I forgot my phone charger for the conference I went to last week.

If this was just a year ago then I would barely have noticed. Mostly because my trusty old Nokia that I had then would have lasted long enough (I mean, the conference was only 2 friggin days long), but also because now, I rely on my phone for everything. Not just making phone calls (which I routinely forget it can do) but reading feeds, checking Twitter, facebook, but most importantly, checking my email.

Well, the upshot of this was that when I finally turned my phone on after being bereft of it for a sunny couple of days, I was presented with a glut of emails saying that people had been commenting on my blog.

"To her who appears in the sky
    to her who appears in the sky
I want to address my greeting
    to the hierodule who appears in the sky
I want to address my greeting
    to the great queen of heaven, Inanna [ancient Sumerian name for Venus]
I want to address my greeting
    to her who fills the sky with her pure blaze
    to the luminous one
    to Inanna
        as bright as the sun
    to the great queen of heaven."

An ancient Sumerian hymn to Venus, written by priests

Every 6 months or so these days it feels like we find the earliest animal life. More often than not, said life is something ugly that turns up in a bucket after dissolving rocks in acid.

Well, it's been a while, but here is the latest candidate: