Klaus Nomi

A friend recently introduced me to the work of Klaus Nomi, a German counter-tenor who ventured into electro-pop in a mad sort of way. I can't say I know what to make of this chap, but I've found myself singing this little ditty. Embarrassing, especially in a public place. The chorus must have a subtext but I'm sure it's completely innocent.

On Doing Something Mad

I read on Wonkette, the Washington political source for trendy lefties, that information is sort of dribbling out about some kind of crazy proposal that the Bush regime came up with after 9/11. It was apparently big and scary, but never put into practice. I wondered what sort of secret plan it might be, as details are notably lacking. So I did the obvious. I typed the words 'secret plan' into the Googlewebs! 

I never knew there were so many secret plans.

Top of the list was the Independent with 'Revealed: Brown's secret plan to cut Afghanistan force by 1,500'. This is proper serious stuff, and makes interesting reading. Especially as Number 10 hasn't denied it by saying 'No, we're not planning that', but instead used weasel words. So, business as usual, Our Brave Boys etcetera.

Next up is Dick Cheney's evil secret plan that I wanted to know about. But nobody knows much about it. 

A bit further down, we have the Brighton & Hove Argus and the council's secret plan to sack 821 workers. Not so secret now, eh, pebbly-beached resort? You could learn a lot from Mr Cheney and his cohorts. 

And all that was in the News bit of Google. After a quick glance I decided to avoid the Web bit. But I did try Google Maps. Some odd stuff there.

100 years ago

Moon Voyage 4

A couple of weeks ago I went to a book fayre at Tynemouth station. I  bought - among other things - a dinky little book on astronomy entitled The Starry Heavens. It's a book for children, written between the wars by Ellison Hawks. Hawks was a prolific writer of popular science and other non-fiction books. The Starry Heavens was published in 1934. In it Hawks gives a good overview of astronomy, including a look at actual observatories and methods. But - of course - on the subject of space travel he was very much a man of his time.

In recent years there has been some talk of firing a giant rocket to the Moon, with people inside. Even if the rocket does reach the Moon it would be impossible for the passengers to return to the Earth, so it would not be a very cheerful voyage, would it? (pp 33-34)

Not long after Hawks wrote this, the British Interplanetary Society began the first serious attempt to devise a lunar spacecraft - outside the realms of fiction. 

We find by careful calculation that with the best fuels and motors that we can afford it will require about 1000 metric tons of fuel to take a 1 metric ton vessel to the Moon and back, so our problem has been to design a 1 metric ton spaceship with containers for 1000 metric tons of fuel attached outside and detachable.

More info here. 

From now on...

I will endeavour to open my bananas correctly. (Apart from Eric Banana, obviously, as he has bodyguards, lawyers etcetera.) 

I wonder who his friend Britney is? She should have her own show, explainin' stuff.