Moon fever has come to town

The moon seems to be getting an awful lot of attention these days. You might say it was enjoying its moment in the sun, but the moon is inscrutable, so who’s to say? It’s definitely excelling itself this month, with a super moon on 1^st August and a blue supermoon to look forward to on the 31^st. I didn’t see the supermoon this week, but was definitely planning to go and seek out the blue supermoon at the end of the month. It sounds so exotic – I didn’t think that blue moons actually existed. I thought “once in a blue moon” was one of those expressions like “pigs might fly”. It turns out that there are times when the moon does look blue, but this won’t be one of them. If there are two full moons in a month, the second is referred to as a blue moon, even though there’s nothing blue about it. Another of life’s disappointments.

There is compensation, though, in the form of a touring artwork called The Museum of the Moon by UK artist Luke Jerram. This gigantic moon is touring the world and for some reason it’s coming to Newbury Corn Exchange. The moon is arriving straight from Andorra, has already visited Malaysia and will appear next in Saskatoon, Canada. Such a well-travelled satellite. It is an enormous, internally lit model of the moon that uses NASA images to portray its surface in minute detail. Visitors will also enjoy a “surround sound composition”, which could mean anything. I hesitate to say that it might be more impressive than the actual moon, but it does look amazing. Various activities will be taking place in the moon exhibition hall, such as yoga, story-telling, tai chi and even a gong bath. Newbury may seem like a sleepy market town, but not only do we entertain giant moons, we also have gong baths.

A leaflet was just pushed through the door offering ceramics courses as part of Newbury’s Moon Festival. I didn’t know we were having an entire festival, but why not? The opportunity to make a ‘moon gazing hare’, a ‘moon jar’ or even a thrown ‘land among the stars’ cup is very tempting.

The moon is everywhere. You just can’t escape it. Dara O’Briain, that wonderful Irish comedian who’s also a physicist in his spare time, is currently doing a two-part series on TV all about the moon, which he says has fascinated him for years. I’ve only watched the first episode, but he hasn’t mentioned anything about gong baths yet. He does, however, talk about the moon landings a lot and I can remember watching the first one on TV in 1969. I was just a child, but it made a huge impression and I am particularly intrigued by the astronauts themselves. There’s a wonderful documentary called In the Shadow of the Moon, where these highly intelligent and thoughtful men talk about how privileged they were to travel into space and how affected they were by the experience. Looking back at the earth – a view that so few had seen – moved them profoundly. Twelve men have walked on the moon, with only four still alive; however, that’s about to change. The Americans are at it again: they’re sending a crew of four to orbit the moon this year and the plan is for astronauts to land there next year. We’ll all be glued to our screens once more and I don’t think we’ll need tai chi or moon-gazing hares to enhance the experience.