Bad Moon Rising?

I saw a Full Moon rising tonight….a huge orange orb that seemed so big and close that I felt that I could almost reach out and touch it. Not quite though…although slightly closer than normal, it’s still over 220,000 miles from Earth! Tonight’s Moon is a “Super Moon" - the Moon appears at its biggest and brightest in almost 20 years.

There has been a lot of hype surrounding the lunar phenomenon, with some people claiming that disaster will trail in its wake. Some were warning of earthquakes and volcanoes caused by the Super Moon, weeks before the catastrophic Japanese earthquake and tsunami struck.

The Full Moon does create higher tides because of gravitational pull… however, Super Moons happen all the time. When the Moon orbits closer to Earth it is called a Perigee and when its orbit is the farthest from Earth (about 254,000 miles) it is called the Apogee. The Moon will continue to approach closer and farther, depending on where it is on the orbit around Earth. The term "Super Moon" was invented to describe the location of the orbit in proximity to Earth, which gives a slightly larger and brighter than normal appearance to the Moon.

It was definitely worth taking a look upwards… times like these I wish I had a far more sophisticated camera!

........

I see the bad moon arising.

I see trouble on the way.

I see earthquakes and lightnin'.

I see bad times today.

Don't go around tonight,

Well, it's bound to take your life,

There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.

I know the end is coming soon.

I fear rivers over flowing.

I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

Hope you got your things together.

Hope you are quite prepared to die.

Looks like we're in for nasty weather.

One eye is taken for an eye.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Analyse Me

It was a fairly dull weekend, watching paint dry....seriously...we’ve have been revamping the bathroom and downstairs cloakroom. Anyway, I took the BBC’s Big Personality Test, which works out your ‘Big Five’ personality traits, namely...

Openness - how receptive you are to novel ideas, creative experiences and different values.

Conscientiousness - to what extent you are organised, strategic and forward-planning.

Extroversion - how inclined you are to experience positive emotions and how attracted you are to social, stimulating experiences.

Agreeableness - to what extent you are concerned about the feelings of others and how easily you form bonds with people.

Neuroticism - to what extent you react to perceived threats and stressful situations.

Here’s how I scored:

Here's the blurb that came with the result...think it should be taken with a hefty dose of  "Let's not take this too seriously now":

1. Openness: Low score

"This trait is sometimes known as ‘Openness to experience’. People with scores like yours tend to have a less broad range of interests. They usually stick to what they know rather than being overly enthusiastic about trying new things. You may find that generating lots of imaginative ideas is not your biggest strength. It has been suggested that Openness is related to a person's likelihood to hold unusual beliefs. People with low-to-medium Openness may therefore be less likely to believe in things like conspiracy theories."

Nat: OK, so, basically, I’m a boring old fart....although I’ll try most things once, often with disastrous outcomes (such as paragliding and skiing). No plans to go skydiving or bungee jumping or go running off to join the "Elvis Is Alive and Lives in Area 51" followers.

2. Conscientiousness: Medium score

"Conscientiousness describes how dependable, organised and hard-working a person is likely to be. This may be the reason why, of all the personality traits, Conscientiousness is the most consistent indicator of job success. People with scores like yours are less likely to be workaholics, instead achieving a good work-life balance."

Nat: Probably true...I’d say my work is important, but I don’t live to work. I will get a job done, on time and properly, but I know when to call it a day.

"Conscientiousness often gives clues to the amount that a person plans. You probably enjoy planning aspects of your life and may indulge in occasional list-making, but you are unlikely to be averse to behaving spontaneously."

Nat: I’ve been known to do a bit of planning in my time....I recall my soon-to-be-father-in-law joking that I’d planned our wedding in finer detail than the D-Day Landings at Normandy were ever planned.

"Some studies have shown the more Conscientious an individual is, the more disciplined they are likely to be about exercise and diet."

Nat: Ummm.....I’m working on it.....

3. Extroversion: Medium score

"Extroversion is characterised by positive emotions and the tendency to seek out pleasure-stimulating or risk-taking activities. People with scores like yours are likely to be comfortable meeting new people and will usually enjoy social occasions. You are likely to have a generally positive outlook on life and may display a greater gift for leadership compared to those with low scores on this trait."

Nat: True to a point....I think.

4. Agreeableness: Medium score

"Agreeableness measures how sympathetic and considerate a person is likely to be. People with scores like yours are likely to show concern for the feelings of others and will be inclined to help those in need. You probably find it easy to get along with most people, but you won't be averse to speaking your mind."

Nat: I'd say I get on with most people and have found a way to work with some very difficult personality types. I think I was a lot more sarcastic and argumentative in my 20s, more likely to have a heated debate with someone with a strongly different opinion. I came across a lot of chauvinism early on in my life and I still have no tolerance for it.
5. Neuroticism: High score

"In the context of the Big Five personality traits, the term 'Neuroticism' relates to a person’s response to threatening or stressful situations. People with scores like yours may find that they often feel tense or anxious, and may well experience changeable moods."

Nat: Me...tense or anxious....never!


"Some scientists have suggested that Neuroticism was beneficial in evolutionary terms. Early man may have found it advantageous to live in a population where certain individuals had a high sensitivity to threats to the group's survival."

Nat: So, I would have been the one keeping an eye out for rampaging woolly mammoths....or sabre toothed tigers prowling outside the cave?

