Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[nirvana]

Right. Let me  give you an example of grumpy old bastardness. (Surely 'bastardness' has two s's?) Tal?

Anyway, for ages now I've been hearing and seeing references to someone called Stormzy but I couldn't tell you anything about him because I totally refuse to show any interest in someone with a name as stupid as that.

Well today curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read a news item about him. The article started with a quote from Mr S.

"Yo May"

Needless to say I immediately averted my eyes.

I'm afraid  that Stormzy & I will go our separate ways and I will remain in complete, blissful ignorance.

Yo Red Dog, I couldn't agree more about the stupid names adults call themselves, regards Doobs

Haha

Regards

nirvana

[RED-DOG]

Right. Let me  give you an example of grumpy old bastardness. (Surely 'bastardness' has two s's?) Tal?

Anyway, for ages now I've been hearing and seeing references to someone called Stormzy but I couldn't tell you anything about him because I totally refuse to show any interest in someone with a name as stupid as that.

Well today curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read a news item about him. The article started with a quote from Mr S.

"Yo May"

Needless to say I immediately averted my eyes.

I'm afraid  that Stormzy & I will go our separate ways and I will remain in complete, blissful ignorance.

Yo Red Dog, I couldn't agree more about the stupid names adults call themselves, regards Doobs

Shut up!

[RED-DOG]

Mature gentleman status revoked.

[Doobs]

Right. Let me  give you an example of grumpy old bastardness. (Surely 'bastardness' has two s's?) Tal?

Anyway, for ages now I've been hearing and seeing references to someone called Stormzy but I couldn't tell you anything about him because I totally refuse to show any interest in someone with a name as stupid as that.

Well today curiosity got the better of me and I decided to read a news item about him. The article started with a quote from Mr S.

"Yo May"

Needless to say I immediately averted my eyes.

I'm afraid  that Stormzy & I will go our separate ways and I will remain in complete, blissful ignorance.

Yo Red Dog, I couldn't agree more about the stupid names adults call themselves, regards Doobs

Shut up!

V good, guess you paid more attention to Stormzy then you let on.  Fair play to the fella, doing so well from his background.

[RED-DOG]

So why aren't we likely to find intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos? Well when life sparked into er, life on Earth it was all single cell stuff, countless billions of them, and they stayed that way for millennia.

Then, somehow, and only once, one single cell thingy managed to get inside another single cell thingy and survive.

From that one indecent, all the complex life on earth, from a mushroom to a man evolved.

We know that everything came from that one time deal because we all share the same traceable biological make-up.

All those trillions of single cell animals running around for billions of years and it only happened the once, so obv there is not much chance of it happening again somewhere else.

It won't, but what if it did?

Might we then find intelligent life somewhere else in the universe?

NO. And I'll tell you why...

[kukushkin88]

Loving this series.

[RED-DOG]

So lets say that against all odds, (And these are some big ass odds) that some other single cell thingy on some other liquid water bearing planet somehow manages to get it on with some other single cell thingy and do what we did, i.e. evolve into intelligent life. Why is it so unlikely that we will discover it, or for that matter, that it will discover us?

Because gentle reader, even though life has been here for on earth for about 3.5 billion years, (the blink of an eye in cosmological terms) we've only been intelligent enough to look for aliens for a couple of hundred.

So we have the big bang 13.8 billion years ago, then nothing for 10 billion years, then single cell thingys for ~ 3.5 billion years, then intelligent, alien spotting life for a measily 200 years.

Add to this that we are big odds on to destroy ourselves within the next few hundred years, (as will any other intelligent life out there destroy itself) so the window for an Alien/Earthling get together is, by my calculations, incredibly small / infinitesimally small = unwritably small x10.






Anyway, my main point is, compared to that the odds of me sleeping with Kate Middleton are actually pretty good.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Loving this series.

Thank you kuku.

I'm so chuffed to get some interaction don't even care if you're kidding.

I'm totally fascinated by the science of the universe.

Oh and Kate Middleton of course.

[RED-DOG]

So imagine Trump/Putin do the unthinkable and press their respective red buttons. Everything gone in a flash, almost all life on earth destroyed.

Miraculously I survive because when the blast hits Sharnford I happen to be inside my shipping container which I have just finished painting with some 35 year old lead-based gloss.

I know I must stay inside for as long as I can. I manage just over 3 months by opening the valve on the big oxygen bottle that is attached to my oxy-acetylene cutter just enough to maintain positive pressure.

I eat dog-biscuits, lick condensation from the roof and recycle my pee through a bag of sharp sand.

My oxygen runs out and I emerge. I'm expecting the dark chill of a nuclear winter but find myself blinking in the bright sunlight.

