Aliens in Georgia

Today's Times reports that "Alien worms spread terror in Georgia".

I know, you'll think I'm on one of my politician-mocking shticks. Not so. This really is about worms. Nothing to do with the fact that Georgia stole millions of Trump's votes. Nothing to do with Rudy Giuliani. Real, animal worms. To be precise, the Hammerhead Worm. Yes, even more opportunities for poor taste jokes.

The hammerhead worm, so called because of its distinctive shape,

is a member of the Bipalium genus of large predatory land planarians. What is a planarian? It's a flatworm of the class Turnbellaria. For those of you who have long forgotten your biology lessons, here are some reminders of biological classifications and rankings:

• A class contains orders
• Orders contain families
• Families contain genuses - correct plural but more usually genera
• Genera contain species
• The Bipalium genus contains approximately 50 species

I researched a number of reports of this but sadly none of them identified the species of the individual in question. Shoddy journalism; do your research, people!

Anyway, these guys are only "alien" in the sense that a gardener in Georgia said "it looked like an alien". I could find no information about what actual aliens have been seen in Georgia, to enable our gardening friend to make his judgment.

[fans of The Mandalorian will be particularly delighted to see this little guy]

The worm, however is indigenous to the USA.

Hammerhead worms are carnivorous and prey mostly on other worms, particularly earthworms. They produce tetrodotoxin, the same deadly neurotoxin produced by pufferfish, according to a study from Utah State University.

The Times reports that James Murphy from the University of Georgia "emphasised that there were only a few of the worms. As long as you are not eating numerous worms it is not something to be concerned about."

Wait, who are you talking to? There are people in Georgia who eat worms? Are you serious? Maybe he's from the University of Georgia Department of Comedy. Here we were, having serious discussions about biology, and you lower the tone? Come on! Be serious.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog post.

Turkey revenge

In the United States, a fluffy white turkey called Corn refused to pardon a fluffed up orange turkey called Donald, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE FIRED!".

What kind of a name is Corn anyway? That would be like me calling my sons Fish and Chips. There are in fact plenty of people called Chips but I couldn't find any named Fish. Although there is a character called Fishcake in Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles.

In Russia, a tiger called Buffalo refused to pardon a steroid-enhanced balding tiger called Vlad, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE RETIRED!"

In Belarus, an ostrich called Lizard refused to pardon a marmite-enhanced red ostrich called Alex, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE UNHIRED!"

In Cornwall, an old man refused to pardon a pasty called Pete, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE TIRED!"

In better news, an old lady pardoned a flirtatious fly called Felicity, which she had swallowed. I don't know why.

The fly pardoned a gangling spider called Sid, who had been hired to eat her.

The spider pardoned a pretty little bird called Betsy, who flew threateningly close.

The bird pardoned a snooty cat called Clarence, who was jumping up trying to catch her.

The cat pardoned a menacing dog called Dennis, who growled at him.

The dog pardoned a lumbering cow called Cordelia, who was a bully.

The cow pardoned a handsome horse called Hezekiah, because he was kicking her.

And they all refused to pardon the old lady for starting the fake news story in the first place, saying "No! No pardon! YOU'RE WEIRD!"

Horses, Lego and Darwin

Horses to helicopters. That's evolution. Horses are, at least were, cavalry. Fast moving units.

⇉

Elephants not so much. They evolved to tanks.

Pterodactyls to birds to Spitfires to drones. That's evolution.

Canoes to triremes to battleships to...the Millennium Falcon.

Mules to buses to bullet trains to teleporters.

Apes to humans to...Arnold Schwarzenegger. The archetypal cyborg.

We have a great deal to thank Charles Darwin for.

Where will it all end?

Flags and anthems

I recently gave some examples of national flags and commented on their attractiveness (to me). Also I enjoy listening to, and talking about, national anthems. I grew up in a post war generation which was beginning to question issues of patriotism and reverence. I was always amazed in the cinema when people stood up for the national anthem. That seems odd nowadays but the country had recently fought and won against a terrible enemy and there was much communal pride.

I can't recall ever standing up for the national anthem. A young man has to make a stand, yes? I know, always a rebel...

