Outrageous Predictions for 2016

At this time of the year I am inundated with press releases and marketing material, all predicting 'what will happen next', while assuring us that nobody has a crystal ball.

All these predictions are, of course, mere consensus. Nobody is saying anything too different from the next person and that, quite frankly, is boring. So here are my Outrageous Predictions for 2016. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

1) Yellen will regret raising rates and try to lower them again.
2) Apple will create a TV screen.
3) World supplies of chocolate will melt away.
4) Nigella will show us how to make a cup of tea.
5) Mario Draghi will smile, perhaps, later on in the year.
6) Carney will rush to raise rates to copy the US, only to get blind-sided by Yellen changing her mind
7) Carney and Yellen will be found dead together in a hotel room in Brussels, hand in hand, oranges in their mouths.
8) The price of orange juice will tumble.
9) House prices will go up - again.
10) Photos will emerge of Cameron and Osborne with farmyard animals.
11) Osborne will be caught with an orange in his mouth, self-asphyxiating over his new tax plans to be announced in the 2016 Budget.
12) Farm payrolls will treble.
13) The government will ban Ofsted.
14) Mourinho will seek to take legal action against his Russian employers. He will later be found in Soho, with some strange depletion of Uranium in his bloodwork. And an orange in his mouth.
15) Trading Places will get a remake with Seth Rogan and Tatum Channing. Channing Tatum. Tanning Chatum? Whatever, that fit chap with the 8-pack and strong shoulders you just want to bite.
16) Something, something Kardashian.
17) Something, something Bieber.
18) Ant and Dec finally break up. Queen declares day of national mourning.
19) Katie Holmes says something nice, with which most people agree. Queen declares national holiday.
20) Dismayed by volatile orange juice prices and poor economic data, Americans turn to Trump and he gets voted in.
21) In direct response, Angela Merkel becomes voted in as president of Europe.
22) Aliens invade, but find property prices in the US and UK too high for them. They go to Canada and cause $10CAN worth of damage.
23) Aliens turn out to be Asgardians and the men all look like Thor. Earth women swoon. Everyone plays The Weather Girls for months while their ovaries throb painfully.

YES PLEASE

24) Aliens seek to migrate across Europe, depleting coffee supplies in cafes everywhere. Mama Merkel announces sweeping, bilateral changes to the Shengen Agreement and Lisbon Treaty. Aliens are shipped off to Syria, where they defeat Isis.
25) Aliens given green cards and free Starbucks for life in gratitude. NHS reports a massive baby boom.
26) Actuarial assumptions start to look better for people's pension arrangements as the demographic trend reverses.
27) All national rail operators agree to add extra carriages and freeze travel price increases for two years. Yeah, Right!
28) FOS carries on as before with no change, despite a mauling from the TSC.
29) Osborne gives Aliens the Isle of Wight in exchange for defeating FOS.
31) Aliens get fined £6m each for SYSC failures and banned for life from operating in any regulated military capacity.
31) Aliens mass-migrate from earth in disgust, taking Boris Johnson with them as one of their own kind.
32) Ant and Dec decide to give it one last chance. They release a cover of 'I got you, Babe'. Cher sues. Everyone is shocked because they thought she was dead.
33) Nobody tunes in to watch non-entities on TV. Real actors and people who have actually achieved something with their lives suddenly get offers of jobs.
34) Jeremy Corbyn turns up in the Commons in a Hermes suit and a tie. Daily Mail journalists simultaneously choke on their oranges.
35) FCA takes over regulation of journalism. All reporters must go to Canary Wharf to get their pencils sharpened. Failure to keep proper notes will be hit with a ban. (This one might actually come true)
36) Jeremy Corbyn buys a home in Hampshire and hires several man-servants to carry him into Westminster each day in a sedan chair. He starts identifying as Cleopatra and is awarded Time's Woman of the Year 2016.
37) Cameron is so dismayed he goes and molests some live farm animals, and is arrested. He is later found trussed up naked like a turkey somewhere near the Brandenburg Gate.
38) Merkel becomes president of the World.
39)  China discovers a seam of oil under its mountains and suddenly becomes the world's main producer - and user - of oil.
40) Russian Oil-y-garchs leave London. Football clubs are forced to close up.
41) North Korea launches a cat into space, which knocks out some major satellite systems. For three weeks, all anyone can use the internet for is to watch live streaming of a cat sleeping 18 hours a day in a spacesuit.
42) Cat seeks American citizenship upon repatriation. Trump refuses asylum and builds a dome around America.
43) Cat becomes big in Japan and gets its own reality TV show.
44) South Korea drops Big Macs across North Korea in a mass show of propaganda. Fuelled by fast food, the people overthrow their leader but have no idea what to do with themselves afterwards.
45) Bob Geldof launches a Concert Campaign to raise money to help North Korea build Subway franchises across the country.
46) Aliens return Boris Johnson to the UK, but thanks to too much probing, he can no longer cycle. Depressed, he sets up a Subway franchise in North Korea and gets fat.
47) Something, something Simon Cowell.

Nice to eat you, to eat you, Nice

48) Bruce Forsyth is unmasked as a 200-year-old vampire.
49) Tom Cruise leaves Scientology to join Boko Haram. He gets lost in the undergrowth and turns feral. Prince Harry is sent to track him down.
50) After a turbulent year, an Alien (looking like Thor) is elected as prime minister of the UK. 98% of the UK's female population turns out to vote him in. He's photographed with his wife, who looks like Sif. Men celebrate everywhere. Daily Heil journalists rise from their graves at the sniff of fresh scandal.