So far, the year has gone remarkably well. It's only Friday and we've already had a day off. I have no idea where this random break came from, but somebody told me the last time it happened was 60 years ago, so I guess its something like a solar eclipse-a rare event you'll be lucky to see once in your lifetime. At least it gave me time to think about the next twelve months. In the UK it is traditional for columnists to make predictions for the coming year in January, partly because there is nothing else to write about and partly because, by the time anything does happen, everybody will have forgotten what the predictions were.