On the Large Hadron Collider

There was always the hope, this morning, that it would go mildly wrong and the scientists would turn on Andrew Marr and offer him up to the gods as a placatory sacrifice. Of course I don't believe for one moment that today was the first time they had tried it out, the thing's probably been up and running for ages. To begin with there would have been a lot of faffing about, with dialogue boxes popping up saying 'cannot find drivers for new hardware', and they'd have lost the set-up CD that came with the thing (and you can imagine how much packaging there'd be to go rooting through). Then there'd be a good twenty minutes phoning the helpdesk in Mumbai at 2.19CHF a minute, who would finally tell them to do something really simple like switch off the anti-virus or the screensaver.

Sorry to be banging on about this, but it looks as though I shall have to have that meeting after all. Anyone who has read Orwell's account of being called upon to shoot a Burmese elephant will understand my feelings.

I know there are consolations. My father had high hopes for his runner beans next year and, though he would not say so aloud, his carrots. I may yet see 'Whistlejacket' restored to its rightful place in the National Gallery. I've got about thirty-five quid to get through on my Oyster card. There'll be a big new Waitrose opening on the Edg Rd in December, just where Woolies used to be.

But then, but then. Palace have got off to a really poor start this season and prospects aren't good. I've still got to get around to arranging some arcane bank account thing. Lots of laundry needs doing, and most of what is clean needs ironing. Have been invited to a friend's wedding in October, really they're both fine people but I'd rather not. And, again, that meeting.

So if it can still go proper tits-up, preferably between now and about half-three tomorrow afternoon, I wouldn't entirely mind.