The future doesn't hold much fun for those who take predictions seriously. Mike Priestley dips into a new book, Nostradamus, The Final Reckoning (Piatkus, £6.99), which claims to have put dates on the predictions of the 16th century French prophet

Books about prophecies should carry a warning. If taken seriously they could damage your mental health.

The trouble with prophecies, you see, is that they never seem to predict anything wonderfully cheerful. It's all doom and disaster, all woe, woe and thrice woe and the end of civilisation as we know it.

Any reassurance comes from the fact that the people doing the prophesying are generally very vague about when all these catastrophes are likely to occur. Nostradamus was no exception - comfortingly obscure about his dates and about everything else too, given the largely incomprehensible nature of his predictions which as far as I can make out are capable of virtually any interpretation anyone wants to put on them.

"He chose deliberately to obscure the language, lest he be persecuted by the Inquisition for practising black magic," explains Peter Lemesurier in his book Nostradamus, The Final Reckoning. "Possibly, too, he preferred not to be accused of actually creating the dire events that he had foreseen by predicting them too clearly."

So that's it, is it? Nostradamus, properly known as Michel de Nostredame, didn't want to get the blame on the basis of self-fulfilling prophesy when the balloon went up - though you can't help wondering why he should care, because he was born in 1503 and the worst was not set to happen for another 500 years, by which time he would be well out of reach of wagging fingers and accusations of "This is all your fault, Michel!"

To add to the confusion he left his predictions in a jumbled-up sequence of verses full of obscure classical references and Latin and Greek borrowing.

But fear not, those of you who like specifics to worry about rather than generalisations. Peter Lemesurier reckons to have found the key to unlock the mystery of the timing of Nostradamus's predictions and in this book has come up with a calendar for the future. And starting in the near future at that.

This very year, we're supposed to see the coronation of a new British king in June (it must be going to be something of a last-minute job) and in August the last visit to France by the German Chancellor and the start of the invasion of the Middle East by Central Asian Muslims.

Next year finds a growing invasion threat to France and Italy, the European Union at the height of its powers a year or so before its final collapse, and a pan-Arab revolution overthrowing the Moroccan monarchy. And then it gets nasty.

Says Mr Lemesurier: "The major seismic events of the near future...the decidedly gloomy future of the Popes....the invasion and virtual destruction of southern and western Europe, the siege and bombardment of Britain, the long-delayed Western counter-attack, the ensuring age of peace and plenty, the era of renewed cataclysm and decline, the eventual extraterrestrial Saviours, the era of interplanetary travel, the ultimate transformation of humanity - all are spelt out citing chapter and verse (at least where Nostradamus is concerned) so that you, the reader, can refer to his prophecies and measure them against actual events as they develop."

Which offers a clue that even Mr Lemesurier doesn't take it all too seriously - because if things do work out according to his interpretation of Nostradamus's predictions, who would have time or inclination to be constantly referring to this book and saying "Ee, fancy that. He was right, you know!"?

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