THIS IS PLANET EARTH

AS I WRITE THIS I AM FULLY AWARE of the fact that, given my recent record of publication of this web-log, this may be my last. Unlike many of those closest to me, I am not deeply upset about the idea of the “world” coming to an “end”. Instead, being someone interested in language, I would like to know what exactly this “world” which will “end” happens to be.

 

I HAVE, INCREDUOUSLY, READ about planets that are “hiding behind the Sun”, and will attack Earth on the 21st of December. This sounds rather worrying, at first, until one starts to think about how a “planet” (according to the faithful of this belief) can “hide” behind the Sun. Nevertheless, as some very strange things have happened in the past, there is always the chance that whatever planet or asteroid that these good people believe to be lurking out in the dark matter “behind” the small star we call our Sun may in fact come hurtling out of its hiding place and attack me at some moment during the day that we now call the 21st of December.

 

HOWEVER, WHEN I THINK ABOUT THESE ISSUES on a serious level, I have a certain difficulty in understanding how a planet “knows what day it is”, as it were, given that many of the people in my immediate reach are often not totally sure of this fact. Indeed, even this very morning, I snuggled up to my good lady wife in our conjugal bed and asked her whether it was Friday or Saturday. Unfortunately, it was, and still is, Friday.

 

SO THE KNOWLEDGE CONTAINED in whatever planet that has been hanging around for five thousand years in preparation to destroy us is phenomenal.

 

(My photo shows an impression of what the people who are going to destroy the Earth might look like. They are intergalactic criminals known as Duran Duran and Rumpoy von Rumpoy Dumpty)