LHC is indeed up and going well. G.P.'s got no idea what a feat this thing is in terms of engineering - the UK press only seem interested in 'news' when it goes wrong. The LHC should be celebrated as what we (mostly EU countries) can achieve when we stop penny pinching and argueing...
Trust me - the end of the world is not yet nigh
(an ex Accy lad writing software for the monitoring and protection systems of the LHC)