Today in predictions that aren't:

Hey, do you know what's not news? Huh? Yes, Fox News, but what I'm talking about is--what's that? Yeah, I've heard CNN is kind of getting gross and right-wingy, but where I'm going with this is--yes, fine, those posts on Facebook about positive thoughts re-writing your DNA are also bullshit, but I want to talk about Nostradamus.

The fact that we all rely on a global porn and cat video delivery
system for our news should trouble us more than it does.

Pictured: The late Mario Reading, noted
Nostradamus expert seen here probably
being interviewed by The History Channel.

A British tabloid is--yes, I know tabloids are tabloids, but a couple of other news sites are also talking about how some writer called Mario Reading who, back in 2005, wrote a book claiming that Nostradamus predicted that Queen Elizabeth II would die in 2022 which, I mean, no he didn't. Nostradamus that is. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but Nostradamus, a sixteenth century French John Edward, wrote a book called The Prophecies and for four hundred years there have been people claiming that he was a goddamn wizard.

"Even I don't buy that one..."

-Mace Windu

Here, one of Reading’s claims is that Nostradamus further predicted that Charles III will abdicate and that Prince Harry would be the next king:

"For not wishing to consent to the divorce, 

Which then afterwards will be recognised as unworthy: 

The King of the Isles will be driven out by force,

In his place put one who will have no mark of a king."

-Nostradamus rhyming, so it must be true

Or how half a dozen monkeys given a
week will write a Dan Brown novel.

Divorce? Harry married Megan and everyone hated her! And King of the Isles? Britain is an island! Nailed it! Except, did he though? It's like how they say that given enough time, infinite monkeys working at infinite typewriters will eventually produce Hamlet. Nostradamus was bound to hit close to the mark eventually. And by close to the mark I mean at some point someone in the British royal family would get divorced, right? Like Henry VIII was divorcing wives and wives' heads from their bodies around the same time Nostradamus wrote this so it's not like it came out of nowhere. 

It probably would have been remembered
as a romantic story but then they started
hanging out with Hitler. Like, a lot.

Also, wouldn't this also kind of apply to Edward VIII? You know, the king in the 1930's who wanted to marry American divorcee Wallace Simpson? He said screw it, abdicated, married Simpson and then his brother who wasn't supposed to be king was then made king? Ok, it doesn't fit perfectly, but then nobody's telling Harry to get a divorce either so I guess what I'm saying is that maybe Mario is reading too much into it (see what I did there?). Or who knows? Maybe he genuinely believed he was on to something and what do I know?

Reading's feat is on par with coming
closest to guessing the price of an
Amana refrigerator without going over.

And Reading evidently did predict that Elizabeth would die in 2022 at the age of 96. I guess he came up with that through some kind of weird nonsense math having to do with the fact that the passage above is from Centurie X, quatrain XXII. Somehow the twenty-second stanza means the year 2022? But whatever, she did die in 2022 at age 96. Of course, predicting that someone will die in their mid-nineties isn't evidence of paranormal powers but credit where credit is due. Really, if anything Mario Reading was better at predicting the future than Nostradamus.

And it is. Dumb I mean. But if they abolished
the monarchy, who would wave at the assembled
masses from limos and horse-drawn carriages?

But back to Nostradamus and his weird poems. I suppose if you squint you could see how the one about the divorce and the "king of the isles" could apply to Charles III. At least if suddenly everyone was clamoring for him to divorce Queen Camilla, which they're not. My sense was that most British people are cautiously optimistic, while a growing minority just thinks that monarchy is a dumb medieval relic they should get rid of as soon as possible. Sure, he might abdicate at some point either due to age or because everyone loves Will and Kate but--damnit, now I'm doing it.

Trying to find meaning in something some crackpot scribbled down in order to impress the pre-enlightenment dumbasses of sixteenth century Europe, that is. Look, if Nostradamus really did see the future why wouldn't he give us details? Instead he just writes down a bunch of four line poems with alternating rhymes that could fit almost any story. There's an old adage that the simplest solution is usually the correct one and in this case the simpler solution is that Nostradamus was a charlatan that wanted to sell quatrains. 

Pfft...he couldn't predict Tuesday if he had a calendar.