Scottish independence, a cryptozoological perspective

The Slightly-Less United Kingdom: the shape of things to come?

I've not given the Scottish independence debate an awful lot of thought, really. Beside my standard response to any prospective ripple of change disturbing my own little pond - which is fear and panic, of course - I've largely been of the viewpoint that in the case of any referendum taking place over 400 miles from where I live and in which I don't get a vote probably isn't really anything of my concern. Aside from a few procedural queries - what would happen to the Union Flag? Will I need a passport to get into Scotland? What now for shortbread? - I remain admirably placid.

Until today, that is, when I realised that the United Kingdom would be losing its only cryptid of note to another sovereign nation. This is a complete disaster and it needs to be addressed in parliament as soon as possible. The Nessie question.

Loch Ness: goodbye to all that

The Loch Ness Monster is possibly the most famous cryptozoological creature in the world. Only our hairier cousin (or less hairy cousin, if you come from Dorset) the Bigfoot can hope to rival it. It is by far and away the most important possibly-exigent creature in the UK today. A Union without Scotland would have to completely revise what it believed in.

Because, to put it simply, the Loch Ness Monster exists whereas all of the middling British cryptids that skulk in her shadow are probably don't. There is every chance, indeed, that they are in fact merely the fevered imaginings of people who are quite deeply unbalanced in some way. The question of what would give a Scotland-less Union its air of magical mystery is a difficult one to answer. Britain is an ancient land and it relies on its essential cryptid economy for its very survival. It is, perhaps, going to prove the final irony that it was only in killing the last remaining dragon that St. George was able to found the first English settlements.

Nessie: voting YES on Scottish independence

It is certainly an issue important enough to begin to address now, rather than waiting on the results of next year's vote. Britain's most senior post-Nessie cryptid must be decided ahead of time. There cannot be any sort of cryptozoological interregnum in this sceptred isle; that would be a breeding ground for panic, dissension and claimed sightings of all manner of three-headed goats. I don't for a moment claim to be clued-up enough to be able to predict the likely outcome of the Scottish independence referendum. All I do know is, it's not something that those of us to the south of Hadrian's Wall can afford to make assumptions about or adapt to on the hoof. Nessie herself is probably pretty much in the "pro" camp. A lot like Sean Connery, with the additional benefit that she actually lives in Scotland.

To this end, I have been dredging up all the peculiar beings that England, Wales and Northern Ireland have to offer, in order to find a potential replacement for Nessie should one become required from 2014 onwards. Here are the front-running candidates.

THE OWLMAN OF MAWNAN

Advantages: For a start, just look at the thing. The power of flight is also a significant bonus after a century of a rather more geographically-limited Top Cryptid. Also, the Owlman is a known sheep attacker, an always welcome Cryptozoological meme.

Disadvantages: The capacity for flight is a double-edged sword. Defections to Ireland or France remain a possibility, making the Owlman an unreliable choice. There's also the troublingly likely possibility that it's just a Cornish malcontent wearing feathery pyjamas, working through a series of highly ritualised but ultimately unsuccessful suicide attempts.

THE BEAST OF BODMIN

Advantages: In addition to a name which is guaranteed to capture the imagination, the Beast of Bodmin Moor is also much more fierce than the Loch Ness Monster ever was, and more proactive. Unless Nessie starts to pull sheep from the banks of the Loch, the beast offers a far more tantalising mortal threat.

Disadvantages: Let's not beat about the bush, it's probably just an escaped big cat. Or a nutter. Or nothing.

THE TUNBRIDGE WELLS BIGFOOT

Advantages: Unlike the Owlman and the Beast of Bodmin, who are both of a more bucolic disposition, the Kentish Apeman brings a frisson of cryptozoological terror into the more densely populated English home counties. With fewer sheep to bother, this Bigfoot will surely have to start preying on dogs, cats or teenagers with paper rounds, a welcome trope in the study of mythological creatures.

Disadvantages: Very badly lacking in any real caché, an English bigfoot would only add to the already swollen tales of hominids from throughout world folklore. The only potential for originality would be in naming the beast, so that it might be distinct from its hairy brethren the Saquatch, Yeti, Hibagon or Almasti. Also, knowing Kent it's probably just a hairy bloke.

GENAPRUGWIRION

Advantages: From Abersoch, this Welsh condender could possibly give off enough of an air of inclusiveness that would prevent another country buggering off because they hate English people.

Disadvantages: At just a foot long, a skulky brown insect-eating lizard is hardly likely to set any pulses racing. However, this could be the ideal cryptid for home pest control use during the hot summer months.

