Virtual Methodist

To follow on from the nuclear timelapse video on Friday, here's another one (or rather two for the price of one). Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, suggested last Wednesday that the Euro-zone was "tearing itself apart." This timelapse shows that Europe hasn't been a particularly stable place politically over the past 1000 years... It is interesting that two of the most unstable areas historically have been the Balkans (nothing new there then) and interestingly, up until the mid 19th century, Germany and northern Italy. Take a look at both the shorter video (with the scary music) and the longer one, with much more information...  Cheers

I was going to include this in tomorrow's Saturday Supplement, but it deserves a post of its own, especially given that it is over 14 minutes long... But please don't let that put you off. I thought I'd put it on the blog because, rightly or wrongly I still see my fb posts as somewhat ephemeral... But if this picture is taken to its logical conclusion all human life on earth might be somewhat ephemeral... What follows is a time-lapse representation  of every nuclear explosion on earth between 1945 and 1998... As Simon Conway, who I stole it from, wrote on fb, it starts slowly but hots up... It is by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto, with the citizens of Japan being the only people to know first hand the dreadful reality of nuclear warfare. I was astounded by the sheer numbers (and in particular the number initiated by France - you can see why Greenpeace and they fell out!) I also wonder, has it slowed down any since 1998. Shalom