'Allo Apollo 11...

I realise I have to post something for July AND to commemorate Apollo 11 landing on the moon 39 years ago yesterday. Were any of you wrapped in swaddling clothes watching it in the early hours of the morning like I was in Liverpool?

What an incredible achievement – and what an unbelievably sad sequel that nothing happened afterwards.

What really gets me irritated is the number of people who are reacting to me mentioning the Apollo landings by saying, “yeah…IF they landed!”

What kind of dozy walliness is this? I have never understood what the original hoax nutters stood to gain from all this lunatic self-contradictory doubt casting that they indulge in.

I also fail to understand the appeal it seems to have.

The only excuse I can think of is a basic ignorance of the situation at the time and a total ignorance of the Apollo programme and what it entailed.

In the most charitable of analyses, the “hoax” would have had to include hundreds of astronauts, technicians, engineers and sundry experts none of whom have ever come out with an exclusive confession nor has any been left posthumously.

I mean do these HBs (hoax believers) dispute the fact that the Apollo missions just went to the moon or that they actually landed in some cases?

If it’s the first case, it would mean they are saying that Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were all faked, as all of them circumnavigated the moon one way or another!

If we’re just talking about landing then it’s "only" Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.

That’s such a lot of hoaxing!

Anyhow to read some sense about all these wild conspiracy “theories” I would recommend:

Moon Base Clavius

and Phil Plait’s

BadAstronomy

Meanwhile, happy anniversary Apollo 11!

What Happened to June?

As June began I was thinking, 'great, loads of bloggy material coming up...'

There was Munich's 850th birthday, the Euro 2008, a big Irish festival, the Tollwood festival...

There was also translating and teaching, playing gigs and recording, the continuing struggle with the council in Liverpool about my mother's house, the realisation that my bus - Buzzy - had reached the age of 20 and simultaneously the end of the road, sorrow drowning, beer quaffing...

There should have been a cascade of blogs, a surfeit of bloginess, a blognogalous bonanza...

But, you have to be either doing it or writing about it...you can't do both - unless, that is, the writing is the doing or the doing is the writing... in which case... erm... dunno.

Anyhow, assuming July is less murderously busy, I intend to dip and delve into June's archives and try fill out those topics above with a bit of fleshy detail...

(Don't hold your breath though)