Oops. I guess this is why building particle accelerators with incomplete plans is a bad idea...

Just a quick, regretful note to everyone to say that my home-built particle accelerator, based (mostly) upon the Popular Mechanics design (May, 1976) seems to have come a bit unstuck, and has imploded into a semi-stable black hole that will - in all likelyhood - compress our planet, and everything on it, into an object the size of a gumball.

Sucks, I know.

I am typing this from the passenger seat of a Tornado GR4 strike fighter which is currently racing in nap-of-earth configuration, using the terrain-following-radar at an entertaining altitude of 100ft, in a mad attempt to stay ahead of the singularities' wavefront as it eats Romania behind us. (I can tell the difference between types of underclothing on the clothes lines below, and we have collected at least two box kites thus far.)

The jet is being flown by a slightly drunk RAF pilot named Lester whom I managed to drag out of a local pub, and with whom I absconded this supersonic means to prolong my existance for a matter of hours before the inevitable occurs, and I am spaghettified like the rest of humanity into a final, subatomic crush.

Lester says 'hi,' by the way.

We are currently cruising at subsonic speeds to conserve fuel, but will likely be ramping up to Mach 2 in order to avoid the gauntlet of former-Soviet air defenses as we enter the airspace of the C.I.S.

Lester gives us 12:1 for being eaten by the black hole (which is warping time and space behind us like a mother****er) and 14:1 for being shot down by those crazy Russians.

Since we're likely to run out of fuel somewhere in the vicinity of Tunguska, Siberia anyhow, the point is moot. (Hm. I always wanted to visit Tunguska. I wonder what it's like this time of year...)

In any case, the reason for making all this info known (by way of a neat SatLink military laptop I stole from the Base Commander's desk on the way to the airfield) is to say sorry to everyone at GT that I've come to know in the past weeks, and to give them all an opportunity to bet their life savings on Lester's odds, should they seek a distraction from all the impending doom and destruction and whatnot. I will endeavor to provide an update of our demise at the last moment, giving all you betting types the chance to make or lose their fortunes in the last seconds before total annihilation.

Take care, gang, and look on the bright side: either we're all about to be spewed into another universe through the timespace gate of my mini-blackhole (the whole point of the experiment, actually) or we're all going to find out the truth about the afterlife.

Oh, and for those detail-oriented types who are wondering how fast the singularity wavefront is moving (yawn) Lester estimates that it is going at about 759meters per second at this point, and given that the origin was outside of London, that means that North America will be spaghettified in about, uh...

Math was never one of my strong points.

Oh well.

P.S. Lester wanted me to add that we seem to be carrying two medium-yield nuclear bombs, which he is considering letting loose at the last moment, mainly because he's a big fan of 'Dr Strangelove' and wants to see what one of those babies can really do.

P.P.S. Anyone know what happens when you lob a nuke into an expanding black hole? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Anybody got Stephen Hawking's email address?