Category: that’s a bit mad

Project Anchor?

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Rhyming slang for this guy?

Oh dear. Where to begin?

Well, firstly – obviously – this is nonsense.
And secondly, Mark Farnell is clearly a complete and utter Project Anchor.

7 seconds without gravity would be bad, so it’s a good job that it’s simply not going to happen. That’s because NASA might do all that space and science stuff, but critically (for the purposes of this post, at least) they don’t control gravity. And even if you gave them $89 billion – which would be pretty noticeable, given that their total annual budget is about $24 billion – they still couldn’t control gravity.

Also, just because there’s no gravity for 7.3 seconds, doesn’t mean that “everything not secured will rise”. That’s not how physics works (which NASA also doesn’t control). People, vehicles and animals will just remain right where they are – on the floor. Newton told us this way back in the 1600s. Mark Farnell has had 350 years to learn elementary school science, and has failed.

As seconds pass, objects will float 15-20 metres into the air.

Again, no. Absolutely not. But now Mark is putting a (metric) figure on it. And so we can calculate that these objects are somehow allegedly accelerating upwards, at about 2.5ms-2 – so gravity hasn’t just stopped: it’s reversed. But it’s also apparently only reversed to about a quarter of the actual speed of real gravity.
No-one is going to slam into any ceiling. A gentle bump at best, and only if they were already moving that way when the “gravitational anomaly” takes place.

Which they weren’t, and which it won’t.

In fact, given just how horrific the effects of this incident sound, 40-60 million casualties – or just 0.6% of the world’s population – seems like a incredibly small number, given that half the planet will be upside down at that time and will surely just… fall off. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

Look, this is clearly nonsense, but hey – let’s park it and come back to it on August 12th 2026. I can just warn you again to be really careful at whatever you’re up to at 14:33 UTC (15:33 BST, 16:33 CAT), and then we can all laugh at Mark (again) at 14:34 UTC (15:34 BST, 16:34 CAT).

Oh, and hey: you can only begin to guess what the rest of his timeline is like…

Let’s do this again

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14 years on, and we haven’t learned a thing.

We’re supposed to be grown-ups. Adults. And yet, at 6pm this evening, we’ll head out onto the pitch for another potentially epic 5-a-side football game against some other supposed adults.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think – if you aren’t in Cape Town, that is, because if you are in Cape Town then you know very well that there’s something very wrong with it – because it’s rather warm out.

Really actually quite warm already.
Almost bordering on hot, one could argue.

And, as I alluded to above, there’s history here. And it really isn’t pretty.

It was horrible. One of the worst footballing experiences of my life. Within 2 minutes of running around, I was gasping, drenched through with sweat, and feeling dizzy and nauseous. These, even by Cape Town standards, were extreme conditions. The ball wasn’t even flying through the air properly. I felt truly awful.
Some sort of sense of self-preservation should probably have kicked in here. But it didn’t. And so, with a couple of breaks, we continued to toil for an hour. What utter, utter idiots.

We all (mostly) remember (some of) that day.
I think my therapist called it PTSD: Phenomenal Temperature, Stupid Decision.

And it’s already 6 degrees warmer today than it was back on that day in February 2012.

Common sense says that they call the games off this evening. At best, it’s going to be extremely unpleasant, at worst, it could actually be dangerous. But they probably won’t. And that being the case, common sense says that we should forfeit the game. But that’s absolutely not how we roll, and I grudgingly have to respect our determination. Even though we’re clearly being very daft here.

I really wouldn’t recommend such bravado though.
To coin Wilfred Owen:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro manus mori.

The game is still going ahead as I write this.

See you on the other side, I guess.
And yes, you can choose any meaning of that phrase that seems fit.

World’s gone mad.

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How is this a real image?

I know it’s couple of days old now, and that things move fast these days, especially in the case of this conflict. But it looks like something from a cartoon.

And yet it’s also tragic that there are kids inspecting this unexploded missile in a field in Syria.

Still, could be worse…

“Ahmed! Stop that right now!”

Careful now, Iran

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Incoming from the whirring newsreel on my second monitor this morning, this:

What? Threatening the stability of the Middle East? That absolute paragon of stability throughout my lifetime? The shining example of security, solidity and steadiness for the global population? The role model for how neighbouring nations should get on with each other in perfect harmony?

You, Sonny Iran, have got an attitude. You’d better buck your ideas up – you’d better buck them up sharpish. Or you will be out that door. Capeesh?

How very dare you threaten the stability of the Middle East?

Whatever next?

Someone threatening the unblemished integrity of Donald Trump?

It’s a slippery slope.

New hoodie?

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Looking for the perfect gift for a loved one with winter apparently on the way?

How about this hoodie featuring – almost – a well-known proverb about education and empowerment?

Think about it: every person who sees you in the mall or at the bar will have something – something deep – to consider for the rest of their day.

Or to a lifetime.