I don’t know how most people blog write but I have two main methods when I crack on with my writing massive in a daytime. I don’t want to give away any secrets of the blogic circle or anything, so if you just believe I use some kind of creative wizardy to cough on my laptop screen and all this tat appears then turn away now. I wouldn’t want your sodden tears on my hands. Or more likely your computer, which may break it and I can’t afford to be sued right now. One is that I simply start typing and hope that somehow it pulls together into a seamless and poignant bit of prose. Often this doesn’t happen and I write about something shit and lose even more regular readers because somehow I’ve churned out three paragraphs on toothpaste. More regularly though, I think of something specific to write about and then I simply start typing about it and hope that somehow it pulls together into a seamless and poignant bit of prose, which often doesn’t happen and I write about something shit again. Sigh. Anyway, today’s blog was very much the latter. It was going to be about something very specific indeed but then I got horribly distracted by a new bit of learned knowledge.
It was going to be all about the gig I did on Friday and Saturday and how I had expected it to be horrible due to type of show, location, and audience. Yet, it threw all of these possibilities in the bin and made sure they were taken out with the rest of the trash on trash collection day, as it turned out to be two nights of loveliness. I was going to remark about the way in which I am a judgemental twat and in fact the key elements of any gig are how its run (excellently in this case) and the people you are on with (all lovely in this case) and then blab on about more nuances of the comedy kingdom. That’s what you were going to get at least three paragraphs on. But then I read this:
IS THE END OF THE WORLD REALLY NIGH?
Now all of that is the same old same old that we usually hear about, but the bit that has been plaguing my mind since I even saw the word are the strangelets. Now maybe some of you knew about strangelets, but I most certainly did not. And if you did know, why on Earth didn’t you tell everyone and everything and let us all live in this constant state of panic that I now find myself in? Strangeltes, according to the Guardian brief definition are:
‘Quantum mechanics contains lots of frightening possibilities. Among them is a particle called a strangelet that can transform any other particle into a copy of itself. In just a few hours, a small chunk of these could turn a planet into a featureless mass of strangelets. Everything that planet was would be no more.’
I hate the term OMG, but it feels like an appropriate moment to use it. Further research says they are just a hypothetical particle, but this still means they might exist and this still means that one day, they might hit Earth, transform every particle on it to a strangelet and then we’ll all just cease to exist. Or worse, exist but as strange versions where we all eat our own limbs and have wonky faces. Ok, so science says nothing about that happening, but it might bloody happen. I could go into the actual science of it all and read up on it and tell you all that we really have nothing to worry about. But I won’t. Instead I think we should all be horrified of this possibility at all times.
For a start it makes things easier. I was worried about my gigs this weekend, them being situated in a part of England that is notorious for trouble of the violent kind, in a club that has a disco afterwards and is usually full of stags and hens. I was worried that my friendly material would go down like a lead balloon and all the residents would take it in turns to slam my head against their UV lit Ford Focus in the car park outside. Had I known about strangelets though, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because one day all those people will also become strangelets. The fact that they loved my material, that I stormed it every night and walked away being confused as to whether this is bad entertaining crowds I don’t particularly want to make a habit of performing too, or if this means I’m stronger all round as an act, also means nothing. Because I’ll become strangelets at some point too. As will the club. As will all the clubs, even the ones I like.
‘What about all the other end of the world possibilities Tiernan? What about the Earth being thrown off its solar system gravity whirl by a black hole? What about gamma rays or aliens or just everything exploding ever?’ Well – and I hope you read that in a whiny voice, because that’s the voice I imagine you to have – they all don’t matter as we might become strangelets first. Or after. Or ever. I will embrace being a strangelet if, sorry, when, it happens. I will have a ‘coolest strangelet tshirt’, which when I put it on would become a strangelet. I wouldn’t get upset when I went to play Xbox and it just become more strangelets. I’d totally cope. Let’s all start a new strangelet based religion. Strangism it will be called and basically we all do what the fuck we like because at some point we’ll all be strangelets anyway. Yeah? Or we can just sit and wait till it happens. Either way, hooray for strangelets, boo to strangelets and long live strangelets. What have we learnt from this new bit of information? That learning is bad, and I probably shouldn’t read those sorts of things before I chuck my daily thoughts into the world wide web. Not that it matters of course because……etc etc.
