Super Blue Blood Lunar Eclipsopocalypse

The Moon Gibbon Folk are getting very excited about the Big Blue Supermoon Lunar Eclipse.

You know, in many ways, a Superblood Blue Moon Eclipse is a bit like Brexit. Nobody really understands it, and we won't be any better off after it. But that doesn't stop people mythologising it. Brexit has Jacob Rees Mogg. And we have a bunch of halfwits who think the Moon is going to be running with the blue blood of 1,000 Clangers, as they engage in a cosmic battle with a giant gibbon that is going to eat the moon.

Actually, though, the Moon Gibbon people have one thing going for them. At least they ain't Jacob Rees Mogg.

Now the Express can't let a good astronomical event go by without suggesting it is linked in some way to disasters or the end of the world.  With it being the first Blue Blood Super-Moon Eclipse Lunarpocalypse in over 100 years, they'd normally be declaring a state of Revelation at least, with Our Lady appearing in the heavens with a suspiciously EU-ish number of stars and the Dragon fighting the Gibbon while the Clangers are just so much collateral damage. And yes, we'll come to that.

Today they've also gone scientific, with the very calm, "May Cause Earthquakes." The headline tells us that there have already been two earthquakes today.  Which is scary really as Southern California alone normally runs at about 6 a day.

It's too damn quiet, Carruthers.

But to encourage us to quake with fear, the Express has the "self-styled Dutch earthquake predictor", Frank Makesitup, to tell us:

“whenever the three objects in our solar system lined up there was a significant earthquake anytime from the day before to one or two days afterwards”.

Let's say a significant earthquake is magnitude 6 or over. There are about 150 earthquakes of this magnitude a year. One just over every two days. So Frankie Boy is dead right. Whenever "the three objects" in our solar system line up (I guess there are only three) there is a significant earthquake over a four day period. And when those three bodies aren't lined up, the same. And those three  bodies line up twice a month, more or less, at new and full moon. The eclipses just need things to be slightly more accurate.

The thing is, the moon's gravity can affect the earth. After all, it makes the tides happen every day. Maybe there are more earthquakes when there's a big pull. I'll have to do the research. But when the Express tells us that there was a supermoon 8 days after a major earthquake - that weren't the supermoon. Not unless it were a time-travelling supermoon, able to operate at right angles, while not specially close to the earth.

Meanwhile in the world of self-styled prophets, the man who gave us the Killer Planet Nibiru - so we know we're on firm ground here - tells us that it will be the end of the world because today's big event coincides with an EU debate on Israel and Palestine.

Apparently the super blue blood moon lunar eclopalypse is God's judgement on a settlement in the Middle East. Which is odd. Let's break it down.

A blue moon is just a statistical occurence. The lunar cycle fits within a 31 day month, giving two full moons in a month occasionally. This is no more freaky than having 5 Sundays in a month, or 14 Sundays in a quarter. In fact, given that 5th Sundays are frequently the ones when rural benefices hold all-together services for multiple parishes in old village, they're actually a cause of far more supernatural fear than a mere blue moon. And more damage than the average lunar eclipse.

Lunar eclipses and supermoons happen on a regular, scientific basis. That's why we can predict them in advance. If they were signs of God's judgement, we'd know that the EU shouldn't be holding conventions on such days. Yet mysteriously they do. Or, to put it another way - before the Big Bang, when God was plotting the courses of the planets and stars, we are asked to believe, the date of an EU conference was important enough to affect the path of the moon. If God had gone to all that trouble, one might think, it would be simpler to just give Abraham a different stretch of land in the first place.

I recommend you read the Express piece on David Meade's warnings carefully. Not because it will tell you about the end of days. But for a laugh at its sheer scientific illiteracy, and poor writing. It tells us that the blue moon is actually white, then that it will be red. It also tells us we've not had a blue moon in over 150 years, when they occur every two or three.

And you know, no atheist can seriously claim religion is dead in this country while the Express exists. Its devotion to Diana and Maddie is akin to saints' cults. Its succession of forecasts of extreme weather and the world's end - never fulfilled -  show incredible dedication on the part of its readers.

The Daily Express is the Book of Jeremiah of our times. It's just that where Jeremiah was rejected because his message was so gloomy, the Express continues because it offers an endless succession of cosy apocalypses - promising the end of the world, but never delivering one.

So ignore the Express and the Gibbon Moon Folk. Get out and look at the moon. If there's a break in the clouds in the UK, it will be just slightly bigger. But no less beautiful a chunk of God's creation. If you're in the US, the eclipse is a wondrous thing to see. 

And if there's an earthquake don't blame me. I'm not saying there won't be one. What am I? A prophet?

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