Internal Links
- to Mobberley pages
Home
*NEW* DIABETES
MY MOTHER
Alcock Page
Horace Dall
Asteroids and NEOs
Comet Images
Venus
Images
Mars Images
Jupiter Images
Saturn Images
Supernova Images
Nova Images
Variable Stars/GRBs
Galaxies and Deep Sky
Lunar Images
Books & articles by Martin
Mobberley
About Martin
Mobberley
Telescopes
Meetings/Events
Total Solar Eclipses
Solar Images
Astronomical Web Links
- Links
- Central
Bureau
- BAA Comet Section
| |
About Me, Plus.. a bit of a rant!
The following ramblings are an attempt to explain what my hobby and
philosophy of life are about.
I find that some amateur astronomers' websites are just a little bit dull. OK, many have great
images, but there is never any glimpse of the person behind them. When I first entered amateur astronomy there were loads
of unique, eccentric and entertaining characters about, but with many astro websites you don't get any idea of what
the site owner is really like. Perhaps this is because people seem terrified of revealing what they really think these days, hiding
under a variety of pseudonyms, alter egos and avatars.
We still apparently have Free Speech, but when
you do speak freely, the 'thought police' and the 'snowflakes' pounce. Unlike most people, what goes on in my head is also what I say. As
a general rule I've found that the most politically correct people, on the surface, are the most scheming
hypocrites underneath! As I'm the same inside as I appear outside you know where you are with me. This is the
exact opposite of what you get with, say, many politicians, where the external appearance is projected as
someone who cares passionately about Great Britain and its people, but all that is going on inside is:
"How can I get richer, fiddle more expenses, hide my mistress from the press, grope my secretary, and appear on TV more!!" Oh, and
"How can I fiddle a knightood too?" might be added to that list. It does appear, more and more, that those who
have (or crave) letters after (or before) their name, or who are portrayed as 'Experts' in some field are,
in fact, simply experts at self-promotion and little else.
This 'rant' page started
off quite small, but proved so popular that it grew very quickly. Having pondered its popularity I've concluded that amateur astronomers are as interested in free-speaking astro 'characters'
as astronomy itself. That is how it should be. The Universe is amazing, but the human brain and human characteristics are, arguably, even more
amazing. In addition, many amateur astronomers (though not all!) are rather different to the run-of-the-mill brainwashed sheep that
seem to exist in droves in this dumbed-down world we live in. I think it was the presence of such genuine characters in astronomy
that largely attracted me to the hobby in the first place....
People watched 'The Sky at Night', in Patrick Moore's era, partly because of astronomy, but mainly because Patrick Moore presented it: a real character, who
spoke his mind and was a true survivor, outlasting all his critics.
In 2013 I completed a comprehensive biography of Patrick.
Biography of Patrick on Amazon UK
and I then wrote a sequel!
Biography sequel of Patrick on Amazon UK
PROOF THAT PATRICK'S CAR WAS, AS HE CLAIMED, OVERTAKEN BY A DOG!
So, as I say, I'm as interested in astronomical characters as astronomy
itself and I particularly like real, dependable and unique characters who aren't just cloned sheep, namely photocopies of everyone else.
I really can't stand these Xeroxed people or people who invariably grin like idiots while hiding a cupboard full of their skeletons and addictions behind them. I don't trust people who, like many disgraced government ministers, grin like a village idiot but are as slimy
as an eel! Give me someone who looks mildly hacked off and speaks his mind (e.g. Jeremy Clarkson) anyday!
It's interesting that, in the modern world, there now seems to be an easy tool to detect the
self-obsessed.....and it's pretty accurate and simple. Just look at the people who spend all
day tweeting drivel on Twitter (X these days!) to their very sad 'Followers'.... The more someone tweets, the
more self-obsessed they are......it's as simple as that! An infallible tool for psychologists!
Obsessive tweeters think they are special if they amass hundreds or thousands of followers.......
whereas they are rarely special at all, just utterly sad attention seekers who, in many cases, have purchased their
Twitter followers! Incredibly there are even fake astronomers in this category. A number of respected psychologists have proved that obsessive tweeters have a psychiatric disorder
called narcissism. They think, in their fantasy world, that they are someone like a respected BBC correspondent, but in fact they are just self obsessed. Bizzarely, in their profiles, their portraits often bear no resemblance to their physical appearance as they have been digitally altered so that they resemble film stars!!
I've been a dedicated observer in the amateur astronomy world, boy and man, for well over 50
years now and, in the last 40 years or so, I've seen many 'fly-by-night' astronomers come and go. Media astronomers (male and female) have
come and gone, as have loads of telescope dealers. I've seen astronomers bankrupted, divorced into poverty, jailed, ordered to do
community service, become alcoholics, and
even added to the sex offenders register! I've seen astronomy publications rise and fall, and telescope manufacturers do the same. TV
astronomy producers and their assistants materialise and dematerialise, as do magazine editors: you count them in and you count them out.
Throughout all this I've simply continued observing the Night Sky and occasionally writing about it.
Apart from observing, photographing and imaging the night sky I did a fair amount of voluntary work in
the BAA throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Specifically, I was the BAA Lunar Section photographic co-ordinator from
1983 to 1991 and then from 1990 to 1997 I was the BAA Papers secretary and the monthly meetings recorder.
I was also the assistant Editor of Guy Hurst's 'The Astronomer' magazine for most of the 1990s.
From 1990 to 1999, and again from 2002 to 2006 I used to present monthly 'Sky Notes' at all of the BAA's
monthly meetings. I tried to make these as humorous and politically incorrect as possible....which seemed
to appeal to the members! Of course, I could not do it these days.... The ultra-PC world means humour is illegal and if I cracked a non-PC joke
the wokes would attack and I'd be arrested.
From 1997 to 1999 I served as the BAA's 55th President which was an honour, but
perhaps not really me at all, as I hate waffle, hot air and chairing meetings.....YAWN!!
Indeed, I've always loathed so-called 'social situations' and am proud to say that I have never attended a 'party' or even a wedding in my entire life, despite
numerous invitations. Such situations would have made me feel deeply uncomfortable and I couldn't wait to get home.
The strange thing is, even those people who do attend parties, weddings and similar events tell me they hate them too, but they don't have the nerve to say NO!
As well as my BAA work my greatest astronomical contribution has probably been answering thousands of emails about telescope and equipment problems and helping people
out in this respect, at least prior to 2010 or so. Fortunately, since the advent of youtube, lots of other amateurs have taken up this role, and a picture, or video, speaks a million words....so I can have a rest....
When I was 15, in
1973, I built a 22cm reflector, including grinding and polishing the optics and testing them. Everything was put together
using a hack saw, a drill, screws and bolts. I even poured the boiling pitch to make the tool to polish the mirror.
Me, in the mid '70s with the 22cm Newt.
I gave that telescope away
to Braintree & Halstead A.S. in the 1980s. It still worked well into the 21st century apparently! Ever since 1973 I've been interested in
testing telescopes and their optics. In my engineering degree at Brunel my final year core subject was control theory:
the theory and design behind feedback loops and critically damped systems, slewing, overshoot, undershoot etc....I chose this
topic so that I could better understand telescope control systems.
So I do know a bit about optics and mechanics (unlike some telescope manufacturers and many dealers!!) This combination of
optical, electronic and mechanical knowledge gave me the confidence to publish my first book (Astronomical Equipment for Amateurs) in 1998.
This book singlehandedly sparked a landslide in telescope equipment books. I've now written thirteen books: eight on practical astronomy, two about
Patrick Moore and three small children's 'Space' books, along with hundreds of articles about amateur astronomy.
I must say that the few critics of my books (and hundreds of articles) never seem to have the energy to write
books or articles themselves. There's a reason for this; criticism is easy, writing books and quality articles is hard.
Whenever I write a book or a magazine article I write it within the deadline: otherwise I couldn't live with myself. If I say something,
I mean it. A bit obsessive perhaps? Yes, but I'd rather be reliable and obsessive than spout bull and hype, which seems to
be a 21st century disease.
I started off as a visual observer, with
my small childhood refractors (30mm and 60mm) and with 3-inch and 4-inch refractors I had access to via the former Bury Grammar school's Physics teacher, Don Woodhouse. Then I built and used that home made 22cm Newtonian. But when I acquired serious equipment, in 1980 (a 14-inch Cassegrain/Newtonian) I became a lunar, planetary
and cometary photographer, doing all my developing and fixing and printing too. Two bathrooms in my previous homes became photographic
studios too, where much enlarging and printing took place. From 1992 I started to use the early CCDs, buying one of the first Starlight
Express cameras in those days...the 3rd one made by Terry Platt if I recall. By the mid 1990s I was a total CCD convert and am a 100% digital imager now. In recent
years, since 2017 or so, I have been a 'carer' for my elderly father which has stopped me observing at night. Instead I have switched to remote imaging
via itelescope.net.
With all this hard-earned knowledge I've never been afraid to help other amateurs or to state my case, of which I'm certain.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!
Apologies to Frank Sinatra....and Sid Vicious!!
I've done it my way, but I was certainly inspired by the late Sir Patrick Moore, the longest duration TV presenter of the same series in
history, and he was no stranger to controversy. Political correctness had no place in his world, or mine. I agreed
with many, but certainly not all of his views. He was a survivor in the astro world. I like to think, in my small way, I have
survived too. TV astronomers come and go, but he was different because he said what he thought and was a true
observer, not just a vacuous grinning media 'personality'. Others fake enthusiasm but his was genuine. The real McCoy.
Patrick has a healthy rant about falling TV standards.
I have had a long term dedication to astronomy and helping other amateurs. As mentioned earlier, I've also sorted out many people's telescope
and observatory problems and, on numerous occasions, given old gear away rather than sell it. From the 1990s to 2010 or so I wrote *detailed*
answers to amateurs with equipment problems. Sometimes I received several queries a week. Every plea for help was answered and I started this in the days before most people had e-mail.
I'm very privileged to have known some really outstanding amateur astronomers, some of whom I've
known for more than a quarter of a century. Here are some pictures of a few of them.
Firstly, 5 consecutive BAA Presidents at the BAA Winchester Weekend in (from memory) 2005. From right to
left: Maurice Gavin, Me, Nick Hewitt, Guy Hurst, Tom Boles.
Five BAA Presidents.
Next, a scary group of planetary imagers at Astrofest in the early 2000s. From right to left: Me, Jamie Cooper,
Dave Tyler and Damian Peach.
Four at Astrofest.
I've also been privileged to know some of the greats who are, sadly, no longer around, like George Alcock,
Horace Dall, Harold Ridley, Alan Young and Paul Doherty.
I do not like bullshit and bunk, so if you live in a fantasy world you may not want to
read the rest of this page. I have no time for religion or people whose physical condition is
their own stupid fault. Neither do I have time for political correctness, jobsworth officials,
or people who live off the taxes I pay! Ditto, UFO spotters, Astrologers, Faith Healers, Conspiracy Theorists, most politicians and
other con artists. I am a VERY reliable person, and I hate unreliable people who say they will do
something but they know full well that they won't. I see the world as it really is, so if you don't like the truth go away now!
Most people who have commented on the rant below seem to love it, a small percentage, namely the fanatically
religious, those weighing a quarter of a ton, and the politically correct bunch of jokers, don't. Where exactly did this bunch of PC loonies, who seem to scour the
web endlessly looking for something to deeply offend them, emerge from? They, the 'Offenderati', seem to have emerged with social media.
Suicide bombers don't offend them, neither do serial killers or murderous dictators...No, they seem to be upset if someone says another person is fat, or that religion
is bunk!! I mean FFS...Get a life!! Of course, in reality the Offenderati are just people who desperately seek attention, which is why they retweet famous people's tweets
in the hope they too can become famous.....just for moaning. Jesus H. Christ!!!!
Anyway, if, after reading this page, you come to the conclusion
that I'm a few bricks short of a full load, then that's fine by me.
I'd be very pleased if you came to the conclusion that I am different...I don't
like the idea of being branded 'normal'. The world is full of allegedly 'normal'
people with huge debts and a bitter divorce or three behind them, an infinity of step children from endless partners, lives full of chaos,
alcohol addiction, drug problems, eating disorders, a body covered in tattoos, a bolt through the nose, and no purpose. I've lived on this planet for more than 65 years
and have
helped hundreds of fellow amateur astronomers, gained an honours degree in Electronic Engineering, written 13 books, donated blood,
and have NEVER claimed benefits or have any criminal record. Plus I've always paid those infernal
taxes!!! So, I've a right to a good rant. We are living in a world where bullshit and spin dominates, but people are
oh so careful that they don't say what they think, so the 'thought police' don't arrest them. Dodgy politicians, religious fanatics,
bureaucrats living off tax payers money, illegal immigrants, sad cases addicted to social media.... None of these people have my respect.
Yet most of them live off my hard-earned tax payer's money. Most people really like my 'rant page' though and I have put
a fraction of their comments (full names deleted) at the end of this page.
My mission
I seem to have always had a purpose in life, which is to understand
more about the universe and science and observe the Night Sky. I have no
religious beliefs and believe anyone who reckons they know 'why we are all
here' is simply impatient and terrified of the unknown and death. My mission is simply
to wonder at the Universe, image it, and try to understand it. My 'religion' is science, but I
also like reading Science Fiction and I watch a lot of sport on TV too. I should point out
that I hated sport when I was a child, mainly because 1960s & '70s P.E. teachers always seemed to excel in
making all their pupils hate sport! And they were all, without exception, weird! But I watch a great deal of Sport now.......
Deluded Believers
All of the world's major religions are
simply manifestations of the fascinating problem unique to humans, namely, our brains
are so large, and have such an unequalled language ability, that we are sentient and can ponder our origins and, for some, this leads
to religious convictions, simply because they can't admit the truth. The truth is
no-one knows why we are here, if there is any reason at all. We may all be
part of the Matrix for all I know....it's as good an answer as any....
The famous 'Matrix Reloaded' car chase
Indeed, some respected philosophers and cosmologists think that we may, just MAY be part of a huge software simulation.
Surely, in a hundred years or so computer games connected straight to the brain
will make reality and fantasy indistinguishable anyway...? One thing is for sure, only science can answer
any of the ultimate questions. The other thing that is certain is that no-one has the answers.
Because of this, the impatient, the deluded, and those who find the size and age of the Universe
intimidating, claim religion holds the solution.
Why am I so totally sceptical of religion? Well, for a start, there are loads of
them to choose from, and they are all, without exception, created by men, desperate for answers that only science can provide.
The religious devotees all believe they are right, but so do the devotees of
the other religions. They all think the other religious lot are a bunch of
nutters....strange how they can see this in others and not in themselves!
In reality, they are all simply indoctrinated and impatient people, even if
a few religious believers can hold down good jobs (like US Senators!!). Once someone
is brainwashed at an early age, it is hard to let go of a fantasy.
I find the schisms within the Church of England utterly bizarre....one bunch of loonies arguing with another bunch of loonies....hilarious!!
It all seems very similar to this Monty Python sketch....one of my favourites.... 'The Bishop':
THE BISHOP!
When the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami occurred, orphaning hundreds of thousands of
innocent children the old, pitiful, religious drivel came out. "God moves
in mysterious ways"....or "Disasters have occurred throughout history, my
son" or "God cannot interfere as he grants us Free Will" or even, the
classic line....."This is just God testing our Faith"...UTTER BUNKUM !!!!
A caring and compassionate God who was clever enough to create
the Universe would have no problem creating a world without earthquakes &
tectonic plate activity, or cancer, malaria and leprosy. Nobody has the answer to life, the Universe and everything, and it is
not 42! Religions are just fairy stories like the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter...they were written by
great story tellers of the past and only serve to fuel religious wars and
keep the primitive countries' inhabitants happy and under control....Plus,
ever noticed the number of priests that are accused of child molesting....
proof of the fact that many of their type are 100% unbalanced!
Child Molesting Priests
Patrick Moore called for a previous
Archbishop of Canterbury to be thrown into Room 101, adding that "I wouldn't trust that bewhiskered old coot to
run a whelk stall". I would second that, but expand it to
all religious loonies. When you confront someone religious about the amount of suffering
in the world, especially that of innocent children, they come out with the "he moves in
mysterious ways" mumbo-jumbo or, if you really pin them down, they suggest that all those
who are disabled or suffering committed some kind of crimes in a previous life!!!!
Talk about desperation......Why not just accept it is all just a fairy story?
No-one knows if there is any deeper purpose to the Universe and evolution or the
precise origin of consciousness (either in the quantum world or the real
world). If you are religious it is either due to family or peer group pressures,
a traumatic experience (such as bereavement or disability) or simply
fear of the unknown and death. Sorry to be so blunt, but those are the
facts. The world would be a far, far better place if people just accepted that there is no fairy-tale 'God' looking after us. There
would be no religious hatred, no suicide bombers and everyone would have to just make the most of their lives knowing that life is painfully short and then you die.
I'm sure of one thing, whoever Jesus Christ was, he was the David Icke of his day!
Billy Connolly on suicide bombers
As for these Mega-rich Bible bashing US Evangelists....well, I think this classic Genesis Video sums
them up nicely:
Genesis' "Jesus he knows me" video on YouTube
In the USA there is a strong Creationist religious movement teaching children that the Earth is 6,000 years old and men and dinosaurs lived together only
thousands of years ago!! There is even a multi-million dollar exhibition centre geared at
brainwashing kids into this way of thinking....what hope do their children stand?? I think
it's a good time to live in the UK where most people are not religious and hardly anyone owns a gun.....Get real!
It's up to science to save the planet, yet Physics Departments in Universities across the UK are
being closed down as soft subjects like "Media Studies" are favored by schools so they can register
more exam passes and get a higher school ranking. When I took my school exams you had to get the
questions right, or you failed. Nowadays all the questions have multiple choice answers, like on
"Who wants to be a Millionaire?"........toooo easy! Dumbing down is everywhere.....
I think the UK government should 100% fund University grants for people studying useful subject
like Science & Engineering, but not for those useless degrees in soft subjects (like underwater basket-weaving) that a five year old
could get a degree in.
Astronomy funding itself is under a huge threat but we SHOULD spend tax payers money on science not on wars.
With all the religious claptrap and pseudo-science Thank goodness for Richard Dawkins.... ;-)
Loads more Dawkins stuff here!
As Marcus Brigstocke says in this excellent video, after you religious lot
have stopped blowing the world up could us atheists please have our
planet back?
Marcus Brigstocke on religion
World leaders and superpowers would be far less likely to hurl their troops into wars if they accepted that religion
is bunk and death is final, but mental illness, the price we pay for such a large brain, still convinces the ignorant that there is a
divine afterlife where billions of dead people float on a cloud playing a harp........Dream On !!
In fact, the dead outnumber the living by a huge amount so the number of harps mass-produced
for the afterlife must be enormous!
The dead outnumber the living
Still, I suppose being a priest is quite a cushy little
number as jobs go, it certainly enabled a lot of historic vicars to have the
spare time to indulge in a bit of astronomy!!! I have actually met a few vicars in my time and they are generally OK (if weird)
people (well, apart from the paedophiles amongst them!) they are just living their lives according to a fairy tale, which most grown-ups gave up a long time ago.....like they gave up
believing in Father Christmas, or that if they walked into a wardrobe they'd end up in Narnia.
George Carlin has some funny stuff to say about religion too
Swearing on the Bible
Stand up about Religion
Occasionally, religious devotees
see the light and it suddenly hits them that they have just been plain silly in believing these fictional stories, all written by attention seekers of the distant past.
It takes guts to admit you have been wrong your whole life and escape from family or cultural brainwashing. Religious fanatics, Jehova's
witnesses, Scientologists, Astrologers, UFO spotters, Yeti hunters, Faith Healers, Feng Shui weirdoes.....all a load of
barking mad fruitcakes or conmen. Put them all into Room 101!
This hilarious ditty by Tim Minchin sums up my views on
pseudo-scientific claptrap perfectly!
If you open your mind too much!
Strange how astrologers carried on regardless after the
discovery of Uranus and Neptune and failed to see the events of Sept 11th 2001 coming!
Just how many gullible idiots are there? Princess Diana's Horoscope for her final week said she had a good week ahead, but
strangely missed out the fact she would get into a car with Henry Paul drunk at the wheel!!!
And just how much money did we spend on the religious War in Iraq!!! Looking for weapons of mass destruction that
weren't there, just to kill one dictator!? Wouldn't a hitman have been simpler? I think this number by the Rolling Stones sums the
superpower philosophy up.
Highwire - The Stones
Science and Aliens
I am fascinated by the big cosmological and evolutionary questions, as it is only by science that we can
possibly understand what the
Universe and the human brain is about. The Universe is a fascinating mystery, with
far stranger aspects to it than anything religion can offer....Quantum Uncertainty,
String Theory, Black Holes, they all fascinate me. The microscopic world fascinates me too.
The Large Hadron Collider revealed the Higgs Boson in 2012....remarkable! This is an exciting time
to be alive. Then there is Dark Matter and Dark Energy. All fascinating challenges waiting
to be solved. When we understand these mysteries, and the exact nature of gravity, interstellar travel may become possible
and man can spread out into the Universe, away from this increasingly overpopulated planet, full to the brim
with religious loonies, vacuous celebrities, people so fat their houses have to be demolished to get them
to hospital in a reinforced ambulance, and expense fiddling politicians.
As regards Alien life, well, as
Arthur C. Clarke once said "If we are alone...that is terrifying and if we
are not alone, that is terrifying too". It is rather odd that, in a Universe that is 14 billion years old, we see NOT A SHRED of
extra-terrestrial intelligence anywhere. Where are the Aliens? Surely this is the biggest question of all, the so-called
"Fermi Paradox". Our galaxy contains maybe 200 billion stars and has been around for maybe 10 billion years.
At light-speed it only takes 100,000 years to cross the galaxy. Surely there should
be civilisations FAR more advanced than us who have, by now, populated the entire galaxy? So where are they?
Maybe there is an all-powerful 'BORG' type race in our Galaxy, that annihilates any
other life form that starts to travel through space? That might explain what we see, although I would definitely
class that as Science Fiction. I think we should be a little bit careful about blasting
our messages into the ether saying "Is anyone there?". Stephen Hawking held this view too.
I can recommend reading Peter F. Hamilton's 'Pandora's Star' if you want to imagine what
might be out there. Sentience and peacefulness just do NOT seem to go hand in hand. It's the survival of the fittest and most
ruthless, here on Earth AND, I would suggest, 'out there' too. Alastair Reynolds' 'Revelation Space' Universe books offer
intriguing and worrying S.F. answers to this 'lack of aliens'
mystery as well. The book "Where is Everybody" by Stephen Webb gives an excellent account of
where everyone may, or rather, may not be, in our Universe; and, don't tell me that UFO's have landed and Roswell was real! As the great
discoverer George Alcock (see my dedicated web page) once told me: "Strange, all these people seeing Flying
Saucers and yet I spend 400 hours a year sweeping the skies, discovering comets and novae
and have never seen any....obviously I'm doing something wrong....." Yep, you were doing something wrong, you were living
in the real world George. The PanSTARRS telescopes spot anything bigger than a dustbin in low earth orbit these days....but
they don't spot UFOs.....
Science Fiction has been a constant theme in my life from childhood
to the present day, but unlike some I can separate science from fiction. Hard S.F. points the way in which exciting developments in science
and space travel *may* happen. For example, one day soon neural nets or artificial intelligence may become sentient.
The brain has 100 trillion synapses and over ten billion neurons optimised for parallel processing. At some time in
this century that structure will be replicated in electronic hardware and robots may well become indistinguishable from humans. What are the bible
thumpers going to do with their faith if that happens?
Inspired by Patrick and NASA
As far back as I can recall I have been interested in Space Rockets
and the Night Sky; from the first TV episodes of Dr Who and Fireball XL5.
Dr Who 1963
Fireball XL5
But it was only when I came across a copy of Patrick
Moore's 1968 'Observer's Book of Astronomy', when I was ten, and saw
pictures of 'Big' telescopes in amateur astronomers' back gardens that I
realised there was such a thing as an 'amateur astronomer'.Without doubt that
tiny little book, that fitted neatly in a coat pocket, changed my life.
A year later,
the Apollo 11 Moon landing really fired my enthusiasm and I joined the BAA (British Astronomical Association). Then, when Patrick
showed off his 15 inch reflector on a Sky at Night program in 1973, it
inspired me to build my own 8.5 inch fork mounted telescope, including grinding and
polishing the mirror.
I still reckon there is NOTHING like watching one of
those 3,000 ton Saturn V Moon Rockets taking off live on TV......they were
just BLOODY AWESOME. Videos like the one below send shivers up my spine and
bring a lump to my throat. I was 11 when Apollo 11 went to the Moon. That, and
Patrick's books, fired me up with enthusiasm. The astronauts were heroes, but the biggest heroes were NOT the astronauts.
No, the biggest heroes were the unsung engineers and scientists who made the Saturn V and Apollo spacecraft work reliably. The
astronauts were privileged to use that technology. In recent years a few astronauts
have started charging significant sums of money to sign autographs and
pose with people! It's a bit sad to see this. At least Neil Armstrong didn't sink to that level! I'd risk my life tomorrow to go to Mars if
NASA were interested in an ageing nerd......Here's a Saturn V launch clip on YouTube....
YouTube Saturn V launch compilation
Here's the awesome Apollo 11 Moon landing.