Anthems have two aspects - music and words. Who can fail to be stirred by the music to the Welsh anthem (Gwlad, Gwlad)? Or La Marseillaise? In comparison, God Save the Queen is turgid. No, I'll go further. It's a dirge. Imagine trudging through mud. Thomas Arne's Rule Britannia is at least uplifting.

But here's the thing. We come to the words. "Britannia, rule the waves" is so meaningless that it can't be sung with any conviction. We don't even patrol the English Channel effectively, let alone rule any waves. So are we hooked on nostalgia? Obviously yes; but maybe all countries are.

But no, there are examples where a nation's anthem looks to the future:

Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Or elysian glories, as in this from Bangladesh:

My golden Bengal, I love you.
Forever thy skies, thy air set my heart in tune as if it were a flute,
O mother! The aroma of the mango orchard in Falgun drives me crazy,
Ah, what a thrill!
O mother! In Ogrohayon time sees sweet smiles all through mature fields of paddy.

Spare a thought for the Spanish, whose anthem has no words. Aha, no hostage to future fortune, then. Do their athletes hum their way through it? I checked on YouTube; their footballers just look embarrassed.

Which leads us back to the tunes. How many of us have fidgeted for what seems like hours hoping for the end of the Italian anthem, a symphonic movement of nearly two minutes. Nothing beats the  Uruguay anthem though (6 minutes). Thank goodness. At least God Save the Queen is over quickly.

But I digress; what about the flags? I previously lauded the flags of Kiribati

and Seychelles.

They are colourful and expressive of sunshine, expansiveness and hope.

To those I could add:

Belize

 Brazil

South Korea

Guatemala

They are at least interesting. Otherwise it's uninspiring stripes, crosses and blobs. I'll leave it to you to decide which you like best.

More countries I had never heard of

Following my discovery of São Tomé and Príncipe - see my recent post on that - I thought it would be revealing to check out the list of UN member states to see if there were any others of which I was unaware. Turned out there were.

Comoros - a volcanic archipelago off Africa’s east coast

not many national flags have four colour stripes - in fact I could find only one other, that of Mauritius

Eswatini - a landlocked country in Southern Africa

an interesting flag

Kiribati - 32 atolls and one raised coral island in the Pacific Ocean. Two interesting facts:

• the International Date Line goes round Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching the 150° W meridian. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the most advanced time zone on Earth: UTC+14
• Kiribati is one of the few countries in the world to be situated in all four hemispheres

(must have info for pub quizzes)

 a nice flag*

Palau - an archipelago of over 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean

not such a good flag

Interestingly, Kiribati and Palau are two of a small group of countries with no reported Covid-19 cases, as of 16 November, according to statista.com

Timor-Leste - turns out this is East Timor (leste is Portuguese for east) so, as I knew of this, it doesn't count.

Check them out at https://www.un.org/en/member-states/ to see if there are others you didn't know. None of us should remain ignorant throughout our lives.

Here's an odd one: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). What does that mean? Wikipedia tells me "a plurinational state is the existence of multiple political communities and constitutional asymmetry". OK but that applies to pretty much every country in the world; why feel the need to state it in your nation's name?

I contacted the Bolivian Embassy in London. Yes I actually did; it's not one of my windups. Bloggers need facts (no offence, Mr Wiki). As of this moment, I have had no reply. If I get one, I'll post an update. [My Spanish O Level didn't prepare me well enough for a telephone conversation about plurinationality]

* on the subject of good national flags, check this out from the Seychelles:

 bold, yes? Very Mondrian.

Stiffrumps

Stiffrump is an 18th century word meaning an obstinate or haughty person. Thanks to Susie Dent on Twitter for that. It translates very obviously and literally into a modern, derogatory two syllable word, which I'll leave you to figure out.

Thanks also to Ann Treneman for quoting these from a book review of The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain yesterday:

Windsucker - a bore
Gullgroper - a moneylender
Slubberdegullion - a dirty, nasty fellow

Next time you meet one of the these, you'll have a smile on your face!

Add your own as comments, please....