Apocalypse not now.

You still there? Didn't get taken away in the Rapture? Neither did I, but then I don't ever expect to be.

So the time passed and millions of people spectacularly stayed exactly where they were. There will no doubt be compensation claims flooding in from the idiots who gave up their jobs and spent all their money, also from all those squatters who thought they'd have a load of empty mansions to choose from. As if anyone in those mansions was really likely to be included!

It's a good thing it didn't work as expected. A rolling Armageddon, following 6 pm as it passes around the globe, was a terrible idea. I mean, we're at the end of Europe here. By the time we reached Heaven, the Poles would have finished the vodka, the Italians would have drunk all the wine and there'd be a German towel on every sun-lounger. All the Brits would turn up complaining that the timing clashed with teatime.

I wonder if smoking is banned in Heaven? I suspect not, since it's unlikely to harm the already dead and also because those who make a living by tormenting their fellow man aren't likely to get tickets. Sorry, Dreadful Arnott, it's eternity in the hot smoky place for you. Now that's what I call irony.

It's okay to laugh at doom-mongers. That's what they're for. it becomes even more amusing when doom-mongers laugh at other doom-mongers and then set about planning what they'll do after those troublesome Christians are taken off the planet.

There was a display of Olympic standard point-missing from Stephen Fry on Twitter.

Marvellous news! #rapture doesn't mean end of world. Apparently all the plantet's [sic] imbeciles disappear in one go. #dreamcometrue

No, you imbecile, the imbeciles stay. We wouldn't lose a single politician, human rights lawyer or council official who thinks he's Genghis Khan. We wouldn't lose the Westboro Baptist Church or any of those TV evangelists. If there is a God, and if the Rapture ever really happens, all the best people will go. The good ones, the noble ones, the selfless ones. Not the superinjuncted celebrities and not the chat show hosts. It'll be people nobody has even noticed.

Then there are the Green God's followers working out how they could selectively send American consumers to Heaven and how much better the world would be if they left. Sigh. You no more get to choose who goes than my tomato plants get to choose which ones go in grow-bags and which go in the compost. And when the good ones have been selected out, compost is all the rest can look forward to. They don't get to plan a new tomato paradigm after the good plants have been Raptured into a bag of soil. If a lot of people vanish, those who are still here had best get very, very drunk and stay that way because there would be nothing else left to do.

I'm not religious, but I'm not antireligious either. I don't follow a God but I recognise that I can't prove there isn't one so I go through life not worrying about it. Maybe there is, maybe there's not. I am an apathist.

If the Rapture really happens and God's chosen get swept up to Heaven, and the rest of us have to deal with the winding-down operation before God finally presses 'delete', well, too bad. I'm old, I've had a mostly good time and I wasn't expecting to go anywhere afterwards anyway. So, no loss.

Besides, eternity with me? Even God couldn't stand that.

I'm not even sure I could.