On my bingo card for 2026? No alarms and no surprises, please

“Let’s all meet up in the year 2000, won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?” The first time I heard “Disco 2000” by Pulp was in the winter of 1995, when it was first released.

The song’s theme of anticipatory future nostalgia – the idea of the future as a place where youthful dreams might come true – felt entirely bewitching. It was a moment in my life, and in the country, when the future felt tantalisingly rich with possibility.

The long winter of Conservative rule appeared to be ending, with the Labour Party under a dynamic, youthful leader called Tony Blair enjoying double‑digit leads in the polls. In the United States, Bill Clinton was in the White House, on his way to being re‑elected the following year.

I was 24 and restless to see what the future might hold; I used to look forward to the surprises the new year might bring. It did not seem fanciful to think those surprises might be pleasant.

open image in gallery

Cut to the present day, and the prospect of what 2026 might bring already makes me anxious. One of the curses of being middle‑aged is that you remember what it was like to live in uninteresting times – and that memory makes the head‑spinning weirdness of our present moment harder to process.

This year, the go‑to phrase people have reached for is “that was not on my bingo card for 2025”.

The list of things that were not on anyone’s bingo card is vast: Paul Simon singing “Homeward Bound” with Sabrina Carpenter on SNL; Noam Chomsky photographed with Jeffrey Epstein; Donald Trump in a bromance with Zohran Mamdani; Rob and Michele Reiner stabbed to death, allegedly by their son; Katy Perry going into space; Pulp releasing one of the year’s best albums; Marjorie Taylor Greene turning against Trump; Radiohead returning to tour; the assassination of Charlie Kirk; and adult film star Bonnie Blue endorsing Reform, wanting Nigel Farage to do to the rest of us what 1,057 men had done to her.

Nearly two and a half thousand years ago, Heraclitus warned that if you don’t expect the unexpected, you won’t recognise it when it arrives. Jarvis Cocker returned to that theme when he sang, “Life could have been very different but then something changed.”

open image in gallery

Given the odds‑on certainty that 2026 will bring more predictable unpredictability, perhaps we should be collectively prepared – start filling in our 2026 bingo card now.

If Oasis can reform, why not imagine Morrissey and Johnny Marr back on the road for The Smiths: Greatest Hits Live! tour, supported by Rick Astley? If Katy Perry can go to space, it is at least plausible that next year Lady Gaga might announce a live performance from the Mariana Trench. And if Jimmy Carr and Jack Whitehall performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in 2025, can we really discount the possibility that in 2026 Mohammed bin Salman might announce a one‑man show at the Edinburgh Fringe called “I Came, I Bone Saw, I Conquered”.

Still, as much as I can brace for the unexpected, what I would really like is a 2026 bingo card filled with certainties.

In times of predictable unpredictability, I cling to the things I can rely on. It comforts me that Simon Cowell will, in 2026, be hunting for the next big boy band. The Eurovision Song Contest being in turmoil over Israel’s war in Gaza was not on my 2025 card, but the United Kingdom doing miserably at Eurovision feels like a safe bet for 2026. I take a strange comfort in knowing that Lord Sugar will once again be searching for a business partner and, once again, will face a parade of inept egomaniacs.

There was a time when I began the new year with hope and optimism about what the next 12 months would reveal. Now that the year 2000 has come and gone and I am fully grown, what I most want from 2026 is some calm amid the chaos – no alarms and no surprises.