SHINY THE CAT

Advantages: Fierce, massive, violent, psychopathic and terrifying. Also, its definite existence and ease of location are both a serious boon, after a century of pilgrimage to Loch Ness.

Disadvantages: Perhaps a little too commonplace to really be outstanding, Shiny the cat's key excluding criteria is in fact the high probability that he will fuck you up. Nevertheless, a leading candidate.

SPRING-HEELED JACK

Now we're getting somewhere.

The past as seen from the future

The best five inventions

I like inventions. I admire the inventiveness of inventions. If it hadn't been for all the inventors who have gone before me inventing so many inventions, I would have liked to have invented some inventions myself. However, some inventions are better than others. Reggae Reggae sauce and a whiteboard that comes in a roll like aluminium foil have both served their inventors very well, but we'd probably have muddled by without them. Even though our lives may have been a bit devoid of reggae flavour.

Not so with the following five inventions. Without these five inventions, I'm pretty sure that life today wouldn't be nearly so sweet. And in countries where life is already shitty, their absence would surely make existence seem like it wasn't even worth the struggle. So a timely salute, then, to the five best inventions ever invented. By inventors.

1. The wheel

A wheel, yesterday

It's a bit clichéd perhaps, but without the wheel and fire, humanity would probably have not advanced to the point that you could be sat in a centrally-heated building reading this shit and pretending to work. But whereas fire is a naturally occurring element, wheels needed that little bit of extra grey matter to bring them into being. Wheels help people move stuff about.

2. The pencil

A pencil, yesterday. This one is called B. Noris.

The pencil was first invented when a warty old Cumbrian farmer stumbled upon one of the locally abundant seams of naturally occurring graphite in the Lake District. He then wrapped it up in a bit of leather and started writing all kinds of shit. Pencils are brilliant. They don't leak, they work when they're wet and you can rub out your mistakes. Pencils.

3. Nail clippers

Some nail clippers, yesterday

Can you imagine the exquisite misery life must have been before someone invented these bad boys? Nails are a pain in the arse, let's face it. Or rather, their tendency toward relentless growth is. I'm not even sure what people would have done before nail clippers. Presumably they'd have used blades of some sort (imagine the snaggly edges though! catching on the inside of your socks!) or if they were particularly intelligent they could have ground them down on an abrasive surface such as a rock or the skin underneath a Maltese pensioner's tit. Nail clippers are the basis of human civilisation. Control over our keratin is what separates us from the animals. (What separates the animals from us is that they're clever enough to not watch The X-Factor.)

4. Vaseline

Some Vaseline, yesterday. Your mother is a flabby whore.

The man who invented Vaseline viewed it as something of a panacea. He ate a teaspoon of it every night, for example, believing it to be beneficial for good digestion. It would certainly keep things moving. But let's not get side-tracked. Vaseline is the very essence of life. Without Vaseline, things would be miserable. It's good for dry skin, protecting from cuts and grazes and also a useful standby if any sailors are about. Whenever you are packing to go anywhere, you're not finished until you've got a pot of Vaseline and that's a fact.

5. The clit piercing gun

Causal determinism

Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington,
no good beefy sumbitch

In Shoreham-by-Sea there is a pub called The Duke of Wellington. I've never been in it, possibly on account of the factor that I am about to relate. Above the door is a very large stone boot. This is presumably a Wellington boot. Maybe it's even one of the Duke of Wellington's very own. He was an impressive man, after all, and ate a lot of beef.

But this great big stone boot hangs there all the same. Sometimes I have to walk under it as it overhangs the pavement outside the door. And this always worries me. It is only suspended by chains, you see. Should they ever fail, that boot will fall earthward with terrifying force. If I know only one thing about physics - and I do - I know this: stuff that is up in the air will always want to go in a downward direction. This is because Sir Isaac Newton invented gravity.

One day I'll be underneath that boot and it will fall on my head, I just know it. I tell you what I will do to prove this to you. I'm going to go there right now and stand there. I'll stand there for a thousand years if I have to. But one day I'll be underneath that boot and it will fall on my head.

And that will be just my bloody luck.

The trouble with introducing alien fauna into ecosystems unable to cope with them

As the sad and embittered regular readers of this shit will know, I am a big fan of 1950s science-fiction films. Particularly the ones with monsters in them. Because monsters are a peril we all must face at some point in our lives, or perhaps not.

So I was excited to note that Film4 had a film on this morning called 20 Million Miles to Earth. It had no write up in the Radio Times except to say it was a sci-fi horror and it was made in 1957. I like those odds. Upon looking it up on IMDb, I read the following:

The first U.S. spaceship to Venus crash-lands off the coast of Sicily on its return trip. A dangerous, lizard-like creature comes with it and quickly grows gigantic.

