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Transcript

NEWSTRADAMUS ‘23

Hey, hey and happy or at least you know, less awful year to you all. 2023, the year that looks like a swan with a large egg being followed by a swan with a big bum. Yes, that is the best thing to say about it so far. 2023 is the year the films Avengers Endgame, X-Men Days of Future Past, and The Purge: Anarchy all take place so if life does indeed imitate art, then we’re fine as arguably none of those are. I joke of course, I’m not Martin Scorsese despite my increasingly aggressive eyebrows. But while those films, and indeed Texas Chainsaw Massacre all might portray a bleak and possibly accurate outlook for the year ahead, Bring It On: Cheer or Die is also based in 2023 and no wait, that’s actually worse. But perhaps ‘Cheer or Die’ is an accurate message for what lies ahead. The latter is definitely an easy option with no heating, food becoming ever more expensive and the NHS frontline seeming more and more like something Christopher Nolan will be making a 4-hour film about in 10-years’ time. Gosh, this is film reference heavy, isn’t it? You’ll never guess what I’ve spent the Christmas holidays doing. That’s right, eating and wishing there was an extra holiday after it but where the kid was at school. Sorry, I mean die is the easy option so we should all get big cheer energy, charging ahead knowing full well that even if there’s no election in site, we can only be months away from so much of the country being on strike during immense blackouts that the rest of the world will declare us closed and we can all have a rest. The Prime Minister and rejected Phineas and Ferb design Rishi Sunak said in his New Year’s message that his government would put people’s priorities first, so with any luck they’ll be focusing on all walking into the sea within the next week or so.

Sorry, what am I doing making predictions when once again, at ParPolBro, our expert on the future, so good he’s not just a forecaster, he’s a five-caster, Newstradamus, has kindly recorded his thoughts on what lies ahead. You know, apart from the Conservatives as that’s a given.

NEWSTRADAMUS PSYCHIC MUSIC

I have once again traversed the corridors of spacetime, stealing things from the stationary cupboard of infinitum, accidentally interrupting the eternal meeting and briefly popping into the lavatories of inertia which aren’t great for when you need to flush, and nothing goes anywhere. I did all these to grace you humble time noobs, you who say things like ‘just a minute’ without realising that for your pitiful existences that minute could be the difference between greatness and an uncomfortable cramp. Yes, it is I, Newstradamus, the or/andacle, the auGRRRR, the maximum because I’m too good to be a medium, the seer sayer sorter and indeed the unsoothsayer as what I bring to you will be less relaxing than that previously mentioned uncomfortable cramp while being forced to watch the 9D screening of Avatar 12: The Cycle Lane of Slight Breezes where every character is played by James Corden. But before we dive headfirst into the massive concrete block in the way of progress that is the year ahead, how am I? Well, I appreciate you asking. I know you haven’t asked yet but I also know that you will and so I’ve saved you the trouble. You’re welcome. Since I last blew your tiny minds with my predictions of 2022, all of which as you’ll remember, where exactly correct and if they weren’t, that’s your fault for not doing it properly. Since then, I have spent a large amount of time in the hospital. No don’t be sad for me, it’s the hospitals in the year 2067 where they have all been bought out by private companies and I was stuck in a Disney one, where despite only having a minor injury they put me to sleep for 1000 years or until a prince came along and gave me a kiss. It is a shocking situation. All the doctors have mickey mouse degrees and if you need to call a nurse you have to give a little whistle. I was all fixed though, they scanned my heart and thought I had a little mermaid but turned out to be a side effect from the sandwich I’d bought which had no sell by date and had actually been made in 2028. Anyway, all done now, so henceforth into my predictions for 2023, the year historians in the future will refer to as the ‘oh god why won’t this end’ year.

The NHS will hang on by a thread with the government refusing to fund or help it until there are just 300 medical staff available for the entire country. They dress like Spartans, which is partly due to a continued lack of PPE and after successfully heading off the spirograph strain of Covid that had everyone going round in circles trying to treat it, then the petit flu which caused a yoghurt like phlegm to clog up patients and of course leprosy which came back with a full UK reunion tour no one was expecting till they announced it on Instagram, the UK government rewards the survivors with a nation-wide vuvuzela blowing celebration on the doorsteps at 6pm on a Tuesday before firing all them and replacing the entire health service with a stall that sells dinosaur plasters just outside of Market Harborough.

Energy costs keep rising to the point that only Rishi Sunak and King Charles are able to afford any and decide to keep up public spirits with displays of combative heat-offs where freezing cold crowds watch as the Prime Minister and King get themselves as warm as they can feasibly take without passing out. It was originally planned as a TV series but with no one being able to afford electricity anymore that went under and celebrities themselves cease being after the last bunch of Love Island contestants refused to come home, taking the island for themselves and declaring it as their own new land. Rishi Sunak wins after Charles tries too hard and evaporates. Energy costs then drop again to their lowest ever when someone discovers a way to convert disappointment into electricity and Britain instantly becomes the main global source, consequently increasing happiness and causing us to lose the title again, which causes upset and then we gain it a gain and lose it again and so on and so on.

