Wednesday 6 October 2010
Monday 20 September 2010
Whoops there goes the last tiger
A happy scientist announces that he has discovered a group of tigers living at altitude in the Himalayas. This is good news, he tells us, as the Indian tiger is going to be extinct everywhere else shortly and at least they'll be safe up in the Himalayas.
Hmm.
I was going to say "a naive scientist" but somehow feel that would be tautologous.
The BBC make a programme about the most elusive and remote tigers in the world, and announce how great it is that they are remote.
Short of attaching GPS transmitters to the animals and dropping them onto a Chinese roundabout at rush hour, it's hard to think what else they could have done to endanger them. So now, when the last Indian tiger has its nether regions dried to help some Chinese man with - hem hem - mid-life issues, and the price of bits of dried tiger go through the roof, conveniently it will be possible to go and round up the mountain tigers and make the last few really worth a few quid.
It's rather like a travel programme announcing how unspoilt somewhere is, or a naturalist announcing he's found an orchid that only grows on one chalk hillside in the world.
Someone's going to make a killing.
Hmm.
I was going to say "a naive scientist" but somehow feel that would be tautologous.
The BBC make a programme about the most elusive and remote tigers in the world, and announce how great it is that they are remote.
Short of attaching GPS transmitters to the animals and dropping them onto a Chinese roundabout at rush hour, it's hard to think what else they could have done to endanger them. So now, when the last Indian tiger has its nether regions dried to help some Chinese man with - hem hem - mid-life issues, and the price of bits of dried tiger go through the roof, conveniently it will be possible to go and round up the mountain tigers and make the last few really worth a few quid.
It's rather like a travel programme announcing how unspoilt somewhere is, or a naturalist announcing he's found an orchid that only grows on one chalk hillside in the world.
Someone's going to make a killing.
Sunday 19 September 2010
Rabbits and the Rapture
Strange creatures, rabbits. And surprisingly varied in their ecclesiastical behaviour.
Most rabbits have a strongly dualist theology. They believe in Swooping Doom, an evil deity which takes the form of a giant and savage Red Kite, forever hovering over innocent rabbits and awaiting the time to fall from the sky spreading death and disaster for rabbitkind. The fundamentalist Christian idea of a "rapture" is of course a nightmare to rabbits - in the sky is where the Enemy lurks, and in the final reckoning that is where the bad bunnies will end up. Rabbits being creatures that enjoy the depths of the earth, their idea of heaven is again the reverse of humanity's. They believe that good rabbits will be safe forever deep underground in the Great Burrow, the home of Big Bunny. Big Bunny is the eternal enemy of Swooping Doom and it is said that he lurks among groups of grazing rabbits at times, trying to lure birds of prey to their deaths. Being an immortal being of infinitely great strength, if a Red Kite or other flying predator swoops down on Big Bunny it will break its back, while foxes will break their jaws on his infinitely strong hide.
The foxes and kites, of course mostly reckon this is all just a giant rabbit myth designed specifically to encourage them to attack other animals instead...
Meanwhile the more liberal rabbits deny the existence of Swooping Death. They claim that this is a mere personification of evil and the threats that exist to rabbits. In their view, the great Burrow is open to all rabbits and the afterlife is a form of purgatory as all rabbits journey down their individual tunnels, digging their way to their goal.
Other rabbits look around at the world, see foxes, badgers, birds of prey, Ford Mondeos and other natural enemies of bunnykind. They look at the return of myxomatosis to the land and they conclude that, either the Big Bunny does not exist, or he is actually a badger in disguise. They have given up leaving offerings of dandelion leaves and choice bits of tree bark for the Big Bunny. But then they have also stopped breeding, on the grounds that there seems to be no point. Instead they spend their lives dreaming up witty comments they would post on Comment is Free if only they had fingers instead of paws, and accusing the pet rabbits in nearby gardens of having "imaginary owners".
Most rabbits have a strongly dualist theology. They believe in Swooping Doom, an evil deity which takes the form of a giant and savage Red Kite, forever hovering over innocent rabbits and awaiting the time to fall from the sky spreading death and disaster for rabbitkind. The fundamentalist Christian idea of a "rapture" is of course a nightmare to rabbits - in the sky is where the Enemy lurks, and in the final reckoning that is where the bad bunnies will end up. Rabbits being creatures that enjoy the depths of the earth, their idea of heaven is again the reverse of humanity's. They believe that good rabbits will be safe forever deep underground in the Great Burrow, the home of Big Bunny. Big Bunny is the eternal enemy of Swooping Doom and it is said that he lurks among groups of grazing rabbits at times, trying to lure birds of prey to their deaths. Being an immortal being of infinitely great strength, if a Red Kite or other flying predator swoops down on Big Bunny it will break its back, while foxes will break their jaws on his infinitely strong hide.