YouTube Apollo 11 Moon landing
And I won't waste my breath on those sad case conspiracy theorists who claim it was all faked. I lump
them together with the religious loonies. They are mentally ill, in love with their
own voices and envious of the scientists and engineers who made it possible. Intellectually the
conspiracy theorists are just amoebae by comparison. The Apollo astronauts aligned laser
reflectors on the Moon that any observatory with a powerful laser can bounce a beam off,
and they have done, since 1969. Get out of that!!
It looks like, in 2023, we may FINALLY be returning to the Moon....after more than 50 years....AT LAST!!
If we could do it in the 60s, surely we can go back? Although maybe there is no-one who can motivate like JFK anymore?
JFK's famous speech
Like Patrick, I
joined the British Astronomical Association (BAA) aged 11 (1969) so have been a
member for over 50 years now. Various legendary BAA observers inspired me to become an
astrophotographer. These included Horace Dall, Harold Ridley, Alan Young
and Cdr Henry Hatfield. Since joining the BAA I have written many articles: 100 monthly features in the
Lunar Section Circular (1983 - 1991), countless articles in the Journal, recorded the meetings for 7 years (1990 - 1997),
been the Papers Secretary for 7 years (1990 - 1997) and given over 100 talks to the BAA alone
since 1981. All for free!! (Sorry if I'm repeating myself here...) My monthly Sky Notes were very popular at meetings from 1990 - 1999 and 2002
to 2006. I prepared over 100 slides for many of the final talks, before my mother became
terminally ill and needed my full attention, and that of my Dad. I was BAA President from 1997 to 1999 and asteroid 7239 was named
'Mobberley' by the IAU in 1997, after its discoverer, Brian Manning, suggested his first asteroid should be named after me,
for my contribution to amateur astronomy. Thank's Brian!
Being President at 39 made me one of the youngest ever BAA Presidents but these days astro-
politics bores me rigid. The Night Sky and cosmology are my real interests, as well as looking after
my elderly father. In 2000 the BAA Council presented me with their Walter Goodacre Award which takes pride of
place above my writing desk and frequently spurs me on.
The last 40 years have been dismal ones for manned spaceflight. In 1972, I was
14; I thought we were poised on the verge of an era of manned space exploration, throughout the
solar system. What has happened since then? In terms of manned spaceflight...nothing.
Like Eugene Cernan, the last man on the Moon, I don't consider orbital flights any
advance at all. Shuttle astronauts are not fully fledged astronauts. They are travelling a few hundred
miles vertically!! I do NOT consider that spaceflight. Spaceflight is when you go to
the Moon, the planets, and other solar systems.....Sorry, I'm hard to impress!
The Apollo moon landings were fantastic - since then, nothing....at least not with respect to
manned space travel. PATHETIC!!!!! Still, seeing a Saturn V or Shuttle launch always impressed me
and brought a lump to my throat. If only the money poured into wars by world leaders
was pumped into NASA, and, say, Cancer research, we would have
manned Mars bases by now, and Cancer would be history. Here is
a link to a Shuttle launch synchronised to Countdown by Rush.
Countdown by Rush.
Thought I'd throw a second Rush track in at this point too.....
Subdivisions by Rush.
and a third...
Analog Kid by Rush.
Engineers & Bullshitters
Professionally, I was an electronics engineer for
22 years, from 1980 to 2002 (I graduated from Brunel University in 1980). I was also sponsored as a student, during my sandwich-course
Uni years (1976 - 1980) by Thorn Electrical Industries and I worked for them between Uni terms in 1977, 78 and 79.
However, electronics was merely a job, not an interest, and I honestly
cannot recall many engineering projects that I was involved with, in
those 22 years, that were of much use to man or beast!!! My main role in those 22 years
was as a Marconi software engineer. In the final years I wrote embedded C and assembler code used
in microprocessors onboard microwave tags. These microprocessors were mainly Pic 12 and 17
series units, although some were Motorola devices, eg the little workhorse, the HC11.
The projects I worked on were many and varied, ranging from component Failure Analysis, to optical
data bus projects, European collaborative ventures, RF tags for cars and road tolling, the
deeply overspent JORN radar project, testing cables for the Navy, remote meter reading
systems, thick film hybrid circuit testing and many other underfunded and impossible timescale
nightmares!
Electronics is a
strange profession, full of overweight management who get paid FAR MORE than the working
engineers simply for thinking up buzzwords and lying about timescales and
budgets. Engineering managers are, essentially, bullshitters who are
totally indistinguishable from most politicians, in other words they are all mouth and
bull! They spend every day at work trying to work out how to impress
their own company directors. Years ago we had a Senior Lab Consultant who made Walter Mitty look like a well
-balanced guy; he was completely off his rocker....but he got paid
twice what the engineers were on. PLEASE, read the text file on his fairy stories!!
Text File
on the absolute nutter who was our top laboratory consultant...!!
I hope you enjoyed that file. Honestly, the stories are all true. He was a barking mad nutter!!
Another chap...a Welsh Senior Manager, was
the thickest human I had ever met. Then there was the fat boss who just
downloaded porn all day in his office; and they were all paid mega-bucks....WHY?
One of my bosses strutted around all day looking like he had something
rammed up himself and spent months arguing about his height....claiming
that he was taller than another employee who had accused him of having shoe
inserts! Give me a break !!!! How do these people get promoted to
these positions? Well, it's because the people above them are just as bad!
One senior manager, about to retire, once told me: "We've always liked to promote these self-obsessed people to get
them out of the way, so they don't interfere with the real work"... Words
fail me!! Electronics engineers are some of the cleverest people in society and yet they are paid half what some of their
line management are paid (for bullshitting), little more than schoolteachers, far less than M.P.'s (mostly slackers, illegitimate child
producers and binge-eating, croquet playing, multiple-home owning, expense claiming, bullshitting wasters) and about a third of what Doctors get paid.....
Then we are told there is a skills shortage!!! Hardly surprising
when a plumber or plasterer can earn more in a day than an
electronics engineer gets in a week. In 2009 it transpired that MP's don't
just get their own salaries either. Their wives are employed by them, as are their sons and daughters,
for carrying out non-existent research. Their wives spend thousands on taxi trips to London shops
and they all have second homes with mortgages and extensions paid for by tax payers money!!!!!
And they tell US how to behave and to have pay restraint!!! What total bloody pompous fornicating, gin-sodden, multiple home
owning sanctimonous, overweight hypocrites........ Oh, and also, the upper class toffs in the
House of Lords only go to Westminster because they can visit the local brothels and snort cocaine with the local prostitutes!
You couldn't make this stuff up....
It's just great to see these pompous asses snivelling when someone like Jeremy Paxman interviews them.
Don't get me wrong, there ARE some very good MPs out there, those with no ambitions for high office, who just want to serve their
communities, but the proportion of dodgy ones, amongst those aiming for high office, is truly staggering! Cash for questions scandals, absurd
expense claims, mistresses everywhere, offshore property, tax avoidance, blatant hypocrisy, friendships with dodgy billionaires....it just goes
on and on....
The famous Paxman/Howard interview!
Loads of cabinet ministers over the years seem to have been, quite simply, like excrement that ended up in the Houses of Parliament when the drains burst. As Patrick
used to say, the only man we need in Parliament today is Guy Fawkes. They are all after three things:
money, power and a knighthood. If you sacked all the MPs and collected their salaries and expenses
you could pump 100 million a year into Cancer Research....Instead of which the money goes into an
old boy system and that 100 million allows hundreds of MPs to say "Hearrrr, Hearrrr...." once a week
while keeping their families in a life of privilege. Now, in the 21st century, after seeing what
the world's bankers did to us in 2007, after claiming their massive bonuses....the same comments
apply to them.
Going back to my time in the electronics industry....One of my ex-bosses, whenever presented with a question he didn't want to hear, simply had a massive throat clearing spasm that could
last for hours so he didn't have to answer. Another boss was so unpopular that when he left the company people took money OUT of his
collection....Yes, you read that right. They simply said "Well, that Bastard owes me one" and took a few quid OUT. In the 1980s Marconi
was riddled with engineer suicides on a monthly basis. Some parts of the company had a bigger body throughput than the local morgue.
