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2026

The Samuel Pepys of the OSS...

In front of Lancaster castleZendexor on 72nd birthday, 20 Jan 2026, in front of even older castle, plus incongruously modern van.

2026 January 20th:

THE POWER OF BLANK

Here's a riddle for you: what is the connection between Lancaster Castle and the fictional Solar System? 
    You may suspect that I'm just going to make the vague point that all big things are linked; that the sort of person who likes reading history will also have a big enough imagination to like to rove in the immensities of fictional space.   
    All that is true enough, but isn't quite what I have in mind to talk about today.
    I'm serious about the riddle.  Can you connect a medieval castle and the OSS?
    Read on...
    Today I attained the age of 72, and my wife Mary took me out to our local historic town for an expenses-paid browse amongst Astronomy magazines and books, before our return home for a special meal.  It's always pleasant to visit Lancaster, only a few miles by train or bus from our home in Heysham, and this time as we took the train we passed the Castle on our way from the station to the town centre.
    Lancaster Castle is medieval, but lacks the drama of a violent medieval history (unless you count executions), though later it was attacked more than once in the 1640s during the Civil War.  Its record therefore doesn't match that of Carlisle Castle 66 miles to the north, which can boast of having repelled an attack by Robert the Bruce in person in 1315.  Mostly, I suspect, Lancaster was too strong to acquire such renown; enemies took a look at it and decided not to bother... 
    Might we even conclude that a really impregnable, totally effective castle would have no history at all?  It would keep the peace and protect the people, allowing authors to live in safe conditions where they could create their own histories... 
    And what about an empty-of-life Solar System?  Need we grumble, as I often do, about how it has failed to live up to fiction?  Or - 
    Could we say that its blankness is all the more effective as an imagination-trap, like fly-paper, attracting an infinity of ideas by that very barrenness which invites authors to fill it?

Solar System Heritage