Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Sunday 16 December 2012

Now this is starting to get creepy...

Basking in yesterday's unaccustomed glory of a posted prediction being proved right thanks to Ed Miliband, I happened to stumble across this in the Huffington Post:
December 21: Mayan's End Of World Calendar Linked To Gangnam Style's Psy
It was a slightly unnerving moment, given that back on the 28th of November - 'Gangnam Style: the beginning of the end?' - I was pondering the baffling global success of this musical homage to Korea's version of the Sloane Ranger and idly speculating about its significance:
And now it's become the most watched YouTube video ever. While eschatology isn't my specialist area, something about this ubiquity is uncannily reminiscent of the kind of inexplicable global phenomena that are supposed by major religions to herald the end of the world. 
Maybe the Mayans were onto something after all....
Now, it seems, that old apocaholic Nostradamus is getting in on the act. According to an interpretation permeating the blogosphere, 'Gangnam Style' uncannily matches a typically cryptic prophecy from among the thousand he published in 1555:
”Du matin calme la fin viendra
 Une fois le nombre de cercles alignés à 9 sera,
Du cheval qui dansera”. 
"From the calm morning, the end will come, once the number of aligned circles from the dancing horse reaches 9."
'Calm Morning' is, it appears, an approximate translation of the performer's name, the 'dancing horse' refers to his signature galloping moves and (a bit tenuous, this one) the number of YouTube visits is getting interestingly close to 1,000,000,000 - nine zeros, see?

Michel de Notre Dame - aka Nostradamus; any self-respecting astrologer needs a catchy handle  - had what must be the ultimate lucky break for a would-be prophet during his lifetime when one of his verses seemed to have predicted the death of Henri II in a jousting accident - at least once he had helped his readers sort out all the allegorical references to lions and cages.

Largely on the basis of this, and the endorsement of his No. 1 fan, the Dowager Queen Catherine de' Medici, he built a reputation as a seer which has lasted over five centuries, leading devotees into fantastical intellectual contortions in their hindsight-fuelled attempts to make his verses correspond to real-life events.

That being so, I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone tried to link him to the Mayan calendar, but the way it seems to have surfaced at about the same time as my facetious post seems just a little odd.

I can't say that I am personally expecting the end of the world at 11.30am on the 21st - among other things, it would be particularly galling for the Urchin, who would then have spent his last few minutes in the dentist's chair - but you have to admit the coincidence is a striking one.

And if the world does end on Friday, how frustrating it will be to have belated proof of a previously undiscovered gift of prophecy!

6 comments:

  1. Personally, we will be very cross if it does, we have tickets for something on the 22nd. I shall sacrifice to Wotan to ensure it will not happen.

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  2. I've studiously never watched it so can't comment. :)

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  3. "...how frustrating it will be to have belated proof of a previously undiscovered gift of prophecy!"

    That does seem to be the only type of prophecy anyone ever has...

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  4. Too bloody late to predict Saturdays lottery then

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  5. Demetrius, I hope you enjoy your evening - and that it is not replaced by an impromptu Götterdämmerung.

    JH, to say you haven't missed much would be an understatement.

    Julia, very true...

    Bucko - too bloody right. And it would be world-class irony to discover a precognitive ability on the day the world ends, given that I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life

    On the other hand, remember that line of Jay Leno's:

    “Here’s something to think about; how come you never see a headline like ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?

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  6. XX Demetrius said...

    Personally, we will be very cross if it does, we have tickets for something on the 22nd. I shall sacrifice to Wotan to ensure it will not happen.XX

    Appears to have worked, although I may have been in the bog at the time, and missed it.

    Personally, I prefer Frigga. :-)

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