"There is evidence to suggest that Neuroticism, when combined with high scores in personality traits such as Conscientiousness, can result in a powerful work ethic and a will to succeed."

Me: Well, at least we end on a positive note (see Extroversion).

Rat Au Van

Anyone who's a fan of the Blackadder series will recall one of the funniest scenes in Blackadder Goes Forth, that is a conversation between Blackadder and Baldrick . Blackadder queries the delights on the trenches' menu, to learn that Rat Au Van is indeed "A rat...that’s been run over by a van...”

For Rat sauté:
"Take the freshly shaved rat and you marinade it in a puddle for a while (till it's drowned), then you stretch it out under a hot lightbulb, then get within dashing distance of a latrine and then you scoff it right down!"


For Rat fricassée:

“...the same, but use a slightly bigger rat.”

While Baldrick may have had a ‘cunning plan’ to take care of deceased animals in the trenches... I do sometimes wonder what happens to the estimated 10 million birds and mammals that are killed on the UK’s roads every year? An ex-colleague of mine was a firm believer in the "waste not, want not" approach. His rule of thumb was "if it’s still warm, it’s good to eat".... many a recently-demised pheasant he spotted on his travels was swiftly loaded into the boot of his car, and was roasting away in his oven that night.

Purgatory-pending pheasants are plentiful on the roads around where we live...they apparently outnumber every fox, deer, badger and rabbit killed by cars by at least six times. This is hardly surprising, as anyone who’s ever seen a pheasant running (they very seldom actually fly) across the road, knows they have not evolved any road instincts to deal with two tons of metal coming at them at 60 mph. Just last weekend B and I were driving home when a pheasant on a death run across a dual carriageway ended up hitching a ride in the middle of our radiator grill. There was an immediate yet distinct smell of roasting pheasant...we pulled over to the side of the road as soon as possible, convinced that we would be pulling a dead, partly cooked bird from the grill......only to find a slightly stunned Percival turning around to peer at us...very disconcerting!

Even on the odd occasion when pheasants do remember that they have wings, the results can be disastrous....I’ve witnessed a couple of these dozy birds launch themselves into the air....thwack!...only to collide mid-flight with a passing truck. Before they knew it, they were carving out a protractor-perfect trajectory back to the side of the road on which they started.

Ownership of road kill is debatable...most country people assume that the driver who kills the rabbit, pheasant or pigeon may not make a meal of it, but the driver of the car behind can. Although the Highways Agency owns all road kill on the UK’s roads, this rule is rarely enforced. It is, though, the party that is responsible for clearing it away. But are there many other people prepared to scrape their dinner off the tarmac rather than visiting their local supermarket? Best known for his BBC programme, The Roadkill Chef, professional forager, Fergus Drennan, describes himself as a ‘vegetarian who eats road kill’. Recently decorated with an Ethical Cuisine award from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Drennan trumpets the merits of mown-down fox, hedgehog and badger over supermarket meats and processed food, and says "eating foxes, squirrels, pheasants, hedgehogs, badgers, rats and rabbits killed by cars is fair game", because "it has not been killed on your behalf". On his website www.wildmanwildfood.com, Drennan extols the virtues of road kill insisting: "It’s not factory farmed or pumped full of antibiotics. It is fresh, local, seasonal and nutritionally rich" and says the best place to find quality road kill is on roads you use daily: "If it wasn’t there the previous day then it’s probably good to eat today."

To finish, flattened fauna can serve scientific and educational purposes, providing an ethical source of animal tissue for research. Scientists at Cardiff University, for example, have studied the diet and environment of otters by post-mortem examinations on almost 1,000 otter carcasses, mainly road kill from across Wales and England. Otters are very difficult species to study, as they are quite elusive and rarely seen in the wild alive. Examining dead otters is a useful way of monitoring river pollution levels because pollutants accumulate up the food chain and they are at the top. The research showed there has been a drop in lead levels in otters since the early 1990s, which reflects the ban on lead in car fuel in the UK.

A Touch Of Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Back in 1993, the British Medical Journal published the results of a study, provocatively titled, "Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your Health?" Here's the abstract for this publication:

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation between health, behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United Kingdom.

DESIGN: Retrospective study of paired data comparing driving and shopping patterns and accidents.
SUBJECTS: Drivers, shoppers, and residents.

SETTING: South West Thames region.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Numbers of vehicles on motorways; numbers of shoppers in supermarkets; and hospital admissions due to accidents.

RESULTS: There were consistently and significantly fewer vehicles on the southern section of the M25 on Friday the 13th compared with Friday the 6th. The numbers of shoppers were not significantly different on the two days. Admissions due to transport accidents were significantly increased on Friday 13th (total 65 v 45; p<0.05)

CONCLUSIONS: Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52%. Staying at home is recommended.
[BMJ 1993 Dec 18-25;307(6919):1584-6]

Any paraskevidekatriaphobics (people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th) reading this – well, they most likely won’t be doing much else, given their fear of even venturing out today - are probably nodding sagely about now, thinking “You see, there’s scientific evidence that the day is unlucky!” Personally, I think it's a bit far-fetched to base the ill-fatedness of any particular date on the calendar on a single, rather peculiar scientific study. More likely, these statistics can teach us something about human psychology. Could the fact that it's Friday the 13th make you anxious and that will make you more likely to have accidents, drive less well, and perhaps find it harder to relate to other people?

Unlucky or not, today is the first of three Friday the 13th days we’ll get through in 2009....touch wood!