Rumour, gossip, and have-you-heard Are back with a careless, venomous word. Scurrilous whispers have their way – They’re good enough for Salem and good enough today. So who needs doubt or burden of proof, When the tales are better than the boring truth ? When even liberals are mongering fears, With two-faced lattes and schadenfreud beers, And even the press has dropped its mask Of public int’rest, and sunk to the task. Rumour, gossip, and feathers-and-tar Has shown us all for the shits we are. That’s you. Yes, you. With your bleeding heart, You’re ev’ry bit the hypocrite as any old fart, You Guardian readers, as catty as The Sun – A few lives ruined, but you’ve had your fun.
Approaching Bellatrix, with the Sun directly behind us, as shown in Celestia. The slightly-distorted shape of Orion can be seen behind.
Gamma
Bellatrix – a blue-ish pixel, Fairly bright, as bright stars go. Drifting lonely through Orion – Closer than her neighbours, though. That means she must be smaller – And she’s just too small to go off pop – Strange that seven solar-masses Makes her baby of the crop. Was she born, like many of her cohort, In Orion’s cloud ? Maybe not – perhaps adopted, Hanging with the big boys’ crowd. But they’ll grow tall and all be gone one day, While she’s a quieter kind – She may turn red, but end up white, Forever left behind.
If we take a look at the vital statistics (according to Wikipedia, and I’ve rounded them off a bit) of the eight brightest stars in Orion, they are (by descending declination):
Meissa – (rhymes with ‘nicer’) – a double star: A is ≈28 solar masses, B is ≈10 solar masses.
Betelgeuse – (‘BEETLE-juice’. Yes, that’s right, that’s precisely how most people say it, because how can we not !) – ≈16-19 solar masses, depending on how far away he is, which is surprisingly hard to determine. (Bizarrely, according to the OED this name has only been in use in English since 1796.)
Bellatrix – (‘BELL-a-tricks’, just as you’d expect) – there seems to be some confusion as apparently Bellatrix is older that a star of her mass should be (7-8 solar masses) without having evolved into a giant, and it has been suggested that she is infact twins – a spectroscopic binary of two smaller, longer-lived stars, which would presumably make her Bellatrices ?
Mintaka – (‘MINN-tacka’) – a multiple-star system, but we’ll only worry about the two most massive: Aa1 is ≈24, while Ab is ≈22.
Alnilam – (‘AL-nillam’) – a whopping 40-44 solar masses, which possibly makes it the most massive naked-eye star up there, depending on where the cut-off for ‘naked-eye’ is set, and how bright the tempermental Eta Carinae is being this year.
Alnitak – (‘AL-nittack’) – again a multiple, Aa is ≈33, Ab a mere 14 or so.
Rigel – (either ‘RYE-gull’ or ‘RYE-jull’) – and now we come to the brightest of the lot (from our perspective) and another collective, with the main component being ≈21. (This name was first recorded in English in 1594 – no, I don’t know what the locals called it before then either.)
Saiph – (‘SAFE’) – and finally, a ≈15 tiddler to round us off.
Of these, all bar Betelgeuse are hot blue stars, but anything of a similar mass (so 20-ish or less) will presumably follow suit and swell up in the next few million years before exploding in a blaze of glory and leaving behind a neutron star. The fate of the heavyweights is less clear – they’ll certainly go super, but may never turn red, and some if not all of these will simply implode into a black hole denying us the spectacular brightening.Anything over ≈8 solar masses is thought to end as a Type II (though future bouts of mass-loss complicate things), with Bellatrix thought to be just too short to ride that particular rollercoaster.
Finally, a cap-doff is in order for this particular xkcd comic, and the Explain xkcd commentary in its wake…
Hannelora Helmholtz-Hertzsprung, Eight syllables of Sturm and Drang That trip along a Teuton tongue With a click of the heels from brother Wolfgang. If only Wolf and Hanni tried The Eidelweiss and Extrawurst, But they were born in Merseyside – So less Sachsen, more Anglo-cursed.
Helmholtz-Hertzsprung – what a surname ! H times three and twice Tee-Zed – They’re triply stung, as if to claim A ‘Graf’ and a ‘Von’, and be dubbed ‘the Red’. Her parents gave them the kind of name That only folks in stories give. What chance have they of meek and tame With monikers so transformative ?
They wonder at their German roots, Though mum’s their mum and not their Mutti. And their father’s never worn Prussian boots, And when asked why, he shrugs why should he ? Of the language, they speak no word, And their accents sounds less Saar, more Scouse. So why share names with a yodelling goatherd As if they’d been raised in a gingerbread house ?
Wolfie tries to harden his Double-Yoo, But ev’ryone still calls him a softie – He’s got the wrong voice, where even he struggles to, And sounding far more pretentious than lofty. A pair of Frankensteins lacking a zeitgeist, A Bildungsroman for these misplaced Franks – Their only reminder of whence their genes spliced Is that damn Nachname, upping their angst.
Helmholtz sounds like a planetary ship, While Hertzsprung, like a clockwork core – Or else a springbok, skittish to skip – The poor, poor dears !, emburdened with lore. Their parents gave them the kind of name That only elves and heroes get – But theirs it is, to shun or claim… Could Deutschland be über Alles yet…?
