SWINDON FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE: WE'RE all totally doomed that's the message I got from Bill McGuire's talk at the Swindon Lit Fest.

And if you can't trust a world-renowned geo-physicist who can you trust?

According to Bill, author of Surviving Armageddon, the following major natural disasters are 100 per cent likely to happen at some point: A volcanic super eruption; a mega tsunami 20 times more powerful than the recent Asian tsunami and and being hit by an asteroid.

He started his talk with the reassuring words: "Our comfortable cosy world is going to end there's no doubt about that."

Then he proceeded to scare the life out of me for an hour.

For a start there's the super eruption.

There are 3,000 active and potentially active volcanoes on earth that are candidates for super eruption.

Yet scientists are only monitoring 100 of them.

A super eruption is so powerful that it could bury the whole of the UK in volcanic ash and trigger major climatic changes. He reassured the audience that no eruption happens without warning but once it starts there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Then there's the mega tsunami which Bill described as being in a different league to the Asian disaster.

Mega tsunami waves rise to 1,200 feet high and could kill millions.

And don't even get me started about the asteroids.

Neo asteroids have circular orbits and could kill anything from 60 million to a billion people if one landed on earth.

Apparently one is heading our way in the year 2880 on March 18, so don't plan anything special that day.

Bill said the most imminent natural disaster is global warming something we can at least protect ourselves against by living greener lives.

About the only reassuring thing Bill said during his fascinating but frightening talk was this: "It's not easy to wipe out six billion plus people.

"Nothing will come close to killing everybody."

So that's ok then.

DIANA MILNE