scrubbedexpat141

Morning All,

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to you all and the best wishes for 2021. I intend on ringing it in with full gusto tonight and whilst I don't share the expectations the world seems to have that it will magically be better overnight, I do have high hopes for a move back to some sort of normality next year.

Which leads me to, predictions, resolutions, goals, ideas, anything you can think of for 2021.

Personally;
I want to continue losing some tub. Managed to drop about 12kgs in the latter part of the year and have put a couple back on over a guilt-free Chrimbo period. Target is another 5 from where I was, so about 7 to go from tomorrow onwards. I will achieve this by going back to the nice, calorie controlled, tasty diet that I was on and by introducing some morning exercise, starting with brisk walks / gentle jogs. I will start going to bed earlier to be up early to do this.
I want to knuckle down a bit more at work by focusing better....actually set some short and medium term goals for myself and really step into some gaps I have found in my own performance and the business where we could improve.
I'd love to finally get married, a year and two postponements after the original date.
I will be less frivolous with cash, more focused on the savings I've invested and hope to see some exciting growth in the next 12 months.
I'll finish the Alan Carr book on quitting smoking. I've started it but only read the opening 5 or 6 chapters on what it's about. I'm going to read it properly and see what happens.

I predict / guess / stick a finger in the air;
I think the rest of winter will be brutal with Covid, the UK will need another meaty lockdown I think but hopefully the vaccines will provide the light at the end of the tunnel people need.
I think the US will just be fascinating to watch as Biden comes in and Trump continues to bleat. Hopefully there's a move towards healing some of the nasty divides the country seems to have.
Brexit, whilst a terrible idea, won't end up causing huge issues or massive price changes or trucks at borders or oranges from Seville in short supply, it will be a year of working shit out in some areas but mainly Sturgeon battering for another IndyRef.
Saints will finish 9th and Liverpool will win the league, sadly. France or Portugal will win the Euros, England will be an exciting disappointment and hopefully Hamilton will win an 8th F1 title.

Anyone else got any goals or predictions?

csdf

• UK government will continue to show its ability to act too little, too late by delaying lock down until it's far far too late, thus helping UK to stay "world beating" in its deaths per capita
• Unless UAE is populated by immune superhumans, daily cases here will continue to rise as the new variant spreads, until they have to re-instate some form of restrictions, or manage to roll out vaccines at a world-beating pace.
• Financially, this year has been mental. My portfolio is up 8.5%, during the worst pandemic for 100 years. But if vaccines do roll out quickly and effectively, I think 2021 will be strong too, as people start spending the cash they saved in 2020.
• Brexit has been a financial shocker; FTSE 100 down 13.9% on the year. I think a lot of the impact of Brexit is now priced in, but I expect further hits as the realities of high-friction trade start to become more apparent.

UKCityGent

Happy New Year (and belated merry xmas)

My goal is to finally retire. Mrs UKCityGent has been 'stranded' in UK and given me the final ultimatum - her returning back or me transiting back. Her return would make things rather difficult since there was a mini-Mrs-UKCityGent !

So soon time to say sayonara !

DXBtoDOH

My prediction for 2021:

Both sides of whatever the argument is (Brexit, COVID, culture wars, British/American politics) will grow further convinced of the righteousness of their side and we end the year even more divided and contemptuous of the other side, with no movement towards a common consensus.

Long run predictions are different but we're only talking about the upcoming year here so I won't delve into it.

csdf

I'm inclined to agree. As people rely ever more on Twitter, IG etc for "news", there's ever more room for that news to be manipulated. Do we dare throw in a prediction about possible future greater regulation of social media? Or has that ship sailed?

Millhouse

Sunshine and a mini-CG to UK and old-CG is going to be a harder transition than going from a warm red to a sour white wine.

Millhouse

I got back from the UK on NYE - a country in struggles. Sad to see.

