Hostile coexistence

Posted on June 14, 2007 by GJ

Neanderthal humans vanished as a recognisable species from the fossil record some 30,000 years ago. Until then, though, they had co-existed in Europe with the taller and slimmer Cro-Magnons (early modern Homo sapiens) for the previous 10,000 years or so. The two groups had brains of similar size – a little larger than our own! There is some dispute about whether they interbred, but I bet they argued when they met. Imagine two of them, after a few pints of Mammoth Blood:

“Don’t you patronise me,
You Cro-Magnon sissy,
Or I’ll show you the point of my spear.
Yeah, we’re brutish and short,
(Like our lives, some have thought. . . )
But we’re second to none while we’re here.

“We’re Neanderthal, see?
And you’ve got to agree
We’re as big-brained as you are, my friend.
Though our brows might be prominent,
It’s we who’d be dominant
If it came to a fight to the end.”

The Cro-Magnon replies:
“We’re more cultured and wise
Than you clunky Neanderthal dudes.
We are speedy evolvers
And good problem solvers,
And we paint our cave walls and carve nudes.

“And we happen to know
That your fossils will show
That big brains and brow ridges won’t cut it.
To survive here for ever
You’ve got to be clever,
And Neanderthals aren’t, see? So shut it!”

[Image: the-scientist.com]
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World-wide Wallace

Posted on June 13, 2007 by GJ

A well-travelled dachshund of my acquaintance, though small of stature, has a great deal of pride.

I’m world-wandering Wallace, a hound
Who has travelled the globe, been around.
I won “Best in Breed”
Once, at Crufts! I succeed,
But I still keep my feet on the ground.

I’m a dachshund with style, d’you see –
No ‘sausage-dog’ label for me.
I learned from my Mummy
How to hold up my tummy
And be what a dachshund should be.

On my walks I’m precisely to heel,
And I guard all my friends with great zeal.
But my breed’s ancient rôles –
Chasing badgers from holes –
Are not ones I care to reveal.

Like my owners, I cannot gainsay
The urge to be up and away;
But you can still write
Through my internet site:
WorldWideWallace-dot-co-dot-uk.

See also A moving tail and A lasting impression

[Image: wikipedia (it’s not the real Wallace!)]
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Bicycling Bertie

Posted on June 9, 2007 by GJ

Many inventions are ingenious extensions of existing ideas. But there are dangers in this method of product development.


Bicycling Bertie had only three gears
With which he’d been cycling for many long years.
They’d taken him everywhere he liked to go,
Those old Sturmey-Archers, in the hub down below.

The handlebar lever, marked ‘3’, ‘2’ and ‘1’,
Gave Bicycling Bertie such innocent fun:
He’d change down to ‘1’ when his legs felt the need,
Then change back to ‘3’ when he cycled at speed.

But, one day, while walking his bike up a hill,
He was passed in a flash by young Mountain-bike Bill.
He spotted that Bill had not three gears, but more –
It couldn’t be, could it? It could – twenty-four!

“Call that a bike? Well, I think it’s disgusting;
Gears should be hidden, protected from rusting
By Three-in-One oil, not exposed to the air!
I know he did pass me – but see if I care!”

Now his pride had been hurt, but our Bertie was bright.
He hatched an idea. He would do it tonight.
He dismantled some old bikes and took out their guts,
Then hammered and welded and tightened up nuts.

He’d thought it all out, and developed some theories
That if you connected eight Sturmeys in series,
Encased in their hubs so that none of them spoiled,
Then twenty-four gears could be yours – fully oiled!

One trifling problem, however, remained:
Those eight Sturmey-Archers, all nicely contained
In their eight oil-filled hubs, needed eight gear-change levers –
A point missed by Bertie’s inventive night fevers.

He’d need longer handlebars, that was for sure,
But he’d only got two hands; he couldn’t grow more.
So he added three saddles for others to ride,
And broadened the frame so they sat side by side.

A test-drive soon showed that more wheels were essential,
And the drive had to pass through a small differential.
By this time, the bike was impossibly whopping
That more brakes needed fitting to guarantee stopping. . .

Well, that made it heavier; it had to be stronger,
So the frame was enlarged, but that made it longer. . .
And so it went on, and it still does today;
But Bertie’s new bike will emerge . . . one fine day.

[Image: Bob Shaver’s Patent Pending blog]
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Venus

Posted on June 3, 2007 by GJ

Because she orbits between the Earth and Sun, Venus is visible only in the morning or evening sky. Her volcanic 460°C surface lies below a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide and clouds of water vapour and sulphuric acid. But then we all have our faults.


Though Venus is a planet,
To me she is a star:
Of all the heavenly bodies
Most beautiful by far.

I watch her in the evening
Before the stars come out,
A beacon in the twilight –
The only one about.

Then, as the heavens darken,
And Earth slides into night,
Still Venus blazes brightly
With never-twinkling light.

Her atmosphere is hellish:
You’d choke, be squashed, and fry.
I know; but I see only
Her beauty in the sky.

[Image of Venus (left) and the Moon: Gerhard Hüdepohl, European Southern Observatory]
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Psychics

Posted on June 2, 2007 by GJ

I saw an advertisement outside a hotel advertising a psychic fair to be held there the following weekend. Something wasn’t right . . .

I don’t believe in psychics:
They advertised their fair!
If psychics were real psychics
They’d know the fair was there.

They’d know, if they were psychics
Of every psychic fair,
By sensing cosmic energy
They say is everywhere.

If psychics were real psychics
Their lives would have no cares:
They’d prophesy the FTSE
And all be millionaires.

[Image: fil.postermywall.com]
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What’s new?

Posted on April 28, 2007 by GJ

In May 2007, a major fire on the tea clipper Cutty Sark, in Greenwich, destroyed its decks. But its iron frame remained, and much of its equipment was elsewhere, being repaired or renewed. It raised the old problem of the preservation of identity through time. (To see this line of thought carried to the extreme, see Reflections.)


The Cutty Sark’s gone up in flames –
(Except the bits they’d stored).
So, when its burnt bits are replaced,
Is Cutty Sark restored?

It’s like the tale of Granddad’s axe:
If he renewed its blade
And Dad replaced the handle, has
A new axe then been made?

How much of something can be changed
Before it isn’t it?
A molecule? An atom? Or
A rather bigger bit?

I need to know, because my cells
Replace themselves, they say.
So am I still the chap I was,
Or different every day?

[Image: Daily Mail (Hulton Archive)]
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No way

Posted on April 21, 2007 by GJ

The novel Journey to the  Centre of the Earth, by Jules Verne, invented a crater within the Icelandic mountain Snæfells, into which Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel descended. There isn’t one, really. Well, not today, anyway, as an official of the Iceland Tourist Board explains.


A journey to the centre of the earth?
Excuse me while I fall about with mirth!
We’ve volcanoes, lava, ice,
And our beer is very nice –
We like to think you get your money’s worth.

It’s true that long ago we advertised
That journey – but it turned out ill-advised.
A fellow called Jules Verne
Took the trip, and on return
He wrote a tale much over-dramatised.

The outcome was that travellers, once they’d docked,
Demanded “Where’s the crater?” and then flocked
To Snæfells and all round it.
So, though no-one ever found it,
Our Health and Safety people had it blocked.

And that is why, when tourists ask us where
The Snæfells crater is, we just declare:
“Sorry. Journeys to the core?
We don’t do ’em any more.
Try the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It’s over there. . .”

[Image by Édouard Riou (1864), from Wikimedia Commons]
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Sealed for life

Posted on April 8, 2007 by GJ

Modern car maintenance no longer has a place for an old friend now hanging neglected on my garage wall.

My grease gun is redundant.
My car is nipple-free,
Its steering joints all sealed-for-life –
Vorsprung durch Technik, see?

Technology moves forwards
Like many things in life;
But now that cars lack nipples,
My grease-gun’s sealed-for-life.

The cars it greased in distant years
Have long since passed away.
A faithful servant, now retired,
This dog has had his day.

I’d like to give it one last squeeze,
And yet it cannot be.
My grease gun’s slowly sinking
Into obscurity.

[Image: www.aperfectworld.orgs]
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The nick of time

Posted on March 20, 2007 by GJ

To a theoretical physicist, the Planck time (about 5.39 times 10 -44 seconds) is the smallest unit of time that can be said to have any meaning. I’ve just realised what that meaning is.


The Planck time’s a blank time,
A quantum’s tiny tick.
As you might guess, there’s nothing less:
It is, in fact, time’s nick.

[Image: The 405 Club]
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The Pompeii worm

Posted on March 16, 2007 by GJ

First discovered at hydrothermal vents off the Galapagos Islands, the Pompeii worm (Alvinella pompejana) is the most heat-tolerant complex animal known to science. Pale grey in colour, it can be up to 13 cm long; and glands on its back secrete a mucus which colonies of bacteria feed on, giving it a ‘hairy’ appearance. Its tentacle-like gills are coloured red by haemoglobin. Pompeii worms attach themselves to black smokers and form large colonies enclosed in delicate, paper-thin tubes.


You would think that vent environments, so far from light of day
And insufferably sulphurous, would frighten life away.
Although ninety in the shade (we’re talking Celsius, by the way)
Will soon damage other organisms’ precious DNA,
Alvinella pompejana can repair it, so they say –
Yes, on hydrothermal vents it’s Alvinella rules, OK!

[Image: pbs.org]
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Granddad?

Posted on March 5, 2007 by GJ

The most exciting things in life come without instruction books.


I’m a grandpa, a granddad,
An old, second-hand dad,
(Elisabeth Anne’s dad).
“I need special training,” I cry.

I’ve been quite a bland dad,
A play-in-the-sand dad,
A “What’s Disneyland?” dad.
This new rôle looks tough, but I’ll try.

[Image: Griffith & Griffith, c.1897 (Wikimedia Commons)]]
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Amelia

Posted on March 2, 2007 by GJ

A first grandchild has just been named . . .

I’ve known some babies in my time
And many have been squealier,
But few have been so hard to rhyme
As this one, called Amelia.

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Rory’s Chalk

Posted on February 15, 2007 by GJ

Rory Mortimore, Professor of Engineering Geology at the University of Brighton, has worked tirelessly to refine geologists’ ability to identify specific horizons in the Chalk, with huge benefits to the civil engineering industry.

In days of yore, long, long before
Prof. Mortimore laid down the law,
Stratigraphy split Chalk in three.
But now we see complexity,

For Rory’s hands probed lengthy strands
Of marly bands in many lands;
And furthermore, he’d deeply bore
And use Ohm’s law to check the core

To demonstrate they correlate.
In some, he’ll state, an argon date
Reveals those clays whose slow decays
Reveal past days’ volcanic phase.

With each revision of Chalk’s division,
Increased precision! A worthy vision
Whose introduction to new construction
Avoids destruction and ugly ruction.

So now, for sure, we can’t restore
Those days of yore (pre-Mortimore).
But as you walk, you should not baulk
To freely talk of Rory’s Chalk.

[Image: ScienceDirect.com/Rory Mortimore]
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Whatever next?

Posted on February 15, 2007 by GJ

A time to look backwards and forwards.

I’m sixty-five not out, as cheery cricketers might say,
And looking back makes twenty-one seem centuries away.
I’ve cousins, aunt and offspring, but no sister and no brother.
I’ve done a bit of this and that, a little of the other . . .

I once came third in the long jump†, but sport is not my thing;
And, nursery rhymes apart, there’s little doubt that I can’t sing;
I’m no good on committees which I’ve joined to make their quota;
In politics I am the archetypal floating voter.

