It's been an interesting few weeks for amateur prophets. The overwhelmingly unlikely occurred last night when Andy Murray became the first person from the British Isles to win Wimbledon in 77 years, something which I never thought I would see in my life-time. The Labor Party, having seemingly written their electoral suicide note and meditated upon why the electorate had fixed its cannon 'gainst their re-election without discovering the obvious answer, suddenly, at last, developed a sense of self-preservation. One criticism by the Opposition which couldn't possibly stick, I thought, was that the government was poll-driven! But, wrong as I was when I said they would never roll Rudd in his first term, so I was wrong when I thought that having waited until the ground was approaching with such whizzing speed they couldn't possibly try to abort at the last minute... On the other hand some things remain totally predictable--like the Egyptian military coup, which could have been foreseen from the moment urban liberals began campaigning for a democracy which would put power in the hands of a majority which shared none of their views. None of the people who found the outcome there surprising had obviously ever studied the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution or any standard text on political theory. Ever.
Meanwhile in the world of fiction, both Mad Men and Game of Thrones pulled it together by the end of their respective seasons to provide drunken misery and a massacre respectively. How predictable was that? I can't even begin to weigh up life and art.
Portia
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