Also, GCC 2.95 does not support the construct, GCC 2.96 is required.
So, I'd suggest defining likely/unlikely unconditionally and using this,
which leads to less code overall:

#  if (__GNUC__ < 2) || ((__GNUC__ == 2) && (__GNUC_MINOR__ <= 95))
#  define __builtin_expect(exp, prediction)  (exp)
#  endif

This is the simplest way to code this, assuming that ICC defines
__GNUC__, and my reference guide tells "yes, it defines __GNUC__ and
__INTEL_COMPILER".