When young, I made collections: fag cards, stamps, and matchbox tops,
And old piano music found in second hand bookshops.
I’ve modelled things with matchsticks, Trix‡ and Bayco‡, balsa wood;
‘Micromodels‡’ were a challenge, but I did the best I could.

Good people educated me from infant to degree –
I only wish I’d thanked them all, but now it cannot be.
By rote, encouragement and fear they inculcated knowledge
That got me through exams and then eventually through college.

I’ve done research on knee-joints and lost-wax investment casting,
And some of what I’ve done has had effects that have been lasting:
For artificial limbs and anti-locking brakes for cars
I’ve tested out and patented some intricate doodahs.

I’ve been a Civil Servant (of the scientific sort),
But didn’t always do the things that Civil Servants ought.
I’ve played duets on organs, juggled darts, and (what is worse)
I’ve had the sheer audacity to venture into verse.

So at sixty-five not out, as cheery cricketers might say,
I’m looking to the future in an optimistic way;
But one thing leaves my family apprehensive and perplexed –
They’re wondering what on earth this ancient geezer might do next . . .

† There were only three competitors.
‡ Trix was a Meccano-like nuts-and-bolts construction set; Bayko let you build model houses with plastic bricks that slotted between metal rods stuck into a baseboard; Micromodels were sets of postcard-size cards from which could allegedly be made miniscule models of things like the old London Bridge.

[Image: cakecentral.com]
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On the bus down to Brighton

Posted on February 7, 2007 by GJ

We thought we’d heed the advice to use public transport instead of our car. It was certainly an experience.


We’re going by bus!
It’ll be much less fuss
If we go on the bus down to Brighton.
We won’t use the car
For the bus stop’s not far –
It’s the stop for the bus down to Brighton.

We wait and we wait,
Then a bus arrives, late;
So we check it’s the bus down to Brighton.
It says on its screen
That it’s route seventeen,
Which is right for the bus down to Brighton.

The door opens wide,
So we scramble inside
And sit down in the bus down to Brighton.
The driver, a man,
Drives as fast as he can
At the wheel of the bus down to Brighton.

But the driver is good:
He slows down when he should,
And takes care of the bus down to Brighton.
Now there’s road works ahead
And the traffic light’s red,
And it’s stopping the bus down to Brighton.

Soon, we hear the bell “Ding!”
As some passengers ring,
And they get off the bus down to Brighton.
As soon as they’ve gone,
Several others jump on,
For they, too, want the bus down to Brighton.

As we sit here inside
We watch green countryside
Passing by, from the bus down to Brighton.
On the fields, as we peer,
We see sheep, cows and deer,
All ignoring the bus down to Brighton.

And now we can see
It’s the A23,
And it’s taking the bus down to Brighton.
Look, look! There’s the pier!
It’s Brighton! We’re here!
And we get off the bus down to Brighton.

[Photo: Arriva]
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At the sales

Posted on January 27, 2007 by GJ

At this time of year, shops offer at reduced prices all the clothes that no-one wanted at their full prices, many of them to my wife. I try to help in making crucial decisions, but it does seem to involve a lot of waiting around.

Outside the Ladies’ Changing Rooms
I’m waiting for my wife.
My brain, alert as ever, thinks
“There must be more to life.”

Just over there a notice says:
Save 25%!
“Look, there’s your chance,” my brain insists,
“To be a Bargain Gent.

“Stand near that sign. The ladies will
Be thoroughly deluded.
They’ll snap you up (a quarter off,
With Nectar points included).”

I wander off to try my luck,
But cannot find a buyer.
“I’m Customer Support,” I say
When nearby staff enquire.

“Looks like your price is still too high,”
My brain insanely proffers.
“Let’s try again: move to your left
To This Week’s Special Offers.”

As Special Offers go, it seems
Mine isn’t good enough,
For no-one takes me to the till –
They buy the other stuff.

My wife appears. “How’s this,” she asks,
“I’d value your advice.”
“At last I’m valued!” I exclaim.
“Yes, dear,” she says. “How nice.”

[Images: freesignprinter.com; homestoreandmore.co.uk]
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If it’s broke. . .

Posted on January 10, 2007 by GJ

There are fewer opportunities these days to demonstrate one of my handy life skills.

Most things, in ages past,
Though less dependable,
Were mendable.

You’d get your box of tools
And take the thing apart –
A vanished art?

If something broke in two
You’d nail it, screw it,
Or glue it.

A blank TV? Just buy
A valve and fit it.
(Or hit it!)

But nowadays, you must –
You’ve got to face it –
Replace it.

[Image: allhandymanwork.com]
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The breadmaker

Posted on January 1, 2007 by GJ

Blatch & Shepherd, our local independent baker, closed at the end of November 2004. It demanded a radical lifestyle change on the part of this customer.

Blatch & Shepherd’s baked wonderful bread:
On their long tins and bloomers we fed.
But then came the chop –
Blatch & Shepherd shut shop.
What now could we slice up and spread?

That day was an awful heart-breaker.
To lose such a fine local baker
As a matter of fact
Made such an impact
That we went out and bought a breadmaker.

No common shop-bread would have done;
We’d been spoiled. Supermarkets we’ll shun,
For a loaf wrapped in plastic
Is just not fantastic.
On that, I agree with my son.

We’re now raring to go, we are aching
To plug the thing in and get baking.
So we load up the beast
With flour, salt and yeast,
Butter, water and sugar, hands shaking.

“Now, let’s switch it on!” I exclaim,
For to match B&S was our aim.
And it did pretty well –
Made a luvverly smell –
But somehow it’s just not the same . . .

[Image: nytimes.com]
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Knocking at the door

Posted on December 6, 2006 by GJ

As a Significant Birthday loomed, this happened.

One’s age, they say, is how one feels. Well, I felt good inside
Until a knocking at the door disturbed this rhyme.
A figure, darkly dressed, is standing patiently outside –
A hood? A scythe, perhaps? Old Father Time?

He can’t be at the right address. I’m young, my brain’s insisting;
Inside, I feel more like . . . er . . . thirty-two?
The dark shape’s looming now.  I move, but feel my limbs resisting.
The figure bends and pushes something through . . .

A message – with my name on! But there must have been an error . . .
I lift it from the mat with apprehension,
And ease it from its shroud. I tremble, petrified with terror . . .
The message reads: “You need to claim your pension”.

[Image: openclipart.org]
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Flight-ready

Posted on November 12, 2006 by GJ

Dr Angela Milner’s work on the skull of the feathered dinosaur Archaeopteryx, used CT scans to compare the relative size and complexity of its various brain components with that of modern birds. The results suggest that its brain was adequately equipped for flying.


At the top of this tree, I’m light-heady,
But I’m not scared to jump – I’m quite steady.
My brain-box, you see,
Has been scanned by CT,
So I know that my brain is ‘flight-ready’.

As I leap from a very great height
All my mates down below me take fright:
‘You daft feathered chump!
You’ll come down with a bump;
We belong on the ground, not in flight.’

But I’m making my own contribution
To finding a better solution
Than running away
And ending as prey –
What Darwin will call ‘evolution’.

[Image: Natural History Museum]
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Three kings

Posted on November 5, 2006 by GJ

It’s Christmas 2006, and Ye Olde Kings Head, Horsham’s only town centre hotel, has been closed for two years. (Regrettably, the apostrophe has been missing for even longer.) When a small group of strangely dressed characters slipped this note, addressed to the Editor of the local newspaper, into my hand, I felt obliged to pass it on.

We three kings of Orien Tar,
Bearing gifts, have come from afar;
And with no GPS we were following a star
When it stopped at Hop Oast! We abandoned the car,

Having spotted a bus which said “Free Park and Ride
To Horsham and back”. So we scrambled inside
Feeling sure ’twas the place we had sought far and wide;
But we got to the Carfax, and broke down and cried.

We had hoped we’d find shepherds who’d got there before us,
Who’d tell of bright beings in angelic chorus;
But sadly it seems that the wrong star was o’er us,
And now we are stuck, for there’s nothing here for us.

Our travels have led us through thick and through thin;
Now, hungry and weary, our heads in a spin,
We questioned a local who said, with a grin,
“Don’t try the Kings Head, there’s no room at that inn”.

So we’re leaving this town, but we felt we must write:
Your shops and your streets are attractive and bright;
But where can three Kings lay their Heads overnight,
If not at the Kings Head? Sir, that is our plight.

[Image: catholicculture.org]
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Old Father Thames and the pebble counters

Posted on October 13, 2006 by GJ

Clast lithological analysis (“pebble counting”) offers evidence that the middle and lower reaches of the Thames once flowed through East Anglia before being blocked by the Anglian ice-sheet and diverted to their present course. It’s amazing what you can learn from counting pebbles. . .


Father Thames, as we’ve often been told,
Flows through London, en route to the sea.
We may think that his route’s very Old,
But the Counters of Clasts disagree.

These folk, while they’re out on their travels,
Dig up terraces (flood plains of old),
Returning with sacks full of gravels,
As happy as if it were gold!

Each gravelly lump is derived
From a chip off some parental block,
So its rock-DNA has survived
For the Counters of Clasts to unlock.

They allocate each little stone
To its rock type, and stack them in piles;
Then each pile is counted. It’s shown
That some pebbles have travelled for miles:

From the Midlands come Permo-Triassics;
While volcanics arrive from North Wales;
And the Rhaxella cherts are real classics
From the North Yorkshire moorlands and dales.

So gravels have character, too!
This mixture of rock types, you see,
Is the clast-counting folk’s major clue
To where river beds once used to be.

So that’s how they know OFT
In his earlier days used to flow
Further north to the proto-North Sea,
An ice-age or longer ago.

[Photo: Hitcham and Tapley Society]
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Averted vision

Posted on September 20, 2006 by GJ

The retina at the back of your eye has two types of light-sensitive cell: about five million ‘cone’ cells form a central ring and respond to colour and brightly lit scenes; and around them are a hundred million ‘rod’ cells. It’s the rod cells that help you see things ‘out of the corner of your eye’ and in low light. Astronomers have found a way of using them to advantage. (You need to ‘dark-adapt’ your eyes first, though, by staying in the dark for twenty minutes or so.)


The night sky has a lot of stuff
That’s really hard to spot,
So use ‘averted vision’:
It’s like looking when you’re not.

Employ it when a galaxy,
A nebula, or star
Is just too faint for naked eyes
To see from where you are.

Here’s what you do. You need to know
Where, roughly, to expect it,
And then you focus to one side
And let your rods detect it.

What earlier you couldn’t see
Will now come into view –
As long as you don’t ‘look’ at it!
Seems crazy, but it’s true!

[Image: markthompsonastronomy.com]
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Phoebe fly-by

Posted on September 15, 2006 by GJ

Saturn’s frozen moon, Phoebe, is unusual in many respects: it has a very dark, cratered, surface; its ‘top’ has been blown off by some colossal impact; its orbit is considerably inclined to Saturn’s ring-plane; and it orbits in the ‘wrong’ (retrograde) direction. By approaching to within 2000 km of its surface, the Cassini probe has recently captured images in much greater detail than the Voyager missions of the 1980s. But these fly-bys have had an emotional impact, unreported until now.

Pity Phoebe: very old,
Quite alone and icy cold;
Cratered skin all disarrayed;
Orbit tilted, retrograde.
Captured into Saturn’s grip
From Kuiper’s Solar System tip.

