The year two thousand and fourteen has arrived with much fanfare and insolence, like the half dream granted through head trauma, like the constant memory which never happened. As we are in the early days of the time of the year, why not take a look ahead at the sort of things we may expect to reflect on in the past, present and future sitting from a position of absolute time as one may sit inside a glass mountain overlooking a constantly shifting landscape;;; !
JNRAURY
The first, and some argue best, month. January is the aperitif of the year and is usually dry rather than sweet, meaning the dirtiest of politicians can be found stirring beneath Egyptian cotton sheets wishing cruel death upon those that they rule over. Of course the concept of politicians wielding any real power is a lie orchestrated by History books for no reason other than it suits the public to be told what to do until they no longer feel the need to be told what to do. True History is not made by great leaders or earth shattering events, but the mass consciousness of the public ebbing and flowing beneath technological concepts and philosophy and then acted out. Hunger has been a bigger driving force for people over politics, and 2014 is shaping up to be a year in which feeding one's family various Big Macs will be more important than the soft meats of David Cameron's face. January will also be the month in which Amsterdam finally sinks to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again and only told about in myths akin to Atlantis, but with weed. Strange polar winds that are extremely localised will fly in from the Artic, freezing people where they stand, even if they only went to put the bins out.
FBEAURTY
Once the month of Janus runs its course, February will start with a big bang in the style of a James Bond film. The international spy network will introduce themselves using their real names in bars and casinos the world over, their whereabouts being pieced together through a patchwork of selfies and upon their discovery the undercover agents will gather on the secret oil rig in the ocean and zap each other with ray guns. This in itself is unimportant, but future peoples will remember February as the saturation point of mobile technology with 1 in 5 people owning a high tech smart phone. Nomad tribes will be given Google Glass in order to record their day to day lives to be streamed over Youtube for millionaires to watch, and often bet on. iPads will be flown into Sierra Leone, smart watches to Calcutta, Raspberry Pi's to Kurdish rebels and so on. All of the wi-fi information floating about will make it difficult to walk in a straight line, leading to the invention of compensating footwear that automatically forces peoples feet to veer in different directions. With the proliferation of smear tech across the globe, more people will experience the world through a four inch screen. People will no longer act as they would but conform to a mysterious status quo in which all is judged based on its radness. Marriages will break up for the lols. Business decisions will be made based on cat pictures. Prisoners will be executed as they lack social media followers. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to put it on Instagram, who gives a fuck?
MARS
The Earth's great and violent heart beats as it rotates around Sol far enough our planet edges into Spring, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere it is eternally Christmas. Which is more similair to the man; Sherlock, Khan, Assange? It is true that Benedict Cumberbatch tends to play the same sort of polymath in every single thing he's in, so it could be argued that he is acting more in real life than he is in front of the camera. Scripts arrive at his front door every morning in which he reads over a pot of Earl Grey. The scripts tell him to shave, drive through rush hour traffic, eat sustainable fish, and since Cumberbatch is a reverse actor he often struggles in the simple role of being a regular schmuck. Cumberpatch will also star in a hit film to be released this summer, starring alongside Idris Elba in a move to attract cat lovers everywhere. Crumberbath plays a gay butler working at Buckingham Palace in which he has a sordid affair with Elba, a blind harp player from New Orleans. The film itself is two hours of self indulgent nonsense but important as its release synchronizes with the entire palace, including the Royal Family, being swallowed by an earthquake. Rescue efforts are relatively nonexistent as all people can do is watch Buckingham Palace fade into the magma, wondering who will be on their money now.
AVRILE
If anything can be said about 2014 it will be quadcopters. The four rotored craft will be able to be bought for just two hundred bucks and provide hours of entertainment. Watch as the air fills with the high pitched noise of quadcopters sweeping across our skies, crashing into the windscreens of buses driving on motorways or hovering outside the window of women in a state of undress. We might not get flying cars, but who cares if we have flying cameras? An easy method of getting yourself a quadcopter is by ordering a book to your neighbours house through Amazon, waiting for the retail drone to come hovering over the horizon and then capture it in a hessian sack, all for the price of a Chris Evans biography. Of course the law will slowly catch up on this sexy new tech, but in the meantime consumers will enjoy the halcyon days of flying shit smeared quadcopters into banks and detonating them inches away from the managers top lip. How can governments complain about spying when they themselves spy on everyone? The quadcopter is a force of Communist justice that will seem entertaining for all until they blot out the sun and become sentient.
MAYA
You know what people like? Skyscrapers. Many architectural projects will begin and finish this year, as they have since we started pushing humongous stones into circles, but the sky is literally the limit with some breathtaking blocks of concrete popping up around the world. Bigger really is better as architects are forced to make buildings taller and taller for no other reason than being larger than the last. The Japanese will realise the logical conclusion for this is to build a building so big it encapsulates the Earth, only to be trumped by Americans who will realise that they should build a road that goes out of the solar system and into the Andromeda galaxy.
