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2012: the end of the world as we know it?
The Mayans, Nostradamus and a legion of internet crazies have all concluded that this year will be our last trip around the sun. Really it has been a slippery slope since the demise of Woolies, says Basement Jack.
To those whose livelihood depended on any of the 183 retailers that went out of business in 2011, it could well seem that the much-predicted end of the world came a year early. There's little argument that the last 12 months were abnormally crappy. You know it's a below average year when a tsunami and resulting nuclear meltdown barely managed a week as the lead item on the news. Bloody civil uprisings, global economic strife and a string of further natural disasters made swapping careers to bomb-shelter salesman seem like a prudent notion.
Just for larks, however, there are many, many predictions that suggest 2012 will make 2011 seem like a carefree skip through a summer meadow. Sixteenth-century children's entertainer and part-time serial doomsayer Nostradamus reckoned we're going to be obliterated by a comet in 2012. Thanks for that Nozzer.
Naturally enough the American ultra-religious internet crazies have got in on the act to good effect. A personal favourite comes from The Church of God's pastor Ronald Weinhard, self-appointed prophet of the 'end-times'. He and his group have confidently declared that the end of man's self-rule will happen on May 27th. This is based on an equally confident assertion that on "December 14th, 2008, the First Trumpet of the Seventh Seal of the Book of Revelation sounded, which announced the beginning of the collapse of the economy of the United States and great destruction that will follow". You couldn't make this stuff up, well actually I suppose... In any event the organisers of the London Olympics are going to be seriously p*ssed if Pastor Weinhard turns out to be right.
The ancient Mayans too identified this year as the time humanity would go goose-over-stumps-frogside (get wiped out), with December 21st scheduled as our date with destruction. This one has got many an in-bred yokel worried as Hollywood made a movie about it...so it must be true. You would hardly credit the number of websites and discussion groups there are dedicated to this Mayan madness.
What the hell does it say about us as a species that we're more disposed to believe the ancient prophecies of extinct civilisations than accept that the increase in natural disasters might just be to do with climate change? I'm no tree-hugger (in fact I kick them in the roots at every opportunity) but man alive let's get some perspective people.
Aaaanyway, reflecting upon the generally negative outlook for this year and when it all began to turn sour, I think I've identified the moment: it was the collapse of Woolworths in December 2008. The loss of this high street stalwart signalled the UK's final loss of innocence - nothing was definitely safe, nothing too sacred to disappear. We were a nation that had grown up buying records, games, CDs and Christmas-tat-by-the-bushel at Woolies, almost every high street had one...and then one day they just weren't there anymore. The shockwaves reached far beyond the retail industry itself and as a nation we've never really stopped worrying since. The world seems a lot less kind, a lot more expensive and infinitely less certain than before.
So, going into 2012 just how worried should we be? For many of the good folk at lingerie brand La Senza, the year has started badly to say the very least. Ditto the head office folk of Blacks Leisure...and chances are there will be more. Whether these commercial disasters constitute indicators of an impending apocalypse remains a moot point.
Certainly it would be bloody typical if we'd wazzed billions on getting set for the Olympics just to have the candle snuffed out eight weeks before the opening ceremony (based on Reinhard's predictions). Those worst-case-scenario cats, and I include myself in this group, would probably consider it more likely that the Mayans had it right. That way we get to suffer the humiliation of completely cocking up the Olympic Games and England's inevitable embarrassment at the Euro 2012 football championships before being vaporised into cosmic dust in the run-up to Christmas.
It could happen, after all was it not written in the Book of Trevor: "In the last days of Man's dominion a cook of great renown will be repentant for stealing from his local supermarket, the official Opposition will choose a socially inept lab technician as its leader and the new Gomorrah will be celebrated among the peoples of the world as T.O.W.I.E is granted a fourth series." Scary, scary stuff. Hold tight folks, it could be bumpy ride.
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