Seven million miles away
From her guardian’s ringed display,
She felt ignored, unloved, rejected.
But in the ’80s, unexpected,
Two Voyagers flew past and gave
A photographic Phoebian wave.

“It gives me hope,” poor Phoebe said,
“That, though they snapped my dented head,
There might be someone out in space
Who might quite like my pock-marked face.”
But Phoebe’s mood again turned glum:
She felt romance would never come.

When twenty years or more had passed,
A distant speck appeared at last,
And grew in size, though still quite teeny.
Then, on its side, she saw: “Cassini”.
Its closeness made her all excited –
A spark of love had been ignited . . .

She smartened up each Phoebian feature
And waited for the probe to reach her.
She heard Cassini’s high-tech clicks
As, overhead, it took its pics.
But then, to her intense dismay,
Cassini seemed to drift away . . .

The probe was answering Saturn’s call –
It didn’t fancy her at all.
Imagine, then, her bitter woe
When thus rejected by her beau,
And pity Phoebe: very old,
Quite alone and icy cold.

[Photo: NASA/JPL]
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Free range eggs

Posted on September 12, 2006 by GJ

That’s what the sign said . . .

Hens must think it strange
That their eggs, laid on the range,
Are advertised as free
To the likes of you and me.

[Image: minniehwang.files.wordpress.com]
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Memory stick

Posted on August 20, 2006 by GJ

Like Dr Who’s Tardis, the little plug-in unit that backs up my computer files has a vast amount of storage inside it, and remembers it all even when turned off. I’m jealous.

My computer’s got a Memory Stick
Which gives it the facility
To recall things with just one click.
I envy its ability.

My memory’s poor, as good as dead;
Could Memory Sticks unlock it?
I tried to plug one in my head
But couldn’t find the socket.

It seems my age is in the way:
My head’s pre-USB,
And evolution doesn’t play
With new technology.

So what you see is what I’ve got,
No plug-ins, cards or aids.
According to the folk who know,
You can’t get head upgrades.

[Image: bbc.co.uk]
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Water works

Posted on August 12, 2006 by GJ

Horsham’s largest water feature, the ‘Rising Universe’, or ‘Shelley Fountain’, was turned off in 2006 as a water-saving gesture. Locals and traders alike protested to the local paper, which invited comments and suggestions from readers.

The Universe has Risen up its pole, towards the sky,
A puzzle to the folk who pass below;
For that is where it’s staying while the weather is so dry,
Unless we find a source of H2O.

I have a cunning plan to get poor Shelley’s Fountain going,
It’s simple and effective, nothing grand,
A way to garner water that would otherwise be flowing
To waste down Horsham’s drains. Here’s what I’ve planned:

In times like these, as citizens, I feel we really oughta
Stop wasting so much wet stuff, it must stop;
So bring in all your buckets full of soapy used bathwater,
And fill up Shelley’s cistern to the top.

Then children can again immerse themselves beneath its flow,
Emerging strangely cleaner from their frolics.
The Universe will Rise again, and you and I will know
We’ve contributed to its new hydraulics.

Image: bbc.co.uk]
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Hello, what are you doing?

Posted on July 15, 2006 by GJ

Accompanied by his mother, a small, immature sample of Homo sapiens passed by and, uninhibited by the social conventions of adults, unloaded the question on his mind.


“Hello, what are you doing?” My interrogator’s tone
Was urgent and demanded a reply.
“Just mowing my front lawn,” I said, “You see how long it’s grown”.
I wondered: could he tell it was a lie?

Did he know I’d not been truthful? Did he know I was a fraud?
Did he know what mental anguish he had caused?
Did he know his artful questioning had struck a tender chord?
I needed time to cogitate. I paused . . .

His question was unfathomably deep for such a squirt,
It sought the truth from deep within my soul.
I’d better tell him everything I’m doing, dish the dirt;
So I began to analyse my rôle:

I’m taking up some space, although a lot of it is gas
(I know it’s rather selfish, but I must);
And I’m slowing Earth’s rotation while the centre of my mass
Is raised above the surface of its crust;

I’m burning carbohydrates – inefficiently, it’s true –
And helping global warming pick up speed
By emptying my lungs of my unwanted CO2;
I’m using up the oxygen he’ll need;

I’m treading on some insect life, and killing it for sure;
I should be helping others, but I’m not;
I think (therefore I am), but I could think even more –
I’m not using all the brain cells that I’ve got.

In short, I’m doing things I’d rather not admit,
And damaging the Earth – that’s what the price is.
The mowing of the lawn is just a front. This pesky git
Has put me in an existential crisis.

I’ll let him off for now, though; after all, this little guy
Is only young. I mustn’t rabbit on,
I’ll answer his enquiry quite concisely – well, I’ll try . . .
But when I turned to tell him, he had gone!

(See also Existentially baffled)

[Image: writingya.blogspot.com and grinning planet.com]
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Blank verse

Posted on June 30, 2006 by GJ

Perhaps this isn’t a poem. . .

It’s doing my head in. I’ve read a report
Which must be some sort of a prank.
The last page’s message has left me distraught:
“This page is intentionally blank”.

[Image: freepik.com]
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Air of authority

Posted on June 26, 2006 by GJ

It’s easy to believe that things stated in print, or emanating from a computer, are right; but their accuracy cannot be taken for granted. It’s the same with apparently self-assured people (not me, of course).


I may talk in a confident manner
With a voice that’s commanding and strong,
But my views might be wholly unfounded
And my facts quite impressively wrong.

[Cartoon (of UK ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair: toryaardvark.com]
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On the end of the world being nigh

Posted on June 26, 2006 by GJ

Like the prophets of old, the scientists of today look at people’s behaviour and foretell their doom.


“All men are sinful creatures, and in them there is no good;
Repent, or else the end is very near.
Forsake your evil actions and do all the things you should!”
Such strictures folk in churches used to hear.

These days, the same old message: “You must mend your wicked way!”
But now it comes from scientists as well.
“Your fate will be much hotter if our call you disobey”,
But theirs is quite a different kind of Hell:

Teeth-gnashing, yes, and wailing too, as water levels rise,
More floods, tsunamis, hurricanes and storms.
“Remember we predicted this,” will come the prophets’ cries,
“You pump out CO2 – the planet warms.”

“It can’t be our fault,” people said, ignoring every sign.
“We’re doing what we want, what’s wrong with that?”
“You’re messing up the world in ways that weren’t in its design:
Your lifestyle’s why you’ll lose your habitat.

“You choose to use resources as if each day is your last –
You’re acting like you think there’s no tomorrow,”
Say scientists, agreeing with the prophets of the past.
“Why can’t you see it’s bound to end in sorrow?”

[Image: Harkheindzel’s World]
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Bog standard

Posted on June 21, 2006 by GJ

In post-war Britain, the Izal Medicated toilet roll was ubiquitous. There wasn’t much choice, other than squares of newspaper. It presented users with unanswered questions (like why, and with what was it ‘medicated’; and why was one side glossy?). And there were aspects of its performance which left much to be desired, but at least it was reliable in its way.

Nostalgia’s when you find you wish you
Had that vintage toilet tissue:
One to hygiene dedicated –
Good old Izal Medicated.

Remember Izal? Good and strong,
Hard and shiny, white and long,
Single-layered (why use two
When, with Izal, one would do?).

Iconic, quietly understated,
Regularly perforated,
Slightly see-through (good for tracing),
Intimately interfacing.

Izal rolls before en-suite
Would greet you as you left your seat,
For your most personal ablution –
A medicated institution!

[Image: wisewebwoman.blogspot.com]
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The Second Law and me

Posted on June 10, 2006 by GJ

The Second Law of Thermodynamics declares that energy exchanges within a closed system are not totally reversible because, taken overall, its internal order can never fully be restored, and that a quantity called entropy increases. That’s no excuse for being untidy, though – the Law does allow order to be restored locally. . .

I’ve always had this mania
To lay out things in lines
Like pieces on a chessboard,
So everything aligns.

It started when I emptied all
Nan’s buttons on the table,
I’d line them up by size and shape
As straight as I was able.

Long lines were such a passion
That anything would do,
Like pennies, cards and cotton-reels,
Old books, and matchsticks too.

These days, I’m still afflicted:
In supermarket aisles,
I straighten up their labels
And neaten up their piles.

Their trolley parks excite me –
They’re left in such a state!
I sort them into nested packs
And leave them looking great.

I try to thwart the Second Law
Which states, as I’ve discovered,
That ‘order’ gets transformed to heat
And can’t all be recovered.

Well, I put things in order,
Reduce their entropy.
If you spot things all jumbled up,
Please get in touch with me.

[Images: Wikipedia]
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The queue

Posted on May 16, 2006 by GJ

I can reduce the speed of a queue to zero just by joining it.

You should never wait behind me in a queue;
You are doomed to wait for ever if you do.
I can definitely prove
Queues with me in never move,
They just stand like statues, checking out the view.

It’s a puzzle. It’s as though I have a gland
That sprays a queue-retardant o’er the land
Which, when settled on a queue,
Envelops it like glue,
And immobilises people where they stand.

I know the folk behind me get irate
At having an interminable wait.
There is nothing I can do
To revive my stationary queue;
But next time, I will warn them of their fate . . .

I’ll design a shirt with these words marked in blue,
“Here’s a warning, aimed specifically at YOU:
I’m afraid you’re out of luck,
For this queue is firmly stuck.
You should never wait behind me in a queue”.

[Image: rsiconcepts.com]
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Triarthrus

Posted on April 21, 2006 by GJ

Triarthrus was an olenid trilobite. Its relatively long and broad thorax meant it was well endowed with gills. It needed to be, because it lived in deep, anoxic, sulphur-rich sediments. But housed in its gill structures were symbiotic bacteria that metabolised sulphur and released oxygen.


Triarthrus, that’s my moniker, olenimorph my style.
I live where other trilobites daren’t go.
It’s deep and dark and sulphurous, the atmosphere is vile,
But I just have to cope down here below.

I keep bacteria in my gills, the sulphur-eating sort
Who feed me all the oxygen they make.
But oh, this benthic lifestyle is so dull! I’ve often thought
My distant forebears made a big mistake.

I dream of being Olenoides, scavenging the sea;
A hunter – spiny, powerful, distinct.
But evolution’s locked me in this niche, as you can see.
’Twere better far, I think, to be extinct . . .

[Image: wikipedia]
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The Sun and Hertzsprung-Russell

Posted on April 7, 2006 by GJ

We are so dependent on the Sun that in times past we have accorded it the status of a god. So it’s got rather cocky. But astronomers can put it in its place.

“Thou shalt not see the stars by day,”
The Sun said, in its haughty way.
“Compared to mine, their piffling light
Means they can only shine at night.”

Astronomers arose, as one
To silence this pretentious Sun:
“Our radio ’scopes can see by day
Faint galaxies light-years away.

“And when you’ve set, we see the skies
By means of dark-adapted eyes;
Earth’s shadow blocks your dazzling rays
And we can see the night’s ablaze

“With heavenly bodies large and small.
You’re not so very big at all –
Although you think you’re bright and glary,
You really are quite ordinary!

“We’ve used equipment telescopic,
Done some studies spectroscopic,
Crunched the numbers, found your spot1
On the Hertzsprung-Russell stellar plot

“Which shows how bright and hot each star is.
It proves you’re dimmer than Polaris2;
And in size, we can deduce
You’re not a patch on Betelgeuse3.

