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Hello and welcome to The Bunker. I'm Gavin Esler. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to film a BBC documentary on the Aleutian Islands. That's a remote part of Alaska stretching across the

North Pacific to within a few miles of Russia. The Aleutians are home to top-secret

U.S. military bases and a highly sophisticated early warning system against a nuclear surprise attack.

The U.S. Air Force personnel had T-shirts which named their location on one of the Aleutian Islands,

Shemir, with the words, in large letters,

Shemia, it's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here. It was a U.S. Air Force joke,

but part of our human fascination for the end times, the biblical book of Revelation,

the Second Coming of Christ, Armageddon, or the end of human existence, whatever you want to call it.

All these ideas have informed and intrigued religions, philosophers, and ordinary humans for

centuries, right up to now, when we consider the possibility of a nuclear Holocaust,

unchecked global warming, or some other species-threatening disaster. Well, Nostradamus was unavailable, but to give his views

on the bunker today, we have someone even better, the author and journalist Tom Phillips,

his new book is called, and I'm quoting here, a brief history of the end of the fucking world.

How long have we got, Tom? I mean, we've got 30 minutes to talk about it, but can we get through it without the end actually happening?

Well, I mean, I was very concerned when this book was coming out that, you know, I just wanted to get at least a couple of weeks of sales before it all became too topical, basically.

That was my hope. Yeah, there are deadlines and deadlines, aren't there? Yeah, some deadlines are a little bit more terminal than others.

Well, I have to say, first of all, I am fascinated by the topic, and secondly, I laughed a lot,

which is two things you don't expect to say about the end of the world, perhaps.

But, well, maybe you'd expect the fascination.

...