h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

“DYING IN A NUCLEAR WAR”
BY SUSAN MARY ROBERTSON

A luminous watch.
A radioactive low energy light bulb.
A sun lamp.
An X-ray machine.
Luminous paint.
Luminous curtains.
Luminous carpets.
Noisy vibrating hot water boiler.
Noisy vibrating refrigerator.
Noisy vibrating extractor fans.
Fusty burning smells.
Smells of gas like carbon monoxide.
Glowing in the dark.

Friends of the Earth marches.
United Nations Association meetings.
Pandemic of AIDS/HIV, rabies, polio, malaria, pneumonia.
Coughing, pain, fatigue, exhaustion,
paralysis, confusion, migraine, delirium, hysteria.
Hammersmith Hospital.
Charing Cross Hospital.
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
Bombs in London, New York, Madrid.
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Holiday in Egypt.

United Nations 60th Anniversary Service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
London Zoo, Madame Tussaud’s, Planetarium,
BBC, Science Museum, Kew Gardens.
Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park.
Tate Modern.
Battersea Park.
Battersea Power Station.
Greenwich Park.
Trafalgar Square.
Windsor Castle.
Optician, eye test, mammogram, dentist, pharmacist, psychiatrist.

Walking on earthquakes.
Walking on volcanoes.
Flying in helicopter air ambulances.
Flying in Harrier jets.
Flying all round the world many times like Superman.
Orange uranium.
Blue gas plutonium.
Sky blue neptunium.
Brown black americium.
Turned grey by thorium to stable isotopes of lead and iridium.
Just avoiding explosions and implosions.
Just avoiding extreme heat, burnt earth, freezing and Ice Age.
Even the Moon nearly blew up.
Harvest Moon.

Electric thunderstorms.
Jets. UFO’s (unidentified flying objects).
Satellites, reconnaissance planes, Sputniks.
Fireworks at Bishops Park.
Lord Mayors Show with flypast by four helicopters and four jets.
Remembrance Service at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s.
Christmas lights in Regent Street, Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square.
Films at cinema: Ice Age 2, The Da Vinci Code, Tristan and Isolde, Superman Returns, X-Men the Last Stand, Pretty Woman, Bridget Jones’ Diary, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Happy Feet.
Monty Python’s Spamalot musical comedy (funnier than the Black Death) at Palace Theatre.
Saying goodbye to Northenders, Southenders, Eastenders, Westenders.

Radiation sickness.
Iodine antidote, spat out a hundred tons of lead and iridium.
Cancer.
My skin and teeth turned green, orange, blue, brown, purple and grey.
My hair turned purple then grey and even thinner than usual.
Nausea, coughing, blood clots from nose and mouth.
Needles and pins sensation in hands, arms, legs and feet.
Feeling weak, sick, tired, exhausted, shattered and shocked.
Worried about the long term effects on the environment.

Love and best wishes for future peace, health, freedom, prosperity and happiness to family, friends and future generations.

THE END.

there's a quote about the quantity of plutonium required to construct an Hiroshima level nuclear bomb being the same size
as a cola bottle, but what size of cola bottle is not given.
Presumably a small one. Maybe a 0.35 ltr bottle if there is
such a size but not being a cola drinker myself I wouldn't
know. But I suppose if you shook up a 0.35 ltr cola bottle
and then let all the fizzy stuff out you'd get some idea of
what a plutonium explosion might look like. On a small scale of
course. And then I can't help but think of the price in money
of a cola bottle and if they still make cola bottles from glass
or if nowadays there are only plastic cola bottles such as one
may find on beaches. Curiously they are always to be found on beaches that have broken blocks of white material called poly-
styrene on them. There seems to be some harmony between cola
bottles and polystyrene. But about the cost I mentioned. In money terms it can't be much per bottle but in tax terms it must be
enough to pay someone to fill a cola bottle with plutonium
and then leave it on a polystyrene beach somewhere lying in the sun maybe next
to a deckchair attendant's umbrella
somewhere
I would have thought
but then not being a cola person myself
or a polytyrene beach person
I wouldn't know,
in fact the only thing I know for sure about cola and polytyrene and plutonium and beaches is that there's this quote about the quantity of plutonium required