Clockwork of the Gods Not every day an old hack like me learns a new word... But today I encountered orrery for the first time. An orrery is a clockwork model of the solar system and is named, my dictionary tells me, after someone called The Earl of Orrery. I have been reading today about The Antikythera Mechanism which is an ancient Greek mystery object, a kind of orrery perhaps, found by a sponge diver in a Roman wreck, and is thought to be some sort of analogue computer able to predict the motion of the stars and planets. Having up to 72 gears in its workings, it is reckoned to be about 1000 years ahead of its time. Found this fascinating today. Surprised wild eyed ufologists haven't got hold of this one... Clockwork of the Gods . But the culture that produced Plato, Aristotle and Homer to name but three, certainly knew its onions. Anyway, apart from missing my train due to losing my train pass (in my pocket all the time, duh) today was rather nice. And I was like a hot knife ...