I look around me, everything seems normal. The trees are still green and the sky is still blue but something is definitely  different. Then I realise what it is...

There is no sound.

The birds don't sing, the overhead cables don't hum, the dogs don't bark, there is no traffic noise. I'm in a world of silence.

Is everyone and everything dead? I wonder. Just then, an insect scurries across the concrete in front of me. Hope flares but then fades within a moment.

I shudder at the thought of spending the rest of my life with only the cockroaches for company.....

[RED-DOG]

I go indoors. I don't know why but the first thing I do is turn on the TV. Obviously there is nothing, there is no electricity to power it. I put batteries into the portable radio and try that, all I get is white noise.

I have no idea about the fate of my family, the last I know is that they had gone to a wedding in Barnsley. I decide to go there.

The car starts easily but it's low on fuel. When I reach the main road there are dozens of accidents, cars blocking the carriageway making it impassible in some places. I need an off road vehicle.

I make my way to a local farm and find a Land Rover Discovery complete with corpse and keys. I pull the body of an old man from the car and gag at the puddle of body fluids that have pooled on the seat beneath him.

I consider finding a different 4wd but it will take time and the next one I find might not have keys. I realise that I will have to get used to dealing with dead people anyway, so no time like the present.

I undo a hose from a reel on the wall and wash the gunk from the seat, then I reach into the back and cover the wet patch with a large coat. I turn the ignition key and the V6 diesel jumps into life.

I look at the fuel gauge. Damn! Low on fuel. I know I can't use a petrol station with no power to pump fuel but I also know that every farm keeps a tank of agricultural 'red' diesel and they are usually raised up with a filling hose that is gravity fed.

I find the tank and fill the Land Rover. I'm looking for a container to hold spare fuel when I spot a small Honda portable generator. I pull the crank and it fires up so I throw it into the back of the car along with an extension cable.

Driving away from the farm I skirt carefully past piled up cars and jack-knifed lorries. Sometimes when I can't squeeze past I have to force my way into a field and then force my way out again further on. Eventually, I arrive at J21 of the M1

The going is better now, I pick up speed as I head North. 

[kukushkin88]

Loving this series.

Thank you kuku.

I'm so chuffed to get some interaction don't even care if you're kidding.

I'm totally fascinated by the science of the universe.

Oh and Kate Middleton of course.

I reckon I’m quite misunderstood because I abuse the two trolls occasionally. This stuff is actually awesome and reading your writing about it is special.

[RED-DOG]

As I near J30 I suddenly remember that my old ham radio teacher lives in a terraced house just about a mile off the junction. I knew there would still be radio equipment inside because every time I passed I'd see the antennas above the roof, a simple dipole and a 2 element crossed yagi.

If there was anyone left alive, surely ham radio was my best chance of making contact

I drove right up to the house and forced the door. It seemed like no one, either living or dead was at home, so I made my way upstairs.

At the top of the stairs the radio room was much as it was when I had last seen it over 30 years ago. The walls were covered with maps and frequency charts, there was a couple of shelves with jars of transistors and resistors, and a large desk where several transceivers vied for space.

I went back down to the Land Rover and lifted the portable generator out.

I got the generator running and connected it to the Garrett 440 Pro ssb transceiver, then I leaned forward and flipped the on switch.

There was a soft hum as the coils warmed up and a green glow from the illuminated LCD frequency display. I selected a frequency at random from the 2 meter band, donned the headphones, picked up the mic and operated the PTT button.

CQ CQ CQDX.... Any call-sign please, this is G6 GEB calling CQ CQ CQDX...

I clicked the dial slowly, repeating the CQ call and listening to the empty whine in the cans before moving to the next frequency.


CQ CQ CQDX.... Any call-sign please, this is G6 GEB calling CQ CQ CQDX...

Suddenly all the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Surely that was a voice among the static.


CQ CQ CQDX.... Any call-sign please, this is G6 GEB calling CQ CQ CQDX...

There it was again, definitely not an electrical noise but someone's voice.

I adjusted the squelch and BOOM! There it was.

The signal was strong and clear but the voice was hesitant and frightened.

"Who's there?"

"Hello" I replied, "My name is Tom McCready, over".

"Hello" The voice came back, a little more confidently now, "My name is Kate Middleton".

[engy]

Brilliant Tom

[booder]

Excellent.

[Pokerpops]

Boom!

I was wondering what happened to story-teller Tom.

I remember the feeling you evoked when read the first page of this diary.
The stories of you moving onto your current plot, and I remember, very vividly, having to fight back the emotions when I read about your horse.

I read every page of your diary over a period of a couple of days. I may just have to go back and do it again under the Pokerpops name.