24 September 2001
Cherokee glimpse into the skyscaper
When the end of the world knocks at our window, our first instinct is to find someone who can explain what is going on. All the certainties of daily life disintegrate, and panic sets in – not so much from the fear of death or injury as from the unknown. Where can we go from here?
At such a time there are always people who can tell us. The trouble is, they are all telling us different things.
There are bucketfuls of prophecies about the end of the world. Some of them seem to involve New York itself. Others are more general, more obscure, or just silly.
Perhaps the two most interesting are a Cherokee Indian prophecy and one from an American Romanian Christian called Dumitru Duduman, who died as recently as 1997.
Duduman described one vision this way: "There were a handful of comets in the sky which looked to be peaceful. Suddenly three of them, all different sizes, began to head toward the earth. When they hit the ground, there was total devastation.
"As I looked up, the sky turned black and I saw thunder. The thunder was also black. A dark cloud lifted up and it began to rain. When I looked closer I saw that it was not rain but drops of blood." Even more striking is a Cherokee Indian prophecy, which talks about the "sign for the Third Shaking of the Earth".
This apparently comes after mankind "will build a house and throw it in the sky. When you see people living in the sky on a permanent basis, you will know the Great Spirit is about to grab the earth.
"When this house is in the sky, the Great Spirit is going to shake the Earth a third time, and whoever dropped that gourd of ashes, upon them it is going to drop".
It doesn’t take much to identify the house in the sky as a skyscraper, and the ashes as the result of bombs or explosions.
After talking about villages of stone growing up from the ground – and people living there not being able to see beyond the village – the prophecy concludes: "There’s going to come a time when in the morning the sun is going to rise, and this village of stone will be there, and in the evening there would just be steam coming from the ground."
Of course the ironic thing about prophecies is that they are so much clearer looking back.
Target: get rid of league tables
![[Artwork] Mrs Hicks](/articles/images/010924.jpg)
Recovering from the general election fiasco in which she polled no votes, Mrs Hicks, Mayor of Little London, is putting together a manifesto that she believes will receive overwhelming support from the electorate.
Through links with her marketing organisation, Hixdotcom, we have been able to obtain a copy of the manifesto, on condition that we do not mention the general election fiasco, in which she polled no votes. We have agreed to this. We have also agreed not to name Mr Fox, with whom she allegedly attended a late-night Pondhenge barbecue party (pictured).
The main plank in the manifesto is the abolition of league tables. And the second is like unto it: the removal of all targets.
Mrs Hicks told a reporter yesterday: “League tables for schools, hospitals and similar organisations are a shocking waste of time and energy. They tell us nothing worth knowing, and they encourage manipulation. It is a victory of design over content – a gigantic illusion.”
She added: “Targets not only camouflage stupidity in management: they distract attention and effort from what needs to be done and encourage fairy tales. “You might as well give everyone a toffee apple.”
Mrs Hicks also aims to abolish mission statements, which she describes as “a toy for the self-satisfied”, and is looking closely at equal opportunity statements and health and safety policies.
“People are spending all their time recording pointless rubbish instead of taking action,” she said.
She has trialled the manifesto, which she also intends to abolish, at Corpusty, near Little London, and has received an overwhelmingly favourable response, well above target and at the top of political league tables.
'Not an option' not an option
As councillors get elected to the city council, some strange genetic operation must take place, deep in the bowels of City Hall – possibly conducted by newts and coypu bent on distorting life as we know it.
The operation transforms ordinary humans into creatures who are deluded into thinking they know better than anyone else. It also removes any tendency they may have to listen to the people who elected them.
A by-product of the procedure is a compulsion to act. How often have we heard councillors intone "Doing nothing is not an option"?
Of course doing nothing is an option. It should be the first option under consideration. But not for these genetically-modified men and women who are obsessed by implanting green spines into innocent cities, and diverting cyclists into the paths of helpless pedestrians.
"Traffic in the city centre is enormous," says Norwich highways committee vice-chairman Harry Watson. So the solution is obvious: close a road and cause an additional delay at a busy junction.
How do they justify it? Of course, there was a consultation exercise.
I wonder what the question was. "Would you prefer us to close Queen Street to traffic or demolish the cathedral?" I’m only guessing.
Happily, though, Mr Watson is able to reassure his electors: "It is not going to be a great in-convenience to cars." So that’s all right then.
Picture this: on second thoughts, don't
Words create pictures in our minds; so a good choice of words is important. I still haven’t recovered from the mental image bodged together by an item I glimpsed last week about an "indoor baby and child car boot stall sale".
Try not to think about it.
Hidden danger in buying caravan
My item last time about natural childbirth and the five-birth tent prompted reader Moya Leighton of Coltishall to be on the alert as she looked to purchase a small camper van.
Her eye was drawn to a newspaper advertisement that promised a caravan that was not only "six birth" but had a "twin wheel". Fertile ground indeed, and firmly resisted by Ms Leighton.
"I am looking for extra freedom to enjoy retirement – not the responsibility and expense of sextuplets," she said.