Article was initially published in LinkedIn, December 30, 2016.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the strange) … Turn and face the strain … The lyrics from David Bowie’s song is the most appropriate way to start a review of 2016. It has definitely been a year that would provide with a LOT of materials for stand-up comedians … too many actually, touching the sphere of surreal!

You go to bed knackered watching the UK EU Referendum, waking up ‘sure’ of the result, but hey…surprise, surprise! They are out, and they can’t believe it themselves they are out! Some thought that the question refers to immigration, others voted against because they didn’t want to be governed by an unelected bunch of guys in Brussels, others because of the NHS, farming… the list goes on… and since then it became the EU Neverendum with a touch of 50 shades of grey… some like a soft version…others a hard version…

You went to bed a second time watching the US Presidential Election… and hey, another Kinder Egg Surprise! People are running behind a ridiculous tangerine monster! No, I am not referring to Pokemon Go…. I am referring to THE Donald. After watching debates which were like watching “The Simpsons” and Lisa Simpson (Hillary) having a debate with Homer (Trump)… it was like a kindergarten! “You did this, you did that”…ridiculous! Martin Luther King had a dream , but this guy is a nightmare!

Both signs of our times, going against the establishment, while around the world nationalist parties are strengthening, challenging the status quo increasing uncertainty for the global economic order.

Exit polls vs. Reality 0 – 1.

It’s also been a year of extraordinary loss… Aleppo became sadly the most researched word on Google… the irony of human race… we are witnessing the atrocities of the human species on a daily basis… while we continue our lives in the Western world as normal… the horror in Aleppo was captured in a photo of a 5-year-old boy sitting in an ambulance all bloody and numb from the shock…

We witnessed several terrorists attacks and Facebook was flooded with “je suis…” flags…but of course, we in the West were selective…. Once again the Human Race showing its ‘superiority’… And this this is why we are considering going to Mars now, because we have destroyed this planet, so why not destroy another one!? Personally, je suis sick and tired for the alleged superiority of the human species!!

Extraordinary losses in the world of science and art, too, and I witnessed my early teenage year posters falling off my wall one after the other…. David Bowie, Prince, George Michael…

In the business world while Amazon set out to change the customer retailer experience forever, drug prices come under scrutiny, the Samsung Galaxy exploded, and we are moving into driverless cars…which are probably racing after the ‘Pokémon Go’ and other digital creatures. Seriously?!