The end is nigh... or maybe it isn't... or maybe it is again

When I turned on the TV news this morning, the headline said “BREAKING NEWS - Another explosion at Japanese power plant - fear of reactor meltdown” It was like waking up in the middle of a 50s sci-fi B-movie trailer. I felt like checking my legs to see if I’d started mutating or not.
I spent the rest of the day in one of my depressive moods, thinking ‘God, it’s all over. I’m the happiest I’ve been this century, I’ve found true love, and we’re about to be wiped out by a radioactive cloud from the Land of the Rising Sun. Thank you, Sons of Nippon.’ Anticipating the end, I got out my ultra-reliable explorer’s compass (that came out of a cracker in Xmas 2004), made sure I was facing the Far East, and waited to see Armageddon. I sat there for hours, and apart from some rain clouds and a suspicious looking pigeon, there was nothing.
At 5 o’clock, I came back indoors, turned the TV back on and the headline WAS EXACTLY THE SAME. They were even replaying the ‘expert analysis’ by some boffin undergrad from Cambridge that I’d woken up to TEN HOURS EARLIER. If this reactor is in the throes of meltdown it must be melting at the speed of a frigging candle.
God I hate 24-hour news channels.

RC 14-3-11