The price of sex appeal

Posted on December 12, 2003 by GJ

Guppies have spots along their flanks that vary in colour, size, position and reflectivity. In 1980, J A Endler found that, over several generations, male colour patterns adapted to the local risk of predation. Fortunately, for the species, guppy genes that code for male skin decoration exist in several forms (alleles). As the predation environment changes, guppies with the ‘wrong’ alleles get a raw deal: with no predators around, it’s the other guys who mostly get the girls; and in predator-infested waters, they get eaten first. In either case, their alleles tend not to get passed on.


The things that drive girl guppies dotty
Are guppy males whose skins are spotty.
But guppy guys know decoration
Makes them targets for predation.

If predators nearby are feeding,
Big, flashy spots, though good for breeding,
Can make a chap an easy meal –
It’s just the price of sex appeal.

So what’s a guppy guy to do?
Well, nature’s got a trick or two:
It’s learned just how a guppy feels,
And given it some cool alleles.

The genes that program guppy spots
Have different forms – in fact, there’s lots:
One ‘spot’ allele may code for many,
While others dish out hardly any;

Some make red spots, some make blue,
Some an iridescent hue;
Small spots, big spots. All these may
Be expressed by DNA.

Thus, guppy genes have quite a range
Of possibilities for change.
Those who survive, it’s evident,
Can change with the environment.

It means that guppies can adapt
To life, instead of getting trapped.
The trouble is, adapting means
Survival of the fittest genes.

So some within the population
Are destined for extermination:
Those guppy blokes who find they’re stuck
Without the right allele – tough luck!

[Image: aqua-fish.net]
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Obsession

Posted on December 1, 2003 by GJ

I have become aware that rocks and fossils I’ve collected are permeating my domestic environment. Some have found uses in the house and garden, but too many others are piling up, unsorted, in various locations.

When they’re juicy and mature, I keep my strawberries secure
With a net held down by chunks of interesting stone.
They’re too nice to throw away; so I won’t, until the day
That I trust those birds to leave my fruit alone.

And these ammonite remains? Well, they’re attractive, which explains
Why they’re sitting on my little bedside table.
In the wardrobe, near my socks, are more fossils, in a box;
They’ll get sorted out as soon as I am able.

See this doorstop, over here? It’s a Furzy Cliffs Gryphaea
Which I brought back home from Dorset long ago.
I’ve got belemnites and things, and a damsel fly’s frail wings;
I suppose I ought to set them out on show.

But, as if that’s not enough, I’ve got tons of other stuff,
Like fancy shells and pebbles from the shore.
I have found a place to store ’em, in the loft – it’s ideal for ’em.
Trouble is, it doesn’t leave much room for any more,

And these things in my possession are becoming an obsession:
It must end. Yes, I expect there will be lapses,
But the loft is now so full up that the ladder doesn’t pull up;
I must stop before the house itself collapses . . .

[Photo (urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.co.uk]
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GBH

Posted on November 13, 2003 by GJ

George Bax Holmes (1803–87) was a wealthy Horsham resident, whose interest in the fossils he found in the surrounding Wealden strata led him to amass a large collection which included many Iguanodon bones and fragments. In the media’s mind, of course, the bones coalesced into a single dinosaur. Holme’s collection is now in the Booth Museum of Natural History, in Dyke Road, Brighton – a fascinating barn of a place.

From Tower Hill and Fletcher’s fields,
From Stammerham and Rusper,
Came bones that George Bax Holmes had found –
A Horsham-centred cluster.

Eventually, he’d such a hoard
That would the Dyke Road barn adorn.
And what d’you think the media called it?
“Horsham’s Great Iguanodon”.

[Image: blog.tooveys.com]
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Swan talk

Posted on October 21, 2003 by GJ

In Horsham’s first indoor shopping centre, Swan Walk, are a beautiful circular mosaic and a magnificent bronze sculpture of swans. In the sculpture, three of them are mounted in formation on a raised pool, with water jets directed at the webbed feet of the lower swan, giving the impression that they are forever in the act of landing on a watery surface. It’s not surprising that the swans are puzzled . . .

