2008:Year of the Boob

8. It is a symbol for two breasts, and for infinity. Take your pick. Essentially we are talking about the same thing. It's easy, after all, isn't it, to get lost...in infinity I...er...mean.

Galadriel: The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

Whether we take a pair of boobies or infinity into this year as our mascot, the results ought to be the same. It is going to be a compelling year, and a long hard year, but probably not for the right reasons.

Financially we're all going to take a hit. Convenience. That's a nice term. What is it again? There will be chronic uncertainty in 2008, far worse than we are used to. We're going to see a reveral in fortunes, and a trend away from Tabloid Junk towards a more serious, a more conscious view of the world. This will be schizophrenic at first, as we'd developed this habit over some time.

But as the walls close in, it will seem painfully ironic that the games we are playing (shoot to kill) and the movies we are watching (violent, apocalyptic scenarios) are hitting uncomfortably close to home. News and documentaries as well as Nature content will start to get our attention.

2008 will be the year that it all starts coming off the rails. It will feel like it is getting hot, and a lot is happening at the same time, and spinning out of control. There will be weather records, and financial carnage. There will be civilian strife. To add to this, food will just become horrendously unaffordble, and we will finally begin to realise that easy motoring doesn't have a future, and worse, that we have nothing to slot in - conveniently - in its place.

The Year of the Boob will be a long walk, and not a walk in the park. At the end of it will not be freedom, but a visa resembling Mordor. We will come to know what Frodo felt like carrying the ring. The ring in this sense represents war, famine, disease. The temptation will be to put it on, all will be on this knife edge, and to not resist will mean Men will fall.