In the North Sea, a fan has been seen
By a seismic surveying machine –
It’s a sediment tongue
Formed when mammals were young.
And the fan has a name: it’s Maureen!

[Image: BGS]

Look out, Enceladus! Look out on Titan!,
Look out, the Moon’s old regolith dust!
They’re planning to fire a whopping great bullet
To penetrate into your unwary crust.

Europa, as well, is a possible target –
The Jovian moon with a cold icy shell
Whose surface has cracks, caused by huge tidal forces,
Through which might leak water – organics as well?

“Is it life, Jim, but not as we know it, perhaps?”
Is one question they really would like to get solved:
Not Little Green Men; but molecules instead –
Indicators that life of some sort has evolved.

On the Moon, they’d be looking for evidence of water,
Especially in craters lying close to its poles,
And probing the far side’s untested geology
With their sleek high-velocity ESA moles.

But maybe the whole thing is not going to happen –
Will it lie dormant, along with MoonLITE?
Can Europe support such a grand ‘Cosmic Vision’
When government cash is so terribly tight?

[Image: www.filmschoolrejects.com]

“It’s Gibbs Dentifrice,” my parents would say.
“It’s the best way we know of keeping at bay
The terrible spectre of Dragon Decay.
You must brush your teeth well, at least three times a day.”

I expect you remember. It came in a tin
Containing a block of bright pink stuff within
Which you’d scrub with your toothbrush, and then you’d begin
To shine up your gnashers for a sparkling grin.

More fun, though, was toothpaste, in tubes you could squeeeeeze
And squirt out a mint flavoured sausage with ease;
And red, white and blue stripes appeared by degrees!
But I still feel nostalgic for Gibbs Dentifrice . . .

[Image: http://kertaskuno.blogspot.com]

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
There’s room at the inn,
But it’s still boarded up
So you cannot get in.

It’s Christmas in Horsham
With restaurants galore!
(If money’s so tight,
Why’re they opening more?)

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
You can shop till you drop;
But Broadbridge Heath Leisure
Is faced with the chop.

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
Our young folk won’t cheer,
For their Youth Clubs are threatened
With closure next year.

It’s Christmas in Horsham!
Unemployment’s so high
That it’s tough for our NEETs,
Whatever they try.

The recession is biting,
The future’s unclear
But it’s Christmas in Horsham,
So, er, be of good cheer . . .

[Photo of The Causeway: www.nowpublic.com]

Trolleyhogs are trouble: they are crafty, they have guile,
And they’ll park their laden trolley in the supermarket aisle
Not parallel, but crosswise, so blocking off your route
As they dither over vegetables and dally round the fruit.

Trolleyhogs are clever: they can sense, from far away,
The place they should be stationed to cause the most delay.
Where aisles are at their narrowest, that’s where they’ll meet a friend
And talk about the weather. Cor, it drives you round the bend!

Trolleyhogs aren’t focussed, they’re in a dreamlike state
Until you want to pass them, when their trolley will rotate
As they spot the very thing they didn’t know they needed.
They’ll then do all they can to ensure your way’s impeded.

Trolleyhogs will strike when nobody expects it
And drive all other shoppers in frustration to the exit –
Survival of the fittest! Red in tooth and claw,
A trolleyhog attack will clear the busiest store.

But I have a wicked wheeze to thwart their evil plan
Of blocking shoppers’ movements by whatever means they can.
I’ll grab the mike in Sainsbury’s: “In Tesco’s,” I will shout,
“The aisles are flowing freely and there’s room to move about!”

They simply can’t resist an aisle that’s blockage-free:
It’s like a red rag to a bull, or nectar to a bee.
They’ll turn around and hurry to the exit without stopping,
And go and clog up Tesco’s – then I can do my shopping!

(Actually, of course, by this time a Sainsbury security person would have appeared and offered to do something interesting with my own trolley and my neck. I’d claim poetic licence, but I doubt it would work.)

Photo: The Guardian

I remember the milkman’s horse.
It would stop outside our gate
While the milkman put its nosebag on
And I wondered what it ate.

My Dad would thank the milkman’s horse
For he would often find
A bucketful of free manure
The horse had left behind.

How times have changed! No milkman’s horse,
No nosebag, no manure.
Electric floats, though smooth and quiet
Don’t have the same allure.

But the milk they bring is just as good.
Nostalgic, me? No fear!
So thank you, milkmen everywhere –
Happy Christmas and New Year!

[Photo: That Woman's Weblog]

Thirty days hath September*,
Some others, and maybe November.
Quite a few have thirty-one –
But which, I can’t remember.

* Just to confuse matters further, a 15th century manuscript (Harley 2341) in the British Library has November here!

[Image: davidbrim.org]

We are your solar panels, monocrystalline, aloof.
We soak up all the sunshine that irradiates your roof
Those clouds are not a problem: they still let through radiation*
Which we export to the National Grid to power up the nation.

We’re bolted to the rafters and we’re here for years to come,
Exposed to all the elements, but we will not succumb.
We don’t mind rain, especially when our fronts have got all mucky –
It washes off the pigeon poo as well, if we are lucky.

At night we’re quite redundant, for the stars are just too weak;
And even when the moon is full, it’s empty, so to speak.
But when the Sun wakes up again, he sends us back to work,
We’ve got no choice, he is our boss and will not let us shirk.

So what do we get out of it? A share of what we earn you?
Some hope! We get the feeling that our problems don’t concern you.
This boredom and monotony will send us round the bend –
The novelty’s worn off now. When will it ever end?

The Feed-in Tariff income’s yours, but what’s in it for us?
Not a lot, it seems; but as we can’t kick up a fuss
We’ll have to make the best of things: security, the view,
Birdwatching and stargazing – well, there’s nothing else to do . . .

* True, but any cloud seriously reduces the amount!

[Photo: Pennaf Housing Group]

“Life in the Stone Age is brutish and short.
Our hunting techniques haven’t changed:
Our elders die young, so we youngsters aren’t taught
New techniques, and ideas aren’t exchanged.

“This week, we men slaughtered a mammoth or two.
Our adrenaline makes us feel brave,
But we’re knackered to bits by the time that we’re through
And we’ve lugged back its parts to our cave.

“So I started to think, with this big brain of mine:
If I rig bits of wood, hinged on pegs
To a platform and work them, back-and-forth, with some twine,
I could drive it around – they’d be ‘legs’ . . .

“Then mammoth retrieval would just be a doddle.
My platform on legs would work hard,
And, thanks to the grey matter inside my noddle,
I’d have time – I could be the tribe’s bard!

“But Granny had noticed me thinking. She said:
‘I have a solution, I feel.
Your Granddad invented . . . . . . . . .  .’ And then she dropped dead.”
Thus, the world was deprived of the wheel!

Eventually, homo granddadus evolved.
Living longer in better conditions,
He could pass on his wisdom, so problems got solved . . .
And that’s how the wheel got invented!

[Images: www.nerdbeach.com; out-think.blogspot.com]

Was Jenny Bare Legs in her field, I should like to know?
“No, she wasn’t! Nor revealed was ankle, knee or toe.”
What, no bare leg here? No bare leg there?
“No, a lag, ’twas a lag;
Everywhere a bare lag!
Jenny Bare Lags, that’s this field, a field where things don’t grow!”

[Photo: Wikimedia Commons]