We had seen some water flowing
In Swan Walk. “That’s where we’re going,”
Said my friends. “The swan mosaic’s quite outstanding.”
So we flew down for some shopping.
Trouble is, instead of stopping,
We appear to be perpetually landing . . .

[Photo: sculptors.org.uk]
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Reconnecting

Posted on October 11, 2003 by GJ

A recent television series, fronted by a well-known Authority Figure, asserted that not only is your personality determined to a significant extent by the way your brain is wired up, but that it will rewire itself if you practise a new behaviour sufficiently.

I’ve just learned my brain is fantastic
(You probably think yours isn’t bad!):
Its structure’s amazingly plastic,
Reconnecting its neurons like mad.

There’s one hundred billion or more*,
Whose connections are what make you you.
Got a habit you really deplore?
Then try reconnecting a few.

Want to learn a new language or skill,
Play piano or sing in a choir?
Just practise a lot, then you will,
’Cos your neurons will start to rewire.

They’ll do it themselves, without aid:
They’ll connect up the pathways they need,
Leaving other connections to fade –
All to make sure your efforts succeed.

Reconnecting’s the key to success –
Not too often; or else, as I’ve spotted,
Your neurons could get in a mess
And end up all horribly knotted.

* UPDATE, February 2012: Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel, of the Laboratory of Human Anatomy at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, used a ‘soup’ of four donated adult male human brains and concluded that the average number per brain was a mere 86 billion. It seems that no-one know where the hitherto widely-quoted figure of 100 billion came from!

[Image: wikipedia]
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Of royal extraction

Posted on October 11, 2003 by GJ

A talk by Paul Sowan, from a group dedicated to the study of underground places, revealed that he couldn’t look at a grand stone building without imagining a matching hole in the ground. Much of the best stone for such buildings in south-east England came from underground quarries in Surrey.

The ground’s not too solid in Surrey;
Its bedrock is far from complete.
Just getting about is a worry
Lest the ground should collapse at your feet.

It’s royalty’s fault: all the rocks
From huge underground quarries, they say,
Have been cut out in whopping great blocks
For their castles, and carted away.

In Hampton Court, Windsor, the Tower,
You can find Reigate Stone all around;
But the rocks that such places devour
Leave some cavernous holes underground.

Though the quarrymen now are no more,
Their workings are littered with rubble.
To some they’re good fun to explore,
But these underground tunnels spell trouble.

But, hey, this is Britain, and so
There’s a group who just couldn’t be manic-er
Over deneholes and diggings below,
And they’re called ‘Subterranea Britannica’.

[Images: Wikimedia Commons (Hamption Court Palace); Subterranea Britannica]
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Let us from this table rise

Posted on October 8, 2003 by GJ

People old enough to sit round a table for some serious reminiscing know that activities once undertaken with abandon may now require a more circumspect approach . . .


What once we did with youthful flair
Must, now we’re getting grey of hair
And clocking up the wear and tear,
Be executed with more care;

So, let us from this table rise –
But slowly, lest such exercise
Should, at our ages, prove unwise
And spark our premature demise.

[Photo: mirandasphysiosteps.com]
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Nostalgia

Posted on October 1, 2003 by GJ

The past has the advantage over the present and the future, in that your brain can selectively retrieve it, remembering it, as Shakespeare said, “with advantages”. Seven of us got together and unexpectedly opened floodgates of 1950s nostalgia.

We old friends congregated round a table set with food,
Remembering the past from long ago.
It was wall-to-wall nostalgia: we were in reflective mood
As we talked about the times we used to know.

Then, life was rosy, bright and safe, and horses ploughed the ground,
And fields were full of flowers, cows and sheep;
Front doors were left unlocked, so we’d go out and run around,
Forever making memories we’d keep.

The phone box at the bus-stop had two buttons: B and A.
How lucky if you got to press the B one!
And ricks with sloping roofs were built in fields to store the hay ­–
It’s such a shame, these days you never see one.

So many things have changed: the smithy’s gone, the brickworks too;
The Sompting Children’s Outing is no more;
The carnivals are over; and the old black barn we knew
Has vanished; so has Lintern’s hardware store.

