The return of BBC Stargazing Live, a tale of aliens and cloudy skies

A couple of years ago when the BBC Stargazing Live programme with Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain was on the television I wrote the following post on my blog. This was before I was a grumpy old bloke and still the Slightly Eccentric Child of Cyberspace, Although I may have also written several slightly mad poems by this stage. . . I cant remember that far back anyway, so who can tell.  I will be watching this as it is a jolly interesting show even if they all seem a bit too happy to me and never turn up ashen faced and telling us about . . .  The End of the World. . . . I mean you could make such a cool spoof BBC Stargazing with aliens and the like. But No No they are all keen and enthusiastic and point at stars and go OOOOo look . . . .AH DAMN its cloudy.

AH I got a bit distracted . . . . As I said I will be watching this so I have cheated and this is an old repeated post. . . I hope you enjoy it, all I can say is I dont know what I was on about, but the universe is complicated particularly when the plucky Brit spills a cup of tea into the ISS main control panel

It is Wednesday today and School has returned to a state of stability, I know this because the Mathematics teacher showed us Newton’s formulas for the stability of nature, In an ideal world this would result in the entire school being all enthusiastic and leaping about particularly as the BBC Stargazing Live is on the television again tonight after what turned out to be jolly cloudy night last night, where no aliens were seen, and no stars or even the moon. But of course The Lagrangian Formalism (The Principle of Least Action) takes this into account and the result was lots of pupils wondering which class they should be in; and why the physics teacher was sweeping up mud in the playground, apparently it was the caretaker in a similar jumper with a pink reindeer on it, it appears the headmaster gave the same jumper to most of the school staff. . . . . . That is all well and good but if they all look the same how can I tell which lesson I’m in.  

So in a nut shell what I am saying is that Newton’s formulas for the stability of nature will state that my three slices of toast fall on the floor at lunchtime butter side down but the Lagrangian Formalism (The Principle of Least Action) states that by adding some curry and peanut butter to hide the fluff they tasted fine and the school cat will lick the floor clean.

I know I should be writing loads more at present but in keeping with The Principle of Least Action we are at the time of year when the least happens, it is a northern hemisphere thing the further north you get in the winter the less things are happening particularly in quiet rural communities where we keep our heads down until spring appears. As it happens there are signs of life poking out of the ground as things like daffodil’s start to grow and the Lemmings of Petrograd start singing the old songs of home. 

Sorry I stopped to watch the BBC Stargazing Live show so am a little later than planned with the post, I was interacting with The Principle of Least Action in way that shows its overall effect rather well.

Wilbury Wainwright Wrong . . . . The A to Z of Slightly Strange Unknown Victorian Inventors and Explorers

Wilbury Wainwright Wrong

Wibury Wainwright Wrong was brought up in a strange household where his father also an eminent inventor of his day, had gone slightly mad and spent much of his time sat in the bath with a bicycle wheel on his head convinced he was a penguin. And when Wibury Wainwright Wrong reached the age of 18 he promised his father that he would make a machine that would allow them both to fly like the birds. So it was that Wilbury assisted by his younger brother Womble Wainwright Wrong built the Winged Wonder which successfully flew 300 yards in 1882 powered by a tiny steam engine which produced 14 HP. There were few witnesses as their father who also got to fly would leap out of the plane on landing and start rummaging for worms in the ground.

They thought little of their achievement as it was done to satisfy their fathers need to be a bird, but many years later they did complain that the Wright brothers were not the first people to achieve powered flight.  It was the Preposterous Club of Great Britain who took up the cause and complained to the American Embassy in London saying that the Wright brothers were wrong and the Wrong brothers were right. Well as you might expect this got very confusing and folk did not know if  the Wrights were right and Wrong’s wrong or wrong was right and Wright was wrong. Confused even more when someone said Two Wrongs don’t make a Wright, which led to a fight in Trafalgar Square where unfortunately  Wainwright Wrong senior still convinced he was a bird climbed Nelsons column and did something unspeakable on the head of Nelson while eating peanuts.  Everyone agreed this was wrong so in order to avoid the issue turning up in history Wibury Wainwright Wrong let history say that the Wright Brothers achieved mans first powered flight.

