According to a press release I received today Galloway Forest Park in SW Scotland has just received a 'Dark Sky Award' from the International Dark Sky Association (no, me neither...) for the - well, as you might guess, for the darkness of its skies.

This makes the new 'Dark Sky Park' a prime spot for star gazing, and with so much of the UK suffering serious 'lightpollution' this is of course a GOOD THING; apparently less than 10 per cent of the country's population can see the Milky Way from where they live, paartly because we're such a nation of terrified milksops that we need to have street lights along every road and lane in the country.

But I disgress. It seems that Galloway is one of only four Dark Sky Parks in the world - the Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, the Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania and the Geauga Park in Ohio.

Two things occur to the cynic in me - first, there must surely be a vast number of other spots in the world where one can view the Milky Way with ease; and far all its new found fame surely Galloway suffers a serious disadvantage, especially when compared to Utah - isn't it one of the cloudiest, wettest places in the world?

Which may be one reason its so dark...