Vic Bashford sold us vegetables, Frank Slimming sold us meats;
Our groceries we got from Skilton’s shop.
The newsagent sold gobstoppers and liquorice, and sweets
From shelves of jars, each with a screw-on top.

We reminisced indulgently for ages; it was pleasant,
But Father Time looked in to end our wallow.
The evening’s now a memory itself; the fleeting present
Has taken us to what was then tomorrow.

[Photos: Daily Mail (left); 1900s.org.uk (centre); christchurchartgallery.org.nz (right)]
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The Infrastructure Services Manager

Posted on September 15, 2003 by GJ

A friend has recently acquired this rather splendid job title.

I manage all the Infrastructure Services there are.
It’s real behind-the-scenes work: I’m a bod
Whose influence and power is exerted from afar.
Don’t let the title fool you. I am God.

[Cartoon: myapologies.wordpress.com]
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Sunday lunch

Posted on September 2, 2003 by GJ

Out picking blackberries one Sunday lunchtime, I saw a little spider enjoying its lunch, which was still alive at the time. The lunch tried to explain its predicament . . .


I’d heard about spiders and how they catch flies
In their webs, which are terribly sticky;
But I’d thought, ‘It can’t happen to me, I’m too wise’.
But it did; now the future looks tricky . . .

I’ve tried wriggling and kicking and buzzing my wings,
But the spider is on the horizon.
(He must have a little alarm bell, that rings
Whenever his web has got flies on . . . )

He’s coming straight at me; I just can’t get free.
He’s determined – he means to be fed.
Ouch! Mind where you’re biting! Oh dear, seems to me
Before very long, I’ll be . . .

[Image: WIkimedia Commons]
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Retail therapy

Posted on August 28, 2003 by GJ

It seems blokes have to learn some things the hard way. (These events are, of course, purely imaginary. No, really they are.)


“I need a new handbag. My old one’s worn out,
I expect it’s the way that I use it.
The shops won’t be busy now, no-one’s about;
Do come with me and help me to choose it.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Oh no, what a chore!’,
But without you I might get it wrong.”
Well, I fell for it, just as I’ve fallen before,
“Okay, if it won’t take too long.”

So we get to the shops, and she looks at the bags,
And none of them seem to be right.
(Just as well – did you notice the price on those tags?
They’ve given my wallet a fright.)

“It’s no good,” she says, “what we need is a shop
That offers a wider selection.”
I ought to know better but, caught on the hop,
We seek a designer collection.

“Now that’s a nice bag,” she says, “it’s a name
That will give me some cred on the street,
But I’ll need some new shoes. Well, it would be a shame
If the bag were shown up by my feet.”

Then what? Let me guess: first a skirt, then a blouse,
Pair of trousers (“do they make me look fat?”),
Fancy underclothes (just to embarrass her spouse),
Then some earrings, a coat and a hat . . .

Can you see where we’re heading? The slippery slope
Where shopping goes out of control.
Make her see reason, that’s my only hope,
Or it could take a terrible toll.

Can women see reason? I give it a try:
“Where will it all end, dear!” I joke.
“Look, I need all these things, can’t you see?”, her reply;
“And I think I might need a new bloke . . .”

[Image: mirror.co.uk]
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Immortal, invisible

Posted on August 10, 2003 by GJ

Viruses are bundles of DNA or RNA, buttoned up in a protein overcoat. They do nothing for themselves. To reproduce, they exploit the manufacturing capabilities of the more complex cellular structures they gain entry to. All the cells get out of it is an early death, causing disease to the organism of which they were a part. A virus, who for understandable reasons prefers to remain anonymous, explains:


Beneath my protein coat, nucleic acid’s all I’ve got.
I haven’t got a nucleus, cell wall
Or Golgi apparatus. I can do without that lot;
In fact, I don’t need very much at all.

I drift around with all my mates: we’ve dropped out and we’re free,
We hitch-hike on the slightest puff of air,
Sub-microscopic hippies, yeah, it’s how we like to be.
There’s no way you can tell that we are there.

But when we get inside a cell and commandeer its works,
We make our presence felt – it can’t ignore us.
We’ve got this hip philosophy that working’s just for jerks,
So, once inside, we make the cell work for us.

