The telephone call

The telephone call.

The steamer was working well so the wall paper was coming off in great long damp strips. I was determined to get the nursery ready before young James was born. Only I knew that he was a boy whose name was going to be James Henry so I had carefully chosen non gender specific paint colours, beige all over. As I peeled back one strip, I saw some writing on the old plaster slowly becoming exposed. It was a phone number.

            My curiosity got the better of me, as always, so I had to ring it. I didn’t get a chance to speak before a Scottish sounding voice said,

            ‘I told you five  years ago not to ring this number again unless you wanted another job, I guess you need the money as usual.’ Giving me no time to answer, it went on, ‘Ok then, I’ll send you the usual package by courier, you will get it tomorrow. The job must be completed in two days or your life will be forfeit’, the line went dead. I called it again because I couldn’t have heard right, could I? There was no answer. I couldn’t sleep that night for the worry and called the number again many times but no answer.

            The courier turned up early the next morning and got me to sign for a bulky, heavy, package. I went inside and opened it. There was a gun, a magazine with ten bullets, fifteen thousand pounds in used tenners and a photo of the house with the address written on the back.

            It was clear that I was now in the strange position of having to kill myself or someone would come and do it for me in two days time. My first two thoughts were, James was in danger and who had done this to me? Was it that ratbag of a boyfriend who had walked out on me when I told him I was pregnant? In fact I had kicked him out when he told me to get an abortion. How could I do that to my James? I insisted on staying in the house well, his house really, I thought he owed me that. I convinced him by mentioning that I might have chat about some of his less public activities to my brother who happed to be a police sergeant. Was this his way of ensuring that I kept quiet about his thieving?

            My third thought was that I hadn’t spoken to the Jock on the phone so he didn’t know who he was talking to but would have assumed it was his usual contractor who would have been the only person with that number. It was clear that the contractor would have only got the photo and address of the house and so would have killed whoever was there.

            A cunning plan was coming together in my mind. If I didn’t kill myself, and James, then a fall back contractor would come and kill whoever was in the house in two days time because he/her had failed to carry out the job. I rang Dave and sweet talked him into doing some decorating for me in a couple of days time. I had an ante natal appointment that day which probably last all day.

            I ended up with a gun, fifteen thousand pounds, a house for James and me, no ex. and a very pretty picture of the house to put on the wall in the nursery, over the phone number. Oh, and James’ nursery nearly decorated. All it cost me was a bit of scrubbing to get rid of the blood after the police had taken Dave’s body away. I had a perfect alibi, I was at the hospital being checked by the midwife.

            Seems like a good result from one phone call.

The fox nosed through the rubbish drifting against the scrubby hedge, lifting its head occasionally to sniff cautiously at the air

The fox nosed through the rubbish drifting against the scrubby hedge, lifting its head occasionally to sniff cautiously at the air. It was nervous here in unknown and therefore dangerous territory.

            It had been tempted here because of the plentiful food scraps that overflowed from the rubbish bins along the street and tumbled out of the split black bags dumped carelessly in the alleys along the backs of the many fast food establishments. That bounty would come later, after it had completed the search through the rubbish piled up like a snow drift against the windward side of the hedge. It was always better to wait until dark to enter the city as there were less people on the streets then and the pickings were richer. A half-eaten burger was better than chasing mice across frozen fields just for a small crunchy morsel

            It then saw the vixen sneaking up on its food source. While concentrating on this new threat it didn’t see the speeding Land Cruiser coming. There was a double splat as both foxes instantly died in the multiple collision. James braked hard, stopped and got out with Henry to see what he had hit in the twilight.

            ‘Two fully grown foxes’ he thought, ‘ this is a bonus’ as he slung both bodies in the back of the pick up.

            His next stop was of the Road Kill Café just down the road – strap line ‘ You flatten ‘em, we cook ‘em, no kill refused’. He knew they would take them. His confidence was shaken, they had a big stock in the freezer after that icy few days last week.

            ‘I’ll try the taxidermist next,’ he thought, so off he roared to the other end of town.

            ‘I could do them mounted for £426’ said the stuffing man.

            ‘How much for just shaking hands?’ asked James who thought this was a bit much.

            ‘Get lost’ he said, ‘I only do quality work’

            So James headed off to his last resort to make a few pounds out of his collision, he needed some cash to pay for the dent in the Toyota’s bumper.