However the Wright Brothers got very paranoid after that and demanded that no one else was allowed to fly in the sky ever and spend many years chasing men dressed as penguins with bicycle wheels on their heads. Unaware that this was a common Victorian inventors ailment rather that a practical effort at manned flight.  As for the Wainwright Wrong family they lived a quiet life designing penguin enclosures one of which (the award winning Penguin House) at London Zoo has got a subtle hint of the propeller from their now forgotten monoplane the Winged Wonder. . 

The Aurora Borealis, Professor Brian Cox and why are humans not that hairy. . .The big Question

I have not pondered any big questions of late and this might explain part of the entire lack of interest in my blog at present, well that and my ability to ramble on about absolutely nothing. So I thought come on Rob Z Tobor time to look at the bigger picture and consider one of those Big Questions one where the answer is far from clear even for a chap like me. You see I was outside last night looking at the sky, on the off chance I might see the Aurora Borealis; did I see a hint of green through the mist and trees I will never know for sure, but stuff like that happens. Was that a three headed dog running along the dark ally at the back of the chip shop with a large lizard in its mouth (mouths), life is full of little glimpses of things out the corner of your eye that make you think . . . . . . Was that really a ???? . . . There is a whole different world in the corner of human eyes.

Anyway while I was out not seeing the Aurora Borealis, wrapped up against the cold with a selection of warm clothes watched by two cats who ran off when they thought they heard a three headed dog, (it was only three of next doors dogs howling at a banshee).  I had this thought why are humans not covered in hair . . . . No I mean proper hair like gorillas or bears (who are not bare) if we are the descendants of the great apes we should be covered in hair but we are not. This is odd because normally where an animal exists both in a hairy species and bald species the bald one spends its entire life in caves and has rubbish eyesight. And if you look at humans as a whole it is amazing how many wear glasses and have rubbish eyesight. Me for one if I take my glasses off I would be unable to tell the difference between a gorilla and say a hedgehog so I have to make sure I am wearing my glasses if I go out in the garden looking for hedgehogs (they taste delicious HAH AHah hahahah ah ah ah ah ha ha hha ha ha ha hahah ha haha haha ha ha ha). Add to this the fact that a lot of the very earliest evidence for man can be found in caves and potholing is still a popular sport made me ponder the very distinct possibility that the human race is in fact rather less a great ape as a rather weird sort of Monkey Mole or maybe a Mole Monkey.

I mean what was the first thing that man started making back in the stone age it was burial mounds or as the very hairy Great Apes would say as they pointed at the large mound. . . . . . . WOW . . . .  ****** look at the size of that mole hill. 

I don’t want to be a mole . . . . . . . DAMN.

Oooooo that reminds me Stargazing Live with Professor Brian Cox is on the TV tonight. . .  

A life in the sky is fraught with peril

No1  . . .Chocks Away

No2 . . . Roger

No1 . . . Who's Roger

No2 . . . What?

No1 . . .Who is Roger

No2 . . . He's not real, its what a chap says

No3 . . . Has Roger got the chocolates

No1 . . . What?

No2 . . . What?

No3 . . . Who has the chocolates

No1 . . . No one has any chocolates

No3 . . . You mentioned Choc's

No1 . . . NO not choc's. Chocks they are those little wooden wedges in front of the wheels on the airfield.

No3 . . . OK. . . Roger

No4 . . . Yes

No1 . . . Sorry No4 what are you asking

No4  . . . Someone said Roger

No1 . . . I thought we have established Roger is not real and he does not have any Chocolates

No4 . . . But my name is Roger

No1 . . . But No2 told me you were not real

No2 . . . Roger means OK I have understood your message, not Roger.

No3 . . . So has Roger got any Chocolates

No1 . . . NO ONE HAS any Chocolates

No4 . . . Yes I do

No3 . . . What kind of chocolates Roger

No4 . . . Milk Tray

No2 . . . I dont like Milk Tray, thats a bit unfair.

No1 . . . Does it matter, we are all in different aircraft sharing is not really practical.

No4 . . . I dont mind sharing

No1 . . . OK Roger I'll have the one in the gold foil.

