How fast are we all going. . . . The Big Question

Have you ever wondered about how fast you are moving, well its time to think about this because it is important? Because it does not matter how slowly you try to travel it turns out you are travelling much faster than you ever thought. The average person walks about at about 3 miles an hour going backwards and forwards and eating stuff during pauses, it does not sound impressive. But of course the Earth rotates, so someone at the equator is rotating with the Earth at about a speed of 1000 MPH which is impressive although you need to remember you are only travelling 3 MPH faster than a slug and you might even be travelling slower that a slug if you are walking against the ration, so heading west I think. Of course you could be sneaky and stand on one of the poles (the Earth's poles not a long stick) and then you will just be slowly spinning on the spot.

Well that would be fine except the Earth rotates round the Sun which is why we have years so even sat on the North Pole you are still moving through space while rotating slowly so now we are all moving at 66,500 MPH. I mean that is fast but remember that slug is still sat next to you looking smug (A Smug Slug); all this speed it relative to everything else.

So far it has been easy even the slug is fairly chilled about this, although slightly concerned about how fast he/she is going but it is going to get much faster, you see the Sun is in one of the arms of the Milky way our own galaxy (no not the chocolate) and that is also moving as well as rotating and it appears that the result of all this is we are moving in relationship to the Cosmic Background at a speed of 1.2 million MPH.  Now that is fast, very fast and what it means that ever hour of every day we move 1.2 million miles in the universe so if you go out for the day, say shopping and arrive home 10 hours later your home has moved position in universe by at least 12 million miles. Now that is a long way.

And to make things even worse it might just be that the Cosmic Background Radiation that is used as the reference to tell how fast we are travelling could be part of a moving universe. And bearing in mind each step involves a huge leap in speed then we could be travelling seriously fast indeed within some sort of unknown dimensional thing. I say some sort of unknown dimensional thing because I reckon my guess is as good as that Professor Brian Cox chap, and yes he smiles a lot, but he is a clever bastard and that’s for sure (OOooo sorry about the word I had that Ian Dury song in my head)

What this does mean though is that you are never in the same part of the universe twice and nor is the slug even if you think you are because all the other stuff is moving too. You need to think of the universe like a huge motorway that we are hurtling along as fast as we can in the fastest car you can get, blindfolded and with no brakes. This is fine until say a goat or something similar (maybe an Armadillo) wanders out in front of us (you), when it suddenly all goes wrong and that is the End of Everything. It is also the point when you realise just how fast you are going as bits fly about in random chaos.

 Talking of the end of Everything . . . .  I have mentioned that the 21^st September is the End of the World, and now you know why . . . . . . . Damn those Cosmic Armadillos. 

Romantic fiction and its place in the modern school system..

I have been asked to rally the troops so to speak, as the headmaster says we are due and inspection by NASA or is it GCHQ or the RSPCA, well who ever does school inspections to assess how we are doing since we became an academy. There is talk of manipulation of figures and cooking the books by the government. This is not good, have you ever tried to eat a cooked book or even read it, it is extremely difficult particularly if boiled and someone tells you it is semolina pudding with pink icing. It is amazing just how much semolina the works of Barbara Cartland will produce, on the bright side though the school Library has no longer got a romantic fiction section.

Anyway back to the point, it appears that the Headmaster has also manipulated his statistics and has slightly lied about the number of pupils attending the school. So in order to rectify this we are going to make papier-mâché pupils to help with the pupil numbers. And just by luck the school semolina was rather unpopular seeing how it is a paper based pudding so we have estimated we can make at least 50 new pupils with it.

So we spent much of the day in the art class making robots, sorry I mean pupils out of  papier-mâché, well that was the plan; but it did not entirely go to plan. Esmeralda does not like the present school bus driver and has made a replacement one to replace him. I tried to explain it can’t drive but she reckons it will do a better job than the present one. It is not entirely his fault since pointy sticks became part of the school uniform some pupils say he might be a Zombie and are rather enthusiastic with their pointy sticks.

Freddie has spent the day making papier-mâché ferrets and we at least do have 25 new school ferrets although the headmaster says they don’t really count. Well that’s not true they can count to twenty three and a half without assistance (that’s the real ferrets not the papier-mâché ferrets).