I love those odds.

So yeah, I watched it. How could I not? How could anyone not? Maybe it was the old Chewits adverts from the 1980s making me love monster films. But I actually suspect the root cause of my love of 1950s science-fiction films is that they are all strongly allegorical fables about the danger of progress, of the cold war and of the nuclear arms race. In many ways they were a coping mechanism for people, a way to help adjust to the new realities of the world and the scientific, philosophical and ideological challenges that, whether we liked it or not, everyone had to face. Plus they had spaceships and monsters and that in them.

Fresh from the Tiber to your ass

20 Million Miles to Earth is a little different in that regard. Spaceships and monsters were, thankfully, present and correct. But there's no real message in the film, save for its magnificently vague final line: " Why is it always, always, so costly for man to move from the present to the future?"

As questions go, this isn't the most hard-hitting one that the Cold War threw forward. Progress comes in many forms. Just go to Lakeland. There's spray-on cooking oil and things for opening cans that five years ago you could never even have dreamed of, but it's unlikely that the cost of these great leaps forward can be measured in human lives. Perhaps a little of the meaning was more culturally implicit and understood at the time the film was released. After all, it came out in the same year that the Soviets launched Sputnik. Could we be meddling in forces we don't understand? Was the nascent space race inherently bad? Were giant lizards an inevitable consequence of man's insatiable quest for knowledge and discovery?

But I'm not even sure if that is the case. I rather think I may be searching for reasons and justifications where there are none, which rather smacks of historical revisionism. But what can I say? I have a Media Studies 'A' level.

The spaceships and monsters are the best part. There's no doubt about that. The hokier the effects the better, too. But the shortcomings of the special effects technology available at the time can always be circumvented with skilful editing and good acting. Unfortunately, in 20 Million Miles to Earth both of these things suck. They suck balls. Smelly balls. Luckily, the monster effects were done by the great Ray Harryhausen and his revolutionary stop-motion animation techniques. Thanks to this, it's no exaggeration to say that the monster in the film was by far and away its best actor and his only line in it is "waaaaurgh".

Sigmund Freud would take his family on mushroom gathering expeditions during family holidays during which he would institute prizes for the best and second-best mushrooms found. Were these criteria to be applied to the acting in this film, the prize for second-best would go to an elephant in Rome Zoo. But everyone else: thanks for playing. We (probably) couldn't have done it without you.

Which is not to say that there was nothing to learn from this film. It's just that the lessons were more straightforward than one might have expected of a feature from this era. There is an awful lot that anyone watching can find out Venus, Italy and monsters. I found out loads. Here is a summary of my new-found wisdom.

1. Creatures from Venus eat sulphur
They can't get enough of that shit. He passed through a well-stocked Sicilian farmyard, passing by cows, pigs, sheep and horses (additional note: creatures from Venus are not French) in order to get to a few bags of sulphur. He even passed up the chance of a bag of grain. Delicious, delicious grain.

2. Creatures from Venus are "only ferocious if provoked"
This is something of a concern to me. Big green lizards of almost unfettered growth being ferocious at any stage is really no great help to anyone. If you provoked me, I'd probably get miffed after a little while. Ferocity would probably follow but not for a good few hours. Not so on Venus, where it's like a light switch. I'm not sure Venus and I would get along.

3. Elephants don't like creatures from Venus
Most of the sentient beings that encountered the alien vistor in the film reacted with admirable equanimity. But the elephant wasn't having any of it. The elephant, it seems, is ferocious even when not provoked. Good to know, should Venus ever become a problem.

4. The US Army are surprisingly accommodating to the press
Anyone still wondering if perhaps the Roswell incident was a big cover-up need only look as far as this film. Here the US military attaché gave a full, frank and blow-by-blow account of the entire sorry tale so far to the assembled press corps. It is an important lesson in the fact that the US government aren't going to lie to us about the presence of extra-terrestrial life, be it a small alien in New Mexico or a 100-foot high lizard from Venus. Although admittedly the latter would be harder to hush up completely for any significant length of time, especially if it ate the Pope.

5. The greed of Italian children will be the ruin of us all
The lizard's cocoon was in a hermetically sealed jar which washed up on the coast. And if only the first person who found it hadn't been a child whose phenomenal greed and addiction to American western films were his only motivating factors then the lizard may never have walked among us. But it was, and it did.  On the plus side, he did get 200 lire for his troubles (which is approximately eight pence) and with this he bought a cowboy hat. His subsequent admission of this to the US military earned him a further half-million lire, none of which positive re-enforcement seems particularly likely to help encourage him to stick to the right moral path in future. He was going to buy a horse with it, while tanks blasted several new holes in the Colosseum.

