The Sun is wearing out

Computer generated-image of The Sun and its gigantic hole scaled down to fit on the screen. The real Sun is much bigger, even though it looks quite small in the sky.

Today I learned the Sun has got a hole in it bigger than Jupiter. That reminds me of my socks. I have rather long big toes, which point to a direct link to the ape family. Probably more recent than my ancestors would probably like to admit. Luckily they’re all dead. Not lucky for them, of course, but lucky for me, as it’s a secret, and they can’t tell anyone about the close encounter that may have brought this physical anomaly about anymore.

Well, it was a secret right up until I revealed my suspicion on this blog. Now everybody knows. I should’ve thought about that before.

Anyway, what I’m really I’m worried about this hole in the sun. Holes in anything normally lead to misfortune. A lifetime of holes in the pockets of my trousers has led to all sorts of misfortunes from a fortune lost in loose change to trails of screwed up paper handkerchiefs all over the place, which I tend to blame on Angelica half the time, to conform with our committed intention of sharing everything. I don’t see why that shouldn’t extend to blame.

Scientists have assured us that the hole in the Sun no big deal. Well, scientists, or boffins, as I prefer to call them, have assured us of lots of things before, like smoking cigarettes is good for your throat, for instance. Some boffins even used to recommend lying out in the hot sun all day was a tonic better than laundanum, a tincture composed of opium and alcohol invented by boffins to which most of the middle class population of Victorian England  became addicted. Even in the late 20th century there were boffins who still believed hooking the brains of mental patients to machinery that delivered powerful electric currents directly into the brain would cure them. It’s the the sort of idea people shouldn’t put in my head. All my life I’ve fought the temptation to stuff my fingers into electric sockets, to stop the electricity getting out.

I seem to have meandered away from the point here, which was? Ah yes, the sun has a hole in it the size of Jupiter. The problem with holes is that they grow, if nothing is done about them. I once had a lovely pullover, my Aunty Betty knitted me, bless her cotton socks, which a moth made a bit of a snack of one day. Stupidly, I did nothing about it, on account of there being no wool about of the right shade and me not being able to darn even if there had been. Needless to say, the hole grew until there was more hole than pullover. This was partly due to the fact all pullovers start out with four holes in them. You wouldn’t be able to get them on if they didn’t, stupid. But my hand kept on trying to get through the fifth one, the moth hole, which eventually made it so big I could. From that day on the hole just kept growing until I ended up with just bit of yarn to tie round my chest. I loved that pullover right to the very end.

Anyway, to get back to the Sun. I don’t trust the idea of a sun with a hole in it, especially a big hole. My long experience with holes leads me to know that you never know what might come out of them. We only have to look at our own bodies to understand that. We have quite few holes when you think about it, and that’s not counting the ones we gain by accident, or design, as we plod through life .

Without going into too much detail, usually we know what comes out of our own holes, but we can’t say the same for the Sun. Thinking about that, you’d expect what comes out of our bodies to bear some relation to what we put into them. Obviously not, if we examine the scientific evidence. Normally, most of the stuff coming out my body is pretty disgusting compared to the lovely stuff I put in. So  maybe the stuff we put in pushes out the stuff that’s already there. The stuff we’re made of.

As far as I my preliminary examinations show, to judge by all the snot, earwax, spit, pus, vomit and other more unmentionable stuffs we constantly leak, we’re actually composed of the most vile substances imaginable. I certainly can’t remember eating any of the stuff that comes out. Except for the peas and bits of carrot which always seem to be in vomit, even when I haven’t eaten them. To give an example, I never eat earwax. Having licked a little finger with the stuff on by mistake once, I’ve avoided it ever since. Well, I did once try putting my tongue in a girlfriend’s ear, and hers tasted just as revolting. And then there’s the disgusting language that comes out of some people’s mouths, but we won’t talk about that.

So, about his hole in the Sun. If it’s one of those black ones, there’s little doubt it’ll soon be so big it’ll suck us all in. And believe me, I know what that’s like. I once put my palm over the hole in the pipe to the vacuum cleaner, in an experiment I was conducting, and my whole body would’ve got sucked in if my Uncle Reg hadn’t had the presence of mind to pull the plug out just in time.

If you haven’t got the picture yet, holes are bad news. Holes in the garden mean moles, holes in your skirting boards mean mice, holes in your furniture mean termites and woodworm, I could go on and on, so I will. Holes in your fences mean neighbours peeking through, and fluffy, little, bunny rabbits eating your vegetables at night. They’re not so lovely and fluffy then, are they? Extra holes in your body, if you haven’t been pierced, mean you’ve probably been shot, and should seek medical assistance immediately. Holes in your cheese, may mean you’re either eating Emmental, or your mice have come out of the holes in your skirting boards.

So, to get back on track, what have the boffins got planned for this hole the size of Jupiter in the Sun? Apart from tell us it’s fine? Well, I have a solution. If it’s as big as Jupiter, surely the best idea would be to work out how we can plug it with Jupiter. And that’s just a simple case of getting all the rockets in the world to get behind it and start pushing it in the general direction of the Sun. Gravity will do the rest. That’s if  it’ s downhill from Jupiter, of course. Let’s hope it is.

Next week, I’d like to talk about Wednesdays. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Angelica and I have noticed they keep on going missing. I have a theory it’s something to do with the crisis and austerity measures. Anybody who has another explanation is invited to put it forward.

Copyright © 2014 Bryan Hemming