No4 . . . AH DAMN I have just eaten that one.

No 3 . . . Roger has started eating the chocolates

No2 . . . I dont care I dont like Milk Tray so he can eat them all as far as I'm concerned.

No1 . . . OK look I'll share my ice cream then

No2 . . . WHAT?

No3 . . . WHAT?

No4 . . . Tally Ho

No1 . . . What? no its just a plain vanilla wafer. . . .

Plane . . . . . HAH HAH HA HAHAH HAhah ah ahah ha ha ha h ahah hah ah ahha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah a ha hah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ha ha ha ha haah ah ah ah ah ahaha ha

    

THe Ghost Bi-Plane, WW1 and the Mole

Yesterday I mentioned that I had put a load of moth balls down into the Moles run in order to shift him out of our lawn. It is said that Moles hate the smell and will head off to pastures new, well it sort of worked, it did move all of three or four feet further into the middle of the lawn. However luck was on my side because after a quick trip to the Castle of the Bishop to get provisions I noticed on our return a new mound in the lawn since we had been out. So I grabbed a spade a pair of gloves and the hose and leapt into action. First I dug in behind the new mound and then turned the hose on to full blast to fill the Moles now limited run. 

Within a few seconds the Mole appeared on the surface of the grass to escape the flood where I grasped it in my gloved hand and put it in a plastic container. It was then transported to a place where Moles can run free (dig Free) . So it is one happy Mole . . . . . I say happy but do Moles do happy?

We also had a visit from Miss Vicky then we had a visit from Miss Jo and Charlie Junior who hid under a pile of large umbrellas.

Then after everyone left and we were clearing up a very strange thing happened, an old Bi-Plane flew over head, but rather than head off into the distance it turned round two or three times and then proceeded to do a fancy aerial display.  So we stood outside for a while watching the Bi-Plane doing loop the loops and barrel rolls and the like before it eventually headed back to where ever it can from. What is particularly strange is that it is exactly 100 years to the day since the start of world war one (WW1) and why a Bi-Plane would do such a display over a tiny village in the middle of nowhere is a mystery. I am assuming it was probably a Ghost Bi-Plane and will return again in one hundred years time.

Ooooooo yes I will be drumming tonight too.

.

I would also add, I was not impressed by the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. . . .Typical Glasgow Night Out had so much scope and they did a packet of chips and Whatshername singing. . . . 

S is for Soaring in Silent Skies

Indeed S is for Silently Soaring in the Spring Skies of Shropshire . . . . . . . .I know I appear to be working my way madly thought the A to Z again for no reason whatsoever. . . . . Partly because no one else is and I am just a rebel at heart. And it also sort of shows that even when things go entirely wrong there is always a way to find that elusive Letter of the alphabet. 

Now you are thinking what  went wrong . . . . . .Well last night when I sat down to chill and draw a quick picture for today I thought  . . . . The letter S . . . I can draw Superman so I did, but it sort of turned into a chap with a glider instead. No I dont know why this stuff happens either, part of the problem is using a ballpoint pen, it is (as I have said before) all or nothing as you can't undo a line once drawn, but I rather like that. 

The thing is once you have drawn a man with a glider you need to think S words  and post the picture like it was meant all along where folk go. . . . . well thats clever . . . . . . Although it is advisable not to say its all a bit of a mistake . . . . . .AH DAMN I may have just told you now.

Aliens are from Venus, Zombies are from Popular television shows.

As I said yesterday the Ghost Writer had to go into his office today to do things, he is not happy apparently he has got five more working days till Christmas, it does not sound much to me. He says that there is only eight of nine more Saturdays till Christmas and only about three weeks until Easter eggs start appearing in the shops and the hardiest of folk start queuing up to buy the Boxing day sale bargains.  As someone who makes things out of cardboard boxes, Boxing Day is a good day as in general there are lots of empty boxes about that folk do not want.

The Ghost Writer says he wrote the greatest technical paper ever written about something no one is interested in and then he shouted at some software.  Of course his technical paper is technically not the greatest technical paper ever written as my diary is, although it uses a lot of paper. It is also the dynamic opposite of his technical paper as everyone is interested in my diary, well everyone except the very nice Mr Steven Spielberg, but I now put this down to the fact it is too heavy to pick up these days and he is getting a little older than he was.