When one employee managed to pull his own head clean off (noose around his neck in his car, other end attached to a tree, stamp on the accelerator) questions were even asked in Parliament and on BBC Panorama....nothing happened
though. I knew three employees in the electronics industry who committed suicide using the methods of: 1) Weed Killer Sandwich 2) Self
Immolation (petrol) 3) The good old standby, hurling yourself off a cliff. Another young boss of mine (aged 35) died due to the stress he
was under, which had turned him into an alcoholic. But
still, management just guarded their comfy positions, didn't rock the boat, salted away their share options, and cleared their
throats......but NEVER got their hands dirty!! The popular press latched onto the spate of suicides in the electronic engineering industry but, bizarrely, decided there was an
MI6/KGB type plot behind it all, and even a Star Wars missile
technology link. They missed the whole point. People topped
themselves because they were coping with a mental stress level
1000x higher than the Prime Minister, but were paid little more
than a bog cleaner, in a company where pay scales were frozen
at zero percent for several years. On top of this, their lard-
arse bosses were paid double or triple what they were on for talking bull. A small fraction of the suicides are covered on a Wikipedia page, although, again, with a cold war/espionage/hitman type spin. Of the 3 suicides and one
premature death cases I knew, all were related simply to job
stress and pay, not contract killers!
Wiki page on some electronic industry suicides
If you wanted to buy a spare soldering iron tip, in the 1980s industry I worked in, you
needed several management signatories: it was bureaucracy gone mad. Some days I spent an entire day walking around the site just to
get half a dozen signatories for purchasing something like an oscilloscope probe. I do know a few people who claim they enjoyed their work in the
British electronics industry. However, after they leave the industry they always admit they've been lying!! I like a technical challenge,
but that was not the challenge from the British electronics industry I experienced; my experience was totally frustrating and,
as almost everyone I knew in the 1980s has now left the industry, I am not alone. In fact, barely a week goes by without another former
colleague finds this website and e-mails me to say "I couldn't have put it better myself". In the mid 90s I worked on an ailing
project associated with the gigantic JORN radar system. Believe me, I could write a book about that mess; the networked company computer
system took up to 10 minutes to respond to a single keyboard operation some days!! But the management claimed "The site network has a
few problems, but they are all solved now".....Bloody Liars!! Essentially, in the UK electronics industry there
are teams of people sweating over spectrum analysers, oscilloscopes, emulators, and soldering irons, who do the
real work, and then there are the overweight bullshitting suits, who are too damn lazy to do any real work and so
decide it is far easier to bellow their way to the top. To see these slackers grovelling in front of the big
CEOs who control their salaries is, frankly, stomach churning. The bosses I worked for over 22 years can be described thus, in no
particular order: The dwarf with a height complex; The chain-smoking chimp; The jumped up little tit; The stammering tosser; Blodwin the Bozo;
The Lump of Lard; The Snorting Hamster; The Blob; The spaced out druggie; The jobsworth pensioner; The lisping toff. One of my work
colleagues,
a reliable and dedicated company man in his late 20s, lost his 60 year old father, suddenly, from a heart attack. He had been
a devoted employee and then suffered this terrible bereavement. Suddenly he was the head of the family with a
mother and sister to console as well as a demanding day job. Did the company stand by him? Not at all. He asked for an extra day's bereavement
allowance (the company allowed 3 days) and he was told he couldn't have any and the company profits were
far more important than one person's loss!!!!!!!! This was a standard 'jobsworth' company line. Some weeks later the
company was awarded an 'Investors in People' Award, despite the company treating its employees like sewage. What a load of bloody hypocrisy.
Needless to say my colleague went from
being a dedicated employee to just the opposite. For a month I was dispatched to work on an ailing project
at a Marconi outpost at Basildon. It shared a lot in common with Guantanamo bay's Camp Delta. The company wouldn't
buy enough furniture, except in the manager's offices, so I stood up at my job for a month!!! The management had a buzzword term for this.
They said cheerily "Oh yes, the company currently operates a desk sharing policy". I was tempted to stick both my
fingers in the grinning manager's eye sockets, twist and pull and say "This company operates a blind eye policy fuckwit".....
But I didn't....pity......Instead, I told my manager (The one we thought of as the stammering tosser) "Send me
back to Basildon and I leave the company". I never went back there, but, 5 years later, I gave the company the
same ultimatum, with a different site and, again, they pulled me out....Like the Incredible Hulk, they really did NOT like me when I was angry
because I was not interested in licking management arse. I knew when I was right and was prepared to argue my case
to the death against such pitiful jobsworth suits. I didn't think that getting a degree in Electronics and being
100% reliable made me deserve being treated worse than a mass-murderer.......
Talking of blindness, In the early 90s I helped build a pioneering system called 'React' which automatically identified a
blind person nearby and activated various voice messages to help them home in on a help-point/advice centre. Technically it worked
perfectly, but because it was not the flavour of the month project, and because of general management sloth the project was allowed to
die. This was typical of my experience in the UK electronics industry. Working on projects which, for a small amount of extra
investment, would have been great successes...but there never was that investment. Of course, in the USA, Germany, Japan, or even China,
the money would have been found, because they don't have the same Old Boy management system in place. Hardly surprising that the UK only has a small car industry and
does not make things like Mobile phones, tablets or digital cameras. We have the brainpower, but the whole country is crippled under a mass of
overconfident, arrogant, invariably morbidly obese, badly fitting wig wearing, deadwood, in suits, spouting bullshit and lying about
budgets and timescales.
Another project I worked on briefly was the digital design for a next generation super-sensitive
Olfactory Sensor, that's a sensor that sniffs chemicals and explosives etc....If enough money was
pumped into the research for such a device it could be made as sensitive as a bloodhound, i.e. it
could sniff out drug smugglers and explosives easily. Now just think what a difference that would make
in the modern world. Sounds great eh? Suicide bombing ended, at a stroke. Guess what the budget for this was.....It was 20K!!! No, that's
not a typo.....I think I really do have a right to a rant, don't you? The Super Olfactory sensor was dead before it
drew the first breath.....Yet, given proper funding it could have stopped terrorism and drug smuggling
in its tracks. Suicide bombers cost the world billions, yet GEC-Marconi would not spend more than 20K on
a system to sniff out explosives!
Things improved for me in the late 90s, just a bit, but in 2002 the company literally collapsed, due to
the massive egos of the most senior company directors, who, as always, walked away with huge multi-million pound pensions and bonuses to reward
their years of making the wrong decisions, using buzzwords, getting fat, and lying about timescales. Managers lie about timescales
and budgets to get the contracts and get the Brownie points, and a big pay rise. By the time the shit hits the fan they are
always well gone and untraceable. They can never be held to account, but they should be jailed, or hung from a yard arm. This is why so many
big engineering projects go over budget and over cost. Because the original contract clinching managers lied to undercut the
competition, and the customers, employing similar tossers, didn't suss this out! It happens time and time and time again.
Fortunately, in August 2002, I was offered a nice financial severance package and,
as I had paid my mortgage off 9 years earlier, aged 35, and my finances were already healthy (no thanks to my
employer, just my meticulous financial strategy over the past 26 years, as employee and sponsored student), I decided to move into
astronomical writing full-time. I escaped from Bullshit Universe.
My last day
at work...August 2002. With office secretary Pam Betts.
The Bachelor Life
In 2002 I moved
back to live with my parents under dark Suffolk skies and rented my house
out to a work colleague. My life really started in August 2002. At last I
was doing what I wanted to after a 22 year prison term: observing when it was clear, writing when
it was not. Bliss !! Plus I was living with my parents and not a spherical wife waiting to divorce me.
So many modern marriages seem to be just a divorce with a slow burning fuse on it. In 2006 my parents celebrated 56 years of
marriage: an old fashioned marriage where the man earns the money and the woman lovingly looks after him.
A rare recipe that worked well in the distant past, but is rarely seen now. Tragically, my mother succumbed to Bowel Cancer on
September 8th 2006. But at least I had four 'retired' years at home with her. For that luck, I will always be grateful. I have written a
full tribute to my Mum. There is a link on this page.
I have always been a single man, and thank goodness for that. From
what I have seen of 80% of modern marriages they are a religious or business pact between two
people who agree to stress each other up for life, often just because two salaries pay the bills. After the naive early years
are over most married couples seem to irritate each other and argue every day,
just putting on a different face for parties and functions. Yes, there are
exceptions to every rule, but look at the current divorce statistics....!
In 2007 there were more UK divorces than marriages...I rest my case. Then there are these people who say
they are "on perfectly amicable terms with their ex". For F**k's sake!!! If you are on perfectly amicable terms
why did you ever split up? Then they seem to instantly rebound into another disastrous relationship as if to say to
their ex "See, I can easily find someone else......you were the problem"......Then that relationship breaks up
after another seven years or so..... Why not just do without and live a peaceful and tranquil life without arguments?
