Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Soothsayer story

At the moment, my television set is tuned to EWTN and Johnette Benkovic and guests discussing the New Age movement, something which, I am glad to say, I have had virtually no involvement. So I have no personal stories to tell!

Except one "close encounter" I nearly had with one of Ireland's better-known fortune tellers/soothsayers/psychic guides/con artists (tick as appropriate!).

It happened several years ago, in December, and it was a lunch-time party for Christmas. In the place I worked at the time, the nature of the work was such that we could not all go out for one meal together, but the Christmas party had to be split into two halves, so one half of the office could have a (rushed) social event together, while the other half did the work. Then the following day, the roles were reversed.

We went to a Chinese restaurant in Dublin city centre, a few minutes walk from the workplace.

About half-way through our dinner, the door opened, and in walked a man with a face familiar from television, and a face familiar from newspaper advertisements for his premium-rate fortune-telling phone lines where he (allegedly) will tell you, basically, how to live your life (though I have never, ever rung one of them, hence my use of the word "allegedly"). He also charges you a "nice" fee for the privilege. But because it goes on your phone bill, which you get several weeks later, this is what's known as the Buy Now, Pay Later syndrome. So you don't fully realise that you are spending your own money.

At this time, the place was full with several office groups, including us, having a pre-Christmas party. The gentleman came in, looked around, and soon was approached by one of the staff; they had a conversation, which we couldn't hear, and then he turned around and walked out the door again.

The place was full so he had to go somewhere else for lunch.

We all recognised him, and said to ourselves: "there's (name inserted here)". And then, after a pause for a few seconds, a thought crossed our minds . . .


. . .didn't he KNOW that the place was full??


That was several years ago; he doesn't appear on television very often nowadays (or rather, I don't see him on the box because I've better things to do!) but you can still ring up his premium-rate phone line. For anybody who does, I will make a prediction, which I am confident is far more accurate than any he will make:

Your Future Says: You Will Receive A Large Phone Bill.

Presumably, if he wasn't making a profit he wouldn't stay in the business, nor would his many competitors; so business must be fairly good. Frankly, my verdict is that anyone who rings one of these so-called psychic phone lines deserves to get ripped off.

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