As hard acts to follow go, 2016 is up there with the best. What a year. Brexit, president Trump and Leicester City winning the Premier League being just a few of the astonishing highlights.

And, oh, to have been able to look in to the future: a £10 bet on all the above happening last year would, I was astonished to read in the Evening Mail business pages yesterday, have paid out a cool £30m. That's some accumulator.

Sadly, I am not possessed with the gift of backing the right horses; and, while I would have risked a flutter on Brexit, I would have been as likely to put my money on Trump for the White House as I would be this year to... have a punt on Barrow AFC winning the FA Cup.

None of which stops me wondering with much interest what shocks and upsets 2017 has in store for us.

Globally and politically, it doesn't take a Nostradamus to predict that it's going to be interesting.

From the inauguration of Trump to the triggering of Article 50 (and that's just in the first few months), it looks as though we may be in for a bit of a rough ride.

Doom and gloom mongers are predicting the collapse of economies, the housing market and global order.

Cyber attacks and terrorist attacks are, sadly, increasingly inevitable. More optimistic souls predict the collapse of the euro and the hastening of the demise of the European Union.

Others, of course, have their priorities right and are far more exercised over thorny problems such as who is to replace Mary Berry and Len Goodman as judges of the Great British Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing . These are troubling times indeed.

The ghoulish among us will already have turned their thoughts to who among the great and good are likely to meet their maker before the year is out.

We each have our own hopes for the year – from lottery wins to luck in love, to health and that elusive state of happiness – and if one can't have a sense of hope at the start of a new year, then when can one?

An early one for me – and countless thousands of other people who care about this beautiful place in which we are so fortunate to live – is that National Grid will take heed of the well-organised and well thought out protests against the gigantic electricity pylons with which they plan to blight our landscape.

Hundreds of protesters gave up their New Year's Day celebrations to put principle above pleasure – and to march against this ugly proposal. They are supported in their quest by writer Bill Bryson and by Wordsworth's great-great-great-great-grandson. And let's hope they succeed this week in their aim to get as many people as possible to object to the proposal by Friday (the end of the consultation period).

Not only must Wordsworth be turning in his grave, but so must the great artist JMW Turner, whose sketches of the beautiful Duddon Valley reside in the Tate Gallery.

Ruddy great pylons marching ruinously through the landscape really are unthinkable. Let's hope "people power" wins over the pylons. But I'm making no predictions.

Louise Allonby