            ‘I could make some very fashionable headwear from those furs ,’ offered the furrier in Aden street.

An agreement was reached between the two men and James drove off happy, knowing he could sell the headgear quite easily for a good price.

            Henry’s mobile went with that stupid ring tone he insisted on using.

            ‘What was that all about?’ asked James when the call finished.

            ‘I’ve got a job booked next week in Aughtermoody,’ said Henry.

            ‘Wear the fox hat?’ said James.

Some birthdays are better than others.

Some birthdays are better than others. This sounds like one of those statements that comes under Sybil Faulty’s specialist subject, stating the bleeding obvious but I think the difficulty comes in quantifying the degree of betterness.

            To help you come to some understanding of what I mean, I will quote you a couple of examples.

            My 94^th birthday in 2011 was sort of ok, I had just completed an Open University course called Start writing fiction, I had got an acceptable mark for the first assignment and had sent in what I would describe as my masterwork for the final course assignment. In my terms, this means that I had hopes of just clearing the 40% bar to earn a pass for the course and so gain 10 points towards my Open degree that lay on the far horizon, like your ship that never comes in. I had been working towards this degree for three years and it seemed as far away as ever. Would I live long enough to limp up those three steps to accept that scroll of imitation parchment in an academic black robe, mortar board optional, I had done the research. Apparently it is acceptable to leave the Zimmer at the foot of the steps and imitate an F1 pit stop and change to elbow crutches before starting the accent.

            Now, by contrast, my 158^th birthday in 2075 was a lot better. I still hadn’t completed enough modules and earned enough points for a degree of course but I had passed A 215, Creative writing and A369 Advanced Creative writing so I was now qualified to write to the reader’s letters pages of The Sun. These letters, of course, are all fiction and so excellent practice as recommended by my Tutor – even though they never did see fit to print any of mine. The good news was that, the Thursday before my birthday, I had my novel accepted for publication by Hudder and Staunton. You will no doubt have read it by now so I don’t need to tell you the title. It was a phenomenal worldwide success, having sold some 13 copies in the USA alone. I am, of course, in discussions with the publishers about the amount of the advance for research etc. for my second novel, as soon as they return my calls that is. They are probably very busy dealing with the marketing, merchandising and film rights for my first masterpiece.

             I’ll just try calling them again……..

I was satisfied with my lot in life, right up until that dreadful moment when she said,

I was satisfied with my lot in life, right up until that dreadful moment when she said,

            ‘We have lost three landing slots at Heathrow so will be needing fewer pilots. As one of the oldest, we have decided to let you go in the first group’

            She was the HR Director for LOT Polish Airlines and had been given intructions to get rid of seven pilots.

            I had many years of flying experience so I thought getting another pilot’s position would be simple. I replied to an advert for pilots from British Airways in Flight magazine and they sent me a sheaf of forms to fill in. This was going well until I came to the section called academic qualifications and there, staring at me, were about three acres of gleaming white paper with me having nothing to put in there. I knew this meant I didn’t have a chance with BA. I had been flying with LOT for many years and had started before qualifications were a requirement – if you could fly well, you were in. I had to get some qualifications.

            There was only one thing to do, start studying with the Open University. I went to see the friendly folk at the regional centre in Bristol the next time I passed through and they suggested I start with a level 1 course to get me into the idea of learning at home, but which course?

            I have long had an interest in the arts and humanities so decided to try a twelve week course called Rabbit snaring and street betting. This went very well except my tutor was a little elusive, especially on evenings with no moon but he gave me some good tips and the winnings paid for the course. The snaring part of the module convinced me of the truth that the meek shall inherit the earth, but only the patch they are buried in and taught me to be more ruthless in advancing my goals. I also managed to get some credits approved from my time at the university of life although there were some raised eyebrows over some of the subjects I put forward, Hang gliding and restaurent management and Bungee jumping with quantum physics were easily approved of course.

            I got a good pass on this first course, which encouraged me to press on with the OU so, here I am, signed up for A215 Creative writing and raring to go.

            Next time you are passing through Warsaw, look me up and we can have a chat about our OU experiences. If I am not at home, I may be flying the plane you are booked on.

The decade that style forgot.

The decade that style forgot.

