Or it could be in six months. Despite being a cutting edge news reporting organisation no-one told us that the world was due to
come crashing to an end at 18:00 on Saturday. In point of fact the first we heard about it at 18:07 when we read the SaturdayGuardian. By then it was clear that something was amiss.
According to eighty-nine-year-old Californian Harold Camping the world was due to end across every time zone at their respective 6pms. The righteous would be saved and the non-believers destroyed in a well timed world consuming earthquake.
By the time we were eating our slightly burnt pizza it was becoming clear that the apocalypse simply was not going to happen. Had we reported on it in advance we certainly would have egg on our face now.
There is, however a glimmer of hope for those of you who had heard whispers of the apocalypse and given away all your worldly possessions and blown your savings in the hopes of going out with a bang. It was a simple miscalculation. According to Camping:
“I can tell you when 21 May came and went it was a very difficult time for me – a very difficult time. I was truly wondering what is going on. In my mind, I went back through all the promises God had made. What in the world was happening. I really was praying and praying: ‘Lord, what happened?’”
Despite his initial distress that the world was still spinning, it soon became clear what had happened. The world will in fact end on the 21st of October. That gives us five months to really enjoy ourselves, or find religion and become super pious in the hope of being saved. So, we at newsnibbles will be keeping you updated with any minor tremors that could mark the end of the world. You heard it here first. Well, apart from all the other newspapers who seemed to know all about it. Then, of course there were the listeners to Camping’s radio show, who also knew about it before anyone else… so perhaps we should more accurately say “you heard it here eventually.”
One person who was very disappointed when the world did not end was Jeff, from Wolverhampton. He told us: “I wanted the world to end because I was caught urinating on foxes. It was something I had always wanted to do. But now the world didn’t end people think I am kinda strange.” This is what happens when we interview people we find in chat rooms. Where is Graham when you need him?
To avoid confusion like this in the future we would like to suggest that prophecies of doom be kept considerably more vague. For example, Nostradamus was very vague indeed, thus avoiding embarrassment:
“The young lion will overcome the older one,
On the field of combat in a single battle;
He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,
Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.”
According to http://www.nostradamus101.com:
“In June 1559, Henry II ignored all warnings that Nostradamus gave him and participated in a jousting tournament against the Comte de Montgomery. Both men used shields embossed with lions. Montgomery was six years younger than Henry.
During the final bout of fighting in the tournament, Montgomery failed to lower his lance in time. It shattered, sending a large splinter through the king’s gilded visor (golden cage). The result was two moral wounds (two wounds made one and then he will die a cruel death.) One splinter spliced eye; the other impaled his temple just behind the eye. Both splinters from the lance penetrated his brain. Henry lived for ten days in agony, thus fulfilling the Nostradamus prophecy that he would die a cruel death.”
Had this not happened Nostradamus could simply have said, “I meant actual lions in Africa, and it so did happen.” You see, keep it vague; avoid embarrassment.
That said, should the world end in October we will of course retract this last suggestion.
