Continued from the previous post at SE18 Shooters Hill....
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| Shooters Hill |
“Its you” she said.
She spoke so softly I could barely hear her. She was wore
dark red lipstick, and a blue mascara. Her blond hair fell across her
shoulders, which I thought strange as it must have bothered her as she cycled.
I reasoned that she may have been going out somewhere. Maybe she was going to
meet the same person I was looking for, the mysterious man I'd met at Lesnes
Abbey. I took a moment to compose myself. I wanted answers to so many things.
Was the 2007 fire on the Cutty Sark really an accident?
Who was the mysterious man I'd met at Lesnes Abbey?
Why didn't he meet me in East Street like he'd said he
would?
Had he written the letter she'd given me, warning me off my
investigations? If not, who had?
And how do I enable the 'add comments' section on my blog,
so I can find out if anyone is actually reading this stuff?
The lady on the bike was my only hope of finally solving
this mystery. But how to get her to talk?
She slowly stepped off of her bike and carefully laid it on
the ground.
"What do you want?" She said.
Now stood upright, and only a little shorter then I, she
seemed extremely calm about me confronting her. But despite her poker face, something in my gut was telling
me that she was just as frightened as I was, and that, like me, she too was
nothing more than a lost fly trapped in another's sinister web. Somehow I needed to find some way of winning her trust and getting her to talk to me. And to do that was going to take all my charm,
skill, and cunning. I held out my hand for her to shake, and offered up my most
reassuring smile.
"Let me introduce myself, I'm..."
But I never got the chance to finish, because on seeing my
extended arm, she grabbed my wrist with one hand, gripped just above my elbow
with the other, and threw me across her shoulder, and high into the air. After
travelling a surprisingly long distance, I eventually came down and hit the
pavement. My back took most of the force, but I must have hit my head too
because I lost consciousness for a moment or two. When I came round she was
standing over me. Her blond hair was wild beneath her cycle helmet. Her red
lips curled up in a snarl, and her green eyes filled with rage. She looked
absolutely terrifying. She lent down, pointed her finger at me and said just
two words.
"Back off"
After she'd cycled away, I lay on the pavement outside the
Bull for a while and reflected on how things
hadn't gone quite as well as I'd hoped. I then took a moment to consider what my next move
should be. After half an hour, or so, I decided that the best thing to do, was
go and get a drink. I dragged myself to my feet, and hobbled down Shooters Hill,
to find a bus into Lee Green. In next to no time I was on Burnt Ash Hill SE18,
and walking through the doors of the local Weatherspoons.
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| The Edmund Halley in Lee |
It had been years since I'd last drank here, and I wasn't
sure what to order. I did a quick scan of the bar, and saw that the two most
popular drinks were pints of larger, and jugs of Woo Woo. So I ordered a couple
of those. My back was killing me from the body slam I'd taken, so I downed
my jug of Woo Woo to help ease the pain, and slowly hobbled outside to find
somewhere to sit down, enjoy the sunshine, and the view of Sainsbury's car park.
I came to this pub for a very special reason, and it's not
the Woo Woo, or the view, or even the reasonably priced Porn Star Martinis. I
came here because this pub is named after one of the greatest scientists
whoever lived; Edmund Halley.
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| Edmund Halley |
Little is known of Edmund Halley’s privet life. It’s thought
he was born in 1656, at a time when England had no monarch, and Oliver Cromwell
was Lord Protector. He had a wife and two children, his father was a successful
soap maker, but lost everything in the great fire of London in 1666.
Despite losing all his money, Edmund's dad still insisted on
having him privately educated. Probably in hope that he would grow up really
cleaver, and invent a fire proof soap.Sadly for his dad, young Edmund was not destined to invent scented
hand washes, and advanced formula hair products; his future lay in the study of the galaxy!
