Mega Moonie

Can it be possible that our destinies are laid out in the stars?

Bunkum, I say. I carry out my daily Snorting With Derision practice using those forecasts which haunt the back pages of the tabloids. Yet even that pillar of the establishment, The Times, carries star sign forecasts for us all within its leaves.

On a Sunday, when  no-one is looking, I pause the snorts and peek at Aries, combing it for any sign that the next week will be a good one. Ridiculous but oh-so-irresistible: will someone please tell me what my life is about? Who better than Shelley Von Strunckel of The Times, dubbed the “thinking man’s astrologer”, to take hold and tell me that the position of the planets and stars affects my life personally?

Aristotle thought so. He argued that the full moon caused insanity in some.

The three magi agreed. The Zoroastrian cabal claims to have used a star to lead them to a scene which changed the course of time.

Back in the 14th century, medics were of the opinion that the moon affected the four elements which made up the human body: earth, air, fire and water. So before making a diagnosis, one checked one’s patients’ star charts, you may be sure.

Zodiac charts have endured, mapping out with bombastic authority the significance of a cosmos for a speck on its surface.

Time to consult an expert: be still, the beating hearts of British housewives.

For the perfect creative male amalgam is among us. He is a pop star with a doctorate and a cool haircut. He stands beneath the stars and wonders at the universe on our television screens, and many of us are felled, instantly.

Dr Brian Cox can talk to us about the universe any day.

A devastatingly dashing particle physicist, Royal Society Research Fellow and Professor at Manchester University, the man also found time to play keyboards for the 90s group D-Ream.

And he works on the ATLAS experiment at the Hadron Collider in Geneva.

Can it get any better?

Reader, it just did. Because this is a mainstream blog I may have to use a few stars today. On Twitter last Sunday the icon had received his fill of queries about an upcoming event which has set us all a-fluttering foolishly about just what effect the moon really does have on this sphere of ours.

On Saturday March 19th, the elliptical path of the moon brings it up close and personal. The moon customarily ambles round the earth in an ellipse: an oval shape. Thus, sometimes it has a distant detachment; and at other times it is in our face.

As Father Ted once said, when using plastic cows to demonstrate perspective to his simple-minded curate Father Dougal: “OK, one last time. These are small… but the ones out there are far away. Small… far away… ah forget it!”

For us, in a few days, the moon will be big. And close. The difference, Reader, is about 50,000 kilometres; or 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than the smallest, farthest away moon, to you and me.

And with almost perfect synchronicity , that special moment of closeness – or ‘perigee’ – occurs within an hour of the fullest moon.

What are the chances of that?

All human life is here, in this cyber world we have become accustomed to inhabiting. And a vociferous and slightly overexcited sector of the cyber-population have been touting some delicious bunkum.

That august online publication, Yahoo News, posted an article featuring Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com. In his wisdom he has dubbed the upcoming event an ‘extreme supermoon’.

Now I’m intimidated. I can never think of a thing to say around noted astrologers.

The Yahoo article continues: “When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth.”

Everyone, but everyone is now talking about it.

Where Yahoo goes, there it seems must national institutions follow: the Daily Mail Online tagged on with a jolly responsible inside look at what lunar-tics are predicting and then a potter off to the experts at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy for the science bit.

A cursory visit to NASA online smooths ruffled feathers.

The organisation’s Dr Tony Philips writes: “In most places, lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters only a few centimeters (an inch or so) higher than usual. Local geography can amplify the effect to about 15 centimeters (six inches)–not exactly a great flood.

“Indeed, contrary to some reports circulating the Internet, perigee Moons do not trigger natural disasters. The “super moon” of March 1983, for instance, passed without incident. And an almost-super Moon in Dec. 2008 also proved harmless.”

So: our earth’s destiny is not tied up with this particular astral event.

What this cyber hysteria needed, reader, was a blunt cyber-object. And it arrived in the form of a cudgel from Dr Brian.

In possibly my favourite tweet of all time, he says: “Stop asking about the ****** so-called Megamoon. It has *** all to do with anything!”

Dr Brian: I thank you.

(Do check out the original tweet here. it’s much, much better…)