Summer Solstice and John The Baptist

(...) The June solstice marks the first day of the summer season in the northern hemisphere. The word solstice is from the Latin word “solstitium”, meaning “sun-stopping”, because the point at which the sun appears to rise and set stops and reverses direction after this day. On this day, the sun does not rise precisely in the east, but rises to the north of east and sets to the north of west allowing it to be in the sky for a longer period of time. In the southern hemisphere, the June solstice is known as the shortest day of the year. It is when the sun has reached its furthest point from the equator and marks the first day of winter. (...)
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/june-solstice.html

There's Nobody Left On Mars

Like all the planets in our solar system, Earth and Mars orbit the sun. But Earth is closer to the sun, and therefore races along its orbit more quickly. Earth makes two trips around the sun in about the same amount of time that Mars takes to make one trip. So sometimes the two planets are on opposite sides of the sun, very far apart, and other times, Earth catches up with its neighbor and passes relatively close to it. (...)
http://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/nightsky/nightsky03/

http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/interactives/billionpixel/?image=PIA16918&view=pano
http://mars.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/nightsky/

LAC (Michael Davies)

https://soundcloud.com/lacmusic

These are songs for disaffected teenagers, shouted out with mallet-flying subtlety by a bunch of blokes who appear to have stepped out of a remake of Scum, that movie where a young Ray Winstone plays an apprentice hardnut and gets to sample the accommodation at Her Majesty's pleasure.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/10/lac

SMITH Challenges CHRISTMAS (= Ferrer Vs Nadal)

In case you don't know, in Catalan,  'Ferrer' means 'Smith' and 'Nadal' means 'Christmas'. Let's jingle bells then for both players.

Nadal - Djokovic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jun/07/rafael-nadal-novak-djokovic-french-open

TOM SHARPE DIED YESTERDAY.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6nmYL5vhAE&feature=share&list=PL0877EBCA616D9547
The featured series I have posted, Blott on the Landscape was adapted by BBC TV in 1985 and broadcast in six episodes of 50 minutes each. It was scripted by Malcolm Bradbury. They are worth seeing. Take your time.

Sharpe, who was born in London in 1928, died in the coastal town of Llafranc in north-eastern Spain on Thursday.

Scabrous, savage, scatological, writer of high force and low farce, creator and inflator of wayward condoms and threatening sex dolls: Tom Sharpe was the master of situations that couldn't possibly get any more embarrassing, sensitive or tricky, but did. Sharpe was never one for holding back, as his first novel, Riotous Assembly, featuring, among much else, apartheid, an elephant gun, murder, incompetent policemen and interracial lesbianism, triumphantly demonstrated. (...)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/06/tom-sharpe-savage-sense-fun

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22795507
http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2013/06/06/actualidad/1370504260_091037.html