Moons and women in the news!

We travelled back from Newcastle through a gloriously crisp and sunny afternoon, arriving in Oldham finally about five minutes too late for a bus to Delph. Faced with a wait of almost an hour for the next one, we opted for a taxi.

As we walked to the taxi rank we were impressed by the size and clarity of the moon. This led to an unresolved discussion about whether or not the moon is full this evening. Is it full? Is it nearly full? Is it just past full? I have no idea. I have not heard any werewolves howling though!

Since then I have read that there will be a total eclipse of the moon tonight. The newspaper tells me: “An unusual set of circumstances will combine in the early hours of Monday morning in the skies above the northern hemisphere, resulting in a phenomenon called a super blood wolf moon. A total lunar eclipse will give an apparent reddish colour to the lunar surface – known as a blood moon. At the same time, the moon will be slighty closer to Earth than normal and appear slightly bigger and brighter than usual – a phenomenon called a supermoon. In January, the full moon is also sometimes known as the wolf moon or great spirit moon – hence the super blood wolf moon.”

There you go.

The best time to view it is supposed to be between about 4.40am and about 6.45am. No doubt by then the cloud will have moved it as it usually does around here whenever there is an interesting phenomenon to see in the sky, odd-coloured moons, comets, or whatever.

So I do not think I will be setting an alarm to view it.

Women’s views and actions have figured in stuff I have picked up on in the news today.

First of all the woman whose wrist was broken in the car crash involving the Duke of Edinburg has been expressing her sadness that she has not received an apology from his highness. ““I love the royals but I’ve been ignored and rejected and I’m in a lot of pain,” the mother of two from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, said. “It would mean the world to me if Prince Philip said sorry but I have no idea if he’s sorry at all. What would it have taken for him and the Queen to send me a card and a bunch of flowers?” She said she had only had a cryptic message passed on via a police family liaison officer, which said: “The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh would like to be remembered to you.” L

I wonder if she would expect such a level of apologising from a member of the ordinary public who was involved in a crash with her. Is there maybe a certain amount of jumping on bandwagons and snatching fifteen minutes of fame going on here? And perhaps Buck House feels that actually apologising in so many words might seem like an admission of culpability. Heaven forbid such a thing!

On the other side of the Atlantic four women have been found guilty of entering a national wildlife refuge without a permit in an attempt to leave food and water in the Arizona desert for migrants. They are volunteers for an organisation called No More Deaths. This is said to be the first conviction agains humanitarian aid volunteers in more than a decade. Interestingly the judge concerned is called Bernardo Velasco, someone who nay have forgotten his own immigrant origins by the sound of things.

And finally, I have been thinking that it was about time I got myself organised to see one or both of the two films involving stories about British queens which have been so much talked about in recent weeks: The Favourite with Olivia Colman and Mary Queen of Scots with Saiorse Ronan. Both come highly recommended by people whose opinions I value.

Then I came across this post, on Facebook, of course:

“Gorgeous girly eve last night watching Mary Queen of Scots. Brilliant acting from the two lead females but the rest of the film same old.”

And it gets my goat a little when women have to so super-feminist that they can only praise the female leads and not accept that the film has to work as a whole.

However, I reserve judgement until I have actually seen the film. That’s all.