You know that special person? You've got one- everyone does. They might not necessarily be the person you share your bed with at night, your nearest and dearest. They might be a friend for whom your love is unrequited. They might be the one that got away all those years ago. They might be the mythically beautiful person you see on the bus every morning. You might never have even met them. But there's someone, somewhere who gets your heart pounding and your mind racing. Someone who does for you the best thing anyone can do for another person- they make you feel, for want of a better word, funny.

Think of that person. Now, tell them how you feel. Go on. Do it. Find the way to track them down and let them know, right now, that there's someone in the world for them and that someone is you. Tell them now, I'll wait here for you. And be quick about it.

Because you're about to die.

The harbinger of your impending doom, like so little else in human history, comes from Switzerland and goes by the rather bland name of 'The Large Hadron Collider'. Essentially, it's a 17 mile circular tunnel 100 metres below the Franco-Swiss border which is currently in the process of being cooled to -271.25 degrees centigrade. When this is done, the scientists who run it will then start firing beams of protons in opposite directions round the tunnel and make them crash into each other, thereby replicating conditions that prevailed within a few millionths-of-a-second of the Big Bang. And the reason they're doing all this is to test their current model of particle physics which, as they put it themselves, "is known to break down at a certain energy level".

Let's go through that again. A bunch of men in white coats realise that a very important theory of how absolutely everything fits together at the most minute level breaks in certain extreme conditions. 'Extreme conditions' being, in this case, an alternative way of saying 'The Big Bang'. They therefore have decided to recreate those exact same conditions or 'Big Bang' in a great big underground tunnel and just see what happens. Oh, and it'll all happen at light-speed.

Little wonder then that more than a few people are a tad worried that, since no-one knows what's going to actually take place, it's entirely possible that the experiment will do something like creating a black hole and swallow the Earth into itself.

The scientists at the colider themselves state that this is ludicrous as "there is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be produced by the Large Hadron Collider", which is frankly a bit rich from a bunch of chaps who are basically trying to demonstrate that one of their main theories doesn't work properly.

It's worth getting worried about what might happen when the collider goes online as boffins (a name used by The Sun to describe all those of the ilk of scientists and inventors- a deliberately light-hearted term the newspaper uses to take the sting out of sullying itself with stories of human excellence and achievement) don't have a partcularly impressive track record with health and safety when they're on the cusp of great discoveries. John Logie Baird, for example, managed during one of his early experiments in creating television to blow the entire power grid of Glasgow. In a similar vein a chap called Antonio Meucci- who the United States House of Representatives recently passed a motion honouring as the true inventor of the telephone- only came up with his idea after electrocuting his wife and hearing the sound travel down the wire. If this is what happened with two blokes who were only working on transmitting electronic signals across tiny distances, heaven only knows what'll transpire when those Swiss scientists attempt to recreate the birth of the Universe.

Which is why this is probably a good time to do everything (and, indeed, everyone) that you ever wanted to. Some scientists have postulated that if the hadron collider does create a little black hole of it's own it won't engulf the planet instantly, but rather take it's own sweet time going about it- which means that the whole of humanity will have a clock over it counting down unerringly towards annihilation.

Now if you're a fan of the movies, particularly the glut of disaster films from the late-90s that featured Earth teetering on the brink of destruction from aliens or an asteroid or something, then you'll know the drill. We all desperately try to flee the cities and get stuck in traffic or huddle up with our families by the TV and radio awaiting news of whether Will Smith or Bruce Willis has miraculously saved us all with seconds to spare. Then we all cheer, embrace tearfully and listen to a speech by President Morgan Freeman.

I've got a feeling that, in real life, this won't actually happen. Ask yourselves, is that really how you want to spend your final few hours and days on this planet, knowing that the end of everything is just around the corner? For a start off- and let's not be coy about this- who, knowing that impending armageddon will expunge all awkward consequences, wouldn't want to give mass, unadulterated fucking-on-the-streets a bash? Just imagine a great big, winner-takes-all, grab-the-nearest-stranger, thronging mass of limbs and fluids rolling merrily up the high street and into oblivion. Like Newcastle on a Friday night. That's a fitting way to give life a send-off.

