Writing post

Hi

As I said there will be fictional stories in this blog from time to time, this is only a opening I will write more if anyone is interested.

Harold's saloon pulled to a stop outside a smart three floor town house, on the outskirts of central London. It was a new building made of smart red brick and, had been the home of Harold and his wife Sarah for four and a half years . They had been very kindly provided it when Harold had taking up his job at the counter intelligence task force, of course to Sarah or anyone else for that matter nobody knew it. To everyone outside of work he was Harold Crick a thirty something who worked for a reputable merchant bank, well a merchant bank anyway. Harold liked it that way it meant nobody could let something slip and, endanger his wife or himself.
Harold leaned back into the leather of his seat and starred at the windows of his house. Sarah should be home now. Harold thought to himself confirming this by taking a glance at the dashboard clock. 8.45 “Definitely.” He said out loud unnecessarily as he was the only person in the car. Harold stepped out into the freezing night, the wind licking his face and the surrounding trees. Now just beginning to sprout delicate pink blossoms that signalled the start of spring. Harold turned around back to face the house, noticing how strange it was that no lights were on in any rooms. Harold shook his head dismissing the thought to the recycle bin of his mind. He had learnt that if you did his job for too long you began to see threats everywhere. Harold walked quickly to the front door the wind picking up now and, slipped his key silently into the lock and entered.
Harold and Sarah's house was sparsely decorated yet neat. The neatness however came from the fact that Harold and Sarah were barely ever in it. Harold was always busy at work or doing field work in some distant country. Sarah was also equally busy yet a little closer to home working a busy practise in Harley street. Harold stepped over the threshold into the hall lights turning on automatically thanks to a new home computer system. He placed his jacket on a peg to the right of the door and walked into the living room. Still no Sarah. Harold wasn't worried she was probably having a bath or watching the television upstairs. Harold reasoned to himself. Suddenly realising he hadn't had anything to drink since lunchtime Harold walked into the open plan kitchen and poured himself a drink. He sat on his uncomfortable metal chair in his newly decorated office, making a note to himself that he really should get it replaced. Harold couldn't believe at that moment how insignificant a chair would appear in a matter of a few hours.
Contentedly Harold sat on his horrid chair, sipping his red wine (not his favourite drink but all that came to hand). And tapping away on his computer searching for a holiday, that he had been given leave to take. The only holiday he and Sarah had been available to take together in over two years.
He leaned back into his chair and at this moment realised something was a miss. As he leant back into his chair he saw a window was open, only slightly but enough to make him think. Harold's brain quickly deduced that the only reason such a window would be open on such a cold night, was to gain entry from outside. After all the window was just capable of allowing a man entry, and crucially it hung limply as if forced open with a crowbar. Harold's brain quickly sprung into survival mode. He reached beneath his desk and pulled up a Aluminium brief case. The brief case was inconspicuous and immediately forgettable much to the designers intentions. He placed it on the desk and keyed in a familiar four digit code, the case accepted the command and with two clacks that Harold hoped weren't loud enough to alert the intruders who were assumable still upstairs. Opened and revealed the contents. The brief case wasn't a empty travelling case, but was a field box provided by work and which was encouraged to be kept in every agents home. Among over things it contained a micro computer,a passport, a credit card belonging to a dummy company and crucial a 9MM pistol. That was all Harold was interested in he took the pistol out of it's surround, pushed in the round next to it and tightened the silencer. Harold then walked swiftly to the door leading on to the hall and waited.
Harold waited until He was sure there was no movement upstairs, he didn't want them to know he was coming and have time to arm themselves. Then turned and padded up the stairs the gun always ahead of him. Harold had been trained in clearing houses and bought this training to bear on his own house. He cleared each room quickly, glancing around thoroughly with the 9MM then moving on. He did this until finally he reached the last room on this floor, his and Sarah's bedroom. The lights were of as he had observed from downstairs, he flicked the switch with his free hand and saw what he had feared he would. His wife was laying on the the hard wooden floor next to the bed (made by the cleaner only this morning) unmistakably dead! She looked strangely peaceful as if perhaps asleep, this was revealed to be sadly untrue as next to her was a spent Hypodermic needle, the contents of which had been forced into her jugular. Harold sat over her for a second not wanting to move and wishing time could be reversed, as Harold understood none of this could be reversed he decided these murders were going to pay. Before leaving the room he closed the lids over the glassy lifeless eyes of his former wife. Harold new these people were professionals they were assassins and they were clearly after him, but Harold new he was better than these people and they were going to die because of it.
Harold heard a voice talking on the phone as he climbed the last flight of stairs, it was coming from a small library Harold had converted from a disused bedroom. As he neared the door he heard the conversation “ Not yet we got his wife though.” The man said in a heavy accent. Harold clenched his right hand around the grip of the gun he so wanted to kill this man for murdering his wife , yet he knew there was still useful information to be heard from the conversation. “Yeah I know what he looks like 6 foot, early thirties, blond hair .” “Don't worry there is two of us I think we can handle it.” He finished apparently reassuring a doubtful employer. Harold sensed the man was going to hang up soon, he seized his moment moving as close as he dared to the man without him turning around. And fired one shot into the back of the man's skull killing him quick, silently and sadly from Harold's point of view painlessly. The man teetered for a moment but Harold caught him before he hit the floor. The sound of a man hitting the hard wooden floor would obviously alert the other man to his presence. Harold cleared the final rooms until by the process of elimination knew the other assassin was in the second living room at the far end of the house. The door was closed and Harold heard no sound on the inside. He was cautious of entering guns blazing it would certainly result in death and, now he wanted some answers. Harold slowly ran his hand along the wood of the door until his hand found the door knob. Using the door as cover he slowly opened it. Then turned pointing the gun at the empty room. The murderer had left out the balcony, he must have heard the quiet give away of a silenced shot. Now Harold was no closer to finding out who had targeted him and killed his wife. All that showed there was any trace of the assassin was a spent needle that killed his wife and, the open balcony it 's doors flung wide open where the killer had made his escape. The curtains fluttered gently under the now strong wind from outside and to any outside observer all seemed well.....

