More on the Conjunction, from XKCD

 Find the whole wonderful thing here...

As seen on TV

 

Unwanted Year

 

Farewell

 

Useful Flowchart

 

Lies about Money

 Fatcha, of course, tried to pretend that running a country's economy was like balancing the family accounts.  

Cameron/Osborne described it using the rhetoric of business.

It is, of course, like neither of these.  They were just handy way of distracting from their ideological class war on the poor and disadvantaged.

We wonder what mendacious lies Sunak will use for his own cuts to welfare, which will surely come as soon as he thinks he can get away with it.

Amazing Skies...

 Nunhead skies on Christmas Eve...

Lockdown Cornwall

BREAKING: The whole of Cornwall has been placed into Tier 4 lockdown after hundreds of pirates returned home to Penzance to celebrate Christmas with their families...

Apparently the Arrrrr rate has increased dramatically!

Poem - Epitaph

 Epitaph - By Merrit Malloy

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on in your eyes

And not your mind.

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

The Great Conjunction

 We finally had a clear night tonight.

Looking from the top of the house I could perfectly see Jupiter and Saturn together. It might *just* have been possible to separate them with the naked eye, but with the camera they could be easily separated. With the strongest lens, pictures showed them as separate dots (see below, Saturn is the fainter of the two, at about 11 o clock). Then we tried the binoculars, which also clearly resolved two flecks of light.

They were higher above the horizon than I had expected, and the night was *really* clear, which meant there was a little more time.

So I wrecked the study digging out the 2 1/2 inch refractor bought (from Lidl!) 13 or so years ago, and half assembled it. No spotting scope, no fine controls. And with that we could see the two planets, in the same image, as more than mere dots. The paler Saturn was lower due to image inversion and slightly to the right. Saturn's rings were discernible - everyone saw it as ovoid, and I think I could just make them out. And there was a string of three tiny pearl-like moons stretching out from Jupiter.

Sadly, I can't (yet!) hook the DSLR up to the telescope. But just seeing the two planets together like that was quite amazing.

From the Nasa Website:

'What makes this year’s spectacle so rare, then? It’s been nearly 400 years since the planets passed this close to each other in the sky, and nearly 800 years since the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter occurred at night, as it will for 2020, allowing nearly everyone around the world to witness this “great conjunction.”' (Click on the images to see them clearly)

Some Nunhead Skies

 

Pale Nunset

 A few Evenings Ago

Big Nunset - Reflections

 A week or so ago, we had a bright, orange, colourful Nunset.

This is what the other side of the house looked like at the time.  Orange windows!!

Blind Date Letter...

 

Masks

To summarise:

(i) You wear a mask primarily to protect others, not yourself. Although it can protect you somewhat also.

(ii) Covid-19 is a nasty disease; it can kill the fit and well, as well as the vulnerable, and can also cause severe debilitating impacts (long Covid)

(iii) You can have the virus and be spreading it for some time before symptoms develop, and if you are asymptomatic, then you may well continue to spread the virus without developing symptoms

(iv) There have been a number of studies which demonstrate the real efficacy of wearing a mask, for both droplet-borne and aerosol-borne Covid-19,

(v) Even a face covering is useful, simple masks are better, N95 masks are better still,

(vi) For the great majority of people, including those with asthma and similar illnesses, there are no problems with breathing, people don't get asphyxiated, or hyperventilate, that is an Internet-driven myth

(vii) They look smart, and you can now get creative with fabrics and so forth. Masks are cool!

(viii) Masks are just one part of the jigsaw - we also need to practice social distancing, wash our hands, avoid crowds, stick to our bubbles, and so forth

(ix) It is the law, so just do it.

Big Nunset

 

Nunrise

 

Marine FC

 Here is their ground.

They are in Tier 8, and have just got through to the 3rd round of the FA Cup. 

Where they have been drawn against the Premier League leaders.

Spurs.

We aren't sure which of the facts above surprises us the most.

Mackerel Sky, Nunhead

 Click on image for large photo

Slaw!

