Being a bit of an old fossil myself, I find nothing more interesting than looking at other old fossils so I’m at Wollaton Hall (yes, Bruce Wayne’s house in Batman) to see some of the most important fossil specimens in the world showing preserved fossil feathers at the Dinosaurs of China Exhibition, from Ground Shakers to […]
In the Public Eye to the London Eye – The 5 Best Views in London You Must See
Eye spy with the London Eye, something beginning with C. Wrong. It’s the Capital and we are in it, jolly old London town. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, that’s what they say. There is plenty to do so it should take you a long time before that happens. We […]
Weird Things in Jars – The Grant Museum of Zoology
Weird things in jars. That’s how best to describe the Grant Museum of Zoology. Not for the squeamish, this offbeat museum in London is one of the oldest natural history museums in the country and is a collection of the weird, the wonderful and the wild. In fact, it is crammed full of formaldehyde […]
Feeling a Dummy at Madame Tussauds
Madame Tussauds is an utter freak show. I’m not talking about the waxworks inside, or the queue outside of thousand of thronging visitors lined up like dummies who haven’t booked online to visit more dummies inside. The freak show is the the lawless chaos that awaits inside Madame Tussauds and will make you give up […]
Feeling the Force at the Star Wars Identities Exhibition
Han Solo can apparently fly successfully through an asteroid field at odds of 3,720 to 1. Coincidentally, that is also the same number of Stormtrooper children orphaned by a bunch religious insurgents who destroy a legitimate government installation when they cruelly blew up a space station with an unfortunate sounding name, in a raid led by an […]
Meeting Astronaut Michael Foale: The Mir Space Station Collision
In 1997 during a docking test with the use of an onboard remote control, an unmanned cargo vessel collided into the Russian Mir Space Station. The collision punctured part of the space station, leaking air and causing Mir to spin while knocking out much of its power supply. It remains the most serious collision ever […]
Solar Viewing with Coronado PST
The weather is scorching, the residual heat from a thousand local BBQs are not helping the situation and it feels like my sunglasses have melted on to my head. The sun in shining and I can feel its heat on my head, its radiation giving me a redneck, all from 93 million mils away. It’s […]
The Home of Gravity – Woolsthorpe Manor
We’re feeling the the undeniably pull of attraction to visit Woolsthorpe Manor deep in the rural Lincolnshire countryside, a site of scientific interest for it is the birthplace, family home to Sir Isaac Newton and the home of gravity. Probably the most influential scientist of all time, Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor on a […]
At the Edge of the Empire – from Housteads to Hadrain’s Wall and the Northumberland Coast
The Northumberland Coast, a few days of extreme dog walking adventures in England’s least populated county at the edge of the empire in Northumberland, along the coast of Northumberland from Newbiggin to Berwick-upon-Tweed to Hadrian’s Wall. A bit like the original tourists here, the Romans, and later, the Vikings, but with less colonising, raiding, raping, […]
Nerding it up in Nottingham at EM-Con 2017 – East Midlands TV and Film Convention
Geeks, you may have heard, have inherited the Earth. Not a bad thing, I’m the biggest nerd I know, and it fits nicely with my plans for my galactic conquest as guardian of the galaxy, Master of the Universe, all the way to infinity and beyond. How fortuitous then that I once again find myself […]
Meeting Tom Cruise’s Middle Finger & Top Gun Shuttle Astronaut Scott Altman
I remember the 80s…a time for heroes, high-five flyers and top gun shuttle pilots. Just as well then that today, thanks to the team at Space Lectures, I met Scott Altman, a veteran F14 Tomcat pilot flying as Tom Cruise’s middle finger in that famous scene in Top Gun and a veteran of 4 Space […]
The Craic with a Dublin City Break
Top o’ the morning to ya, what’s the craic? Thanks to a four leaf clover in my pocket and the luck of the Irish, we find ourselves in the Emerald Isle in the Fair City of Dublin (and all said in an Irish accent) as the locals gear up for St Patrick’s Day. To escape […]
A visit to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin
I’ve been accused in the past of not being able to organise a $iss up in a brewery, so what better way or better place to prove them all wrong by organising an actual $iss up in a brewery and beating the queues with pre-booked tickets to the Guinness Storehouse Tour. This had better be […]
NGC 2359 Thor’s Helmet
NGC 2359 commonly known as Thor’s Helmet. This bubble shaped emission nebula also has some complex filaments that help to give NGC 2359 a distinctive shape with the wing like structures to give Thor’s Helmet its name. Located in the constellation of Canis Major, it is nearly 15,000 light years distant and 30 light years […]
Geysers and Gullfoss in The Golden Circle Tour in Iceland
Day 3 and the last day in our short trip to Iceland and we’re feeling the need to see something in a more natural environment, certainly more natural than some of the ‘curiosities‘ we saw yesterday in Reykjavik. We’re off to explore the wilds of Iceland on the Golden Circle tour, Iceland’s most popular tourist route, […]
Icelandic Phallological Museum
The jokes are endless, the giggles a plenty, the museum unique. Feeling a little flat from yesterdays walking, it’s time to perk up and be proud as we pound the pavement with a visit to an art gallery with a difference, The Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland. You heard that right. A curious […]
Iceland – Reykjavik
Iceland, land of of fire and ice, volcanoes, Vikings and visitors. Thousands of them, including us. All to see the sights that the original visitor who came here didn’t see. Floki Vilgerdarson came here from Norway in 870 AD but was disappointed because all he could see was ice. A practical man, with his incredible […]
The Twins Paradox – Meeting the twin Astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly
Mark and Scott Kelly are the only siblings to have travelled in space with 4 spaceflights each and NASA’s only set of identical twin astronauts . Today, thanks to the great team over at Space Lectures, I’m meeting the time travelling twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly. The team at Space Lectures announced the twins line […]
Messier 15 Great Pegasus Cluster
My image of Messier 15 The Great Pegasus Cluster. In the constellation of Pegasus, easily found approx 4 degrees north west of the star Enif. Slightly smaller and fainter than the similar looking cluster of Messier 13 The Great Hercules Cluster, Messier 15 is relatrively bright at magnitude 6.2 and is resolved as a fuzzy […]
Glencoe – James Bond’s Back Garden – Scotland Road Trip Part 5
Prepare yourselves dear reader, for a story of betrayal, misery and murder, for today we visit Glencoe for its gorgeous glen and its murderous mountains. The weather is appalling, ‘pishing it doon’ as they say up here. We’re also well aware that the local inclement weather of the UK can do a perfectly reasonable job of […]