Blue, Grey, Dark

I've not posted for a few weeks. It's not because I've done nothing - I've done lots, just none of it interesting for this blog although that wouldn't normally stop me posting it. I've enjoyed some Football matches home and away, I've been down to that there London for a fantastic long weekend that included seeing the Moulin Rouge! musical and some historical structures that I've not been arsed to go to before, been out for drinks and meals, and I've been out to see to Light Up Leicester festival. But I've been feeling massively despondent about a lot of things. I can't believe we still have the same Government; I can't believe how far we are all being screwed over whilst energy and oil companies turn over stupid profits, and I can't believe that our 'response' to Putin is so lame (and don't get me wrong: I mean the slow pace of muted sanctions and the reticence to open up to refugees).

If I'm really honest with myself; I'm normally quite a resilient bloke, healthily cynical of a lot of things, but just lately I feel a bit defeated. We are spiralling to hell in a handcart on all fronts, yet my Twitter feed seems full of arguments with, reference to and blatant support of complete fucking arseholes. I should just ignore social media, but tucked in and around all the nonsense are pieces about things I am interested in. I could just try to mentally and technically start blocking out the shite, but then I'm just being a bit Ostrich about it all. My go-to respite would normally be getting out and looking at something but weather, fatigue and a lack of energy is holding me back. I just need to shake myself down and force myself out.

I ran the garden moth trap for the first time in a while on Thursday night and ended up with a decent number and range of early season moths, albeit nothing exciting or unexpected except perhaps this Grey Shoulder-knot ....

Far from annual here, with the last being in November 2018.

I also found a box of desiccated Daggers, Minors and Common/Lesser Common Rustics that I put aside in June/July last year and then forgot about. I had a quick go at one (no intention of properly setting, just need to see the relevant bits to ID) - Dark Dagger. This is definitely annual here, but given that I don't check them normally I can't prove it. The last time I checked the bits of anything here myself was back in 2013.

" ... difference between a small nuclear explosion and a large one by a very simple method; the calling card of a nuclear bomb is the blinding flash that is far more dazzling than any light on earth. Brighter even than the sun itself. And it is by the duration of this flash that we are able to determine the size of the weapon. After the flash a fireball can be seen to rise sucking up under it the debris, dust and living things around the area of the explosion. And as this ascends, it soon becomes recognizable as the familiar mushroom cloud. As a demonstration of the flash duration test, let's try and count the number of seconds for the flash emitted by a very small bomb, then a more substantial medium sized bomb, and finally one of our very powerful high yield bombs ...."