6. Venus is 20 million miles from Earth
I'm not sure about the veracity of this fact. I should probably check it before it ruins my chances of success in any future games of Trivial Pursuit. (In fact, at its nearest point to us, Venus is 23.6 million miles from Earth. It's unlikely NASA would be as slapdash as this in any future Venus missions).

7. Creatures from Venus have a bifurcated tail
Forked jobbies. Like a snake's tongue.

8. The water in the river Tiber makes creatures from Venus grow massive
This may not be a fact which is completely set in stone, as there were a number of problems with scale throughout the film. Sometimes the creature was the size of a man, only to be dwarfed by a passing chicken in the next scene. The Tiber certainly seemed to have a marked effect on it, though. So be careful before using it to fill your bidet or else your trousers won't fit.

9. Creatures from Venus have neither a heart or lungs
Frankly, I'm starting to wonder about these facts.

It goes without saying that I am now a bloody expert on Venutian fauna, the ethical implications of interplanetary space travel and the greed of Sicilian fishermen's children and am therefore available to answer any questions you may have about any of the issues raised in this post.

Mission to Mars

Here are some dates for your consideration: 20-21 July 1969, 19-21 November 1969, 5-6 February 1971, 30 July-3 August 1971, 21-24 April 1972 and 11-14 December 1972. These are the only occasions that humanity has so far spent on a celestial body other than the Earth. I should probably point out, in the eventuality that anyone reading this is a bit thick, that on all of the above dates the celestial body in question was the moon.

20th July 1969 - 14th December 1972. Honestly. It reads like a hamster's gravestone.

I was born in 1980, which means that I have missed out on all the space fun. Unless you count large scale calamitous failures as fun, which you should not. You bastard. Back on the very Monday that I was born, in the midst of the cold war, the day in July 1969 that man landed on the moon was not yet even 11 years ago. Astronauts and space missions still captured the imagination. It was something constructive to do with all those nuclear bombs. Surely, within days we'd be racing the Soviets to Mars, winner gets all the best rocks?

Goin Mars, BRB

But then Mikail Gorbachev comes along and ruins everything, favouring working on peace on Earth rather than uncontrolled spending trying to blow everything up. In the giddy thrill of the Berlin Wall's collapse, we lost sight of Mars.

Back then I was still only nine years old, though. Plenty of time for a new cold war to begin, surely? It did, of course, but being based around the concept of global terrorism rather than Statehood and political ideology, it did little to advance the space race. Terrorists are unreasonable people at the best of times, very unlikely to be swayed or impressed by the sight of some bloke playing golf in virtually-zero gravity. And all the while I am growing older, my chances of seeing anything interesting at all ever happening in my life - something worth telling future generations about that isn't just about explosions or death tolls - are growing slimmer by the withered, wrinkly, grey-pubed day.

Why did humanity explore space in the first place? We claimed it was in the spirit of scientific discovery and humanity's insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. It seems likely now that these were lies. It was all for political and ideological reasons, wasn't it? How ghastly and smutty. How ordinary. How terrestrial.

Human beings need to go to Mars. Human beings are very stupid and don't know anything until we go and find stuff out. We are completely unable to conceive of how anything works without experiential knowledge of it. On 19th July 1969, for example, we believed that the moon was made of cheese, that Clangers lived there and that cows jumped over it on a regular basis. How foolish we were.

Mars: all the information currently known

And now I want to know all about Mars. What do they have there? History alone teaches me to be wary of thinking it is all Martians scuttling about wearing Roman Armour. But how can I even begin to try and envisage the wonders until a member of my own race gets their candy ass up there and hits some golf balls about and drops a feather? Do they have a Morrison's? Are they Protestants? And what can we learn about the nature of existence and creation?

Humanity not going to Mars is dashed incurious of us, if nothing else. A life half-lived. And I'm going to kick up a big stink about this until some bastard does it.

Esoteric physics jokes Tuesday

The joy of sloths

There's a risk that this post may upset those readers amongst you who subscribe to creationist theories, as it is going to make continued references - both explicitly and implicitly - to the theory of evolution and the planet Earth being more than 4000 years old. Sorry about that, but it's arguable that you have bigger problems than just this blog post if that is the case. You maniac.

