While outbreaks of terrorism, the aerial bombing of civilians, the deaths of some much-loved celebrities, and the general political and economic malaise dominated the news and caused 2016 to be miserable for many, Seradata Space Intelligence did find some amusement to cheer us up during the year.
For example, the UK’s Ordnance Survey office announced that it had produced a new map for Mars, presumably in case anyone wanted to go rambling on the planet. Seradata suggested this sign for the map to mark the spot where any former or prospective US Presidents might make a landing if they ever wished to:
With respect to his own “spire”, Donald Trump, riposted in March to an insinuation made by his Republican rival Marco Rubio: “He referred to my hands, if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee it.”
Now President-elect Trump is, of course, a humble man. As he said himself on a TV interview in July: “I think I am, actually humble. I think I’m much more humble than you would understand.” Quite.
Not to be outdone, the UK’s new foreign secretary Boris Johnson (and brother of the UK’s science and space minister, Jo) made his own gaffe by writing a rude ditty about Turkey’s dictatorial leader, President Erdogan, in which he managed to rhyme Ankara with wa*kerer (a Johnson made-up word). Worse was that Johnson’s insulting piece also alluded to Erdogan consorting with a goat.
Earlier in the year, we reminded readers that the US Navy’s new stealth destroyer (actually more the size of a cruiser), USS Zumwalt, might be even more “space age” than we thought: its new captain is one Captain James Kirk.
In January, we pointed out that space embezzlers might do well to keep a low profile. This was after a man accused of defrauding money from the construction of the Vostochny launch base, in Eastern Russia, got caught driving his less-than-subtle diamond-encrusted Mercedes Benz.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, the 99-year-old much-married Hungarian-born Hollywood actress and socialite, sadly passed away in December – and passes on her own ideas about diamonds:
“I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.” she once said.
She also liked housekeeping:
“I am a marvellous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.”
With respect to real space events – or rather on-pad failures – we jested that a hunting rifle might be involved in the explosion of his SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Elon Musk took the suggestion seriously and noted, like us, that there would be many suspects even if it was not actually a rifle shot that was responsible. A line used by Kenneth Williams when playing Julius Caesar in Carry on Cleo might have been a better quote for him: “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it infamy!”
Mind you, as Elon Musk announced his plan to go to Mars, at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico (albeit wavering over whether he wanted to be first there), some women in the audience were apparently keen to have his baby. As the sadly departed comedienne, Caroline Aherne, might have put it: “Just what attracts them to the billionaire Elon Musk?”
While political correctness sometimes goes mad, at least overt sexism and racism have thankfully become much less common as each year passes – albeit with the exception of US President-elect Donald Trump and certain trigger-happy US police forces.
Sadly, however, these original forms of discrimination have been joined by others including prejudices about body mass, or even accent.
Your correspondent almost made the mistake of the latter when he initially ignored the excellent presentation by scouse (Liverpool) accented Jack-James Marlow on his rocket engine vortex cooling research, at this years RISpace (Reinventing Space) conference in London. This writer’s only excuse is that German accents tend to be more traditional amongst rocket scientists.
Having said all that, there is, of course, one case where accent-ism is acceptable: over the amusingly disastrous cockney accent of Dick Van Dyke as Bert, the jack-of-all-trades chimney sweep, in the 1964 Disney movie Mary Poppins. Cor blimey Mary Poppins…chimn, chimn…cheroo and all that.
And the bad news is that Dick Van Dyke is to star in a Disney sequel to the original film, which will be released in 2018. But before Donald Trump pushes the button to start a nuclear war just to prevent Dick from opening his mouth, actually the good news is that Dick is to play a different part. For, in addition to Bert, in the original film he also played an old banker (no cockney rhyming slang joke intended here), and the 91-year-old veteran actor will be playing an old banker again…thankfully without a “mockney” accent.
By the way, jesters have suggested several rude titles for this new movie including Mary Poppins 2 – Mary takes it up the chimney, but thankfully the new film will actually be called Mary Poppins Returns. A more wholesome and simpler title and one that writer P.L. Travers, the prim and proper originator of Mary Poppins, would no doubt have preferred.
A Happy and Humorous New Year to you all. Let us hope we can survive it.
