The galactic image also reminded me of a little project I did a few years ago when I was freaking out about getting things done, so in a moment of mild insanity I did a life-span calendar, which helped me see that things didn’t really need to be rushed that much after all. A life-span calculator I once did reckoned I’d last until about 86 years old - so some time in 2059. Tick tock.

And I thought Google Earth was cool - what about Google Galaxy? An old colleague Nik Roope had this image on his blog which shows the scale of Earth compared to other stars in the solar system and galaxy.

It reminds me of some of the explanations in Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything, such as his comparsion of a year in time to a metre in distance: The 2nd World War ended 60m away, Jesus died 2km down the road, the first agriculture appears at 10km, Homo Sapiens emerged 300km away, Dinosaurs died out 60,000km away etc. etc. Mind boggle.

I stumbled across this and couldn’t resist posting it. It’s apparently a serious piece of art by sculptor Dan Edwards - supposedly celebrating some kind of pro-life agenda. I wonder if I can get one for our front lawn?

Less enticing is the artist’s gold plated rendition of Suri Cruise’s first poo. I thought life size sculptures of whacko celebs reached their pinnacle in the 80s with Jeff Koons’ Jacko & Bubbles. Apparently not…

I couldn’t kick this blog off without some surf content, so here’s a shot of a local break on the morning of BIG Sunday back in April. Aside from here, the only place holding the 15ft swell was an open ocean bombie for the tow-ins. This session was surprisingly fun despite the size and the bollocking a few guys got being caught inside. Plenty more nice shots to come…

After spending the year enjoying some of the best collection of music this side of New York, it’s time I gave a shout out to Dijon and his semi-erratic podcasts.

He’s put me on to a load of great tunes and artists this year including current favourite, Ulrich Schnauss. I just spent the day fixing up this blog and burning bandwith listening to a stream based on his name on Pandora. Killer stuff if you like things atmospheric and bleepy.

The tragedy of the year was the end of The Blue Room on BBC Radio 1 with Chris Coco and Rob Da Bank. End of an era…