IS that lightning I hear out there? Well come on in out of that sinister storm. Gather round the fire and dry your cloaks, my friends. Let me close the curtains. And pardon my whispering, but you never know who’s listening. This, then, is the news that I have to impart to you: “There are a lot of conspiracies out there at the moment. Shhh!”

Yup (resumes normal bawling tone), it’s true. The invention of yonder internet has let a million fruit loops loose, giving them access to the unsuspecting and gullible, which means you essentially and, to a certain extent, me.

My attention has been drawn – why don’t pompous letter-writers say this any more? – to that most peculiar of conspiracy theories, to wit ... the one that yodels about the Earth being flat. Although self-evidently balls, flat Earth theory is gaining adherents.

Last year, a YouGov poll found that just two thirds of young people firmly believed that the planet on which they sometimes lived was round.

This week, a top (they’re all top) scientist blamed yon YouTube for propagating doots aboot the roondness of the Earth. Dr Asheley Landrum of that Texas Tech University said the controversial video site was directing decent ratepayers towards daftness.

Her own researches revealed that many folk converted by these films had college degrees. I have a college degree. I rest my case.

Top American Mark Sargent became a convert after watching various videos. Recently, in Netflix’s Behind the Curve series, he demonstrated how Flat Earthery was “winning against science” by pointing to the city of Seattle several miles away and saying you wouldn’t be able to see it if the Earth was round.

This was completely convincing, particularly if you believe the Earth is just several miles wide. Equally convincing was the argument made by top American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who said: “The Earth isn’t f***ing flat.” Well, that’s convinced me.

For those still entertaining doubts, he dropped his microphone from a height to illustrate gravity, which wouldn’t work right on a flat disc. Gravity: what a downer.

Mr Tyson added: “There is a growing anti-intellectual strain in this country that may be the beginning of the end of our informed democracy.” Informed? Who told him that? Democracy is, and always has been, rule by thicko. Read your revisionist history: it’s what brought down classical Greece.

Other classical conspiracy theories involve 9/11, chem trails, Freemasonry, the Illuminati, and the Moon landings. Last year, even our own beloved Loch Ness Monster was dragged into things, with claims that the British Government has been covering up the beastie’s existence to prevent panic and a mass exodus from Scotland’s cities.

The claim came after it emerged that Sweden, the country that regular tops the UN’s Index of Officially Nutty Nations, had contacted Britain’s colonial outpost, the Scottish Office, for advice on protecting its own monster, the Stôrsjóòdjùrët (tr: big, daft beastie).

This proved, said the Nessters, that the Monster existed, and that the British Government was torturing it. Alas, the British Government is many things, most of them involving synonyms for the buttocks, but it is not a hoarder of monsters.

Besides, if Nessie had existed, they’d surely have wheeled her out this week to draw attention from Brexit. Brexit, indeed, is proof that human affairs are more cock-up than conspiracy.

It is my belief that conspiracy theorists are poor souls craving excitement from an essentially mundane world. And as for theories about the Earth, I’m afraid the truth is that flattery will get you nowhere.

Harmless music? The hell is it!

I THOUGHT I’d dealt definitively with death metal on these pages several weeks ago but, once more, it raises its hairy head and shakes it jolly swiftly.

Researchers at Macquarie University, Australiashire, claim to have found that listening to gruesome lyrics intoned over doom-laden guitars doesn’t inspire violence.

Technically, that might be correct, since violence entails joining the real world temporarily. But, by the same token, it cannot be that death metal inspires pleasant thoughts of wee baa lambs gambolling across a meadow. Unless the thought is to incinerate them with flame-throwers.

The researchers focused in particular on lyrics by the pleasantly named Bloodbath on their cannibal-themed track, Eaten. The band described this as “harmless fun”. I see.

I haven’t heard the track but can report exclusively that death metal consists of a guitarist playing the same note extremely rapidly, while somebody with tattoos growls in a vaguely Satanic matter over the top, and the drummer goes doolally.

Decent Scottish ratepayers eschew the genre and remain aghast that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has refused to condemn it. Clearly, she is conspiring with the Illuminati to ensure that this unmelodious horror weakens morale in Britain and leads to the break-up of the United Kingdom.

A piece of history

STONEHENGE news, and it has emerged this week that ancient Britons travelled from all the airts and pairts to eat bacon butties amidst the collection of daft stones.

Although this might detract from previous assumptions about the spiritual function of the place, it appears that the butties were just a piece that the Neolithic nutjobs ate in between their peculiar and arguably irrational ceremonies.

A team of scientists led by Cardiff University found that folk waddling from afar as that Scotland brought their own pigs, for to bean them on the heid and make bacon – or at least pork chops – out of them. Remains of 131 pigs were found in the vicinity, but so far no breid from the pieces, meaning that the controversial question of whether they ate plain or pan loafs remains unresolved.

According to the much-trusted BBC, Stonehenge was a hub for mass parties, with the implication that, just like us, prehistoric person liked to get off his or her face, leading top archaeologists to rename the site “Stonerhenge”.

Thus, another once inspiring aspect of British history is reduced to the rubble of hedonism and pairties, with the hostess coming round with legs of pork rather than canapés.