What has happened to Pluto?

And I don’t mean the lovable dog belonging to Mickey Mouse.

How many people does it take to demolish a planet?

Only 424.

Turned to a dwarf

Pluto has been downgraded to the status of a dwarf planet and no longer counts as our ninth planet of the solar system.

This was decided on the last day of the International Astronomical Union in August 2006, late and after most of the delegates had left.

Alan Stern, leader of the NASA New Horizons Mission to Pluto, said: “Less than five per cent of the world’s astronomers voted. I’m embarrassed for astronomy.”

I am obliged to the Observer Book of Space, published with the Observer newspaper on 11 November 2007, for all this information, as well as for a piece on the 1974 Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence message sent from Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

This was, in brief, a numerical message which would form a picture explaining who we, human beings, are. It included a representation of our solar system.

With nine planets.

As it should be.

Let’s Get Together

Surely we can find more than 424 people who wish to BRING BACK PLUTO and reinstate it as a planet, returning it to the fold.

Join me in the quest by joining the Facebook Group, Bring Back Pluto.

My father, an American born in 1901, insisted that we four children learn the names of the planets from the sun outwards and he was only 29 when Pluto was discovered. He would tell us how exciting that discovery was. In his memory, I hope to re-instate our ninth planet to its full glory.

After all, in his lifetime he learned of the first flight at Kittyhawk and of the first discoverey Pluto and watched the first men walk on the Moon and even worked in the space industry himself. From horse and buggy, to space travel in one man’s lifetime. BRING BACK PLUTO to honour him and all those who have lived in that amazing 20th century.

• For those wishing to know, Pluto the Disney character was named after the planet on its discovery.

Owing to a number of comments and posts on the subject, the time has come for poor grammar to be given a special mention here on The Shitopedia. I do not pretend to be a literary giant or a guardian of my mother tongue. I, too, make mistakes and typos. However, poor grammar in its worst form is infuriating. Nothing gives me less pride in my nation than to hear a Brit abroad say something along the lines of, “Oh yeah we been everywhere. We done Melbourne, we done Sydney”.
continue reading "Poor Grammar"

In this day and age of transparency, when even the smallest parish councillor must declare an interest if an agenda item is in any way connected to him; and when professionals such as lawyers, accountants and the like must at all times be aware of any potential conflict of interest, why does this care-fulness not extend to the top?

Alastair Darling, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, stepped in a few weeks ago to urge the Bank of England (over which, incidentally, his boss Gordon Brown surrendered control during his days in the same post) to rescue the ailing Northern Rock bank, an ex-building society.

Only this past week did he have the gumption to admit, very very quietly, and in the middle of other news so it was “buried”, that he has a mortgage with…. guess who?

Yup, Northern Rock.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Never has there been a more infuriating little frog. On the scale of wierdness, the Toad out of The Wind and the Willows was pretty strange -but he was a gentleman of sorts and certainly didn’t have his male genitalia hanging out.

The incomprehensible “Daa Daa Di Daa Daa” etc also adds to the perverse character that has infected several thousand mobile phones and disgraced advertising segments. The rising tone and urgency of this… song? is somehow psychologically engineered to induce panic and claustrophobia.

I will not even go into the gross overpricing of the polyphonic ringtones. That could take up an entire website alone.

As though the ring tone and the dark rimmed eyes of the grey cartoon character weren’t enough, somebody thought it appropriate to extend the several seconds of horror into an entire single released into music stores across the world. Evil knows no limits. I even saw the “music video”  in the pub the other night and I had to lie down in a dark room for an hour.

A friend of mine decided that it would be funny to download this particular monstrosity onto his girlfriend’s mobile phone. Understandably, she questioned her choice of mate and promptly put the phone onto silent until she could extricate herself from the tentacles of the phone company charging her by the second for listening to the harmonies of hell.

I wish they had banned the thing as promised.