Mind you, I did start this piece by stating that everyone should go out and find their special someone before time runs out, and it would take an extraordinary stroke of luck to dive head first (figuratively speaking) into a mass Book of Revelations orgy and happen to catch hold of your one true soulmate. But then again, a bookmaker once set the odds of Earth getting swallowed by a black hole in the next 50 years at 100 million-to-one. So things going horribly wrong in that reactor under the soil of Switzerland could turn out to be the luckiest thing that ever happened to us all and the chances of inadvertantly porking your spiritual muse seem tiny and easily surmountable by comparison. Or, alternatively, you could just play similar odds by buying a lottery ticket.

Either way you'd be getting screwed.

I have a problem. I have, as I often do, an urge to write- God knows why but I do. This happens to me quite a lot of the time but, as is currently the case, the urge has failed to conincide with actually having anything to write about. That's not to say there hasn't been anything going on in the world on which I could decide to pass comment and judgement from my Ivory Tower (i.e. 2nd floor flat in Warrington).

I could write about Wimbledon, which has kept me nicely occupied for the past two weeks. I've actually kind of fallen out of love with tennis and it's annual jaunt to SW19 in recent years. When I was growing up, it was a fascinating opportunity for my young eyes to witness the horrors of intense, naked psychological meltdown as the likes of McEnroe, Lendl and Connors went utterly mental with every lost point and dodgy line call- raging against the dying of the light in a variety of ill-fitting shorts and tragically misguided hair. At the other end of the court there would invariably be some huge blond Scandinavian or German pumping the ball through the air with ruthless efficiency and detached menace. It was like Die Hard on grass and it was utterly spellbinding.

But, in recent years, those efficient players seemed to totally take over- their domination epitomised by Pete " " Sampras- a man so unremmitingly level-headed he made Tiger Woods look like Genghis Khan. In tandem with him would be a succession of plucky, unloveable Brits ready and willing to disappoint for their country in-between the rain-breaks. When federer arrived on the scene he appeared for a while be even more relentlessly dull than Sampras- he was even Swiss for God's sake. And then Rafael Nadal turned up. Dressed like a pirate dipped in Daz and made entirely out of biceps he pushed Federer close in last year's final and then, this time out, pipped him to the post in possibly the greatest sporting contest ever witnessed by anyone ever. It was so good even the persistent showers seemed to add to the drama rather than just get in the way as usual- it seemed God himself was orchestrating events from the heavens. I always thought seeing Steve Redgrave win his fifth Olympic gold was as good as sport got; but this year's Wimbledon final went a step further as, following over 4 hours of see-sawing battle, Roger Federer collected his runner-up shield with grace and humility all while wearing a preposterous cardigan and, incredibly, not looking stupid. Surely these two are Gods among men.

I could write about all this, but I won't. Simon Barnes, the suspiciously hippy-looking chief sportswriter for The Times, does it much better and you'd be well advised to check out his writing on this and any other tournament.

I could write about Euro 2008, a football tournament for once unsullied by English spot-kick tragedy and instead graced by goals in their thousands and a couple of games that cocked a snook at end-of-season tiredness by not kicking into life until deep into injury time. This was a tournament in which the right team won and Michael Ballack turned out to be a compelling titan who we were all willing to forget, however briefly, mostly earns his crust in West London at the heart of the least likeable team in the history of European sport.

Fascinating narratives abounded throughout. Fernando Torres, looking like a 14 year old schoolgirl in a squad of bronzed Ibeiran galcticos, lead the line with guile and brilliance and still got substitued in every match by his unhinged coach. Luca Toni paid back all his pre-competition hype by spooning an inglorious succession of six-yard-box chances high and wide in a series of increasingly bizarre and desperate ways- as though he was trying to win the Turner Prize rather than the world's third biggest sporting event. Gary Neville, in the ITV studio-cum-bunker, came staggeringly close to allaying all the antipathy usually aimed at him for his shop-steward badge-kissing persona by proving to be the sharpest pundit around- only to spoil everything by wearing preposterous facial hair.

I could write about this, but I won't. As with every footballing shindig there's been acres of writing covering every possible angle there is to cover and therefore there is aboslutely bugger all that I could add.

