2012

Cancel the London Summer Olympic Games! Our time on the third rock from the sun will come to a dramatic end on December 21, 2012, when planets align as decreed by the Mayan calendar.

Thus no-one is going to care a jot about whether our stadia are finished on time, or which member of the cycling team breaks an individual pursuit world record.

Let's call the whole thing off, stop pouring countless billions into the event and instead channel all of that money into endless parties.

If the end of days is truly upon us, we may as well go out with a bang.

And that's certainly what director Roland Emmerich does in his gloriously overblown and knowingly trashy disaster epic.

Having previously destroyed all the major cities during an alien invasion (Independence Day) and plunged the globe back into the Ice Age (The Day After Tomorrow), the Germany-born film-maker goes one better in 2012 by attempting to wipe out the entire human race.

Every nickel and dime of the reported $260 million (