A toe in the water

Between a frantic few weeks at home and at work and your host being somewhat under the weather, the doors of Peachum's Tavern have been shut for far too long - my apologies to those who have turned up and rattled the handles in search of a virtual pint and a chat.

Forget the usual example of retrieving a banknote from the garden; being unable to face posting even when there's a 320m wide asteroid cruising by is, I reckon, a fair indication that it was flu and not just a cold.

Anyway, there's a lot to catch up on - Harriet Harman's pink battle bus, the Greeks expecting gifts and a host of other startling news stories, some of which I hope to get round to in the near future, though posting may be light for a while yet.

Popular culture has also taken an odd turn recently. Perhaps it's best summed up by a moment I caught by chance while channel hopping a few weeks ago in which one Big Brother inmate opined on the subject of another,

"She's such an exhibitionist in all the wrong ways."

From the simian antics of twerking celebrities to the cloying glimpses of domesticity dished up in a vain attempt to make politicians seem more human, we are living in an age where far too little is left to the imagination - which brings us finally to the cinematic event of the week.

Regardless of the official soundtrack, surely I can't be the only person who has been thinking of this...

Asteroid round-up

As regulars are well aware, an asteroid fly-by always calls for a drink. 

That being so, we have been in something of a celebratory mood for the past few days, what with 2014 BA3 and 20134 BP8 on Sunday - at 2.3 million and 1.4 million km respectively - followed by Wednesday's 2014 BK25 at 1.2 million km and 2014 BM25 at a bit over a million.

And it goes on: next Monday gives us 2014 BW32, at a mere 730,000km and, to make matters even more exciting, while those others are somewhere around 10-15m wide, this one could be up to 37m across, getting on for the size of the one that caused the Tunguska airburst in 1908. 

If it were to hit us, the results could be catastrophic. The devastation seen at the Siberian site when the first expedition arrived there (in 1927, which suggests a certain lack of urgency) shows the force of the explosion on the ground. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? You bet!

It's all a lot of numbers, I know - don't you long for the old days, when you knew your asteroid by name? - but it's worth pointing out that the 2014 prefix means these have all been identified this year; it just shows what can be done once the need is recognized. Eagle-eyed asteroid spotters, both human and machine, are clocking up sightings at an unprecedented rate.

Apart from having a noticeable effect on the Tavern's drinks bill, this painstaking labelling of everything hurtling around our neighbourhood clearly shows just how busy it is out there. Every week this year has brought us at least one within 10 Lunar Distances, most of them discovered only a few days or even hours before their closest approach.

The majority, of course, are mere tiddlers by asteroid standards, with  no room to swing a space slug, and there are probably thousands more of them out there. In fact, given the way the Chelyabinsk meteor came out of the blue, it's hardly surprising that a large number of fireballs are recorded annually as rocks up to 2m in diameter burn up in the atmosphere - and that's just the ones that appear over inhabited areas.

In the face of the cosmic pinball going on around us and the certainty that, one day, the big one will arrive , the only sensible attitude is a degree of fatalism. At least we know it's random -   if fire from heaven were truly a manifestation of divine displeasure, Celebrity Big Brother would surely have elicited a bolt from the blue by now.

Meanwhile, though this weekend - as far as NASA are aware, at least - will not bring a close flyby, I invite you to raise a glass to this week's crop of space rocks and to those currently whistling past us but as yet unknown.

Sink or Swim - Darwin in the Big Brother House

Fans of modern Britain's very own Bedlam show were disappointed last night to tune in and find the inmates had escaped.

They hadn't gone far, though - only to a nearby hotel after the house flooded in torrential rain. Four hours later they were back, but half the house is still out of bounds; the good folk at Channel 4 have to make sure it's completely safe before allowing their pets back into the cage.

Here's how the Daily Mail describes the 'Amazing moments as housemates are caught in a freak flood downpour INSIDE the house'.

Josie told John James: 'Do you think that's the sound of the rain or the air conditioning?' When Australian John James, who was lying next to her in the same bed, told her it was the rain, she said: 'Oh my God, that's amazing isn't it? It's nice to be snuggled up when it's like that out there.'

But a second later, as the rain poured in, she shouted: 'Oh my God, John, John." Jumping out of her wet bed, she turned to Mario, who shouted: 'The house is leaking.'

Now can anyone give me one good reason why these characters should not be left to sink or swim (or electrocute themselves) in a perfect manifestation of natural selection? Here's a clue; if you're tempted to answer in the affirmative, I'd advise you to read the rest of the Mail article before committing yourself.