There is another factor here too. Electronics engineers seem to do very badly in the attractive wife stakes; are they
really that desperate ?!! They should do a TV prog called Electronics
Engineers wives; it would need to be X-Rated. One Engineer actually admitted to me that his wife had a face like "a blocked
drain". But, and I quote, he said "You don't look at the mantelpiece when you're stoking the fire".....!!! Some engineers I encountered
ended up purchasing mail order Eastern block or Far Eastern brides!!! Another colleague told me his
wife had been so ugly as a baby her dummy had a 12 inch flange!! When I was an engineer we used to have an annual Xmas lunch where
you would see the engineers' other halves........ Honestly, it was like watching feeding time at the Zoo. It reminded me of
Dad's Army, where Captain Mainwaring's wife was never seen in public.
There is a method that a young man can use to choose a female partner. It's called the Hot-Crazy Matrix and those who have had many partners
tell me it is absolutely accurate.....
The Hot-Crazy Matrix
A few friends of mine do have astronomy tolerant wives, at least they
seem like that for the first few years....but many others are divorced....acrimoniously divorced with REAL HATE in
many cases.
Also, a significant proportion of married astronomers seem to have their hobbies banned, either by their
wives or by their mother-in-laws!!! Sorry, that's not for me. An
attractive, intelligent, female astronomer, now that sounds bloody fantastic, but they are rarer than Rocking Horse
Shit. If one had turned up in my 20s, fine. But I have never been interested
in something that looks like Les Dawson in drag. If you marry something like that you will regret it for life or
be divorced very quickly. Why settle for something second best when you deserve better? I guess most people
just decide at some point that their dream partner will never turn up, so they settle for whatever monstrosity is within reach when they mentally
make that decision. Well, that is not the way I do things.
Brilliant animation - I guess you'll do!
There is obviously a duty on the male astronomer too.
Friends of mine have divorced due to an astronomy obsession on the man's side and
the wife saying it's OK to be out every night imaging, but not really meaning it.....the resentment builds up and up and up.
Eventually something snaps and, in mere days, its all over. One of the biggest problems with modern society is couples who want it
all: hobbies, careers, children. Something always snaps. I've seen it so many times and I see others hurtling
towards the same abyss, eyes firmly blinkered. How can they be so stupid? I may come across as a male chauvinist here
but there is no way I would ever be so arrogant as to inflict my hobby on a non-astronomical partner. There is yet another
issue here too. When you marry someone you do not just marry them, you marry their whole interfering family who
start telling you how to live your damned life. A married female friend of mine told me recently
how lucky I was that I had no family baggage and no in-laws running my life. I couldn't argue with that! If I want a new
telescope I buy it. If I want to go on a total solar eclipse trip I book it. I don't need a permit from the mother-in-law!
All things considered I am proud of the fact that I am single and have avoided all
this sort of hassle. I feel somewhat smug that so many people seem to have regarded me as 'wrong' throughout my
life, simply because I was an independent thinker, hated social situations, and have NEVER had a 'relationship'. I am simply not a brainwashed pack animal.
I guess many would diagnose me as an 'Asperger' case, but I think putting people into a box is a modern obsession. I learned to live with being an 'outcast' early on in my
life. I had one good eye and one poor eye and so part of my childhood was lived with a patch over the good eye to encourage the bad eye. When you spend months at school with one
glasses lens taped over, you end up being the butt of 'Cyclops' jokes pretty quickly. But what doesn't kill you makes you a lot stronger.
Throughout my young life people told me I would not achieve anything, simply because I was a very quiet person and never spoke about things if I wasn't totally sure of the facts.
For example, I was told I was not O Level material (I got 9 in real subjects), I was not
A Level material (I got Maths, Physics and Electronics in the era when exams were hard to pass!), and I was also told I would never get a degree or
sponsorship for a degree. I got both, and left Uni £5,000 in profit in 1980 with a second class honours degree in a REAL subject, namely
Electronic Engineering, not the "History of Art" or something plain useless to society.
I could afford to retire from my day job at 44. So, considering all the people who have, my whole life, told me
how I should live my life, and I now find I am better off than them in EVERY regard, well, I feel I got it right. One thing I have NEVER,
EVER, done is to tell friends of mine how they should live their lives. Yet, quite a few of my *former* friends seemed to be
compelled to tell ME how I should live mine, even when their own lives were a walking disaster area!!!! Extraordinary!! Maybe you are now
finally understanding why I wanted to have a good rant?
Gut buckets
Another thing I can't understand is these people who become spherical.
They'll get no sympathy from me if they have a heart attack! It's a 21st Century epidemic. At 1.82 m, I am
the same weight now (aged 65) as I was at the age of 18, namely around 70 kg. If I started waddling around like a gutbucket, lard arse or
wobble-bottom, I'd be ashamed of myself. All these weak-willed slobs need to do is eat less, and yet they can't even achieve that.
Pathetic!!!!! You see them at supermarkets, trolleys piled high with junk; they are beyond my comprehension I'm afraid. I saw a chap in Bury
a year ago who was so fat he needed 4 passers-by to pull him out through his car door. Someone should have offered him a "Waffer thin mint"
(Monty Python - Meaning of Life) to put him out of his misery.....
Python's Mr Creosote.
And, they'll expect the
National Health Service to give them a heart by-pass operation, or a gastric band, paid for by my taxes !!!! I am therefore being robbed, as
surely as if I was mugged in the street! As for smokers and lung cancer....well....In 2006 my Dad and I
looked after my Mum, every day, while she died from bowel cancer. The experience is scarred on my brain even years later. She didn't ever smoke, but got cancer anyway. Take it from me, you do not want the big C in your life. Her final months were horrendously grim. She
was a kind, caring lady with a sunny disposition who brightened our lives. No-one deserves to die in terror and misery, least of all
her. We need billions putting into Cancer research instead of into pointless wars.
However, the National Health Service has been drained of resources by Gut Buckets, Alcoholics & Smokers,
so there is no money left to treat those who have been sensible in their lives....like her!
The Royal family are sitting on billions and spend our tax payers money and then they pretend they care about the poor and
sick!!! Pull the other one. Hey, Royalty, if you care, sell Buck House and the Crown Jewels, raise a few billion and give it to Cancer Research.....but of course, they won't.....billionaires never do.
My Dad had an open mind on religion before my Mum's horrendous demise, but after she died all he said was: "Well, if there is a God, he is
an UTTER BASTARD". Without your health you have nothing. Speaking as someone who was a regular blood donor from the age of 24, I just
hope the countless gallons of blood I've donated have gone to help those whose illness is genuine and not self-inflicted!!!
Spherical 30 stone people do not have an unusual metabolism; they do not retain water, they retain chips.
Some people seem to find my
views on this "offensive". WHY? In every single case if you want to lose weight, just EAT LESS!!!! Or, exercise more.
Preferably both! Why is it offensive to moan about people who are overburdening the NHS and are too fat to work so live off
benefits? I have paid a huge amount of tax in my life. Since 1977 I have paid tax into the system but taken nothing
out. Up to 2018 I had been to the Doctor 3 times in the last 32 years, for a 15 minute chat. In those 32 years I have paid huge
amounts to the inland revenue in tax, and in National Insurance. Why should I not moan about slobs living on benefits?
Benefits that I and every other responsible, health conscious person has paid out for in tax.
Eat less and you will weigh less, it is as simple as that. It's not rocket science. You only have one body. Take care of it.
You only have one life too......and, before you tell me Patrick Moore was overweight. Yes, obviously....that's a no-brainer. But, in my view, that
was his only serious failing. In addition, he raised loads of money for charity, but he never even mentioned it.
There used to be a revolting spherical chap in the BAA who we nicknamed Mr Creosote (Python - Meaning of Life
again...) he was utterly gross and stank the lecture theatres out. He was so lazy he used his trousers
as a toilet and never had a trouser belt, so he would occasionally go into Full Moon mode, which caused
people to spontaneously chuck their last meal up. A few years ago he literally detonated in his London flat.
Maybe it really was a Waffer thin mint that tipped the blob over the edge.....
The authorities came in, sluiced his sty out and incinerated the corpse. Good riddance.......
I'm told when he blew up it registered on the Richter scale....I think that might be a slight exaggeration.
All things considered I will continue leading my civilised and tranquil bachelor life according to the gospel of Sir
Patrick Moore. Patrick was nearly always right on most things and, like me, he had no time
for political correctness: a system whereby you are encouraged to say one thing and think another, so everyone is even more
confused than normal! Political correctness is just a symptom of a society where overpaid human rights lawyers
rule the world, in societies where criminals are treated better than their victims.
40 years ago it was fashionable to be a racist and to smoke. Now it's fashionable to be politically correct, binge drink,
and put an inquisitive inflection on the last word of every sentence, like an Australian, or to precede every sentence with the
word...."So".....
