February 4th: Create a Vacuum Day

Create a Vacuum day. Before I start writing anything, I’d just like to point out that this day is ridiculously unfair. For a start, it’s impossible to create a vacuum without access to high tech laboratory equipment. And even if I did have said equipment, it’s entirely conceivable that I still wouldn’t be able to fulfil the aims of this day, as there is strong scientific evidence that, due to the idea of pair production, it is completely impossible to create a true vacuum. (If you’re interested, go and find the programme “Nothing”, by Jim Al-Khalili. It’s very good).

So, I haven’t done much vacuum making. I did go around sucking all the air out of a couple of bottles with the weird pump thing that you use to pressurise bottles of wine, but this doesn’t really create a vacuum. If you try it on a plastic bottle, the bottle crumples. If you try it on a wine bottle, it makes the air surrounding the bottle smell of wine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’ve always thought wine smells slightly better than it tastes… Interestingly, there’s a device that does exactly the opposite of the pump thing that I failed to find a name for a few lines above. It puts air into bottles – very useful for pressurising bottles of fizzy drinks, so they don’t lose their fizz. We don’t have one, sadly, but they are pretty cool.

In other news, England got thrashed in the cricket, and I got a dent in my leg from a circus performance. Thank you, and goodnight. Try not to get snowed in.