2019OK

This week, a friend of mine used four exclamation marks to close out a Whatsapp message. Four!

Now, my pals know how I feel about this, so she sent a hilarious apology afterwards, which was fine of course (she knows me well), but it reminded me of the conditions under which I'd once suggested multiple exclamations would only ever be suitable.

It's quite simple: one exclamation mark does the job of exclaiming, a second exclamation mark makes an exclamation of the first exclamation, and three should only ever be used in a world-ending cataclysmic event.

There's quite an irony then, that this morning at 01:22 GMT, the planet had a very near miss with Asteroid 2019OK.

Apparently (though weirdly the news aren't reporting it) it brushed past 45,000 miles from the planet and sailed harmlessly on. World-ender? No, but Asteroid 2019OK is something like 100m in diameter, which, when travelling at 55,000 miles per hour would have done enough damage to wipe out a city.

The big story is though, and I can't quite believe it, that no-one saw it coming. Astronomers only picked it up a few days ago, and didn't have enough time to calculate its size... or its trajectory.

Is it just me or is that a little bit terrifying? A world-changing threat to our planet and no-one's prepared for it until it's too late? 2019OK would have hit Rio de Janeiro before Bruce Willis had chance to put his boots on!

Of course, what's even more terrifying is that even without asteroids, our planet's heating up like a frog in a pot. And guess what, we don't seem to be doing much about that either! Anyway, I don't want to get political. I just think we ought to look after the things we've been given. And while I don't actually think the world will end from asteroids or climate change just yet, I do think if we can do anything to reduce the chances of it, and make the world a better place for everyone in the meantime, then we certainly should do it.

Otherwise we'll all be using multiple exclamation marks. And to be honest, I'd rather not have to.