I'm not impressed by these fads, or persuaded to live my life like every other photocopied
person. I do things the way I want to do them and I'm also 100% reliable. One of my former
bosses called me "The Postman", as I always delivered the goods, even if he never did. Like Patrick, I
ignore fashionable trends and just carry on doing astronomy.
With Patrick
at a BAA Lunar Section meeting in 1984!
With Patrick
at the BAA Centenary meeting in 1990.
Mobberley background
Throughout all my astronomical endeavours I was encouraged
by both my parents, especially my late mother. My father was in the RAF aerobatics team in the
1950s and 60s and survived a mid-air collision (before I was born...GULP). See this article
from the Brentwood Gazette sixty years after the event:
Brentwood Gazette piece.
He also landed an RAF Victor without any electrics (due to a fuel leak)
in the early 1960s, saving the lives of himself and the crew. He was awarded
the Air Force Cross for that in 1965. He was an RAF 'Nuclear Deterrent' pilot flying Victors
during the cold war period in the 60s, on call if World War III started! Up to the age of 70 he was still
flying planes and only retired in 1998, aged 72. He is still alive in 2024,
at 98, but then his mother was still going strong up to a few weeks before
her 98th birthday, and his sister survived until 96. The
Mobberley family tree (and my DNA is definitely from my father's side...pictures of us at similar ages are almost identical!) has
a good number of
long duration survivors. Even in the 19th Century they were surviving well
into their 80s.
Small montage of my Dad, his parents and his father's
parents.
However, my Mobberley DNA does have a few quirks.
As mentioned earlier, I have two completely different eyes, one with excellent vision and
the other very poor (mainly astigmatism and long-sightedness). Thus I have very poor stereo vision.
This seems to have been passed down from my great-grandmother Hannah Mobberley (maiden name Massey). When I was
a child I had two eye operations to attempt to correct problems with my eyesight. The first operation was a typical
NHS bodge...they made things worse. The second operation was little better. If I had received
better medical treatment I might have full stereo vision now, but then, aged 3 and 5 you don't realise just
how bad the NHS can be. You assume medical people know what they are doing. HAH!!!!
Many are just blundering through their jobs like so many other people, they just
get paid far more. Conversely, surgeons who transform people's lives by removing tumors,
fitting new hips, transplanting hearts, they are brilliant people, but the typical GP....well, they are a very mixed bag!
Some of them can't even speak English despite getting paid £100K a year. And as for
hospital administrators on £200K/year who can't even keep their hospitals MRSA free....can
someone explain their salaries to me please? How are they worth 10x the salary of a nurse???
In the last few years I have become a carer for my Dad, which has involved many interactions with the NHS. My findings are as follows:
A lot of the time you'd do better just using Google! NHS Hospital Consultants: A mixture of tossers and pen-pushers with loads of letters after their names.
NHS Ambulance staff: Brilliant people! NHS District Nurses: Brilliant people! So, as always, the really valuable people are those on the lowest salaries!
If you do need an operation, and have the money, go private, after doing exhaustive checks on the surgeon......
There's no waiting list and you are not just a number......in most cases....
Apart from my visual history, another Mobberley
family curse is mouth ulcers. My father and grandmother had them...anything
sharp that cuts the mouth results in a week of pain. I have had some success
in reducing the incidence of these and treating them myself....again, no thanks
to the medical world.
I have had a fair
amount of back pain too over the years but that has largely been cured.
Again, it has been cured by me.....Physiotherapists and chiropractors are just conmen.
They take your money and either make your back worse, or have no effect.....
I spent several years working out a regime to get my back in shape, and, since late 2000
I have been mainly pain-free, if I am careful.
However I vastly prefer visual observing with a Newtonian telescope
where I don't have to bend down...continuous bending on cold, damp
nights really does me no good at all! Apart from those niggles though, I was virtually
never unwell.......until I reached 60.
In March 2018 I was shocked to find that despite being fit, active, and never overweight, I had become a diabetic.
This was a major shock but I reduced my blood sugar to safe levels via diet, exercise and Metformin tablets.
At the time of writing it's unclear how I became diabetic as I've always been slim and there's no diabetes in the family.
I could be someone with internal fat deposits... a TOFI (thin outside, fat inside).
My Diabetes progress
My father spent a few years compiling a family tree which is
summarised in the diagram link below.
A compact summary of my family tree.
A newspaper article on my Grandfather Jim Mobberley (1888 - 1970) when he retired from a life in the Coal Mines in 1954 is
shown here.
Rugeley Times Dec 4th 1954.
Astro Holidays
I have been on quite a few astronomy holidays and trips in recent years.
I suppose my first real astro-trip was to see Halley's Comet from Tenerife in
March 1986. A few years later I visited the French lunar photographer Georges
Viscardy at his observatory in the hills above Nice. In 1991 I started serious
eclipse-chasing with a holiday in Hawaii for the big 'July 1991' eclipse.
Tragically we were clouded out, which was really disappointing when we had all
travelled so far. I have learnt quite a few things about enjoying astro-holidays
to the full since then. When you are a single traveller, like me, you will only really
enjoy a holiday if you are in the company of like-minded friends who are tolerant
of your needs and preferences. There are few things worse than finding out that
you are in a hotel where you don't know anyone else and everyone on your itinerary
is a complete nerd, or an alcoholic. The only sensible plan is to
make sure you travel on the same itinerary (and are in the same hotels...the two
things are NOT always the same thing!!) as people who you want to be with and who want
to be with you. The company of such astro-friends will make or break the holiday, as
will the company of people who you can't stand. Being stuck in a hotel on your own,
far from home, with no like-minded friends around, can be an utterly depressing
situation and a total waste of money. So, before you embark on
an astronomy holiday, check out who of your friends are on the same itinerary AND hotels
AND plane flights. I repeat: You may think the same itinerary means the same hotels and plane
flights........IT DOES NOT !!! It just means you see the same sights at the same
time. When an eclipse is taking place, there will be hundreds of travellers and
they will not all fit in one hotel and one plane. You may be totally separated
from your friends but not realise this until you get to the airport. Many astro-
holidays seek to give the best value-for-money by whistle-stopping around at
break-neck speed so you see everything. However, I do not like being in a different
hotel every night and on a different plane or bus every damn day.....I like a
relaxing holiday, not an endurance expedition. You have to expect a certain amount
of chaos when travelling to third world countries, but why make it worse??
Dehydration can be a real problem with lots of air travel in hot countries, so drink
plenty of bottled water, NOT tap water (especially not in India......!!!) Also,
avoid salads and ice-cream in dodgy countries, UNLESS you want to spend all holiday
welded to a bog seat !!! After Hawaii, I saw all my foriegn eclipses.....I've been to ten
Total Solar Eclipses now....after Hawaii, there was Peru in 1994, India in 1995, the Caribbean in 1998,
Cloudy Cornwall in 1999, Zimbabwe in 2001, Libya in 2006, Siberia in 2008, China (mainly cloudy) in 2009,
and the South Pacific in 2010. Peru was a great trip. India was
gruelling and the eclipse was short, but it was an amazing experience, although I was
glad to get home. The Caribbean eclipse trip was the best of the lot...a beautiful
eclipse from a beautiful setting (Knip Bay, Curacao) with great people, Scuba diving, and a very attractive Scuba dive
partner for a few days.....
Off
Scuba diving with my entertaining dive-buddy Beverley in the Caribbean!
Zimbabwe
was a superb eclipse but a depressing holiday. For most of the time I was just on my own, in hotels
where I knew nobody....a rather depressing experience. I like being on my own
in my house at home, but NOT when I am abroad in a dodgy country.
If a holiday is BAD,
I say so....I'm not one of these people who has to pretend everything is fantastic...
it doesn't always work like that and that was the case in Zimbabwe for most of the
time. Again, I was glad to get home. So, I've seen seven total solar eclipses now and had two
cloudy ones (Hawaii and Cornwall '99....when I was the BAA President and was
surrounded by 500 fellow BAA members on Aug 11th 1999) and one almost totally cloudy one (China 2009).
If every holiday could be like the 1998 Caribbean one, all would be great. I didn't want to come home from
that one (partly because it was back to work next day.....ugh...) On three of my eclipse
trips (Chile, India and Curacao '98) the Queen guitarist Brian May was on the
same eclipse tour.
Posing
with Rock Giant Brian May on the Chile-Peru border in November 1994.
I also bumped into him at Patrick Moore's Venus Transit party
in June 2004. He is a genuinely nice, surprisingly quiet chap, but always fails to bring his guitar and
amplifiers along........much to everyone's disappointment ;-))))
There are a lot of pictures floating around showing Brian, Chris Lintott and Patrick Moore on that
Venus Transit day.....almost all are mine.....stolen!! The picture in the front of BANG! is mine,
but with no credit and no payment ever coming my way....despite huge sales...... Typical!