I could write about Gatley Festival, an extraordinary Sunday afternoon I recently spent in an outpost of Cheadle which could even make Abu Al-Hamza fall in love with the British summer-time. The highlight of the day's proceedings was a parade through the centre of the village featuring various pillars of the community, an assortment of dance troupes, Stockport County's League One play-off trophy and the mandatory terrified-looking Rose Queen. Clearly, many members of the community of all ages had put hours of work, entirely off their own backs, into preparing for this parade and putting on a bit of a show for their friends and neighbours. Moments before the procession was to get underway God, as a bi-product of his work on Wimbledon's Centre Court, felt the need to douse everyone with a shower that verged on the biblical. All that effort threatened to end in a sodden troop through the streets as the friends and neighbours for whom this event had all been prepared sheltered in the nearest pub.

Then, with seconds to spare, the clouds parted and the sun shone through- allowing the parade to set off in front of pavements suddenly six-deep in people and cheer. All was well with the world, all that earnest hard work by the people of Gatley was paying off. Then the Number 11 bus turned up. The bus was surprised to find it's normal, scheduled route through this particular part of South Manchester blocked by a line of dancing teenagers and football mascots- something which the depot had clearly not felt inclined to warn the driver about. Determined to stick to his timetable, he soon figured out an alternative route round the parade and embarked on a three-point turn which soon garnered the attention of the thronged masses who had been nicely lubricated by a crafty pint or two during the earlier shower. Suddenly, the parade which had been months in the planning was playing second fiddle to a bemused and frustrated Stagecoach Manchester employee wrestling with the laws of physics and a vehicle clearly unsuited to compicated manouveurs on a tight road near a drunken audience and a procession of twiddling batons. It was hard not to feel sorry for the organisers as the crowd left the spectacle they'd laid on to roar encouragement at the driver revving up for his latest battle with the forces of Isaac Newton; but not even the worldy might of W.H. Auden could have conjured up a more perfect vista of the summer months in these Isles than these precious moments in Manchester's posh bits.

I could write about this, but I won't. You had to be there, you see. It was one of those moments where the re-telling will never live up to the experience itself. Even if the late, great Dave Allen had been there and conjoured up a 20 minute routine on it.

I could write about job-hunting, the bane of my current existence and the sour taste in the mouth at the end of my PGCE course. Having spent a year gaining my qualification to allow me to show 'A Matter Of Life And Death' to successive generations of teenagers I now have to find an organistaion willing to pay me to do it. This involves a monotonous round of endless application forms onto which I have scrawled my name, address, qualifications and the fact that I have a driving licence and no previous convictions for third-degree murder.

In amongst all of this is the greatest challenge of all- the personal statement. It is impossible to write one of these without sounding like some deluded fuckwit from The Apprentice. You have to bang on about your achievements and brilliance which, as anyone who has ever had to fill in an apllication form in will tell you, immediately makes you sound like a tosser of the highest order. I nearly leapt out of a window recently when I realised that, in the course of cobbling yet another paeon to my invented magnificence together, I had unwitingly used the word 'paradigm'. The desire to trail off halfway through a sentence on why your degree proves you are capable of effective time-management and simply write "FOR FUCK'S SAKE, TALK TO ME AND FIND OUT WHAT I'M LIKE- DON'T JUST READ THIS UTTER BULLSHIT AND JUDGE ME. PLEASE JUSTIFY MY EXISTENCE TO MY EYES. PLEASE HELP ME. HELP ME" is often entriely overwhelming and I believe a knighthood should be forthcoming to anyone who could read their statement back to a roomful of people with a straight face and without slumping to the floor in a deluge of resigned tears.

Maybe this is the reason. Maybe these statements, their inanity, their pointlessness, their in-built default to hoodwinking is the reason why I have an urge to write something but no idea of what to write about. Whatever part of my brain controls writing has been forced, largely against it's will, to peddle reams of written tripe in the hope that it will persuade someone in a college somewhere to meet me face-to-face to discuss my potential ability to communicate to students almost entirely via the completely different medium of speech. Maybe that's why it's itching to write something but the rest of my brain can't think what to write.

Maybe that's why I could write about any of the things listed above, but I won't.

Because I can't.