Forced labour? No, it’s nature, man; and this seems clear enough:
God made that cell for viruses to breed in.
It’s not our fault if, when we’re done, the cell will die – that’s tough.
In evolution’s terms, man, we’re succeedin’!

You say we cause disease in you. Hey, man, don’t give me grief!
At least it isn’t me whose end is nigh:
Your cells will let you down, your earthly span of life is brief.
But we are not alive, so cannot die . . .

[Image: Daily Mail]
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The interstices of life

Posted on August 1, 2003 by GJ

Time is precious. Just surviving seems to use up a lot of it. But, as with crystals, there are useful little spaces in between the mundane stuff  (spot the interstitial atom of carbon, lurking between the tediously repeating atoms of the austenite lattice below) . . .


There’s things that must be done in life
Or else you won’t survive,
Like eating, sleeping – all the things
You need to stay alive.

And other things you have to do
All take a lot of time,
Like shopping, cooking, washing-up
And getting rid of grime.

But things that make you really you,
That set you quite apart,
Are different things: like meeting friends,
And making music, art,

And learning things, and teaching things,
And being bold and daring,
And growing things, and building things,
And nurturing, and caring.

In busy lives you need these things
To counter stress and strife;
To fit them in, you need to find
The interstices of life.

[Image: Cambridge University.com]
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Shark ark

Posted on July 16, 2003 by GJ

Sharks have interesting dental arrangements which means that there are a lot of shed teeth for palaeoecologists like Dr Charlie Underwood, of London’s Birkbeck College, to collect. He has used them to plot the evolution of modern sharks.

We’ve seen mass extinctions, us neoselachians.
The reason we’re still here today?
We’re good at adapting to new situations
And avoid competition that way.

Our adaptive behaviour is like Noah’s ark.
The proof is this vital distinction:
A primitive cousin, the hybodont shark,
Died out at the K-T extinction.

Our bite has adapted to cut, crunch and tear
At worms, squid, crustaceans and fishes.
Salt water? Fresh water? Done that and been there;
We’ve colonised all sorts of niches.

Our teeth keep on coming, they’re specialised scales
That bud from the skin of our jaw,
Conveyor-belt gnashers; incisors on rails.
When we’ve used ’em, we just make some more.

(The old ones drop out, and geologists spot ’em,
Though many get missed, they’re so small.
The keen ones sieve bagfuls of mud ’til they’ve got ’em –
Maybe five in a kilo, that’s all.)

If you want to survive as a species, you need
Ecological niches with scope
To specialise. But, to be sure you succeed,
Adapt your dentition to cope.

[Image: sweettoothkids.com]
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Vest is best

Posted on July 12, 2003 by GJ

I believe it may be true that the white cotton undergarment within which I was brought up, and in which I still exist for much of the year in these temperate climes, is not part of everyone’s wardrobe. Nevertheless, I felt it deserved a small tribute. [Readers with American upbringings will need temporarily to abandon their own definition of the V-word.]

I am blessed
With a chest
That’s caressed
By a vest.
(Had you guessed?)

[Image: John Lewis]
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Round and round

Posted on July 1, 2003 by GJ

As far as we know, the universe hasn’t changed the way it works lately. But, over the years, our ways of interpreting how we see it have.


They said: “The Sun goes round the Earth”,
And everyone believed it.
The opposite seemed so absurd
That no-one had conceived it.

And likewise, “All the universe
Must spin around us, too”.
We strained our eyes to watch the stars
And knew it must be true:

The centre of the universe
Was us, God made it so.
Until our measurements improved
And scientists said, “No!”

“Our data fit another view
Which upsets, we should add,
The paradigm that’s been around
Since Adam was a lad.”

So now the Earth goes round the Sun!
The only thing that’s new
Is how we’ve looked at what we’ve seen
And what we’ve thought was true.

[Images: Stanford University Solar Center; UC Berkeley Center for Science Education]
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Root two

Posted on June 25, 2003 by GJ

Thanks to Pythagoras, we know that the square of the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. Trouble is, he also discovered that if those sides are each one unit long, the length of the hypotenuse cannot be expressed by whole numbers, not even in the form of a fraction, however complicated. What’s more, its decimal value doesn’t include recurring sequences, and doesn’t ever terminate. That’s because the square root of two is an irrational number.

