HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I’ve got a feeling 2021 is going to be a GREAT YEAR.
Had a “fan” write saying he felt I was wrong in my last epistle when I said not even Nostradamus saw the mess that was 2020 coming. He commented, “Nostradamus wrote in the year 1551 the following: There will be a twin year (2020) from which will arise a queen (Corona) who will come from the east (China) and will spread a plague (virus) in the darkness of the night, on a country with seven hills (Italy) and will transform the twilight of men into dust (death) to destroy and ruin the world. It will be the end of the world economy as you know it.”
Lock the doors – the pseudo-intelligentsia has snuck in!
Oh dear, where to start? First, Nostradamus actually wrote his Les Prophéties in 1555 (Wikipedia) and that was not a good period to be in the prediction business. If you said anything bad about the rulers of the day you were flying in the face of The Divine Right To Rule thinking and that would have you thrown in the pokie. And the pokie in the mid 1500s was a not a nice place to be. If you said anything bad against The Holy Roman Church (the only religion in Europe at the time) you’d also be thrown in the pokie! So Nostradamus conjured up his “predictions” in quatrains (stanzas of four lines), threw in bits in other languages and old folk tales and (it’s been said) then rearranged the lines so a reader could read into what he’d written, anything they thought fitted. It saved his life and has sucked in readers ever since. If you believe his twaddle and want to talk about a virus and a twin year, how about 1919?
It’s estimated some 500 million people were infected and possibly as many as 50 million died! This current pandemic is a small chest cold by comparison! A country with seven hills? I thought that referred to Rome not Italy! Nostradarmus lived in southwestern France so the whole of the then known world was to his east and did anybody even know of the existence of China? Nah Macker, read Nostradamus if you like but you’d be just as well informed if you read the horoscope in that bastion of truthful reporting, The New Idea!
I have filled in a couple of hours out in the yard, getting up some brownie points with The Child Bride so I could spend the rest of the day, the weekend and early next week (maybe) watching the Fourth Test against The Indians. Warner out for 1! Ple-e-e-a-a-s-s-e-e. The Galahs are not selected for their good looks because if they were, I’d have been in the side for the last 25 years, at least! Warner is in the side for his batting and if he doesn’t, then punt him and select somebody who can. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt keep saying it for years, it’s harder to get out of The Galahs than it is to get in!
Down south (from here anyway) Tennis Australia is determined to go ahead with The Oz Open and there are folk coming from all points of the compass – alright, maybe not to the south of Melbourne, but you get the picture. I was only half listening to the news t’other night when the talking head mumbled something about 23 flights are scheduled (that’s pronounced shed-ul-ed and certainly not sked-ul-ed. Get it right you morons) to fly in all the officials, players and the motley band of hanger-ons. The Victorian Government is quite adamant: they’re all to go straight into quarantine; their daily routines are already set; there will be no exemptions; and Tennis Australia will be sent the bill for it all. The whole event will not cost the Victorian taxpayer a cent. Yeh, right! That’s a classic bit of government p-p-h-h-r-r-t-t. A bill might be sent but what are the chances of Tennis Australia actually paying it? There’ll probably be social distancing in place, which means fewer people will attend, which means less income, but they’ve still got to pay the cost of the quarantine hotels, security guards, transport, and of course, the prize money! Still think the Victorian taxpayer is going to skip away untouched? Also, if I were in a group associated with Tennis Australia in any way, shape or form, right now I’d be frantically hiding money because you can bet Big Brother is going to come a-calling and keep calling for a few years to cover the cost of this year’s event. Soccer Australia did that with the bill they ran up trying to get the World Cup to Oz several years ago. The fees for every kid who played the sport in Oz went up to pay for that debacle.
All the football codes are starting to gear up for the new season and that includes Oz Rules. You know I support The Mighty and Glorious Saint Kilda (though I rarely talk about it) but that also means my local ear worm, the maniacal Richmond Tigers supporter is about to start his constant harangue about how good they are, how many games they’ll win this year and (this is the sickening part) how may points they’ll win this year’s Grand Final by! Pray for me, please.
Talk at you next month,
The Hillside Critic