'Wilson's Almanack'

Dave Wilson - 1 May 1991

About this time every year some diligent journalist trawls through all the year’s events that made news and matches them against a list of predictions published a year earlier.

The ensuing article enthuses over how accurately some far-sighted mystic was able to predict great events.

The most recent example of this art form came after Iraq invaded Kuwait and America despatched first its army, and then Bob Hope, to show Saddam Hussein the error of his ways.

Inevitably a journalist somewhere resurrected the ghost of the 16th century astrologer, Nostradamus, and his much publicised prophecies, delved into the quatrains and pulled out a passage relating to a war in the Middle East.

“Nostradamus foresaw this war!” the scribes screamed, knowing that even if they got the quotes wrong, Nostradamus wasn’t about to drag them before the Press Council.

The precedent for this was his reference to a tyrant named Hister which by the time it got into print had become Hitler and so Nostradamus was regarded as the man who predicted the rise of the Nazis 400 years before even Adolf Hitler thought up the idea.

Nostradamus wasn’t the only astrologer who did a sideline in predicting the future. Various other blokes with unpronounceable names, aware there was little profit in casting horoscopes for peasants that predicted they would live miserable, squalid lives and die forgotten, hatched on to the scheme that peasants, even poor ones, were still fascinated by what the future held, or would hold.

Better still, they would pay money for a yearly almanac, a sort of “Best Predictions of 1566”. And so was born a new publishing venture that endures to this day.

Every year or couple of years one of these old almanacs is dusted off and analysed with the benefit of hindsight so that some obscure remark like “And dust shall swirl and the land echo to the cry of constipated camels” is interpreted as an incredibly astute prediction of some big event that’s just happened in the Middle East.

This, of course, ignores the fact that there are always wars in the Middle East. Always have been, always will be.

And therein lay the kernel of an idea, an idea to produce an almanac of predictions relevant to today’s readers, written in an easy to comprehend language, and containing predictions that, like Edmond’s baking powder, are sure to rise, and always be relevant.

So welcome to the first ever, collector’s edition of “Old Wilson’s Almanack”, sub-titled “Events that will occur in the next 12 months, predicted here so that ye may plan your life and holidays around them”.

I’ve dispensed with the bizarre French verse favoured by Nostradamus and, unlike him, I’ve not written it backwards with the aid of a mirror. Mind you, working with a computer is similar. Anyway, on with the predictions:

There will be conflict in the Middle East. People who dwell in arid lands will find it in their hearts to target hulking great missiles on other dwellers in other arid lands. They, in turn, will target their hulking great missiles on the first lot of arid land dwellers. Do not take a holiday near arid lands. °
Great riches will be won by folk who do not suspect their imminent wealth is quite so imminent. They will learn of this wealth on a Saturday night and get legless on spirituous liquors upon learning of their fortune. The other two million people with losing Lotto tickets will gnash their teeth and think foul thoughts of the lucky sod with the six numbers.
Beware ill tidings that may arrive without warning and induce within the recipient feelings of great anxiety. They will pass. But, like the sunrise and taxes, there will be another bloody rates bill in two months.
The man who believes that his technology is infallible will be rudely awoken, and suffer great embarrassment “at the hands of intolerant fellow citizens. Society has not yet invented the motor car that never breaks down.
There will be conflict in the Middle East. Not the conflict mentioned in (1), but another stoush, also involving dwellers in arid lands. As a result, the arid lands are definitely off the holiday list.
Cats and dogs will continue to despise each other.
Young men will continue to be fascinated with fast cars, booze and women, not necessarily in that order, although a select few manage to combine all three.
The Government will invoke harsh new measures to save money ‘while at the same time promising the peasants a glorious future. All the peasants have to do is find the cash to survive the next 20 years.
The Sun and the Moon shall align and exert influences upon deepest space. Actually this doesn’t mean a damn thing for’ someone trying to find the money for next week’s groceries, but all the astrologers throw in a reference to the Sun and the Moon, if only to prove that they’ve heard of them.
There will still be conflict in the Middle East. As a result, travel agents trying to market holidays in arid Jands will go broke and join the queue at the Lotto outlet, hoping like hell that pre-. diction #2 applies to them.

Because it’s pretty grim, I’ve left the worst prediction till last.

All through the land, the peasants shall find that their meagre savings are exhausted and still they crave more funds for urgent needs. Christmas is only 358 days away. Happy New Year!

The Press, Christchurch

December 31st, 1990