SUNSPOTS AND APOSTROPHES

the sun in happier times

It's another quiet Saturday. The Intrepids are chatting about prescriptions and the new conservatory and going to Swanage and whatever else needs to be talked about (apparently). There's tea and leftover chocolates and Classic FM. I'm doing some reading.

Scientists think the sun might be falling asleep. For the last three hundred years or so, it's been quite predictable, our lovely clockwork star: every eleven years, it bursts with solar flares and sunspots - sometimes thousands of which are peppered across its fiery surface.

Sunspots are 'cold' patches on the sun's outer surface which are formed by magnetic flux. They're a bit like the eddies or whirlpools you sometimes see in water. They are a great way to measure solar activity... and at the moment, there aren't any. In fact, since 2004, sunspots have been gradually disappearing.

I don't think we should be massively worried. The sun isn't about to blink out like a giant lightbulb. It's not ready to swell up like an enormous balloon either, as most stars do when they reach the end of the Hertzsprung-Russell chart. Nope. This kind of thing has happened before. Notably in the Seventeenth Century, during the Maunder Minimum.

"It's 11.3 out there," said my Dad, looking at the remote thermometer. The sensor's perched on the windowsill of the conservatory, measuring the ambient temperature as the plaster dries. Apparently, double figures is a good thing. "What it is outside is another matter."

We talk about the weather a lot; especially in this house. When it snows we don't hear the end of it. My Dad has gadgets measuring all sorts of statistics and odd weather seems to light him up.

Weather itself of course, is driven by the sun's activity (in a complicated balance) - which is why this sunspot problem could have some surprising results. The Maunder Minimum of the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Centuries for example, corresponded to the Little Ice Age, which threw most of Europe into decades of cold, long winters. Professor Lockwood of Reading University thinks there's a 20% chance this could happen again.

I had a quick look round for my winter gloves.

-

Not only are sunspots disappearing; apostrophes are on the way out too apparently! I just heard on the radio that Cambridge Council are abolishing apostrophes on street signs! What a bunch of jokers - in the seat of learning as well: the hub of academia and one of the world's oldest University Cities.

Astonishingly, the national guidelines for new street names suggest that apostrophes might 'lead to mistakes - particularly for emergency services'. I don't understand. It's incorrect - that in itself, is a mistake. Alright, it's not a life-threatening mistake, but it's still wrong. And anyway, what kind of mistakes are they envisaging?

"St Peter's Close, Jim."

"You what?"

"St Peter's Close."

"Where?"

"Up the King's Avenue."

"What's he doing there?"

"Who?"

"St Peter!"

"Just drive."

It says something about me I think, that I'm more worried about this than I am about the disturbing lack of sunspots. The trouble is, if apostrophes start disappearing, people everywhere will start asking what the point of these curious little punctuation marks are at all. And then where will we be? The hipster apostropherminators won't stop at lasering out the possessives. Soon the contractive apostrophe will be lined up in their crosshairs - and not just on street signs. We'll have to cope with typing: Thisll be fun LOL. and Dont worry about me Ill be fine. Shudder.

"Why bother with them at all? " they'll chime in some focus group, pushing their Google Glasses up the bridges of their trendy noses. "We all get confused with the pesky its and it's don't we? Stuff it - let's get rid of that nonsense. And what the flip is the comma for, while we're at it? The comma? Pft! We don't need that old thing. Yeah! It's the revolution, man! Get with it, you squares."

I'm with the squares. Bring on the ice age.