Not the end of the world

In a story that might have been better in the summer, or when the Pope wasn't visiting, Liam Fox has warned that Solar Flares could Paralyse Britain.

Which is terrible. I'd be lying awake at night worrying about this if it wasn't for my fear that an asteroid would wipe out the earth first.  Or that global warming, while making it so hot that Yorkshire would be the centre of the wine business, would mean the population of Peterborough would be clustered in my spinney, trying to keep their feet dry after moving because of rising sea levels.

Or, worst of all perhaps, a comet might hit the piece of the Canary Islands that's falling off, causing a mega-tsunami that would be worse than Noah's Flood. But at least due to eating too much infected meat everyone would be wandering around unable to notice.
But if  they hadn't been eating the beef, and instead had been consuming a diet of junk food alone while playing video games and talking to each other on Facebook, they would be too unfit to run away from the mega-tsunami. Or so itchy they wouldn't be able to concentrate on it.  Though at least they would no longer be getting poisoned by their sofas. Or their computers. (And, by the way, is the Toilet Seat the SI standard unit for infection?

And those people whose brains weren't fried and could outrun the tsunami (or who at least live up a hill) would have no teeth to eat the necessarily unprocessed food that they'd have to eat in the new dog-eat-dog world. Which might not mattter, as the fish and water fowl they might need to live on were being wiped out by mink. Not that the mink alone would be the problem, as in hunting the fish and ducks they'd be at risk from Weil's disease from the rats and salmonella from the terrapins. And malaria, of course.  If the wolves, wild boar and man-eating foxes didn't get them.

They could try to repopulate the earth (overcoming the gender problems caused by residual chemicals in the waterways). But sadly the population would be without those vital drugs that would stop the entire population dying of various sexual diseases. And for the same reason, the Australians would discover they'd run out of koala bears to eat.

And of course I've not even mentioned the fear of a "dirty bomb" wiping out centres of population.  Or the ever-present fear that the Large Hadron Collider could suck us into a black hole, or even change the future.

On the whole, my suggestion to you would be that you come out and live in the woods, if you can find a piece not full of people from Peterborough. You'll die of the cold, but at least it's not the end of the world. Not until 2012, at least.