And now here are all our futures . . .

Jul 29 2008 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HERE is the news for next year. We can look forward to green initiatives in January about plans to extract heat from the Earth’s core.

Hopefully, Kirklees will make grants available for everyone with a back garden to drill 150ft bore-holes to tap into totally free central heating which will, however, be taxed by the Government at a rate commensurate with a householder’s inability to pay.

In February, a new revolutionary computer will be unveiled. They are expected to be offered on e-Bay by the end of the month, when the first batch are lost by Ministry of Defence and Pensions staff.

By June property prices will be booming (and believe that and you’ll believe anything) and there will be royal celebrations in August for either an engagement or a marriage.

Come October, there will be a resurgence in the popularity of religion from a populace so burdened by woe and financial hardship they can see no alternative but prayer, and the year will end in December with a rise in the price of oil and the expectation of apocalypse soon.

These are the highlights of the 2009 edition of Old Moore’s Almanac;: the main points are Old Moore’s, the ancillary explanations are all mine.

And let me assure those of a nervous disposition that there won’t really be an apocalypse soon.

Dr Francis Moore himself supplies the forward, which is quite incredible considering he published his first almanack in 1697 while an astrologer at the court of Charles II.

The stories he could tell, eh?

This is the publication that proudly boasts on its cover that it is Foulsham’s Original, which makes it sound a bit like the toffees that granddads give to children.

Let’s face it, it is a magazine that provides quite a bit of fun and entertainment with its predictions, lighting-up times, racing tips, horoscopes and football pool forecasts (Town are down for a draw on April 18 and September 19).

It is also packed with the sort of advertisements for charms, talismans, psychic readings and magic spells that make me laugh out loud.

I dare not imagine what The Secrets of Finger Magic entail but they look particularly potent: “Within a week I have a beautiful new girlfriend and my bank balance is increasing,” writes one lucky exponent.

Sounds great. Just don’t tell the wife.

(Old Moore’s Almanack is £2.20).