Here’s a question for Notes & Queries. If bacteria genes mutate adaptively and rapidly (within a few generations), why have they not evolved further in the hundreds or thousands of millions of years they have been around? Is it because they are content simply to thrive and survive in all sorts of unpredictable and extreme environments (no small achievement, when that includes hot springs, digestive tracts and the depths of the earth and sea)? Or is this a false question, like asking why monkeys haven’t evolved into people?
Extra Extra, this just in: An asteroid named Toutatis (described by scientists as a three mile-long pockmarked dumbell which tumbles erratically) will just miss the earth today. But Don’t Panic – it is four times the distance between us and the moon.
Galle couple looking South, by Carine, July 04
Here’s a photo from the other end of the island a couple of months ago.
As I write, my eye is caught by a hypnotic, beautiful, grotesque vision: A maelstrom of moths is circling the light outside my window. Pale geckoes snap at them from the ceiling, and a frog is fatly clambering up the side of a chair, winding up its tongue in readiness for a late supper. Goodnight.
If you’re at all tickled by the bathos of the Think Big Revolution’s phone conference snafu, you’ll enjoy Jackson’s Way, which is on the button. Hats off to Will Adamsdale (that’s him with the 2004 Perrier Award) for spotting such a ripe topic for satire. You can catch his show at the BAC in London next month. (Scroll two-thirds of the way down the listings on the right for reviews and dates.)
It’s been a fairly computer-intensive week, what with setting up this blog and tidying up thiswayplease. Thankfully, I don’t have access to the Net from my work PC, so this time-consuming tinkering is restricted to evenings and weekends. But it’s not the most sociable of activities, let’s face it, even if it has a communicative end.
Now that the basics are in place, I can emerge from my chrysalis and enjoy living in the world again. Which means cycling, volleyball, conversation, music, photography, films, books, food and the rewarding business of breathing the air and just generally noticing and reflecting on things.
It’s Sunday and my housemate Gabriel is making a large cement chessboard/dancefloor in our yard. We’re not sure how to do or get the pieces yet. I’ve always wanted a chessboard you can walk around; I’m looking forward to the inaugural game.
I quite frequently wish I could arrange things so that no crow could crow within about half a mile of me. Why do they have to be so obnoxiously loud? No wonder they are collectively known as ‘a murder’. People say they’re among the most intelligent birds. So what are they saying?
‘Crows have a limited vocabulary, like someone who swears constantly, and communication seems to be a matter of emphasis and volume. If you lie quietly in bed in the very early morning, in the half-light before time begins, and listen carefully, the language of crows is easy to understand. “Here I am.” That’s really all there is to say and we say it again and again.’ – Louis Jenkins
Our Moon as seen by Galileo.
It’s my birthday, and I’d like to get a closer look at the moon. If you like this, there are many more NASA photos here.
(or blah blah blah)
ThisWayPlease is big in Japan.
Louis Menand of The New Yorker demolishes Eats, Shoots & Leaves before riffing on the mysteries of ‘the written voice’:
Wisdom on the page correlates with wisdom in the writer about as frequently as a high batting average correlates with a high I.Q.: they just seem to have very little to do with one another. Witty and charming people can produce prose of sneering sententiousness, and fretful neurotics can, to their readers, seem as though they must be delightful to live with. Personal drabness, through some obscure neural kink, can deliver verbal blooms.
No. Having cogitated overnight, I woke up clearly opposed to the concept advanced by those scurrillous geeks with blogs. (Of course, my dreams were more exotic than my subconscious ruminations.) It’s at odds with my nascent Internet idealism. This obsession with links for their own sake is undermining the quality of the medium. I imagine it will continue until people start to use a new type of search engine – some sort of dynamic portal system, perhaps.