Sorry about the length I know it's quite long. If anyone wants to comment you will have to go through Twitter, as the comment function on this blog works sporadically. Sorry about that and thanks for reading.

Kyle

Writing

Hi

From now on between serious non fiction blog posts. There will be fiction short poems and stories that I am thinking of starting to write.

Klyle

Real?

Hi

You will probably get a few more blogular posts this week, because I'm on holiday and have nothing to do. All work completed for once!
Now this is a question asked many times by many people, serious or otherwise. What is real? Now of course this may sound like a simple question at first,third and thirty third glance but is one I believe as a complex answer.
Of course there is many people reading this who will say that it's obvious and define real as what we can smell,taste,feel ,see and touch. Yet it's not that simple is it because under that definition real is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain and neurons. And as you know your brain can be confused, by tricks of the eye and so on. Which tells me at least we can't certainly tell what is real and what is not. Much like in a modern film it is near impossible to tell what is real and what is CGI.
Which does pose yet another more intriguing question. Are we ourslelves real? This is a question that is grappled with by philosophers, which is something I am not. But it is a thought provoking question to anyone and everyone. If you think about it more and more, one it makes your head hurt and, two it makes you question every aspect of reiality. For a start what would be the point it aquiring money, if your aquiring something that itself is not real to buy things which are still not real!
This question also as a question within itself. Why are we here and what are we here for? If where not real in the sense of the senses whats the point of us? Are we perhaps some sort of virtual video game for a higher civalisation. Like a version of spore or sims.
Of course the simple answer to all these questions could be, that there all rubbish a product of a over active mind and, we are in fact totaly real and in no way virtual. And as I have said that would be the simple answer, which in most cases is the correct one.

Kyle

10 Things

Hi

In the world today there are many lists. 10o films to see before you die, Ten things to do before you die, top 10 songs, best restaurants and the list goes on and on. But to my knowledge there are no top tens of the best astromical sights. So below is my top ten of the things I love and, hate about Astronomy.

I'll start with the good things

1 Total solar eclipse

2 First view of Saturn through a telescope

3 A good comet

4 Giving Astromical based talks

5 The sky at night ( TV Show)

6 The fantastic pictures

7 New disoveries

8 Going to lectures

9 Seeing the Andromeda Galaxy

10 The moon Landings (Long time ago now)

The things I hate

1 BEING CONFUSED WITH BLOODY ASTROLOGERS

2 Light polloution (Even in the middle of no where)

3 Skeptics who say we didn't go to the moon!

4 Cold nights observing

5 Wasting my money on a bad telescope

6 People who assume it's just a science/hobby for old men with beards (I don't have a beard!)

7 Exspensive equipment (sadly turns some people away from the subject)

8 Names of constellations and identifiying them (took me ages to learn some of them)

9 Lack of astromical funding in England (compared with NASA)

10 Not returning to the moon......

That is my list, I'm sure you will have different ideas and will disagree with others so leave your lists below. I look forward to reading them.

