Dodos, unicorns and yeti

Dodos used to exist. In Mauritius, probably becoming extinct in the 17th century. They were flightless birds, which may account for why they died out; Mauritius is an island, so nowhere else to go. Which probably caused them to become depressed and hence not attractive mates.

Surely a "flightless bird" is an oxymoron? Ask any five year old what distinguishes birds from other creatures and they will surely answer "they fly". So who came up with this ridiculous nomenclature? Does it perhaps describe a desire to fly? Ask a penguin or an ostrich what they most regret in their lives and they will say "I wish I could fly but I can't".

This is obviously very sad and they need help. At http://www.teachthesoul.com/2019/04/training-penguins-to-fly/ there is a moving story of penguins [who] formed a committee to find a motivational speaker who would help them [to learn to fly]. I'm not going to spoil the story for you; check it out. Maybe they are just channelling their inner Greta Thunberg and saving the planet.

It's not clear that unicorns (literally "one horned") ever existed, although there are apparently records of seals depicting unicorns from the Indus Valley Civilization. Also known as the Harappan Civilisation. A while ago.

Like that one.

There are a number of Biblical references to unicorns. Psalm 22: "Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." The coat of arms of the UK shows a unicorn as the symbol of Scotland, facing off the lion of England.

Popular usage of "unicorn" now is to indicate something fanciful and almost certainly unachievable, like a billion dollar start-up, a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland or a wall between Mexico and the US. Or a UKIP Prime Minister.

Use of "unicorn" also occurs in LGBTQ culture. Just for the  record.

Moving on to the yeti. In Himalayan folklore, the Yeti is a monstrous creature. Some British military guy in the 1920s coined the phrase The Abominable Snowman when he saw some large footprints. Possibly this herd of yeti:

No-one has ever seen Mr Yeti. But then no-one living has ever seen a dodo or a unicorn, so who knows one day...?

You can play "Face The Yeti Society" on a gaming platform called Sleep. Maybe it's a calm, soothing game.

If you see a dodo, unicorn or yeti in your back garden, please take a photo and share it in your comment to this post.

“To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” Lao Tse

Four minutes and thirty three seconds

 Working from home and missing the hustle and bustle of your office? Check out soundofcolleagues.com, where you can hear the welcome ring of a phone, chatter of people and their keyboards, the printer and coffee machine and even the office dog (a particularly shrill, whiny dog, maybe a chihuahua).

If you prefer, you can check out mynoise.net, which enables you to "use the noises you most enjoy to mask the noises you don’t want to hear". Choose from white noise, thunder and rain, nature sounds from a European primeval forest and many more idiotic concepts. There are sections such as "I need to calm down" and "I'm desperately trying to put my baby to sleep", although no "my children have just arrived home from school and are running around like madmen" option. I do like "I'm a writer in need of inspiration", which my readers may think I should explore.

Are these people mad? I crave beautiful silence, where my innermost thoughts and creativity reign. Hence I have today registered a new internet domain: johncage.co.uk

Applications are invited from anyone willing to build me a totally silent website, possibly with a [start 4' 33"] button. Maybe some pictures of my inner mind. If you can get there.

Lefties

 Friday 13 August is International Left Handers Day. Wow - is there an International Right Handers Day? Or an International Ambidextrousers Day? No apostrophes day?

I don't have much experience of this, although my elder son Simon, when playing cricket, bowls left handed and bats right handed. About 90% of the world's population is right handed.

Nikolai Leskov wrote The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea in 1881. Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin wrote an opera The Left-Hander in 2013. Maybe there are lots more left handers in Russia than elsewhere; has anyone ever written a PhD thesis on that?

Tuesday 31 August is National Zoo Awareness Day. Do we really still have zoos? They seem so passé.

Some things to look forward to:

September is designated Bear Necessities Month, organised by the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Do they have other animal puns days? I didn't do it on porpoise Day? Say something amoosing Day? Have a cat nap Day? I'm up for that. I know, these are terrible; give me better!

19 September is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Will you do be doing that? Sing along with their anthem at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8_NlNSINbA

I'll be listening.

Anyone join me on Start Writing a Blog Day?

Smart motorway

In bygone days when I used to drive between Cornwall and London/Kent I would, for two or three years, traverse a stretch of the M3 being revamped as a "smart" motorway. Last week I had the first opportunity to see how smart the newly completed road is. Excitement!

The "smart" qualifier evokes images derived from experience of existing smart devices. I can access YouTube videos and other apps on my smart TV, as well as browsing the web (although to be honest it's too clunky to do that; a laptop and a mouse much easier). I can do all that on my smartphone - but that term is pretty much extinct; now all phones are "smart". The first so-called smartphone as we recognise it today was possibly the iPhone in 2007, although hand-held communication devices had been manufactured for a decade or so before that. Nowadays my phone does even more than my smart TV.

If I had a smart watch it might do even more but a 76yo's eyesight and dexterity probably can't make best use of it. And it seems designed around a notion of exercise=good; I'm not a great believer in that.

Not sure my Alexa device is truly smart - I asked her whether she was smart and she answered "I try my best"; not a huge confidence booster.

The Internet of Things enables home automation to a (some would say) ludicrous degree, where the house resembles more a gigantic toy room more than a cosy, relaxing living space.

