the Public Protector, will grow apace. Many will look to her for salvation, and pilgrims may want to touch the hem of her garment whenever she appears in public. Unfortunately there are laws against this sort of thing.
It will not go as swimmingly for many of our other public institutions. The SABC will continue to provide much in the way of unique comic entertainment. The Zumafication - as the DA's Helen Zille put it - of the SA Revenue Service will continue. The middle classes will be outraged. But in an impotent sort of way. The criminal justice system will continue to be an embarrassment.
Incredibly, some of the parcels we ordered from Amazon and other online retailers in July could well be delivered in time for Christmas this year. Maybe it's naivete, but I cannot imagine striking postal workers rifling through backlogged depots to plunder our goodies. They're out there. Somewhere.
Elsewhere, key international developments will affect many South Africans. China, a major importer of raw materials, looks headed for its slowest growth in 25 years. This is bad news, obviously, for all those resource-rich countries who'd come to rely on a steadily increasing demand from the Chinese for such materials.
It also is bad news for SA Airways. They will be forced to continue with the ridiculous charade of maintaining the non-profitable but politically correct service to Beijing when it is abundantly clear that there are now no reasons whatsoever to maintain such a service.
Besides the fact that Hong Kong is the preferred destination, there are plenty other airlines that will get you to Beijing. Do you think the Chinese fly here on SAA? No, they're not stupid. They use their own carriers. Nevertheless, SAA will cancel several more popular routes to European destinations in a bid to offset the shortfall in demand for flights to China. Don't ask me how this works. But that is the thinking.
The price of oil will continue to fall dramatically. Moscow will be hardest hit. The country's deepening recession will spill over into civil unrest and, in a bid to restore order to an increasingly chaotic situation, Ukranian forces will invade Russia and seize control of the Kremlin.
The by-now penniless Vladimir Putin will be granted political asylum in South Africa. He will become a familiar sight in the Pretoria suburb of Hatfield, often shirtless and badly sunburnt after a day's wrestling with live animals. Passersby are advised not to make eye contact.
One upshot of the low oil price is that Eskom can buy tons of cheap diesel to keep all those turbines going and . . . nah, that's just wishful thinking, isn't it? The candle-lit dinners, romantic as they are, may be with us for a while.
This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