Predications;
- The UK will continue with the internal politics of COVID, swinging from lockdowns to freedoms under a bodged vaccination roll out program. Chris Whitty will still be overly empowered.
- The UK will finally get its act together around May, everyone in school will get a jab, church halls will open 10-10pm rolling out jabs to anyone who will show up - it will be a war-time type effort and a case study for the future.
- Exams chaos debates to start around March.
- UK goes back to "normal" around August (50% vaccinated allowing relative freedom but still massive amounts of working from home, city centres will take several years to fully recover)
- The UAE will continue to ignore COVID for as long as it can. It will have a better managed (at least publicly) vaccination program. Tourism seems to be picking up (at least with brits coming here - and not really being tested). I don't see a lockdown unless other countries impose travel restrictions on us.
- Global economy will divide further, US will come out OK, China will do better, Europe will struggle. Lots more global money printed.
- I'm with DXBDOH on further division. With Brexit passed, COVID becoming just a vaccination blame game, we will need something new to continue the online hate.
- Tax rises all around... most likely stealth in nature

Resolutions:
- Continue working on my new side gig - we made significant progress over the new year and with a decent signing on NYE, so let's see what comes of it.
- Keep my head down in my current job, hoping to miss the redundancy cuts starting this month.
- Support my wife with the back to work move and (hopefully) the move to a new career.
- Get the balls rewired to prevent any more kids. Support and grow the ones I have.
- Continue the piano.

Currently debating another adventure marathon... just not sure I can bothered as I have enough other goals to be working on.

Statistix

Well, this place hasn't changed much........

csdf

It has already started: in the Times today: Head teachers call for GCSEs and A‑levels to be cancelled this summer

Millhouse

Firmly securing our demotion in the global league tables on STEM subjects.

Meanwhile the rest of the world researches and educates themselves.

scrubbedexpat141

Indeed sad to see, a good way of putting it.
I think the vaccination programme should be run by the military - A; because they'll do better than joe average civil servant and B: it'll really shit up the conspiracy bellends.
I think the UK will be back to 'normal' much earlier, the government will have to stop crippling the economy and joe average will just not tolerate it after a winter of discontent.
Whilst I'm hopeful for the opposite, I think you and DXBDOH are probably right about the division.

What's the side gig then?
Bought the Mrs a keyboard for Xmas, she's loving it. Tempted to get on youtube and start learning myself.

Congrats, that's awesome. Very jealous.

Carnage. I don't get why. That'll be two years of students getting a free ride into college / uni.
Make them do longer / larger coursework. Trim the exams to focus on areas they have studied in school. Keep them learning from home as much as possible.
Surely an early scrapping means the average kid is going to stick their feet up and sack off the rest of the year regardless? Will teachers moderate a predicted grade? I know there are specific tools used for predicted as well as just a teacher's input but still, it seems barmy.

DXBtoDOH

I have noticed that people calling for regulation of social media only care about regulating the "opposition" while turning a blind eye to the transgressions of their own side. You can easily see how the Scottish Government could greatly abuse ostensibly neutral social media policies to shut down online opposition to the SNP while turning a blind eye to the cybernats. Same thing with Corbynites should they ever manage to gain power. Then look at the critical race theory / BLM people. They genuinely believe in the moral righteousness of their cause and that applying ginormous double standards is justifiable. They are terrifying people, the modern day evangelicals, and any power given to them is power they will greatly abuse in the name of good. All in all, it's best to let social media be completely uncensored as that's the closest to a level playing field you will find. That is, if you ostensibly believe in a liberal democracy.

The problem with news these days is that there is very little actual news in the establishment media. Most of what is reported as news is merely opinion, and opinion these days is increasingly straightjacketed by politicised virtue signaling to your side. This is becoming especially awful in America and the American establishment media, but the Guardian is certainly right up there - forcing out Suzanne Moore, for example. Its editorials are utterly incomprehensible to anyone outside the Guardian reading circles but are completely sensible to those who read the Guardian, which reminds me of an old adage that people read the news not really to learn something new, but to have their biases reconfirmed, in short, they just want "olds". The establishment media, for a long time, had a stranglehold on the reporting of news (both investigative journalism and commentaries) and it worked as long as they didn't abuse that monopoly. But in the past 20 years they, especially the progressive left media, have extraordinarily betrayed that trust by being extremely selective in reporting and interpreting the news to specifically lead readers to a certain conclusion and pandering to their own readership and enforcing a certain "correct" viewpoint as the consensus when there was, in fact, no real consensus or even widespread opposition (immigration, diversity, EU, Brexit and even COVID). Unfortunately for them this happened against the backdrop of the explosion of the internet, which in turn made it much harder to control information and the spread of information. The establishment media is aghast at the rapid spread of information it cannot control and which it frequently considers dangerous to the consensus it wishes to promote, but many people are also increasingly aghast at the blatantly obvious attempts by a heavily biased establishment media to curtail and control news that does not agree with its official stances.

