Media: A Moment with Marquis.

I'm not falling for this 'Predictions for 2006' thing. Will Channel 4 merge with The People's Friend? Will Walker Media take over WPP? Will Garry Lace? Now there's a question.

Things seldom turn out as you think. Correction: they never turn out as you think, so what are predictions other than playground showing-off?

To be fair, no-one ever bothers to check whether or not they come true, so the forecasters are on pretty safe ground. Life moves on, we don't much care.

Nonetheless, I can't help feeling cheerful, in a non-specific sort of way, about 2006. For a start, it would have to be totally appalling to be worse than 2005 with its bumper crop of horrors. The stock market is going through the roof, now barely 1,000 points off the all-time peak.

Personal debt is decreasing for the first time in years, while new mortgages are at a record high, meaning the property market still hasn't gone droopy.

The shops were packed with free-spenders the moment the Christmas turkey had cooled, so retail isn't dead either.

There's a World Cup in June. That tends to juice things up a bit in adland and, most encouraging, the media are talking down their prospects for the year, which generally guarantees something of a boom. And we have ...