At one time, the de rigueur way to serve the beverage of choice in Poland—black tea with a slice of lemon—was in a handle-free thin-walled glass.
You'd toss in a pinch of loose leaves and let the liquid steep for a few minutes. Once you got past the burning fingers dilemma, a flurry of delightful slurping ensued and, lo and behold, your very own prophetic hieroglyphic dregs in a crystal ball—well, glass. Predicting the future was never as easy.
Thanks to progress, that’s all but changed now. The proliferation of teabags in the age of convenience and the adoption of mugs in emulation of all things American dreamish have made futurology a more challenging art to master.
At least that’s what I tell myself as I fail to make much sense of the soggy lump of a teabag that I’ve just fished out (a bit disgustingly called a “szczur” in Polish, which means rat). So, I turn to the Internet to divine what 2012 will bring for Poland.
First a look at tvn24.pl, one of the most popular news services in the country:
“From the 1st of January, we can expect an excise tax on diesel and tobacco. Children’s clothing and shoes will also cost more,”—high on the probability scale, but a touch dry.
The year-end presidential address is a little less pithy but a hair more rousing.
In it, the president expects that 2012 will be a time of “bold, but wise changes,” and that it'll be a time of “building a foundation for a good future.”
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on the other hand, says of the year ahead that “maybe it won’t be easy, but we’ve managed to overcome more challenging ones than this. Difficult decisions will have to be made, but they'll be fair in terms of whom they will affect and, collectively, we won’t forget about the underprivileged [members of society].”
Less politically and more artistically predictive is a lyrical composition by renowned musician and songwriter Tomasz Szwed, part of the TVN24 satirical news commentary program “Szklo Kontaktowe”:
I’ve got to get ready
For the huge windfall that threatens to fall on me
In the New Year.
Good fortune for all, finally.
I look on with suspicion
At the Belorussian regime,
But as for my government
Why wouldn’t I trust them? …
I know there are good times ahead
But just to make sure I'd like to clarify...
Do you mean in this New Year already
Or am I going to have to wait until the next?
Good question. Maybe it’s just that every prediction will come true, eventually, it’s just a question of time. Or maybe we need a more rigorous analysis and empirical inquiry to beat reading tea leaves, listening to promises of politicians, or the canniness of poets.
Perhaps we'll be best served by a prediction on ichimoku.pl, a blog dedicated to the somewhat mysterious Japanese technique of technical analysis of market trends (developed by a journalist) called Ichimoku Kinko Hyo, which translates into “one look equilibrium chart.”
Here’s the prediction. “A mixed bag of information. Many potential threats. Markets likely to continue to react sharply to news from the eurozone. However, there are opportunities for growth. […] Best to stick to one’s investment plan and avoid losses to one’s portfolio.”
Hmm. Then again, maybe that tea bag IS trying to tell me something after all …
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