With the Millenn-ium Bug panic now (hopefully) out of the way, it hasn't taken long for the scaremongers to find something else to cause us sleepless nights.

This week it's been asteroids: great lumps of rock hurtling about the solar system just waiting to crash into the earth and blast us all into oblivion.

Why can't the "experts" and the pundits leave the public's peace of mind alone instead of chipping away at it all the time? Haven't we got enough to cope with, what with global warming, holes in the ozone layer, the link between "Mad Cow Disease" and human CJD, possible terrorist attacks, the countless wars taking place around the globe (many of which have the potential to flare up into a nuclear conflict), and the threat of skin cancer unless we wear a long-sleeved jumper, balaclava and total sunblock all summer?

There is no point in worrying about things you can do nothing about. That's what I tell myself....again, and again, and again. One of these days I might start to believe myself.

And none of us can do anything if our planet should find itself on a collision course with a big asteroid - except, apparently, fire nuclear weapons at it to try to destroy or divert it, an approach which surely offers only an alternative route to oblivion.

So I curse the people who raise these scares yet are unable to offer any comfort.

There is no imminent prospect of asteroid collision. It's millions of years since one hit the earth with sufficient impact to wipe out a species. That, according to informed opinion, is why the dinosaurs suddenly vanished.

If mankind suffered a similar fate, it would probably be no bad thing for the rest of the species with which we share the planet. As late arrivers on the scene, we haven't exactly proved to be a boon and a blessing.

But I prefer to trust that even with my bad luck this won't be the particular moment in time at which it chooses to happen.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.