No inspiration tonight. Lousy day at work, which always takes the wind, such as it is, out of my sails.
Lomax has just gone outside for the last adventure of the day, (10.00pm) and I guess it’s going to be at least an hour before he’ll want to come in again………… got a dog whistle that calls him in, as he’s wandering a fair way beyond the garden. He usually comes belting over the fence, or through the hedge, and across the garden when he hears it. Can’t be many cats that do that, eh? He retrieves paper balls, and some favourite ‘toys’, especially The Rat which Suzy made for him. It’s real easy to see the big-cat ancestry in him when he’s trotting towards you with it in his mouth. :o)
His poor sore little bollocks don’t seem sore and inflamed any more, so I’ve discontinued the Personally Administered Cool Air Soothing Sessions, (PACASS), otherwise known as Blowing on His Bollocks (BOHB), which will prolly relieve Suzy no end. :o)
Just been looking at the stars through the binoculars, those that were showing through the clouds anyway.There’s a dusty area in Orion, which is a nebula; an area of gas cloud where stars are being ‘born’………… taking millions of years in the process. The Orion Nebula is about 1,600 (or perhaps 1,500) light-years away from us, and is some 30 light-years across. Huge, but small compared to some nebulae. You can see it faintly with a pair of 10x50 binoculars. Go have a look next time the stars are out....... best without a full, or fullish, moon to light-pollute the sky.
Find Orion......... look for a shortish diagonal line of three stars towards the south or south west. (see photo above) I think they can only be seen in the winter months, or at least they will be very low in the sky in the summer. look below the lower of the diagonal stars, the left one, and find a very faint dusty area of stars and 'mist'.
That's the Orion Nebula. Below are some pics taken through a very good telescope.
Remember......... you're watching new stars being formed in a gas cloud, and it's a long way off....... imagine travelling 670,616,629 miles every hour for at least 1,500 years!
And, when you get there, it would take you THIRTY YEARS to travel from one side of it to the other, travelling at the same speed........... the same speed that light flashes across the room at, when you flick the light switch on..........thirty years traveling THAT fast! :oI
Jees!!!!
Can you imagine that?
No, I didn't think so! :o)
Mind boggling stuff. Blows me away, it really does.
Sometimes I think to myself (And forgive me, but I’m pissed right off tonight) who gives a flying fuck if you steal, rape, murder, ……. if you’re good or bad?
Who really gives one fuck worth the mention, when this planet…………. I mean, the whole sodding planet, is smaller than a grain of the finest sand……….. hell, prolly smaller than a dust particle that can only be seen floating in the sun, in relation to all that we can see out there with even a hundred Hubble telescopes. There are huge gas clouds (Nebulae) out there where stars are being created, being slowly and painfully born over millions of years. Some of these nebulae are millions of light years across………… absolutely mind bogglingly enormous, but still appearing so small they cannot be seen by us as any size, and not at all with the naked eye........... Except for the Orion Nebula. (as far as I know, anyway)
So, how can it possibly be of any consequence what I, or you, or anyone else does here on this planet? Who really gives a shit?
God?
Maybe, but no one knows just what God is. (I don't think the word 'who' really applies, not literally anyway) Not for sure. 'God' is undoubtedly out there in some form or another, and prolly in a way we have no comprehension of so far, but what exactly, is anyone’s guess. As for God caring one way or another what we do, that is easily debatable.
I was on a long three week Care of the Dying course once, and a hospital Chaplin was giving us a talk one afternoon. I remember him saying that for all we know, Hitler sits at Gods right hand. I got him right away, although some were shocked.
The concept of justice, and of fairness is a human concept;………. It doesn’t exist outside of humanity as far as we know for certain. If it does exist in the animal world, it has more to do with the survival strategy of an individual, or a group, than it has to do with ‘decency’, and ‘fairness’, as we identify it.
There is plenty of evidence around us, that being a selfish bastard, or bitch, gets you on in life. I see little to prove the opposite. My father was living proof that playing a straight wicket gets you nowhere. The more I see of my fellow man, especially, literally, men, the less faith I have in our future. As long as two men will fight in a pub, (and plenty of women have taken that pastime up now too, no doubt in the good name of ‘equality’), then there will never, ever be World Peace.
Never.
It’s a pub fight, on a larger scale, that’s all.
Women, on the whole, are a far nicer group of humans than men, and I come to that conclusion at least in part from working with them for some thirty-six years. Mind you, maybe I get to rub up against the best of them (Don't even think it!!!) because I work with a grouping that choose the caring professions, and so by their natures would tend to have kind personalities.
