So I was reading this article at McSweeney’s, while our SQL server was rebooting, giving me time to browse conscience free. And I thought “what would go through your mind if the world ended like that?” Yeah, so if some cataclysmic universe-shattering event there’s not going to be a lot of time for considered reflection and life passing before your eyes, but humour me; if it was like a big-budget movie climax it would be in slow motion, from multiple expensive points of view, giving us time to witness everything blinking away into nothingness. What would flash through my mind, what would I think was happening?

Then I realised I wouldn’t have any profound thoughts. Distant bells would ring as I and my surroundings vapourised in glorious CGI effects, as I realised I’d read all about the chance of this happening. But I wouldn’t be able to remember where I’d read about it. My short term memory’s pretty bad. Last night I was sitting with friends watching Baddiel and Skinner rambling on about nothing on ITV and ten seconds after the final credits ended I couldn’t remember what I’d just been watching. It was about twenty seconds of scouring the switched-off regions of my brain before I remembered those chirpy chappies who had been singing Kung Fu Fighting only moments earlier.

So in my closing slo-mo seconds of existence, as the surrounding movie set shatters into nothing, as the film projecting it instantly burns and vanishes, I’ll be thinking “shit, I read about this, where the fuck was it… Slashdot, the Guardian, BBC News, Wired…