Predictions for 2014 are guaranteed to be just as accurate as last year’s

WHAT on earth is a decent hard-working witch to do? There I was, ready, as always at this time of the year, to predict the future for all of you, and to ensure that you’d have no surprises throughout 2014.

And then I open my Irish Examiner on Saturday morning, and what do I find? Some fellow called Michael Clifford filling up this space with all sorts of wild predictions for the year ahead. No science involved — not like me, with my cauldron — just a crystal ball that he claims to have got in the post. Well, I’ll just have to welcome Michael to the forecasters’ club. It will take him some years, of course, to build up a track record like mine. Just look at some of the things I predicted this time last year, for instance. I had George Hook calling for poor Declan Kidney’s head, and Eamonn Dunphy calling for Roy Keane’s return. I predicted that Colm Keaveney would leave Labour, and that James Reilly would be Minister for Finance. OK, OK. Perhaps none of those worked out quite how I imagined. In my bubbling cauldron, Roy Keane was returning as a player, and Declan Kidney was being fired despite winning all round him (just because George loves to be perverse).

I had imagined that Labour would fire Keaveney, rather than the other way round, and I certainly never imagined he’d join Fianna Fáil (mind you, anyone who predicted that would have been told to keep taking the tablets). And yes, I know, James Reilly isn’t Minister for Finance yet. But at least the Department of Finance seems to be spending most of its time doing James Reilly’s job. But if you’re ever visiting the& Harland and Wolff shipyard, and have sufficient bad taste to mention the Titanic, you’ll be instantly told “it was grand when it left here!”. And so it is with all of my predictions. Last year’s were absolutely spot on — when I made them. And this year’s, I guarantee you, will come true too.