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Category: Fiction

Posted on 14 January 202226 March 2022

The Expanse Title Sequence: Don’t Skip Intro

The Expanse title sequence S4 clip

Like the captain of the Rocinante, I never skip my morning coffee and The Expanse title sequence is like a shot of espresso. It might seem as though the protocol for dealing with the one minute interruption and seemingly unintelligible theme song is to hit Skip Intro…but it just seems that way (as someone in …

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Posted on 29 September 202119 February 2022

The Hunt for Happer’s Comet

Local Hero (1983) - the planetarium

"The whole world will weep with gratitude when the big day comes because Mr Happer has got his comet!" What Mr Happer really wants is to find a comet. If he does, he'll call it a Happer comet or Happer's Comet or…Comet Happer. Sadly, Happer never gets his comet but he does eventually get an …

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Posted on 13 August 202127 April 2022

The Expanse: A personal distress call

When I first watched The Expanse, I did not get on board right away. The science bits sounded good, but like a Belter from Ceres trying to survive Earth’s gravity, understanding the interconnections in The Expanse was literally crushing me. I needed to find my Rosetta Stone…and not just for the dialects. To kang showxa im wámotim mo …

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Posted on 23 July 202110 May 2022

Rogue Sky Objects in Japanese Cinema

Tokyo 2020 - the greatest Earth on show - Intel drone globe from the Nippon Budokan

The opening ceremony of Tokyo 2020 made a massive impact when seemingly out of nowhere a rogue planet appeared in the sky over the Olympic stadium. A shimmering ring gate made of hundreds of drones had morphed into a slowly rotating Earth, like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. In tribute to the drone-made …

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Posted on 1 April 202130 September 2021

The Golden Age of Mr Benn

Mr Benn as a spaceman on a gold and jewel covered planet

Mr Benn may have good reason to dress up in costume this year, because 2021 marks 50 years since the bowler-hatted British businessman's adventures in a fancy-dress shop first aired on TV in 1971. The now celebrated antics of Mr Benn were first introduced in a series of children's books in 1967, followed by an …

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Posted on 15 March 202114 April 2022

Astro-Mining in the Movies

Travelling by train on the Moon in Moon Zero Two (1969)

From titanium, helium-3 and sapphire to pergium, tylium and opus, whether nudging an asteroid too close to Earth, cloning lunar miners to save costs, or mining the outer reaches of the Solar System, here are some movies and TV shows about mining in space (although "about" is a term used as loosely as aggregate and …

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Posted on 4 March 202128 December 2021

The Door into Summer (2021)

The Door Into Summer1 - Petronius The Arbiter - the cat

Having been treated to an uncharacteristic flurry of snow during a February cold snap in London, made worse by the sedentary lifestyle imposed by the coronavirus lockdown, I was looking forward to opening the door into spring. Instead, I chanced upon the trailer for The Door into Summer, the first ever film adaptation of the …

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Posted on 25 February 202116 January 2022

Time Enough for Writing a Sonnet

Text of Sonnet #18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?) by William Shakespeare

Feeling somewhat frustrated during UK lockdown 3.0, I picked up Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, to read again. In the Intermission, Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Heinlein's character sets out a list of skills of the competent man — what he thinks a human being should be able to do. If I …

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Posted on 20 December 202010 May 2022

It’s the Size of Texas

Ben Affleck has five - or is it six- important words to say to us in the film Armageddon (1998): It's the size of Texas.

Inspired by five words, or is it six, in the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon — a movie about an asteroid the size of Texas on course to destroy Earth in 18 days (and a team of deep core drillers sent to break the asteroid in two) — I wondered whether there were any quantifiable clues in …

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Recent Articles

  • The Expanse Title Sequence: Don’t Skip Intro 14 January 2022
  • The Hunt for Happer’s Comet 29 September 2021
  • The Expanse: A personal distress call 13 August 2021
  • Rogue Sky Objects in Japanese Cinema 23 July 2021
  • The Greatest Earth on Show 23 July 2021
  • The Edge of Space 21 July 2021
  • The Golden Age of Mr Benn 1 April 2021
  • Astro-Mining in the Movies 15 March 2021
  • The Door into Summer (2021) 4 March 2021
  • Time Enough for Writing a Sonnet 25 February 2021

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