It will help if while reading this piece, you hum the tune to the above title (as recorded by Monty Python on their final album).
It was only last week when I slotted this little item into a News Roundup:
…and here’s an update, with a younger member of the Nostradamus Tribe being a little more cagey, timewise:
A man who has been dubbed the ‘living Nostradamus’ claims ‘the worst is yet to come’, suggesting the world is teetering on the edge of WWIII.
Athos Salomé, 36, who is a trained parapsychologist from Brazil, is often referred to as a psychic due to the accuracy of his insights and predictions, after previously foreseeing the coronavirus pandemic, Elon Musk buying Twitter, now called X, and even Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
Now, as people worry about the escalation of conflicts and humanitarian crises, he warns that ‘a small incident’ could set off a series of terrifying events.
Key phrase: “trained parapsychologist” (one could be snarky and add “Brazil”, but if we’ve learned anything, it’s that these loons can pop up anywhere).
If these Nostradami actually worked as advertised, they wouldn’t be hammering on about global catastrophes — at least, I wouldn’t, if endowed with these magical powers.
I certainly wouldn’t be blathering on vaguely about nonsense like “And there shall be a great pestilence come upon the land” [at some unmentioned date, in some unmentioned country].
No, I would be ensconced in the Presidential Suite at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, paying for my accommodation (not to mention more than a few unsavory indulgences) by plonking a grand or so on 27 at the Casino’s roulette wheel each night. That’s at least a useful application of the magic power, and not providing fodder for some crappy newspaper’s This Week’s Things To Panic About! section.
But perhaps I’m being too dismissive.
Sarajevo, anyone? As Bismarck once said, it will be just some damn thing in the Balkans… now that was an accurate prediction.
Oh, hell, the world has been teetering on the brink of World War Three all my life.
When you have time look up John Titor on Google. Someone around late 1990s to 2001 posted about future events in the USA. He said he traveled back in time from 2030 something. Says there are multiple parallel time lines.
Either it’s true (wild if it is) or someone can predict the future
He said some things that are very interesting
– Washington provokes Russia into a mini nuclear war. Russia knows it’s Washington and not the American people that are the enemy
– Civil war that happens for many reasons one of many being a contested election
– Pandemic happens. (In his time it was mad cow disease)
– in the future U.S.A. post ww3 and post civil war lazy freeloaders are hated. You work or starve.
– there is no free healthcare and healthcare in general is scarce. Major diseases aren’t treated any longer.
– new capital of the USA post ww3 and post civil war
Read up. Very interesting to say the least
(Yes I know any fool can edit wiki. And it’s not a great reference in general , I’m just putting this link here for a brief overview. Googling John Titor yields many sources of info.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor
Reads like a Heinlein novel.
Or a PKD novel.
Or an Asimov novel.
Or any of a dozen or more other science fiction authors from the 1940s-60s.
If someone could actually tell the future, it’d either be the Richard Prior in Superman III scenario, or someone you’d never hear off and never see. I don’t think there would be too much in-between the two scenarios.
The Daily Mail is an astonishingly accurate barometer of How Things Are In The World. When there are major news events in the world, from the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Ham Ass vs. Israel to the passing of Lizzie the Deuce, their reporting is top notch and the quality of the writing is second to none. When things are relatively calm as they are now (at least as of this comment), DM is filled with the most useless fluff garbage that even the National Enquirer would think was beneath them. Right now you can scroll down a few stories and learn all about Taylor Swift’s selfie with Wee Willie Windsor and his family, and a few days ago they reported breathlessly about one of Meryl Streep’s daughters coming out as lesbian. And of course, there’s this twaddle about the new “Nostradamus”. Considering that the old Nosty “predicted” that the world would be wiped out by nuclear war in 1997, I’ll bet the under on all of his “predictions”.
We should be so lucky to live in a world in which these are the big stories. (Having never been ‘cross The Pond, is the Mail blessed with “Page Three Girls”?)
Dr. Peter Venkman has PhD’s in psychology and parapsychology, I’ll go with his predictions, if any.
Nostradamus? Don’t you mean Nostradumbass?
You know me and French spelling.