Today, November 8th, the International Astronomical Union officially approved a proposal and announced that one of the minor planets discovered by their team is now officially named after Roger Waters.

As detailed on Wikipedia (we weren't sure what one was, so needed to look it up), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is neither a planet nor exclusively classified as a comet. Minor planets can be dwarf planets, asteroids, and other objects. 495181 Rogerwaters is a main-belt asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter with an estimated diameter of around 2km.

For those who are after more (technical) information about this minor planet, and to see its orbit, you can find it at MinorPlanetCenter.net.

Our thanks to Michal Zolnowski and Michal Kusiak, who first discovered the object seven years ago, and who got in touch today with the news about the naming decision.

Happy Halloween to you all! Regulars to Brain Damage over the years will know that our friend Joe Ringus is a hugely talented pumpkin artist, and each year crafts a Pink Floyd themed pumpkin for Halloween (which is celebrated by many, principally this evening, but in a number of places it covers a number of days).

Those regulars will no doubt be as keen as we have been to see if Joe would be continuing the tradition this year, and if so, what design would be picked. The great news is that Joe has been hard at work yet again, and has done a lovely job yet again! We're delighted to share his incredible carving with you.

Joe said: "This year's Floyd-O-Lantern features the male/female flowers shown during "What Shall We Do Now" from The Wall film. It was a fun one to carve and the design comes across well on the pumpkin."

Thanks Joe - we think you've done another excellent job! It's a great tradition and we know many of our visitors love to see them.

If there are any other pumpkin artists out there who have created Floyd designs, we'd love to see them. In the meantime, click the thumbnail to the left to see Joe's hard, and careful, work in more detail.

All good things must come to an end, and Sunday night saw the conclusion of the 2017 Roger Waters North American tour, with Rogers Arena in Vancouver host to the second of a brace of nights at the venue (with an appropriate name for Waters to perform in, it must be said...).

As a final show surprise, there was a change to the setlist, with recent addition Mother being dropped in favour of the concluding song suite of his recently released Is This The Life We Really Want? - Wait for Her, Oceans Apart, and Part of Me Died. This went down extremely well with the audience, and one wonders if the songs will become part of the set for when the tour resumes in January, in New Zealand.

It has been customary for almost every show on the 2017 tour to have a minute-long video posted by Roger on his Facebook page, looking at different aspects of the show, or life on the road. The final show is no exception, with Roger introducing the band (below); there are some slight visual spoilers in case you want to avoid seeing them:

Despite, we suspect the majority of shows for the Roger Waters 2018 European Us + Them tour now announced, there's the occasional additional show being announced from time to time, and today we get another night for an existing venue on the tour schedule.

Here's the newly announced date:

• May 12th - Sportpaleis, Antwerp, Belgium - tickets on sale October 27th at 11am CET

A dedicated page for the above, newly announced show is now live, joining the show pages already shown in the 2018 Roger Waters tour area. As the rest of the European tour is announced, a page for every concert will be in place: the place to find out information on each show, and to see, once the concert has taken place, pictures, video and commentary.