Hannelora Helmholtz-Hertzsprung – The name of a nuclear engineer – With phonemes thoroughly washed and wrung To perfectly balance the Rheinland ear. How can she live with so much hype ?, Precision-polished for wide acclaim. And yes, she knows that’s a stereotype, But verdammt !, so is her whole damn name !
I long since came to a weary pact With my ambition and self-esteem – I gave them both the sack, And they in turn have promised not to dream.
And with that, I put on my tie, Polished my shoes, and buttoned my coat, And dived headlong with barely a cry Into the passion-snuffer’s throat.
I take-on full responsibility – I knowingly rejected thrills For mind-numbing futility To let me eat and pay the bills –
I do the work with competence, And nothing else – not even gripes. It’s dangerous to drop your fence – Don’t fall for pride, just sit and type…
I know I’m being used, each day, I have to shrug, it’s just the norm. There’s plenty far worse off, they say, Be thankful that you’re in the warm.
And yet…can it be…? That out there, somewhere, running free, Some folks have a job they love ? A job that’s always something new And makes a diff’rence what they do, And pays them more-than-well enough – But ah, those kinds of job are precious few, Not for the likes of me.
There are only so many fun jobs to go round, They’re thin on the ground, They’ve all been filled, or handed-down, Father-to-son, the lucky tykes – And none of them have a clue. Most of the jobs are the sort that nobody likes, But most of us do.
I have my hobbies, have my friends, I make the best of tedium, And live for the moment, live for the weekends – And tell myself that something else will come…
But what must it be like, though, To wake up with a smile ? To do a job that’s worth-the-while ? I guess I’ll never know…
I considered titling this poem 9 – ∞, but the two figures don’t look like they belongs in the same font.
Ev’rybody, get an offence to take, You too can be just as special – Your very identity’s at stake, And now you are such a delicate vessel. All the cool kids are getting upset, While words are being redefined. Remember, the world owes you respect To spare your innocent mind.
I don’t want to know If my favourite writer Served time for beating-up his wife. I don’t want to care If a star were a blighter With an ego and a wasted life. Their business is none Of my goddammed business, Their headlines are not worth my time. Only their art is worthy of greatness – Anonymous, timeless, and sublime.
I don’t want to hear If my favourite singer Is a boorish, boozy bro. I don’t want to learn Who’s an avid right-winger Whose works don’t let it show. Spare the biography, Don’t make a movie With kiss-and-tell’s cruellest stains. Only their art, not their story, can move me, Expression free of baggage trains.
I don’t want to make A god of my hero, I don’t want a perfect polished shell – But nor do I need To make them a Nero – I’d rather them faceless, truth to tell. Their interests are none Of my goddammed interest, Their privacy’s vital – as is mine. Only their art – for it shows us their best – And if you treat me the same, that’s fine !
A louse is a louse is a louse, Close enough, In German, Norwegian and Dutch, While Romancers keeps it in-house, Close enough, From the Latin pedis, and such, While Slavs use a different nous, Close enough, With vusi – it doesn’t change much. So a louse is a louse, from West to East, And ev’rywhere the same. But a woodlouse, that’s a diff’rent beast – The bug with a thousand names… Roly-poly, cheesey wig, The sow bug, pill bug, backyard blimp – And dandy postman, parson’s pig, Or slater, cafner, carpet shrimp. And other tongues have a similar feast – Or so the pundits claim… But an insect louse ? That’s just a louse – They’re itchy, but they’re tame.
I have touched on woodlice before, and also eyelash lice. Their diversity of names reminds me somewhat of butterflies. Incidentally, though both ‘wood’ and ‘louse’ are present in Anglo-Saxon, they don’t seem to have been put together until 1611.
Some years will start out with a bang, In such a hurry to begin – While others wake-up with a tang, A few days late from lying-in. They can’t remember what they sang, They can’t remember how much gin – They never bounded, never sprang, With more a grimace than a grin.
And some years open with a vow Of trouble brewing, much mayhem, As worries knit our fevered brow, And gall is tasted in our phlegm. But on they came, they’re here now – Let’s not be too quick to condemn. I’m sure that we’ll survive, somehow – We’d best get on with living them.
Roman numerals – They’re so blooming useless ! Their continued presence Is really excuse-less. Clocks are okay, Cos we know by position, But years shouldn’t need Subtraction and addition. Just how could the Romans Be quite so bloody thick ?, With numbers unwieldy For plain arithmetic.
Don’t put them on buildings, Or credits in movies – You’re being a snob Who wants to ‘improve’ me. Well, maybe with sequels, But stop after III – They get so confusing With eye before vee. Just how could the Romans Be so damn unwise ?, With these numbers whose value Is unlinked to size.
This year is the best year that I’ve ever had, And last year, that year was the best year too, But this year is a better year than that, And next year will be such a ballyhoo ! Sure, there’s always bad stuff comes my way, But what’s the use of crying useless tears ? I guess there must be slow and washed-out days, But they’re always nestled in the sunny years. And if I tell myself each morning, Working up my derring-do With not a trace of snark or scorn, I maybe can convince me that it’s true. This year is the best year that I’ve ever had, For if it’s not, then I must make it so. I know, I know, it’s hard to shrug the bad, But bad or good, the years still come and go.
Rhyming Couplets 