Author Topic: looking backward

sam

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looking backward
« on: December 31, 2011 »
My trip in a time machine to visit the year ahead has been alarming. While fictional time travelers are typically at pains not to alter the past to change the present in unforeseen ways, now that I find myself in what is, to me, the past, I have no such compunctions. Unfortunately in most cases I lack the agency to æffect such changes myself. Here is the raw data: I can only hope that those in a position to make a difference, do.

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An American drone takes out one of the corgis. If the Queen is reading this (I have reliable evidence that she has this site saved just below her bookmark for Digital Spy's EastEnders spoilers), please Ma'am, don't press the red button unleashing nuclear annihilation that I know you had installed shortly after Bush winked at you during your 2007 visit to the colonies. The US may be an evil empire, but despite the fact that I've left, it's still my evil empire. Fly the flag at half mast and move on.



The same drone which takes out the corgi claims the recently re-elected Boris Johnson as collateral damage, and Ken Livingstone steps back into the London mayoralty. Ostensibly as a mark of respect to his predecessor, but secretly hoping to nip any postmortem Boris worship in the bud, Livingstone forces the British Olympic cycling team to use Boris bikes. Despite this disadvantage, they strike gold, making the bikes so wildly popular that every last one in the city is stolen and put on eBay. Buying them back bankrupts London. Russian oligarchs offer a bailout on the condition that a meerkat be placed on top of Nelson's column, with Nelson reduced to being a fourth plinth alternate.



Sarah Palin is elected president as a write-in candidate. As a joke, White House interns pretend to go to DEFCON 1 while giving Palin's transition team a tour of the war room, claiming that the UK, not satisfied with supplying Hollywood villains, has become the newest enemy. This prompts Herman Cain, who is to be the next secretary of defense, to launch an all-too-real attack to protect his precious bodily fluids, leading to the demise of a dog and a mayor (the former being the target to weaken morale). So now you know how it began.



Richard Dawkins's heart stops after he is struck by lightning while wagging his finger at a creationist, but he is revived. He claims that while dead he briefly toured heaven and met God, who was playing dice with Einstein and petting Schrödinger's cat. Atheists burn his books. On a more positive note, the Pope takes Dawkins off his hit list.



The Euro collapses. Chocolate takes its place as the new medium of exchange. Britain, most of whose population is satisfied with Cadbury's, is severely downgraded by ratings agencies. The IMF stops returning its calls.



The Mesoamerican long count calendar finishes up on December 21st, just as a certain regal finger resolutely pushes a button, bringing the world to an end. This does not affect house prices in London.