 

Closer, Tonight

 And Mars definitely looks pink.

Moon and Mars

 This follows on from this April's Moon and Venus, but Mars and the Moon are further apart in the sky, currently, so the shots are less impressive.

These last two were manually focused and handheld...

More on the Oxford Vaccine...

 ... and our first ever cut'n'paste from Twitterdom.

Scary

 

Comma

Pfizer vaccine: effective, protective and safe

Modena vaccine: effective, protective and safe

Oxford vaccine: effective, protective, and safe

- Ivo Graham

Hope

“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand." ~ John Cleese (as Brian Stimpson in the film Clockwise)

So we now seem to have three promising vaccines for protecting individuals against Coronavirus.  Which ought to mean that in the new year, large-scale vaccination programmes can start up, to hopefully, finally, free us all from the threat and reality of Covid-19.

We ought at this stage to remember two things: 

(i) These vaccines haven't been tested to prove their efficacy at stopping the virus spreading.  That means that although they may protect an individual, that person may still spread the virus to anyone they come into close contact with.  At this stage, we don't know.  

(ii) Incidence of so-called 'Long Covid' - the longer-term, highly debilitating illness that can occur long after the first bout of Covid has gone away - does not correlate with severity of the original infection, and can affect people across the age range. 

Taken together these suggest that, if we have the NHS rolling out vaccines at scale, it would still seem sensible to maintain restrictions until large numbers of the populace have been vaccinated, not just front-line carers and those most at risk.  

All the same, it is very hopeful.

And then you realise exactly the nature of the Government charged with making this happen.  You realise that Johnson will give the job to Dido Harding and Serco.

Or Chris Grayling.

An Update on Government Progress

Not Bob

Priti's in the back room

Cursing at her secretary

I'm on the front bench

Trying to run the government

The man in the beanie

Kicked out, laid off

Took out his cardboard box

Gonna get paid off

Look out kid

Here comes covid

God knows when

But you can catch it again

You better pray that the vaccine

Doesn't fail with Brexit

Truckers in the Farage Garage down in Kent

Want some instructions, but you got none of them

(harmonica)

Corbyn don't scare you

Just say he hates Jews

Keep locked down tight

No sneaking out at night

Oh damn, papers say

Must end for Christmas Day

Science gets put away

Christian country anyway

Look out kid

Keep your plans hid

UK PLC

Open for business, see?

Safety, security

Movement's no longer free

Nail down the BBC

Walk on to destiny

Just tell yourself you're gonna go down in history 

Sandra Bond

Moon Tonight

 

Little Helps...

 

CoronaBookshop

 

The Sky Over Nunhead

Click on the Images for Full Picture

 

TreeMoon

 Last Night...

The Pubs Around Nunhead: 24 - Pubs Under Pressure

It is well known that the hospitality sector is suffering badly at the moment.  And we fear that, as we're treating the virus with some seriousness, and shielding, we personally are not helping.  Although, it is probably quite a good thing for our liver and mental health.

Anyway, when chef Tom Kerridge included a piece on a Nunhead pub in his recent series on "Saving Britain's Pubs," we at the Trees had to watch.  So which of the various local hostelries we have discussed over the last many years would he visit?  The Rye, The Nuns?  The Pyro or The Man of Kent?  

No, he went to chat to the owner of a pub we have barely mentioned in all this time - the Golden Anchor on Evelina Road.  We did mention it in passing, just the once, in 2012, during the first of this brief series.  But that is all.  And we have never crossed the threshold. 

To be fair, it was an interesting programme, about how such business might survive repeated lockdowns and restrictions.  Then Tom - in his role of avuncular expert sorting out her business - took the landlady to have a look at another nearby pub, that is doing quite well, given the circumstances.   Well, a lot to choose from, still, we thought, so surely now we will see something familiar?

Nope.  The Prince of Peckham.  Not even in Nunhead. 

Never been in there either.

Oh well.

Night, Crescent Moon

... and is that Mars there, too?

Golden Birch

 Lit by the sun this morning.