It wasn’t going well. The courtroom was hot, he could feel the sweat running down his sides and he had to keep wiping his forehead which he knew gave the impression that he was under a lot of stress, which he was. There was another hour before the normal daily finishing time of 4 o’clock and even the judge looked bored and sleepy.

            He was suing the Red Star shipping line for negligence because he had broken his left leg on a cruise on the Mediterranean Princess. He had slipped on the wet upper deck when he took a walk during some rough weather near the Messina Straits. He enjoyed the exhilaration of walking on a tilting deck with the spray hitting his face as the ship burrowed into a wave, the the wind whipping the spray high into the air.

            His solicitor had taken him through the story of the accident and in the process had the jury in tears. Now Peter had to face the cross examination from the lawyer who was representing the shipping line. He was totally different to Peter’s solicitor. He was very smartly dressed and had that healthy corn-fed look that you only see on successful lawyers and hospital consultants. His shirts were obviously from Asher and Turnbull and his suit had never seen the ‘George’ rail in Marx and Sparx. Peter’s solicitor would never take silk, he would be lucky if he took tweed and had a rumpolled air about him as if he was just coping with the job he was doing but it was all getting a little beyond him on a bad day, like this.

            ‘So Mr Stile, did you not hear the Captain’s announcement on the ship’s loudspeaker system at, I believe 1322 on that Friday, advising all passengers who wished to walk on the upper deck to use extreme caution and make full use of the handrails fitted for their safety?’

            ‘Yes, I did,’admitted Peter intimidated by the immaculately suited and booted lawyer..

            ‘And did you retain a strong hold on the handrails provided by my client for your safety during your perambulations?’

            ‘Err no,’ he stuttered

            ‘And why not, may I ask?’

            ‘I didn’t remember, I suppose.’

            ‘”You, didn’t remember, I suppose”, ‘ the barrister repeated, ‘and because of this lapse of memory we are all assembled in this stifling courtroom to hear how you came to break your leg.  And, furthermore, you are asking my client to pay for this event when in fact it was caused by the deck aid that Stile forgot.’

            ‘Case dismissed’ said the judge.

The end of the world - part 1

The end of the world - part 1

Some birthdays are better than others. He had just bought his wife a brand new Japanese dishwasher so this was going to be one of her best.

            Professor Peter Papadopoulos Niccolo Machiavelli, Dave to his friends, was a pretty simple and straight forward sort of guy so he was shocked when he discovered the extent and deviousness of the Japanese plot.

            He had gone through the usual academic mill, BSc in Chemical Engineering followed by a Masters in applied creative writing, then he took a three year PhD. His thesis was, ‘ Events that could either cause the end of the world or annoy a couple of people for a few days,’ He had come up with some better titles – ‘It was the best of times and it was the worst of times’ but apparently this had already been used by some sociology student. His second choice was ‘It was the start of times’ but this had been claimed by Adam’s ghost-writer at Eden Publishing . ‘The end of Times’ had been challenged by a daily paper so he was left with the title above which he thought really flowed off the tongue and had a majestic note of authority.

            His next task was to list all the possible threats and dangers that could mean the end of the world – not the end of the world as we know it but the end of the world, full stop. These potential hazards included;-

·         Half of an island falling into the Atlantic and causing a huge tsunami that would destroy most of the Eastern seaboard of the Americas.

·         A massive meteorite strike a big as the one that destroyed the dinosaurs; and a few cockroaches but no one ever worries about them.

·         Human destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, making the Earth unable to support human life

·         Global warming which destroys the crop growing capacity of the Earth

·         A full stop

and

• Dishwashers

Yes, I know you probably think this is ridiculous; how could an island break in half and then fall into the sea? Much more likely is the dishwasher theory.

It goes something like this.

            You will know that the Japanese people tend to be somewhat vertically challenged. ( Please never call a Japanese man an oriental dwarf as ‘OD’ translates into Japanese as slimy tapeworm – which is hardly complimentary, you must agree. )

This has never been liked much by the Japanese people who look up to the Northern Europeans – they don’t have much choice really do they? – except of course when they are bowing or drinking tea on the floor.

Dr Arigato Origami was commissioned by the Japanese government to research into the cause of this height disparity and what could be done about it. After eleven years work at the University of Hari San ( Now, come on, I wouldn’t be that obvious would I? )  in Northern Honshoe  he came up with an explanation.

            Did you know that Japanese always rinse their dishes after washing them up while Europeans never do? Ari had discovered that it was the daily ingestion of tiny amounts of detergent that made the Europeans grow taller. It is too technical to go into it in much depth here but it has to do with the electro-gravitic tension between cells. This had to be stopped! He suggested that the Government in Tokyo should issue daily detergent pills but this was seen as unlikely to succeed – would you take a daily Daz tablet if the government asked you to? Exactly. Ari had to come up with a different solution so he invented dishwashers and started selling them to the gullible Europeans. ( Did you know that there was no such word as ‘gullible’ in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1873? ). The genius of this plan was that, not only did the Japanese make a lot of money selling the machines, but the dishes were rinsed by the machines so stopping the Europeans taking their daily dose of detergent. The machines could not be sold in Japan, for obvious reasons.

            There was a problem – it was the law of unintended consequences. This says that; Any well intentioned action will come back and bite you on the ankle – or something like that anyway.

            The sequence goes something like this; Europeans stop eating detergent, no detergent going down the drain to the sewage plant, no detergent going into the rivers, no detergent sprayed onto farmland via irrigation. No detergent going into the sea. If the European people stopped growing, what do you think happened to fish, crops, farm animals? Exactly, no food! Well there would always be sushi but who can live on that? This was not discovered until it was too late to start manufacturing detergent again, all the plants had been converted to dishwasher production.

            That famous phrase by Ted Eliot from his poem The Hollow Men sums it up really, ‘The end of the world came not with a bang but with a pre wash, hot soapy wash, rinse and dry.’

The gathering storm

It came closer and closer and it became evident it wasn't going to stop. It had started out near the Bahamas as a freshening breeze. As it tracked across the Atlantic it gathered energy from the warm Gulf Stream, picking up the evaporated moisture to form the increasing cloud layer. The Coriolis effect started to spin it so, by the time it had started tracking up the Western Approaches and passed Wolf Rock , it was a full on Atlantic depression with gale force winds swirling around the placid centre.

            Out of habit, he tapped the barometer. It didn’t like it as it was suffering from a bad case of aneroids but co-operated enough to show a rapidly dropping air pressure. He knew from his thirty years experience at sea that this meant bad weather. He was an old sea dog, from labrador, and understood these things. He waited, a long paws, and then jumped up, putting them on the peloris to check the heading.

            ‘Slow down a bit’ he ordered the helmsman, we’ll just poodle along for a while and ride out the storm. Left hand down a bit and head into the waves so we don’t get so much of a pounding.’

His first mate was out on the foc’stle swinging the lead.

            ‘Get back on the bridge,’ said the captain, ‘it’s not time for walkies yet, and put your lead away’

            The collie obeyed, putting down his sack of nutty slack.

            ‘I’ll just go and have a cat nap while things are quiet.’

‘OK,’ agreed the captain but make sure you are back here on time for the first dog watch’ He tuned the radio away from Terry Wogan as it was time for the shipping forecast.

            ‘Sole, Portland, Plymouth, Fastnet, gale force 8, increasing severe gale force 9, storm force 10 later, precipitation in sight, good’ intoned Donald Peteresen.

            ‘Nothing good about that,’  said Rover on the bridge wing, the old joke that the captain had heard so many times before.

            ‘You had better reel the kites in now, I know they save us a lot of fuel but we won’t be able to control them in the gathering storm.’ advised Churchill, ‘we’ll fight them on the beeches, Oh Yes, we’ll fight them……..

            ‘Yes, we have all heard that one, two,’ said three of the bridge team at the same time before bidding two hearts.

            ‘Who’s lead is it?’ asked Scotty.

            ‘It’s mine,’ complained the Staffy from Glasgow.

            ‘Well you should have put it away when the captain told you,’whined Scotty, who had missed his walk today and so hadn’t seaweed. He still had  some of the symptoms of bladderwrack and trumped loudly.

            ‘My trick’ he yelled.

That was the end of the rubber, the storm had abated, the sea was calm, the aspirins had cured the depression and the clouds parted to allow a sun beam to strike the bridge.

            ‘I thought we had finished with cards’ complained Scotty.

            ‘Shut up and deal’ barked the bridge team

On the beech

All was well in my world; the kettle was gurgling, a pristine packet of choccy biccies nestled in my hand and the opening theme of 'Loose Women' wafted in from the sitting room where a comfortable chair awaited my ample bottom. 

            There is a saying that ‘Pride goeth before a fall’ and this proved to be true in my case. I prefer the english version, ‘Pride goethe before the Autumn’ which is easier to understand except for the German poetry. I had built my tree house in Sussex, in Beech Avenue, those two magnificent lines of trees planted in 1787 by the Duke of Wayne just to the North of the South Downs, on the scarp slope of the chalk below Devil’s Dyke. The trees prospered and grew well over the years, benefitting from the calcareous soils and the water from the chalk, bursting out along the spring line above the clay.

            Losing my job because of cut backs was the trigger to change my lifestyle. I had worked in the banjo factory for twenty-three years. I was on the production line, responsible for a team of bridge builders, a very responsible job. You may not be a fan of the banjo but if you think they sound bad when in good tune then you should perhaps go and hear one that has its bridge positioned slightly too far south of the string null point. Sorry to be a little technical but it is important. The banjo company was losing sails so could only afford to produce three string banjos and motor boats. Two people were let go at the same time, myself and George Stradivari who was quite good at his job, for an Italian, but his banjos just didn’t seem to last, after three hundred years they were nearly worn out.

            I thought about what I should do with the rest of my life and decided to go for an alternative lifestyle so I got a simple job for 26 weeks of the year, polishing pebbles, and decided to live like Leonardo DiCaprio the rest of the time, on the beech. I started building my house in a tree with strong branches to support the weight but it was high summer and I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Because of this my tree was on the edge of the avenue and fully exposed to the wind. I didn’t think it was a problem because the tree had been there for two hundred years.

            I was quite happy there and proud of my cosy tree house that summer snug in my bed under the Sussex Downs duvet with the kettle heating on the wood burner stove in the corner. You may remember that year, 1987, the autumn was late and so leaves stayed on the trees for too long. That famous gale came in the early autumn and destroyed many thousands of tree over the country, and Mr Fish’s career, he ended up on the beech as well. Sussex was especially badly hit, the shallow rooted trees of Beech Avenue suffered terribly, at least half of the trees were blown over – including mine. The kettle was just on boiling as I planned to have a cup of tea with the choccy biccys. The tree went over, the kettle emptied onto my chest, scalding me badly, the stove set light to the tree, burning my left leg. I landed on the pebbles and ended up with a bad attack of shingle. The loose woman didn’t fare much better either but, as she lived upstairs, that is another story.

            Life really is a beech sometimes but no longer for me. I went back to the banjo factory and begged for a job in the cat gut department – I worked there peacefully, stringing it out until I retired.

As told to the author by Oswald Formby

Love growing at the garden centre

Love growing at the garden centre

The petals, once glorious in scent and hue, were now blackened and shrivelled so he ruthlessly snipped them the decaying flowers off with his second hand secateurs,  carefully gathering the flower heads up before adding them to the compost bin to continue their journey through the endless cycle of death and life, bringing succour to a new generation of flowers next season.

            The roses were always one of the best sellers in his garden centre so it was unusual to see some bushes still here until they needed pruning to bring them back to their former beauty. He knew that leaving the old petals there would result in the strength of the plant going into producting hips instead of new flowers.

            He thought this was a metaphor for his friendship with Ruth, who was the head cashier. She was not really what is usually considered a beauty but Kevin could see her inner beauty shining out when she talked about her love for the plants that she sold every day. She thought of herself as an adoption agency because they had been nurtured from cuttings in the garden centre until they grew to adulthood, ready to be found a good home with a kind family. She would refuse to sell a plant to customers if they did not meet with her approval, it was easy to find an excuse. Perhaps hint at greenfly infestation ot mention a possibility of an infectious mould. That was usually enough to protect one of her precious plants from a sad and abusive future.

            She liked Kevin but kept her distance because he was her boss and she didn’t want her colleagues at the centre to think she was trying to take advantage of their friendship to advance her career. She didn’t realise that they all wished they would get together for they were clearly made for each other with their mutual love of plants and flowers, each lusting after growing strong, healthy plants in the fertile,nutricious soil.

            There was a query on a price for the japanese maples so Ruth went to find Kevin until she tracked him down at the compost area and asked him about the right price.

            ‘Whatever price you think is right is fine with me, Ruth,’ he said. ‘You know I trust you completely’

Ruth blushed a little and thought how lovely he was, how he took care of the roses, even when they were blacked and dying. She went back to the till and sold the maples at a premium, they were too beautiful to be allowed to go cheaply.

            She day dreamed of Kevin working at the compost and became determined that she would be the good home that he would go to. What was good enough for the plants was certainly good enough for Kevin.

            She got one of her assistants to stand in for her and went to find him again.

            ‘I don’t want our friendship to schrivel and die like those rose petals,’ she said, ‘ I want us to nurture it so that it flourishes and perhaps grows into love’ She blushed again when he said,

            ‘Yes, no compost bin for us.’

They joined hands and walked off into their growing future together in the garden centre.

The damage was done

The damage was done.

The damage was done, there was no going back, the arrow of time only runs in one direction and entropy will increase until the inevitable heat death of the universe. If you don’t believe this, try removing all the honey you just stirred into your morning bowl of porridge or check with Brian Cox.

The question had been asked and it stood there in the room like a grey pachyderm with a leg at each corner slowly coiling and uncoiling its prehensile nose. It could not be ignored and demanded answers.

‘Why are there black gaps between the stars, Dad?’

Son was kneeling on the cushioned window seat looking up at the stars blinking like light shining through holes in the dark satin sheet of the night sky.

            ‘It’s because some stars are so faint we cannot see them and others are so far away we cannot see them either’ answered Dad.

            ‘How far away are they?’

            ‘Many light years’

‘What’s a light year?’

‘It’s a very long distance’

‘Longer than the road to Granny’s house?’

‘Yes’

            ‘Why can’t we see the ones that are a long way away?’

            ‘Because there is a limit to how faint a star can be before we cannot see it’

            ‘Whats a limit?’

‘It’s like a fence, it lets you go so far and no further’

            ‘Why?’ said Son.

Dad pretended an exasperated sigh as he tossed his latest copy of “Embalmer’s Weekly” carelessly onto the floor and gave his full attention to Son. He knew all about the Three Wise Men but still had problems dealing with a ten “whys” 8 year old.

            ‘I think the best thing is that I tell you the full story’, said Dad. ‘Come over here and sit on the sofa next to me and I’ll explain it all’

Son knew this was the prelude to one of Dad’s “I know everything and look how clever I am” sagas but the truth was that Son liked these evenings on the sofa with his hero Dad’s arm around him, he felt safe and loved.

Mum was in the next room, struggling with her latest TMA which would cut off  in 2 days.

            ‘A long time ago, a man called Barney wanted to move a rock but it was too heavy. He then found that if he poked the end of a branch under one corner and put a small rock under the branch, he could easily lift the rock off the ground. Barney had invented a first order lever. He still could not move the rock, however so he found a bigger branch and got his mate Rocky to put the big branch under the rock while he lifted it with his lever. They could now push it along but is was a hard, slow job because the rock was big and heavy.

He went down the trail to see his neighbour Dobbin, who had been trying to make bigger, stronger horses by selectively breeding them, and asked if he could borrow two of his biggest, latest specimens.

‘Neigh problem’ said Dobbin, ‘I’ll bring them up to you. So they tied the horses to the rock, levered it up, placed branches under and off they rolled. Problem! How to steer it? They cut the rollers short and put them around the outside. They had invented wheels and were really on a roll now.

Next problem was that the trail was very narrow so they had to have the horses as close together as possible and the rollers, which by now had developed into proper wheels were set at the same width – which turned out to be 4 foot 8.5 inches. This width can still be seen in the grooves cut by chariot wheels in Pompey.

‘When were there chariots in Portsmouth, Dad?’ asked Son

‘I spelt it wrong Son,’ said Dad, ‘it should have been Pompeii’

‘This gauge width has been adopted through history, for cart tracks and eventually railways – apar from the Reckless Engineer of course. This limits the width of loads that can be carried on railways so the main mirror for the Hubble telescope had to be designed down to this size. The light gathering potential of a telescope is limited by the surface area of its mirror and so limits how far away stars can be seen.’

            ‘So you see Son, it is the genius of Barney and Dobbin all those years ago that decided how far away we can see stars in the universe’ ’said Dad triumphantly, as he turned to look down at his sleeping Son.