1.41421356237309504880168872420969807 856967187537694807317667973799...

You can’t write down my value
However hard you try,
Or convert me to a fraction –
I’m irrational, that’s why.

In 2023, my ex-college friend from the 1960’s, Peter Wooding, felt it should be rebuked for such bragging (Note: ‘ab’ = by, with or from; ‘surd’ = an irrational root):

(It really is a nonsense:
To put it in a word,
A never-ending sequence?
I think that word’s ‘ab-surd’.)

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The ingenious petrologist

Posted on June 14, 2003 by GJ

Dr. Hilary Downes told us she’d seen an advertisement for an “ingenious petrologist”. It made me wonder how they differed from the more usual igneous ones, and what might be going on in their heads.

An igneous petrologist, of whom there’s quite a few,
Can slice a lump of rock so thin that light can shine right through.
With polarisers crossed, the crystal colours are the clue
To sorting out the minerals in their microscopic view.

The ingenious petrologist, she’s done all that and more;
So now she dreams of finding rocks where none’s been found before,
And of drilling out a borehole that goes right down to the core,
But quite how she’s going to do it – well, just now she isn’t sure . . .

P’rhaps she’ll start it in the garden, with her trusty fork and spade,
Then bring in heavy drilling gear – she’ll have it specially made
With highly telescopic parts and super-hardened blade.
But igneous petrologists won’t like it, I’m afraid,

They’ll claim the thing’s impossible; their voices will be heard:
“The core is molten iron; it’s too far down; it’s quite absurd.”
The ingenious petrologist ignores their every word:
“From little acorns, oak trees grow, I will not be deterred.

The secret is to drill the hole when Mars is in Orion,”
The ingenious petrologist continues, quietly sighin’,
“And make the drill magnetic, so it’s pulled towards the iron.”
Well, you’ve got to hand it to her – she’s really one for tryin’!

The sciences make progress thanks to visionaries and cranks
Who exercise their minds, defying all the serried ranks
Of those who say “It can’t be done” in businesses and banks.
So ingenious petrologists are worthy of our thanks.

[Images: superiortelegram.com (top); unsoliciteddrivel.com (centre); outerspacestrider.blogspot.co.uk (bottom)]
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Births, Marriages and Deaths

Posted on June 14, 2003 by GJ

Local newspapers in the UK generally have announcements of recent births, marriages and deaths, put there by relatives so that others know who’s been ‘hatched, matched and despatched’. They are often the only times your own name ever gets into the papers, but you don’t always get to see it . . .

To see your own name in the paper,
You really had better get wed.
If it’s in when you’re born, you can’t read it;
And the same thing is true when you’re dead.

[Image:theguardian.newspapers.com]
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Recycling

Posted on June 1, 2003 by GJ

Nature’s a past mistress at recycling things. At least now we’re trying . . .

I really try ever so hard
To recycle the things I discard:
I put plastics and tins
Into little green bins,
And harvest my paper and card.

Milk bottles get rinsed and returned,
While thick woody prunings get burned.
(Bonfire ashes will suit
The growth of soft fruit:
It’s the potash that does it, I’ve learned.)

I save aluminium foil,
Collect my car’s old engine oil,
And bank all my glass.
I compost my grass,
And make leaf mould to add to the soil.

Embarrassingly, I’m afraid,
I sometimes rush out with a spade
And a bucket I use
To collect horses’ poos
Which I stack ’til they’re fully decayed.

Yoghurt pots and those blue plastic trays
Are punctured, and then used to raise
Lots of flowering plants
That, when planted, enhance
Hanging baskets with colours ablaze.

When the time comes for drastic dead-heading
In the garden, my shrubs will be dreading
That my sharp secateurs
Will attack their coiffeurs.
They must know it will all end in shredding.

I’m environment-friendly, you see,
And doing quite well, currently.
So, when I pass away,
Go ahead, make my day –
Think recycling, and recycle me!

