Oh oh. I wrote myself out of topics yesterday, what with bringing the ruddy blanket into play and everything - just to think, I could have milked that blanket for weeks, really, but I just threw it all away. What a losery thing to have done. Which is why I find myself here, in the middle of the night, with nothing to say (yes, "I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry". It's good to find one's inner poet, I'm sure, but it makes blogging a bit difficult.)
So anyway, yes. I had noted - with some difficulty, for the newspaper I get is the Swedish-language one, which adds a note of challenge to deciphering the daily madnesses of the world - that there had been a spot of bother between the Greek police force and the local teenagers, so I went to the BBC website just now to see if they could tell me stuff about it in a language I'm, like, totally fluent in, innit. But nevermind Greece's tear-gassed teenagers - did you see there's a black hole in the centre of the galaxy? Sorry, but there was a time when you couldn't turn around in my life without bumping into astronomers, so this news still has me reeling a bit (and handily, now the Greeks have somewhere to put their teenagers - or their police).
Apart from this big news, I would like to point out that cigarettes are sometimes really beautiful but sometimes just fail to deliver. Today, alas, is one of the latter days. But as I'm not a giver-upper, I'll give them another chance to shine tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Bollocks, blankets, bother, black holes, and bacci
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Hello ms r, my dear, it's been wonderful these last few days to see such regular posting from you. As yet I haven't read them all in their entirety but it feels good to come over this way and see things happening (and no, that's not meant to be any kind of sly comment about the previous lack of anything hap...well you get the idea - but dismiss it please - it just feels good to see all these posts).
I too spotted a news story - on the Guardian, I think - about the black hole. I clicked on it since I am fascinated by these things, but somehow got completely distracted by other things.
Love the title of this post by the way.
I have just come to say that I know absolutely nothing about the black hole.
These recent (delicious) posts, Anna, have been leaving me with a pleasing melancholy, and I've felt I don't even want to comment, but rather read the words and retreat quietly, but since Trews is here tonight, I thought I would join in.
Night, both x
x
(I am not really here, but just to say that I am innerly digesting the words concerning cigarettes, whilst chewing on a Nicorette)
Young housut, hello and hei right back at you, and very delighted to see you. Pleased to know you're enjoying seeing my posts (reading them in their entirety seems rather pointless, housut, so please feel very free to read every other word, or a paragraph here or there - they make precisely as much (or indeed, as little) sense, whichever way you choose to imbibe them). It's pretty good being back here, blethering away, although I do find myself cursing my rash pledge of daily blogging on a fairly regular (daily) basis. (And listen - I thrive on sly comments, so sly away, please, most freely.)
The black hole story was fairly newsworthy, yes. Did you, however, spot the flaw in how the good Dr Expert of PhD explained the thing to us? Just for recap purposes, allow me to quote him: "They [the supermassive black holes] had a role in bringing matter together and if you had a high enough density of matter then you have the conditions in which stars could form.
"Thus the first generation of stars and galaxies could have come into existence" (italics mine). That's fascinating, Dr Expert of PhD, I thought, but hang on a minute - is not a black hole (supermassive or otherwise) created as a massive star collapses in size towards the end of its starry lifespan, forming a thingy so dense not even light can escape its gravity? So how could these supermassive galactic-centre black holes have created the *first* generation of stars? What came first, the star or the hole, the chicken or the egg? I thought to myself. Yes I did, housut, and I urgently need a reply. Please. Obliged.
As for the title of this post - just between you and me, but it was the last bit I wrote of the thing, before passing out into sleep, and try as I might, I couldn't finish reading it in the "preview" mode (kept passing out - see, you're not the only one who hasn't read these posts in their entirety), so I just posted it, already asleep, and then spent the next day worrying what the fucking blazes I might have published. Supermassively glad you loved it, though.
Okay, I must go and talk to the fair NMJ and the Nicorette Reader, but please feel most welcome to nip over anytime, housut my dear. - and NB reading the post is not a prerequisite.
