And disappointed me greatly to boot.
I thought I'd try distraction techniques to stop thinking about chocolate and, having only passed GCSE science due to the brilliance of Mr Johnson's explanations of the laws of physics in terms of Aston Villa analogies, decided the mysteries of the universe were the ideal topic. To London then, for the 9th Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture, to revel in the wisdomosity of Professor Cox.
Sadly, my feeble chocolate-deprived brain could not cope with all this boggling science stuff, but never mind, it was all hugely entertaining, and funny, and beautiful, even when it was being a bit complicated and bothersome. The Large Hadron Collider, even if I still don't get it, is enough to restore anyone's faith in humanity and there is a chocolate-esque glow of loveliness about how well it's all going and how happy and excited the scientists are (see http://www.lhc.ac.uk/)
But then it went a bit pear shaped. The universe, despite being really quite big already, is still expanding. A trifle unnecessary, I think, but there you go. A nice lady from the audience asked what it is that the universe is expanding into. At which point I envisaged a sort of Kinder Surprise type set up with Earth rattling around inside it somewhere, then some space with galaxies and stuff stretching away to meet a layer or two of chocolate. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is. It's not expanding into anything. It's just expanding. There's nothing there. Less than nothing. Not even anything for there to be nothing in.
How rubbish is that?
Professor Cox, or other learned science bod, if you are reading this - and there's no reason at all why you should - and I've got this all wrong, please post the right answer. (References to Aston Villa are optional, but helpful. Presence of chocolate is highly desirable). Thank you.
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