This was on The Daily Mash website about a week ago, and it was funny – very funny – then. But now, seven days on, it seems worryingly prophetic. It’s still making me laugh though.
CONTAINS SOME NAUGHTY WORDS
THE parallels with the First World War are totally doing a historian’s head in, it has been confirmed.
Julian Cook, professor of early 20th Century history at Roehampton University, has admitted he dreads reading the newspapers because ‘it is just one massive headfuck after another’.
He said: “It’s got to the stage where my wife won’t let me speak. All I’m allowed to do is point at the front page of the Guardian while looking at her with an expression of sheer horror.
“We have a strongly nationalistic, strategically significant eastern European country deciding its fate, while three empires stand waiting in the wings, rattling their sabres. It is freaking me the fuck out.”
He added: “I talk to my historian pals and they’re like, ‘no way, that’s totally what I was thinking’. And then we all shout ‘powder keg’ in unison and have a bit of a giggle.
“It relieves the tension, but seriously, we’re all terrified.”
Professor Cook said the fact it was also the 100th anniversary of the First World War was ‘spooky’.
“Honestly, you want to try being a historian at the moment. Mental.”
If WWIII does break out, we’ll be the last place on earth to know, thanks to the intriguing third test against Australia and the murder trial of some athlete or other dominating the local news.
I can’t seem to shake the feeling that if the USA has not managed to spark WWIII in its quest for oil, then it will take a lot more than Russia invading its former colony to set it off.