In the dying days of the twelvemonth, you can barely open a newspaper or magazine, watch the television or listen to the radio without being confronted by yet another “Review Of The Year” or “Round-Up Of The Key Events Of 2011”. Blather blather blather. The thing about these space-fillers is that they tend to be cobbled together on the hoof, with little thought, and – understandably, I suppose – lack any proper historical perspective. What seems important to hacks as the year takes its last gasps may, in fifty or a hundred years’ time, be quite forgotten, and 2011 may be remembered for other events entirely, ones which, to us who lived through them, seem trivial and unworthy of remark.

So when I was commissioned by the editors of The Dabbler to write my own review of 2011, I put on my futurologist’s cap (satin and wool, tassles, earflaps) and, with the aid of Dr Baxter’s Invigorating Brain Syrup, I looked at the year through the eyes of a Man Of The Future. What would a penniless out of print scribbler of 2111 pick out as the crucial events of 2011? My report is here.

Meanwhile, having got quite a taste for the wearing of the cap and the glugging of the syrup, I am heading further into the future. I have set the controls for 2525, the year of Zager & Evans’ imperishable chart-topper, and will let you know how I get on.