Christine Grant, Bristol Clairvoyant: You've Been Barnumed

A few years back I went to visit Christine Grant, a clairvoyant based out of St Nicholas Market in Bristol... see, I am open minded!

The way Christine works is to flick through a pack of Tarot Cards (I want some but they're very over priced) and reeling off statements about your future.

In a reading she chuck out exactly 99 prediction at me, all of which she said would come true over the next year to 18 months. So, I couldn't walk away from the reading with any indication of whether she was accurate or not, I just had to wait and see.

After 18 months I reviewed my reading and I would say about 40% of the statements she made about my future were accurate, some of the statements I could attribute to some pretty major changes and events in my life but the fact remains, about 60% of it didn't happen.

The 40% which did fit my life were basically just "Barnum Statements", statements that would appear to be personal to me but which are actually vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

Here's just 10 Barnum Statements from the reading:

I will have trouble in a friendship, it will turn out OK.

I will buy someone flowers.

I will move house.

I will help someone over a broken relationship.

My health will be OK.

I will be pleased to toast someone.

Someone must quit smoking.

I will be packing a case soon.

I will register something.

Two people who have split up will get back together.

When you think that I was in my early 20s when this reading was given, I'm bound to have problems with mates, of course I will by someone flowers in an 18 month period, it's pretty likely that my health will be good, at that age it's quite likely I might move house... all very obvious.

My favourite fail was this comment, I don't know why she said this, it's not likely to happen and it's very vague... "Someone must be careful not to glue their eye closed, they will mistake superglue for eye drops."