It is the Weekend of the Two-Faced God. Saturday is the old year, Sunday is the new. We look backwards then forwards, as if crossing the Motorway of Life, except that would be looking left then right. And you don’t usually cross motorways. But you know what I mean. 

With this in mind, I present Five Definite Predictions For 2012. Like Harold Camping and the Mayans, I can assert with absolute confidence that all of these will come to pass. Unlike them, I’m actually right.*

1. Everyone you know will have a birthday. 

2. 2012 will be a Leap Year. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Leap Years are years when everyone is contractually obliged to spend at least 50% of their time leaping like frolicking baby lambs. Have fun! The last recorded Leap Year was in 2008, which was a really long time ago when you think about it. We had a Labour Government, many of the world’s dictators were still alive and dictating, and I only had one child. This is not related to the first two facts. Probably. 

3. There will be snow. And sun and hail and tornadoes and hurricanes and monsoons and that drizzly spattering rain that smells funny. Not all of these will happen in the UK, of course, but globally, over the course of the year, I have no hesitation in predicting the arrival of virtually every type of weather. 

4. There will be new gadgets of many kinds. And my partner will make a brave and concerted attempt to buy all of them. (I, meanwhile, will doggedly refuse to part with my cracked and dropped-in-the-bath iPhone, because I don’t think you should abandon objects just because they’ve very nearly stopped working and inspire one’s friends to wordless pity.)

5. The world will not end. Or if it does, it will be because of giant super-intelligent robots, not the Rapture. Which, of the ways for the world to end, is probably my favourite. So that’s OK. 

*I am being deeply unfair to the Mayans, who did not in fact predict the world would end in 2012. Sorry, Mayans. I needed a famous second example and you’re not around to complain about being misconstrued.