Not long until Doomsday...

We are 100 seconds from midnight. And midnight in this case does not mean missing the last bus home. It refers to humankind being wiped off the face of the planet, thanks to our sick lust for nuclear war and shrink-wrapped baked bean value packs.

I know what you’re thinking: “100 seconds! That’s barely time to boil an egg.”

Grab a banana instead.

On the plus side… the clock isn’t a real clock.

You don’t want to be using the Doomsday Clock to set your watch, not least because it goes backwards as well as forwards. Since its invention in 1947, the big hand has wavered between 17 minutes to midnight and last year’s disturbing two minutes to midnight. Waving, as well as drowning!

As a thought-provoking device, it has done a sterling job in focusing our minds on how close we are to destroying our planet – until last week, that is. While our stern-faced scientists are right to move the big hand closer to midnight, to issue the warning in seconds rather than minutes has diminished its impact.

It’s a bit like when you were a kid and your mother gave you ten seconds to tidy your room or your Angel Delight would be fed to the dog.

“One, two, three...” she’d start at a rate of knots with you racing around in a panic. She’d slow at “four, five, six” but you keep chucking toys in boxes. You are frantic at “Seven … eight … nine...” And then she goes “Nine and a half...” NINE AND A HALF? Suddenly, you have more time than you thought. In fact, after “nine and three quarters” you relax. What next? “Nine and 56 one-hundredths!” You just know your pudding is safe.

So it is with the scientists and their Doomsday Clock. I suspect there is no warning when the end of the world is nigh. The dinosaurs were living the life of Riley just after teatime (5.45pm by the Doomsday Clock) then, wham, wiped out by a meteorite!

A hundred seconds to midnight is not so much a portent of doom, but a metaphorical ticking off from your mum.