Robert McNeil: Better class of prophet of doom required if the end is to be nigh in the near future

I WAS sorry to read that the end of the world is not nigh. This has ruined all my plans. What am I supposed to do with all this tinned food, for a start? And I may as well scrap that insurance policy. The end of the world never really happens. Just when you get your hopes up, governments break the grim news that it looks like the planet is good for a few millennia yet.

Yesterday-ish, the world's toppermost boffins gathered in a community centre to thrash out the question: "Look, are we all going to peg out or what?" The answer was: "or what?"

Twirling his woolly hat in his fingers, one leading scientist promised: "We are not going to go the way of the dinosaurs." Well, it's nice to think one's clavicle won't be found in dried mud millennia hence before being displayed in a museum for kiddies of a future species to gawp at.

The latest unpopular finding is that we're unlikely to die in a nuclear war, because the Americans and Russians have cut their weapon stocks. True, Iran retains the possibility of becoming a pain in the arsenal. But, even there, experts think the risk "manageable".

You say: "What aboot asteroids, but? Every other day, there's an article claiming one is on the way and advising us to wear a hat." But this, unusually for stories in the press, is poppycock. Every day, in observatories around the world, trained men in thick spectacles scour the skies. At 5pm, their supervisor asks: "Anything?" And they say: "Nope." And the supervisor says: "Goodnight." And they say: "See you tomorrow."

There's absolutely nothing coming this way, as usual. Nothing ever happens in ooter space. It was the great hope of the 1960s that there'd be new, inhabitable planets, or aliens fully qualified in inter-galactic counselling. But there's been nowt. Nada. Zip. The universe, it seems, is a waste of space.

Back here on Planet Daftie, the only real fear remaining is that computers will get so brainy they'll control the humans and wipe them – us! Nearly gave the game away there – out.

But what are the chances, eh? My computer can already do calculations faster than I can, but it's intelligent enough to know that, if it starts mucking about, it gets headbutted. (That was a joke, by the way, if there are any computers reading this.) But, until the computers learn to headbutt us, I think we're pretty safe.

I remember, a couple of years ago, reading a lot of stuff about a new movement dedicated to the suicide of human life on Earth. But that seems to have died a death. Species self-hatred doesn't exist in the same way as, say, Scottish self-hatred, which is a unique phenomenon.

Despite all this gloom, many folk, particularly of a religious bent, have predicted the end of the world with uncanny inaccuracy. I've often fancied getting into this line of work myself.

First, you get a funny hat and, maybe, a cloak. Then you write a book containing your principles ("Pay only £250 now and the rest later"), and start up a movement. On the appointed day of doom, you march your followers to the top of a hill and raise your arms skywards, with one eye on your watch.

Then you wait. And wait. And wait … And several hours after the appointed time, one of your followers declares: "Sod this, I'm going home for a bacon buttie." You explain you must have multiplied instead of dividing. But, slowly, everyone drifts away, and you say: "I'm just going this way."

Then you head off down the other side of the hill to where you'd parked your sports car earlier. You zoom off to access your Swiss bank account and relocate to sunny Blackpool, where you live happily ever after.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing like the truth

BEARDED people everywhere are up in arms about mass-murdering loonie, Radovan Karadzic, trying to pass himself off as one of us. Mind you, his soup-strainer was a whopper, with foliage reaching nearly to his chest. It's interesting that, as soon as he was bunged in chokey, he instructed the guards to shave his beard off so he could look like a normal mass-murderer.

Even more noteworthy was the ease with which, before capture, he'd set himself up as an alternative healer, concocting some mumbo-jumbo aboot human dynamic potential. The diploma on his wall had the word "woodwork" scored out, and the word "counselling" scrawled over it.

This was good enough for most people in Serbia, where Karadzic used to drink in a local bar called The Madhouse and live off kebabs and yoghurt.

People often ask me if I make up the stuff in this column and I answer honestly, through a solicitor: "All of this is true, except perhaps my name, my nationality, and a small proportion of the facts.

"Other than that there is not a word of a lie."

Solicitor: "Allegedly."

Me: "Allegedly."

But, really, you couldn't make up stuff like this. In The Madhouse, after a few flagons of slivowitz (plum brandy – possibly with Lilt), Karadzic would start entertaining the lieges with his gusle, a traditional wind instrument inserted in the nostril and played with foot pedals. He'd also written a volume of poetry called Under The Left Breast of the Century. His poems include "These Aren't My Trousers", "Cheesecake For Tea", and "A Bald Hamster Sings".

Many people, in times of distress, exclaim: "This cannot be real!" Take it from me, as a visitor to this planet, they are correct.

Ditch water for the hard stuff

THE nation doesn't know what to drink. I refer not to alcoholic drink – we'll have anything, as long as it makes us squiffy – but to soft drinks, which are seen increasingly as dangerous. One poor chap has died, another is in a serious condition, after drinking too much water.

Top experts down the pub now say all that advice about drinking a gallon of water a day is baloney. As for bottled water, you'd be better slurping from a puddle. Fruit juice fares no better. Yesterday's shock news was that fresh fruit drinks are so sugary, you'd be as well sticking your Berwick Cockles in the juicer. My advice to the nation: stick to alcohol, but don't drink socially – that's when the trouble starts.