AFTER a bad year for the open-top bus business, my crystal ball tells me the ticker tape parades will be up and running again in 2007.

January: England, 4-0 down in the series, recall Geoff Boycott and Ian Botham for the final Test in Sydney. Boycott runs out Andrew Strauss for a duck but survives 40 overs for three before shouldering arms once too often to a ball in the corridor of uncertainty, which nips back to bowl him. Botham and Kevin Pietersen, both determined not to be upstaged by the other, ruin a tubby-looking Shane Warne's swansong by thrashing him for ten sixes each. Botham then lures eight Aussie batsmen into holing out at deep square leg as England win by 356 runs. The open-top bus comes out of mothballs.

February: George Reynolds joins the bidding to take over Newcastle United. He announces plans to sell St James' Park to Tesco and build an offshore stadium off the mouth of the Tyne. He says he will commission Swan Hunter to build a replica of the Titanic to ferry fans to matches. Newcastle's Toby Flood and Mathew Tait score three tries each as the England rugby team's new philosophy of all-out attack sees them win their opening Six Nations match 75-58 against Scotland.

March: The government announce they have lost their battle to avoid VAT payments of £3 billion in construction costs for the 2012 Olympics. Sports minister Richard Good-to-be-born, culture secretary Tessa Jowls and London mayor Ken Living-it-up decide to discuss the crisis at a week's summit at the £1,000-a-night Upper Slaughter Spa and Country Club. They emerge to say costs can be halved by switching the Olympics to North Shields and they will be awarding contracts to the newly-formed George Reynolds Construction.

April: Paul Collingwood eclipses his own record all-round performance in a one-day international by scoring a century and taking seven wickets as England beat Pakistan by six wickets in the World Cup final. Collingwood hooks the winning six off his former Durham team-mate Shoaib Akhtar, who came into the competition looking like Mr Universe but continuing to insist he had never heard of nandrolone. Gary Pratt is hired to drive the open-top bus. Colin Montgomerie tees off in the Masters insisting: "I wouldn't swap any of my eight Orders of Merit for a major. After winning by five strokes, he says: "This is the greatest moment of my life."

May: Roman Abramovich pays a glowing tribute to the new Newcastle chairman, George Reynolds, after the Magpies beat Chelsea 6-0 in the FA Cup final. Reynolds announces that the new stadium will be a 200,000-seater and will stage car boot sales on Sunday mornings.

June: England complete a 4-0 series triumph against the West Indies when they win the final Test at Chester-le-Street by 410 runs, prompting an urgent call to the G Pratt Bus Company. Australia's Channel 9 send over their star new commentator, an extremely tubby Shane Warne, to interview Brian Lara, who announces his retirement after twice being bowled for a duck by the unerringly accurate Steve Harmison.

July: Montgomerie, a contented man, laughs and jokes his way round Carnoustie, despite three-putting every green on his way to missing the cut at the Open by 36 strokes. After weeks of heavy rain the Barry Burn is a raging torrent, prompting Jean Van de Valde to don a wet suit and flippers on the 18th tee. The course may be wet but every bar in Carnoustie is drunk dry following Darren Clarke's victory, as is every bar in London after Andy Murray wins Wimbledon.

August: Shane Warne, now 18st, announces he is to become a heavyweight boxer, believing the path to the world title is clear now that it is held by Audley Harrison. Joe Bugner comes out of retirement to help Warne launch his career.

September: Jonny Wilkinson makes his first England appearance since the 2003 World Cup final as they begin their defence with a 112-0 win against the USA. Wilkinson converts all 16 tries. Despite pushing a pram and squatting to change a nappy at the roadside, Paula Radcliffe wins the Great North Run.

October: Wilkinson lands eight drop goals and converts his own hat-trick of tries as England win the World Cup final 45-0 against Namibia, semi-final conquerors of the All Blacks, who had clearly peaked too soon.

November: The Magpies and Falcons join forces to hire the entire G Pratt fleet to celebrate the success of their ex-crocks after Michael Owen's third hat-trick of the season consigns the Premiership's bottom club, Chelsea, to an 8-0 defeat.

December: The ring erected at Melbourne Cricket Ground collapses under the combined weight of Warne and Bugner. The tsunami caused by the launch of the Titanic replica on the Tyne causes severe flooding all the way up to Corbridge, also destroying the new offshore stadium and bankrupting Reynolds. Wilkinson suffers multiple organ failure after putting in 56 tackles against Wasps. Owen breaks several metatarsals.

Still it was good while it lasted. Happy New Year.