Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well what a surprise. The end of the world is still only nigh, not been and gone.

It says much for Harold Camping's 'research' and 'knowledge' of the bible, that only he and a few credulous followers believed that the world was ending on 21 May 2011. Virtually no-one else did, be they Atheists or Christians of credible denominations, or people of other religions entirely. Even the bible, the source of Mr Camping's 'information' says quite starkly and explicitly, "But of that day and hour knoweth no [man], no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Matthew 24:36.

That looks pretty definitive to me.

What of the poor misguided saps who sold up and/or spent their life's savings publicising this non-event? Harold Camping himself seems to have disappeared. Presumably to think through his error. Certainly not to live in splendour on his $25 million fortune, surely? I say this with confidence because we know that high profile evangelists never defraud their followers, don't we?

Camping hasn’t been seen since 6pm local time, 21 May. There exists, the infinitesimal possibility that he was the only man ‘raptured’ of course.

As usual, you’re just getting used to the weekend and there it is: gone. It’s taken me a long time to wake up this morning and my typing is frankly tragic; thank God for the spell checker. I could have easily stayed dozing on the tube down to Morden¹; when I changed on to the Victoria Line at Euston I stood so that I wouldn’t risk dozing off and ending up in Brixton. That nearly didn’t work, but here I am with a cup of not very strong coffee (locally the supermarkets seem to have stopped stocking large jars of strong instant coffee and I get fed up with paying extra for small jars and I forgot top nip in to Waitrose before leaving Whetstone.), just about awake.

Odd dream last night. Most of the details have faded as usual, but I do recall that it involved a party for person or persons unknown set in one of those four-storey Victorian townhouses you see all over central London, with a fair bit of garden out the back. The entire place seemed to be decorated in rustic bar style and there were rock’n’roll posters everywhere, including adverts for local record shops where you could buy all manner of stuff, some of it actually legal. This was all odd enough, like being stuck inside some 1960s acid movie when it went all Italian Job on me and someone drove a car in through the door from what I knew to be the top of a stair well with very steep stairs in it.

At the time this seemed quite unremarkable. I recall, just before waking up, discussing with a bunch of bemused hippies how we were going to get the car back down the stairs since the driver had gone and none of us could work out how he did it. Someone suggested tipping the car on its side and sliding it down to the next landing…

¹The land of Morden, where the shadows lie. It never gets old.