A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ILAST Sunday a great many people in Rome became suddenly and inexplicably convinced that the world was going to end at midnight on Monday; the Vatican had to issue a statement saying "there is nothing to warrant the present Panic." When I read about this I began to wonder how, if the tritish nation knew for a fact that the world was going to end in twenty-four hours' time, it would spend those hours. I suppose that most people, including many who had not done such a ,thing for years, would go to church. What else would happen ? .xeept for midwives, stockmen, BBC announcers,/ the crews of ships at sea and keepers in zoological gardens, hardly any- body would have any reason to do any work. If the Govern- trient recoMmended a "Business as usual" policy, would it Work? There wouldn't be much point in the shops or the banks staying open, since money and goods would be value- less; and the schools (which in Rome were poorly attended on Monday) might just as well be closed. It would, on the other hand, be a pity to cancel cricket fixtures. Cricket is one of the few forms of human activity which would not be robbed, both for players and spectators, of all meaning and all interest by the fact that the world was about to end; it would still be Worth hitting a six or holding a catch when designing a cathedral or assassinating a tyrant had become completely Pointless acts. But I suspect that most people would spend an anxious, frustrated and probably rather boring day, irked by remembrance of all the things they had always wanted to do a, nd by the realisation that, if it was not too late, it was either "Possible or useless to do them now.
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