Like a circle in a spiral

When I was looking at the amazing satellite photos on ScottJ's blog about Hurricane Frances, and hoping that the damage to people, property and wildlife won’t be too severe, I noticed the similarity between hurricanes and the universe. (It was also very late at night and I was tired and somewhat emotional.) The storm spins round and around a central core, and the bits on the outside are whipping along at incredible speed. They say the galaxy is like that – a spiral circling around a central core, with our little solar system on the outer edge clinging on for dear life.

My best summing (and google) assures me that the UK is rotating at about 600 miles an hour (you multiply the cosine of your latitude with the speed at the equator - 1000 mph. I almost know what that means), and rotating around the Sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. So if you combine that with being whirled around the centre of the galaxy at about 559,000 miles an hour, is it any wonder I feel so tired?