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Apocalypse Now – Or Maybe Next Week?

No, I’ve not been away on vacation, though with the atrocious August weather in northern France one is almost envious of those further south sweating profusely under a mammoth heatwave. Neither have I been ill, nor in any way incapacitated sufficient to prevent me bashing the keyboard. Truth is I can find nothing to write about.

Sparrow Chat isn’t just a repetitive tome mirroring the news. I like to think it comments on topics at least a little outside the mainstream media, but of late the whole world seems to be drowning in the two most obnoxious ‘T’s of the century (so far!) – ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’.

There’s nothing to be written about either that hasn’t already been said a thousand times by every blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, TV news channel or online news rag. It saturates the mediasphere and hammers away at our grey cells every time the internet, TV, or radio is accessed.

In desperation I turn to the BBC’s “Future” magazine page for inspiration, only to find they’re running “Apocalypse Week”, and the lead image is of a huge atomic explosion, under the heading:

“THE MONSTER ATOMIC BOMB THAT WAS TOO BIG TO USE.”

What the f….!

The story concerns a Russian nuclear test in the 1960’s during the Cold War. The BBC has obviously expended too much time and energy on ‘Trump’ and ‘Terror’, to the point of befuddlement. Apparently, they now believe the 1960’s are in the future? Or, maybe they have no BBC “Past” pages and were just a bit short of content for “Apocalypse Week.”.[1]

One other story from this doom-ridden BBC page concerns the supervolcano under Yellowstone Park, apparently due to explode any day and probably exterminate the human race, slowly, but inexorably. NASA has plans to prevent it by drilling into the magma chamber and pumping in water which, as it comes back out ‘super-heated’ will provide electricity in the surrounding area for thousands of years.

Hell, that’s great economics – if it works. Why is it that the thought of scientists planning to meddle with nature in such a way always sends a shiver down my spine? Probably because of sentences like these:

But drilling into a supervolcano does not come without certain risks. Namely triggering the eruption you’re intending to prevent.[2]

At this point I gave up reading “Apocalypse Week”. There was another feature entitled, “Why do eclipses cause apocalypse fears?” I have no idea, but a guess would be because the media instills such ridiculous thoughts into people’s heads. Eclipses are a natural phenomena that occur all the time in the universe. Any fears of such an event are entirely irrational. My apocalyptic fears are far more rational: Trump, terrorism, and a world media obsessed with creating mayhem.

Happy to extract myself from the dark chasms of BBC horror I scroll down to the bottom of the page where those ‘Around The BBC’ features are placed. My eyes are drawn to an image of Scaramucci…

…and the caption, “How to keep a job longer than 10 days.”

Now, that might have been worth reading, had I not become convinced by the BBC’s “Apocalypse Week” that the world will probably have come to an explosive end before I could even get to the interview.

[1] “Apocalypse Week – a special series about the end of the world” BBC, sometime in the future (or was it ‘the past’?)

[2] “NASA’s Ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano” BBC, 17th August 2017

4 Replies to “Apocalypse Now – Or Maybe Next Week?”

  1. It’s been a bad week for getting away from anything other than the “Trump bad….Trump worse, Trump worst…Trump the devil…Trump worse than the devil, Trump fascist, Trump racist, Trump white supremacist…. Russia, Russia, ….and on…. as if we hadn’t noticed!
    Brightest point – Bannon is gone, but likely to be doing stuff outside the White House that we’ll wish he were not doing.

    I still wish Scaramucci hadn’t been kicked out so quickly – I was looking forward to getting his further take on things. At least he was colourful! 😉

  2. Twilight – yes, the old ‘revolving door’ is spinning like a carousel. Scaramucci would certainly have livened things up. He wasn’t the type to keep his mouth shut, which is probably why he didn’t last long. I don’t like the way Trump is surrounding himself more and more with ‘his generals’.

  3. I hear ya. Here on the Edge we have our own political skullduggery which tires us out considerably. Same old. Etc. I read the tweets of the Orange buffoon to remind myself that yeah, things could be far, far worse, so we’ll keep the dim eejits we have, thanks.

    XO
    WWW

  4. WWW – I think you’re wise to settle for the eejits you have. I don’t know who’s worse in the U.S., Trump, or the media that’s obsessed with him. Hurricane Harvey has created a minor diversion this week, but it won’t last – which will be welcome to those residents of Texas in its path, but will allow Trump back into the headlines before very long.

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