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

I didn't do very well with my piece about the execution of Charles I. Skankyrich said it was 'competent' but 'a little flat'. Pinn pointed out that I had got the year wrong; the right year was 1649. Oh, dear.

The new challenge was to 'write an Entry that defends the indefensible.' This sent me into a flat spin. Were we expected to defend the Nazi concentration camps, or the slave trade? I might be just a scribbler but I have some integrity. So I set about thinking about something I could defend. I thought I might be able to write about Josef Fritzl - not defending him but trying to understand what made him tick.

Now I am a worrier and one of the worries that haunts me is that the human race may be rushing to its own destruction. Normally, I keep this worry locked up somewhere in the back of my mind and get on with my life. But on this occasion, it came hurtling out of its cage and demanded to be noticed. Could I write an article arguing that the human race is doomed?

I wasn't sure that this would meet the requirements of the competiton. If the Stretcher wanted us to defend the indefensible, didn't it mean some awful behaviour? What I was defending was an unthinkable idea. However, once I had thought of this subject, it would not go away, so I set about writing my article.

It was largely based on articles I had read in the New Scientist and The Guardian, with some up-to-date news from the Antarctic. By the time I had finished it, I was thoroughly depressed. How are we supposed to live if I am right? All I can say is that human life has always been insecure and the things we value are always transient.