Until a few years ago, a venerable columnist for The New York Times would mark the turn of every year with a semi-serious multiple-choice quiz about events in the next 12 months.

I haven't seen anyone attempt to emulate the seasonal exercise since he retired, so with heartfelt acknowledgement and profuse apologies to William Safire, here goes for 2008. I will accept no responsibility for financial or other losses incurred by anyone foolish enough to act on these suggestions:

1 The winner of the US presidential election in November will be

a) a white woman

b) a black man

c) a Mormon

d) the oldest person ever elected to a first presidential term

2 Gordon Brown's Government will contrive to lose

a) several important by-elections

b) several important Cabinet ministers

c) the names, addresses, tax records and iPod registration numbers of everyone in the country

d) all of the above

3 The winner of the Russian presidential election in March will be

a) Vladimir Putin

b) Vladimir V. Putin

c) V.V.Putin

d) None of the above

4 The Olympic Games in Beijing will be remembered for

a) an extended in-your-face campaign to promote the virtues of the Chinese economic model

b) another powerful testimony to the effectiveness of human growth hormones and anabolic steroids on athletic prowess

c) the world media's laudable efforts to embarrass the Chinese Government with stories of its manifold human rights violations

d) all of the above

5 The literary sensation of 2008

will be

a) Parenthood, by Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears

b) Love your Enemy. Then Rip his Guts Out, by Dick Cheney

c) Everybody Who Believes in God is Evil and Stupid by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Philip Pullman

d) Albus Dumbledore's Book of Pop-Up Beefcake, by J.K.Rowling

6 The economy will

a) collapse under the weight of America's bad-loan-riddled housing market

b) surge on the strength of continuing substantial growth in emerging markets

c) bobble along all right at a perfectly decent rate of growth while every pundit and journalist screams it's the dawn of another Great Depression

d) none of the above

7 The big winner at the Academy Awards in February will be

a) There Will Be Blood, a searing tale of greed and violence in the early 20th-century California oilfields

b) Michael Clayton, a searing tale of greed and corruption in contemporary American law firms

c) No Country for Old Men, a searing tale of greed and drug dealing in 1980s West Texas

d) The Great Debaters, an uplifting tale of determined minorities overcoming prejudice to take on the privileged American elites

8 Having failed to get his wife elected president, Bill Clinton will

a) divorce her

b) author a self-help book for disappointed husbands called Don't Let Lousy Women Screw up Everything You've Worked For

c) immediately begin work on his daughter Chelsea's 2016 presidential campaign, by when she will be old enough to run

d) all of the above

9 After he returns home as the conquering hero of the Iraq war, General David Petraeus's next job

will be

a) commissioner of baseball, where he will launch a highly effective counterinsurgency against drug use

b) Secretary-General of the United Nations, where he will launch a highly effective counterinsurgency against corruption, incompetence and general pointlessness

c) replacing Katie Couric as host of the CBS Evening News

d) none of the above

10 The BBC will cause a furore by broadcasting a documentary that shows the Queen

a) flipping a V-sign at her extended family (with some jumpy edits)

b) belching loudly after Christmas lunch (effects added)

c) leaving an audience with Gordon Brown, singing I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair (dubbed)

d) none of the above

11 Having achieved the triple crown in 2007 of Oscar, Emmy and

Nobel Peace Prize, in 2008 Al Gore will:

a) write the winning entry in Danish for the Eurovision Song Contest, entitled Don't Let Greenland Be Green Again

b) be appointed the next American climate change ambassador extraordinary plenipotentiary

c) captain the American team to victory in the Ryder Cup

d) become US President

12 On a series of farewell foreign trips throughout the year, President Bush will apologise for

a) having been such a limp-wristed sissy and doing nothing about the growing nuclear threat from Iran

b) Guantanamo Bay

c) not having agreed to deep reductions in America's carbon dioxide emissions

d) Mel Gibson's movies

13 Following the runaway success of the Spice Girls' reunion in 2007, the

top musical comeback performance will be by

a) Captain and Tennille

b) The remaining living members of Bill Haley and the Comets

c) Father Abraham and The Smurfs

d) Demis Roussos

14 A newly converted Catholic, Tony Blair will

a) publish a collection of contemplations on the theological shortcomings of Scottish Presbyterianism

b) lobby the Vatican for a change in policy on abortion, gay marriage and just-war theory;

c) begin discreetly conducting focus groups among the College of Cardinals about the sort of qualities required of the next pope. How does “tough on sin, tough on the causes of sin” go down?

d) all of the above

And the answers:

1 d At 72, John McCain will defy history and the embalmers and beat c) Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination and then outpunch either a) Hillary Clinton or b) Barack Obama in the general election.

2 d The Prime Minister will take no responsibility for any of it.

3 Technically d but in fact a, b and c

4 d London 2012 will be better

5 a It will have a foreword by Michael Jackson

6 c Sub-prime crisis? What sub-prime crisis?

7 d Denzel Washington will weep when he gets the Oscar

8 c It's all about him.

9 b We can only hope

10 d YouTube will be doing all of Her Majesty's documentaries in future

11 b For now, c and d will have to wait.

12 a and mean it

13 d Digital remastering will be even worse than the original

14 a With a foreword by the Rev

P. Mandelson.

And with that may I be among the first to wish you, whatever it may bring the rest of this unpredictable world, a very happy new year.

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