“But all the same, we can’t ignore you;
Deep down inside, we’re sorry for you.
Six billion years of slow decline –
That’s what’s in store for you, sunshine!”

1. One of the small, yellow stars on the central Main Sequence
2. The yellow star in the ‘Supergiants’ group
3. The uppermost red star in the ‘Supergiants’ group

[Diagram: universetoday.com]
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Spring song

Posted on April 1, 2006 by GJ

It’s Spring, new life is everywhere, and magpies know it.


I’ve just found the explanation for our blackbird’s agitation:
A stranded baby bird below its nest.
Its precarious situation left it open to predation,
Then a magpie saw it – you can guess the rest.

It had realised with delight that it had the power of flight,
And had launched into the unsupporting air.
Blackbird Mum had seen its plight, but the magpie’s vicious bite
Soon ended weeks of nurturing and care.

Squawking, angry and forlorn at the death of her firstborn,
Blackbird Mum bewails her lot, her baby gone.
Now is her time to mourn; but there’ll be another dawn –
One down, still two to go. Life must go on . . .

[Photo: therattlingcrow.blogspot.com
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Sussex marble

Posted on March 16, 2006 by GJ

In strictly geological terms, ‘Sussex Marble’ would fall foul of the Trades Descriptions Act.

Sussex Marble isn’t marble:
Let’s get that clear from the start.
It’s an ornamental building stone
To test a mason’s art.

It isn’t metamorphic,
Like proper marble is;
In fact, it’s just a limestone –
(Test with acid, watch it fizz).

It’s riddled through with snail shells,
Borne by waters long ago
Into cosy aggregations
By the swirling currents’ flow.

It looks all rough and lumpy
When you find it in the ground,
But when it’s polished up it makes
The prettiest stone around.

Viviparus sussexiensis,
Those Cretaceous snails are named;
Their sectioned shells well polished,
Now in fonts and pathways framed.


(See also The building stones of Sussex and Paludina)

[Image: virtualmicroscope.org>]
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Seismic saviour

Posted on January 16, 2006 by GJ

A talk by Dr Chris Elders, from Royal Holloway College described how the rocky strata underlying the sedimentary cover under the North Sea have been imaged using data from 3‑dimensional seismic surveys.

Our oil and gas are going fast,
Our North Sea stocks are low;
But don’t despair, there’s still some there –
It’s been surveyed, you know.

They’ve towed some gear behind a boat
That gives out sonic shocks
Which, when reflected and detected,
Identify the rocks

Beneath two miles of sediment,
According to out tutor,
With lots and lots of transverse plots
Combined in a computer.

The images produced are clear:
They show, in full 3D,
The layered strata – useful data –
Submerged beneath the sea.

Two million years ago, or more,
Organic stuff would go
In piles and drifts where faults and rifts
Distorted current flow.

By finding where such sites occur,
A seismic survey guy
Can show where drilling could be thrilling –
Where oil or gas might lie.

Our hydrocarbon stocks are low,
Below the great North Sea;
But don’t despair – there’s folk out there
Prospecting in 3D!

[Image: dailymail.co.uk]
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Swan talk 2

Posted on December 15, 2005 by GJ

The 2005 Christmas decorations in Horsham’s Swan Walk included a number of silver swans ‘flying’ above the usual garlands. In case townspeople were worried about them, I sent this to the local paper.

Dear Sir,
I have seen such a sight:
Silver swans, frozen solid, in flight!
(Just look up in the roof
Of Swan Walk for the proof
Of these beautiful creatures’ sad plight.)

As I wondered how this came to be,
One silver swan whispered to me,
“We had glimpsed, from the Park,
Christmas lights in the dark,
So we thought we’d fly over to see.

“When we entered Swan Walk, line astern,
We each got spray painted, in turn.
We’d no expectations
We’d be decorations,
But there’s really no cause for concern:

“We will stay here right up to Twelfth Night
Helping Swan Walk stay sparkling and bright;
Then we’ll shake off the spray
And fly out the next day.”
Tell your readers, Sir, they’ll be all right.

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Astronomers

Posted on November 10, 2005 by GJ

It’s pragmatism, I suppose.


Astronomers have Janus heads with two opposing faces:
Their charts show how the stars traverse the skies,
And yet they teach that stars stay put, not moving from their places!
They ought to be in politics, these guys. . .

[Image: John Ryrie, Chrysalis Gallery & Studio]
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I give up

Posted on November 9, 2005 by GJ

So many things that I used to ladle into my body are now ‘bad’ for me.


I’ve given up fat and I’ve given up salt,
And I’ve given up sugar in my tea.
I have given up so much that I’ve just about lost touch
With the fellow I once recognised as me.

[Image: menshealth.com]
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The Neanderthal way

Posted on October 13, 2005 by GJ

A talk by Dr. Danielle Schreve described animal bones and flint tools extracted from a 65,000 year-old infilled stream channel exposed by quarrying in Norfolk. Here, a voice from the past challenges our stereotyped view of Neanderthal hominids and reveals the answer to an important question left unanswered by Dr. Schreve’s Scanning Electron Microscope.

I think that we Neanderthals deserve a better press –
You think of us as hairy, thick-brained grunters.
In fact, our brains were just as big as yours are, more or less,
And we were quite sophisticated hunters:

We made our landscape work for us; we killed beasts in their prime
To give us lots of protein for our belly
(The early mid-Devensian was such a chilly time).
Our favourite special treat? Bone-marrow jelly!

Our instincts always helped us to protect ourselves from harm,
For we could be the target of attacks;
So speed was of the essence and, to cut off leg or arm,
We’d use a sharp triangular hand axe.

I understand you’re puzzled why our axes were so clean
That SEMs reveal no trace of nosh:
Well, that’s because our women nagged “You don’t know where they’ve been”,
And regularly put them in the wash.

[Images: the-past.com; museumcrush.org]
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High hopes

Posted on October 7, 2005 by GJ

I’ve just begun an evening course in astronomy . . .

I’m new to astronomy – that’s why I’m eager,
Now I can tell Altair from Deneb and Vega,
To sort out the Universe. That will ensure
I’ll be a replacement for Sir Patrick Moore.

[Photo: earthsky.org]
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Firm foundations

Posted on September 15, 2005 by GJ

A talk by civil engineer Mike Dean highlighted the ways in which protection from known levels of most natural hazards can be designed into a building, given the will and the money.


Aspiring builders would be wise
To plan for hazards to arise,
Lest wind or earthquake, storm or flood,
Tsunami, landslide, fire or mud
Should shift it, lift it, rock or shock it
And put its owners out of pocket.

To make your house disaster-proof:
Bolt down its base; clamp on the roof;
Ensure the ground-floor’s good and strong
In case those S-waves come along;
Resist the urge for fancy bits –
They’re trouble if a tremor hits;

And do not build too near the beach
Where overflowing seas can reach.
(Eroding coasts, volcanic slopes
Are sites for those with short-term hopes.)
Ideally, you need firm foundations
Well-anchored onto rock formations.

With maps of flood plains, and of quakes,
A calculation’s all it takes
To generate a fancy plot
Against which practised eyes can spot,
When set against the standard scale,
The chance your structure’s going to fail.

It won’t be cheap – there’ll be a price,
But the alternative’s not nice.
For detailed guidance, Mike’s your man:
He’ll give you all the help he can
And show you how you ought to do it.
Take his advice, or you may rue it.

[Image: BBC]
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A rainy day in Southerham Grey

Posted on August 7, 2005 by GJ

Hacked out of Cliffe Hill and Malling Down, near Lewes, are a number of defunct chalk quarries. One, now an industrial estate, still preserves the Middle Chalk succession with its key marker bands of marl. Another, the Southerham Grey Pit (in the Lower Chalk), preserves alternating bands of limestone and marl, produced by the Milankovitch cycles and their associated rhythms of climatic change, and evidence of a channel scoured in the Chalk by an undersea torrent. After an extremely wet morning fossil-hunting in these two pits, a pub lunch seemed to improve the weather sufficiently for a visit to the Bridgewick (Lower Lewes Chalk) Pit for some botanical advice and serious scrambling.


With boots on, and macs, and dishevelled rucksacks,
We admire the disused quarry face.
It’s quite special, that’s why it’s an SSSI,
Hid behind an industrial base.

We now understand how a soft, marly band,
If its fossils are right, makes a tag
That can pinpoint a stage in the Middle Chalk’s age,
Making mapping much less of a fag.

In Southerham Grey, on this rain-sodden day,
We observe what the climate can do
In the banding of rocks (and our waterlogged socks);
Then we go to the pub for a brew.

In the old Trevor Arms, we succumb to the charms
Of their fine Sunday lunches and beer.
By the time we are done, a glimpse of the sun
Makes the gloom of the day disappear.

In Bridgewick we quiver, as we learn how our liver
Reacts to the Ragwort’s foul touch;
And, for eyes that aren’t right, how a bunch of Eyebright,
When crushed and infused, can do much.

We clamber with hope up the steep talus slope,
And we find there are fossils galore;
So it isn’t surprisin’ we soon get our eyes in,
And vow we will come back for more . . .

[Photo: geograph.org.uk]
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The fossil digger’s song

Posted on July 4, 2005 by GJ

In the second half of the nineteenth century in certain parts of England, notably Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, the “coprolite industry” began, boomed, and was then killed by foreign imports. Though many fossils, including coprolites, were found, the main economic reason for trenching the local fields by “fossil diggers” was to recover nodules of phosphatised clay for processing into inorganic fertiliser. The hard work and camaraderie of the fossil digger’s life would certainly have spawned some lusty songs. You may still hear this one resonating from the walls of the local beer-houses. . .

Seems the gentry think it’s worth
Shifting tons and tons of earth
Just to dig up lots of ‘fossils’ from the ground!
We all think they must be funny,
But they’re offering good money,
So we fossil diggers come from miles around.

Oh, a fossil coprolite is a very pretty sight;
Fossil diggers think they’re proper little charmers.
So we dig ’em up all day for over twice the pay
That we used to get for slavery to farmers!

In the works, they clean and wash ’em;
Then they grind ’em down and squash ’em,
And they sell ’em back to farmers for manure.
With the population growing,
Extra crops will soon need sowing
Or the country won’t be fed, and that’s for sure.

Oh, a fossil coprolite, etc.

We have put in hours of toil
Shifting barrowloads of soil,
So we’ve learned to recognise a thing or two:
When we spot a tooth or claw
Of an ancient dinosaur,
Well, we pick it up and flog it! Wouldn’t you?

Oh, a fossil coprolite, etc.

It’s a sweaty sort of work,
But we’re not the sort to shirk;
We get through the day with several pints of beer.
We all knock off work at four,
Then we usually drink some more,
And we like to sing this song for folk to hear:

Oh, a fossil coprolite, etc.

[Image of fossil diggers at Coldham’s Common, Cambridgeshire: creatingmycambridge.com]
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Buzz off

Posted on July 1, 2005 by GJ

A bluebottle fly (Calliphoria vomitoria) puts humans in their place.

I must protest against the name your scientists have called us,
On behalf of other bluebottles. It’s really quite appalled us.
The genus name is odd enough: you called  us Calliphoria;
But who will love our species now we’re known as vomitoria?

You humans think we’re grubby. “Ugh! You don’t know where he’s been”,
I hear you say, as though we’re something seriously obscene.
But when I look at humans, well, I’m taken quite aback –
The pot, as you’ll recall, should never call the kettle black.

