What is in Kelvin's Head?

How were my Predictions last year?

31/12/2024

Time to check out how I did with the predictions I made on New Year’s Day 2024.

1 General Election in UK – Labour landslide. PM – Sir Keir Starmer. (No great change in policies from the Tory government that Labour will replace).

Yes – fulfilled in every way.

2 US politics will continue to be dominated by Donald Trump

Yes

3 In the US Presidential election in November there will be victory for the Republican Party.

Yes

4 AI/Deepfakes have a significant effect in electoral politics.

Not really – AI/Deepfakes are present but there’s no real evidence that they swung any particular election

5 Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine unresolved by end of 2024.

Alas Yes

6 No progress for those wanting marriage equality in the Church of England.

Alas Yes

7 Twitter goes bust or is sold or both.

Not quite. Twitter feels pretty wounded but still Xists.

8 The world will be warmer in 2024 than ever before.

Yes

9 Another country will join Nato.

Yes, Sweden in March.

A new agreement is reached between the UK and Greece on the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles that opens the door for at least some of them to be displayed in Athens.

Close but no cigar.

Not a bad year – 7 direct hits with a few misses.

8 responses to “I seem to have been spared”

Erp

06/12/2008

Glad to hear you are feeling better. May you have a good illness free Advent for you and your congregation. (Is blue or purple the Advent colour at St. Mary’s?)

Reply
kelvin

06/12/2008

The colour is purple, though sadly we don’t have a full high mass set for this time of the year.

In my former congregation, we kept what people called “sarum colours” – blue in advent, unbleached linen in Lent.

I believe the term sarum colours to be historically incorrect, but I rather liked the distinction between the two seasons.

Reply
Marion Conn

06/12/2008

Hi Kelvin, glad to hear you are feeling better. In respect to “sarum colours” may i suggest this website, http://anglicanhistory.org/essays/wright/sarum.pdf

Reply
Erp

07/12/2008

Thanks for the distinction. One of the local churches (non-denominational university with one episcopal priest out of three ministers) here uses blue but I seem to have recalled purple from other places. I’m not sure where they got the blue candles though, they are a very odd shade.

Reply
Ritualist Robert

07/12/2008

Speaking of Sarum, were there medieval uses peculiar to Scotland, Fr Kelvin? Presumably there may have been something like a St Andrews Use.

Reply
ryan

07/12/2008

Yeah, I think the Sarum rite sounds fabulous, but Advent candles should obviously be purple and pink :-).

Reply
kelvin

07/12/2008

I presume that there was a St Andrews Use, though I’m no medievalist and there may be people better qualified to comment about it than I am.

There certainly seems to have been a very spectacular Use at the collegiate church of St Mary and St Anne in Glasgow. There is some speculation that St Mary’s (with its side chapel dedicated to St Anne) might have some significant roots in that congregation, which met in a church where the Tron theatre now is.

The ceremonies (and endowments) of this church were lavish. There is a little about it on wikipedia.

Reply
Fr Dougal

08/12/2008

Use of Aberdeen is very well recorded in FC Eels book on King’s College Chapel, rather like Sarum and Bangor.

Reply