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These quotes prove that the future is not ours to see Worst Predictions

December 28, 2009 Edition 1

The Independent on Sunday London

The 10 worst predictions made in 2009 were:

1 "Tiger Woods never does anything that would make himself look ridiculous." Golf Digest, January issue.

2"Gordon Brown will be tempted to fight on, but if he is well advised and sensible, he will see that this cannot go on. He will concede what Tony Blair also eventually conceded when the pressure grew too great - that he has no wish to be an impediment to Labour's electoral success. He will step down soon, maybe today, certainly this weekend." Martin Kettle, The Guardian, June 5, 2009.

3"If 2008 was the year in which the Anglo-Saxon economic model was tested to destruction, in 2009 it may well be the turn of the European single-currency zone." Anatole Kaletsky, The Times, January 12, 2009.

The economics commentator was so badly burnt by his predictions for 2008 ("The global credit crisis, far from taking a turn for the worse, is now almost over"; "There will be no US recession"; "Stock markets around the world will rise in 2008") that he was understandably cautious this year. He predicted there would be a change of president and treasury secretary in the US, and, more daringly, that the dollar would rise (it fell, but not by much).

But then he went on to predict that the eurozone would go through the wringer. On the contrary, it led Britain out of recession.

4"Is Tony Blair about to make the most remarkable political comeback since Winston Churchill?... President Blair could still just happen." Adam Boulton, Sky News political editor, November 20, 2009 (the morning that Herman van Rompuy was chosen as president of the European Council).

5"A range of between 19 000 and 65 000 deaths from swine flu." Sir Liam Donaldson, England's chief medical officer, July 16, 2009. To be fair, this was a "reasonable worst-case scenario", not a prediction, to enable the National Health Service to plan.

The latest estimate is that 138 have died this year, according to the British Medical Journal.

6"The way people talk about bubbles, it's like we were a bubble-gum factory. Dubai has increased the value of the desert." Adel al-Shirawi, vice-chairman of Istithmar World, a government-owned investment company, June 16, 2008.

7"Victoria Beckham will become pregnant with a long-awaited daughter. And Jordan will announce she's pregnant, too."

Craig and Jane Hamilton-Parker's psychic world predictions as featured in Hello! magazine.

8"Resistance is futile. Cowell will always succeed. John and Edward to win." Katy Guest, Independent on Sunday, November 8, 2009.

And Joe McElderry, who won X-Factor, didn't even make it to Christmas No 1.

9"Michael Jackson... will get stronger in the coming year." Peruvian shamans, December 28, 2008.

The shamans had gathered to perform a ceremony at which they made predictions about "world leaders".

10 "Catastrophic outcomes resulting from the Large Hadron Collider could include theoretical miniature black holes, theoretical strangelets and deSitter Space transitions." Walter L Wagner, nuclear physicist, April 1, 2008.

Wagner set up Citizens Against the Large Hadron Collider to use legal action to require extensive safety testing of the collider before it is allowed to operate. It reported the first proton-proton collision on November 23. We are still here.