Your body is so huge, I bet its total surface area
Is covered, head to toe, with many squillions more bacteria
Than I could pick up in a year of gentle bluebottling around
On compost heaps and carcasses and dung piles on the ground.

Your mouthparts aren’t a patch on ours: I have no lips to pucker,
And what I eat I vacuum up with this, my little sucker.
It’s quick, it’s clean, there is no mess, no washing-up, no waste;
And what is more, it’s fresh, organic produce, full of taste.

On each side of my head I’ve got a great big compound eye,
So I never need to blink, and I never ever cry.
Irises? Who needs ’em? Not a bluebottle like me:
Several thousand ommatidia show me all I need to see.

How come you have no wings and cannot fly? Seems evolution
Left you humans way behind us flies, still seeking a solution;
And look, you’ve only four legs – and you’re only using two
To stand on. How unstable! You need six legs, in my view.

So next time that you hear that gentle, soothing, buzzing sound,
And you wonder if perhaps there is a bluebottle around,
Just remember what I’ve said; and when eventually you spot me,
Think how backward humans are, compared to flies. And please don’t swat me . . .

[Image: Wikipedia]
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Dawn tyrant

Posted on June 13, 2005 by GJ

The Early Cretaceous predatory dinosaur Eotyrannus, was only named in 2001. Intriguingly, its fossil remains suggest that it probably had quill-like structures on some parts of its body. I felt sorry for the parents of the first Eotyrannus to have shown such characteristics . . .

An Eotyrannus emerged from its shell
As its parents looked on. Then Mum said,
“I don’t think he’s right. I’m his Mum, I can tell.
There are quill-things on top of his head!”

“Nay, Mother, he’s only just out of his egg,”
Answered Father, most anxious to soothe.
“That’s as maybe,” said Mother, “but look at his leg:
It’s all rough where it ought to be smooth!”

Now, Father had come from a studious line
Of great dinosaur scientists, who
Had told him mutations could sometimes be fine
In the long run – for dinosaurs, too.

“Well, happen you’re right,” replied Father, “But still
We must wait ’til he’s got a bit older.
Have you noticed, my dear, how the wind can feel chill
And the winter nights seem to get colder?

“I reckon these growths might evolve (don’t ask how)
Into things that are good insulators;
If they then develop, a long time from now,
His descendants could be aviators!

“And maybe the sight of his colourful quills
Will attract all the females for mating:
Just a shake of his plumage will give them such thrills
He can’t fail to get alpha-male rating.”

“Eee, you do talk some rot,” said his long-suffering wife.
“How can dinosaurs fly in the sky?
We’re big, bony predators, earthbound for life;
We can’t even jump very high.”

“Of course, dear, of course,” replied Father, who knew
Evolution would have the last words:
A dinosaur line, quills and all, would ensue
Which, aeons ahead, would be. . . birds!

[Image : Natural History Museum]
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A lousy trick

Posted on June 1, 2005 by GJ

Our local woodlice seem to be able to use to their advantage the properties of both quantum particles and warps in the fabric of the cosmos, which makes them hard to get rid of. I’ve tried the humane way; now it’s time to bring in the big guns of the universe.


It must be quantum tunnelling, it seems the only way
That woodlice, spotted on the floor, picked up and thrown away,
Can suddenly appear again exactly where you’d found ’em
Without traversing any of the carpet all around ’em.

Or are they using wormholes in the spacetime thingumajig?
(I’m blowed if I can see ’em, so they can’t be very big;
And why would all the wormholes end just here, inside my house?
It looks like modern physics has been mastered by a louse.)

Perhaps my trusty Hoover could take on another rôle:
To woodlice it should look just like a bloomin’ great black hole!
I’ll wind it up to max and fit the biggest nozzle size on,
Then suck those pesky arthropods past its event horizon.

[Image: a-levelphysicstutor.com (tunneling); bbc.com (wormhole); Wikipedia/Alain r (black hole)]
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Chelsea gold

Posted on May 24, 2005 by GJ

Every May, in the Thames-side grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, they put up huge marquees for horticultural people to show off their displays in the Chelsea Flower Show. You have to be really good to win one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s coveted medals.

Chelsea: tented, regimented,
Growth by nature ornamented,
Petals, metals, water features, wood and stone;
Richly fruity, deeply rooty,
Oozing verdant floral beauty,
Novel cultivars and species, specially grown;

Multi-scented, well presented,
Highly bred or new-invented,
An injection of perfection by the Thames.
Oh, the sowing! Oh, the growing!
Oh, the feeding, watering, hoeing!
Oh, the craft and graft that’s gone into these gems!

Lots of terracotta pots
And inspiring garden plots,
Vernacular, spectacular and bold;
Sometimes seedy, never weedy,
But for medals always greedy:
Bronze, Silver, Silver-Gilt – and Chelsea Gold!

[Photos: realflowers.co.uk; dailymail.co.uk]
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Tony

Posted on May 7, 2005 by GJ

This magician was a bit of a let-down.


A magical chap, known as Tony,
Claimed to levitate people alone. He
Was found out one day
When the wires all gave way,
Showing clearly that Tony was phoney.

[Image: mentalismguide.com]
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Perhaps

Posted on April 24, 2005 by GJ

It’s often quite difficult to make plans involving my grown-up son, because he usually has lots of interesting options which don’t get resolved until the last minute. Quantum mechanics has a similar problem.

My son is a quantum-like entity,
For over the years I have learned
That his actual physical whereabouts
Cannot be precisely discerned.

It’s as though all the atoms that make him,
Conspiring together, behave
As Max Born proposed, back in the twenties,
Like a giant probability wave.

Such an entity, Born said, could pop up
Nearby, far away, or just here . . .
But there’s no point in guessing the outcome,
Just wait for the thing to appear.

Only then are positions determined,
Only that gets the wave to collapse;
Only then can I know where my son is –
And that’s where I’ll find him. Perhaps.

[Image (not of my son!): soulreflector.wordpress.com]
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I wonder

Posted on April 23, 2005 by GJ

That bright ‘star’ the other evening wasn’t a star, it was the planet Jupiter. In my telescope, I could see faint coloured bands across it; and, in an almost straight line through it, were four bright spots of light. Over the next few nights, their positions changed . . .

I’ve done what Galileo did;
Like him, I was astounded.
I looked at Jupiter’s bright moons
And saw they moved around it!

My geocentric turn of mind
Is troubled now, you see,
For hitherto the universe
Has always turned round me.

But what you see is what you get.
It looks like I was wrong:
The Earth is not the hub of things
It seemed like all along.

Poor Galileo went on trial
For what he saw that night:
The facts did not agree with what
The Church decreed was right.

Well, many things have changed; but still
We look up to the sky,
And what we see can’t help but make
Us wonder how and why . . .

[Image: Wikipedia (Jan Sandberg – www.desert-astro.com)]
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Gordon’s goring

Posted on April 16, 2005 by GJ

Never underestimate your opponent…

A dashing young major, called Gordon,
Confronted a bull with his sword on.
Though he slashed left and right,
That old bull was quite bright:
’Twas his backside that Gordon got gored on.

[Photo: nymag.com/intelligencer]
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The sincerest form of flattery

Posted on April 15, 2005 by GJ

Bryozoans are invertebrate, aquatic, filter-feeding animals. Most are colonial, with individuals forming a colony with a common support structure. One form is named after the “inventor” of the Archimedean screw.

Archimedes, without knowin’,
Copied what a bryozoan
Had invented many million years ago.
It would have thought, “That Greek
Has got a bloomin’ cheek –
Bryozoans did it first, I’ll have you know.”

[Image: wikipedia]
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Home and colonial

Posted on April 15, 2005 by GJ

Bryozoans are colonies of individual aquatic, tentacle-waving animals (zooids), each of which asexually buds from its parent and builds its own cell of calcium carbonate on the parental one. Alternatively, new colonies can be started after eggs and sperm are released. Predators have various unseemly ways of extracting the juicy bits of individual zooids, but the sheer size and reproduction rate of an established colony means it can generally carry on. A zooid explains:


In a pretty bryozoan
I live quietly on my oan;
But there’s safety in big numbers; so you’ll find
Our colonial empires
Filled with owner-occupiers
Of the tentacled, suspension-feeding kind.

We don’t have to find a mate;
We just bud to propagate,
Though occasionally we have a go at sex.
(It’s well worth the extra labours
To escape from all the neighbours,
Who can sometimes feel like millstones round your necks.)

Not many folk collect us
And geologists reject us,
Yet sometimes it’s a job to stay alive.
We get ‘drilled’, and sucked, and grazed,
But we zooids are not fazed:
“The colony is all – it will survive”.

[Image: micrographia.com]
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Bert

Posted on April 9, 2005 by GJ

Appearances can be deceptive.

A rascally fellow was Bert:
He’d chase anything in a skirt.
But he once failed to spot
What he chased was a Scot,
Which encounter left Bert quite inert. . .

[Image: sites.google.com (Kilt Crawl2014)]
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Ben

Posted on April 7, 2005 by GJ

What a thrill it is when you first realise you can count up to really big numbers!


A mathematical fellow called Ben
Thought, “I’ll count up to twenty-one.” Then,
With his fingers and toes
(And the tip of his nose),
He did so, again and again . . .

[Photo: Halfway There]
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Percy

Posted on April 6, 2005 by GJ

The unpredictability of the market for verse.

An amateur poet called Percy
Attempted some comical verse. He
Then read it aloud
To a critical crowd,

Who pleaded with Percy for mercy.

[Image: clker.com]
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Sarah

Posted on April 4, 2005 by GJ

Life is a hazardous business.

A gymnastic young lady called Sarah
Once balanced herself on an airer.
But the airer gave way,
So I’m sorry to say
That now people called Sarah are rarer.

[Image (of Sarah starting out on her career?): tripadvisor.co.za]
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The skin that I’m in

Posted on March 21, 2005 by GJ

‘I’m glad we’ve got skin,’ said someone arriving indoors from a downpour. It made me think.


I’ve grown quite attached to it,
Genetically matched to it,
It’s been wrapped around me since birth.
I never remove it
Or try to improve it,
It’s my closest companion on earth.

It’s all in one sheet
From my head to my feet:
Top to toe, front to back, side to side.
It can stretch, and it bends;
If I cut it, it mends,
So it keeps all my insides inside.

It gets up when I do,
Helps cook when I try to,
And I’m never alone when I dine.
Like the best of good mates,
It helps wash the plates
And never refuses good wine.

Even though it’s quite thin,
Wind and rain can’t get in
When there’s terrible weather around;
But it needs insulation
In a cold situation
Such as winter, or night-times, I’ve found.

It’s got holes where my nose is,
And that, I suppose, is
To make sure fresh air can get in.
They’re in just the right place
On the front of my face
So they don’t interfere with my grin.

It has taken some knocks,
And it’s had a few shocks,
But it’s stayed with me, through thick and thin.
All in all, I am glad
That, since I was a lad,
I have lived in the skin that I’m in.

[Image: butterflyjman.wordpress.com]
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The sky at night

Posted on March 21, 2005 by GJ

Having got my hands on an astronomical telescope, I thought I would search the heavens for well-known objects.

Binoculars,
Though good for stars,
Can’t show me Mars.

That’s why I hope
This telescope
Is going to cope,

And let me see
A galaxy,
Faint nebulae,

The whole night sky.
What’s this I spy?
A crooked tie?

I can’t be sure. . .
Refocus. . . Cor!

It’s Patrick Moore!