To slightly change the subject myself and Mr Jones noticed a bright light in the sky to the west tonight, low on the horizon hovering in the air at dusk.  So it is plainly an alien Venusian Battle craft masquerading as a planet, but we known, they can’t fool us, we have not been turned into Zombies getting excited by folk baking cakes, and things like that in order to win a glass cake stand.

Those Zombies are testing the human population and once enough folk spend the night watching cakes bake, or so called celebrities who keep telling the nice Mr Spielberg I am mad, dancing in circles or the man from the butchers singing the green green grass of home while his dog tap dances; they will make their move (that’s the Zombies not the dancers). Well that’s if the aliens don’t get here first and end up in a battle to the death battle with Zombies while the human race phone up to vote for the fire eating granny from Blackpool or a French ventriloquist oblivious of what is going on outside (that’s the humans not the French ventriloquist) .

AH . . . . . . . DAMN I got all distracted again, this diary is getting a bit erratic. Anyway I got a photograph of the alien battle cruiser with the Steam powered Y Ray telescope as evidence of what is going on.  People don’t believe me without evidence which is quite frankly unbelievable.  

More events of unimportance

I have been rather lazy today, although this morning I did go and see the doc who reckons I am still sane but my joints are rubbish and tells me I will never run the 100 metres in less that 10 seconds ever again which is good news. Then my plans to go outside were sort of scuppered by drizzle and a grey sky, which is quite a contrast to last night when the sky here was crystal clear for the Meteor shower. It was very impressive although shouting there’s one does not work because it takes too long to say even if you try and say it very very fast or just say T O or even just T. Shouting just T is not a good idea either as voices in the dark started shouting For good sake get him a cup of Tea we are trying to sleep. . . .  

So back to today, I attached a new light fitting to the ceiling in the end in order to be productive and then I decided to use the computer to tweak my artists impression of a meteor shower. Mr Jones said he did not watch the meteor shower as it was in fact a cunning distraction tactic used by aliens to distract the public and that we need to watch The Day of the Triffids, I did a rather good re-enactment of that film once so I can understand his point.

Anyway I have some arty things I need to do so I may vanish off now and do the arty things of which I am sort of briefly passing over in a non descriptive veil of vagueness in order to imply mystery and excitement. It is an interesting fact that us humans always think that the thing we cant see or get too or have is far more interesting and exciting than they really are, although in this particular case that is not true as it is far more interesting and exciting than you think it is (I think).

Ooooo just as a small passing point I dreamt we had twelve cats last night; I know this because I woke up thinking this lot is going to cost a fortune to feed. I just hope Zombie defence systems work on cats although dad says they don’t and I will probably turn into a Zombie Cat and eat the brains of small rodents……..  

A Jackdaw riding a bicycle and singing about fish while balancing a frog on its head

What a lovely day it has been today, we need more days like this, blues skies and not a cloud to be seen anywhere, which proved slightly difficult in the art class at school. Because we were all outside creating conceptual art by describing what interesting things we could see in the clouds. Luckily the art teacher was able to borrow the science departments cloud machine for the day, I think I must have been having an off day because all I saw were the usual things that most people see when they look at clouds. There was the huge three headed caterpillar with tusks eating ginger cake in an igloo but I think everyone has seen one of those; then there was a Jackdaw riding a bicycle and singing about fish while balancing a frog on its head, and a man being chased by a cardboard box with five legs. I put all this down to the fact they were fake clouds, as real clouds are far more interesting.

Still I did better than Freddie and his ferret, they saw 300 ferrets juggling with marsh mallows then two ferrets riding on a horse backwards and several ferrets playing hamlet in a greengrocers shop during a sale. At one point everyone said they saw a goat doing pirouettes and hanging onto a load of abseiling equipment, but that was because it was the goat (the school mascot) who Esmeralda had decided to send to the out of town supermarket via the steam powered catapult. They have put bars on the skylight now so the goat can’t get in that way, so Esmeralda has given it a crash course on abseiling in through the air conditioning system, as it turned out crash course was rather apt as it appears that air conditioning and goats go not mix well, luckily however the goat is fine and arrived back with a stash of frozen peas, some stainless steel ducting and some parts from what looks like a heat exchanger and a fan.

