Tuesday, February 08, 2011

The End of the World?

I was listening to a repeat of Start the Week on Radio 4 last night. Astrophysicist Joyce Bell Burnell was talking breezily and a trifle contemptuously I thought about "end of the world" apocalyptic scares when all of a sudden - this is absolutely true - my radio cut out! Was this the end of the world as I knew it? Before I had time to take stock of the situation normal service was resumed.

Joyce Bell Burnell then considered the question of HOW the world might end. The usual suspects were dragged out: meteorites, floods, fire, the sort of scourges afflicting Australia at this very moment, when my radio cut out AGAIN.

Actually, she talked very seriously about the attractions of end-of-the-world theories, chief among which in my opinion is the idea of EXCLUSION, i.e. I will be saved but not you! If everyone is going to be saved, there's not much point, is there?

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