你好/ Ní hǎo / Nín hǎo / Hello / How do / S’mae / Namaste

MMXX is here. It sounds like a rapper. This year is a leap year. This all assumes that you and I follow the Gregorian calender – and the Common Era (CE: previously known as AD, year of the lord and all that). Other calenders and timelines are available.The Byzantine calendar is somewhere between the years 7528 and 7529. China’s calender is much more confusing. The years 己亥年 (Earth Pig) 4716 or 4656 to 庚子年 (Metal Rat) 4717 or 4657 with us. Ghostsbusters will return as a franchise, following the original two movies.

A new decade begins with hope (and fireworks, bushfires and other shameful carry ons from 2019). The Holocene calendar says 12020 but Unix time mentions the numbers 1577836800 – 1609459199. I’m going to keep 2020 in mind. It is far more simple. However, when I got to Nepal on the 18th of January, I will be landing in Kathmandu in the Nepali year of 2076 (according to Bikram Sambat’s calendar).

The U.K. is scheduled to leave the E.U. on the last day of this month. I will be relegated from a citizen of Europe to just a British person. It’s coming home was played at London’s slightly smoky firework displays (although the BBC coated over the smoke cloud) and this year will see England get knocked out at the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament staged across E.U. countries, and the U.K. Perhaps some Irish kids will open their 1996 time capsuleand pull out a copy of that song by The Lightning Seeds just in time for the football tournament. Or, it can also be used at Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics…

This year NASA will aim to launch a mission to Mars to check out if it is habitable. Perhaps as the probe returns to Earth, it will find Earth is no longer habitable, as climate change and November’s Presidential Election may have swallowed up the last dregs of breathable air for humanity. However, Norway is paying Liberia to stop cutting down trees. A new hope?

As we enter the 2020s, keep in mind Morpheus from The Matrix said to Neo, “in the early 21st century mankind united in celebration when they created Artificial Intelligence”. Half-Life 2 is set around now, as was monster battling robot war movie Pacific Rim. Writer Ralph Peters penned that an alliance of Japan, South Africa, and the Arab Islamic Union, a confederation of militant Islamic states would be at war with the U.S.A. His novel, penned in 1991 was named The War in 2020. Snore-inducing dragon movie Reign of Fire also gave this year a dramatic post-apocalyptic science fantasy setting.  Terrahawks by Gerry Anderson and co, saw Earth defending itself. We should also beware the Knights of God, a fascist religious order with origins in 1987 television. But don’t worry too much Johnny Mnemonic is set next year. And in 2022, the gold from Fort Knox that Goldfinger said was useless, should be okay – the same year Geostorm is expected to hit. By 2029, the T-800 and a T-1000 will head back to kill either Sarah or John Connor, this giving a bodybuilder some work that will eventually lead him to be the 38th Governor of California. And finally, according to Data, the reunification of Ireland is achieved in 2024., Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The High Ground“). So, this decade isn’t all that bad!

 

再见/ Zài jiàn / Bài bài / Ta’ra / Goodbye / Hwyl Fawr / Dhanyabaad / Alavidā