This was meant to be the Top Ten Newsworthiest Events of 2015 As Seen Through The Eyes As If There Were Any Other Way To See Things Of The WWNews Senior Editorial Team, but there were problems. The office cat walked across the keyboard on Christmas Eve and accidentally (or it might have been deliberate he’s a bit like that) reset the calendar app to August 1973, which led to a certain amount of laissez-fairedness and procrastination, much more than usual.
And then, in a late bid to actually get the list out on time, we resorted to looking through the local news sites to see what we could steal and realised pictures of Kim and Kanye and stories about double parking in Ponsonby were not only no use at all but profoundly depressing.
Still, a week in the Slough of Despond is good for the soul and can certainly get the creative juices flowing. Or, in our case, it’s given us time to come up with
The Official WWNews Top Ten Seven Six Predictions for 2016.
In no particular order, here are they:
#1: Sticking with tradition and despite urging from Treasury, January remains the first month of the year. It will be a month of car crashes with tourists found to be involved or nearby in every single one. Later in the month Prime Minister John Keys will announce a cabinet reshuffle, with Dom Harvey replacing the entire front bench and Jay Jay (his wife) twerking in the backbenches for the amusement of the Press gallery.
#2: April, the cruellest month according to a pioneering cat memist whose name happens to be an anagram of toilets, continues to be cruel for the PM, when his attempt to encourage more women to undergo breast screening ends up in panic buying of cryptic crossword books.
#3: Dom Harvey is appointed to head Creative NZ, with a side helping of Poet Laureate. He pledges to do his utmost to encourage the literary arts in New Zealand and promote all forms of artistic endeavour with particular emphasis on limericks where lines 1,2 and 5 rhyme with “-ucking”.
#4: In May, rival celebrity opinionistas Paul Henry and Mike Hoskings are caught in the same executive lift at Sky Casino’s head office. Critical vacuity is reached and the resulting explosion takes out most of the Auckland CBD. Parliament, having only just settled into new premises in the purpose-built convention centre next door, hastily reconvenes at the new NorthWest mall, between Lush and Bed, Bath & Beyond, where it will remain for the next 20 years.
#5: New Zealanders go to the polls and choose a new flag – most opt for Australia’s, with second and third preferences level-pegging for Thailand and Mexico. Left with no obvious go-to legacy, the PM decides to inaugurate a brand-new scientific research institute to build on the nation’s growing international reputation. To be called The Keys Floundation, the new organisation will be headed by Dom Harvey.
#6: Timeline June, and Richie McCaw tweets he has turned down a knighthood for a record seventeenth honours list in a row. The PM asks the incoming Herald of Arms Extraordinary Dom Harvey to check if knighthoods can be awarded posthumously.
#7: January (again). WWNews head of marketing and communications Ivor de Nough advises the editorial department to stop about… now.
The cat should be renamed – ‘Moriarty’ would suit it {:>)