One of my very favourite things about being a human being is that you get to live on Earth and that means you are sharing the self same small celestial rock that used to be the home to dinosaurs and GIANT GROUND SLOTHS. There's very little that makes me happier than a sloth, and the idea of a giant ground sloth lumbering around the place is simply thrilling. These animals were the size of elephants, plodding around, being sloths. It's a buy one, get 99 free sloth extravaganza. Hitting the sloth coupon book hard.

A giant ground sloth, yesterday. Geologically speaking.

The joy of the giant ground sloth is only just beginning, though. There are two more cherries on this particular delicious fuzzy giant cake.

First is co-evolution. If you've ever eaten an avocado or a mango, you owe it all to these now extinct giant animals. Fruit plants propagate their species, of course, by having their seeds inside their edible fruit pods. Lovely hairy animals come along and wolf down the tasty goodness and then wander off to do a crappins. The seed is therefore spread far and wide and even has its own rich and fertile starter growbag of poo to help it along. But how do you spread your seed (hur hur) far and wide if it is the size of an avocado's or a mango's pit. You need an animal gigantic enough to swallow a your fruit whole (and with a bunghole big enough to plop out the seed hole, too).

The theory goes that this necessary interdependence has led to such evolutionary anachronisms. So, hats off to animals like the giant ground sloth. They did a lot of the leg work (and the bottom work), just for long enough for a Mexican to come along and discover the potency of guacamole, then start to cultivate their own avocados without needing a slotharse. Unfortunately for the sloth, this co-existence with early man is likely to have caused their ultimate extinction. Because, obviously, you can't eat guacamole on its own.

Secondly, Mapinguari. Yes, some people believe that the ground sloth is not extinct at all, and still yomps around the forests of South America, pooing avocado trees out of its bum. Now, it's easy to be cynical here:

"...as a 1937 report from central Brazil claimed a mapinguari had gone on a three-week rampage, killing over 100 cows and ripping out the tongues from their carcasses. However, in all accounts it did not eat humans, although when it smells the presence of people it stands up on its back feet, becoming as tall as two metres, a movement similar to grizzly bears."

Of course, the common sense explanation for this is it's more likely to be a rogue population of bears - a currently existent animal - rather than a hitherto undiscovered pocket of an animal unknown to science beyond the fossil record. Not to mention the likelihood of slothful behaviour from a slothlike creature - presumably a giant ground sloth would need lots of giant ground naps and therefore would be fairly easy to stumble upon in rainforest clearings. Surrounded by dead cows and avocado trees, I would expect.

But I'm not going to be the one to do a avocado poo on this parade. The joy of cryptozoology (which regular readers of my blog will know is a subject that fascinates and excites me in equal measure) is in the fun of speculation, of possibility and of the unknown.

So a salute to our ground sloth cousins. They crapped out avocados and the ones who live in Bolivia shriek like stuck pigs, stink the place out and have great long matted woolly tails. A salute, too, to their smaller modern day cousins, why not. They are awesome.

I'm a loser

The other day I complained about the futility of Windows 7's version of Solitaire keeping statistics. It's a game of chance much more than a game of skill, I argued. Keeping a record of your performances merely serves to make you feel like every game is theoretically winnable. It isn't, of course, so you end up feeling like a loser. And then at the end of the day you end up with a handy percentage figure you can share to demonstrate exactly how big a loser you are.

I wanted to know, so over the last week or so I've played 100 games of Solitaire, which is not a euphemism. This activity in itself makes me a magnificently huge loser. But thanks to my scientific research I can now reveal that the exact percentage of loser that "magnificently huge loser" equates to is 12%.

I hate myself so much right now I can't even begin to tell you

Honestly, people have committed suicide over less.

Oh yes they are

It's the close of the pantomime season and this can only mean one thing. Whilst the rest of the actors disband to their familiar pastures of local radio and BBC 1's Doctors (when was there last a pantomime poster in the UK not featuring the words "... from BBC 1's Doctors"?), pantomime cows disappear entirely from view. Make the most of them this week, folks: you won't see another one until December rolls around again.

For generations, the normally high standards of scientific inquiry have been unusually content to just accept this state of affairs. It's baffling really, considering the investment in terms of money, time and intellect that the British nation are capable of - just look at their input at CERN, for instance - that no-one has ever really tried to study where the pantomime cows all go between January and December.

A lot of people will tell you that they are not real cows.

I say, let's not make any definitive statements until we know things for certain. Facts - DATA - is what we need, not hokey old conventional wisdom.

So it was at this point I decided to catch a pantomime cow. Here's my plan.

To catch a mocking cow

As with all good science, you have to have a hypothesis. My hypothesis is that the pantomime cow is a migratory species. Britain in the months of February to November is, on average, too warm an environment for it. So, my belief is that they majestically sweep northwards once the pantomime season is finished, most likely at night as to my knowledge this great migration has never been witnessed.

