Predictions for 2009, by the Barney Liar, Teesdale Mercury

As in previous years, readers will be eager to hear this column's predictions for 2009. You can bet your mortgage on most of them coming true.  Well, perhaps not, because most bookies would regard mortgages as pretty poor collateral these days, so just bet the inheritance you're expecting from Auntie Edna on them instead.

 

The new Durham County Council will begin in April with some sparklingly original ideas to raise extra cash.  A press release from the Kremlin, signed off by Kevin Pyramid, 21 and seven eighths, gives his latest job title as New Funding Opportunities Liaisonperson with Special Responsibility for Directing All Income into Tow Law and Ushaw Moor. SuperKev has come up with a few crackers in his time and this year is no exception.  From April, anyone heard describing Barnard Castle in winter as ‘interesting’, Teesdale as ‘sun-kissed’, changing  names without good reason or deliberately writing words without appropriate capital letters, will be required to pay an annual fee of £100 to Durham. Kevin’s office of newly-appointed staff will then issue a framed and suitably embossed permit known as a poetic licence. Anyone sending poetry which does not scan properly to the Mercury letters column will  need to show the editor a current  licence or the newspaper may well be forced to grass them up to Kevin, with whom it has established a considerable rapport based on mutual contempt.

 

The Bowes Museum will take the artistic world by storm in July when they are due to open their new gallery set aside exclusively for displaying the bedsocks and handkerchiefs of the late Queen Mother. A spokesman said: “We always had a very deep and loving understanding with the old gel. She often used to visit us and leave behind bundles of unwanted clothing. We find that the public loves to examine these. A particular favourite is the one remaining sock of the pair Her Royal Highness wore in bed the night after her horse Mugwump the Third almost finished fifth in the second race at Catterick on May 19, 1958. It is, of course, priceless (the sock, that is, not the horse, who is long dead) and is kept in a glass case at a constant air conditioned  temperature of 17.7 degrees Celsius. We are anticipating greatly increased footfall as a result of this wonderful acquisition.”

Real Glaxo FC will suffer a credit crunch-related financial crisis every month during 2009.  Big Ron Mangle, 72, Real’s plain-talking supremo will also demonstrate that he is mangle by name and nature by attempting single-handedly to destroy the viability of the English language as a universal medium of shared understanding.  I predict that he will twenty four seven demand total commitment from the squad of lads at the football club, with Evvo and Bigsy linking up with the back four in the hole behind the front two going down the channel and showing their pace.  He can also be relied on to say that only this morning he received a vote of confidence from the board and that funds will be made available for the right player and I mean worldwide.  He will refer to French defenders born in Madrid, the country’s capital and say that he thought Viagra played for Chelsea. In December he will say in a press conference that he never criticises referees and he's certainly not going to change the habits of a lifetime for that prat.  On the training pitch he will demand that his squad leap like salmon and tackle like ferrets.  Simultaneously. Mrs Mangle will spend a lot of time with her personal trainer, Darryl.

 

In September a local pharmaceutical company which will prefer to remain anonymous will release a new drug called Ontask. This medication, available both in tablet  and liquid form is expected to be a worldwide bestseller.  Taken three times a day, 100 per cent success has been achieved in trials, with subjects getting up at 7am, leaving the house, walking into the premises of rather startled local employers (including the manufacturers themselves) and undertaking menial tasks without oversight or payment before returning home and informing their husbands/wives/partners that they are tired from work, without ever remembering that they were made redundant six months previously. The pharmaceutical company itself is believed to be considering extending the use of their product into the staff canteen on a ‘need to know’ basis. Harry Flange, 81, convenor for the National Union of Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical and Technical Integrated Executive Staff union, known to its members as NUMPTIES, will say that he doesn’t know  why exactly but he thinks it would be good for the local economy and that he had been sleeping very heavily in recent times. Like a baby, in fact.

On January 17, 2009, Adrian Hadrian, local environmental activist and lentil eater will say that the record low temperatures being experienced in Teesdale this winter are caused by global warming.