It will make you blind...

“The peak of the Perseid meteor shower is set to happen on Saturday night and Sunday morning, August 11 and 12, 2012. Watch it under your local night sky!”

Anyone ever read Day of the Triffids? I did when I was in my not-quite-teens and what a book it was. I went on to read all of John Wyndham’s books in a matter of weeks – what a story teller. I borrowed it from the Library, a bright yellow cover with a strange creature standing by the statue of Eros in London. I loved that cover, it was so very fifties, so arty-handy-drawy. The librarian told me to take good care of it as I left – they’d had that book a long time and it was from the adult section.

I won’t go into the plot in depth but it opens with a fantastic light show in the sky, hundreds of shooting stars. The Earth is passing through the tail of a comet and the whole world and its scabby dog turn out to watch the spectacle - and the next morning… they all wake up blind. Add a few semi-intelligent man-killer plants, mass panic, and the complete breakdown of society and all at once you have one hell of a good yarn.

Well… this weekend the Earth passes through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet, and we will see the Perseids - meteors traveling across our night sky at over 200,000 kilometers per hour. The best time to see the Perseids will be around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, although there will still be the odd one or two around until August 22.

So look towards the constellation of Perseus, in the northeastern sky. The number of meteors you will see should be upwards of 60 or more an hour. But don’t blame me if need a white stick when you wake up in the morning.

And the book I borrowed from the library? Today that book would have been worth around a £1,000. Maybe I should have hung onto it, just told the librarian that I’d lost it and paid the two shilling fine.