Hi Nick

Firstly, sorry I underestimated you mate.

Second, all the "van Looney" bin concepts are my perfervid imaginings. Only the Moon Making Explosion is from de Meijer and van Westrenen. But aren't you intrigued? Something made the Moon and Earth so akin and so dissimilar in one go.

Equally puzzling, something made Mercury and deprived it of mantle. Collision? Superhot region of the nebula? Or exploding Venusian core? The last is somewhat naively dramatic, but we know that Mercury's orbit can chaotically oscillate almost as far as Venus's orbit. Could it not have evolved towards its current state from something more extreme?

As for VSL it's as looney as an unobserved Inflaton and similar hand-waving in cosmology. Too many unknowns to rule out either VSL, Inflatons or whatever.

Adam