I as a member of The Monty Cardboard Robot Club felt duty bound to do my duty and make a robot, so I did and although the headmaster said it was quite a good robot it was not going to convince the inspectors it was a pupil even if it did threaten to destroy them with its death ray and pointy stick.

Tomorrow we plan to work on plan B well I say we I mean the headmaster, he says our help was well intentioned but rubbish, personally I think it was the choice of book; romantic fiction has never really made good school pupils………. 

Halloween floods and the Steam Powered Hydraulically Controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex.

There is much despondency on the east coast of the United States as many of the cities and towns are flooded by Hurricane Sandy, surely they could have found a better name for one of the largest hurricanes in recent history than Sandy it lacks a degree of street cred to say the least.  Still in all the gloom and doom we must try and look for small sparks of light within it all, like the stock market opening up in time for Halloween so all those scary bankers will be back making money  . . . . . . .PHEW thank god for that.

And the Trick or Treaters are going to look really good this year as they wade up to your house and splash on your front door, with water mud and slime falling off their little bodies in the blackness of the power cut. I can see that the man eating squid suit will be very popular this year in that part of the world. As it happens I am off tomorrow to advise on matters of scary things for Halloween as I have often been told I am a ******* curse and to go away, something that will no doubt be a bit of an anthem with many folk tomorrow.

It has been a fairly pleasant day here so I have spent much of it pondering the best way to make the most of a nice day, I did consider several options and sort of got it down to a choice of two Option A, and Option B, both of which required a decent amount of time and after much thought I opted for Option C, because I no longer had enough time for Options A or B. Option C was a choice of either Option D, or Option E, or possibly Option F, although Option F would need the full co-operation of at least two people a ferret and I would need to find the Grimble Spin from book one. As it turned out just as I was finalizing things it was time to eat, so that completely confused me. As a final resort I said to mum as one does during the school holidays I’M BORED but she hit he over the head with the Armadillo Toaster from book one and book two I think.

It was at this point I that is suddenly dawned on me; not only have I not done a great deal today but I have also not said what I did do in my diary in the end which was ********** all anyway.

I am sure we still have the life size  Steam powered hydraulically controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex somewhere at the back of the garage maybe I could use that tomorrow to scare the vicar……. 

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The Extra Terrestrial and the Cats litter trays

The cats had to spend the day on their own; what with school, work, spying, making a large mechanical whined up extra terrestrial and various stuff like that, so it was high risk. Not that they could escape unless they fancied climbing the chimney. But that would have involved cooperation so that was not going to happen. No it was would they use the litter tray. And Phew they did, sort of; I think we need bigger litter trays.

The Ghost Writer says our classic 1970’s bungalow is somewhat out of character after many many many years of rickety creaking houses that are or were full of secret tunnels and haunted vaults with rattling chains.  Although mum would shout IDIOT at the dog when he was down in the vaults rattling the chains and going WOOOOOOoooooooooo and stuff (he didn’t say the word stuff, I mean stuff as in other noises). Anyway the Ghost Writer is still coming to see us and want’s to know when we plan to start growing our own chip butties. I am not sure about that, when do you plant a chip butty plant?

I still can’t find half the things I packed but the one good thing about this is it forces us all to keep unpacking the boxes to find the things we do need. I am finding things I didn’t even know I needed until I found them and then think; OOoooooooooo I might need that, which must have been what I thought when I put it in the box in the first place, I think.

Dad still can’t find the flame thrower, so the postman is safe for the moment and mum has not found the armadillo toaster, so dad is safe for the moment although mum has made a chart and is keeping a record of possible armadillo throwing opportunities as and when the toaster is found.

It also appears there are loads of Squirrels in the wood and someone has been teaching them Tip Toe through the Tulips by Tiny Tim. No one is happy about that

Ooooooo by the way we got a very nice postcard from Mr Jenkins from next door, well ex-next door and it said HA HAH Hah hah hah hah hah ah hah ahh hah hahah hahh hah hahah h hahhah hah ahahahahah ……YOU HAVE GONE …….  HA HA HA HA Hah hah ahh ah hahahh hahah ahah ahah hahh ha ha ha ……………… Mum just said IDIOT

The large mechanical whined up extra terrestrial says GRET YTU UYY WYWYT Y I I II II UGG……. by the way.