Tag Archives: NASA

Most wanted

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wolverine-Squirrel“I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now..”

So sang Freddie Mercury in the Queen hit “I want it all”. And from what I heard, he probably got a lot more than most of us.

Of course we all want stuff. Some of us want fancy stuff – our own pyramid, a gold yacht or a helicopter made of chocolate.

Some of us want simpler and more meaningful stuff – good relationships, inner peace and a sense of purpose (or, for confused dolphins, a sense of porpoise?).

And of course some of us just want another bag of popcorn and the return of Game of Thrones / The Walking Dead.

I imagine if you were a criminal in a chain-gang on the run, the thing you’d want most would be some good solid bolt-cutters and a place to lie low. But few of us will experience that situation – although, incredibly, chain-gangs have been reintroduced into some US prisons recently. Most of us have some degree of freedom to go where we please, and make our own choices, within reason.
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Sunday Supplement #2

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After another depressing week of news and a Danish Summer that is currently awol, I thought I’d look for some things to cheer about. It wasn’t easy.

As the good ship UK begins to slowly sink beneath the icy, post-Brexit waves, the news from the rest of Europe is a little more heartening. A number of countries, including Denmark, are seeing an upswing in support for the EU. Polls suggest there is less enthusiasm for a referendum here than pre-Brexit and a more EU-friendly vibe among the people. Hopefully the referendum shock will make other euro-sceptic members see sense and pull back from the brink of following the UK to Davy Jones locker.

With the surge in racist attacks in the UK and the awful violence in the US, it’s been good to see citizens responding with gestures of kindness and solidarity. If every cloud has a silver lining, or at least every fifth cloud, we may see a great swell of unity and of people finally waking up to the fact that black lives matter, that immigrants lives matter and that no life is worth less because of where you were born, or because of some minor variations in hair or skin pigmentation. We are all in this together.
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The Earth is not round*

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Black catBeliefs are a funny thing. I once believed, like many others, that a black cat crossing your path was bad luck. Of course I was rather biased, because of the unfortunate Panther attack. Nowadays I am older, wiser, and stay out of the big cat enclosure at the zoo.

Growing up I can recall Gypsy women in the street selling ‘lucky Heather’ (although Heather didn’t seem to feel it was so lucky, based on her expression) and some kids in my class had ‘lucky’ rabbit’s-foot keyrings – yuck.

Sports people are notoriously superstitious and many players and fans apparently wear the same ‘lucky’ socks, shirts or underpants to a match, imagining that this somehow mysteriously influences the outcome.
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