Plumbing the Depths

Continuing the theme of piss poor names… Rumour has it that in Fort William, Scotland, they decided to build a new medical centre. It was to be a lovely building, a monument to medical care, a veritable surgical shrine. Naturally enough, the council decided that the erection of such an edifice should not pass unnoticed and so they organised a competition to come up with a name for the building.

So what was the winning entry? Yup, after much debate and soul searching they opted for the whimsical, yet romantic “Fort William Medical Centre” - Robbie Burns eat ya heart out!

Now I dare say you can blame the judges for this astonishing lack of imagination but the fact remains that somewhere in the Fort William area there was at least one person who thought that a brilliantly innovative name for a medical centre in Fort William was the “Fort William Medical Centre”, in fact they thought this was such a great idea that they actually went to the bother of entering it into the competition!

From this we can deduce that either Fort William suffers from incredibly long, cold, dark, winter nights or that most of the competition entrants were Astronomers.

A total lack of any and all imagination is a prerequisite for a career in astronomy; this is a plain and simple fact. Astronomers build a very large telescope in the Atacama desert in Chile. Is it called the “Atacama”? Is it called “The Big Chill”? Nope, it’s called “The Very Large Telescope” and when this sounds too exciting and imaginative, they have a calming cup of camomile and call it the “VLT” instead.

They build a load of telescopes in an array which has a very long baseline between them. It’s enourmous, it’s huge, it’s the biggest yet. Now what are you going to call this? An array of telescopes with a very long baseline… Mmm. Let’s have a ponder… What about “Magnus 1”? Or maybe “The Super Scope”? “Gargantua”? “Stargazer”?

Nope, they call it the “Very Long Base Line Array” or, when they are feeling particularly risqué, the “VLBA”.

Ar, but what about the Hubble Telescope, I hear you ask. Well, I will bet large sums of money (not my own money you understand, but lots and lots of someone else’s money) that the Hubble telescope was called the “Large Space Telescope” by every astronomer who worked on it and was only named “Hubble” when the politicians got involved towards the end.

So are astronomers born without an imagination or do they have it surgically removed when they decide to pursue a star gazing career? I believe it is the latter and I firmly believe it is caused by Astrologers.

An astronomer is a highly educated scientist who has dedicated his/her life to resolving the deepest mysteries of the universe, whilst an Astrologer… isn’t. I would bet money (and much of it mine this time) that every Astronomer has been to a party and endured the following conversation:

Britney: “Hi, you’re Greg yes? Great party eh. So what do you do for a living?”

Greg:     “I’m an astronomer.”

Britney: “Oh Wow! I’m a Piscean. Where and when will I to find Mr Right?”

Greg:     “Not here and not now!”

Gritted teeth must be another feature of Astronomers: you dedicate your life to science and 90% of the people you meet want you to read their tea leaves!

As a result the astronomer learns to distance him/herself from anything that looks or sounds vaguely like astrology. If you want to see how quickly someone can be kicked out of an Observatory just look through the telescope and say “Wow! Look at those stars! They’re in the shape of a cow!”

When an astronomer finds a new star she has to fight her natural urges: it’s beautiful, it’s fantastic, it’s crying out to be called “Bethlehem” or “Decorus Astrum” but no! She takes a deep breath, picks up her pen and writes down the new name… “2455678945”

Of course early astronomers had no such restrictions, in fact the ancient names of the constellations is categorical proof, if proof were needed, that Class A drugs have been around for quite some time. On a clear night I can just about see how Orion could be a bloke with a belt but as for the rest of them!

Ancient astronomer 1: “Wow! Look at those shtars!”

Ancient astronomer 2: “Hic! Yer, those shtars over there look like a.. whatyacallit… little thing.. jumps alot..”

Ancient astronomer 1: “Hic.. A flea?”

Ancient astronomer 2:” Nar.. Hic.. fluffy little thing.”

Ancient astronomer 1:”Rabbit?”

Ancient astronomer 2:”Yer thatsh the one. A Rabbit. Thosh shtars look jusht like a wabbit”

Ancient astronomer 1: “Hic, nar.. it’sh a bull”

Ancient astronomer 2:”A bull? Give over!Hic!”

Ancient astronomer 1:”Yer a bull, look ya can shee it’s ‘ead and itsh horns.”

Ancient astronomer 2:”Hic! Bollocksh.”

Ancient astronomer 1:” Nar, thatsh itsh other horn.”

Ancient astronomer 2:”I can’t shee it!”

Ancient astronomer 1:”No? ‘Ere take a puff of thish.”

Ancient astronomer 2:”Oh wow! Yesh itsh a bull And look over there! Thatsh an Aadvark with a moushtash!.”

Ancient astronomer 1:”??? Give ush back that shmoke!”