But the creative tends to be more powerful than the destructive and in retrospect fear of the nuclear bomb could be classified as primitive when stood in comparison with 21st century realities. It is a time when primates are being reprogrammed with jellyfish genes to make them glow in the dark and primates' brains are being hooked up in experiments to control machines situated hundreds of kilometres away. Even those unhappy images off the island of Dr Moreau pale in the new dawn that seems to be fast approaching when damaged brain cells will be replaced, old people have their memories restored and severed spines be reknitted. Mankind as a whole is ageing and every year seems to bring a fresh appreciation of the fragility of human existence. Geology is teaching that, far from it being terra firma, the Earth is still shaping itself with the help of terrifying forces.
Every unseasonable rainstorm brings with it fears of an ice age.
An oriental chicken coop, we have learned, could precipitate global destruction. Those are just so-called natural threats to survival. Three species die out every hour, we are told. It seems self-evident we are in the queue to pass the turnstiles to extinction. The habit of nightly survival lulls the adolescent into indifference over what lies under the bed.