Half a pint of mild and bitter

I have uncovered the key to naming an English pub.

If you wake up one morning and decide to move to London to open a pub, here is an easy primer. Simply choose from one of four templates.

(1) The [famous English person]: Although The Prince Edward, The Queen Elizabeth, The Shakespeare and The Victoria are taken, England is full of famous people and you will doubtless find someone else.

(2) The [x] and [y]: x and y can be anything, but are most often animals. For example, The Rat and Parrot, and The Fox and Hound are well respected. Sometimes plants and low-lifes can be used as well (The Slug and the Lettuce).

(3) The [unique animal]: If you cannot come up with two inspiring animals to satisfy the above condition, you can pick one, but you must have an adjective to describe it. The Black Lion and The Elusive Camel attract many visitors, as does The Dun Cow.

(4) [Body parts]: If all else fails, someone's arms or head will suffice. You only have to look at The King's Arms, The King's Head, Churchill Arms or The Duke's Head to see the truth of this statement.

This advice is freely given, but liquid donations will be gratefully accepted.

Pea-soup

Bill Bryson has set a train of thought in motion, through his analogies of "If you imagine the Earth to be the size of a pea... " and so on. (Ref: 'A Short History of Nearly Everything')

So it turns out scientists have worked out that the average probable distance between us and another intelligent civilization is about 200 light-years.

To put this in perspective, if we had at our disposal the fastest spaceship currently available, it would take us 12 years to reach Pluto... and 3 million years to reach the next intelligent life form!

Its a sobering thought that one of these days, a couple of guys in top-secret locations will flip a switch and blow us up, and ET will have twice as far to go.

In the beginning

Entering the blogging world for the first time is tough.

The opening of this account took 90 minutes - not 5 as the start page suggested. Choosing a user name that sounded cool took 30 minutes, choosing a url address that sounded cool took another 30, then the system said the cool address was taken, so the next 3 iterations took another 30.

Nevertheless, bun-omlette is now ready for consumption.