Gruts

Another prediction comes true. This is getting too easy:

Daily Telegraph: They can't mean us [02-Jan-03]
"It is sad that someone should make that statement; it is a bit divisive. I admit there is an element of the gin and Jag brigade, but they don't dominate. You've also got people living in council houses."

The UK government has accused villages surrounded Maidenhead of being populated by 'the gin and Jag brigade'. The locals (see quote above), while disagreeing with the tone of the government's slur, admit that there is an element of truth in it (i.e. they hold half-contrary views). (Half-contrary gin, geddit?)

Call me Mystic Rick!

[Times journalist, William Howard] Russell's dispatches had revealed a miserable, unheroic, ramshackle campaign presided over by old men. Lord Raglan, fluent in French as he was, and genial, had a distressing habit - born of his youthful years of serving under Wellington - of referring to the French as 'the enemy'.

I don't believe it. Another of my 'predictions' for the year has already come true:

TwinCities.com: WCCO Farewell Ends with Hard Feelings [03-Jan-03]
[V]eteran anchor Bill Carlson … read his last script as anchor of the [WCCO-TV] station's noon news.

That's veteran TV news anchorman, Bill Carlson, who has been lifted from his show after 37 years to make way for younger blood. His mood is described as politely terse, although the general atmosphere was clearly angry. (Lift angry anchor, geddit?)

That Farthing woman's in league with the devil, I tell you!

Today would have been J.R.R. Tolkien's eleventy-first birthday. By way of a tribute, I should like to quote the first paragraph of Tolkien's I ever read (over Irish Mick's shoulder on the train on my way home from school many, many years ago):

“I need no map,” said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. “There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr.”

I was instantly hooked.

OK, I admit it, even I wasn't expecting success on the A Farthing for Your Thoughts front quite this quickly…

BBC: Sutch Ends Norwich Tenure [02-Jan-03]
Norwich City defender Daryl Sutch has left Carrow Road after 16 years and is now poised to join Southend.

That's Daryl Sutch of Norwich City Football Club, also known as the Canaries, who is flying the coop to join a rival team. (Nor canary flight, geddit?)

Christ, this is spooky!

At this time of year, it's traditional to make predictions for the forthcoming 12 months. Then, in a year's time, it's traditional to try to convince everyone that you were uncannily accurate in your predictions.

list of anagrams of my friend Carolyn (whose surname is Farthing)'s name. So I chose 10 anagrams from the list at random. Here they are (in alphabetical order):

1. Anything for Carl
2. Fact: gnarly rhino
3. Flat granny choir
4. Frantic horny gal
5. Fraying cloth ran
6. Half-contrary gin
7. Hot girl ran. Fancy!
8. Lift angry anchor
9. Nor canary flight
10. RAF clothing yarn

Throughout 2003, I shall keep a look out for newsworthy stories or personal events that happened to me or people I know, that can generously be described as having been foretold/described by one of the above 'predictions'.

Postscript: The results are in…

Throughout 2003, I did indeed keep a look out for newsworthy stories that could generously be described as having been foretold/described by my 'predictions'.

The final result was 8 out of 10 [*], which is uncanny in anyone's book. Here is the list of successes:

• Prediction 2: Fact: gnarly rhino
  Baby rhino born. [More »]
• Prediction 4: Frantic horny gal
  Also the baby rhino story (see prediction 2 above). [More »]
• Prediction 5: Fraying cloth ran
  Fraying cloth was the in thing in fashion this year. [More »]
• Prediction 6: Half-contrary gin
  Locals semi-disagree with government slur. [More »]
• Prediction 7: Hot girl ran. Fancy!
  Paula Radcliffe smashes the women's marathon record. [More »]
• Prediction 8: Lift angry anchor
  Veteran TV news anchorman, Bill Carlson, leaves show. [More »]
• Prediction 9: Nor canary flight
  Norwich City defender Daryl Sutch leaves his club. [More »]
• Prediction 10: RAF clothing yarn
  RAF employees complain that they are ill-equiped for the Gulf. [More »]

…So the next time you hear someone claiming to be psychic, tell them about my friend Carolyn, and how she managed to get 8 out of 10 without even trying.

[*] Stop Press: Of the two remaining predictions, one of them eventually came true on 9th May, 2004:

• Prediction 1: Anything for Carl
  Dick Van Dyke says he would "do anything for Carl Reiner". [More »]

Jen and I won £10 on the lottery last week. I've only just remembered to collect our winnings. It turns out we'd actually won £89. About bloody time!

Carolyn doesn't remember H E Todd coming to our school (but, as she so perceptively pointed out, I tend to remember that sort of thing, and she doesn't). She does, however, remember reading Bobby Brewster stories.

She managed to get hold of the mice she was after, but they can squeeze their way through the bars of their cage. Things like that tend to happen to Carolyn.

I'm at my parents' house for the evening. I just got off the phone to Jen. She had sardine sandwiches for tea. I pointed out that sardine sandwiches were a particular favourite of mine and Bobby Brewster's when I was a kid. “Bobby who?” asked Jen.

Bobby Brewster: the brain-child of the children's author, H E Todd. He (or, more formally, H.E.) visited our school when I was about six years old. He read from his Bobby Brewster books, which we then had the opportunity to buy. I bought Bobby Brewster Detective. I loved the book, but, unfortunately, they had run out of signed copies by the time I got to the front of the queue. So my teacher, Miss Jones (who wore a mini skirt), forged his autograph for me. Damned if I know what happened to it (the book, that is, not the mini skirt).

If anyone out there has a copy of Bobby Brewster Detective, I'd love to borrow it. [I bought a second-hand copy off Amazon in June 2015.]