It Is Just You, Everything’s Not Shit. Steve Stack

know, just looking up at the sky?

      There are no particular benefits. We have yet to negotiate with airlines for members to have priority booking of window seats. But when you spend £3 to become a member, you get a badge and a certificate with your name and membership number on it. This states that you will ‘pledge to persuade all who’ll listen of the wonder and beauty of clouds’. Of course, you don’t need to be a member to look up and enjoy clouds. They are there for anyone to enjoy. They belong to everyone and no one. It is about time someone stood up for clouds. It’s just about that, really.

       Any famous cloudspotters among your number, or is that a secret?

      I have the utmost respect for the privacy of our members. Still, I can divulge that membership includes a celebrity chef, a musician/conceptual artist who had a number one hit single, and a husband-and-wife TV presenter duo.

       What is it about clouds that you like so much?

      I like the way they bring variety and drama to our skies. Life would be dull if we had to look up at monotonous blue skies day after day. Clouds are precious precisely because they are so transient: every cloudscape is unique, and clouds generally are useful metaphors for life down on earth (just one of the reasons for their great credentials as subjects for poetry and art). Put simply: clouds are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. A few minutes looking up each day to let your mind float along with the clouds is the best form of meditation I know. It helps elevate you above earthly concerns—and saves on psychoanalysis bills.

       What is your all-time favourite cloud?

      It is either the pileus cloud or the lenticular cloud. A pileus is like a cloud haircut. It looks like a blow-dried bouffant, and sometimes forms on top of the puffy, cauliflower-like summit of a large cumulus cloud. It only lasts a few minutes, before the cumulus grows up through it. It therefore embodies the transitory, ephemeral nature of clouds. A lenticular cloud tends to form in hilly or mountainous regions. It looks like a flying saucer. Unlike most clouds that blow along in the wind, the lenticular formation hovers, more or less stationary, in a brisk breeze. One of the joys of cloudspotting is finding shapes, so this UFO-shaped cloud is a winner.

       Cloudspotters: anoraks or poets?

      Both. And that’s the beauty of it.

       Do you think people who appreciate clouds have a more optimistic outlook on life?

      Yes. What could be more optimistic than finding profound beauty in the everyday? Let others find clouds mundane; let them spend fifty weeks of the year wishing they were on holiday somewhere else where the sky is always blue. If a dramatic display of altocumulus undulatus, cast in the warm light of the setting sun, appeared only once in a generation, it would become a legend. I don’t think the fact that it happens on a weekly basis makes it any less remarkable.

       (The Cloud Appreciation Society can be found online at www.cloudappreciationsociety.org. Gavin Pretor-Pinney is the author of The Cloudspotters’ Guide, published by Sceptre.)

       Columbo

      Peter Falk’s portrayal of the seemingly hapless LAPD homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo has become one of the most popular character performances in television history. With its genre-breaking format—the audience knew the identity of the killer from the outset—the show became hugely popular during the 1970s although the pilot episode was shot as far back as 1968. In fact, the character of Columbo dates from much earlier, having appeared in a one-off TV drama in 1960, written by creators Richard Levinson and William Link. In that live broadcast, Columbo was played by Bert Freed.

      Although it had a unique approach to the cop show format, the makers of Columbo were not averse to the world of cliché and the programme built up its own repertoire over the years, much to the delight of fans and aficionados.

      Enthusiasts revel in hearing Lt Columbo utter his catchphrases, ‘just one more thing’, or ‘about that alibi of yours’, watching him trying to find somewhere to stub out his cigar or parking his battered old Peugeot really badly.

      The original ’70s series featured a cornucopia of special guest stars including William Shatner, Robert Culp, Johnny Cash and Leonard Nimoy, but was a breeding ground for significant talent behind the screens as well—John Cassavetes, Jonathan Demme and Stephen Spielberg all directed episodes.

      Now a staple of weekday afternoon television, Columbo continues to find new audiences every year and its appeal looks likely to go on for many more years to come.

      FASCINATING FACT

      Despite the protests of Columbo’s star and creators, NBC produced a show called Mrs. Columbo in 1979. It featured the crimestopping adventures of the lieutenant’s supposed wife and starred Kate Mulgrew who later went on to captain the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: Voyager. Unsurprisingly, it was cancelled after one season.

      Constellations

      If clouds are the poetry, then constellations are definitely the stories of the sky. They are thought to have been created by farmers in ancient times in order to more easily determine the seasons. They imagined shapes and characters within the star formations and some historians believe that these were the genesis of many ancient myths; by telling stories around these characters, they were better able to remember them and pass them down the generations.

      Modern astronomy has changed the original formations somewhat, so that now every star in the sky is in exactly one constellation. There are 88 official constellations in the night sky.

      Cracking a boiled egg

      I suppose this falls into the same category as frozen puddles. Taking a spoon and giving a boiled egg a good beating is an intensely satisfying feeling. Not so severing the top with a knife; this is simply wrong and somewhat alarming. People who adopt that latter method are probably to be avoided.

      A great practical joke when you are a child is to finish eating a boiled egg and then turn it upside down, trying to convince some unsuspecting victim (usually your dad) that it is indeed a nice, fresh new one. Actually, you don’t have to be a kid at all to enjoy this. I am going to give it a go next time (and I am willing to bet that you do, too).