Not Super But Still A Nova

When Astronomers say something is going to happen soon, they are generally taking about eons such as when they announced that the Star named Betelgeuse was starting to shed its outer layers and will be going Supernova very, very soon by which they meant sometime within the next 100,000 years so when i heard that T Coronae Borealis was going to go kaboom, my first thought was sure, i will make sure to tell my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren to keep an eye out for it.
Turns out this time they meant within the next 6 months because 3,000 light years away T Coronae Borealis is literally on the verge of not only blowing it's top but it's bottom and sides also in an explosion we can see from our Planet without a telescope, just a working pair of eyes.
This Nova isn't going to be Super though, just a common old Nova, and scientists have said that it blows every 80 years and dims for a year before it goes bang and it has been dimming like a maniac for the past twelve months so grab your popcorn and a deckchair and look towards the constellation Corona Borealis
and see the 'new' bright star which should hang around for about a week.
In a Nova, the explosion doesn't destroy the star as it just blows off excess material it has accumulated but a Supernova destroys the star completely which is why when Betelgeuse finally goes full Kaboom, it is going to be very, very impressive and well worth marking on your 102,024 calendar.

Tails We Lose

If you are not one of those people who believe that us human turned up on Earth fully formed after a bit of dirt scraping and nostril blowing then you are probably a follower of evolution, the idea that all species came from a common ancestor and change and gradually change over generations.
Our evolutionary journey means we are now generally shorter, lighter and smaller than our ancestors were 100,000 years ago and our brains have got smaller, have smaller jaws and therefore own less teeth as well as shedding most of our hair which all come with some benefits but a study published in Nature, losing our tails was an evolutionary boo-boo.
We lost our tails around the same time as we began standing upright and walking on two legs but we still have the coccyx as an evolutionary hangover from this tail-bearing ancestry as well as causing back pain which is the largest contributor to disability worldwide according to the Global Burden of Disease study.
Scientists explain that the amount of time it took for humans to move from quadrupedal to bipedalism did not allow our musculoskeletal system to properly adapt and all that extra pressure that is added to the lower back without the adaptation results in pain in the lower back, legs and feet.
It did give a great line to one scientist though who said that: 'If an engineer were given the task to design the human body, he or she would never have done it the way humans have evolved' which is sound advice but millions of years too late so thank heavens our brain developed enough to invent painkillers and ergonomic chairs.

This Easter Sunday Should Be All About Jesus

A strange man came bounding up to me one day a few weeks ago and asked me if i loved Jesus, 'well, he's alright' i replied in a well rehearsed answer, 'he seems a bit injury prone so i think we need another striker' and i walked away feeling very smug because the only Jesus i care about this Easter Sunday is the one with the big number 9 on the back of his Arsenal shirt today.
I am sure that at some point the commentators will make some reference to our Brazilian striker and a carpenter making an unlikely comeback a couple of thousands of years ago but that's just lazy and you won't get anything like that from me, no siree, i am far above puerile nonsense like that in such an important game.
The team news is that Jesus is likely to come on as sub if we are losing, he has bought us back from the dead before and would be just the man we need to resurrect our title hopes and crucify his old Manchester team.
If he can get on the end of a cross then we can finally nail City's chances in the League so come on your Gunners, let's make this Sunday less about scoffing chocolate eggs and more about celebrating Jesus!

Measuring Good Or Bad Governments

 

For many people, the way to judge just how good a Government has been is the basic 'Am i better off' which is a crude, but effective measure of how good, or bad, a Government have been over their time in power but it is a difficult one to measure.
With the ongoing cost of living crisis it would be difficult to find anyone who could honestly say they are better off today which is one of the reasons why Keir Starmer and the Labour Party are measuring up for the Downing Street curtains and we can't use indicators such as Interest Rates, Inflation or GDP because they move around and change from one year to the next.
I could look at things like homelessness, food banks, waiting lists or literacy rates to get an indication of whether things have improved but across the country the most important issues for voters are the Economy, Health, Immigration, Environment, Housing and Crime.     
As the Conservatives completely tanked the economy with Brexit and Liz Truss and lavished austerity on us for the past decade and somehow still managed to make the deficit significantly larger than when they took power than the Economy is not their strongest selling point.
With the NHS sorely underfunded and waiting lists soaring while staff strike for better pay and conditions they probably shouldn't be advertising their successes with Health and they may want to keep off the subject of immigration as 1.2 million migrated to the UK last year, the highest number since records began although they probably don't want you to look at the 52,530 small boat illegal immigrants who landed on our coastline either, especially as Rishi made a pledge to stop them completely a while back.
The Environment could have been a strong card until Rishi took to fighting against low emissions areas, handing out licenses to increase oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, slipped back the date for Net Zero and the date for petrol and diesel cars to be scrapped so once again, not so much green as a dirty oily grey.
Housing could be better, they made a manifesto pledge to build 300,000 new homes annually but have not hit that target once and cutting 20,000 police officers at the start of their reign in power wasn't a smart move as the number of crime offenses in England and Wales in 2010 was 4,150,916 and today stands at 6,739,868 although they will state they have increased police numbers by 20,000 which amazingly is the same number they cut it by previously.
The Worldwide Governance Indicator is a measure of Government effectiveness and is based on 30 think tanks, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and private firms in each nation and in 2010 the United Kingdom's Government effectiveness was 1.62 and today stands at 1.24 which means that during their 14 years in power, the Conservatives are woefully less effective than when they took over power.
I assume their could be some success they could point at but overall it is obvious why as a Government the Conservative Party are not so much at deaths door as standing in the hallway and commenting on the coat rack.

