Look ahead

One of my favourite New Year traditions is listening to Correspondants Look Ahead - highly informed, intelligent, friendly discussion between BBC senior correspondants about what will happen in the next year, plus a little bit of gentle ribbing about what people said last year. I was actually amazed at how much they did get right from last year - I had forgotten that Tunisia had already started by this time last year and Stephen Sacker predicted upheaval in Egypt, although he didn't go as far as it eventually did. The economics correspondant who's name escapes me (Paul Mason?) predicted defaults in Europe, although predicted Spain rather than Italy. It's a pretty impressive display.

The most interesting thing I've realised from listening this year is that there are presidential elections in the USA, Russia, China and France this year which is quite a startling selection of top table powers. Someone just predicted that possibly Jeb Bush will be so horrified by the paucity in the Republican field that he'll have to step up and might possibly be the only republican who could beat Obama, which is a horrible thought. No-one knows much about the Chinese candidate, even the correspondants, which is interesting in itself. In Russia, I personally think Putin will still win, but who knows what will happen after that. That's been the piece of news that's most amazed me this year - anti Putin protests in Russia. I never thought I'd see that.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. I wish they did it more often - perhaps twice a year, although you couldn't do it too often and retain the charm. In a completely different vein, by the way, the News Quiz Panto was hilarious - listened to in on the way home from visiting marta_u and Rachel to reminince about our university days, which was actually great. It's so long since I've seen them that I was slightly nervous but it was really relaxing and we talked for ages as well as watching a dreadful film (The Adjustment Bureau) once we got too sleepy for conversation :)