IT’S hard to make any predictions for 2023 when the first months of 2022 plunged us back into a 20th-century European imperial war — which seems to have messed up everything else. What next for the early months of 2023? Alien contact? Killer robots? Implacable plague? Mushroom clouds?
Wait, they (or variations of them) are coming. But to start with, let’s kick off the year with a different kind of mushroom.
On the first of January, 2023, the state of Oregon in the US will make the psychotherapeutic use of psilocybin legal, under license. Also, that month, approved for the treatment of depression and PTSD, the Canadian state of Alberta will add mescaline, ketamine, MDMA, DMT and LSD to the official list. So if the opening makes you feel low, you know exactly where to go.
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Certainly, the early forecasting of 2023’s world events would justify reaching for substances. Most pundits predict a grinding continuation of the Ukraine-Russia war, though some expect that a desperate Putin may act in extremis – a full energy shutdown to Europe, a tactical nuclear or chemical weapon strike.
There is also a drumbeat anticipating – sometimes salivating at – a Chinese military move on Taiwan, giving the Americans a chance to “pivot” to China.
Amidst all this global disharmony, and the variability of good and bad COPs, it was nice to find out that 2023 will bring something of genuinely global benefit.
The G20 is set to introduce a “global minimum corporate tax” next year. This intends to stop companies from shopping between countries for the lowest tax rate, as well as evading payment through their planet-wide digital channels. Hurrah! But it’s only 15%. Booooo! Yet it’s a start at a global political economy. The tax was fully endorsed just a few days ago by the EU.
Our “permacrisis” (Collins English Dictionary’s word of 2022) is also stoked by viral and pandemic threats. I began several tweets this year with “not now, [randomly mutating virus] ...” 2023 promises some powerful new medical science to help us out here.
Trials are to be conducted on nasal vaccines (which promise to halt Covid bugs in the place where they start in the body) and on variant-proof vaccines, which get at the deepest common structure of any coronavirus. If successful, they’ll be out by 2024. (This presumes the thawing steppes of Russia don’t disgorge something horrible).
All the forecasters are positive about a super-country which is set to become the world’s most populous in 2023: India (overtaking China) with well more than a billion souls. Their economy is flush with discounted oil from Putin and they will feature in two great cultural events next year.
One is the Cricket World Cup (for those who like that sort of thing). The other is the launch of the Ancient World Gallery Project, a collaboration between global museums to show India in its planetary context (Neil MacGregor, formerly of the National Gallery, is advising).
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And what about Scotland in the world for 2023? Well, next year would have been our indyref2 moment, a globally significant event (if the Supreme Court hadn’t put the kybosh on it). My pal and fellow National columnist Lesley Riddoch is urging feet on the street for January 31, Brexit Day, with Scots showing their desire to rejoin the EU mainstream.
It seems we’ll have enough compensatory sporting events to put Scotland on the world map. Most notable is the UCI Cycling World Championships (August 3-13) in Glasgow, featuring bouncing BMXs to sleek Tour-de-France-like racers. Also, the global Tall Ships Race graces Lerwick, Shetland in July.
And on September 12, apparently to celebrate 150 years of Scottish football, we will play a friendly with England at Hampden. (Friendly? Yeah, OK. Celebratory? Not if we get humped.)
At this point, I’d be looking to radical technology to save me from despair. Apple addicts will have another dose coming down their drip-feed, as the company’s VR/AR glasses are launched in 2023. The software is named realityOS, and its starting price is $3000. Not a populist move.
Will the implied “metaverse” – the internet as a virtual landscape – then truly take off? Or will a stubborn recalcitrance to having goggles stuck on your head consign companies like Meta (previously Facebook) into a burning hell of insolvency?
Keep an eye out for the kids and social media, increasingly hip to being manipulated and triggered by big platforms. They may jump to apps like BeReal or Poparazzi, which constrain the fun of posting to a tight circle of friends. Yet more exclusion and bewilderment for their elders. (Generative AI making artwork and writing academic articles was bad enough for them to cope with this year – 2023 promises even more jaw-dropping moments from this tech).
At least there are still highlights in more traditional media you can savour. Running down the 2023 movie schedules, if you want sequels, there’s a Mission Impossible, a Dune, and even an Indiana Jones (with an octogenarian Harrison Ford). Scorsese has a De-Niro-and-DiCaprio-helmed epic, Killers Of The Flower Moon. And for biopics, fictional or real, you can choose between Oppenheimer, Barbie, Maestro (the Leonard Bernstein story) and Wonka.
On a Scottish tip, keep an eye out for two documentaries in 2023. One is titled I Am Irvine Welsh, timed to the 30th anniversary of his Trainspotting novel. And Edinburgh film historian extraordinaire Mark Cousins has another nominative doc, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, finally being released in the UK.
And if you are so old media as to be still reading books, we seem to be in a surging phase of literary culture at the moment, both Anglo-American and Scottish.
The mighty Paul Auster accounts for America’s gun culture in Bloodbath Nation. Margaret Atwood (above) brings out a new collection of short stories titled Old Babes In The Wood. Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering A Life Beyond The Clock aims to liberate us from the old tick-tick. There’s also a massive new fairy tale from Salman Rushdie called Victory City.
Two great Scots storytellers (and musicians) are also pushing the boat out. Dundee’s Don Paterson has written a pulsating memoir, Toy Fights, describes as “a story of family, the working class, money, and all the things in between that we do to avoid boredom”.
And Doug Johnstone has written his first sci-fi novel, The Space Between Us, set in Edinburgh and involving a cosmic octopus swept up on a beach. Who needs Oregon?
Other Scottish highlights include a family account of SNP founder Robert Cunningham, Don Roberto And Me. Scotland’s Canongate brings out legendary record producer Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. And in January, Heather Darwent’s The Things We Do To Our Friends, a thriller set at Edinburgh University, is being compared to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
That’s enough diversion from the terrifying headlines for you (and I don’t even have time to explore TV delights for 2023, like follow ups to Squid Game, The Mandalorian, Bridgerton or Ted Lasso). All I want to leave you with is some splendidly grim Scottish 2023 anniversaries.
It’ll be 10 years since the formation of Police Scotland (don’t fire all your streamers at once). It’ll be five years since the second Glasgow Art School fire (which also took out my favourite rock venue the ABC). And it’ll be the sixtieth anniversary of the execution of Henry John Burnett, the last man to be hanged in Scotland back in 1963. Let’s not put that issue to a national referendum, shall we?
And last but not least, it’s 200 years since Charles Macintosh invented and sold the first raincoat. Why does it always rain on us? Because we deserve it – and in a desiccating world, we’re bloody lucky it does.
Buckle in, collar up, and have a resilient and adaptive 2023.
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