Raising Something For All The Saviours And Sons Of God Crucified

Today is Good Friday, or to give it it's full name here in the UK, 'Wahoo, a day off work' but i did find out something and that that Jesus supposedly took his last breath at 3pm or as it states in Mark 15: 33:34, 37: 'At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in
the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last'.
If you are reading this before 3pm today then lift a Hot Cross Bun and toast the guy who died so we can have a day off work, go shopping and drink latte's in Costa's (it is what he would have wanted afterall) but if it's after 3pm then bad luck, you missed it but don't despair because religion is chock full of  messiah like 'saviours' who were crucified before ascending to heaven and they all got into the act long before a certain long haired Carpenter.
The Sumerians can lay claim to starting up the whole nailing up the savior thing when Inanna/Ishtar was crucified in 3400 BC and if that was good enough for one iof the first religions then it was good enough for later ones such as Thulis of Egypt who was also crucified on a cross in 1700 BC, as was Krishna of India in 1200 BC and Crite of Chaldea in 1200 BC although in 1170 BC the Phrygian's of modern day Turkey didn't bother with a wooden cross and just nailed him straight onto a tree.
Thammuz of Syria found a cross with his name on it in 1160 BC, the Druids God Hesus/Eros was given a lamb and an elephant when he was crucified in 834 BC but Bali of Orissa had no such animals when he was hung up in 725 BC.
Indra of Tibet died on a cross in 725 BC, Iao of Nepal had a very close up view of a tree trunk in 622 BC and Buddha Sakia of India not only had the bad luck of being pinned to a tree by an arrow in 600 BC, but the tree then split at right angles to form a cross that hung the body.
Persian God Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace and died on a cross in 600 BC whereas Quezalcoatl of Mexico wasn't even given the comfort of a cross and was cruified on a rock in 587 BC unlike Indonesia's Wittoba of the Bilingonese in 552 BC or Greek God Prometheus who was not only crucified in 547 BC but had his liver grown back after being eaten by an Eagle everyday.
Quirinus of Rome never saw 505 BC as his crucifixion but as his life left his body, the whole earth was enveloped in darkness but the Thracian God Zalmoxis only pretended to be crucified in 500 BC and turned up years later in a 'ta-da, im still here' moment.
So in all, don't feel bad if you missed the 3pm Christian Crucifixion because there are so many 'Saviours' and 'sons of God' who have died for our sins/given human's fire/bumped off by enemies that whatever the time is, there is a good chance that one of them died about now anyway.

The Time Of Our Lives

There is a great story about Joey Ramone who suffered from a Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that whenever he walked down some stairs he had to step onto the ground off the last step onto his left foot and if he never, he would return to the top of the stairs and start again and as he lived in a 5th floor apartment, the band were always late for their appearances which must have been a nightmare for the rest of them but it could be that soon we all have the perfect excuse for turning up late somewhere because the Earths rotation is slowing and it is all thanks to Global Warming.
The accelerating melt from Greenland and Antarctica is adding extra water to the World's seas, redistributing mass and causing the Earth to not spin quite as fast as it would otherwise which is actually gloomily impressive that we ruined our Planet so much that we have actually changed how fast the Earth rotates.
To compensate the bods in charge of these things will be subtracting seconds from our clocks to keep everything in line, the first time they have ever had to do such a thing because they usually have to add seconds to compensate for our trip around the Sun not being an exactly timed journey.  
The problem with the negative second is that all the computer systems we use are only programmed for positive seconds and will have to be rewritten to ensure they all keep with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which the standard globally used to regulate clocks and time.
Those of us old enough to remember the Y2K bug and the rewriting of computers programs to compensate for the calendar ticking over to 2000 should be prepared for the dusting off of the prophets of doom predicting planes falling out of the sky and banks resetting all our savings accounts to nil so if us affecting the Earths spin doesn't focus your mind on what we are doing to our planet, maybe a Boeing 747 landing in your kitchen or your Halifax account being wiped clean will.

