Ransen's Blog

  I got up early this morning to an astounding sight: The Moon, Venus and Orion all there together. The photo doesn't do the scene justice, it was magnificent and cheered me up no end. Here's a quick guide to the above photo.    And here is the crescent Moon above Venus, closer up: The names of the constellation reminded me of a book I read a few months ago, " A Scheme of Heaven: Astrology and the Birth of Science " by Alexander Boxer.     It is a brilliant book. There was even a laugh out loud moment, which as a far as I can remember goes like this, reported in a contemporary diary, set in an Italian court in the 1500s: Courtier: "You know astrology is rubbish? It does not work!" Court Astrologer, shrugs shoulders, nods and replies: "But a man has to make a living!" (Strangely, even two modern day astrologers gave the book five stars (as I did). Apparently they had not read the book. Maybe they looked at the illustrations, and guessed what the tex

Sometimes not being able to sleep has its compensations. I got up at 4:30 this morning and had breakfast on the balcony, under the Moon and under Orion. I heard a train passing, all that was missing was the sound of a dog barking. Then I went downstairs to get the cat from the garden and smelled his fine fur as he purred. Hmmmm. Of course, at work, by 16:00 I was feeling tired, must sleep longer !