But, beautiful NMJ - you do know what needs be known about the black hole, now, surely, after reading my most informative post on the subject? There's a great big hole at the centre of our starry home in the vastness of the universe, cyberfriend, and we are more or less teetering precariously on the edge of it, balanced between a stellar existence and a crushingly-total unknown.
I hope this puts your mind at rest.
But hei, I'm glad the post-induced melancholia (PIM for short, you know) has been a pleasing one. Don't ever feel compelled to comment, will you, my dear - but never feel like you shouldn't, either, okay? Good. And a lovely Friday to you - I'm thinking I'll most likely be over to yours later, tonight, but just in case I fall asleep (it's been known to happen - old age, my dear, old age), I feel it's safest I wish you it here and now. I can always say it again if and when I make it to fair Edinburgh, can't I?
xxx
(I am not really here either, Signs of Nicorette, so I feel quite safe to ask you what's it like - the Nicorette, I mean. For I have never had a single one. When, several years ago, I gave up smoking - seemingly, for good, only I started again after some five-six years - I did it totally cold-turkey with not a chewing gum, sucking lozenge, plaster, anal suppository, or the like in sight. Just plain old total suffering, with gritted teeth. I am So Strong. But then I decided I preferred smoking to being strong. Yay me, once more. But yes, now you tell me - are they nice? For I could maybe chew on them on, say, an aeroplane, if they are even remotely ciggy-like. Obliged. Thank you. Mwah.)
(Oh - something weird happened just now and I need to share - normally, I am always signed in to my blogger account, but during writing this, blogger has somehow signed me out, giving me a word ver in my own house - spillist. Superb.)
(It gets better. It wouldn't accept spillist and gave me another - at my own house, mark - mentore. I kid you not.)
Well that must be me, I reckon - your very own Nicorette mentore. But wait - you won't believe this, now it they are saying boutt. Butts. As in cigarette butts, not bums (oh for goodness sake!).
Lookee, I must be honest and say one shouldn't use the Nicorette as I am doing. I get the low strength (2mg) fruit-flavoured ones, much nicer than the peppermint because the taste lasts longer. You are supposed to chew it for a bit and then keep in in your cheek for a while so the nicotine flows sedately into your system, but bugger that. I just keep chewing it and a little heartburn now and then is of no consequence. What it gives you is a little nicotine hit but without the elements that play havoc with cholesterol levels or give you cancer. It's basically how the angels get their nicotine, but what the packet tells you is that you should use it as a way of withdrawal from the cigs and then stop. Well get this - I did the cold turkey withdrawal too, several times as it happens but found subsequently that life is just a shade brighter with the little nicotine lift - and it probably stopped me from caving in and smoking again. Which in my case would be dire, and my doc can tell immediately from blood tests when I do. And, well, I just like it, particularly after eating or when driving. But only the low strength one, and I wouldn't even consider the patches, inhaler etc. I should probably be thinking of giving them up in the new year, but you know.
Try one out before the plane, I would. Just to make sure it's ok for you.
Blimey, it's corst now. Yes, they are a bit pricey, but not nearly as pricey as cigs - and I don't have more than about 5 a day.
Perhaps, ms mr, it's best that I didn't read the black hole article given the sort of questions that it has thrown up (or thrown out).
For I don't have any answers, and if I did I think I would be earning more money than I currently do - or I would be deeply unhappy, or both. x
I thank you for the advice, sweet Mentore dei Boutti. I think I must try them, at some point or another - maybe not for the flight, though, in case they make me feel weird (and the angels know I feel fucking weird enough on a plane as things stand).
I loved the idea of the angels getting their nicotine thus, by the way. They seem to be getting into every conversation, at the moment, do they not - the angels, I mean? I wouldn't mind a ciggie-Nicorette break with one, as it happens, sometime soon. Please could you arrange this for me, Signs? Obliged.
Oh housut. We certainly don't want you deeply unhappy (although I think you overestimate the earnings of a professional astronomer, you know), so I'll allow you to come here sans black hole reply. x right back at you, though.
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