Well now, where to start? Let me put it this way, I am from England. Where the history comes from. And where I come from we have a certain cultural threshold. We learn Greek mythology in school.
Or at least we did. These days it’s probably considered elitist. Along with confidence, having civic values and a sense of national pride. But either way, we have this in built radar that comes on when we hear pseudo (that’s a Greek word, by the way) intellectuals spout Greek names – particularly if they are not English pseudo intellectuals. It clicks on and a siren goes off in our heads along with flashing red letters saying ‘FRAUD’.
My radar clicked on recently when the name of a NASA space craft quite suddenly seemed to be on everyone’s lips. Artemis. Everything now is ‘Artimis’ this, and ‘Artimis’ that.
Hang on a moment. Let me tell you a little about Artemis. And to make it more interesting, to me at least, I will myself play the role of Artimis to illustrate the point. Picture me naked. Tall, hair falling over my classically ample breasts. Yes, a fine figure of a Greek Goddess, all smooth skinned and with a bust that looks like it was chiselled out of marble. Well, we’ve all got to have a reference point.
Beside me are my lovely Greek garments, lying on some warm stones beside a forest lake in which I am bathing. Sunlight dapples the surface of the lake as I walk into it slowly, wavelets radiating out from my form as I proceed, a vision of grace and beauty. The water is cool, and as any goddess worth her salt is inclined to do, I have walked slowly into the pond till waist deep, the dark waters cooling my body from the warm summer sun.
Oh, the luxury of it. My hair slick and wet, the water caressing my skin, and my breasts pert and firm, the nipples erect in the fresh cool clear waters. As I lay back and feel the refreshing movement of water over my soft skin something catches my eye. A movement. Could this be another godly creature come to join me? Perhaps that curious new goddess Tracy, goddess of Essex girls, come to explore those unnatural urges she has been experiencing recently? But, no!
A rustling in the undergrowth. Is that a mere human? Oh, my stars. It is! A hunter has seen this godly body in all it’s glory. And in my case he really would be confused. But who could it be, I hear you ask, as well you might. It’s that Actaeon, some hunter up from the village to come out hunting with his damned dogs, a vicious bunch of curs they are too, slobbering everywhere. And a brutal sport it is, hunting defenseless deer and setting the dogs on them.
As I swim naked in the forest lake, this perv is watching me like some sort of beta incel. As much as I try to cover my body, I cannot mask the shame I feel in my beautiful nakedness.
Well, I think you can imagine this isn’t my idea of how to take a lovely naked swim all on my lonesome. Incidentally, I’m drawing on what Lenni described as her experience on a workshop on a remote BC island recently. Those of you who listen to Lenni and Jules know who I’m talking about. Anyway, Lenni was swimming around like a mermaid in the moonlight some nights completely starkers in good Canadian fashion, and I had the pleasure of a running commentary.
Getting back to me swimming in a forest lake, there I am, and this filthy incel perv starts watching me from the bank. I think you can imagine, as a Greek goddess I’m not going to let this pass lightly. And this is where I start worrying a little about NASA’s choice of nomenclature. You see, as much as these early steps into space seem to be all about enlightened exploration and peaceful curiosity, then why name one of these missions after someone like Artemis. I say this, because when Artemis learned she was being spied upon by some pervert on the shore, she did something few would classify as either peaceful or enlightened.
Artemis immediately turned Actaeon into a stag and whipped his dogs into such a frenzy that they turned on their former master and ripped the flesh from his body, feasted on his liver as he screamed and begged for forgiveness, and then gorged themselves on his flesh as he died in excruciating agony witnessing the vile sight of his own carcass being slowly consumed by his loved dogs. One can’t help but think that, if some alien race has access to the internet, they’re going to be mighty interested in the fact that we’re naming our space craft after such ethereal entities. I have a bit of a problem with space exploration, to be honest. While I am a total trekkie and can name the five types of propulsion of an Intrepid Class starship, the prospect of fat rich white people flying around the solar system seems to fly in the face of good taste to me. Each time I see a rocket blasting off I have to wonder if our atmosphere isn’t already hot enough without these extra carbon emissions. And worse than all that, the space suits! I mean, really. White? No one looks good in white! And those boots. A heel wouldn’t hurt.
But all that aside, is this really the moment? After all, democracy is on the slide, we’re watching Russians kick nuclear power stations in Ukraine just to see what happens, inflation is on the rise and Trump… Well, just bloody Donald Trump! Hadn’t we better spend a little more time sorting things out down here for a bit?
I hope you’re having a blast off of a week. Unfortunately my spies are telling me that Artemis might not be going anywhere this weekend after all. Not to worry. We can dream of feeding incel perves to hunting dogs as well down here as we can on the moon, in true human style. After all, we come in peace, right?
Fiona.