Old Pogue a rogue no more

<> The Popes Source: Supplied

THE death of The Pogues' banjo player Tommy McManamon in 2006 was a wake-up call for Paul "Mad Dog" McGuinness.

"It could have been any one of us," said McGuinness, who played guitar briefly with The Pogues then formed The Popes with the former's original frontman Shane MacGowan in 1992.

"A lot of us were getting warnings by doctors, by our friends or family to take it easy, cut back on the booze and drugs, get off the road and sort our lives out.

"It was one of the things which woke me up to the fact how lucky I was to be doing a fantastic job, playing music.

"If you can make a living out of something that you love doing, you're kissing the hand of the gods. It helped me discover all of that again."

With MacGowan in a boozy limbo, McGuinness decided to reform The Popes with a new line-up and himself as lead singer.

"You can't turn around to other people and say you've got to change your life to suit mine."

McGuinness was raised on punk and Celtic music, but was always the more rocky influence in early Popes with his love of Thin Lizzy.

The Popes' 2009 album Outlaw Heaven still bore a folky, Pogues sound with appearances from MacGowan and Spider Stacy but their latest album, New Church, heads down a more guitar-heavy route with McGuinness' gravelly, Tom Waits-esque vocals.

"I'm tired of hearing bands that sound like The Pogues or early Popes. They're riffs I played 15 years ago coming from these bands.

"Good luck to them, but I want something fresh and new and rock's something I've listened to all my life."

Pogues fans need not be disappointed: he promises they will be playing some Pogues, old Popes, traditional Irish and new Popes material. Ironically, while The Popes' sound is more rock'n'roll, McGuinness' lifestyle is much less so.

"I'm the first person off stage back in the hotel in bed with a cup of tea. I'm asleep before the rest of them. I could still give them a run for their money when I put my party shoes on, but it's been a while."

The Popes play the Port Fairy Folk Festival this weekend (March 8-11), The Flying Saucer Club next Wednesday, March 13, and the Northcote Social Club on Thursday, March 14.

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DE-STAR defends against rogue asteroids

The DE-STAR proposal as envisaged by the University of California. Source: Supplied

• Read the full University of California report here
• "Duck and cover is not an option", researchers say
• Satellite defence system will redirect Sun's energy

BARELY a month after the White House rejected a petition to build a Death Star, a group of Californian scientists have pushed the idea forward again.

Instead of blasting rebellious planets, their proposed DE-STAR project is intended to be a "realistic" project to vaporise asteroids that pose a threat to Earth.

They've chosen the timing of their pitch well after last week's meteor explosion over Russia and a close shave with a potential killer asteroid.

University of California physicist Philip M. Lubin and California Polytechnic State University researcher Gary B. Hughes unveiled a series of proposals for their Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation (DE-STAR for short).

While not quite at the scale or strength of its Star Wars namesake, some of the proposals get close. And they're designed to be more realistic than the Kickstarter campaign to build a Death Star replica.

All versions of the DE-STAR satellites would gather energy from the Sun and direct an array of lasers at approaching objects.

"We have to come to grips with discussing these issues in a logical and rational way," said Professor Lubin. "We need to be proactive rather than reactive in dealing with threats. Duck and cover is not an option."

The cheapest option incorporates a series of desktop-computer satellites. At the other end of the scale is a massive orbital city capable of propelling spacecraft over interstellar distances.

Original idea: The plans for the Imperial Death Star that featured in Star Wars.

"This system is not some far-out idea from Star Trek," Hughes said. "All the components of this system pretty much exist today. Maybe not quite at the scale that we'd need scaling up would be the challenge but the basic elements are all there and ready to go."

One of the proposals is an International Space Station sized satellite named DE-STAR 2. This would be capable of nudging large asteroids into safe orbits.

DE-STAR 4 weighs in at 100 times the size of the existing space station, this system could vaporise a rock within a year.

DE-STAR 6 is the most ambitious: "DE-STAR 6 could enable interstellar travel by functioning as a massive, orbiting power source and propulsion system for spacecraft. It could propel a 10-ton spacecraft at near the speed of light, allowing interstellar exploration to become a reality without waiting for science fiction technology such as "warp drive" to come along," Professor Lubin said.

Our cruiser's cannot repel firepower of that magnitude! Admiral Akbar dare not consider attacking planet Earth if we're defended by the DE-STAR.

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