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The Fastest Rotating Galaxy Known – UGC 12591

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Why does this galaxy spin so fast? To start, even identifying which type of galaxy UGC 12591 is difficult — it has dark dust lanes like a spiral galaxy but a large diffuse bulge of stars like a lenticular.  Observations show that UGC 12591 spins at about 480 km/sec, almost twice as fast as our Milky Way, and the fastest rotation rate yet measured. The mass needed to hold together a galaxy spinning this fast is several times the mass of our Milky Way Galaxy. The light we see today from UGC 12591 left about 400 million years ago, when trees were first developing on Earth.

http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~apod/apod/ap170307.html

FetchMeThe …….

By Blogs

As a girl – my mother’s helper, her voice travelled my world with the call :-

Fetch me the…(Sunday evening) Dolly tub ‘n the Plunger ( to soak the washing over night in chopped-up green soap), (like, everyday) the tea-pot stand, the tea-cosy, (frequently) my sewing box, (now and then) me teeth (from the glass of Sterodent in the bathroom)..

( regularly) Pop round to the shop . Get me me Woodies . You can get yourself a bottle of Tizer too

And above all, ”Fetchmethe bathroom stool” (VITAL EQUIPMENT for reaching thingies).

In no way was I a CARER.. just helping my 5′ mum and her “Gammy- legged” husband. (that was what he called his impairment in the 1940’s)

A totally different setting for the 1.4 million children aged 8 to 18 caring for parents.

CHILDRENS’ SOCIETY report “HIDDEN FROM VIEW”

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/report_hidden-from-view_young-carers_final.pdf

 

 

Defensive Architecture

By Blogs

More than 100 homeless people are ‘living’ in the terminals of Heathrow airport this winter (2015), according to official figures – a new and shameful record. Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have warned that homelessness in London is rising significantly faster than the nationwide average, and faster than official estimates. And yet, we don’t see as many people sleeping rough as in previous economic downturns. Have our cities become better at hiding poverty, or have we become more adept at not seeing it? (Guardian – 18/2/15 Alex Andreou / Pix  Metal studs outside private flats on Southwark Bridge Rd, London – Guy Corbishley)

In Homage, to the Beached

By Blogs

My fellow Nana to two grandsons, is Beached. She’s in an high quality but far distant Care Home. Always admired by me, for her practical Nanaship. She has been stalwart, alongside the two Head Teacher parents. Whereas I’m good at the chat; dire at the cleaning.

The inevitable tide goes out. Far out, for many. I feel great pain in my heart for the packaged elderly. Not amidst the poverty, nor the terror of so many families, world wide, but not ALONE . ….Not with STRANGERS.

  • I’ve just started writing a weekly, LARGE PRINT letter to my friend. Just a dab of paint on the hull, not a relaunch. Of how much value is COMPASSION, in your experience?

Crumbs !

By Blogs

OO-er AND Crumbs!

No, this isn’t the heavens opening on Trump, North Korean leader, Putin and that butcher in Wales who so upset my mum when we were evacuated. Speaking in his native-tongue Welsh to all his customers he slipped tit-bits ….denied to my mum… into their baskets. So distressing, so alienating, so far from home…that my darling mum came out of his shop, sat on a stone wall and WEPT. Threatening clouds ever overhead?

NO.. neither is it an alien mothership.

Merely! a thunder cloud filmed in Montana 2010 bringing high wings, torrential rain, and tornadoes.

See Astronomy daily picture – www.star.ucl.ac.uk

 

Shout Loudly : Chunter together quietly

By Blogs

Went to local hospital watch-persons meeting. Planned support for London SUPPORT THE NHS demos. Gave out this leaflet at recent march down Ascot High Street. Gathering my own courage, to encourage the meet to produce practical ideas for taking individual and collective responsibility for RESILIENCE & SELF-RELIANCE about our own health.

See Fullfact.org

Courage is not enough ?

By Blogs

Consider the affirmation ‘You may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated’ – Maya Angelou.

And the following statements:- ‘Britain has a social mobility problem which is getting worse for an entire generation of young people’… particularly for white working-class boys.  Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission  (SMCP ) State of the Nation Report 16/11/16 – Chair Alan Milburn.

Runnymede Trust report-  Who Cares about the White Working Class?

‘The Plight is constructed by the media, politicians, anti-immigration groups as the fault of immigrant minority ethnic groups or the cultural deficit of the under class, or both, while leaving the hierarchical and highly stratified nature of British society, out of the equation’.

Interesting resources: – ‘RESPECTABLE’  a novel by LYNSEY HANLEY.

 Richard Hoggart ‘THE USES OF LITERACY’ 1957 but relevant.

kirstywalker@education.co.uk  020 7227 5371 Social Mobility Commission.

Runneymede Trust – www.runneymedetrust.org

Tattoos : Taboos

By Blogs

Chatting to strangers was what you did in my war-time childhood. Sitting on those side seats downstairs on the bus, squashed between women (my size !!) with covered punnets full of yellow downy chicks. Off to Kidderminster market. Or dispatched to stand in queues outside the Tripe shop, basket on arm. Learnt much in queues !

The other day I chatted with Ben in our garden. Admired the TATTOOS during his tea break from tree lopping. “Left school early. Nothing to teach me !” He lived on a barge. ” You could call me a Wild Man” he said. “Number of wild animals lived with me….now help out with conservation stuff. Teach kids.”  “What’s the tattoo about?” sez I. “Pride in myself.. my body” said Ben.

Flying Visits

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The other day a HERON , today a RED KITE.

It swooped, skimmed the Magnolia, past the Oak, chasing a Crow.

Wing span 6ft, held at a dihedral with a long forked tail, twisting as it changed direction. I was taken over; an invasion of majesty. Down it swooped again, right up to the kitchen window. Orange spread of its tail feathers ..orange cream brown for my mind’s eye.

Enthralled, my conversation with ticket agency ( booking tickets for Justin Butcher’s performance locally of THE DEVIL’S PASSION) got a bit confusing. Credit card number being given interspersed with “Oh! Here it comes again. It’s HUGE”   www.redkite.net  (Pix copyright Helen Olive)