The foxes and kites, of course mostly reckon this is all just a giant rabbit myth designed specifically to encourage them to attack other animals instead...
Meanwhile the more liberal rabbits deny the existence of Swooping Death. They claim that this is a mere personification of evil and the threats that exist to rabbits. In their view, the great Burrow is open to all rabbits and the afterlife is a form of purgatory as all rabbits journey down their individual tunnels, digging their way to their goal.
Other rabbits look around at the world, see foxes, badgers, birds of prey, Ford Mondeos and other natural enemies of bunnykind. They look at the return of myxomatosis to the land and they conclude that, either the Big Bunny does not exist, or he is actually a badger in disguise. They have given up leaving offerings of dandelion leaves and choice bits of tree bark for the Big Bunny. But then they have also stopped breeding, on the grounds that there seems to be no point. Instead they spend their lives dreaming up witty comments they would post on Comment is Free if only they had fingers instead of paws, and accusing the pet rabbits in nearby gardens of having "imaginary owners".
Saturday 18 September 2010
An appearance
Somebody has thrown a bike frame in the brook.
The rabbits are confused. Mostly they're quite sympathetic towards cyclists. On the principle that the enemy of their enemy is a friend, anyone that has to fear cars and lorries as much as the average cyclist must be in some spiritual way a friend of the rabbits, hedgehogs and pheasants. In the same way that foxes must be friends of lorries - although this is occasionally proven wrong in a blue-on-blue episode of vulpicide.
Bicycles don't pollute. They leave us fresh air. They don't dump heavy metals on the road. They're quiet. So why has a cyclist chosen to pollute the brook? Nobody can understand it. Sure, we're all used to stuff getting thrown in the brook, or otherwise littering the woods. Lager cans, ciger bottles, used prophylactics - all of these can be found laying around the place. Especially the latter, the spinney being in reasonable proximity to civilisation and yet secluded enough for a romantic liaison.
Now if the average human being had a cycle frame to dispose of, it would be a simple matter to shove it in the back of some car and nip round to the local rubbish dump - or, as modern parlance would have it, "recycling centre". To drag it across a field, over a fence, into a dark wood - for presumably one would not do this in daylight - and then to put it in a brook would presumably require greater effort. So why would you bother?
Always seems to be the way with humans. You can do something a way that makes sense, a good way, a way that might make the world better. And yet against all possible sense, you actually go out of your way to make it worse. One might instance the programme "Family Fortunes". It was bad enough with real people. But then somebody thought that wasn't all they could do with it. They called in "All Star Family Fortunes", and invited Brian Blessed onto it. Thus spending good money on making a bad product worse. I guess that's maybe what the Garden of Eden tells us. There's no situation so good that, given a little wit and ingenuity and a bit of effort, a human being can't cock it up.
The rabbits are confused. Mostly they're quite sympathetic towards cyclists. On the principle that the enemy of their enemy is a friend, anyone that has to fear cars and lorries as much as the average cyclist must be in some spiritual way a friend of the rabbits, hedgehogs and pheasants. In the same way that foxes must be friends of lorries - although this is occasionally proven wrong in a blue-on-blue episode of vulpicide.
Bicycles don't pollute. They leave us fresh air. They don't dump heavy metals on the road. They're quiet. So why has a cyclist chosen to pollute the brook? Nobody can understand it. Sure, we're all used to stuff getting thrown in the brook, or otherwise littering the woods. Lager cans, ciger bottles, used prophylactics - all of these can be found laying around the place. Especially the latter, the spinney being in reasonable proximity to civilisation and yet secluded enough for a romantic liaison.
Now if the average human being had a cycle frame to dispose of, it would be a simple matter to shove it in the back of some car and nip round to the local rubbish dump - or, as modern parlance would have it, "recycling centre". To drag it across a field, over a fence, into a dark wood - for presumably one would not do this in daylight - and then to put it in a brook would presumably require greater effort. So why would you bother?