PS The picture isn't mine courtesy of Internet.

Kyle

Parallel Universes?

Hi there

This post is going to be on Paralle universes and, the likely or unlikely possibility of there exsistence.

Of course as you know paralle universes are the favourate of sci fi authors and, certain branches of nutty science. You know the like of which who have claimed to have been abducted and then probed by ET. Rather coincidentally next to the pub! Because of this parallel universes are regarded as total rubbish. And about as credible as Atlantis or roswell, but is this absolutely true.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not one of those nutty so called scientists who will quite happily believe anything. I am however inceredibly open to new scientific ideas.

And in recent years there as been new cosmological ideas, ( I won't use theory) that have hinted at the posibility of parallel univereses.

The first of these is Membrane or M theory (sorry if I apear inconsistent but thats it's name). M theory is an addition to the possible theory of everything string theory, string theory is very complicated and therefore very dull if your not interested. So I will give a very simple exsplanation, S theory says that all particles (Protons Electrons) are not points or balls as you would imagine. But very very thin strings that vibrate at diferent resonances, and these different resonances give us the myriad of particles we see. Very briefly there is one crucial problem with S theory as shown in the cartoon above. Mathematically S theory works fine, the problem is as yet there is NO evidence to prove it's true and, NO link between it and the other famous theories Special and General relativity . But of course with the new LHC who knows what will be found.

I am getting into a physics based ramble and you should be spared from that so back to parallel universes. Now in M theory like S theory there are multiple dimensions ranging from six to in some cases eleven, oddly only four of these dimensions affect us. I know sounds odd don't attempt to think about it it only makes your head hurt! Now these six to eleven dimensions make up a higher space sometimes known as the multiverse which contains branes. The concept of the multiverse does have a small shred of evidence to it's name. As you know out of the four forces gravity is the weakest and, this is believed to be due to the fact that gravity is the only force that provades the multiverse.These branes are formed from quantum fluctuations (something out of nothing ) in the vacuum. And are like cosmic paving slabs that through Gravity come together strike and form big bangs, then seperate and collide again with other branes. And thus a myriad of parallel universes are created evolve and die!

Again like string theory there is very little evidence for this idea, although the same was true of the big bang at the start of the 20th Century so who knows what will happen. It is also rather satisfying to people who wonder what started the big bang. It also makes the concept of parallel universes a bit more plausible, although I don't claim for a moment it is certain proof of anything. One thing is certain it is an area that needs more serious research. For anyone reading this who wants to know more I recommend Endless universe Beyond the Big Bang (search it on Amazon).

Thanks for reading!

Kyle

PS3 COD 5

Hi

In this post I'm not going to get bogged down with the old argument which is best, PS3 or XBOX 360. Because it's just a matter of preference and, what you want!

A game that as recently come out is COD 5, part of the now famous Call of duty franchise. It's quite good entertainment. This installment is set in two location, the first follows a Marine in the South pacific, the other a soldier in the Red army.The weapons are the standard affair rifles and machine guns all historically accurate. The Russian shotgun and American Browning Machine gun are the most fun.

The levels are jolly difficult in the South pacific your attacked by Bonzai charges, when you least exspect it. One of the other best aspects is the Coperative Zombies level, which is fun because it's just daft.

The Multiplayer is also reasonable, although with me there is some lag. The COD server is also prone to crashing and filling up, which can be a tad irritating.

Overall the game is good and, with the arival of the new map pack ( which I will be buying tonight.) The COD franchise is set to dominate the FPS market for some time to come!

Kyle

Return to the moon! Or perhaps not

Hi

Firstly sorry about the incredibly long time since my last blogular entry.

This post is a sort of rant about the future of space flight, or rather the lack of a foreseeable future! Currently man is sat in earth orbit, doing lots of jolly interesting experiments on the space station. Yet to my mind it's not the same as the old days of Apollo.

That was a time when one we had to win the space race and, two a time when we went places. Yes it was dangerous there was inumerable risks and near misses on nearly every Apollo mission. But we dared to go! And crucially there was no health and safety!

And that is one of the main reason why we haven't been back to the moon, the Apollo scientists and Astranouts themselves said that if they tried to repeat what they did, today the answer would be a resounding NO.

America however as promised to be back to the moon by 2020 but with the current economic climate can you see it? I for one cannot.What we really do need is another space race this would give NASA and ESA the real urge to head for the moon. It is however unlikely that with the problems on earth, (the economic crisis) space exsploration will be given such a priority as it was in the sixties.

Kyle