Aug 5th, 2020

Author: donich_admin

The Nine Billion names of God

There is a great story by Arthur C Clarke. It involves two westerners visiting a Tibetan monastery where for hundreds of years, the monks have been engaged in cataloguing the nine billion names of God; when complete the world will end. They install a computer system to finish the task, without any belief that there will be any effect. The computer finishes the tasks in a few days, and as the engineers walk down back the hill they notice that “overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out”.

Well now as well as the fuss they have unneededly made about their stupid virus, our road lifeline has been closed for an indefinite time due to “rain”. None of the precautions they have taken with their pits and nets had any effect and there was another huge landslide. I told them two years ago that this would happen and we needed a tunnel (like in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France and every other civilized country). So all our ASDA orders have been cancelled. I’ve tried to get a Morrisons order from Dunoon – we will see if it turns up. At least we have a car and can drive to Dunoon – God knows what happens to people who don’t have a car.

So basically in Argyll “overhead, without any fuss, the stars are going out”.