The dis­as­ter ate Europe, from Paris to Helsinki, stretched the British Isles like warm taffy, but thank God, a team of boffins some­where in Reuni­fied Korea did up the maths and devel­oped the pro­to­types and found a way to freeze the black hole as it sank. I’m not clear on how they did it, some­thing to do with mag­netrons and directed plasma streams and res­o­nant gravi­tonic exci­ta­tion. See, I know the big words, but you might as well tell me it was done by young women danc­ing naked in an ash grove at mid­night under the full moon.

Actu­ally, I’d pay to see that. Gravi­tonic exci­ta­tion sounds a lit­tle drab next to pert young—

Sorry, got side­tracked. Hap­pens more and more as I get older.

So yeah, you asked about the Great Black Hole Caper, did you? Well, sorry to dis­ap­point you, but there wasn’t really a caper per se. More of a colos­sal clusterfu—uh, sorry, can’t say words like that on the telly, can you now?

Oh, you can? Well, at any rate.

See, it all started at CERN …