[Photo: irishmirror.ie]
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Ignorance is bliss

Posted on March 19, 2005 by GJ

That great philosopher, poet and hummer of Hums, Pooh Bear, is finding it hard to get to The Bottom of Life. Fortunately, Christopher Robin turns up to explain how terribly boring it would be if there wasn’t anything to wonder about.


For a Bear whose Brain is Very Small,
Life’s mysteries are many.
I’ve tried so hard to solve them all,
But find I can’t solve any.

I asked Chris Robin. He said, “Pooh,
If everything were known,
Your Brain would not find much to do
With certainties alone.

“We do know some things well enough
To make our lives less frightening;
But, fundamentally, that stuff
Is not at all enlightening.

“It’s riddled, even now, with doubt:
We can’t get to the bottom
Of what reality’s about.
Want mysteries, Pooh? You got ’em!”

A Pooh who likes to sit and think
Needs mysteries to ponder,
Like: What does Eeyore like to drink?
And: Is that honey, yonder?

Or: Does the Earth go round the Sun?
So, what I’ve learned is this:
Not having answers makes life fun,
And ignorance is bliss!

[Image: dailymail.co.uk/BNPS.co.uk, acknowledging the artistry of the late E H Shepard (1879 – 1976)]
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A Horsham Stone roof

Posted on March 1, 2005 by GJ

The roofs of older houses in and around Horsham are tiled with slabs of Horsham Stone, a well-cemented sandstone that occurs within the Weald Clay. On the geological map of southern Britain, the Weald Clay and other Wealden strata appear as nested ‘horseshoe’ shapes whose axis of symmetry lies on a line through Hastings, Horsham and Haslemere. This pattern arises because, though initially horizontal, the strata were squeezed by tectonic forces into a ‘dome’ whose upper layers have now eroded away. On a smaller-scale map, the Horsham Stone shows up as another ‘horseshoe’ around Horsham; or, to the mathematically inclined, it’s like a parabola with Horsham more or less at its focus. So perhaps Horsham Stone has roofed the Horsham area for longer than we’ve realised . . .


In Wealden strata, you can trace
A horseshoe shape, implying
They made a ‘dome’ above the place
Where Horsham town’s now lying.

But now, the dome is worn away;
So Horsham’s modern locus
Is where the Chalk, greensands and clays
Have parabolic focus.

But, hidden in the Wealden clay,
Is stone they’ve used for roofing.
It’s heavy, but the locals say
It’s good for weatherproofing.

Its ‘horseshoe’ outcrop looks like proof
That, ere the dome wore down,
Old Horsham Stone once formed a roof
Right over Horsham town!

[Map: sciencephoto.com]
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A sundial’s lament

Posted on February 22, 2005 by GJ

The end of this piece embodies a two-liner by Hilaire Belloc, the only poem I can remember in full from my schooldays. Horsham’s Heritage Sundial, which is set up for British Summer Time, tries to argue for wider acceptance but, like Belloc’s, has to come to terms with market realities.

I’m a solar-powered timepiece that you do not have to wind.
I’m as quiet as the grave, because I’ve got no gears to grind.
I don’t wear out; I don’t slow down; my rhythm never slips,
So I do not need adjustment when you hear the Greenwich pips.
You would think all these advantages, and others I could mention,
Would leave the world amazed at such a marvellous invention.

The trouble is, although I’m astronomically right,
I’m not much good to people in the middle of the night;
Not portable, not digital, not radio-controlled;
No buttons, knobs or winder shafts. I’m from a different mould
That’s schooled in more traditional and self-effacing ways –
The strong and silent type that isn’t popular these days.

They tried to make me useful: all around my rim they cast,
In thirty scenes of solid bronze, the tale of Horsham’s past.
There’s horses, sheep, iguanodon, a dragon, fairies, knights,
A monastery, a cricket match and other local sights.
The Queen herself unveiled me, but I wonder if she thought,
“How backward! One would ditch this clock and get the modern sort”.

The clamour of the modern world is urgent and incessant;
Overtaken by technology, I’m feeling obsolescent.
I can’t adapt to GMT; I’m useless doing seconds;
I’m just a quaint anachronism, everybody reckons.
In short, I am a sundial, and I make a hopeless botch
Of what most folk will say is done far better by a watch.

[Photo: lornemckean.com]
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Fault lines

Posted on February 20, 2005 by GJ

The Earth relieves its stresses in many ways. Tensile stresses can result in roughly parallel splits (faults) in the crust, which allow the blocks between the faults (grabens) to sink. This leaves neighbouring blocks (horsts) standing proud. Too proud, sometimes; but geology is a great leveller. . . given time.


Said the horst unto the graben, “Well, I see you know your place,
It’s too bad I must rub shoulders with your kind.
Though one cannot help one’s origins, you’ve sunk so very low;
It’s one’s pedigree that counts, I think you’ll find.”

Said the graben to the horst, “Don’t you lord it over me, mate;
Your condition’s just an accident of earth.
I’m as upper-crust as you are; and eventually you’ll see, mate,
That erosion will restore our equal worth.”

[Diagram: Wikipedia]
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I once saw Einstein on a train

Posted on February 13, 2005 by GJ

Events on a very fast train are the usual analogy when trying to explain some aspects of Einstein’s theory of relativity.


I once saw Einstein on a train
Which whistled past our station.
“Your clock ticks much too slow,” I yelled.
“Ach, nein. That’s time dilation,

“I’m travelling near the speed of light.
When I glance back at you,
It looks like your clock’s running slow:
It’s crazy, but it’s true!”

Herr Einstein wasn’t looking well,
He really looked quite thin.
He must have heard: “Nein, nein,” he cried,
And flashed the Einstein grin:

“A metre rule along my train
Is shortened by its speed, too;
That’s why I think I haven’t changed.
A ruler can’t mislead you!

“But even so, I must admit
I find it hard to move.
I have a theory why that is,
Which, one day, I will prove:

“When moving near the speed of light,
You need more energy
To shift a mass from here to there
Than when at rest, you see.

“All matter in the universe,”
The physicist declared,
“Holds energy whose magnitude
Is shown by mc2.

“When I return, I’ll stop the train
And you will learn the truth:
I’ve found the key to time and space,
And to eternal youth!”

Einstein aged 3

[This poem won the adult section of the ‘Universe’ competition, organised for National Science Week 2005 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.]

[Images: medium.com; astronomynotes.com; daviddarling.info; forbes.com; Wikipedia]
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Earth to Mars. . .

Posted on February 12, 2005 by GJ

At low resolution, a feature first discovered in 1976 in the Cydonia region of Mars somewhat resembles a face. Some people claimed that it was not a natural geological structure but had been created by an intelligent Martian civilisation, perhaps to signal to us on Earth.


(Enhanced, cropped, low-resolution view from Viking 1 in 1976. Photo: NASA)

Way out there in space, there’s a trace of a face
(And I don’t mean the Man in the Moon).
Rumours gather apace that this face is a place
Which the Martians have built to commune.

It’s unlikely, I know, to be so; but although
My old sceptical mind says it’s rot,
I will give it a go: “Hi . . . . . hello . . . . . ” Does it show
Any sign that it heard? I think not!


(High-resolution view from Mars Global Surveyor in 2001. Photo: NASA]

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Rest in Peacehavem

Posted on January 14, 2005 by GJ

Part of the foreshore below the chalk cliffs at Peacehaven, Sussex, is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. You aren’t supposed to chip fossils, including some truly enormous ammonites, out of the rock there.

An ammonite, drifting nearby,
Thought, “Now that’s where I’m going to die:
I’m sure I’ll be safe in
The Chalk of Peacehaven –
After all, it’s an SSSI”.

[Images: ukfossils.co.uk, deviantart.com]
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Sign of the times

Posted on January 14, 2005 by GJ

I spotted this sign at the front of a local shop.

“Menswear at the back of the shop,”
Said the sign, catching me on the hop.
Now I’m wondering where
All the girls go to swear?
It’s disgraceful. It really must stop.

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Orchestral tips

Posted on January 2, 2005 by GJ

Playing in an orchestra is great, but you need to choose your instrument with care . . .



If you play the double bass,
You need an awful lot of space,
Good eyesight, quite long arms, and comfy shoes.
If you’re violoncelloing,
You must make sure nothing’s showing,
Or the audience will get some shocking views.

Those who play the violin
Need a leftward leaning chin
And a left hand full of double-jointed digits.
Viola players, also,
Are much the same, but more so –
The viola’s big, it’s not a job for midgets.

Clarinettists, old or young,
Require a really mobile tongue
To give each note a crisp and sharp attack.
They, and other woodwind,
Need a strong and steady good wind
To stand out from the brass behind their back.

Brass players must be sure
They can form an embouchure
And still perform well when they’ve sunk a beer.
Percussionists must count
Up to quite a huge amount
Before the rests end and their notes appear.

Take note of this advice.
Think carefully, think twice,
Before you choose which instrument to play;
Then go for it. It takes
Lots of practice and mistakes,
But I’ll see you in an orchestra one day!

[Image: salamuzik.com]
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Turkey talk

Posted on December 23, 2004 by GJ

Turkeys don’t have calendars, but it’s mid-December, and this one senses something in the air.


I am a free-range turkey,
Organic and well-fed;
But I have this funny feeling
That by Christmas I’ll be dead . . .

[Photo: Uwharrie Farm]
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Goodbye, and thanks for all the bread

Posted on November 15, 2004 by GJ

Horsham’s only independent baker closed at the end of November 2004.


“Blatch & Shepherd’s closing down,”
The notice in the shop said.
Sad news for shoppers in this town,
For this shop sells the top bread.

The news was passed along the queue;
When people on the step heard,
They all cried out, “What shall we do?
You can’t close Blatch & Shepherd!

“But if its end is really nigh,
There’s something must be said:
We’ll miss you, one and all. Goodbye,
And thanks for all the bread.”

[Cartoon: fr.toonpool.com (Siobhan Gately)]
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Angel voices

Posted on October 30, 2004 by GJ

In previous years, the Christmas decorations in Horsham’s Carfax have included angels, set atop tall green posts. But in 2004, they were conspicuously absent. An angelic protest group made contact to explain why:


On behalf of the heavenly host,
We felt we should lodge a complaint.
Your town is much nicer than most,
Except – angel-friendly it ain’t.

Last year, we heard grizzly, bizarre facts
From our angelic brothers, who said:
“They impaled us on poles in the Carfax!
Next year, we’ll try Crawley instead.”

So in Horsham, you won’t hear us singing,
For this Christmas we’re not flying down –
We’re going on strike. No more winging
Our mystical way o’er this town.

We hope Horsham folk understand
These are principles we must adhere to.
But hey, (though proclaiming is banned),
Merry Christmas, and happy New Year, too!

[Image: iwishiwasabettercatholic.blogspot.com]
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Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

Posted on October 11, 2004 by GJ

The 25 September 2004 issue of New Scientist reported this work, being done by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Perth, Australia.

Some scientists, performing
A review of global warming,
Have highlighted what ruminators do:
They generate – to be plain –
One fifth of global methane,
A greenhouse gas much worse than CO2.

At C.S.I.R.O.,
They have found a way to go:
They give the beasts a course of  vaccinations
Which enters their interior
And kills off the bacteria
That generate their harmful eructations.

No-one’s asked the cows or sheep,
Or the company they keep,
Their views on this, or asked for their permissions.
But here’s what Daisy says:
“We haven’t changed our ways,
It’s you who’ve increased greenhouse gas emissions”.

