Ben Schott, author of Schott's Miscellanies and Almanacs, recently reviewed 2009 and looked ahead to 2010 at the RSA. Highlights included:
- The rise of 3G TV (i.e. programmes watched together by three generations), running counter to the anticipated further atomisation of media and entertainment. One explanation might be that when times are tough, people resort to the comfort of old-fashioned variety (they probably go out less, too) and human stories like those of Susan Boyle.
- Further, intriguing 2009 neologisms included: GD2 (for "great depression two" - i.e. the worst case economic scenario); ZIRP (zero interest rate policy); coping classes/Hyacinth Bucket-syndrome (i.e. keeping up appearances of a financially-stable lifestyle); taxodus, the prospect of people emigrating to avoid higher taxes; funemployed, the out-of-work rich and the poorgoisie, people who have money but dress down
- A caution that we all see events through our own prisms; e.g. swine flu turned out to be perhaps less of a news story than first anticipated, but if someone in your family died from it, you'll see it very differently.
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