Space - named so for a reason

I found this. http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/. If the sun was the size of a cantaloupe melon, and it was sat in the forecourt of Charing Cross Station, then the earth would be just over the road, and a millimetre in diameter. Both of them would be trampled by tourists. It gets more interesting later though. Jupiter would be sat on St Martin in the Fields, and would be the right size to play table football with. Pluto would be about the size of a largeish dust particle. It would probably be indistinguishable from the particles being belched out of a taxi outside that theatre where they used to show Les Mis, which is roughly where it would be. The nearest star would be about 2,000 miles away from the melon, so we're talking Rekjavik or somewhere in the Ukraine perhaps. It too would be the size of a cantaloupe melon. Sirius, the Dog Star, would be about 4,500 miles away. Even with a typical star the size of a cantaloupe melon, the galactic centre would be 14 million miles away, slightly further away than the sun is in real life.

Betelgeuse, a Red Giant, would be around 45m in diameter, so it would comfortably fill that theatre where Pluto was. (Imagine one of those next to a cantaloupe melon sized sun, and then tell us more about Global Warming).

The speed of light would be 2.5cm per second, at this scale. Light would take more than two weeks to cross the inside of the M25 from North to South. (Insert bad traffic joke here). Light from the melon at Charing Cross would take a whole year to reach the Scottish Highlands. (Insert 'grim up north' joke here).

Aren't you glad the Sun isn't the size of a cantaloupe melon?

....

On the up side, the band continues to sound ok... And I'm off to Norwich this weekend to see my brother. I haven't seen him in about 8 months, so it's long overdue. And I can't tell you how much I need to get out into the countryside, much as the inhabitants of Norwich may think they live in a city. Now the down side.

John Peel died. I find this slightly upsetting, he was a very interesting man. The world will be just that little bit less so without him. Still, he was 65, and recent earthquakes in Japan killed 31 people and left 100,000 without a home. But I didn't know any of them, and none of them had ever made me laugh.

Ffaction

Don't ask. But I'm assured it was great fun.

My favourite kind of whiskey....

...free whiskey. Yesterday, I approached the Sainsburys checkout with turkey, tinned tomatoes and chickpeas and a bottle of Sainsburys Single Malt Irish Whiskey. The nice lady behind the checkout took the sensor off the bottle, scanned everything and said "£3.60 please". I asked "Are you sure?", and she said "£3.60 please". I wasn't going to insist, so I paid and left. I love apathetic staff.

Drinks at mine from 5pm before Ffaction. If you like, of course.

Scary stuff

I had a pleasant weekend. How was yours?

Today I have been mostly selling pumpkins. Having no idea about jack o' lanterns or the halloween tradition (which is really an American thing, and something I think we only adopted following the Halloween movies) makes it difficult to know exactly how to pitch them. I'm hoping not to be too successful though. If there are any left over I can make a jack o' lantern myself!

Tonight, the big band gets rehearsing for real, and I'm going to be shown up by two astounding bassists. Think I might bow out later this year - I have been with the band 6 years now, including two years since I graduated...

Woohoo! We made it!

And I wasn't sick once! In fact, I think there were only two vomiting incidents altogether, though reports haven't come in from all quarters. Lots of Americans wanted to take pictures of us, but we told them they should look at www.paulcroft.me.uk for pictures, and so should you.

And blogger has been reluctant to take my posts this week, so a quick summary: I'm no longer moving to Toronto. Instead I am working on the possibility of continuing in my job, but taking a fortnight here and there where I'm working from the US and dialling in. I'm looking forward to a pleasant weekend of Dim Sum (a new thing for me) and choons in Old St. possibly followed by rugby in Regent's Park, against our World Cup winning team. Of course, 15 against several thousand might even the odds a little, even if some of the thousands are aged 10 and below and weigh about 20lb each.

The next crawl is the Northern Line. 50 stops in two days. We can do it.

It's tomorrow!

Tomorrow at this time I'll be halfway round the circle line. I'll have visited around 12 public houses, and I'll have a further 13 to go.

Naturally, updates to follow in other parts of the site. If you're not busy, meet us in O'neills on Euston Road at 11am.