Always seems to be the way with humans. You can do something a way that makes sense, a good way, a way that might make the world better. And yet against all possible sense, you actually go out of your way to make it worse. One might instance the programme "Family Fortunes". It was bad enough with real people. But then somebody thought that wasn't all they could do with it. They called in "All Star Family Fortunes", and invited Brian Blessed onto it. Thus spending good money on making a bad product worse. I guess that's maybe what the Garden of Eden tells us. There's no situation so good that, given a little wit and ingenuity and a bit of effort, a human being can't cock it up.
Not the end of the world
In a story that might have been better in the summer, or when the Pope wasn't visiting, Liam Fox has warned that Solar Flares could Paralyse Britain.
Which is terrible. I'd be lying awake at night worrying about this if it wasn't for my fear that an asteroid would wipe out the earth first. Or that global warming, while making it so hot that Yorkshire would be the centre of the wine business, would mean the population of Peterborough would be clustered in my spinney, trying to keep their feet dry after moving because of rising sea levels.
Or, worst of all perhaps, a comet might hit the piece of the Canary Islands that's falling off, causing a mega-tsunami that would be worse than Noah's Flood. But at least due to eating too much infected meat everyone would be wandering around unable to notice.
But if they hadn't been eating the beef, and instead had been consuming a diet of junk food alone while playing video games and talking to each other on Facebook, they would be too unfit to run away from the mega-tsunami. Or so itchy they wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. Though at least they would no longer be getting poisoned by their sofas. Or their computers. (And, by the way, is the Toilet Seat the SI standard unit for infection?
And those people whose brains weren't fried and could outrun the tsunami (or who at least live up a hill) would have no teeth to eat the necessarily unprocessed food that they'd have to eat in the new dog-eat-dog world. Which might not mattter, as the fish and water fowl they might need to live on were being wiped out by mink. Not that the mink alone would be the problem, as in hunting the fish and ducks they'd be at risk from Weil's disease from the rats and salmonella from the terrapins. And malaria, of course. If the wolves, wild boar and man-eating foxes didn't get them.
They could try to repopulate the earth (overcoming the gender problems caused by residual chemicals in the waterways). But sadly the population would be without those vital drugs that would stop the entire population dying of various sexual diseases. And for the same reason, the Australians would discover they'd run out of koala bears to eat.
And of course I've not even mentioned the fear of a "dirty bomb" wiping out centres of population. Or the ever-present fear that the Large Hadron Collider could suck us into a black hole, or even change the future.
On the whole, my suggestion to you would be that you come out and live in the woods, if you can find a piece not full of people from Peterborough. You'll die of the cold, but at least it's not the end of the world. Not until 2012, at least.
Which is terrible. I'd be lying awake at night worrying about this if it wasn't for my fear that an asteroid would wipe out the earth first. Or that global warming, while making it so hot that Yorkshire would be the centre of the wine business, would mean the population of Peterborough would be clustered in my spinney, trying to keep their feet dry after moving because of rising sea levels.
Or, worst of all perhaps, a comet might hit the piece of the Canary Islands that's falling off, causing a mega-tsunami that would be worse than Noah's Flood. But at least due to eating too much infected meat everyone would be wandering around unable to notice.
But if they hadn't been eating the beef, and instead had been consuming a diet of junk food alone while playing video games and talking to each other on Facebook, they would be too unfit to run away from the mega-tsunami. Or so itchy they wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. Though at least they would no longer be getting poisoned by their sofas. Or their computers. (And, by the way, is the Toilet Seat the SI standard unit for infection?
And those people whose brains weren't fried and could outrun the tsunami (or who at least live up a hill) would have no teeth to eat the necessarily unprocessed food that they'd have to eat in the new dog-eat-dog world. Which might not mattter, as the fish and water fowl they might need to live on were being wiped out by mink. Not that the mink alone would be the problem, as in hunting the fish and ducks they'd be at risk from Weil's disease from the rats and salmonella from the terrapins. And malaria, of course. If the wolves, wild boar and man-eating foxes didn't get them.
They could try to repopulate the earth (overcoming the gender problems caused by residual chemicals in the waterways). But sadly the population would be without those vital drugs that would stop the entire population dying of various sexual diseases. And for the same reason, the Australians would discover they'd run out of koala bears to eat.
And of course I've not even mentioned the fear of a "dirty bomb" wiping out centres of population. Or the ever-present fear that the Large Hadron Collider could suck us into a black hole, or even change the future.
