Gerards crossed

I've realised there are two different actors:

• Gerard Murphy (Radio 4 LotR narrator, Silver Nemesis)
• Gerard McDermott (numerous Radio 4 roles including a great George Wilson in The Great Gatsby)

Up to now I've been confusing them as freely as I once did Rebecca Front and Rebecca Stevens.

I mention this because G. McDermott was recently in the wonderful Seance on a Wet Afternoon on R4. I know we're in the twilight of the gods as far as public broadcasting is going in Britain, but full marks to Radio 4 - more specifically Radio Scotland - for still being able to come up with the goods.

Schism of the week: Scouting

No surprise to find that the Scout Association has a splinter group, the 'Baden-Powell Scouts' Association' which fell out with the main movement after the 1967 reforms where some of the Kipling iconography, and all of the explicit Edwardian paternalism, were ditched.

Camelopardalis

Finally managed to see the conventional lines of Camelopardalis tonight - usually I can manage to find alpha and beta, but the fainter stars that make the 'legs' of the giraffe are invisible.

Fortunately tonight I had the lucky combination of excellent seeing and my neighbours being away and consequently not having their conservatory lights on.