Snarky Platypus and I have created this bingo card for 2025 listing 25 distinctly possible things. We also list the suggestions which didn’t make it.
These are our 25 possibilities, arranged randomly. There is no free square in the middle of this one. And as we did last year for the also-rans, I decided to use Becca Levi’s suggestion for a certainty as a free square.
| Australia announces another immigration amnesty | Coalition forms a minority government in Canberra | TikTok is able to operate in the US again | US and China warships exchange live fire | Musk disposes of X/Twitter |
| Rupert Murdoch separates from current partner | AUKUS cancelled by US | Penrith doesn’t win the NRL championship | Fatalities caused by space debris hitting a developed nation | Betelgeuse goes supernova |
| ABC finally cancels Insiders and/or Q&A | Hungary leaves the EU | FREE SQUARE: Musk embarrasses himself publicly | Taylor Swift separates from current partner | Fairy bread flavoured Shapes becomes a thing |
| Semaglutide (Ozempic) on Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for weight management [See note 1] | Congestion charge introduced in an Australian city | Drug possession decriminalised in an Australian state or territory | US withdraws from NATO | Myanmar junta is overthrown |
| Tanya Plibersek becomes ALP leader | Natural disaster bankrupts a large insurance company | Boeing carved up or bought out by Airbus | Tianwen-2 finds ingredients of life on Kamo?oalewa | King Charles III dies |
Note 1: I’ve added “for weight management” here because semaglutide is already on the PBS. According to David Adam, “Novo Nordisk have applied to get Wegovy (the brand approved for weight management) on the PBS but the economics don’t stack up (mostly because long term benefits of weight loss are not well demonstrated)… I think Mounjaro (tirzepatide) getting the nod is more likely because it causes more weight loss, but to expand on my earlier comment there’s a great deal of post hoc thinking about obesity that (IMO) doesn’t match the real-world evidence. Even the riskier but more effective interventions like bariatric surgery don’t have strong lifelong evidence.”
Here’s what didn’t make the cut, in no particular order or grammar.
- Indonesia and China kick off a trade war.
- Atlantic Conveyor ocean current collapses.
- New X-Men movie announced.
- ABC and SBS merge.
- Rihanna releases a new album.
- Apple buys Disney.
- PRC naval base confirmed for a Pacific nation.
- La Niña occurs.
- New metro line officially announced for Sydney.
- Australian housing prices decrease nationally.
- PRC is approved to join the TPP.
- New broad-spectrum antibiotic discovered.
- Frontline remake announced.
- Taylor Swift releases an original Christmas album (courtesy Barstool Sports).
- Qantas re-nationalised.
- Cable drags move from the Baltic to the North Sea.
- Trump killed in Tesla self-driving crash. (This won’t happen because the US Secret Service would forbid it but I just wanted to write it down.)
- UK snap election.
- Bird flu infects humans in Australia.
- Kyle Sandilands jailed.
You might also want to see last year’s card and listen to our podcast discussions at half time and full time.
[Photo: Background image by Rudonni via Pixabay. Foreground bingo card originally by Milton Bradley Company, photo by Abby Hendrickson under under a CC-BY 2.0 Generic license. Digital composition by Stilgherrian.]