Foiled By Uzbekistan

This year’s Global Mind Project reveals that Britain is the second-most unhappy country in the entire world which is an outrageous slur, we are easily the most miserable so who beat us? Only bloody Uzbekistan!
So i guess we don't moan quite as much as the Uzbek's about the weather there as well as the trains, strikes, the NHS, the government, repeats on the telly, awful Wi-Fi reception in shops, traffic, parking, supermarket self-service tills, cost of living and the scratchiness of our socks so we have to up our game fellow Brit's because moaning and whinging about everything is our bag, not some damn Central Asian nation nobody could find in an Atlas unless it was coloured in and had a massive HERE sticker pointing at it!
To our credit we did beat Yemen who do actually have something to moan about what with it being in the midst of a war and a humanitarian crisis but the Project did find that there been a global decline in happiness since 2019 and the average global score was 65 which makes our 49 quite a feat we should be proud of.
With the current Conservative Government and Piers Morgan still working, us Brits are all united in being incredibly miserable and nothing makes us happier than a good old moan so swivel on that Uzbekistan, the only reason you beat us is because moaning is what makes us Brit's happy which is why you took our well deserved first place.

Stoicism

Stoicism was a philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Rome and of all the philosophy books, it was the one which has stuck with me and probably the most famous advocate was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius who wrote the book 'Meditations'.
It isn't an easy read, written in flowery prose full of thou's and dost but the overarching philosophy of Stoicism is don't waste your time and energy concerning yourself with things you have no influence over or as Aurelius put it 'Focus on what you can do, and not what you can't. There is nothing you can do about the past or future, you can only influence the present' which is great advice and basically what he took 256 pages to say.
It has certainly helped me in my career where we see and hear some awful things, much worse than the highly diluted versions which make it on to the TV News and newspapers which is sanitised for reasons of decency and to avoid giving the viewers and readers PTSD afterwards but it is hard not to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of daunting news on climate catastrophes, conflicts, humanitarian crises, murders and wars and anyone in all walks of life can suddenly feel inundated and buried in a deluge of unsettling news stories.
For a period dating from 300BC to third-century AD, stoicism was a popular philosophy that helped many in the ancient world deal with plagues, political instability, wars, high infant mortality, famine and exile but it does seem to be enjoying a resurgence in dealing with modern day problems.
Stoicism says that our realm of control consists of our own actions and reactions and we need not bother with things out of our control such as wars, travel delays, the weather, natural disasters, murders, politics, riots, the past, the future, pandemics, aging and dying so as they are all out of our control, are they worth worrying about?
It isn't always easy, strong human emotions are always in play but Aurelius hit the nail right on the head with his wise words to focus on what you can affect, and not what you can't because if nothing else it will make you calmer and make you realise that you shouldn't let events you cannot influence ruin your day.

Deporting Prince Harry

As Donald Trump's re-election campaign swings into gear, the issue of migration has bubbled to the top of the list of things his basket of deplorable's want him to concentrate his mind on and he hasn't disappointed with unhinged rants about withholding benefits from the children of migrants born in the United States, threatening to activate the National Guard to assist in mass deportations and went on a mad speech about migrants 'poisoning the blood of our country' but this week he said something which must have filled every Brit with dread..Prince Harry should be deported.
Now hang on there tubby, if you deport him, he will be coming back here so what's he ever done to you?
It appears that in his book, Spare, the ginger haired Prince admitted to sniffing cocaine and those who apply for U.S. visas must disclose whether they’ve ever used illegal drugs, and he put a big fat 'Nah, not me guv' on his application.
Trump told Britain's most hated wingnut, Nigel Farage, that Harry would not be the beneficiary of any special privileges, and if he lied, the Department of Homeland Security would kick his annoying arse back across the Atlantic.
Yes we know his greatest skill is to whine about his family and how he was forced to be raised in Castle's and Palace's and have access to all the finest things in life but while he is doing it over there, he isn't doing it over here so let's forgive Harry for his juvenile indiscretions and charitably overlook that he 'forgot' to mention his drug use on his visa and allow him to continue his please give us privacy nation tour of American TV Studios and in return we won't blow up that fat Orange Baby balloon next time you are here. Deal? 

Time Up For Tik Tok

ARGHHH!!!!! Chinese owned Tik Tok is destroying the minds of a generation and America's youth are being brainwashed in order to bring about the collapse of Apple Pie, Chewing Gum and fat men in Hawaiain shirts and cowboy hats.
Joe Biden was awake long enough to announce he would ban Tik Tok if a bill passes because it is a security risk but strangely no mention of the risk posed by Facebook which has been accused of interfering in American elections and of being actively involved in the death of 10,000 people in
Myanmar by amplifying hate speech and failing to take down specific posts or close accounts inciting violence against the Rohingya people.
Then you have Twitter (now X) which recently reinstated a slew of extreme right wing accounts but the problem seems to be that Xi Jinping knows you spend all day watching videos of cats falling off kitchen worktops.
Excuse me if i fail to swallow the Tik Tok ban is less about security and more about who is allowed to use your data with the choices being the Chinese Government or making money for some extremely weird right wing billionaires with some highly dubious data privacy practices.
America may be saying no to the Chinese running a social media site but have no problem with the Chinese making their toys, clothes, cars, computers, mobile phones and shoes and sell them to Americans over other social media companies.
Another choice is always opting out of all of them altogether and that way you know where your data goes, nowhere.