ANOTHER year over, a new one just begun, but what kind of start do we have and where can we look forward to being come the beginning of 2016?

I can’t see into the future – I can barely remember what I had for breakfast. However, it’s fun to speculate at this time of year, as it distracts from the misery of the longest, darkest month of the year, so here we go.

Early last year, we were promised we’d be seeing the first green shoots of economic recovery before the end of 2014, and the country had shaken itself free of the recession.

Turns out that was mainly thanks to massive borrowing and shifting of figures so it looks like certain quarters are doing better than they are. Growth figures were ‘revised downwards’ in recent months – I take it that means we’re not doing as well as we were first told, nobody who isn’t a banker, politician or friend of one is getting any better off, and we’ll start from scratch in 2015.

Still, we’re assured we’re in a better position now than five years ago, despite incomes falling and cost of living rising – so we can look forward to hearing that a lot more in the run up to May’s General Election.

Ah yes, the General Election. Not so much political heavyweights going toe-to-toe with the best interests of the British public at heart, but the political equivalent of one of those charity duck races – there’s no clear winner to begin with so all bets are off, it’s all down to whichever lame plastic duck successfully surfs the current of public opinion on the day.

Should the Tories remain in power, we’ll be promised another five years of steady growth, while funds are pumped into the economy from private companies chipping away at our industries and NHS. We’ll also have to endure another five years of George Osborne’s smug grins and Call Me Dave doing his best to look earnest while fending off usurpers from inside and outside the party.

If Labour gets in, I can’t imagine we’ll fare much better. The papers will be filled with ‘hilarious’ cartoons and photographs pointing out how odd Miliband looks, and he’ll say there’s no way Labour can dig us out of the hole the Coalition buried us in – the classic Whitehall buck-passing manoeuvre.

For balance, I should mention the Lib Dems, Greens and UKIP, many of whom stand to make individual gains in May, but it would be surprising to see any of them take the election. However the cookie crumbles, Nigel Farage will call it a win, and lay further scaremongering foundations.

I’m still clinging to the hope that there’s a huge announcement in the lead up to the election declaring Ukip to be an elaborate social experiment or practical joke, but I’m slowly ‘revising down’ that expectation.

Less locally, it’s a fair bet we’ll see countless more fundamentalist atrocities held up for perusal by western media – both reporting on, and becoming part of the problem by giving them the oxygen of publicity. It’s a point that’s been made countless time before, but it’s worth repeating.

The entertainment world will also be an interesting watch in 2015, even if the shows and films become less so.

Television networks will play it safe for another year, with rehashes of the same old reality shows, ‘celebrity’ versions of the same old reality shows and follow-ups to award-magnet dramas which will never live up to the originals.

We’ll also see new entries in cinematic franchises, with sequels again saturating the multiplexes while speculation will also roll on who will replace Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Idris Elba's name keeps cropping up, only to be shot down by people who can’t accept that maybe a franchise about a fictional British spy that tries to remain relevant might eventually choose an actor for the role who isn’t Caucasian. They’ve had a few years to admit they were wrong about a blond Bond, but that’s as far as they’ll go.

Here’s a far out casting suggestion that – if recent behaviour by Sony is anything to go by – might have some mileage: Kim Jong Un for 007.

The studio backed down remarkably quickly over The Interview, and North Korea is an untapped market for an industry that could use all the help it at a time when piracy is more prevalent than in the 17th Century.

Anyway, whatever happens, 2015 is going to be interesting. I hope it treats you well.