Anyway, I know much of the God stuff prolly makes me sound like I’m well off my rocker, but I maintain it’s all worthy of valid argument……….. I'm not saying that it's necessarily definitely the way it is, but it sure fits in a logical sense. It often comes to me from just looking up there at it all hanging in the sky like a spangled shroud all around us, and feeling soooooo small and insignificant.
So minuscule and unimportant.
So very tiny.
You go out there and try it, ………….and then tell me what a big hot-shot you are.
And I'll tell you how full of shit you are. :o)
Still never mind all the stars out there, and all the bleddy philosophising………. Life has to be lived, insignificant though we all are, and we just have to make the best of it as we roll the dice every day.
Every new day, a fresh roll of the dice, and a fresh hope of something new, something different, something to light the fires up.
Speaking of which, I see there’s something like 25 million quid up for grabs on the lottery, or the euro-lottery, tomorrow night. (Friday)
Better have a go at it I guess, because, as my dear old daddy used to say,…….
“You never know, ……..you just never know”
A favourite thought that always makes me smile at it’s poignant truth, is to quote John Cleese from the excellent film, Clockwise (I think it was).
He’s a straight-laced, and very time conscious Headmaster of a comprehensive school, on his way across country to address a very big headmasters convention. A series of complete disasters, one mounting the other, until his well-ordered life, and successful career, is in complete and utter tatters.
Completely destroyed.
He is at a particular point of hopelessness, and is sat on a grass verge, his head in his hands, almost completely defeated after a valiant struggle against overwhelming odds. He’s alongside one of his attractive teenage girl pupils, with which he is in a hopelessly compromised and circumstantially entwined position.
As he sits there, momentarily utterly defeated, he says to her…………
“…….. it’s not the pain I can’t stand, Laura, it’s not the pain. It’s the HOPE I can’t bear!”
(Or words to that effect anyway)
How very true that is, eh? :o)
I think it’s brilliant.
Boy have I ever been tortured by some unbearable hopes along the way. As often as not, at the mercy of a female. (Sighs, and gazes wistfully at the past) :o)
Mid-teenage love was particularly unfulfilled, ………but endlessly hopeful. :o)))))
“Amanda” springs to mind. :o) Boy oh boy, does it ever. An unrealised hope, for something like five years. Never so much as held her hand.
It was worth every second, though, it really was. I wouldn’t have missed one second of that pain. It was bitter sweet all the way. One glimpse of her, one smile, one glance, one word, and I was fuelled to carry on for months :o)
Poor love-sick bastard that I was.
I've sure done my time howling at the moon. :o)
The sharpness of some things in life stay with you forever, don’t they? I can remember the emotions of those years as if they happened yesterday, if I simply focus on a few well-remembered moments………. Snapshots burned on my mind.
I’m sure it is the same for you.
I hope so.
If it was all soooooo easy, would it ‘stick’, and resist the abrasion of time's sand passing over it?
In my darkest moments, I’ve always still been illuminated by at least the faintest glimmer of Hope to sharpen the pain. :o)
Thank god for that. :o)
OK, …….Cheered up now. :o)
Writing is a wonderful way of clearing the crap outta your head y’know.
Sue, my lovely, lovely ex-wife calls it my Thinky Crap. Quite apt……… like I said before somewhere………. it’s the Thinking that does it every time y’know.
Writing fixes it………. Next time you’re pissed right off, y’all should try it sometime. :o)
Nite nite,
K.x :o)
P.S.
On the subject of telescopes........ if you get inspired enough to buy a telescope, NEVER, EVER get one from a supermarket, toy shop, bargain discount store, or the like, or one for around thirty to sixty quid (new). They are a complete waste of time, in every respect.
Another clue is that these rubbish 'scopes are often advertised by their magnification, and usually high magnifications too ...... 200-X to 600-X. Good telescopes are rated by their aperture, ........... their light-gathering capability, and never by their magnification.
NEVER.
Search some astronomical shops online, (Telescope Planet http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/ is a very good one) and maybe ring one or two for advice. Something half decent isn't THAT expensive, and prolly need to spend about at least £150. Best bang for your buck is a Dobsonian mounted reflector (NOT a refractor). Easier to use too. If I'd bought a Dob mount, I could've got an eight incher instead of the six inches ended up with. (Life's just not fair, is it?????) :o)
Size matters in astronomy, and you just can't beat a big Tube. :o)
Advice often given by experienced astronomers is to get a half decent pair of binoculars before a telescope........ a pair of 10x50's, and find your way around the stars with that first.
Naturally I didn't heed that advice, bought a medium reflector, and so am trying to swim before I can even walk to the beach!
K.x
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