The art teacher asked Esmeralda what she saw in the clouds and she said a seagull with a set of car keys, she even pointed to it as the science teacher ran past throwing rocks at it and shouting give me back my keys you ************* I don’t think that is what the art teacher had in mind…….

Ooooo yes I have also found the pipe in the big muddy damp cold and smelly hole that things are meant to soak away through but don’t. So all I need to do now according to dad is unblock it  . . . . . . . .AH DAMN          

        

.

.

The migratory routes of large flocks of aircraft following the spring Easy Jet Stream

I have harvested the next two mushrooms; I thought the idea was that there would be hundreds of them in the box because that is what is shown on the lid. But last time there was one and now we have two. What I need to know now is, is it increasing by one each time or is it doubling each time……. So will it be three of four in the next crop? Or one, which seems more likely. I think we can cope with this as long as they remain as large as plates.

The sky was full of vapour trails this morning and also tonight on my return home from you know where (or do you?) The dog says he has three theories

The first theory is, after Esmeralda’s new world record (with the schools assistance) of sending a goat up in a rocket higher than anyone else has before. Both the USA and the Russians are determined to better this. The loss of pride by these two super powers in the race to get a goat into space knowing that a dodgy school in the borders of England and Wales is within a whisker of the brink of success, has focused there minds today, and they have launched rockets on mass with goats at the controls (never a good move).

The second theory is that of Armageddon and the USA and Russia are just firing rockets at each other with nuclear goat heads (sorry war heads).

In the cases of theory one and two there is world wide concern about IRAN because as we know Iranian goats are lighter and more nimble and able to endure much higher temperatures and Iran rocket technology has seen the suspicious disappearance of several goats.

Finally theory three is. It was a large flock of aircraft returning to the northern hemisphere  after the mild winter using the spring Easy Jet Stream saving energy by using the thermals of the Ryanair. The main problem for the flocks of aircraft being the lack of food on these migratory routes.

We have asked mum about all three theories and she has said IDIOTS. But she has gone out to see a woman with embroiders gills? We think it must be the auntie of the man from the telly, The Man From Atlantis, we haven’t seen him for years but according to the dog, work just dried up HAHAH Haha hah hhahaha h hahaha haha hah hah ha hah hah hah hah hah hahah hahahaha hah hahh aha …….. …… Dad said IDIOT? 

.

The offer of one million pounds by a Russian industrialist for the Flying Goat

Another quiet day at school where the school mascot appears to have finally got the hang of landing. Esmeralda said it would in the end, after all it has been catapulted that many times over the school now it is starting to become a tourist attraction. The Headmaster has already been offered over one million pounds by a Russian industrialist for the Flying Goat. But the headmaster is holding out for another half a million for the new science wing. It seems appropriate that a Flying Goat should pay for a wing.

We were out looking for the international Space Station tonight but it was very cloudy again so sadly we did not see it, but we did see bats (the flying ones like the goat), they seemed quite large so I will try and find out what type they are. Trouble is bats tend not to hang about long enough to get a good look at them (hang about HA HAH HAH HAH HAH Hah ahahha ahahha hah h). Mum said IDIOT.

 We were planning to have a Chinese takeaway from the Chinese takeaway in Bishops Castle (its good there) but it was closed, they have gone on holiday and will not be back until the 7^th March, so we thought we would try the chip shop in Bishops Castle because so far everyone has said it is really good, only it was not good at all. Maybe we got them on an off day and it was still quite early so they had not really got going yet but it was rubbish.

Sooty the Cat is limping rather badly too, his leg appears to be OK but his Toes or not (do cats have toes ……………Only when the breakdown on the motorway HA HAHAHH hah hah ha hahh hah hhah hahha hah ahhaha ha h a) mum said IDIOT again. He seems happy enough and is eating as normal so loads of food. We wonder if the squirrels have been fighting back and have tried to take a bite out of Sooty but Sooty is not telling, he is after all a very stupid cat ……. No he really is probably the most stupid cat we have ever owned.