FORECASTERS are flatly refusing to predict the future this year. “Every pundit and futurologist I have met or heard has said that 2012 is the hardest year to call,” business analyst Stephen Archer told clients.

Cowards! I reckon 2012 is the easiest one ever. Commentators can predict anything we like, what with the world being due to end on December 21. That’s a full ten days before our predictions are proved to be complete rubbish, as they are every year.

And some things are guaranteed, anyway. For example, I predict Eurozone leaders will hold a summit to declare the crisis “finally over” in January. And February. And March. And April. Etc.

On similar lines, here are my forecasts for the next twelve months.

January 20:

Lindsay Lohan accidentally tweets her personal New Year resolution to the world:

“Get hammered, steal stuff, get arrested.”

(I’m guessing she makes the same resolution every year.)

***

February 6:

The 60th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth is marked by an emotional speech from her son Prince Charles: “Get off the throne you batty old witch, it’s my turn.”

***

February 15:

Police invite Lindsay Lohan to visit an ankle monitor bracelet showroom. She steals one.

***

March 11:

Celebrities around the world mark Rupert Murdoch’s birthday by leaving birthday wishes on their own voice mails so he hears them when he hacks them.

***

March 25:

Hong Kong leaders pledge to curb the power of property developers and the few people legally allowed to vote fail to make it to the polls as they are doubled up with laughter.

***

April 8:

Newly rich junior pop star Justin Bieber buys Greece as a summer home. Citizens are thrilled until he says: “Wrap it up, I’ll take it with me.”

***

May 11:

In Iran, leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is thrown out of his job for being too weird. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un is thrown out of his job for not being weird enough.

***

June 18:

A shock war breaks out between America and Britain as London refuses Washington’s demand to take Simon Cowell back.

***

July 27:

The 2012 Olympics open in East London with the words: “Awroight, guv?” Competitors complain that they were told the main language would be English.

***

August 9:

A group of neutrinos fired by the Large Hadron Collider arrive at their destination 60 billionths of a second faster than they should have. Los Angeles traffic police offer to chase after them and book them for speeding.

***

September 23:

Lindsay Lohan announces that she is turning her life around 180 degrees. Charlie Sheen announces that he is turning his life around 360 degrees.

***

October 7:

As the US-UK war escalates, Americans fire a huge cannonball, Oprah Winfrey, across the Atlantic. She flattens the Houses of Parliament.

***

November 6:

Donald Trump is elected US President and appoints the furry thing on his head Vice President.

***

November 12:

Trump stumbles on his first international policy speeches but the thing on his head does fine on its own speaking tour.

***

December 20:

Columnists print gloomy headlines over their final columns: “World ends today”.

December 21:

World fails to end.

December 22:

Embarrassed commentators takes out class action lawsuit against the descendants of the Mayans.

***