Wondering if this spectacular night storm, after a day of unbearable heat, will bring down the mighty oak beneath which this small house shelters.
Laying awake, listening to raindrops striking the window-glass like ballistas-full of shingle loosed by a small but noisy, laughing god, and trying to decide whether the temperature is really falling yet, I read:
'The present "best estimate" of observable stars using available telescopes is seventy sextillion (seventy thousand million million million). That is more then all the grains of sand on all the beaches and in all the deserts on this planet, but it is not all the stars; it is only the number within the range of our technology.' - Sara Maitland, in A Book of Silence.
It is still hot. I shall read a bit more since sleep is impossible. Once I do sleep, one or both of the two small flying things I have failed to swat will probably bite me out of revenge.
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My maths was always crap so forgive me if I get a zero wrong but, I read, also, that maybe one star in 10 has planets. So let's be more cautious and call it one in 100.
ReplyDeleteThat being the case it means there may be 700 million million million stars - that we can see! - that have planets.
That being the case how the fuck is it that we can be so unlucky as to inhabit, at this particular moment, the one which is infected by Gordon Brown?
there must be a good chance that one of those planets has an inhabitant as vile as Brown. but yes, it would be nice to reside on a civilised world.
ReplyDelete