[Photo: theguardian.com]
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Come rain or shine

Posted on October 10, 2004 by GJ

Old sayings often have more than a grain of truth. I thought I would give one the benefit of modern technology to improve a popular but notoriously unreliable service.

I am chasing a dream
Where I set up a scheme
By which weather forecasts are improved:
I have fathomed out how,
With the aid of a cow,
All the guesswork’s completely removed.

For, time and again,
All those Met Office men
Get it totally wrong – and get paid!
It’s high time their black arts
And extravagant charts
Were exposed, and their errors displayed.

So the plan in my mind
Is a satellite, primed
To spot cows in the fields. I’ll explain:
If a cow’s lying down,
Whether black, white or brown,
There’s a saying that says it will rain.

So it scans every zone
Plotting cows who lie prone,
Then it filters the data it’s found;
Clever circuits, hardwired,
Exclude cows who’re just tired,
And beam down its results to the ground.

My new forecasts will be
Of such accuracy,
They’ll be better than any about.
No more will you bet
On a dry day or wet –
The Met Office had better look out!

[Images: dailymail.co.uk, The TImes, and the European Space Agency]
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Conkering heroes

Posted on October 4, 2004 by GJ

Claiming an increasing litigiousness in British society, a headmaster has demanded that all young conker players at his school wear goggles while they do battle.


Put on goggles
For conkers?
The mind boggles –
It’s bonkers!

[Photo: BBC]
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Sexual dimorphism

Posted on September 25, 2004 by GJ

The Jurassic ammonites Stephanoceras and the smaller genus Mollistephanus each come in two size ranges, the females (macroconches) being many times larger than their male counterparts (microconches). A female Mollistephanus is similar in size to a male Stephanoceras, which is a challenge to people like Bob Chandler who is investigating the zonal spreads and evolution of Middle Jurassic ammonites. Intriguingly, evidence has been found that they can sometimes change sex. A Stephanoceras male, feeling unfairly treated by evolution, decides to take drastic action. . .

Sexual equality? No chance of that round here!
My missus is a macroconch, and likes to make it clear
That we’re sexually dimorphic – she’s in charge, and I’m in fear.
Well, I might be ten times smaller, but I’ve had a great idea.

I’ll tell you what I’ll do, although you’ll think I’m off my trolley:
I’ll change my sex, and change my name; not Stephan now, but Molli.
My ammonitic friends will reckon I’m a dishy dolly;
But for Molli males a tenth my size, to cross me would be folly!

In times to come geologists will hammer at the ground,
Then out I’ll pop. Bob Chandler and his buddies will assemble all around.
“A Stephan micrconch? A macro Molli? No. We’ve found
A hen-pecked, sex-changed, chimera – the only one around!”

[Photos: wikipedia (stephanoceras, left); ammoniten.org (mollistephanus, right)
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Out of season

Posted on August 16, 2004 by GJ

It’s the middle of August, and I’ve spotted Christmas cards in one of our local shops.


There are four months still to go,
Yet there’s Christmas cards on show.
They seem to turn up earlier each year.
August’s far too soon to choose ’em
(If you do, you’ll only lose ’em).
It seems as if the calendar’s gone queer.

Guy Fawkes would be confused
Seeing fireworks being used
At times removed from his November treason.
It’s the same with other goods:
Hot cross buns and Christmas puds
Are put on sale completely out of season.

It’s a question of degree;
So, although I must agree
That spreading sales will flatten out the peaks,
Weren’t these sorts of things once meant
To be linked to an event?
I think the links should not be months, but weeks.

[Image: whychristmas.com]
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If you can’t stand the heat…

Posted on August 1, 2004 by GJ

My wife is an excellent cook who claims she just ‘throws things together’. It’s a marvel to me how she gets everything coming together at the right times. It all seems to get a lot more frantic whenever I try my hand in the kitchen. She says, if I get in such a state over a simple meal, what would I be like doing something really complicated? So I thought I’d show her. . .

“This kitchen’s getting crowded, there’s not room enough for two,”
I warned my wife. “You see, a man must do what he must do:
I’ve got the urge to cook a meal, a treat for us to feed on.
The time is getting on, and so I’ve got to get some speed on.

“So many possibilities, I’ve still to make my mind up;
I want to do it right, though, so the cookbooks are all lined up.”
Eventually, I choose a gastronomical delight:
Sharp implements get wielded to the left and to the right;

Quantities are measured to the recipe’s statistics;
Ingredients get assembled in a whirl of tight logistics.
“A bit of this, a pinch of that… I’ve got to turn the heat up…
If you get in my way, there won’t be anything to eat up.”

She’s seen it all before, this gastronomic zeal and ardour.
She watches as I fly between the worktop and the larder.
“Slow down, you’ll blow a gasket,” says my wife, while standing clear;
But as usual I ignore her as my pace steps up a gear.

I bet she thinks this meal will be inedible, a joke;
Well, I am going to show her that it isn’t every bloke
Can plate up meals as intricate as this meal’s going to be,
Or serve it with such style as can a super chef like me.

By the time the cooking’s finished, I am flustered, tired and hot.
(My wife had left the kitchen long ago – her nerves were shot.)
“Madame, your meal is ready. I’m not usually one to boast,
Mais voila! Here for your delight: my scrambled egg on toast.”

[Photo: thetimes.co.uk]
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Butterflies

Posted on July 22, 2004 by GJ

I have long puzzled over how butterflies  move and change direction so rapidly – they don’t seem to have the buzz power of bees or the skeletal and muscular structures of birds. Apparently, engineers are interested in the subject too, for possible application to extra-terrestrial flying robots. Researchers at the University of Oxford may now have found part of the answer (letter to Nature, 12 Dec 2002): butterflies can choose between six different wing actions during flight. But others reckon an insect brain may have only about 3000 neurons, giving them ‘less computational power than a toaster’, which hardly seems enough for the job.


Butterflies are wispy things
With skinny bodies, flimsy wings.
They really don’t look very strong,
And yet they seem to get along.

They’re pretty nifty little movers
Who execute some cool manoeuvres:
Their flight controls are so precise
They change direction in a trice.

You’d think a breeze, with little force,
Would blow a butterfly off course;
And air, to insects, is so sticky
That flying ought to be quite tricky –

No aerofoils to give them lift,
No buzzing wings to help them shift
(Compared to bees, their wings are slow).
How do they fly, I’d like to know!

Well, though their brains are rather small
(Three thousand neurons – seems that’s all),
It’s proved to be no handicap:
Their wings have learned six ways to flap.

They’ve found out how their wings can tease
Out streams of useful vortices:
They flap and twist, and ‘clap-and-fling’,
Then catch the lift their efforts bring.

Wing-flapping’s what our engineers
Have tried to duplicate for years;
But butterflies, as you’ll have guessed,
Have always known they do it best!

[Image: ceffect.com]
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On the trail of a snail

Posted on July 12, 2004 by GJ

There it was, halfway up the wall of the house. Aren’t snails meant to slither slimily over the ground?

I always thought snails weren’t supposed
To leave themselves over-exposed.
This one’s climbing a wall!
Has he no sense at all?
Has his malady been diagnosed?

For a snail, he’s abnormally high,
Doing things that his mates never try.
Their gaze firmly grounded,
They’d all be astounded
If ever they looked to the sky.

A creature so painfully slow
Needs to think very hard where to go.
If it goes the wrong way
It could end up as prey.
He’s a snail of the world – he should know.

As I pondered these thoughts, the snail spoke:
“Look, I’m not doing this for a joke.
I’d more likely be found
If I stayed on the ground;
Going vertical’s my masterstroke.

“My direction in life’s my affair;
If I want, I’ll climb up in the air.
I am blazing new trails
For adventurous snails,
And I’m climbing this wall ’cos it’s there.”

 [Image: publicdomainpictures.net]
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Brain strain

Posted on July 1, 2004 by GJ

The human brain is curious about its own existence, but not yet clever enough to get at the answers. Well, mine isn’t, anyway.

What on earth is the use of a brain
Which, whenever it tries to explain
What reality is,
Gets itself in a tizz?
Still, I s’pose I ought not to complain.

It’s stuck with the inputs it’s got:
Five senses, that’s all; not a lot.
Just touch, taste and smell,
Sight and hearing as well.
Oh, and memory, too – I forgot!

But they’re simply not nearly enough
To be able to handle such stuff
As  “Can time ever stop?”
Or “Does space have a top?”
My brain cannot know – and that’s tough.

But it knows that admitting defeat
Wouldn’t help the poor thing to compete.
So, to keep me alive,
It tries hard to survive
With a world-view that’s quite incomplete.

[Image: newsweek.com]
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Oolite

Posted on June 21, 2004 by GJ

If the Oxford English Dictionary is to be believed, this word is frequently mispronounced, even by many professionals.


Don’t say ‘oo-lite’ as others might,
For ‘oh-uh-lite’ is really right.
Who says? Not me, the OED;
And who are we to disagree?

[Image (of a thin section of oolite): Wikipedia/Mark A Wilson]
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Balls

Posted on June 15, 2004 by GJ

It’s summer. Spare a thought for all those defenceless spheroidal projectiles now being subjected to violence on tables, courts, pitches, fairgrounds, links, greens and gardens all over the land. There ought to be a Royal Society for the Protection of Balls . . .


It’s just horrible being a ball.
If we’re not being thrown at a wall,
You are bashing us, thrashing us,
Bowling or rolling us.
Does nobody love us at all?

You just don’t understand how we feel:
When you launch us with fervour and zeal
At coconut shies
To knock off a prize,
We end up unconscious. Big deal!

In tennis, our prospects are cursed
By directions abruptly reversed
As we’re volleyed and served,
Spun, top-sliced and curved
’Til our casings are ready to burst.

We’re all battered and bruised, thanks to you.
Struck with football boot, golf club or cue,
We end up in goals,
Bounced off cushions, down holes;
We are punished whatever we do.

We give notice: we simply won’t stick it.
We detest being thrown at a wicket,
And what’s more, we abhor
Being driven for four.
Look here, chaps, it’s simply not cricket!

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]
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Feet first

Posted on June 15, 2004 by GJ

Chiropodists, like dentists and urologists, deal with bits of you that you tend to take for granted. It must often be a thankless task; I wondered how they keep going.

Chiropody’s my line of work: I deal with people’s feet.
I’ve got some aromatic oils that leaves them smelling sweet.
I whip your shoes and socks off as soon as you arrive,
Then wash and dry between your toes to make sure I’ll survive.

The trouble is with feet, you see, they do get so neglected:
Nails too long, or shoes too tight – that’s how they get infected.
Your bunions, callouses and corns are not a pretty sight,
But when I’ve padded, cut and scraped, they start to look all right.

Some folk can seem quite grumpy and come across all gruff,
But it’s hard to wear a happy face when your feet are feeling rough.
So I take a philosophic view when working down this end:
However horrid people are, their feet are still my friend.

[Image: clipartsheep.com]
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The hole

Posted on May 24, 2004 by GJ

A dream come true for the amateur geologist: a mechanical digger exhumes,  from below the soil of a farmer’s set-aside field, a huge volume of Inferior Oolite, riddled with its characteristic fossils, and spreads it out for us to pick over and scavenge. The hole will soon be filled in again, but things won’t be the same . . .


The man who drives the digger cuts an animated figure
As his bucket scrapes and scoops the earth below.
When he’s finished, there at last is a window on the past:
A grave for creatures buried long ago.

The digger driver’s mates are finding ammonites like plates,
Ignoring Health and Safety guidelines by the score.
Such rules are too restrictive, and those fossils too addictive:
If you find one, you’ve just got to find some more.