What is common to all smart devices, I suppose, is connectivity - to each other, to the Internet, to satellites - and processing power, i.e. the ability to work with data quasi-instantly. In my imagination, I had hopes of driving along the  M3, watching football on giant screens that move alongside me, getting weather and news updates that I can interact with using my voice-activated in-car device and beamed to the screen in my rear passenger seat, automatic instantaneous charging of my electric car and cruise control connectivity. And containing future-proofed electronic infrastructure for driverless vehicles. Imagine a motorway where you arrive in your car, log on to the "smart drive" functionality and sit back while the road takes you hundreds of miles in perfect safety. A dedicated driverless motorway, a bit like putting your car on Le Shuttle on Eurotunnel.

So how does the M3 measure up to those criteria? 

As far as I can tell, a smart motorway differs from its dumb friends in two respects:

1. Traffic management, e.g. variable speed limits.

2. Hard shoulder running, allowing an extra lane when there are no vehicles on what would have been the otherwise used hard shoulder, i.e. 80 or 90% of the time.

Instead of my futuristic vision, I actually get... an extra lane and more speed limits. For £129 million (2014 estimates).

Now don't get me wrong; maybe the cost is less than the potential savings. That's not my point. My beef is with PR-speak "smart" designation.

Dear M3, even my Alexa is smarter than you. When I asked her "are you smarter than the M3?" she at least had the self awareness to answer "hm, I don't know that one".

M3, you are a watch which just tells the time. Tick tock (not to be confused with TikTok, Mr President).

Shaggy dogs

I was going to write a shaggy dog story.

But I realised that most of my blog posts are just that.

"a long, rambling story or joke, typically one that is amusing only because it is absurdly inconsequential or pointless." [Oxford Languages]

"In its original sense, a shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax." [Wikipedia]

My readers can verify that, pausing only to consider the  verity of "amusing" as applied to my blog.

Does anyone know the first usage of this strange phrase? It appears not, although it seem to be accepted that its first usages were in the USA in the 1920s or 1930s.

The Hungarian Puli (see picture above) is amongst the shaggiest breeds of dog. This Komondor, also from Hungary, is like a SuperPuli - much bigger.

This Afghan Hound, from - er well guess - is a supermodel who would never ever be called a shaggy dog.

The Lhasa Apso is from Tibet.

And the Keeshond from the Netherlands.

This Highland Cow thinks shaggy dogs are overrated.

Stonehenge

Nigel, do you talk to yourself?

       Of course; doesn't everyone? I also talk to my computer, my TV, my fridge and a jigsaw puzzle which I am working on.

What do you say to your TV?

     Typically I'm standing up and yelling "stop passing backwards", "get rid of the ball" and "don't pass to Xhaka" (I'm omitting a few key words here in deference to the sensitive ears of my younger readers) when Arsenal are trying to play tippy tappy football in their own penalty area using players of extremely limited technical ability.

Do you talk to plants?

      I'm not really a fan of plants; they are mostly hard work for little - and short-lived - reward. My ideal garden is made of gravel and astroturf. Although I do at the moment have a particularly attractive pink fuschia in a pot.

Great, can we see a photo?

      No, I'm not at home. But when I get back next week, watch out for one in the blog!

So what's this about Stonehenge?

      I drove past it today.

It's still there then?

      I can't say definitively at this moment but it was a few hours ago. The stones are socially distancing - a proper 2 metres apart, except the ones on top, which presumably are exempt from the rules. Spectators rather more than 2 metres away; more like 200. They don't like having their stones touched, in case they wear away, crack and fall over in a million years time (that's the stones, not the people). They've been there for 5,000 years with people touching them every day, by the way.

But presumably if you have enough money, you could pay an exorbitant price to be allowed to touch, like Russian money launderers getting residency permits after handing over a brown paper bag filled with millions of used rubles?

      No. Everyone pays an exorbitant price not to touch. And you have probably just got me some GCHQ blog followers. And the Kremlin.

Do you know who built Stonehenge?

      It think it might have been Druids. Or Martians.

You think Martians may have built Stonehenge?

      Could be. Anyway I may get some Martian followers.

Are the Druids the ones with pointy hats?

      I think that's the Ku Klux Klan

Does the KKK still exist?

      I can't say definitively at this moment but I think they run the White House.

You do realise that the CIA will be monitoring this?

      More followers then.

And Druids - do they exist?

      I'm not sure, although I believe they appear at times in Wales. at Eisteddffoddai. And ssppout ppoettry. (That may not be entirely accurate; I decided not to do any research for this post)

No research: are you saying that entertainment is better than truth?

      People have huge followings on Twitter doing just that.

Did you see anything else interesting on your drive?

      Wincanton. Near the racecourse.

Did you go to the races?

      Not today but it brought back memories of a horse called The  Guinea Stamp. Many many years ago my sons and I had a share in the horse and we drove north one cold winter day to some racecourse (maybe Kelso?) to watch its first race.

Did it run well?

      Sadly no. It seemed to have difficulty clearing the hurdles so it had to follow all the others who had knocked down the hurdles first. It's difficult to win when you're running last.

You talk as though you're not sure whether "it" was male or female.

      He was a gelding.

Ouch! No wonder he didn't want to exert himself.

      Fair enough. Anyway it was pretty much a waste of our (well strictly my) money on training fees.

Do you regret doing that?

      Je ne regrette rien, as Norman Lamont said when raising interest rates to 15% and taking us out of the ERM. I checked that to make sure my memory was accurate.

I thought you said you wouldn't do any research?

      I'm hoping to get some French followers. And Norman Lamont.

So is that it about your journey?

      Yep, six and half hours of M this, M that and M the other.

So with all that driving, where did you write this post?

      In my head.

And do you think it has gone well?

      I'll leave that to my followers to judge.