Nostradamus "predicted hurricanes and North Korea missile crisis," claims this week's Globe magazine, which promises to reveal the 16th-century French seer's predictions for "what's next!"
It's about as plausible and fact-based as anything else in this week's dubious tabloids. "The false trumpet concealing madness will cause Byzantium to change its laws," wrote the ancient prognosticator. "The false trumpet is an obvious reference to America's president," Nostradamus analyst Louis Lefrevre tells Globe. Wait a second – the Trump-loving Globe is calling the President a "false trumpet"? Sure, he makes a lot of noise and blows a lot of hot air, but then who is the true trumpet? Hillary? Bernie?
The ancient writings continue: "The trumpet shakes with great discord. An agreement broken . . ."
Lefrevre explains: "The broken agreement is Kim's refusal to stop nuclear testing despite his former promises." Well, that seems obvious once you explain it.
So, what comes next?
"The next war," says Lefrevre, pointing to this Nostradamus verse: "Pestilences extinguished, the world becomes smaller, for a long time the lands will be inhabited peacefully." What could be clearer than that? And should I be surprised that a Google search for what the Globe terms "University of Paris expert Louis Lefrevre" turns up zero matches?
How about the Globe story that Jennifer Aniston and husband Justin Theroux are having a "trial separation"? Except she's actually filming in Georgia, and he's at home in New York. That's not a marital split, it's a working couple.
How about the Globe finding "proof" that the coroner had Natalie Wood's "autopsy faked!" Its proof? You'll have to turn to Nostradamus for that, because the Globe comes up with none, except for a writer's unsubstantiated "sensational claim" that coroner Thomas Noguchi "fabricated" findings to cover up her murder. What was fabricated? That's never explained.
How about fears that actor Bruce Willis is suffering dementia, because he starred on Broadway wearing an earpiece to feed him his lines. Except that performance was two years ago, and wearing an earpiece to receive lines in a show with a script being constantly reworked is hardly a sign of Alzheimer's. Just ask Al Pacino, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, and the many other actors who have worn earpieces for line prompts on Broadway.
The tabloids' Guess-Your-Weight expert, who so accurately pin-points each star's fluctuating heft to the nearest pound, now has a name: Dr. Stuart Fischer, creator of the Park Avenue Diet. Dr. Fischer tells the Globe that Caitlyn Jenner weighs "at least" 220 pounds, and blames the hormones that the former Bruce Jenner takes to be "girly" for her added avoirdupois.
Dr. Fischer is there again, in this week's National Enquirer, telling us that Angelina Jolie "looks like she weighs no more than 76 pounds," and that she was recently "nearly 100 pounds after being as low as 79 pounds." These are remarkably accurate assessments of stars' precise weights, for a doctor who admits never having treated either Jenner or Jolie.
Angelina, it seems, "is literally dying of a broken heart" following her split from Brad Pitt, claims the Enquirer. As Dr Gabriel Mirkin, who also hasn't treated Jolie, explains, with repeated weight loss "you lose so much heart muscle that you can go into heart failure."
Nutritionist Lisa De Fazio also gets in on the act, informing the Enquirer that actress Tori Spelling "now weighs 150 pounds," which qualifies her as a "plus-size pauper" because she was spotted shopping at Target – oh, the shame of it! – and browsing a yard sale. Oh, and "the chunky blonde stuffed herself during a recent family vacation at a pricey $10,000-a-night Mexico resort." So that's the sort of pauper we're dealing with – one who can only afford $10,000 for a hotel room? How sad to be so impoverished.
Fortunately we have the crack investigative team at Us magazine to tell us that Selena Gomez wore it best (and who doesn't look good in a pink unicorn sweater?), that Grey's Anatomy star Jessica Capshaw is incredibly humble ("What I like most about myself is that I'm kind"), that actress Natacha Karam (Who she, Ed?) carries Chanel Coco Noir perfume, "poo bags for my dog," boxing gloves, and "like, 600 elastics" hair scrunchies in her drawstring gym bag, and that the stars are just like us: they play slot machines, eat ice cream, and shop for Halloween. Riveting stuff.
Us devotes its cover to Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie and actor-husband Josh Duhamel as their "marriage explodes," blaming "baby battles, cheating and the pressures of fame." Supposedly he wanted more children and she wanted to focus on her singing career, but the "cheating" line seems rather gratuitous, since it refers to unsubstantiated allegations by an Atlanta stripper claiming a one-night fling with Duhamel in 2010.
People magazine gives its cover to Prince William, promising to unveil his "life as a dad and future king." The British Royal Family are always big sellers for the celebrity mags, but sadly it's an uninspired romp through old interviews, explaining that he's a great father because he takes the kids to school when wife Kate can't, and that he listens to people he meets. "There's a lot of support for each other, and a lot of love," says a mental health activist who met them briefly at an event last year. Well, that's as good as a source inside Kensington Palace, isn't it?
Leave it to the National Examiner to predict that "by 2050 sex with robots will be more common than lovemaking for humans only," and that the RealDoll company already "markets a line with customized genitalia and interchangeable faces." Because robot sex should be like eating at Burger King: you can have it your way.
Intriguingly, most "sexbots" are female, and the Examiner reports that "for whatever reason, women seem less interested in being intimate with androids!" Perhaps because most men in the sack perform like mechanized robots anyway?
Onwards and downwards . . .
