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As we navigate the fag end of 2002 and a Shiny, Happy New Year whispers suggestively to us from just around the corner, Old Mother Xoc peers into hir Scrying Glass and, as ectoplasmic swirls resolve themselves into prophetic visions, ze can discern:
In January: Moustaches will return to fashion, especially for women.
In February: Jesus will return to live among us, bringing a new and vital message of peace and hope for humankind. Unfortunately He will be born in a Baghdad slum and, with pinpoint accuracy, a U.S. smart bomb will immediately take out the new Holy Family, three Kurdish shepherds and three Wise Men bearing gifts of gold, chocolate frogs and Baghdad Barbie(with brushable moustache!).
In March: Bush will vanquish Saddam. To the victor, the spoils: the U.S. will seize Iraqi oil, the UK will get lots of sand (with which a city-centre beach will be built at Battersea), and the rest of the reluctant allies will get a camel each. Then, bored and with an election round the corner, Bush will declare war on Belgium. About time too.
In April: The Barbelith sinks irredeemably under the weight of longer and longer fictionsuits.
In May: The Tory Party gives up politics and merges with the Women’s Institute. Iain Duncan Smith becomes the new face of Clinique. Kenneth Clark becomes the world’s biggest jam magnate. Michael Portillo becomes the new Queen of the Belgians, following Bush-imposed régime change.
In June: There will be major earthquakes in Japan, California and Croydon.
In July: Gordon Brown will admit he got his sums wrong again in his budget and the UK is broke. After an unsuccessful, last-ditch appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (he will go home with nothing because he thought Anthrax was soft and strong and very, very long), he resigns in ignominy and Lurid Archive is appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In August: Xoc will be 47 and his secret youth-preserving régime will become public knowledge when Ganesh discovers the gnawed hedgehog bones under their bed.
In September: Ganesh’s gnawed bones are discovered under Xoc’s bed.
In October: Due to a national shortage of intelligence and the price of tertiary education, Oxbridge Academy is closed immediately and replaced by Haus, with a spiral notebook and some sparkly gel-pens.
In November: The Holy Father finally St. Peters out and a conclave of Cardinals hears the call of God to bring Holy Mother Church into the 21st century. They enthrone Madonna as Pope Joan II. Anne Widdecombe takes the hump. Pope Joan proves hugely popular and there is a great religious revival in the land. Cliff Richard is declared anathema and Elton John becomes Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. The Seven Deadly Sins are reclassified as the Seven Slight Misdemeanours and the Ten Commandments are shortened to “Papa Don’t Preach.”
In December: After a long and dangling struggle by stringy, bearded exhibitionists, naturism will be incorporated in the European Convention on Human Rights and Global Warming will result in the Queen’s first naked Christmas Broadcast.
What else awaits us? |
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