The Beginning

It was suggested that I create a blog to showcase some of my writing talent and to provide me with something to do between my regular forays into the darker recesses of the internet in the search for jobs, entertainment and terror.

So here we are. A little about myself:

My names is James;
I am 24 years of age;
I am educated to degree level;
I live in the glorious city of Edinburgh, Scotland;
I am an atheist, perhaps 'secular humanist';
I have a fiance, and he rocks my world.

Each of the above points will likely get a more descriptive and elaborate post of their own as I struggle to come up daily with topics and ideas for discussion. I have written blogs before but often lost interest, perhaps I can keep it up a little longer this time.

Does the name of my Blog have any meaning?

Well, as you might be able to tell by now, I can be a little odd. I am frequently grasped by epic, surreal concepts, the more fantastical and outlandish, the better, and this, I think, is one of them.

If you wanted to start up a daily newspaper to be distributed throughout the Galaxy, across hundreds, if not thousands, of worlds and species, what would you name it? Well.. this is my idea.

'The' would be a common concept to many intelligent races: A definite article, something implied, or discussed or familiar to all. It exists, it is solid and definite. THE Milky Way. THE Earth. THE White House. There are many 'white houses' on Earth, yet there is only one White House. Such it is for many newspapers today, actually: The Sun, The Times, The Guardian. 'The' lends them a certain gravitas, a sense of solidity and definite purpose.

'Galactic' refers, of course, to a single Galaxy, something that any species familiar with the concept of an interplanetary newspaper would hopefully be familiar with. I rather like the word; it brings images of vast, sweeping spirals and dense, bright clouds of beautiful stars and nebula to my mind on every occasion. What privileged beings we are to be able to look up at the little dots of light in our night sky and know that they form part of a structure that could potentially  be home to millions of worlds such as our own. I can think of no grander ideal than the concept of peaceful co-operation, communication and travel between those worlds.

'Radiance' is a measure of light emitted from a certain area, and as light has a constant speed and presence, we can possibly assume it is a fundamental aspect of complex, intelligent life everywhere in our Universe. I am in no doubt that life may exist out there that has no relation to light, no dependence upon it - after all, the creatures that live around Hydrothermal vents right here on Earth gain their fuel entirely from chemicals released by the vents without relying on the Sun for any energy whatsoever.

Light is also information. From the simple repeated flash of a torch to signal in Morse Code, to the nanosecond pulses of coherent LASER light fired down optical fibre cables, to the humble lightbulb that allows us to read at night, the stellar constellations that helped guide sailors throughout history, and the tiny blinking LED that tells us whether an appliance is off, on or on standby, humanity relies almost entirely upon light for the majority of information it consumes.

So there we go. The Galactic Radiance: A source of information accessible to anyone or anything with the time to browse its pages. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.