High life

Two easy ways. . .

Taki

There is nothing I find more boring than the annual fearless forecasts the Fourth Estate throws our way just about this time of year. However tongue-in- cheek, I simply don't find them funny. Predictions have to be either very close to the bone, or totally libellous. For obvious reasons, they are neither.

The only way the forecasting game should be played is a la Jimmy Goldsmith, i.e. a limited amount of people play, and their predictions are jotted down. At the end of the year the one who got the closest collects the lolly that those who played had put down as a pot. The trouble with the Goldsmith method is, of course, that pre- dictions have to be mostly financial, other- wise the results can be disputed by un- sportsmanlike people.

So, in order not to be boring, or indulge in matters of which I know next to nothing and care for even less, I will make my piercing predictions for 1988, and for every one I get right I will buy dinner at Annabel's for one of the staff of the major British newspaper which mentions The Spectator the most in the coming year. (If I get five things right, say, I'll take five hacks to dinner. But I reserve the right to try and get everything wrong. After all, the Taki fortunes ain't exactly what they used to be.) Personal mergers: Albert Grimaldi will crash in the bobsled run in the Olympics, but will announce his engagement this year. To a girl. Oliver Gilmour will marry a foreigner, a northern neighbour of mine. The ghastly David Linley will become engaged to the divine Miss Constantine.

The ball will stop rolling: Overpriced tickets for charity, like Armand Hammer's fiasco in Palm Beach three years ago (at £40,000 per person) for Prince Charles's Atlantic College, will mercifully come to an end. Ditto in the Big Bagel. October the 19th took care of that social-climbing scam. Summit watch: In June President Reagan will have pardoned devious Deav- er (and rightly so, as the devious one committed no crimes except to lie to a bunch of congenital liars like congressmen and senators, while being proved innocent of the ethical charge) and Nancy will take the egregious social climber Jerry Zipkin to Moscow with her. Soviet-American rela- tions will never be the same.

Turmoil in Teheran: The Ayatollah will be declared turban dead. Rafsanjani will throw his soiled turban into the ring.

Dollar doldrums: By 1 January 1989 the pound will have reached two dollars, espe- cially when the Soviet secret military budget is revealed and America finally steps up its conventional forces. Gold will be above 500 and oil less than 16 smackers.

Washington watch: If Americans ex- cused dope in a Supreme Court Justice nominee (they did, it's the buffoons in the Senate Committee that didn't) they'll ex- cuse a dope who wants to be President.

Gary Hart will give the six midgets a run for their money, if only because he has all the wrong values and the trained seal Warren Beatty as his muse and financial backer.

Joe Biden will re-enter the race with the following opening statement: 'Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears. . .

Teddy Kennedy will follow up his best- seller Across the River and Into the Trees with A Bridge Too Far.

George Bush and Robert Dole will be the Republican party's nominees, and will win the White House. Dole will make an excellent V-P because of his house creden- tials.

Jackie K.O. saga: Jackie will announce her engagement to Maurice Tempelsman, but will almost immediately break it after strong protests from her sister Lee Radzi- will.

10 Downing Street: Intellectuals and academics will continue to hate the leader in the manner she's accustomed to being hated by those envious souls whose brain power is disproportionate to their ability to do anything to change the world for the better. Mrs Thatcher will not wear the new fashion for obvious reasons. Some things that she possesses and no other Western leader does are bound to show.

The royals: After years of soul- searching, Prince Charles will see the light and invite Nigel Dempster to lunch, or perhaps even dinner. Immediately after, the royal press will improve.

Finally, Jeffrey Bernard will charter a yacht and cruise the Greek islands with Andreas Papandreou and his moll for a month.