Autumn is truly upon us. Welcome to the Meerkat Muse.

October is normally when things start to take a colder turn, but then, UK weather is increasingly unpredictable, so who knows?

Lonely Times

Work has delivered more lone-trading occasions, and will bring more in the coming weeks. This isn’t a huge, insurmountable problem for me – sometimes I enjoy solitude – but being at work on your own all day, especially as the mornings and nights get darker, ain’t something I wish to experience over and over. With luck, we’ll have someone new soon, who can help lighten the burden upon the rest of us.

Stardust

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66893661

The above news article is a testament to the ingenuity of human endeavour. In 2020, the NASA spacecraft Osiris-Rex collected samples of rock and dust from the asteroid Bennu (incidentally, the asteroid considered the most dangerous by NASA, in terms of hitting earth any time soon). On the 24th of September 2023, a probe launched from the craft touched down in Utah, holding these precious samples.

Whilst the samples may not amount to much more than the weight of a hamster (yes, that’s what the article says), the information they hold has got scientists excited. You see, asteroids like Bennu are thought to be debris left over from the formation of the solar system, and they may contain clues as to the formation of the planets, and how life began.

To think, this probe has zipped across the solar system, and back again, and survived to deliver us a story in the form of the building blocks of our solar system. This is an astonishing display of technical brilliance from NASA. There is the potential to learn so much from this, and who knows what these asteroid fragments will reveal?

Prophecy

The other night, I had one of my classically weird dreams. I was working in some sort of weird combination of an office and store, and one of my colleagues told me that if she were allowed to touch me, she could tell me when and how I would die. I was in no hurry to take her up on her morbid offer, and devoted a lot of effort to avoiding her, but the dream did get me thinking. What I want to know? Is there anything to be gained from knowing?

In the end, I concluded I’d sooner not know. Once you know, that knowledge will hang over you, like the axe waiting to fall. I might devote every waking moment to thwarting it, but we often meet our fate on the path we take to avoid it. Alternatively, I might be so thoroughly resigned to my fate that I don’t see the point in doing anything else, and I forget to actually live. I’m definitely better off not knowing!

‘Sex Should Be Illegal’

That’s the message that’s been scrawled onto boxes in town. There is no context, so deciphering the meaning of the message is quite difficult. My mind immediately went to an incel, screaming about a lack of sex, but honestly, I have no idea. A Google search revealed no clues as to why these messages had been left, and I am struggling to piece together what is behind them. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

School Trips

My daughter’s school has plans to take her year group to visit a Nazi concentration camp. Needless to say, this will be a poignant experience, should the trip go ahead. It will also mean my baby will hundreds of miles away, for several days, and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

The Stats Explosion

The other day, the stats for my site erupted. There’s normally a steady trickle, but this was an epic leap in numbers. Whenever this happens, I take a closer look. Most of the views relate to discussions on religion, and the specific posts lend me to believe I know the person or persons behind this little surge in readership. Whether or not this person or persons is planning on addressing what I’ve had to say is unclear. If so, then by all means, leave a comment, or write a blog post and link to whatever it is of mine you want to talk about. To be fair, you don’t even have to leave a link. I guess I will watch this space.

Wowser Bowser!

Halloween will be upon us at the end of October, and as is now tradition, I will be dressing up. Following a cockerel, a dinosaur, and a meerkat, it is now the turn of the King of the Koopas himself, Bowser. The antagonist of most Mario games stole the show in the recent movie, and has become a much-loved character. Here’s hoping Halloween proves good fun!

The Felling

Sometimes, I despair of human beings. The beautiful, iconic Sycamore Gap Tree, which sat in a dip in a valley along Hadrian’s Wall, was deliberately cut down in an act of cowardly vandalism. I cannot hope to understand the mindset of these vandals. To what end would anyone do such a thing? It is petty, it is nasty, and it has deprived people of a much-loved landmark.

To get inside the heads of people like this would be a fascinating, if disturbing endeavour. It would be my only hope of understanding them.

The Magpie

Amidst the usual chaos of my nocturnal adventures, I had a dream where a magpie got into my house, and it wished to give me a feather. All I can recall is trying to get the magpie out of the house, and wondering why it would bestow a gift upon me. As I was feeling curious, I looked up what it means to see a magpie in one’s dreams, and typically got conflicting answers.

One site, Inside My Dream, offered some positive ideas, so I will stick with those! Some involve good fortune. I have no problem with receiving a fortune! Ultimately, a dream is just a dream, and it is entirely possible to read far too much into it. Whether the magpie bestows good luck or bad luck depends on one’s cultural views and interpretations, and like various superstitions, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Or is a pinch of salt another form of superstition?!

With that thought, I draw this edition of the Meerkat Muse to a close, and leave us all wondering what the next entry will contain!

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