“In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree…” Kublai Khan is probably best known in the UK for the famous poetic fantasy by Coleridge. However the truth behind the legend of Kublai Khan is even more fantastic than the poem suggests.

Kublai Khan was a thirteenth century Mongolian prince who inherited the largest land empire in history from his grandfather, Genghis Khan – and doubled it! His empire reached from the Pacific to the Urals, from Siberia to Afghanistan – 60% of all Asia, one-fifth of the world’s inhabited land area. He was perhaps the most powerful man who ever lived.

I saw a shooting star tonight, which always cheers me up. I have seen more shooting stars than most people, because whenever it’s a clear night sky I’m always looking up, usually trying to pick out my favourite constellations. Seeing shooting stars is a byproduct of that, (along with a cricked neck)!

What are Shooting Stars? Well, the first thing that they ARE NOT is Stars! Stars are huge nuclear fusion furnaces like our Sun. Shooting Stars are normally just bits of dust entering our atmosphere.

The last album written by Roger Waters for Pink Floyd was ‘The Final Cut’. The title had a number of meanings, including the fact that Waters would leave the band after this album.

I have all Pink Floyd’s albums on vinyl, but unfortunately I no longer play vinyl records, which meant I had to replace them with CDs. (What a great thing new formats are for record companies, they keep reselling the same music, to the same customers, but in a different form)!

I have always been anti-TV. I love reading, so having a TV on in the room interferes with that. Whenever I watch a lot of TV, (more than an hour), I’m left with an empty, “what a waste of time” , feeling. I have never been able to put my finger on why I felt like this, until now.

The psychologist Oliver James has written a book called “Affluenza“, which is an analysis of the causes of depression in a materially affluent world. On page 284 he looks at the effect of TV;

Leamington Spa is a beautiful town with a lot of night life, however for too long it didn’t have a large capacity, live music venue. Groups were confined to local pubs that had the space and the enthusiasm to host a live band.

This has thankfully changed! For the past 12 months Leamington Spa has a brand new live music venue called the Assembly. Although the venue is new, the building is not – it’s a beautiful 1926 Art Deco construction that has been lovingly restored by its new owners.

The psychologist Oliver James looks at the modern world and tries to answer the conundrum;

“Why is it that despite the Western World being materially richer than it has ever been before, the middle classes are suffering from high rates of depression, anxiety, addiction and ennui?”

He examines the problem in different Capitalist cultures from the UK  and USA, to Denmark, Singapore, New Zealand and Russia.

Refreshingly he not only identifies the problem, he offers solutions for a cure on a personal level.  He also invokes a political manifesto at the end of the book, which he admits has not a hope in Hell of ever being implemented! 

Why are many new films so long? I ask this question as someone who remembers when going to the Cinema involved watching TWO films: The Main Feature and the ‘B’ film. The ‘B’ film was shown first as a ‘warm up’ to the main act.

This was followed by an intermission where ice creams and chocolates were sold. The cinema may also show some short cartoons and ‘Pathe News’ to keep the audience up to date with world events.

It was an entertaining evening which lasted around 3 hours, which meant each of the films was about 90 minutes long. Many, many films these days are 3 hours or even longer! Why is this?

“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Douglas Adams, the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

We all know the universe is big, the trouble is the human mind is not designed to appreciate the huge numbers involved. It’s why millions of people pay money to the National Lottery, despite the odds of winning a jackpot being 14 million to 1.

Last week the weather was atrocious, yet around 20 runners still turned up at the Edmondscote track for their weekly interval session.

That’s what I love about marathons – you HAVE TO do the training. You have no choice if you want a good result.

This makes decisions about weather conditions really easy – there is no decision to make! You know that you’re going to keep to the marathon training schedule, so there’s no “will I, won’t I?” dilemma.

For most of my coaching group the Thursday track meeting is their only speed session during the week.

There are two full moons this month. The first on Wednesday 2nd December and the second on New Years Eve. Normally there is only one full moon each calender month, but every two to three years, a second full moon occurs.

This is commonly known as a “blue moon” because of its rarity. On New Years Eve the moon won’t be blue, but it may have an orange or pink colour. This is due to a partial eclipse occurring between 6.52pm and 7.54pm. Light scattering through Earth’s shadow during this time will colour the affected region of the moon.