Of course, in order to test my hypothesis, I need a pantomime cow, which I intend to capture according to the above in-depth scientific diagram. A basic tiger trap should prove sufficient, although the pit required does need to be large enough to contain a pantomime cow: an animal that is, on average, the size of two adult men. To tempt the cow I'm using food as bait. Again, no-one is exactly sure what a pantomime cow eats - cynics will tell you that it's green room Pringles - so a small amount of trial and error is going to be required. Capturing my pantomime cow could well take some years and a bit of luck, but it's time I'm willing to invest.

Once I have a pantomime cow I plan to electronically tag it so as its migratory patterns may be precisely tracked and traced and we can finally know for certain where the pantomime cow summers. There is a chance that after years of digging holes, testing different food combinations and countless court appearances that my budget won't extend to electronic tagging equipment, in which case I plan to put a small hole in a pot of paint and hang it off the pantomime cow's udder, creating a trail I can then follow.

There's no need to thank me.

These things I know - The Solar System

My friend Ed (his name is like my name!) is hugely enthusiastic about maths and science. I am not. They are subjects which have always largely passed me by, particularly science, the majority of which I find bewilderingly confusing. However, when he tells me about maths and science I always find it interesting and very enjoyable, as interesting and enjoyable as it always is when anyone who is passionate about something tells you about it.

It's times like that when my ability to use my largely fragmented knowledge of stuff and things comes into play. I'm pretty good at holding my own in a conversation about more or less any subject for 10 minutes or so. If bluffing your way through stuff was an Olympic event I'd probably be a captain on A Question of Sport by now. So today I thought I would test myself, sit down and write everything I know about a subject. This falls under the auspices of full disclosure, but also of my heartfelt desire to prove to everyone that I am in fact an idiot.

I have chosen a subject riven with both maths and science (you see how this all links up?): The Solar System. The one what we all live in, apparently.

The creation of the solar system

The solar system was created by something called The Big Bang. No-one knows how this happened. I am no different in this regard. However, what it did do is create all the matter in the universe. Just thinking about this is making my head spin, actually. This is why I never think about science.

Our galaxy

There are many galaxies. We live in one called The Milky Way. There are planets and moons and stuff in it, but the most important thing is our star, which is called the sun. The sun is very important as it provides heat and light and other good things. If the sun stopped working we would all be buggered, so it's best if that did not happen. One day it will happen, which is going to cause some headscratching on Earth, for sure.

The planets

There are 9 planets. Or 8. Or 10. Sometimes people are feeling stingy and sometimes extravagant. When they are feeling extravagant they discover new planets with a big telescope. The planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto. From Mercury to Saturn, those are definitely in the right order. There is no life on any of the planets except earth, which lives in The Goldilocks Zone. It also has a jaunty tilt off its axis which helps enormously. Mercury and Venus are both very inhospitable and largely made of acid and spikes. Mars is red and may have water on it which is a good thing as far as life is concerned. Jupiter and Saturn are made of gas, which I don't really understand. They both have lots of moons which look amazing. One of Jupiter's moons is called Ganymede, which I like. Saturn has a ring round it. This is made of stuff. Neptune, Uranus and Pluto are also made of gas I think but they are very cold and far away and no-one cares. People have even said Pluto isn't even a proper planet, which is a bit mean.

Other galaxies and stars

There are millions of other galaxies just like ours, each with their own star. The sky is full of stars. You can see them in the sky at night if you don't live in London. They are all like our sun, in various stages of their life-cycle, but further away. In the other galaxies there are other planets orbiting their star. I believe that there is other life in the universe. In fact, I think it is impossible that it wouldn't be the case. The reason why we have never heard from them is the same reason that they've never heard from us: we're all too far away and don't have the technology. I believe that extra-terrestrial life is most likely going to strongly resemble life on earth, because science and evolution should be constants. I would quite like to see an extra-terrestrial dog. They might be a bit taller, or hairier, but they'd still be a dog.

The moon

Like many of the planets, Earth has a satellite. This is called The Moon. Considering that we named all of the planets in the solar system and all of their moons, this is not a very imaginative name. The moon orbits Earth. Its gravity effects the tides. On July 20th 1969, two American blokes landed a spaceship on the moon and dicked about and got some rocks to prove that it wasn't made of cheese. Then they came home. That's pretty impressive when you consider it. Especially if you have any experience of the British railway service.

