Saturday 26 September 2015

Blank Wall

I've really hit the virtual wall now.
A big blank.
The dread writers block.
Not that I'm really a writer -
I mean, we are all citizen writers now, surely ?
I scan the news for anything that might stimulate the flow of neurons in the brain.

The Pope is touring the U.S.
That's news.
Dogs representative on Earth ?     pic ©Foxylauralou

The marketing machine is already in full swing.

Meanwhile...
Here in the uk, the prime minister is suddenly quiet.
Ahem.
Or 'oink ', as they say.

But nothing is really firing the synapses.

Been like this for days now.

Could be the weather, a great u.k. standby.
As we head into Autumn, we are promised a brief flurry of late summer:
A season we almost entirely missed this year.
As I write, this weekend (Sept 27-28th) the world has (apparently) survived a total of six 'apocalyptic' asteroid collisions.
The nearest one skimming past at a mere 110,000 km.
Not terribly close then - infact, further away than the moon .
Yeah, it's that exciting.
And on Sunday , the rare treat of a bloodmoon and a lunar eclipse - (alleged harbingers of doom)
To admire at its fullest you are advised to go outside at three a.m. GMT.
In my neck of the woods, there is too much light pollution, and that time of night is generally spent snoring.
Beyond that, nothing new.

Detail on Pluto- needs a banana for scale    ©NASA/JPL/Caltech

Oh, the latest pics from the ongoing Pluto downloads are amazing, with all sorts of weird and wonderful.
Which depresses me, as we no longer have a craft orbiting Pluto which is capable of taking more detailed closeups of sites which are now appearing in the downloads..
New Horizons is already some 5 million km away from Pluto, on its way to a rendezvous in the Kuiper Belt.

Note to NASA, should funding permit, how about a relay satellite for future outer solar system missions ?
A craft capable of reaching and orbiting the outer worlds for the purpose of follow up reconnaisance work ?

Just a thought.

It could also serve as a galactic 'buoy', hovering in space, with a lone red light flickering;
'Welcome to our Solar System, Earth Welcomes Careful Drivers'
You know the sort of thing.

Oh, N.A.S.A. are doing a big reveal with regard to a discovery on Mars on Monday 28th.
Tabloid news have already declared Aliens, and tiresome wags have made the comparison to the ongoing migrant situation.

So, there we have it.
In lieu of anything eventful, I've been a bit of a news / trivia aggregate.
Horribly topical, too.
I will update following the NASA reveal on Monday-


Lo! By the magic of the interwebs, it is now  Monday 28th September 2015!
The big news is - they found evidence of flowing water on Mars.
Not such a world-shattering reveal, then - but where there is water, generally there is life.
The flow appears to be seasonal, and the source is within mountains.
Speculation abounds!


I have to keep my virtual eye on the ball.
It always seems to be a red ball, too.
You know the one - an aid to focus and meditation.
Don't drop the ball, suspended a short distance in front of you.


I always get distracted.
Or I picture Yoda in a swamp
Teaching me the zen of the Force.
And I drop the ball.
This whole thread reminds me of a sequence in the Midwich Cuckoos (originally filmed as Village of The Damned).

Village of The Damned 1960


A prolonged and very tense scene, where a teacher has to think of a blank wall,
In order to stop the precocious psychic alien children from reading his thoughts...

Blank Wall.

Which is where I began.