Shall they rise up on last day?

The world doesn’t end tomorrow despite what the man with the sandwich board once warned. But, if you’re of the Mayan persuasion the world could end next month. December 21 to be exact. No Christmas turkey this year, then …

To make matters worse for believers/worriers the French have blocked access to your only escape route from Armageddon.

The small town of Pic de Bugarach in south-west France has apparently been pinpointed as the spot where a nearby mountain of the same name will open on Mayan doomsday and alien transportation will emerge to carry off survivors. To where? That bit appears unclear.

As indeed does the reason why South American-based Mayans would envisage alien rescue workers holed up in a hill in the south of France. The local gendarmes are taking no chances however. Plans are afoot to block all access to the mountain to keep out the conspiracy theorists, the nosy and the journalists (which may, granted, be the same thing,)

Is this purely because of health and safety concerns? We aren’t told. Maybe local officials just want to be in prime position themselves because …well.. you just never know, do you?

Meanwhile in Guatemala where most people of Mayan descent live, debate continues about whether the controversial calendar actually predicts apocalypse — or just the end/beginning of a new cycle.

Reassuringly an ancient Mayan king claimed he would be making a comeback a few thousand years from December 21. Then again, maybe he was depending on getting a seat on that last alien spaceship out of Pic de Bugarach …