2016: A Quick Look Back at a Tumultuous Year

January: In a surprise move at a press conference, Donald Trump’s hair attacked him in a frantic bid to save humanity. The resulting scuffle led to Trump punching himself in the face and becoming concussed, before claiming it was all the fault of immigrant hairpieces coming in from Mexico. After being hospitalised, he abandoned all hope of getting the Republican nomination, declaring the world was not good enough for him, and began planning a private space mission to the dark side of the Sun for reasons best left unexplained.

February: The date was finally set (in November) for a British referendum on membership of the European Union, to coincide with the delayed Eurovision Song Contest and the semi-finals of The X-Factor. What could go wrong?

March: An accidental outbreak of mass shooting took place across the state of Texas over three days, leaving everyone in the Lone Star State either dead, slightly depressed or out of ammunition. A spokesman for the American National Rifle Association declared this to be a victory for freedom, stating, ‘At least we know Texas is free of bad guys for now. God Bless America!’

April: Prime Minister David Cameron declared his secret desire to leave politics and take holy orders in the Church of England, having declared Britain last December to be a Christian country. Behind him on Parliament Green, Mr Cameron was surprised to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury’s loudly howling ‘Christian? What about the rapacious banks, your benefit cuts, our food banks, the encouragement of high-street gambling, the deliberate targeting of immigrants, and your government’s allowance of tax evasion by corporate giants on a massive scale, sunshine?’ After which, Mr Cameron said he welcomed a Big Discussion but would be unavailable for it over Easter.

May: Hillary Clinton declared her fervent wish to see Donald Trump back as a U.S. presidential candidate, stating ‘Against him, the Democrats could run a pink pussycat in ribbons and still win’.

June: Russian President Vladimir Putin was seriously injured after leaping into a pit in Moscow Zoo and attempting to wrestle a polar bear to the ground, because it was ‘looking at me in a funny way, do you want to make something of it, punk?’ The bear was afterwards referred for counselling, but Putin’s poll ratings soared just in time to face a surprising snap presidential election, in which he led his party to victory from a hospital bed.

July: Britain’s commemoration of the 1916-2016 Battle of the Somme centenary began with the solemn dropping of a hundred bombs on some people we didn’t like in the Middle East, and the publishing of more newspaper headlines about our country being unexpectedly swamped with refugees. Except that in 1916, nobody kicked off about Belgian refugees coming over here, because they weren’t the wrong religion or ethnic group.

August: The 2016 Olympics began in the city of Rio de Janeiro, with a puzzling opening ceremony that confused many TV commentators by including many images of a giant floodlit statue on a hill in the background. Who was the statue meant to symbolise? The spirit of adventure? A welcome to sports fans? Free popcorn, maybe? This piece of local folklore remained a mystery to many European TV viewers throughout the Games.

September: The 2016 Paralympics opened with another surprising Sitting Volleyball competition leading to an exciting final, during which one British commentator declared that ‘Germany are now marching on to victory!’ (to the background music of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking’).*

October: The new Star Wars trailer (‘The Sequel Strikes Back’) was screened around the world to mixed receptions for showing opening scenes featuring a curiously familiar battle on a snow-covered planet featuring giant walking tanks, low-flying fighters armed with bungee ropes and some cute alien polar bears. A quick glimpse of the character Jar Jar Binks saying ‘I am your father’ to an unspecified female character, was enough to generate several death threats to the trailer’s director, who has since gone into hiding.

November: The annual British celebration of the life and works of Guy Fawkes was celebrated. Old jokes about his being ‘the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions’ were duly recycled along with increased demands by GCHQ to be able to access everybody’s thoughts on a daily basis. Significantly, Britain also staged its referendum on remaining part of the European Union, which was surprisingly won by a band representing Sweden, performing a medley of heavy-metal Abba songs.

December: The birth of a Palestinian refugee in difficult and dangerous circumstances, whose exile in Egypt, return and subsequent upbringing in an enemy-occupied village didn’t lead him to try and massacre as many foreigners as possible, was celebrated with much feasting- except by a few atheists who wanted nothing to do with the whole shebang, because of its irrelevancy to life in the modern world.

(*And if you think this is sick humour, I was there at the Excel Arena in London 2012 when it happened. I have pictures.)