Signals! From Space!

Apologies For Adding In Egregious Exclamation Marks
I just wanted to get your attention.  Is that so wrong?  
     Morality aside, let us get to the meat of the matter, which is an interesting sidebar on the Beeb website, about Lesser Sneddlepool's chances in the Carabao Cup signals from space.  Which are just that: signals coming from space.  Art?

Space.

     Their technical astronomical name - hey, another charter criterion hit! - is "Fast Radio Bursts" because they show up as a signal for thousandths of a second and then vanish, mostly never to reappear again.  Mostly.
     The big question, of course, is what's generating these numerous brief signals, and the Beeb canvassed scientific opinion on the matter, coming up with a number of theories, any one of which might be correct, most of which involve neutron stars.  A neutron star is what's left after some stars above a certain mass "die", and are incredibly strange objects composed of neutronium.  A bit like a 'zombie star' if you like - and hey, another charter criterion tick box filled!
  Let us look at these 5 theories in turn.
     1)  Neutron star sitting in a strong magnetic field.  This one is a good fit for the "What" although astronomers have no clue about the "How".  Try harder, astronomers!  Art?

A Star Is Killed

     2)  Whammo-Blammo!  Though this is probably not what astronomers dub the event when two neutron stars collide, destroying each other completely and generating a single massive burst of energy.  However, this theory doesn't work for those pesky repeating signals.

CAUTION!  Keep your distance

   3)  A "Blitzar".  This sounds like something Conrad would make up, except it's a real astronomical term, for a neutron star collapsing into a black hole.  Another event that releases boatloads of energy, except it can only happen once, so - those pesky repeat signals again!

"Twinkle, twinkle, little blitzar, how I wonder - O hang on, I know already.  Silly me!"

    4)   A black hole doing something nefarious and inscrutable.  Black holes, it seems, are the stock answer if there's any kind of mysterious phenomenon abroad in the universe.  Gamma ray bursts?  Black holes.  Planetary nebulae?  Black holes.  Dark matter?  Black holes.  Matching sock gone missing?  Destroyed by miniature black hole.

"It was worsted cotton with  -  hey, there it is!"

     5)  ALIENS!  Of course you knew this one was going to crop* up.  As for black holes in the galaxy at large, so it is with aliens on Earth.  Let me just quote at length from the scientist being interviewed:

"Dr Stairs sees this as highly unlikely.

"They come from all over the sky pretty much and many different distances - they must be associated with many different galaxies," she told Newsday on BBC World Service.

"It just seems completely inconceivable that there could be that many different alien civilisations all deciding to produce the same kind of signal in the same way - that just seems highly improbable."

     You'll notice the hedging and prevarication there:  "highly unlikely", "inconceivable", "highly improbable".  What Doctor Stairs does NOT say is "Impossible".
     One to ponder on, eh?

Sabotage!
Dog Buns - I let Edna up on to my lap, so that she could see there was no food left on the table.  She's a staunch skeptic and requires evidential proof of any assertion your humble scribe makes.  Now she has settled on my lap, which gives her enough height to be able to see over the garden fence.  Currently she's giving a warning growl to the "A + B Drain Services".  It makes for very awkward typing.  Art?

Less dog in the manger than on my lap.

     I know what you're thinking - "Why don't you just push her off?"
     Obviously, because - er - <thinks> Look!  A flying saucer!

Give Thanks For Jonathan Banks
You may not be familiar with that name, yet you surely know his face.  Ol' Jon has gained a measure of fame thanks to being in something called "Better Call Saul", which is apparently an offshoot of something else called "Beaking Bad", about killer ducks or something.  Art?

Hmmm. I don't think he likes being called "Ol' Jon", does he?

     Okay, Ol' J - Jonathan has been acting since the year dot, which goes back to the early Eighties, and I remember him from "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension", where he is merely credited as "Lizardo Hospital Guard".  Art?

Ol' Jon - er - Jonathan rashly unplugs Doctor Lizardo's infernal device.

     This is way back at the beginning of his career, yet it established a trend that has lasted for decades, in that he gets killed.  Art?

See?

     He says it himself on IMDB: "I've died a lot of times!"  Well, he must do it with verve and style, because he's not stopped working since then.  So, the next time you see him on television or at the cinema, or on that bargain-bin DVD you got, you are now informed about who he is and don't have to resort to "Hey it's that guy - you know, that guy -"

Proof That Hom. Sap. Will Wipe Itself Out
Really, here are two bits of advice that one would never expect to have to deliver, except people can be surpassingly dense.
     1)  "Do not lie on a bomb".  A Dutch chap uncovered a bomb in his back garden.  He covered it with sand to reduce any detonation - quick tip, use sandbags, they work much better - at which point it started to whistle.  He promptly lay atop the pile of sand whilst calling Explosive Ordnance Disposal on his mobile.  Their advice on finding him was to keep well clear of bombs in future, not play cuddling games with them.

CAUTION!  Not comfy.

     2)  "Do not drive whilst blindfolded": because a 17 year-old South Canadian did, in some kind of weird meme-driven prank associated with a film where Sandra Bullock's character lives her life blindfolded ("Bird Box").  The teenager crashed into another car - to nobody's surprise but her own.

- unless it's a self-driving car.  That's okay.

     Now to earn countless brownie points by walking Edna!


*  Do you see what - O you do.