101 YEARS OLD AND STILL EXTRAPOLATING FURIOUSLY...
MY OLD friend Professor Norvus Breakdown seemed in a rare tizzy when I dropped in on him for one of my occasional briefings on scientific and sociological advances. As your probably know, Prof Breakdown is the incumbent of, and more often than not recumbent in, the Ikea Chair in Contemporary Lifestyle at the University of North Brent ( formerly the Outer Neasden Cycling Proficiency and Macramé Polytechnic) and has long been my guide to modern trends.
On this occasion however he seemed on the verge of despair.
“Beachcomber,” he sobbed as I entered, “thank goodness you are here. I don’t know where to turn. It could be the end of civilization as we know it.”
I must confess I didn’t have any idea what he was referring to. “Let’s see what we can do about it,” I said reassuringly. “Now what’s the problem? Global warming? Global mailing? Donald Trump?”
“No, no, no,” he said dismissively. “It’s far worse than any of those. It’s Meghan.”
“Meghan?” I said. “That nice American girl who I’m told married a prince at the weekend? I know little about it as I was at Glyndebourne enjoying the opera and a picnic at the time. I missed some football thing too. It was a thoroughly well- spent weekend as far as I was concerned.”
He glared and thrust a wodge of papers at me filled with calculations. “Look at these,” he commanded.
I looked at the top sheet and my cheery disposition took a turn for the worse. “Oh my sainted aunts,” I said. “If this is what I think it is, then the prospects are appalling.”
It is and they are,” he confirmed. “The table on the top sheet charts the rise in the number of times the name ‘ Meghan’ appears in our database of national newspapers in recent years. It appeared not at all in 1996 or 1997, only twice in 1998 and once in 1999.
The early years of the new millennium saw a few more, but nothing to worry about. From 2000 to 2007 the figures were 10, 14, 19, 8, 32, 13, 32, 30. In 2008 it shot up to 93, but fell back to 27, 21, 52, and 44 in the years from 2009- 2012. Since then, however, the rise has been inexorable: 113 in 2013, followed by 396, 654, 1,119, and 3,836 from 2014- 2017. This year, it is already at 6,351, which is equal to a full year figure of 16,211.
“Extrapolating these figures, I predict that there will be over a million Meghans in our papers in 2021 and the number will pass a billion in 2032.”
“That’s horrific,” I said. “And I see you’ve compared the rise of Meghans with the slump in Slobodans. In 2007 there were 10 times as many Slobodans as Meghans but now it is more than 200 Meghans per Slobodan. But I should point out that there’s one really good thing about it.”
“What’s that?” he asked. “I’m afraid I don’t see it.”
“With a billion Meghans in the papers in 2032, there will be no room for any mention of Trump,” I said.
Slowly, his expression changed to a big smile. He shook my hand warmly and I left him to his calculations.