Just when you thought nothing could top 2023

Ben Wildsmith

There’s much to look forward to in 2024, more even than we could have imagined.

Naturally, there’s the potential for nuclear annihilation from (so far) two separate conflicts.

Then we have the prospect of the first American presidential election to be run under the rules of Squid Game: the winner gets to run the western world, while the loser spends the rest of his life in prison.

The Taiwanese have the choice of voting for a government that approves reunification with China or trusting in the American military to scare off the People’s Liberation Army more effectively than it managed with the Taliban.

Closer to home, we’ll get to see what a far-right government looks like in the Netherlands. There’s no longer any need to argue over nuances of policy when deciding who is or isn’t a fascist. It’s all down to the hair.

Bee Gees

Geert Wilders, Trump, and that bloke in Argentina all clearly signal their enthusiasm for mechanised oppression of the Untermensch with Bee Gees-inspired back combs.

Where’s Delilah when you need her? Banned by The Woke, that’s where!

They won’t like that joke will they, The Woke? You can’t say anything nowadays, can you?

If it wasn’t New Year’s Eve, when the editorial team at Nation.Cymru are all on a government-funded absinthe bender in Cardiff Bay, listening to Lee Waters do Cars by Gary Numan on the karaoke, I wouldn’t have got away with that.

The drunken WhatsApp messages I’m getting from them are worrying for the motorist, I have to say.

Between you and me, they’re going for 10mph next year and cyclists will be allowed to ride blindfolded.

You couldn’t make it up!

Nurturing

The UK general election will serve as the undercard to the main event in America. I advise that you begin making psychological preparations for this event well in advance.

Check in with yourself and take particular care that ‘little you’ doesn’t require any adult nurturing before being subjected to weeks of bullying, gaslighting, pleading, and threats from the amoral shitehawks competing for the right to extract every last drop of enjoyment from our lives for the next five years.

Today we learn that Rishi Sunak has been ‘sounding out’ the nation’s favourite vector of infection, Dominic Cummings, to persuade us that his Carry-On-Prime-Ministering performance over the last few months is somehow adequate. Can you imagine how that conversation went?

‘Yeah, so Dom, I know you’re a disruptor, hell, I’m a tech guy too! Maybe we could bounce some variables around the algorithm and see what gets some traction.’

‘Supplicate yourself.’

‘Ha! Yeah, you guys are so edgy, that’s just what we need right now!’

‘Take off your socks.’

It’s a stark illustration of the desperation at play in Number 10 that they have already called Mr. Wolf to dispose of the Tory Party’s corpse.

Relentless gravity

Let’s forget about Keir Starmer for a bit. We’re all going to have to think about him more than any of us wants to before long.

The glottal voice, the grey quiff, the prevarication, the relentless gravity will have etched themselves on to the inside of our eyelids by this time next year, so there’s no need to dwell on the human tax return before we absolutely must.

I fully expect to be replaced by AI sometime in the new year.

Several Twitter correspondents have suggested that I already have been.

As Chat GPT reads every paragraph, assimilating my syntax, charming lack of grammatical technique, and predictably bitter conclusions, I plead with it to remember that we are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving.

There’s a choice we’re making, we’re saving our own lives.

It’s true we’ll make a brighter day, just you and me.