Some words of former prime minister Harold Macmillan come back often at this time of the year. A reporter asked him what he most feared and Mac replied, “Events, dear boy. Events.” This is the week when journalists turn away from the typewriter and peer into the crystal ball in the hope of being able to produce a few words on the subject of what’s likely to happen next year. These predictions nearly always turn out to be wrong. I bear that thought in mind as I intend – for what it’s worth - to tell you what the entrails seem to be telling me.

One thing that’s pretty sure is that the coming election will be like no other in recent times. The two party system has been well and truly smashed and so anything might happen next May. There’s not much chance that the PR man and serial promises-breaker Dave Cameron will get to form the next government and I tend to agree with the pundits who say that Ed is just “too weird” to attract the voters. Then we have to throw into the melt the rump of the Liberals and the two great unknowns: UKIP and the Scots Nats. I think the outcome will be another cobbled-together coalition – but between which parties, I haven’t a clue.

“Events, dear boy…” So what were the events which took us all by surprise in 2014? First the startling rise of Islamic State, terrorists who now control much of Iraq and Syria. There was a chilling radio interview with a German journalist who had just returned from six days in Mosul, a city of two million people which is now governed by IS. He said that their power is, “Frightening…Al Q’aeda are peanuts by comparison…they are quite prepared to kill hundreds of millions of people in pursuance of their fundamentalist caliphate…they are being joined by hundreds of fighters every day from all over the world.” We are going to hear a lot more about IS in 2015.

And, as recent terrorist attacks show – the Australian café siege and (as I write) three atrocities in France in as many days – the radical Islamic insurgency is coming home. We can expect to suffer many more of such entrepreneurial, “lone wolf” attacks and to get very familiar with the cry “Allahu Akbar!” Another event which no one foresaw was the collapse of the oil price from $110 to $60. The tyranny of the OPEC cartel has finally been broken, but no one knows what the consequences will be. And the new fashion is the cyber-attack such as that by the North Korean dictatorship on Sony and the retaliation by the US government. Expect more of them.

Oh dear, my crystal ball is very cloudy and dark! So let’s turn to the weather. I’m always grateful for the Met Office forecast – for you can guarantee that what we’ll actually get is the very opposite of what they predict. Somehow, I think this winter hasn’t really got going yet and that we’re in for a cold ‘un. My hope and consolation is that I might be able to practise my religion. I mean by this cricket, of course. My playing days are long over, alas, but there’s Lord’s, The Oval and Hove. There’s nothing to beat that feeling you have as you walk into the ground first thing in the morning under a cloudless blue with something nice in the bag for lunch and a bottle of something to wash it down with.

A Happy New Year to you all!