Happy Space Junk Apocalypsemas!

So the Mayan apocalypse didn’t happen then – unless you’re reading this on a crumpled bit of yellowing paper in a bunker some time in 2014.

In which case; Blimey! They were right after all. Who’d have guessed?

It seemed fairly certain it wouldn’t happen of course. Why would you trust the predictions of a race who aren’t around any more? They clearly weren’t all that great at spotting the future, were they?

But whilst you’re in that eggnog-poisoning recovery stage, and the cat recuperates from the incident with using the fairy-lights-covered Christmas tree as a posh indoor loo, instead of going outside in the rain, I’ve got some more bad news. There’s a space junk apocalypse on the way.

We’re now so dependent on all the satellites orbiting our moist planet, it seems unlikely we’d know how to cope without them. Don’t believe me? Have a think about it – your TV, radio and internet probably get beamed about the planet via them. Your prat-nav relies on them. Your mobile does too. And it’s not just at a personal level. Train systems, road haulage, and even your fridge rely on them.

OK, I might have made the last one up, but it got you thinking, didn’t it? And here’s the worrying bit – the whole lot could get smashed to smithereens any time soon. We’ve already bunged so many of them up into orbit that it’s starting to look like the car park at Asda on a Saturday morning, but with less screaming children and people parking 4X4s badly. And in space. So pretty much identical, then.

There’s loads of other stuff up there too – old booster rockets, random screws and bits that fell off spaceships, and even spaceman poo. And they’re all travelling very, very fast. If one of those bumps into a satellite, it’ll smash it into a million bits. That’s another million, speedy, missiles heading towards more precious satellites. The cascade effect could wipe out our space network alarmingly fast. And a spaceman’s frozen jobbie could be the cause of it. Imagine the exquisite irony if it hit some sort of rotating cooling system first, triggering satellite Armageddon.

So whilst you try and figure out what to do with the 4lbs of turkey you’ve still got left, consider this: How fast would we descend into chaos? Clogged motorways, trains at a standstill... OK, no change there then. But no TV? Radio? Internet? And you wouldn’t be able to send a picture of a kitten to your friend with ’LOL cuuuute!’ appended to it, as your phone would be useless too. No twitter. No facetubebooks.

Whilst society crumbled (the teenagers would be unable to function after 5 minutes), the rot would move up the age chain, until it reached the over 60s... who’d probably be fine. But a bit bemused as to why there was so much screaming, running around, panicking and a sudden occurrence of people actually talking to each other, instead of looking at tiny screens.

Check your phone – still got a signal? No? Uh-oh...

Happy New Year!

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 28th December 2012. I'm saying that, but I haven't seen the paper, and it isn't on their website again either... so maybe this is the only place it exists. There was going to be a much lengthier intro section featuring the yellowing bit of paper being read by someone in a future where the Space Junkalypse was recent history... but I was already over their 500 word count required, so it remains an odd, and slightly disturbing, thought in my head instead.

(Appropriately, my musical pleasure is decidedly spaced-out today too: Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful Of Secrets".)

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog