RIP Calvin, The Canadian King of Coolness

 I was very upset over the weekend to hear that my old bloggin' buddy, Calvin Heighton, had sadly passed away. Cal was, of course, the long-time curator of Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool, a monumental storehouse of pop culture goodness, featuring Cal's pithy observations and deep, abiding interests in dozens of esoteric subjects. Cal was a man who had opinions and arguments to spare - sometimes seemingly curmudgeonly and irascible, but with a heart as wide as the Canadian wilderness beneath the crusty ( and luxuriously bearded ) surface. The Cave of Cool was a constant source of entertainment and certainly one of my early inspirations in the world of blogging. He was also a great friend to this humble blog and was always very encouraging to my feeble efforts in this field.

Cal was, among many other things, a lover of felines, and his signature Cat Captions were always off-the-wall and hilarious. He very kindly added a few captions to some of our family's cat photos, a favourite being the one above from 2015 of our Jasper reclining in a very odd way on Sophie's bed. ( Her teenage comment was "Why is my cat being seductive?" )

Cal artwork by MD ( Mike ) Jackson

Sadly, about a year ago, the man who had seemed to be permanently posting something somewhere on the internet, dropped off the radar. The longer his silence continued, the more people became concerned. Although Cal had many, many friends in the virtual world, his own life was apparently a lonely one, and the sad passing of his mother must have only made things worse. We all feared the worst, enquiries were made, but The Cave of Cool appeared to have gone silent.

A few days ago, fellow blogger and Cal's comrade in their Balloon Juice podcast, MD Jackson, told us the sad news that Cal had passed away after a battle with the dreaded cancer. Mike said he'd reached out to the staff in the hospice where Cal spent his last weeks, and they'd passed on the well wishes and love from his legions of followers and admirers. We can only hope this gave him some comfort at the end. There's also a lovely obituary to Cal by fellow blogger Tim Knight here

So, farewell big man, farewell my Canadian brother - keep fighting the good fight in Valhalla!

And I'll finish with some words from the great man himself:

Calvin's Canadian Cave Of Cool Manifesto

I forever stand vigilant to protect this planet from the myriad of forces that are always against us. Be it the octopus, zombies, aliens or the robots my team of human agents, and our feline allies, circle the globe in a never ending struggle for human freedom.

Save Jodrell Bank - all you need is Lovell

 

Back in March, on our way back from Manchester and the incredible David Byrne gig, Sarah and I stopped at the Jodrell Bank observatory. This was a place we'd long wanted to visit, and this trip gave us the opportunity as it was only 40 minutes from Manchester, and in the right direction.

We spent a hugely enjoyable few hours wandering around the UNESCO World Heritage Site in the lovely Spring sunshine, marvelling at the awe-inspiring sight of the gargantuan Lovell telescope, and soaking up all the information we could process from the fascinating visitor centre, and from a live science demonstration. We really enjoyed our time there and made tentative plans to return later in the year.

But ( you knew I was leading up to a "but" didn't you? ) recent news has revealed that funding for the site is being cut. The UK Research and Innovation agency, which funds Jodrell Bank among many other projects, wants to save the annual £2.8 million cost of the facility, which will put the jobs of the staff at risk, as well as the work of an estimated 3000 scientists who depend on the site for their research. And, of course, the closure of Jodrell Bank would be a huge blow to the international scientific community and a sad loss of a historic facility. £2.8 million doesn't sound a lot to find in a country like the UK - considering there's always money to be found for building weapons or funding police to arrest pensioners for peaceful protests - but, as usual, anything that isn't seen as instantly profitable gets dumped at the first opportunity. Many people have spoken out about these "hasty and ill-considered" cuts ( to quote Professor Brian Cox ) and, hopefully, bringing this sad state of affairs to the public's attention will help in the search for new funding.

If anyone would like to further help with highlighting this issue, there's a petition from those wonderful people at 38 Degrees which you can sign here, and which will hopefully help the situation.

Cheers! The cosmos will thank you.