QUEEN - Hammer to Fall
I also went on a second comet photography trip to Tenerife (to see comet
Hyakutake in March 1996) and three Leonid meteor trips (1998 Darjeeling...an utter
disaster; 1999 Sinai...a great success; and 2001 Palau (in the Pacific), a great holiday).
Now that I'm self employed and have a very healthy financial situation, I could do
a lot more travelling of the world. But the problem is always one of who to travel
with, so as to really have a great time. I would not enjoy travelling on my own, so
I tend to stick to the big events where I go to the big Total Solar Eclipse expeditions
with (up to 2006) the same company (Explorers). That way, I usually end up with a crowd of people
I know....I was on a Mediterranean Cruise for the 2006 Eclipse.....at least you
can't split everyone up on a ship (unless it hits an iceberg) !!! For the 2008 eclipse I travelled to Russia with Voyages Jules Verne which worked very well.
There are humorous accounts of all my foriegn astronomy trips on my Total Solar Eclipse page. With my father now in his 90s I am loathe to travel on foriegn holidays any more in case
something happens while I am away. Some people seem a bit baffled by this, but, well, just let me live by my higher moral standards, please!
Telescope Reviews
One of my real gripes is 'Telescope Reviews' especially in astro magazines and web forums. In every
other field (cars, cameras etc....) reviewers of products call a spade
a spade. But in some US astro mags and forums a telescope review is always good if the
manufacturer funds a lot of adverts in the mag or online. This is unique to
astronomy and is simply corrupt. There are some telescopes drives (and the odd mirror)
out there that are simply CRAP but are given good reviews because of
mega bucks in advertising revenue. There are even some dodgy telescope ads that quote
Patrick Moore as endorsing their products, when he had never properly tested them!!!
Patrick was too semi-paralysed to observe anything other than naked eye stuff
since the start of the 21st century......
In my experience the best affordable
telescopes are the Newtonians made by Orion Optics (UK) and all of the Schmidt-Cassegrains made by Celestron. I would strongly
recommend those specific products as both good AND affordable. You only rarely meet anyone who has had a bad experience with a
Celestron SCT. The big C14s on a sturdy mount (CGE, Losmandy, Astrophysics or Paramount) are a real joy to own. I have a lot more to say
about this subject on the Equipment/Telescopes page. UK C14 owners, apart from myself, include Tom Boles, Mark Armstrong, Damian Peach,
Dave Tyler
and Pete Lawrence. They are just a brilliant big-aperture optical package, especially for planets.
My proudest achievements are:-
The BAA's 55th President 1997-1999
With the BAA Council
in my last year as President....Eclipse Year, 1999.
The BAA Goodacre Award 2000
Asteroid 7239 named 'Mobberley'
Ten 'Sky at Night' appearances (3 as the sole guest)
Preparing to film a 'Sky at Night' with Sir Patrick Moore
My 10 astronomy books (plus 3 children's Space books)
Discovering a nova in M31 on Dec 18th 2003
Being a qualified PADI Open Water Scuba Diver
Me
in Scuba Gear on the Caribbean island of Bonaire
Some of my sources of inspiration, friends, and leading UK astronomers are:-
My Dad, Squadron Leader Denys Mobberley AFC
My late Mum, still a huge inspiration
The late Sir Patrick Moore
Guy Hurst (Editor of 'The Astronomer')
Tom Boles, Ron Arbour and Mark Armstrong (Supernova Discoverers)
Damian Peach (World No. 1 Planetary Imager)
Gary Poyner (World No. 1 Variable Star Observer)
Peter Birtwhistle (NEO Astrometrist Extraordinaire)
A wide variety of 1960s - 1990s music.
The novels of Stephen King, Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds & Neal Asher
Dr Who episodes, especially those of the Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee & Tom Baker era
The books & philosophy of Richard Dawkins
Stand up comedians/comedy writers esp. Spike Milligan, Billy Connolly, Jethro, Ken Dodd, Jack Dee, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, plus classic radio comedy shows of years gone by like 'Round the Horne', 'Hancock's Half Hour'
and 'The Goon Show'. And, of course, the 1930s astronomer and film star, Will Hay.
Unsolicited Praise for this web page (a tiny sample!)
Martin,
I am reading your rant now and I am having a good time. There is soooo much truth to it. I can't tell you how much.
Financial and material and emotional independence are the keys to freedom in many respects. They are all like poison ivy. Some people can get out of the trap. Let's not talk about religious entanglement.
I cannot agree with you more and have to thank you for such a great rant! I loved every bit of it.
Jenny
Hi Martin,
My colleague and astronomer extraordinare ( www.[namewithheld] ) passed me a link to your site, which I duly followed
I enjoyed your rant - glad to see some proper invective published.
I thought:
- Religion - spot on
- Eng jobs - it was clear that you'd worked for somebody like GEC / Marconi / Ferranti etc. I cut my teeth at Thomson Marconi on sonar, and can relate to your experience. However I fled to proper companies where commercial pressures are real, and my experience of those companies is entirely different. And more encouraging!
- Bat fastards - agreed - you don't see fat people in famine conditions. Therefore fat people get fat by eating too much. Bo**ocks to 'it's my metabolism excuses.
- Engineers wives. When younger I used to agree, looking around at my Dads friends wives. The outlook was grim. Fortunately, my generation (or my graduation class and my colleagues) seem to have done decidedly better, and provided the husband isn't a minger, then the wife will be similarly OK. Only the ugly blokes have married welders benches!
- Also agree with the description of 'normal' people. My inbuilt optimism says that there aren't as many as you suggest, but the huge numbers that do exist are simply referred to as scumbags.
With regards,
Chris.
Hiya Martin,
sorry to bother you again, but I just read your "rant" page and can't stop laughing. Your comments about the electronic industry ring a bell as I have a friend and electronics engineer who says exactly what you wrote.
I used to be in the police force and we had the same trouble with senior officers and politicians buggering up things .
Like you I'm financially secure (police pension), But I have had cancer and now the kidney failure. My life expectancy is not to great maybe 15 yrs I suppose(transplant if it happens may help). At 51 that's a bit worrying. But I endeavour to jenoy life. I even purchased a 5 berth sailing boat and took up sailing. With the collapse of the PhD and recently feeling better (after 5 yrs of kidney failure and the NHS not helping) thought I'd get into astronomy again and see where it takes me before I give up the ghost. Like you I'm single and thank God for close family and good friends.
Anyway as I said your rant struck a cord with me and cheered me up on what has been a bloody awfulday.
Regards Eric
Hi Martin
Have just found your webpage, great rant! But can assure you that having worked in local government for forty years as a civil engineer (a dying breed). I can tell you that the people you refer to are alive and well dreaming up totally useless schemes to waste council payers money.
Regards
Bob R******* (gratefully retired)
Hello Martin,
I've just spent an entertaining half hour or so perusing your web site - very good, absolutely no holds barred!
Do you still e-mail images? I seem to have dropped off your circulation list, and would love to be back on it again if it's still on the go. I may not be the ***** Section Director anymore, but I haven't lost my passion for the night sky!
All the best,
Dave
Hi Martin
To me your rant was one of the best things i've read on the internet and i agree with a great deal of what you said and in my opinion and no doubt countless others if you don't like what your reading then why read it just move on and let it go. To me Martin you have taken you place as one of the greats of UK astronomy i've read several of your books,seen you on the sky at night and enjoyed many of your "sky notes" talks you have given at BAA meetings.
So keep on ranting mate !!!! and if i see you at astrofest next year i for one would buy you a pint.
Happy Christmas and heres to many clear skies next year.
All the best
M.H.
Martin,
Having just re-visited your "rant" page I've got to just write and express
my whole-hearted support! What a refreshing change to read REAL views and
not some mealy-mouthed cr*p spouted because some trendy, lefty w*nker thinks
it's what everyone wants to hear! These days, I am heartily SICK of being
told I'm a racist if I as much as dare to mention that I think there are too
many immigrants allowed in to our crowded island, that I'm homophobic if I
express the view that I think that being homosexual isn't entirely normal
and that I'm a fascist if I voice the opinion that the unemployed should be
made to do something useful (like clean our filthy countryside up) or have
their "benefits" cut. Like you, I've always paid my way and, as a single
man, been hammered for tax!
Anyway, didn't mean to start a rant of my own, just letting you know that
you are one of MANY who are sick of the PC police in this sadly declining
country!
Enough waffle - keep up the good work Martin!
All the best,
Tim
|
