Monday, September 8, 2025

No Blood Moon for Me



Another of our orchids is blooming. This is the one I found while walking Olga at Fortune Green a couple of years ago. This is its second round of blossoms for us, and they're a nice contrast with the yellow-green orchids I found later that same year, which are also blooming up a storm at the moment. You can see the head of the glass pheasant popping up in the bottom of the frame there.

Yesterday was pretty quiet. I spent a lot of time reading. I had vague plans to take a walk last night up to Parliament Hill to watch the lunar eclipse, or "blood moon" as it's popularly known, but I got engrossed in a movie and forgot! Dave and I rented "Eddington," which I heard about through the QAA podcast. It's a movie about a small-town sheriff in New Mexico who becomes consumed with right-wing paranoia during the Covid-19 pandemic, and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of "Urbania," a movie I saw years ago that made references to every urban myth at the time, thereby satirizing the whole phenomenon. "Eddington" refers to just about every element of online debate in 2020, from the advisability of masking to Black Lives Matter to fears of Antifa and wokeness. It's meant to be over the top -- there's even a literal dumpster fire -- but it gets seriously, violently crazy at the end. So, yeah, who needed a "blood moon"?

In the afternoon our phones both simultaneously went off with a loud tone we'd never heard before -- a sort of high-pitched alarm. It turned out to be a test of a government emergency alert system, but you'd think someone could have warned us it was coming. I thought Medvedev had finally followed through on his threats to start dropping nukes. (Here's what it sounded like, if you're interested.) It was similar to those "Amber Alerts" I get when I visit Florida -- government alerts about missing children that come through the phone with an alarm -- which always startle me.


Apparently our tube strike is happening today as planned. Fortunately I walk to work so it won't be a huge issue for me, but I feel sorry for people who have to travel any distance. I assume a lot of people will be working from home. Apparently the strikers want a shorter working week, among other things. Their work week is already 35 hours but they say this contributes to on-the-job fatigue. I have a feeling this may be a difficult argument to make to the rest of us, who work 40 hours, but I suppose they would argue there are differences in the intensity of the job. (Tell that to anyone who's had to manage a room full of seventh graders!)

Finally, Dave and I made some plans for October break. We're going to take a sleeper train to Penzance, in Cornwall, for a short stay. The main purpose of the trip is the train experience, and we're only going to spend two days in Penzance itself. But it should be fun, or at least interesting. Up to now, the farthest west we've ever been in that direction is Salisbury, so this will be new territory for us!

7 comments:

  1. People with landline only [that's me] clearly do not need to be alerted. Let dinosaurs sink without trace. Anyway, what's the alert for? Panic?

    Also missed out on the red moon. Which is fine. I am sure it did its thing without my witnessing it.

    Cornwall is great.
    I myself await, with some trepidation as I am currently, following an unfortunate incident and somewhat mobility challenged, a surprise journey, two day break, with the Angel [my son]. All I know is that I am supposed to pack some clothes. OK. I trust him. With my soul, my heart, my life. Just hope he isn't going to take me wild camping in the Brecon Beacons/Wales. Or the Lake District. His father was good that way. Surprise weekends. OK. Shall I pack for Alaska, the Sahara, Duesseldorf? If only for the footwear. Not to be drawn. Enigmatic smile.

    Enjoy. As will I,
    U

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  2. No blood moon here either thanks to clouds and rain courtesy of Storm Amy!

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  3. There were lots of " warnings" in the media about the phone alert yesterday. You can turn it off as I did the last time ( a few years ago) and it was still switched off since then!

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  4. Your orchids astound me. And rescued at that. It was completely overcast here last night so I didn’t even bother looking for the moon. The trip to Penzance in a sleeper care sounds romantic.

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  5. Shame you are not planning to spend longer in Cornwall. As for "you'd think someone could have warned us it was coming"... I knew it was coming for the previous two weeks. It was mentioned on the BBC News website and on Radio 4.

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  6. You didn't read the right blogs last week as several of us mentioned the alarm!
    I put my phone on plane mode and heard nothing!
    I looked for the blood Moon and either it wasn't dark enough or too cloudy low down so saw nothing

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  7. No blood moon here either - I forgot too.
    No alarm either - only for UK 'phones.

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