Another year, another New Year Message from Mr. Brown MP.

Apparently, 2009 is going to be a test of character for the British people. Well, given that it was the government, the banks and the British People at large who got us into this mess. I think that means we’ve already failed the test with a D-minus.

I hope the BBC is hamming it up in their article, as it is incredibly overburdened with cliches of the worst type - Churchilian Prose. Comparing any event, particularly a self inflicted calamity, to the privations of the Second World War is insult both to those who served in it and those of us educated enough to know something about it.

Here’s a selection of what’s heading our way:

“Rise to the challenge.”

“The qualities we need … the British people have demonstrated in abundance before.”

“We will eventually look back on the winter of 2008 as another great challenge that was thrown Britain’s way, and that Britain met.”

“Britain is not ‘broken’ but the best country in the world.”

“I believe the British people will show those who talk them down exactly what they are made of in 2009.”

“We build tomorrow today.”

What are we going to do? Fight unemployment on the beaches? Fight inflation in the fields and towns?

Presumably we should also therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if our combined credit card and mortgage debts last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.” ?

If he wanted to be properly Churchilian, he should have gone with the following, at least it would have been true!

“Never, in the field of human stupidity, was so much owed by so many to so few.”

We went to a carol concert last week, just before Christmas. During the ‘middle bit’ or whatever the official name for it is called, the choir sang ‘Gaudete’, a 16th century carol. Enjoyed it, and found it in my mp3 collection in a variety of versions.

Was quite surprised to find my 8 year old son Mark buzzing around the house during Christmas singing Latin chant at the top of his voice. He’d also located it on the mp3 player (shared system in the house - stops fights over kid’s CDs!) and had been listening to it, and learning the words.

So, while most kids would probably be happy with Jingle Bells or Frosty the Snowman, we’ve been getting Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus, Ex Maria virgine, gaudete!

Can’t say I’m displeased though!

Winter is a great time for Astronomy. The skies are as dark as they get, and the frosty nights bring crystal clear skies when the clouds move aside.

Managed this picture of the Orion Nebula last night and I have to say I was quite pleased with it.

I took this with my old Canon 300d Digital SLR (normal day-to-day camera with the lens replaced with a ‘T-piece’) looking through the ‘prime focus’ (where you normally stick the eyepiece) of my 8″ Newtonian Telescope (1000mm focal length).

This is effectively a HUGE telephoto lens (though it uses mirrors!)

I took about 35 pictures trying to fine tune the focus (this is very hard with faint objects as you can’t see what you’re looking at until after you’ve taken the picture!).

Then I took 5 shots of 30 seconds exposure each, combined (’stacked’ as it’s known) them using a piece of free software called ‘Registax’ and then tweaked them in GIMP, a free alternative to Photoshop.

Here’s the result!

Orion Nebula (M42)

Last year my kids and I discovered this amazing website for watching Santa’s Christmas Eve journey around the world to deliver presents.

NORAD, (find out about their day job here) has been tracking Santa using Radar, Satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets since 1955.

They’ve gone super high tech now and have teamed up with Google and their amazing ‘Google Earth’ program to allow you to track Santa’s progress around the world in realtime from the comfort of your PC.

You need to download Google Earth, if you haven’t already got it. Then you need to wait for the official NORAD Santa tracking file which NORAD will make available on the 24th.

Then sit and watch Santa working his way towards you, interrupted occasionally by ‘Santa Cam’ reports as the cameras pick up Santa’s progress around the world.

Here’s a video clip from last year -

I’ve always been partial to a bit of fantasy, whether it’s Science Fiction, Swords and Sorcery or a good ol’ fashioned quest against the odds.

I’ve always intended to write my own story in a magical setting, so will probably get around to doing it at somepoint (Time, time, TIME!)

Found a great forum site though - http://www.fantasy-writers.org

Very welcoming and all that, although I seem to have stumbled into a stand off between the forces of Dragons, Warriors and Cats. Yes, you have to be there.

Rather like cats in general, so we’ll see where I end up…

Novel ideas coming together, in both senses of the phrase.

Had to chisel my way into the car again this morning, and spray all the usual gunk all over the windows so I could see out.

Also had the same problem as a few days ago, with the condensation freezing to the inside of the window - really quite irritating!

The computer in the car indicated the outside temperature was -3.0 degrees. The frost seemed particularly heavy, with little spindles of ice atleast 5mm long all over the roof and back of the car.

The side windows were frozen closed too, which engendered some interesting antics as I tried to get at the ticket machine to get into the railway station car park this morning!

So much for global warming. Apparently that phrase has been retired in favour of the clever ‘Climate Change’.

Trouble is - we don’t have a climate in the UK, we just get weather and it’s always been unpredictable!

Well, my second book is completely finished now and in print!

If you want you can get a hard copy direct from Cafepress. You’ll only be paying for the production costs, as Mutabilis is a strictly non-profit making affair.

Feels good to have done this a second time, and hopefully this book will be as successful as the first.

My next project will take all the lessons learnt from the previous two - and I’m hoping to go down the proper publishing route this time. More on that later!

Caught the train from Ashford to Maidstone today as I’m currently doing some work for a client in Maidstone (convenient eh?)

A bit annoyed to find that adjacent to me across the carriage was a old chap who had been completely silent up until this point. Once the train started moving he indulged in what can only be described as a gargantuan epic of coughing, sneezing, nose blowing (including ‘old mans trumpet’ - you know what I mean) and proper half-strangled hacking.

Fortunately I wasn’t too close, but the poor girl opposite him looked distinctly unhappy about it.

He was plainly ill, and not in a fit state to be travelling. Perhaps he was on his way to the Doctors, and maybe he’d got worse enroute - but most likely he was just going somewhere for his own pleasure. The annoying thing is that a whole carriage full of people, including myself, have now been breathing in his germs.

Personally I call that a bit selfish. If you’re ill, stay at home and don’t spread your germs around!

The cover competition for my latest book ‘Mutabilis’, was won by Neil Badman, who got 27% of the vote. Well done Neil. Really pleased with this image; it looks extremely professional and captures the mood of the book very well. The complete online version is available from the Elite Wiki page on Mutabilis.

At the bottom of the wiki page you can see the other entries, they are all worth a look. I was very impressed with the quality of the entries, all were worthy!

I’ll be preparing the hardcopy version shortly, via Cafepress.

Neil’s image is below!

My sons both attend ‘Stagecoach’, a stage school for 5-14 year olds. This weekend they put on their production of ‘The Streets of London’.

Joshua (5) got to be an ‘Old Man’ (From the ‘Streets of London’ Song), as well as singing as a ‘Tramp’ who lives in Trafalgar Square. Mark (8) played Mr. Banks and ‘Bert’ the Chimney Sweep from ‘Mary Poppins’. Mark had to sing a solo ‘Chim Chimeney’ - which he did very well whilst having to dance about with Mary. His cockney accent was about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke’s!

Both of them did a great job though. Once my PC has crunched down the video files from my new HD camcorder, I’ll upload them onto Facebook!

First time out for the new Camcorder and it was great. I could see more on the little viewscreen than I could looking directly at the show.

The following day was the Beavers’ (Young version of Cubs/Scouts) Advent service at a local church. Service was ok apart from the organist had lost her music and they changed the words to all the carols so that the words didn’t fit - and I like all the ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ . Still we bellowed out as best we could. In a curious mix of mysticism, we had a magician to round off the day doing magic tricks whilst the Beavers did their usual trick of screaming at the top of their voices to ‘make the magic work’. All good fun!

In a complete aside, I was interested to note that - according to the Scout’s homepage - in order to be a ‘Leader’ you need to believe in a ‘god’, not necessarily any particular religion, but you must specifically not be an ‘atheist’. Most peculiar!