Every load the digger’s shifted carries fossils, fresh uplifted
From Jurassic strata out into the light.
Every one gets close-inspected: good ones kept, the rest rejected;
It’s paradise, this hole – a wondrous sight.

So many fossils there: most are common, some are rare.
We stake our claims and search the growing heap.
Our persistence doesn’t waver as we do them all a favour
By extracting them and choosing which to keep.

The hole will be backfilled, the soil re-ploughed and tilled;
There’ll be no surface sign of what we stole.
But when fossil-hunters next search the section, they’ll be vexed
To find the fossil record has a hole!

[Photo: Cushion and Cake]
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Depression

Posted on May 12, 2004 by GJ

The UK Meteorological Office begins its shipping forecasts with a general synopsis, which describes the main areas of high and low pressure. I was deeply moved by this recent one: “Low, north-east FitzRoy, drifting south and losing its identity . . .” How sad.


There isn’t much joy here in north-east FitzRoy
For a cyclone, downcast and alone.
It’s hard to be fond of the back of beyond;
I wouldn’t have come, if I’d known.

The Met Office say, in their clinical way,
There’s a ‘high’, building out to the west.
Trouble is, its persistence could harm my existence;
No wonder my pressure’s depressed.

Their latest projection says I’ve no direction:
I’m a drifting Atlantic nonentity.
Now my pressure’s got higher . . . the outlook is dire . . .
I think I’ve just lost my . . .

[Image: wikimedia]
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Pollution

Posted on May 1, 2004 by GJ

For more than half the life of the planet, there was more carbon dioxide than oxygen. Some oxygen might have been produced by solar radiation breaking down atmospheric water vapour, the lighter hydrogen escaping into space; but what eventually displaced CO2 from its dominant position, around 2 billion years ago, is thought to have been the photosynthetic efforts of blue-green bacteria to build carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide. Unaware that it was one of the main culprits, one of these early organisms describes its view of oxygen as a major pollutant . . .


“Our environment’s doomed,” cried a microbe of old,
“If we don’t get to grips with pollution.
It’s getting much worse now, or so I’ve been told;
We really must find a solution.

“We’re worried that soon there won’t be enough
CO2, so we can’t photosynthesise.
Some say we’re to blame for this oxygen stuff,
But how can that be? It’s just wicked lies . . .

“The Sun is the culprit: its harsh UV light
Is breaking apart H2O
Into H2 and O2. The H2 takes flight,
Leaving O2 behind, as we know.

“If nothing is done, we are doomed to expire.
This poisonous air must be banned.
It’s far too reactive: it makes things catch fire,
And spreads rust and rot through the land.

“Who knows what effects all this noxious gas
Will have on our future? It’s scary:
Could mutants arise, of incredible mass,
Big brains, arms and legs, and quite hairy?”

[Image: smartdogs.wordpress.com]
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Ladies and gentlemen

Posted on April 25, 2004 by GJ

An enduring, and endearing, feature of our lessons in ballroom dancing is our teacher’s method of sorting out the sexes before teaching us new steps or reminding us of the ones we should know.

Our dancing teacher’s methods are effective and unique:
Before she gets you dancing with your partner, cheek to cheek,
She will call you all to order with her mantra, thus enshrined:
“Let’s have the ladies in the front, and the gentlemen behind.”

In the Quickstep, Waltz and Tango her persistence knows no bounds
As, step by step, you hear her making reassuring sounds.
But when your back arm droops and the steps go from your mind:
“Let’s have the ladies in the front, and the gentlemen behind.”

In the Cha-Cha-Cha and Rumba, and the Samba and the Jive,
You bounce and sway and jig about. Oh boy, you feel alive!
Until your feet get tangled and your bodies misaligned . . .
“Let’s have the ladies in the front, and the gentlemen behind.”

I do wonder if these constant segregations by our gender
Are symptoms of a Women’s Lib alternative agenda;
Is her message, subtly coded, “Mother Nature has designed
That we ladies stay in front, and you gentlemen behind”?

Of course, it’s not; although I have a funny sort of feeling
That Equal Opportunities would find this case appealing.
Their judgement would be written with these words red-underlined:
“Half the ladies in the front, and half the gentlemen behind”.

But that would cause confusion as we chassé round the hall.
Let the status quo remain, it’s what we’re used to, after all.
We’ve lived with it for years now, so we’re really quite resigned;
Let’s keep the ladies in the front, and the gentlemen behind.

[Photo: thebathdancentre.co.uk]
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Definitions

Posted on April 1, 2004 by GJ

The human mind abhors mystery, for with mystery go unpredictability and fear; so its natural response is to devise explanations. In the process, new words are given, or acquire, meanings. Science describes its own attempts at giving meaning to words as ‘definitions’; religions simply rely on tradition – people maintaining a common understanding. The bad news is that inadequate definitions make shaky foundations both for science and for religions; they provide ammunition for their opponents and confuse seekers after their truths. The good news is that, as in archaeology, their very existence identifies the location of something hidden for years. Dig down beneath the definitions and traditions to find the original mysteries – it’s good to know what you don’t know.

In the beginning, the Word;
But were there some vital omissions?
If only God’s voice had been heard
Announcing some key definitions,

Like evil and heaven and hell,
Like God and the Devil and sin.
If left undefined, who can tell
What all of these terms really mean

Are angels gay blokes who can fly?
(Do birds work on similar lines?)
Do demons have horns? If so, why?
And could there be other designs?

The effects due to charge can be shown,
And those due to force can be bruising;
But what they, and mass, are, isn’t known.
The whole thing is pretty confusing.

Great edifices can arise,
Reinforced by unthinking traditions.
How vital it is, if we’re wise,
That we recognise duff definitions.

It’s a lesson to humble mankind,
Yet mankind has ignored it through history:
If something cannot be defined,
You have to accept it’s a mystery.

[Image: materialitytracker.net]
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Martian methane

Posted on April 1, 2004 by GJ

According to New Scientist (3 April 2004), evidence of methane has been detected on Mars by three independent groups of scientists.


Now they’ve found methane on Mars,
The debate on its origins starts:
The source could be rock reservoirs,
Or maybe microbial venting of a gaseous by-product of their digestion of organic matter.

[Image: Universe Today (ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, G Neukum)]
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Alarmed!

Posted on April 1, 2004 by GJ

I tend to notice notices, especially if they’re like this one . . .

They’d put up a notice: “This door is alarmed”.
I was shocked. What had frightened it so?
I wondered, first, how could this poor door be calmed?
And then, how on earth did they know?

Image: signs2safety.co.uk]
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Baryonyx

Posted on March 11, 2004 by GJ

This 124 million year-old fish-eating dinosaur, found in 1983 by Bill Walker, was named Baryonyx walkeri in recognition of its large, curved claw. Watching slides presented by Adrian Doyle, of the Natural History Museum, I noticed that the striations visible on its bones appeared to encode a message:

“Whoever said a rose by other names would smell as sweet
Had not been nominated for the strangeness of his feet.
I know you palaeontologists are bound by taxonomics,
But ‘heavy claw’ is hurtful and unfair. Yours, Baryonyx.”

[Image: novataxa.blogspot.com; dinohunters.com]
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No news is good news

Posted on February 25, 2004 by GJ

They say that “Dog bites man” is not news, whereas “Man bites dog” is. I wondered if that value judgement might change on a day when nothing much was happening . . .

“Here’s the news at a quarter to ten:
No dogs have been bitten by men –
Well, that’s not surprising.
The FTSE is rising,
And the weather is perfect again.

“No earthquakes or floods have occurred –
The very idea is absurd!
There isn’t much crime,
All the trains are on time,
And the first springtime cuckoo’s been heard.

“We’ve sent out our radio van
To find any bad news it can,
But there’s not much around.
Wait – here’s something they’ve found:
A dog has just bitten a man!”

[Cartoon: petslworld.in]
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Plumbing the depths

Posted on February 20, 2004 by GJ

There’s one area of life that breaks the “there’s always one” rule. In plumbing, there’s always more than one.

Of all the jobs I have to do, there’s one that is the worst.
Success eludes me every time; my efforts are all cursed.
I DIY with the best of them and manage pretty well,
Except when it comes to pipes and joints. That’s plumbing, and it’s hell.

I find it all confusing, and books don’t help because
They make it seem so easy. Oh, how I wish it was!
The tools you need are chunky: huge spanners, Stilsons, Moles;
Blow-lamps, plungers, drain rods, for use by sturdy souls.

There’s 15-mil and 22, and half-inch BSP;
There’s elbows, olives, O-rings, glands and taped PTFE;
Compression, Yorkshire, push-fit joints; P-traps, U-bends, drain cocks.
A nightmare mix of bits and bobs that’s cracking up my brain-box.

Electrics are more flexible and easier to mend;
But pipes are unforgiving and a pain to join or bend.
You drain them dry to fix a drip by tightening and tweaking;
But when you fill the system up, the darn thing keeps on leaking.

Why can’t it all be easier? Why must I get so fraught?
Why can’t things fit together much more simply, as they ought?
There’s no hope of improvement, as far as I can tell;
It looks as if I’m stuck with it. That’s plumbing, and it’s hell!

[Cartoon: Ham Radio Secrets (from iStockPhoto.com)]
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Writer’s block

Posted on January 30, 2004 by GJ

It’s January, a bleak month . . .


This month, there is no poem. Seems my muse is on vacation,
Gone absent without leave. It’s quite a shock.
She’s taken all my sources of poetic inspiration
And left me nursing chronic writer’s block . . .

[Image: I Said It (wordfight.in)]
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The fall

Posted on December 18, 2003 by GJ

Listening to a travel announcement while descending a flight of steps to a London Tube booking hall recently proved my undoing. I lifted my gaze to look for a Tube map just before I reached the last step. The inevitable happened, fortunately bruising only my dignity. (As an exercise in short-line verse, this one fails at the very end . . .)


Well, I declare:
That bottom stair
Is just thin air!
It isn’t there,

Not there at all
(Or very small).
“Look out!” I call
Before I fall –

A pointless sound!
I check around:
Here comes the ground –
I’ll soon be downed.

There’ll be a smash,
A spatial clash . . .
There! In a flash,
A mighty CRASH!

I shout a curse:
It’s very terse –
“Oh blow!” or worse
(Not fit for verse).

I’ll now test this
Hypothesis:
That my mate Chris
Will take the opportunity to make fun of me . . .

See also ‘The ladder’

[Disney cartoon: toonsntunes.blogspot.com]
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The Shelley pigeon

Posted on December 15, 2003 by GJ

People of all ages seem to enjoy being around Horsham’s unusual water feature. I wonder how many have noticed that the North Pole of the Rising Universe makes a watery perch for local pigeons. One in particular. . .

My pigeon mates are envious, but they were just too slow –
I saw it first. First come, first served, that’s pigeon law. And so
They sometimes come to visit, but they’re wary of the flow
Of water that cascades into the concrete bowl below.

Perhaps you will have seen me, perched atop this curious sphere?
The water cools my feet, and I can see for miles from here.
I like to watch as families from all around appear
To sit and chat and eat their lunch. I never interfere.

I’m on the Shelley Fountain, way out west in Horsham town.
I s’pose it’s art in action, but two puzzles make me frown.
How come that children like it, even though they nearly drown?
And how d’you stop this blooming thing from going up and down?

[Photo by ‘Lord Cogsby’ on flickr]
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