As the old year turns into a new one, newspapers traditionally intone sagely about the 12 months just past. Hindsight being invariably 20/20, it is no hard task to seem wise after the event.
It is harder to look forward and try to imagine what this year holds - not least because there is much of 2011 that New Zealanders in general, and Cantabrians in particular, do not need reminding of.
Forecasting is foolhardy in the newspaper business, of course: ask distinguished journals such as Scientific American, which declared in 1909 that the automobile had "reached the limit of its development", and the New York Times ("A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere", it said in 1936).
It is more prudent never to say never, and keep the time horizon short. Having taken those precautions, we feel we're probably on safe ground making the following predictions for 2012.
Alas, aftershocks will keep shaking Christchurch for a while yet. We don't know when or how strong the quakes will be, and people who say they do are charlatans. Respectable geoscientists talk in terms of probability, not certainty.