| Info | Welcome to the Starman site, formerly Eclectica, probably the most variegated site you've come across so far! Here you will find links to a wide variety of interests that I have. Life is too short to devote your mind to one thing. I'm interested in Astronomy, Languages, Beethoven, Poetry, Football, Nature, Food and Wine, Folklore, Volcanoes, and many other things.
So why Starman? Several reasons - first, ever since the age of 5, I've been in love with the stars. I even developed my interest in languages through learning the Greek alphabet (used in astronomy)! Second, the film Starman is one of my all-time favourites, and Jeff Bridges is absolutely amazing. For one thing, it's a beautiful love story, plus when strangers ask me what I do, I can quite truthfully reply "I make maps..." Well, star charts at any rate. And re that song, I'd like to believe that there may be a Starman waiting in the sky.
The truth is, I fancy myself as a bit of a renaissance man with a very wide sweep of interests, ranging from Bagpuss through Literature and Languages to Astrophysics. (Non-British readers need to know that Bagpuss was a wonderful 'children's' TV programme during the 70's whose simple, very English, charm and lightly laid classical learning of pussmeister Oliver Postgate endeared it to many aesthetic types.)
In order to stop the page overflowing with eclecticism, however, I am keeping subjects to a manageable minimum, so the following is a current selection of options available from this page at the moment (June 2005).
Each one in turn carries links to other sites, of course.
Read a sample of the online Handbook of Binocular Astronomy before you buy the full version; discover more about the fascinating universe of unstable stars (and I don't mean Michael Jackson), known as Variable Stars; read my thoughts on the works of Professor J.R.R.Tolkien, and language generally; or for a quick sketch about yours truly and a trip around my observatory, hit the next button. Still on the astro front, delve deeper into astrophysical issues with a minimum of maths at HEA (High-Energy Astrophysics) which is the result of a week I spent in Hawaii a couple of years ago. It was an onerous task, but someone had to do it. |