JNEU
Football will reign supreme over the mild summer, with all the favourite teams in the world getting together in Brazil, South America. The event will be sullied somewhat by the extreme poverty happening outside the stadium along with crime riots and animal death squads, but all of this will be ignored by mainstream media and gone on about in the guardian in articles with titles like 'The Favalian Underworld' or 'A Red Card For Police Corruption' written by sweating twenty something's who've never been to Brazil before nor go again after. All of this is inconsequential however as Brazilians have twitter and will then be focused on in buzzfeed lists like '23 Awesome But Sad Facts About Brazil That Will Change Your Life' and so on. Also the ice caps will melt.
JOLY
Due to the inordinate amount of celebrities dying who'd starred in films from 1968-1982, Hollywood suddenly realises that it needs a new batch of talent for the world to fawn over. Will Shia LeBouf be the new Jack Nicholson? What about him from Harry Potter, is he like Al Pacino or something? The sad answer is no. Nevertheless the vacuum created by the passing of these old fogies will create a new creative space in which the stars of the future will form, and I'm not talking about Colin Firth. The average age of the highest paid actors at the start of the year was 47. By the end of the year it will be 19. How? Acting. And sometimes dancing.
AGUST
What other tech can we expect in 2014? Good question. If you know the answer why don't you invent it? With rapid prototyping now you can! It's as easy as making toast, with children printing out guns and taking them to school to fire death into the bodies of their classmates. Even the poorest man can print out a Rolls Royce and appear in Hotel lobbies with printed money and a mouth full of crack smoke. Newspapers will cry out for moderation, yet nobody is entirely sure who reads newspapers any more and why should it shape the political landscape? Printers that can print themselves will start multiplying like aphids and eventually blot out the sun, alongside quadcopters and selfies.
SEPEMPTRO
The most important character in the history of feminism is Robin Thicke. His 2013 hit single 'Blurry Lines' was like a great bell awakening the world to the idea that half of it's population should be treated the same as the other half. Nowadays if you see a man hit a woman in the street you might shout that it's 'not on' then name and shame them on facebook. Elle, Prada and OK magazine will all jump on the gravy bandwagon and try to make feminism more girly. Why can't a feminist wear a cute crop top with Emmeline Pankhurst on it? Why should a man have to listen to a woman not wearing expensive makeup which has been force fed to an ape until lipstick pushes it's eyeballs out? Why the heck should Muslim women be allowed to wear Burkas when they should show off their hot bodies for both sexes to enjoy? The hot topic of 2014 is feminism, leading to the great gender war of 2015. But in the meantime why not catch up on some feminist theory and wonder if you can use your knowledge to have sex?
OCTOBRE
The cold bleating of Autumn will appear like a frozen fog throughout the civilised streets of Western Europe. People will complain, yet the amount of complaining is insignificant once London floods. For weeks the world will be saddened at tales of million pound flats being ruined with filthy Thames water. There will even be a photograph of David Cameron with his trousers rolled up as he waves to a camera. In the three inches of heel visible onlookers will gaze at the hairless leg of the prime minister and wonder what his flesh would taste like if he were to be held in a pitch black chamber and fed a diet of milk and honey until being taken outside and beheaded by a motorbike. Cannibalism will be rife in London post-flood, scenes of horror reminisce of the great starvations yet to happen in following decades.
NOVNOMBR
November is a cheery time as nothing in particular happens. People will check the news, talk to their friends, drive around for hours, yet nothing seems to happen. Television screens will only display white noise. All digital music will be replaced with a sawtooth tone due to a crafty virus that discombobulates mp3 files. People will begin to rot in bed as they wonder what it is they should be doing and coming up with no answer.
DECEMECEMBER
As the year draws to a close and Christmas begins to fire up its engines, one can't help but wonder what happened in 2014 anyway. Half of the events seemed to centre around pop stars having full sex in their videos or dogs that sort of sound like they can talk. But that is because people weren't looking in the right place. For the last few years the dolphins have begun to use tools, farm kelp, build simple mud nests in the underwater deserts. The first dolphin/human hybrid is born through a magical series of mutations and drags itself onto the shores of India, quoting Beckett and smoking roll-ups. It lives a simple life selling necklaces made of shells and studying the Vedas, though one of the more interesting things about this lifeform is that it is invincible and will probably be one of your favourite superheroes one day.
So there you have it, the year in advance, exactly as it will happen. Hope that helps when planning your holiday. Avoid Yellowstone Park on the 14th of March. Hasta la bye bye. x
