The Blurb: August 2006

Mars Disturbs Earth's Tides

Thursday 24 August 2006  8.52 pm

On Sunday 27 August (that's this Sunday, folks), Mars will come so close to Earth that it will appear as large as the Moon to the naked eye.  Not until 2287 will this event occur again - this is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

To see this phenomenon, look intently into the Western sky at precisely 2346 GMT, at an angle of 32.1° above the horizon.

It will be hard to miss.  As you stare open-mouthed at the spectacle, at 2348 GMT Mars will actually come so close to the Moon that there is an 87% chance of a head-on collision.

Following the collision, global tides and sea levels will shift by approximately 34cm, causing much of southern Africa, South America and Burnham-on-Sea to be plunged into roaring torrents of raging ocean.

The nightmare continues at 2349 as Jupiter comes into the picture.  Toxic gases emitted from the explosion will react with Jupiter's own, creating a firey concoction that at 2356 will roar across the millions of kilometres of open space, burn through the atmosphere and create a light show so grand it will make the Northern Lights look about as exciting as a glow-in-the-dark wristband.

It is likely that the atmosphere will never fully recover from this shock, and due to the spectacular nature of every night sky from that time on, none of the survivors – who happened to live more than 34cm above the current sea level – will ever need fireworks again.  Firework companies across the world will go out of business.

This will have untold political ramifications.  Fireworks will no longer be available for the opening of Wembley Stadium in 2009 or the Olympics in 2012, and the public spirit of the country will be dashed.  The government will therefore suffer at the polls, losing by a larger margin than the newly-created Banoffee Nougat Party (or BNP).

John Smith, leader of the BNP, will take this as a sign that his time has come and field no less than 495 MPs in the 2013 vote.  Fuelled by growing public disillusionment (and the fiasco over the allocation of the last three non-submerged peaks of the Lake District), Mr. Smith will have an unprecedented victory at the polls and, following an operation in which he declares his desire to henceforth be known as Joanna, he will be made both Prime Minister and Queen of England in July of 2013.

As well as ushering in a new era of enlightenment, Joanna will bring in laws that are primarily banoffee- and nougat-oriented, making it illegal to consume less than twenty-seven banoffee or nougat products per calendar week.

Supplies of bananas, largely wiped out by the great floods of the previous decade, will plummet, until the one remaining example of the fruit is eventually sold on eBay for $37 billion to Joanna Smith herself.  Joanna will then enjoy a very pleasant banoffee sandwich for tea in her luxury gazebo on an idyllic Thursday afternoon.

This vital information came to me by email recently (well, the first paragraph of it, anyway), and for the sake of your safety, it is important that you pass it on to at least ten friends.  For every one of them who returns it to you saying you are just being silly, buy yourself one banoffee-related product, and the world will be a happier place.
 
Comment on this entry

Pirates

Friday 18 August 2006  11.18 pm

It's a bit of a pirate night tonight.  As I write this I am in the AV Booth in the Octagonal Lounge at Lee Abbey as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is gracing the big screen for our guests.  I am still in the pirate outfit I used for dinner, when the meal was pirate themed.  We had a plank, a sail, bits of treasure map and a hundred or so guests dressed up as best they could.  Plus I got to shout lots and be really mean.  I liked it.

So this is the last night of Host Team (where I come off my usual duties to organise the programme for our guests).  It has been a good week, I think, though completely full as usual.  I even had my parents staying in Tinkerbell and my brother in Toad Hall (my room) this week too!

The guests this week have had a great time; there have also been some significant issues which we hope and pray God has worked in while they have been here.  We have already had some huge answers to our prayers for the young people and ourselves as a team.
 
Comment on this entry

The Long Movie Conundrum

Monday 7 August 2006  9.16 pm

Yesterday I went to see Superman Returns at Lynton Cinema.  I can honestly say that it was a very good film, and I enjoyed it.

I would, however, have enjoyed it even more had my body been a little more co-operative.  Superman Returns is not a boring film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  It's well made, good looking and quite exciting.  Yet once again, I found myself fighting against shutting eyes and a hurting behind.

I've had plenty of sleep recently and the seats were fine.  What's the issue?

The tragedy (hehe, let's go for the melodrama here) is that this seems to happen to me every time I watch a long film.  I love the Lord of the Rings (hey, I even bought the Extended Editions), and I'd happily watch a whole one of an evening if I could trust myself not to simply fall asleep halfway through - or spend half the film completely distracted by the desperate desire to stay awake.

However, I have a solution.  A two-and-a-half hour movie could simply be played in an hour and a half by increasing the speed.  True, it would bring back haunting memories of The Chipmunks, but at least I'd get to see the whole darn thing.

Superman's great.  But I didn't feel like putting a Superman picture against this blog entry, so instead I have put a picture of a duck-billed platypus - or a dziopak to the Poles among you.
 
Comment on this entry