Still here. Damn it.

Well, neither I nor anyone I know was Raptured, which is a profound disappointment: though the high wind warnings and Wolves' continuing Premiership tenancy are surely signs of the End Times.

Apart from the obvious benefits of getting rid of some religious zealots and the fun of seeing the other religious zealots left behind confounded (hopefully including the spiteful authors of Left Behind), I wanted to drift off in the knowledge that all my marking didn't matter any more. I'm a long way behind and time's getting extremely tight. I spent the weekend marking dissertations - including your effort, Ewar.

Anyhoo, I thought you'd like to hear another perspective on the Rapture:

'I mean, you're right about the fire and war, all that. But that Rapture stuff - well, if you could see them all in Heaven - serried ranks of them as far as he mind can follow and beyond, league after league of us, flaming swords, all that, well, what I'm trying to say is who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the parched and burning earth below them? If that's your idea of a morally acceptable time, I might add. 

And as for that stuff about Heaven inevitably winning… Well, to be honest, if it were that cut and dried, there wouldn't be a Celestial War in the first place, would there? It's propaganda. Pure and simple. We've got no more than a fifty percent chance of coming out on top. You might just as well send money to a Satanist hotline to cover your bets, although to be frank when the fire falls and the seas of blood rise you lot are all going to be civilian casualties either way. Between our war and your war, they're going to kill everyone and let God sort it out - right?'

This is of course Aziraphale, rather naughtily hijacking the body of a Televangelist, in Pratchett and Gaiman's glorious Good Omens (1990), which you really need to read. It's got an added bonus for me: the real Anti-Christ in the novel bears the same name as my very good friend who works in banking and was a Tory - and is therefore a good candidate.