Aged 17 he joined Oxford University, where he impressed
everyone with his book smarts, and caught the eye of the legendary Royal
Astronomer, John Flamsteed. Flamsteed took Edmund under his wing, and allowed him to
help with his work, which at that time was mapping all the stars in the
Northern Hemisphere. Edmund liked the work so much, that he decided to jack in
his studies, and sail off to the South Atlantic island of St Helena, so he
could do the same in the Southern Hemisphere, and in doing so invented what
later became known as 'a gap year.'
During his time in St Helena, Halley mapped the longitudes
and latitudes of 341 stars, downed 1204 shots, crashed 3 mopeds, had a picture
taken of him which looked like he was holding up a mountain, and slept with dozens
of women (although no actual evidence can be found for the last boast).
When Halley returned to England he was a famous man, and
Oxford Uni said he could have his degree anyway, just because they all thought
he was so great, but this big love-in for Halley seemed to put Flamsteed’s nose
out of joint. When asked by a journalist for Astronomers Weekly to comment on
Halley’s work, he would only say that he found Halley’s Southern Hemisphere
stars to be, “A little flashy for his tastes, but okay if you like that
sort of thing.”
A little dissapointed, Halley responded in the next week’s
addition of A.W. by saying that, “Stars are supposed to be flashy,” and that he found Flamsteed’s
Northern Stars, “A little dull.”
The next week Flamsteed gave another interview to A.W. explaining
that, “His stars weren’t dull” it was just that, “His stars had to work harder than Halley’s stupid southern
stars to shine, as the northern sky is a little less dark than the southern
sky, due to it being closer to the sun.”
The week after that Halley told A.W. that Flamsteed was, “Talking out of his arse,” and that not only did his southern stars work just as hard
as Flamsteed’s, but that Halley’s stars had to brighten the night sky, while also
being, “Upside down.”
The argument caused a feud between the two men, that would
last the rest of their lives. Even after Flamsteed died, and Halley took over
from him as Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory, Flamsteed’s wife had
all of his instruments removed and sold, so that Halley wouldn’t be able to use
them.
Pissing off the world’s most powerful astronomer would have put
most people off a career in star gazing, but not Halley. He travelled the world
mapping the stars, and trying to unlock the secretes of the universe. He sailed the
seas to study the mysteries of the magnetic poles, and built diving bells to
explore the bottom of the River Thames, to prove his theories of atmospheric
pressure. His work changed the way we see the world.
In 1705 Halley put on a magic show at the Royal Observatory.
It got off to a poor start when he failed to correctly guess which card the Lord
Mayor – who was sitting in the front row – had pulled from his deck of cards. But
he quickly recovered by pulling a bunch of flowers out of his shirt sleeve, and
presenting them to the Mayor’s lovely wife. Halley then pulled a rabbit out of
his hat, sawed one of his assistants in half, and made a small red ball disappear
in his hand, only to make it to reappear again behind the Mayor’s wife’s ear.
He finished his show by predicting the return of a comet, saying…
"In the year
1456 … a Comet was seen passing Retrograde between the Earth and the sun… Hence
I dare venture to foretell, that it will return again in the year 1758.”
It had not been the big show stopper he’d hoped for, but never
the less, everyone agreed it had still been a lovely evening.
53 years later when the comet returned as Halley had
predicted, the people were amazed, and greater still, when the Mayor of London
observed the passing comet through the giant telescope at the Royal Observatory
in Greenwich, he could quite clearly see his playing card, the 3 of Clubs, on
the comets surface. The comet has been known as Halley’s Comet, ever since.
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| St Margaret's Church |
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| St Margaret's Church Entrance |
When Halley died, he was buried in St Margaret’s Church in Lee.
It was my intention to end this blog by visiting his grave but, sadly, I’m far
too drunk on larger and Woo Woo to stand up.
Halley was a great man, not because he was a genius, but
because he had the courage to follow his dreams, and because there was no
problem he was afraid to tackle, however complicated or mysterious. If I’m to
get to the bottom of my own mystery, then I must be as courageous as he was. I
will start by having another jug of Woo Woo, and then tomorrow; my work begins!
Till next time people, keep on exploring.
