Fingerprints

Our hand reached out and we quickened the moon. Greasy fingerprints smeared the silver and the tarnish spread - now an uncanny bloom hides our abandoned toys strewn across the surface. A delicate green, a fur, shrouds the familiar platinum face, it glows - but not quite as we remember it. We rail at our destructiveness and in contrition send bombs to put it right.


Picture credit: T.A.Rector, I.P.Dell'Antonio/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Light Pollution

I love the eerie orange glow of a metropolis, that alienating sulphurous orange. I know it's pollution, I know it's the reason I cannot see the stars and the energy used to produce it is filthy but I can't help it, I'm seduced. Piccadilly circus with it's cliff face screens flashing incessant robotic love for products I detest is beautiful at twilight, purple dusk melding with swirling hallucinogenic images. Don't tell me it's vulgar, I don't care.

Imagine a world where solar technology has outstripped fossil fuels at a sprint. Those gaudy lights would be coming for free. We could light any place we chose like a damn fairground. But we'd choose wisely, and not put those lights on migration paths or near beaches where hatchling turtles never make it to the sea because like me they were seduced by the glow. And the lights would be downward pointing, and they would not be harassing us to buy, and the stars would not be banished.

This is a Skywatch Friday post. For skies around the world, visit Skywatch Friday!

An Edwardian Lady Explorer visits the Secret Garden Party

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend four magical days at The Secret Garden Party, a gorgeous little festival where dressing up is de rigueur and rather than spend your time traipsing between huge stages while you lose all your friends and miss the big name headline acts, you find yourself reclining on a sunny grass bank watching mud wrestling while a band plays dangling from a tree. No, I'm not exaggerating. I took two costumes (one Steampunk Edwardian lady explorer just back from an expedition to Venus, one green haired space cadet) and threw myself into the thick of things.

Yes, that's me with my airship just visible in the distance. Jolly good of me to lend it to the festival organisers as a pleasure craft, I think you'll agree...

...though as you can see, I had to prepare to repel all
boarders when things got too lively...

...later on I indulged in a bit of light pillaging and hijacked this cocktail making time machine from some French revolutionaries...

...and when I got bored of that I took The Lord Kitchener, my trusty traction engine for a spin!

I topped off my first afternoon by treating a rapturous crowd (not illustrated) to some invigorating organ music of my own composition. What a glorious day!

Brighton:- high seas, beautiful sky.

The sea and sky on a stormy day in Brighton. The waves were so high on this occasion that you could feel them hitting the bottom of the Pier with an almighty Whoooomph and shaking the entire structure. The sky was incredibly beautiful, high winds whipping the clouds across it in double quick time. Click the pic to see it larger!

This is a Skywatch Friday post. For more amazing skies from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday

"The funny thing about regret is...

...it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done".

There's a prize if you can figure out what I'm quoting here, and when I say a prize, I mean that I will tell you that you are bloody brilliant and furthermore have the devils taste in music.

Things I haven't done recently

• Make
• Write
• Draw
• Dance
• Play 
• Drum

Things I have done recently

• The laundry
• The shopping
• The washing up (well, not as often as I should)
• Fret
• Agonise
• Procrastinate

I appear to be running on empty. Time to start working on making my regrets a little more entertaining.

Dawn over Carlsburg Brewery, Copenhagen

Taken at last week's Distortion festival in Copenhagen. After partying all day and night we were rewarded by this eerie dawn over the turrets and pipes of the Carlsburg Brewery.

This is a Skywatch Friday post. For more amazing skies from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday!

Wordless Wednesday:- Timeless