Inflation falls in the middle of the year causing the government to insist that actually wages should be in line with it and lowering it for all public sector workers. When asked why they didn’t do this when inflation rose, Oliver Dowden shouts ‘look over there’ then runs off in the opposite direction and gets into a taxi never to be seen again.

As more and more workers go on strike, it reaches a peak in the 3^rd week of July when the only people at work are MPs and the government although no one is actually sure of that as they’re still doing nothing about anything. Rishi Sunak says that in order to stop the strikes affecting people’s lives and livelihoods, he bans jobs from the UK and anyone who is found to have one being immediately deported by the Home Office to Antartica where they’ve set up a 4-year deal with some penguins who were a bit lonely. This does of course, get rid of the job of being Prime Minister, an MP and the multitude of second jobs causing great anger from many who then aren’t really sure who to complain to. Oddly, artists, actors and other creative professionals are able to stay in work as people don’t consider them to have real jobs and they quickly become the richest people in the country but are unable to create any kind of better world as they all think they deserve the main role.

Global leaders continue to insist they are doing everything they can to stop climate change and it’s all going very well actually, until its exposed that due to staff encouraging them to never leave their offices because of extreme air pollution, they just thought the thermostat was how it was everywhere else too. The UK suffers extreme floods, fires, snow and winds all on one particular Wednesday in October, causing a mass movement towards parliament, though not on purpose its just that’s where the water current takes them. Sadly the mass of the crowd just causes the Palace of Westminster to become really well insulated and the government realise they’re quite safe in there for a while. Rishi Sunak shouts encouraging slogans out of a small speaker in St Stephen’s Chapel promising that ‘we’re doing everything we can to stop this from happening even though its already happened’, ‘if 40 more people could float over to the windows on the cloisters then you can all have £5 off at Pret’ and of course ‘are any of you interested in business?’

Running out of things to destroy, the Conservatives turn once again to their own party, spending the first few months of 2023 blocking all their own policies and trying to unseat Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister to instead replace him with a crocodile they’ve put a tie on and called Teethly Susan. Sunak refuses to stand aside but manages to win a vote of no confidence against him as the crocodile eats a third of the party and witnessing this, Sunak has Teethly replace Raab as justice secretary as he’s certain the crocodile will be better for staff morale.

The Labour Party promised to set out the case for change, which they put outside their HQ in the hope people may put pennies in it in order to help fund them. Starmer decides the people they need to to target to get into power are a demographic known as ‘men with twelve houses called Rishi’ and they spend millions on focus groups with Rishi Sunak asking when men like him specifically need. They start a bold new campaign called ‘Rishi for everyone under Labour’ and ‘For the Rishi not the few’, with Keir Starmer spending each week at PMQs criticising the Prime Minister for not giving himself more me time.

The situation in Ukraine gets worse until sick of Putin, his own officers pretend to not know where or what Ukraine is and he starts to believe he’s stuck inside his own bad dream and goes to live in the Siberian woods with a snow leopard called Anastasia. Having watched this unfold, the Scottish government take note and decide the best way for independence is to just disappear overnight. The entire country agree to just go when no one is looking and its revealed the next morning when a man in Catlowdy is eaten by a shark when going for a stroll to the shops in Harelaw.

And Elon Musk decides the best thing for Twitter is to ban words entirely and only have users spell out the exact hums a tesla motor has. Duolingo is the surprise winner of the social media game as a result as users flock to the platform in order to tell each other that their neighbour is an owl and insist they are a butterfly.

And that is all I can reveal for now or I’ll be done for indecent exposure. Besides if I ruin anymore what will be left for the British government to do hmmm? I will simply divulge that you might want to throw away all your shoes by March so to avoid the resurgence of spontaneous combustion and be sure to avoid using any honey based toiletries or shampoos to ensure longer survival during the plague of bears that will hit for 2-3 days around late Spring after being carried over on a strong wind from the US. My financial tips are the words argy bargy, chinchillas and the number plinth. Take care and also anything else you can steal during the riots. I will see you all at the beginning of 2024 which will confusingly also be the beginning once again of 1672 due to a terrible calendrical mishap so I’ll be certain to inform you of all the best bits of the collapse of the Dutch republic to watch out for and the best ways to wear your tuberculosis. MWAH.

And there you go. Thanks very much to Newstradamus for that incredible insight. Will it all be correct? We will have to wait and see though I mean, no. No, it won’t. But I do hope you have a good 2023 despite all signs for this one largely looking like it’ll be like 2022 but with likely fewer new Prime Ministers, Royal deaths or Top Gun sequels which depending on how you look at it is good news or actually really terrible news.

Thanks to all of you who’ve kept on the Patreon throughout this mini-break or donated via the ko-fi. The podcast will be back all proper on January 17^th – yes I know it should be back next week but it’s my birthday and I’m not spending it trying to find yet another way to describe how small and beady Jeremy Hunt’s creepy eyes are. If you have any suggestions for guests and that sort of stuff, then do drop me a line at the usuals. Otherwise you get yourself into this here year and I’ll be back in your ears shortly.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEE!

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