The Eclectic Interweb

Long ago in a far distant time, in the 1960’s I think, long before Dudley Moore had become Dudley Moore… or died of course… there was the brilliantly dangerous show “Not only but Also” starring Pete and Dud.

They’ve little to do with this post other than contributing the subject line and the immortal words of the signature song with which they ended each show. The words we’re interested in are:

Now is the time to say goodbye
Now is the time to yield a sigh (yield it, yield it)
Now is the time to wend our waaaaayyyyy
Until we meeet again
Some sunnnnnny daaaayyyyy.

Obviously it droned on a little longer after that snippet, but you get the drift.

So what has it to do with the post? Well… if you’ve not guessed… the “Large Hadron Collider”, a multi billion dollar particle accelerator is due to start operations sometime over the next 24 hours.  It’s purpose is to try to recreate conditions as closely replicating the ‘Big Bang’ that created our universe as possible.

Bearing in mind what happened after the *last* Big Bang you can appreciate that the prospect of doing on the surface of planet Earth is causing a little consternation… what with it being the only planet currently available for us to inhabit. There are claims that the experiments will cause a localised ‘black hole’ which will swallow Europe… or the entire world… or the entire solar system depending on how extreme a case you are proposing. There have even been claims that the experiments will open wormholes in time and space leaving us open to attack by creatures from another dimension.

I’ve never really understood why creatures from another dimension would *want* to attack us without a least discussing it first , but I’m a novice in these matters so am not in a position to judge really.

However I *can* see how the other claims regarding black hole creation is feasible, especially since this is one of the purposes of the experiments, and I must admit to being a little nervous about it. We’ve been assured thaat the collsions the ‘Collider’ is trying to create happen thousands of times a day out in space so there’s little or nothing to concern us. However… outer space is ‘out there’. This is here… on the planet surface where we’re all desperately trying to cling to life for all we’re worth… however much that might or might not be.

At the end of the day of course it makes no difference if I’m totally complacent or a nervous wreck because of it, I have no say in the matter and it will go ahead regardless.

So the point of the post (at last!) is just to say, in the (also immortal) words of Dougie Adams… “Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!”. With luck we’ll all be here tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that and we’ll look back on this episode with amusement, much as we now do at the Millennium Bug which was supposed to stop civilisation as we know it.

Of course… it’ll be a bit of a bugger if we *aren’t* here to read this tomorrow eh??

On the other hand, since the first actual collision experiment isn’t going to take place for 6 – 8 weeks our doom and gloom might be a little premature anyway, but I’m still saying goodbye now in case I’m not around after it happens! 😀