I know this thread is meant to be for 2021 and for more mundane predictions but I will admit to somewhat thinking that we're seeing the pulling apart of liberal democracy in the West. Not the modern left progressive "liberalism" but liberal democracy with its strong antecedents in 19th century classical liberalism married with a strong respect for the democratic tradition. This was the dominant consensus in Britain from the mid 19th century up till New Labour and which even absorbed the post war welfare state into its parameters. But it's declining because a significant portion of the British population, particularly the establishment elite, no longer really cares about democracy as it was understood. The last four years in Britain have showed us quite clearly where the fault lines lay. Their "good society" is no longer a liberal democracy but a different kind of progressive liberalism that evolved out of the old liberal half of liberal democracy and has intensified into something almost quite different and in which democracy itself is an afterthought and quite often an obstacle and where it is acceptable to override democratic mandates or majority wishes to promote a more moral good society. Such as the EU. That is their justification.

At university I once heard a lecturer comment that liberalism sows the seeds of its own destruction. I didn't take him seriously, until recent years. Now I understand what he meant.

NorthernLad

After 11 months back in the UK, we are still not regretting the move back, but the politics surrounding the whole Corona virus and Brexit mess has just meant I've stopped reading the news as much as I used to:

• Nobody (globally) knows how to deal with a pandemic on the scale of what we are seeing.
  • Initially we saw a unified approach, now we are seeing more and more politics come into play (if being cynical, this could be related to the vaccine rollout and politicians preparing for some sort of return to 'normality')
  • My take on the whole situation is that when the economic impact really starts to hit, a virus with a relatively low mortality rate will be the least of our worries.

• Regardless of individual opinions, the majority of the country voted for Brexit - just get on with it. That's what happens when you live in a democratic country.

I expect 2021 will turn into a year of finger pointing about how things should have been done in a pandemic, I don't expect Brexit to be at the forefront of peoples minds in the UK as life will go on.

My only hope is that the Lions tour goes ahead (and the pubs are reopened for the games)....and people don't forget some of the good we saw in 2020 (people coming together and recognizing the contribution everyone makes to society, specifically all 'front line workers', not just NHS).

DXBtoDOH

I agree with you. Brexit, because there is now a clear winner and cannot be undone, will fade away but covid is its replacement in the culture war. Not only does it offer a convenient beating bag for anyone opposed to the current government regardless of what it does or does not do, it is never good enough, which means it's a tool for the old remain factions to continue opposing Boris Johnson's government and is exhibited in the utter lack of sympathy in an extraordinary year of difficult decisions along with an utter lack of blindness to that Britain is not unique in dealing with covid. At the same time, there is certainly a cultural divide over the lockdowns, the impact of the lockdowns and the beneficiaries of the lockdowns. People's attitudes towards covid do reflect the pulling apart of the liberal democracy. The praises for the Chinese handling of covid always turn a blind eye to that it only happened with the same power that also allows the CCP regime to brutally incinerate all dissenters and to cruelly oppress the Uighurs and other non Han ethnic groups. Is that a price worth paying?

I'm very thankful for the vaccine and do believe that after the inevitable initial stumbles in rolling it out, it will proceed quite quickly and by late spring, early summer, we will return to norm on a major scale. If it hadn't been for the vaccines we might have been heading to a real reckoning between the opposing sides of covid. Britain, in this regard, may come out better placed than the US, which will likely remain deeply, if not permanently, divided due to covid, each side utterly unable to forgive the other.

For a political theory wonk, 2020 was a fascinating year. But, yeah, could do with a year when the greatest excitement is watching rugby with a pint.

csdf

There seems to be a direct correlation between the decay of high quality news over the last 20 years, and the growth of free online "news". The less people are prepared to pay for their news, the less money is available to traditional news sources to gather and report it. So they turn to advertising or other sources of income, which often dictate how and what they report. On top of that, they have found that in order to continue attracting the public (and keep advertising revenue), what gains views is not news, but opinion and gossip. Of course, news has always suffered from patronage (criticisms of the Murdoch empire have been around since the 80s), but things seem to have swung from bad to worse in the last two decades.