Lost in Translation

Minority report update: I’ve opened a Twitter account. This shocked my wife to the core. After 25+ years (we’re not quite as old as that makes us sound; bear in mind we were betrothed as embryos) she thought she knew me. I thought I knew me. Turns out I still had a few surprises in store.

Twitter is just another tool. That is all.

Correction: That is almost all. Update #2 is that I now have GPS capability, at least when my Nexus 7 can find itself. It’s fun to watch the train snake its way up to London. The first few times.

Update #3: Mere weeks later, this came in the mail.

spotted in the window of Gosh! alongside these

Life on Krypton was Dullsville. People forget that if everybody has super powers, nobody has them. Even Super Dog found nothing special in fetching a stick thrown halfway around the planet. The second most exciting thing that had ever happened was when Krypton exploded. Unfortunately that occurred just as Supergirl was preparing for her first date, which was to be the most exciting thing. Teased at school because of her frustrating inability to even leap over bungalows in a single bound, it had taken forever to convince Super Bobby to think it was his idea to ask her out. As he was ringing the doorbell her father hustled her off in an escape pod. She’d thought it was because he couldn’t stand to see his little girl growing up, and pouted all the way to Earth. When she later learned the truth she was still slightly miffed.

Her dating prospects were no better on her new home planet. Even as her powers matured, her potential dating pool diminished. Only when she set aside her father’s advice to “never put out until there’s a ring on your finger” did she find men willing to take out a woman who could not only beat them at arm wrestling but examine the total package using her xray vision.

Inevitably they would disappoint; if not as lovers, then as fighters. Because if there’s one thing Supergirl liked almost as much as romantic evenings by a fire she had started by rubbing two trees together, it was a good scrap. “My little feisty one,” her mother had called her just before tucking her into the pod and being obliterated. “Your father forgets that I didn’t have a ring when he took my virginity the first three times. I know you’re impatient, but watch your temper. It’s not your most attractive quality.”

Supergirl usually kept her aggression in check by a good workout at the gym when she didn’t have any dates lined up. It was there that she ran into her cousin Superman, bench pressing well below his personal best, Clark Kent eyeglasses cracked from a recent run-in with a parking meter maid he could have stuffed through the coin slot if he had any balls. As a teenager she’d gone out with him a few times on ‘trial dates’ arranged by her father that both had found awkward and, needless to say, romantically unfulfilling by design.

They’d had lunch, caught up on gossip (“Everything back home is still obliterated”), then gone their separate ways – though not before ‘Clark’, as he really did wetly prefer to be called, left her with some advice: “Choose your battles. You can’t fight the whole world.”  Also “Don’t bother, I’m wearing lead underwear.”

Amongst her superpowers, one of the most useful, passed down from her uncle “Hands” (like calling someone who is tall Shorty, thanks to Supergirl after one free-ranging hug too many) was the ability to turn people to stone, and not just with a look surpassing icy. It had gotten her out of many a tight spot, such as when cabbies insisted on being paid. There was an entire gallery at the Metropolis Museum of Modern Art filled with her “Rocky Relationships” installation, the provenance of which she naturally kept from the curator to avoid sticky questions.

It took a blind date with what turned out to be the son of a preacher man to get her to realise the wisdom of Clark’s advice.

 To be continued…

2013 years, more if you can count backwards, and where are we as a human race? Still last when it comes to arranging our affairs in ways pleasing to the stars. Even apes plan their days with more care: foraging, grooming, mating seemingly indiscriminately and establishing dominance in accordance with the big picture always at the forefront of their smaller but perfectly formed brains.

Rather than following their example, we often bumble about hoping for the best and managing expectations when it’s clear to those with eyes that see and a limbic system somewhere in that twitching oatmeal that astrology is the only Letts Planner we’ll ever need.

New format: Horoscopes have been arranged alphabetically so you don’t have to lose productivity (a problem in previous years) searching where you fit in the scheme of things.

Aquarius
Fortune favours the bold. Unfortunately that inheritance doesn’t come through. Rearranging your CV from chronological to functional then back again won’t alter your prospects but will bring to light a few typos. Don’t snub networking opportunities in the queue at M&S. Dress for success. Remember to burn the receipts for the arsenic.

Aries
This will be a themed year. Everything of significance that happens in your life will be tangentially connected to everything else. You won’t even have to plumb all six degrees of separation to achieve nagging closure with the hunch that if you don’t send Kate Middleton’s baby a present there will be a certain iciness in the way that she looks at you from the pages of Hello! magazine.

Cancer
A shared horror of grammatical decline may forge superficial alliances but sadly is not the basis for a long-lasting relationship. Apostrophes are fickle; misused semi-colons hardly worth the silent death of respect let alone a broken heart. Explore pluraling with an open mind, spelling anomalies with a forgiving heart: a little naval-gazing isn’t cause for open hostilities. British and American discrepancies will eventually flip around with geomagnetic reversal, so a generous tolerance can smooth out those worry lines.

Capricorn
A tablet computer won’t revolutionize your life. Buy it anyway if it makes you happy.

Gemini
Congratulations are in order. Don’t worry that it wasn’t based on merit, or even particularly fair. The system is rigged, we all know and respect that. Plan your next moves carefully like a chess master. Hold your nerve. It wouldn’t hurt to keep your cards close to your chest. Churchill almost lost the war early on before he learned to stop openly strategising with Friends on Facebook.

Leo
It couldn’t hurt to start working on that bucket list, particularly if it’s a short one. There’s no need to be alarmed, that’s just good advice for anybody. Still. Listen to the man wearing the turquoise socks when he offers advice about visiting Malaysia. It’s difficult to be more specific than that. We all have feelings of impending mortality from time to time: Final Destination wasn’t a documentary. Last minute seat changes skew your karma.

Libra
Go ahead and give the casting agent your phone number. Where would we be without extras? How many people remember the Godfather stroking his cat? It’s the then-unknown Marty Feldman, found wandering the lot and drafted in last minute by Coppola to add the missing edge of menace to the scene, who lives on in our cinematic memory. Your eyes really are your best feature you know.

Pisces
The age-old question of nature or nurture will be settled, so don’t feel too bad about dropping your children from your Christmas card list. (Childless? Don’t adopt either.) Even behaviour taken in context can be actionable. The time for electronic tagging is past. However, if all parties can come to an understanding which respects boundaries and basic dignity, it can also bring you closer together.

Sagittarius
Furniture. Oak or pine? What’s your budget? Soft furnishings may suffer if you splurge. House pride goeth before a fall. Spring is the time for tarting up. Hand in hand to Homebase, you idling in the tool aisle wondering if you have enough of the right kind of drill bits, your other scrutinising the tiling: all is right in the world. This is where the weekends go.

Scorpio
There’s no need to diet or buy smaller mirrors, you can be loved and cherished just as you are. A sluggish metabolism does not need to be mentioned in your profile unless it’s pertinent. Nonmatching accessories show character. Red, yellow, blue – really, all the primary colours, aka “colours in their own right,” work. After all, you’re a person in your own right. Purple’s fine too, unless you’re a man, in which case ermine is also indicated.

Taurus
Which utilities are most important? Pay those first. Candle light is romantic, hot wax also works for some, but don’t move it too close to the bamboo blinds, I know this from experience. Choose providers, if you still have any, by flipping a coin; a monopoly doesn’t have to be evil if it gets the job done and keeps us from getting distracted by meaningless “competition.” So sayeth the savvy soothsayer.

Virgo
Things are looking up. Caressing the monolith may offer additional evolutionary advantages. Put down the bone unless you want an ankle bracelet that beeps.