LISTICLES

Regular readers of this blog will know that I love ‘coins on the palm of the hand pictures’, simply because I can hone up on my fortune telling abilities. The hand is always in focus and the lines pin-sharp. Doesn’t matter about the teeny blurred coin.

A couple of years ago I published what follows. I was reminded by my Texas buddy and doppelgänger Dick Stout, Keeper of Blog Standards, who had enjoyed the post. It also gives me a great cop-out by repeating scribblings you’ve seen before.

You may not recognise the word, but I’m sure that you will recognise the genre

10 celebrities who have aged badly; 20 ways to insult someone without cursing; 15 signs that you are not a nice person, or 10 things to make out of a discarded Garrett probe boxes’.

You get the gist; the world seems to have gone list crazy. But it makes for lazy writing … and easier to do a blog post, of course! Not only that, listicles suit hard-pressed writers and time-poor readers. At the end of the day it’s a win-win situation, innit?

With this in mind, I have been looking closely at the listicles that regularly frequent newspapers, magazines and the Web. For those who don’t know, the word is made up of ‘list’ and ‘article’. Followers of Lewis Carroll will recognise the form as a ‘portmanteau’ word. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as ‘an article that takes the form of a numbered or bullet-pointed list.’

And so I embark on my own list of predictions for the hobby of metal detecting based on my palm reading skills, native Geordie intuition and geriatric guile.

2020: Where’s Warsaw Wally? Wonder no more. Just heard a rumour that a new detecting magazine called The Treasure Searcher will be published later this year by Barstool and edited by his fawning sidekick Swifty. Brian Mattick has been appointed roving reporter. Vanity publishing at its best. You couldn’t make it up!

2021: Alas! After only five copies, the magazine has folded due to the publisher and editor being the only readers. Thugwits around the world are delighted. Mattick was nowhere to be seen.

Andy Sabisch. © Picture of Andy by John W.

2022: The only two British detecting forums now in existence are insisting that all subscribers use smileys (emoticons) to show that they are not being sarcastic. 🙂 🙂

Can you guess at what I am saying?

2023: Detectorists on forums are now speaking entirely in smileys, one of which will mean ‘no sarcasm intended”, which will often be used sarcastically. 

2026: A simple injection developed by boffins at the NCMD enables detectorists’ skin to be covered in four different versions of camouflage. The effect lasts up to eight hours and means that they can play at being The Invisible Man. CCTV operators are worried, but Nigel at Regtons has dismissed complaints, citing the latest ‘human rights’ legislation, and continues to advertise the product in the only detecting magazine now available (digital only).

2028:  A decent pin-point probe now costs over £8000. Detectorists reminisce about how once they only had to offer retailers less than a thousand squid for two. 

2029: Holographic detectors are now commonplace, meaning that those budding Steven Spielbergs will lose an essential ingredient … the ability to know that they are about to dig up another piece of crap! The average length of such video epics is expected top be reduced ten-fold. Pity I won’t be around.

2030: The ‘office boy’ and tekkies respected icon finally reaches the top of the ladder. BAFTA winner and regular good guy Sir Mackenzie Crook becomes prime minister. Not before time, I say.

2030: The ‘office boy’ and tekkies respected icon finally reaches the top of the ladder. BAFTA winner and regular good guy Sir Mackenzie Crook becomes prime minister. Not before time, I say.

© Sketch of Mac by himself. Picture by JW

2035: Not everybody agrees with Camilla Parker-Bowels featuring on the new £1000 note, and there’s even more debate about the King Charlie and Prince Andrew on the £200 note. Andy’s indiscretions of over 20 years ago have been forgotten.

2038: The Dick Stout Memorial Museum based in Austin,Texas (digital only) will be having a retrospect of the famous detectorist’s work at the beginning of the year. On show will be lots of memorabilia and his most famous blog posts. People are raving about his pictures of metal detectors languishing on a spade in the middle of a field. Barron Trump, the famous wind energy technician, has proclaimed the immense collage as a ‘national treasure’ and organised a petition to buy it for the nation.

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© This has been a tongue-in-cheek production by John Winter. Please remember that the blog was created in an ironic manner and is not to be taken seriously. 🙂

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