Gravity

Gravity is the thing that makes people stay on the ground, but not aeroplanes. I do not understand where it comes from or what it is but I am glad it's there, otherwise you'd have to tie all your stuff down and it would cost a fortune in string.

So, there you go. That's what I know about the solar system. You may have learned something. God help you if you did.

On chicks

Chicks dig scars. This means that were it not for my odious personality, I'd be completely snowed under. My head looks like a dog's had a go at Kryten from Red Dwarf.

Obviously, I've been through the majority of the reasons for this here before. However, I just looked at the date when I was struck with the dazzling realisation that! It's been 5 years to the day since I had the operation to screw my neck back together.

Five years of being bionic, almost to the hour that I'm writing this. They've been exciting times. Actually, they haven't really. But considering the exciting times that led me into that situation that's probably for the best.

It was an exciting operation, mind you. It lasted about 3 or 4 hours, I think. Two neurosurgeons went in through the front of my neck and screwed my spine back together (for those experts amongst you, it was my odontoid process, I had a type 2 fracture of C2). All the while I was being CT scanned, so a live-action 3D model of my head and neck was available to make sure they didn't do anything really daft, like accidentally drive the screw into the bottom of my brain. I blanche to think how expensive this must have all been. All hail Great Britain! A country where, at the moment at least, you can really seriously injure yourself without financial ruin!

The mark of a good surgeon, the saying goes, is that they leave no mark. And so it proved to be. The sum total of the outward physical evidence of what I sincerely hope is the coolest operation I will ever have: a 2½-inch long scar, almost invisible to the naked eye. Perhaps this is why chicks don't dig me so much. Perhaps chicks should carry portable x-ray machines and metal detectors.

The good people responsible were Hurstwood Park Neurosciences Centre in Haywards Heath. A magnificent bunch. Such was their efficiency that, having checked in to the hospital on the 9th and been operated on on the 10th, by teatime on Saturday 12th I was at home again. I can't recommend them highly enough. I would also recommend you do your best to avoid having to use their services in the first place, mind you.

I am cool.

On science

My understanding of science is perhaps a little flaky in parts. However, it is a subject which frequently fascinates, probably as a result of the number of exciting mysteries it throws up to idiots like me.

My latest concern is about emails. When the emails are all shooting about around in the pipes, there's a lot of energy there, surely? And all the emails in their pipes remind me a bit of a particle accelerator. So, my question is, if two different people with identical names emailed someone at the exact same time, would it cause reality to collapse in on itself?

This just one of the myriad excellent reasons why I prefer receiving emails from people with unique names.

On psychics

Could old films be lying to us? Or at the very least, might they have painted a false picture of reality? How else can I explain the most baffling social omission of our times?

Back in the old days, of candlelight dinners, waspish comments and no funny stuff before marriage, no respectable woman would be without some measure of psychic powers. A dinner party was not complete without some question being answered or argument being settled by an impromptu seance, after a man had stood up to announce that his wife was "particularly in-tune with the beyond".

Where's all this now? The average dinner party that I go to now is perfectly lovely. Food and drink is consumed, conversation is enjoyed. It is so gezellig. All that is missing is a bit of occult activity to round it off. Maybe with rattling windows and sweeping curtains.

This is why Tarot card reading should be on the National Curriculum.

On animals having pubes

My friend and I are deeply embroiled in science. Particularly the science of pube eugenics, or Peugenics. This is the area of genetic engineering which seeks to grant animals the gift that evolution has so far seen fit to deny them - pubic hair. The way I look at it, we're actually giving nature a bit of a helping hand, as I'm sure it would get there in the end. Pubes have so many uses, after all.

Here is a handy 1200 x 1024 pixel guide to our work so far. (click for full-size)

Astrology

Life is full of pieces of synchronicity. The welcome return of BBC Radio Five Live's Danny Baker Show on Saturday mornings has been accompanied by an astrological theme in the past three weekends. Then, last week, my good friend Mungo told me that they'd been using horoscopes to help guide them in their life and love.

Well, this is clearly a sign that I should give astrology - undeniably still the greatest and most infallible science known to humanity - some serious consideration. As such, after poring over any number (0) of astrological charts and a childhood watching Button Moon, I can now present my horoscopes for this week. Anyone who finds that they are particularly helpful or prove especially prescient are invited to add their experiences in the comments to this post, so as I may better calibrate my sextants for future attempts.

Aries (21 March - 20 April)

Cows will be much on your mind this week. You'll be thinking about eating them, about wearing them and about adopting them as pets. But most of all you'll be thinking about suckling on their sweet sweet udders. A chance meeting with a dairy farmer may have dire consequences.

