Science fact and science fiction. Those are today's two topics.

Fact: time, Einstein said, is relative. You can spend a few years with things happening pretty much in the same way they always have. Then life speeds up. Things happen. Life-defining events. Here are the facts...

I had the snip (I really should self-edit this blog because I seem to have no shame!) and I had my first test. It was a success: zero sperm count. There's a second test to come next week, and I am pretty confident that it will scientifically show that I will be unable to father kids for the rest of my life. Which was, if you think about it, why I had the operation in the first place.

Beth's stiffness and general body pain has been scientifically diagnosed as Ankylosing Spondylitis. The body's defence mechanism feels like a displaced soldier, fighting a war that ended years ago. Maybe it was a germ, maybe it was an allergy to pollen, maybe it was something eaten. Whatever the reason, the body ends up producing too much TNF and it has nothing viable to fight. So it attacks the body that produced it. This leads to inflammation of the joints and whole body pain. There's a drug that was released less than two years ago that seems to work wonders in 60% of cases: Enbrel. Beth has to inject herself once a week and she feels 100% better. She has more range of motion in her neck, she has more energy, she can bend down to pick things up again and she's eating more. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this will be the stuff that gives her more pain-free days.

In other factual news... we're finally lighting the fire under our home building. We downloaded a few floorplans for houses that we liked and tweaked them to make a coherent dream house blueprint. We met with our builder and he was impressed. Most people just turn up with a general idea that they want to build a house, but with no ideas regarding cost or design elements. It turns out that we did half the work! Hopefully, we'll be in our house for Christmas.

Fiction: I've been a fan of science fiction since I was a kid. I remember reading sci-fi short stories when I was five, I was fascinated with Star Wars trading cards when I was seven and eight. I devoured Douglas Adams and the Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The Galaxy on radio and in printed form when I was ten and eleven. It all finally comes full circle over the next four weeks with the cinematic releases of "Hitch-Hikers' Guide" and the final episode of the Star Wars saga "Revenge Of The Sith". I already have my ticket for Star Wars. Midnight showing, day of release. I mean, come ON. I've waited since 1977 to see the thing wrapped up.

Listen : Finding Out True Love Is Blind - Louis XIV ... Don't Panic - Coldplay ... Cantina Band - Ash ... Banquet - Bloc Party.