Cold enough? Try Versoix in winter.

People keep complaining about the winter chill. Come ON! In South Australia this means we put on a woolly jumper. A notoriously cold spell in a Swiss town on the shore of Lac Leman (the Lake of Geneva) - sorry, don't know which year - was lyrically filmed and posted with a nice music track. Happily they are currently in mid-summer over there. Just a reminder that we are kinda lucky. In 1989 I enjoyed a boat trip on the lake from Geneva to Lausanne. It was pleasantly warm then!

Double click on the image to get full screen viewing. Actually, that winter was not out of the ordinary - the remarkable ice effects occur from wind-blown spray from the lake, which successively freezes and builds up (even encasing vehicles). And because the author called her clip "Incredible event..." it has been automatically cataloged with some mainly silly UFO and ghost clips. Nobody says you have to watch any of that.

wicked weekend

What a weekend of worldly event! Not for me... my most exciting episode was wondering if I was going to be eaten at Edithburgh by a red heeler bitch (I was talking with her human) but when I proved inedible she made friends instead. Must have said the right things in dog. Most dogs like me; in fact, they find me delicious.

The successful Shuttle launch (number 135... and terminal) kicked off the weekend, 1am Saturday. Did you remember? Set your alarm? Me neither. Then the demise of Rupert's The News of the World newspaper, sleaziest rag of the UK's gutter press. The joke is that Mr Murdoch doesn't give a hoot about it or its staff; he's looking to acquire BSkyB and its nine billion dollar annual income, beside which the NOTW cashflow was a fleabite. Nine billion...? Or was it pounds?

And today, not that most Australians would bother to note it, South Sudan's people - following the referendum earlier this year - take up their new-won independence as the planet's latest nation state, now divided from the Arabic-speaking Moslem north which had bombed and strafed them for the last couple of decades. Good luck, people.

In California, for royal-watchers the Kate and Will show rolled on. If you play polo on horseback (not the water sort) and played on the opposing team against Will, it cost you $50,000 (to charity), but the price hike was significant if you wanted to be on the prince's team. A hundred grand. I thought about it quite briefly and counted off the problems on three fingers. One: no cash. Two: no horse. Three: can't play polo. That's without even factoring in the added issues, like: wasn't there; wasn't invited; and didn't want to anyway. Which might be sour grapes, let's face it.

It's 9pm Sunday. 'Nother three hours and we'll have survived the weekend. Go Matildas. (Aussie women's national soccer team). Chopped some firewood. Oh, and I did online editing jobs for a Brazilian biochemist / medical researcher and a Canadian author. Small but interesting, the job not the author. No, actually I'm sure the author's interesting too. And may well be small. Hell, end this paragraph, why dontcha!?

The Last Space Shuttle Launch

At a few minutes after 1am South Australian time, Saturday morning, the shuttle Atlantis will be launched on not only her final  voyage but the last such trip in the 30 year American space shuttle program. It is rather sad.
See more here about the event.

This leaves, for now, only the Russian-leased Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan as a viable space-port for connections to the International Space Station.

Rhythm method, hugs, horses... oh, and crop circle

OK there was one smile this morning when I did an otherwise annoying edit job for a software-developing company in Russia: the boss said his team used "the rhythm method" to achieve results. And "big hugs" were due to those who got good results.

In the past 24 hours this formation appeared at Milk Hill, near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, in the UK, famous for one of the hillside horses (on Tan Hill) which is shown in the aerial view, where turf has been removed and replaced by chalky white stones. The horse is NOT a crop formation: it's been there for several centuries. And this time the formation in the standing crop can reasonably be called a crop CIRCLE. Look at the scale: the human figures inside the circle are tiny. That's right. It's quite hard to even see them

Yesterday's two new crop formations

Wow. Weird or what? Reported in the past 24 hours, both formations near Alton Barnes, Wiltshire, and both extraordinary art works - whether by some local genius or (also genius) our playful space alien buddies who clearly have a thing about Wiltshire fields (not a million miles from Silbury Hill and Stonehenge, each of which is a site of great interest to archaeologists and researchers into 'earth energies').

This invites you to ?translate from an intriguing square-looking 'script'. Tolkien did it, so why not book-loving aliens? This next formation goes back to the insectoid art of earlier phases... and for an unknown reason appears unfinished. Julian suggests somewhat enigmatically that it's because the design is too close to the local pub. Cheeky sod.

Moscow Nights

This is a beaut version of the famous song Moscow Nights (podmoskovniye vechera) beloved of Muscovites and I daresay most Russians even those who live elsewhere in the biggest country on earth. Not to mention all the ex-pats. I shared with friends earlier today and now with all blog watchers. There are of course good English words but this is in the original. I've know it with pleasure for over fifty years, since a summer spent - in part - in Moscow. The lyric has gentle romance and especially a portrait in words and melody of the Moscow River in the evening light, then moonlight, and finally the dawn.

Last Exit to... Mars. The Final Shuttle.

July already. Jeez. How'd we get here so soon?
One week from today, July 8, will be the final launch in the US space shuttle program. There is no replacement plan in view.

So, you know I was rabbiting-on the other day about my interest in Mars 'n' stuff ? I was being rudely flippant about that desert habitat deal for volunteers. Actually, I was just annoyed because nobody sent me a free ticket; and because it sounded a little like, y'know, work. I am after all a creature of comfort when I can get it. Like this morning, faced with the choice of coffee and a choc cookie, versus taking the trailer with garden organic waste up to the tip. Tough call.

Anyways (as our Canadian friends say) back to Mars. Bob Zubrin is one of my modern heroes. I mentioned him before, with a link to a talk he gave about, guess what, the do-able mechanics of reaching that destination using essentially current technology. It's his mission, so to speak. His book, co-authored with Richard Wagner (no, not THAT Richard Wagner) says more. It's called The Case for Mars and you can go here to read the preface which turns out to be a re-run of a paper Dr Zubrin first published in 1996. No harm in that.

If you're still reading, and if like me you go bug-eyed at pix of the Martian surface, you might care to read also this CNN item which re-prints a great talk by Dr Robert Zubrin (full title this time), who is in fact a rocket scientist as well as visionary. He's also our honorary President of The Mars Society, and yes, I'm a member of the Australian sister society: we're called marstralians. Enjoy.