Taurus (21 April - 20 May)

The stranger you met last Tuesday will reveal themselves to be your ticket to Wimbledon. Do not push your luck any further though, and assume you'll have to buy your own strawberries. A wet and windy day in the middle of the week is a good time to confront your mother.

Gemini (21 May - 20 June)

Getting a flap of skin really quite seriously caught in something will prove to be a blessing in disguise. Don't count on the kindness of strangers, though. This week will prove that your hero is the person you always thought it would be, even though you never thought you'd show them your flaps.

Cancer (21 June - 22 July)

Uranus is descending, so you could find salads a struggle this week. Take the opportunity to rekindle your old love of meat. Investing literally all your money and assets in a novelty candle store would be a good idea.

Leo (23 July - 22 August)

Your favourite Color Me Badd album, which you thought was always set in stone, will change this week after a trying but ultimately fruitful armed siege on a bus. Keeping a snooker ball in a sock was, is and will continue to be a good idea.

Virgo (23 August - 22 September)

This week will definitely be your best ever chance of meeting the Queen. If you achieve it, don't hold back. Particularly not your farts. Your shared love of Bombay Bad Boy Pot Noodles will see you move up in the world in ways you'd never imagined.

Libra (23 September - 22 October)

Cowardice will serve you well this week. Total abrogation of your authority will end incredibly badly for the people you consider your loved ones, but see your life take a magnificent new path. Stab everyone in the back.

Scorpio (23 October - 22 November)

Any relationships you may have had with Frenchmen are best forgotten about this week. Look to the future and try to eliminate garlic from your diet unless you are having particular trouble with vampires and/or biting insects. A chance encounter with a goat will serve you well.

Sagittarius (23 November - 22 December)

Exhuming Jean Paul Sartre is advisable for Sagittarians this week. But remember, there's only one so collaboration - or getting there first and fighting like a cornered tiger - will be the key. Jean Paul Sartre's eBayed glasses will prove a major windfall.

Capricorn (23 December - 19 January)

You're going to shit your pants on public transport this Wednesday. Nothing you can do will prevent this, so instead choose to embrace it. The man sitting next to you when it happens will prove significant to you for the rest of your life.

Aquarius (20 January - 18 February)

Thursday night's occluding of Uranus is likely to have several knock-on effects. Now could be a good time to start that soul band. All the things you thought would stand in your way will soon evaporate after a series of violent tantrums in a shopping centre.

Pisces (19 February - 20 March)

Unusual and exotic pets should be the order of the day for you this week. Consider any of the following: owl, mole, hedgehog, toucan, cougar or donkey. Only once you have a menagerie in place will you see an end to your crippling mood swings, you loser.

Beak Strata Analysis

Click for bigger

My idea advent calendar, day 17

December 17th: Sharks

It is a well-known fact that sharks represent one of the most perfectly aerodynamic shapes known to man. It is also a well-established fact that better aerodynamics means less drag, less drag means lower fuel consumption and lower fuel consumption is good for the environment. I don't think you have to be a genius to figure out the mathematics of this equation, but in case you are particularly thick, I will nevertheless spell it out. All road vehicles should be shark-shaped.

My idea advent calendar, day 13

December 13th: The rise of technology

The great irony of modern society is that the only way to publically declare that you are a Luddite is either on your blog or on Twitter. Nevertheless, the terrifying speed of development of communications and entertainment technology leaves me rather befuddled. If you'd told me, just 10 years ago, that the next mobile phone I got would most likely have the entire internet on it, I'd have told you I'd never get a mobile phone. I did, of course, such is the force for social change offered by our new trinkets. We belong to the first epoch in human history who dedicate more time to finding new ways of entertaining ourselves than we do feeding ourselves or making wheat hardier and taste like Tizer. My idea is for a moratorium to be declared on all new developments in TV, gaming and communication for five years, in order to allow people like me to catch up. Failing that, I'd like mobile phones to have a button on reading "HELP" which, when pressed, immediately dials The Samaritans and directs you to the nearest Bygones museum.

My idea advent calendar, day 11

December 11th: Climate change

Climate change is very much the topic of the day for people all over the globe, so it would be remiss of me to not try and think up an elegant solution to the growing problem. However, it is fair to say that this is quite a challenge. In the past I have rather glibly suggested that a bear could eat the excess carbon, which I STILL MAINTAIN WOULD WORK. But it seems like the time has come for a more urgent and radical solution to be found. And here it is: collect all the carbon dioxide together and fire it into space. Actually, that may not work, because space rockets are quite polluting. Give everyone their own tree and a wheelbarrow to carry it round in.