The Pigeon Lives To See Another Day

Bit like the millennium when everyone thought the world was going to get eaten by a giant cyber bug, yesterday was the day we were all supposed to disappear into one great big giant fucking black hole. Did we? Did we fuck.

Saying that, turns out there’s still time…

A load of scientists in Switzerland have built something called the Large Hadron Collider and are currently trying to fire these things called protons at eachother. Protons are smaller than atoms, and therefore invisible to the human eye. Proton dodging is, however, a popular recreational past time for the pigeon. My eyesight isn’t great so I’m a bit shit to be honest.

Anyway, firing protons at eachother has never been done before and is supposed to re-create the same thing that happened when the universe was made. Mental. So – best case scenario – it accidentally creates a whole new Universe. Bonus. Worst case – all it does is spit out another Switzerland. Ok – so there’d be a few more ski resorts to choose from, but that’s about it. The bit they kept a bit quieter is the vague possibility that a huge black hole would start up large enough to swallow the entire planet and everything on it therefore bringing the world of the pigeon to a rudely abrupt end, which would be a shame.

Risky business all round. Whole thing has cost £4.4 billion – kid you not. Far as I can gather, it’s one big underground ring 17 miles long, which begs the question – why didn’t they just use the Underground? Granted you’d have to seal off stations so the cheeky protons couldn’t escape, but firing protons at eachother using, for argument’s sake, the Circle Line, has got to be a damn site more cost effective. I’d say definitely cheaper than £4.4 billion. Surprise, surprise, turns out the yanks have stumped up a fair wad. Funny that seeing as they’re further away from the whole thing than anyone else. Probably hoped that by the time the black hole got to America, it might be full up. Everything and everyone else would be in the black hole, apart from America. Bet that’s the plan.

Like I say, we’re still here, but they haven’t actually collided protons yet. Not as such. They’ve fired a couple of beams at eachother, but nothing has actually ‘collided’ per se.

So, this afternoon I went out and about asking a couple of pigeons what they’d do if word got out that the world was about to end at, say, midnight. Asked them what they’d do for the rest of the day if this was the last one they were going to get.

First off, I asked Henry. This is Henry:

Henry said he’d probably go get himself a nice massage. Get rid of some of that neck tension. Then, more than likely, he’d fly into the nearest Pizza Express and tuck into the the first pizza he saw, especially if there was one with a pepperoni topping.

Then I asked Will and Kathleen. This is Will and Kathleen:

In all fairness, I think they’d just had a bit of a fallout.

She said she’d liked to go grab herself a bit of ‘me time’, whatever the fuck that is. He said he’d go shag the first sort he found and then sink his beak into a pint of creamy Guinness. Fair play.

Not sure what I’d do. Maybe have one more go at ‘The Eye Game‘ for old time’s sake? Not done that in ages.

Sadly, I don’t think we’d get much warning, so all this is pretty much by the by.

Here’s some more info on the whole deal.