• New Year Predictions 2016

  01/01/2016

  1. Following recent revelations, this will be the year that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey finally shuts up. Expect no silly press releases on the eve of Church of England Synod. (From Carey anyway).
  2. The Columba Declaration recently leaked to the press will not in fact be adopted unamended by both the Church of Scotland General Assembly in May and by the Church of England General Synod in February.
  3. Solid vote in favour of first reading of legislation for removal of definition of marriage from the canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church opening the way towards a final vote in 2017.
  4. The Anglican Communion will move back towards being a fellowship of autonomous churches following the Primates’ Conference in January. Justin Welby will do the right thing for the wrong reasons. (ie he will accept the inevitable loosening of ties that stems from the global domination fantasies of his predecessors but not speak up for LGBT friendly churches).
  5. The SNP will win a landslide in the Holyrood Election. There will be UKIP representation in Holyrood for the first time.
  6. The SNP will continue to work for their preferred outcome in the European Union referendum – an overall majority in the UK in favour of staying in, a massive majority in Scotland for staying in and a majority in England for leaving the EU.
  7. The Democrats will retain the White House.
  8. Jeremy Corbyn will still be Labour Party leader by the end of 2016 and become a little more popular within the Labour Party the longer he is there.  The Labour Party will still seem unelectable at the end of the year. No major defections along the way. (There’s nowhere to go).
  9. A successful cyber terrorist attack on a major Western financial institution. (It is only a matter of time).
  10. Amateur drone crash causing loss of life.
  11. 3D printed food experiments in restaurants.
  12. More major news outlets closing down the comments sections on their websites as open comments become unmanagable.

Previous Posts

• All the Livelong Day

  04/12/2011

  Very commonly, people find it hard to get a handle on how St Mary’s hangs together and I suspect it is because of days like today. No-one gets to see everything that is going on. The organisation of it all is a series of interlocking systems which, by some miracle, mostly work well together. I…

• Consultation on Civil Partnerships and Same-Sex Marriage

  04/12/2011

  This week the Scottish Government’s consultation on civil partnerships and same-sex marriage comes to a close. The Scottish Episcopal Church’s response has been prepared by the Faith and Order Board which Bishop Gregor convenes and that will be published some time in the next few days. It would be surprising if that formal response contained…

• Pestilence, Famine, War and Death

  30/11/2011

  When I was speaking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the pulpit on Sunday it was with some hope that they might be regarded as merely allegorical figures. Alas, now I have heard the news that Harry Ramsden’s is to close. Not the johnny-come-lately chain that bears the name, but the real thing,…

• Eclectic

  29/11/2011

  Last weekend was one of those minor extravaganzas that happen at St Mary’s that one should never quite get used to. On the Saturday afternoon we had an extra Evensong which the assistant organist Geoff Woollatt brought together. A bunch of people who’ve never sung together before appeared under the label – The St Mary’s…