On the whole, my suggestion to you would be that you come out and live in the woods, if you can find a piece not full of people from Peterborough. You'll die of the cold, but at least it's not the end of the world. Not until 2012, at least.
Friday 17 September 2010
Atheists and Nazis
A surprising conflation of Nazism and 20th century aggressive atheism by the Pope yesterday gives me pause to think. Although, with this current weather, I don't really want to pause anywhere. It's suddenly turning into one of those autumns where you keep moving to keep the cold out. I noticed the woodsmoke creeping from at least a couple of the houses on the estate yesterday as those people that long for it to be Christmas welcomed the cold weather.
But back to Pope Benedict. The Nazis and the 20th century atheist monsters - Stalin, Mao, Michael Foot - have in common only that a British Christian who could still remember whose side they were on during the war could be expected to be against both. It's just as well that Mel Gibson hasn't done a Second World War film, as if he did the Battle of Britain would be the RAF and Luftwaffe fighting against the daring Americans at Pearl Harbour. And since the average American cinematographer has about the same awareness of history as the rabbits in the spinney, to whom the Battle of Britain was 70 generations ago, it's probably only a matter of time till somebody does make that film.
The Nazis, a mixture of Catholics and pagan revivalists, have really this in common with the Communist monsters - that they should both have read the Magnificat with fear:
He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
It is the reminder that human rule does not last forever. Every monster falls. Put up all the statues to yourself that you like, but one day someone will blow the heads off them or pull them down with tractors or cart them off to a museum in Kensington. No matter how high the mighty may be, they die one day. They become one with Great Ozymandias. And when every monster and tyrant and worshipper of self and oppressor of others is dead, God will still be God just as he was before they rose to power. Rabbits will still gnaw the bark off the trees and young men and young women will still fall in love, the sun will still rise and nobody will weep for the tyrants when they are gone.
But back to Pope Benedict. The Nazis and the 20th century atheist monsters - Stalin, Mao, Michael Foot - have in common only that a British Christian who could still remember whose side they were on during the war could be expected to be against both. It's just as well that Mel Gibson hasn't done a Second World War film, as if he did the Battle of Britain would be the RAF and Luftwaffe fighting against the daring Americans at Pearl Harbour. And since the average American cinematographer has about the same awareness of history as the rabbits in the spinney, to whom the Battle of Britain was 70 generations ago, it's probably only a matter of time till somebody does make that film.
The Nazis, a mixture of Catholics and pagan revivalists, have really this in common with the Communist monsters - that they should both have read the Magnificat with fear:
It is the reminder that human rule does not last forever. Every monster falls. Put up all the statues to yourself that you like, but one day someone will blow the heads off them or pull them down with tractors or cart them off to a museum in Kensington. No matter how high the mighty may be, they die one day. They become one with Great Ozymandias. And when every monster and tyrant and worshipper of self and oppressor of others is dead, God will still be God just as he was before they rose to power. Rabbits will still gnaw the bark off the trees and young men and young women will still fall in love, the sun will still rise and nobody will weep for the tyrants when they are gone.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Autumn
Ah, Autumn.
Season of wasps and mouldy fruitiness.
The apple tree was so promising in the spring, covered in pinky-white blossom so feminine it was almost embarrassing. And then at June the little apples were so perfect, so full of potential.
And now, most of them are all over the floor, half-green and half-mouldy-brown. Not the russet beauty you see in a picture. Not the shiny waxy green of a Tesco Fruit and Veg display, safely tucked away in polythene. A waste and disappointment. Only good for wasps and woodlice.
But the goodness in the leaves is already drawing back into the plant, to drive the roots deeper into the soil through the winter. The buds are already swelling for next year's flowers.
The promise is there. One day, one day it will be right.
One day.
Season of wasps and mouldy fruitiness.
The apple tree was so promising in the spring, covered in pinky-white blossom so feminine it was almost embarrassing. And then at June the little apples were so perfect, so full of potential.
And now, most of them are all over the floor, half-green and half-mouldy-brown. Not the russet beauty you see in a picture. Not the shiny waxy green of a Tesco Fruit and Veg display, safely tucked away in polythene. A waste and disappointment. Only good for wasps and woodlice.
But the goodness in the leaves is already drawing back into the plant, to drive the roots deeper into the soil through the winter. The buds are already swelling for next year's flowers.
The promise is there. One day, one day it will be right.
One day.
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