Apocalypse now and then...

Harold Camping, who incorrectly predicted that the world would end last May, has claimed it will now happen today. Camping, 90, stated that Judgement Day would take place on May 21, when Jesus would return to Earth and the righteous would be taken up to Heaven.

He predicted an Apocalypse once before, in 1994, though followers now say that only referred to an intermediary stage. Those earlier predictions having failed, he now claims that today, October 21, will be the actual Apocalypse.

As I ran around the Bay tonight, I had one eye focused on the sky, on the lookout for an old man with grey hair and a full beard shaking his fists at me from a break in the clouds, pointing and then sending a plague of locusts and all manner of catastrophes my way. The clouds didn't part and I didn't see anyone.

After my run I was going to tidy the flat in time for the big bang; I wouldn't want God and a heavenly choir turning up and me embarassed by some cleaning I'd neglected. But then I got to thinking; let's face it, in the first few days after the Apocalypse who out of the survivors is gonna be concentrating on the state of my skirting boards? In the unlikely event that I'm chosen, I think it would be a little churlish for someone to point out a smudge or smear I'd missed on the mirror in the hall. I expect they'd be far too preoccupied with their own rapture.

But then, they do say that cleanliness is next to godliness.