[Image: wikipedia]
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Hay fever

Posted on April 26, 2003 by GJ

Pollen has the power to reduce me to a sneezing, eye-itching, nose-running wreck at certain times of the year. I have noticed that it doesn’t affect everyone . . .


It’s a marvel how the bees
Pack the pollen with such ease
Into bags below their knees.
Yet you never hear them sneeze . . .

[Image: bee-magic.blodspot.com]
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Crystal Alice

Posted on April 11, 2003 by GJ

Dr A C Bishop gave a talk on “Crystal Palaces”, in which he likened the modular structure of London’s old Crystal Palace to the way crystals are built. What he couldn’t have known was that two failed scientists, whose names are now forever associated with changing the guard at Buckingham Palace, had made the same observation when they saw the Crystal Palace burn down in 1936. Here’s why they never became famous:


Christopher Robin went down with Alice
To check out the fire at the Crystal Palace.
“I can’t see much crystal; there’s lots of glass,
But glass is amorphous! The whole thing’s a farce,”
Said Alice.

But Christopher Robin, whose practical mind
Had spotted a pattern, piped up, “It’s designed
As a sequence of stacked-up repetitive cells
All made of cast iron, at which Britain excels.
See, Alice?”

“What’s more,” said Chris Robin, “that gives me a clue:
Could crystalline structures be modular, too?”
“Well, layers of atoms, all ordered in rows,
Make one of five patterns, as everyone knows,”
Said Alice.

“So pile up the layers, each one on another,
Then you’ve got a crystal!” “Sounds good,” said her brother,
“But theories need proof, so a test must be made.”
“I’ll find a nice crystal and get it X-rayed,”
Said Alice,

“Then Alice’s Law can be used. Let me see:
Sinθ is lambda times n by 2d,
Where θ‘s the angle with brightest diffraction,
And d is the interatomic distraction,”
Said Alice.

“Er, Alice, there’s something we should have foreseen:
That’s Bragg’s Law, discovered in 1913,
Some twenty-three years past. Our theory’s old hat!”
“You’re right, brother Chris. We’re too late, and that’s that,”
Said Alice.

[Images: mylondon.news; Kaptain Kobold (flickr.com); Wikimedia]
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Seeds of destruction

Posted on March 29, 2003 by GJ

It’s a battlefield out there in the garden. You think you’re growing food or flowers for yourself, but other lifeforms have the impression that you’re serving up juicy fresh greens for them to dine on. Alan Titchmarsh, a television gardener credited with having introduced a certain American style of hard landscaping to the English scene, may have an answer. . .


All those seeds I bought last springtime, in their multicoloured packs,
Looked so utterly enticing as they hung there on the racks:
Pretty pictures on their fronts, and full instructions on their backs.
So I sowed them in the greenhouse with the heat turned up to ‘max’.

I’d read a lot of gardening books in search of expertise,
And used some sterile compost so they didn’t get disease.
They germinated quickly, making little plants with ease
Which looked healthy when I pricked them out in ones and twos and threes.

Eventually, I planted them according to my plan:
I lined them up in nice straight rows, all looking spick and span,
Then firmed them in and drenched them with my bright green watering can.
But then the trouble started, as the air assault began.

Whole squadrons of fat pigeons in formation filled the sky,
All targeting my seedlings. Well, I couldn’t just stand by
And watch them all get pecked to bits, I’m not that sort of guy;
So something drastic was required, or else their end was nigh.

Wire netting, folded lengthways, seemed to do the job okay:
It kept the pigeons off my plants. But, as they flew away,
I saw the ground troops moving in – no blitzkrieg army, they,
But slow and slimy slugs and snails who’d come to join the fray.

With time to think, I contemplated what should be their fate:
Geneva’s War Conventions all prohibit poisoned bait,
So beer traps it would have to be – p’raps six, or seven, or eight?
It took some time to buy the beer. . . and then it was too late:

They’d marched straight past the beer traps, where I’d planned they should have drowned,
And razed the soft green shoots I’d planted, right down to the ground.
It’s time for counter-measures; can a remedy be found
Before it’s all repeated when next springtime comes around?

I’ll ring up Alan Titchmarsh: “How d’you stop these pigeons pecking,
And all these slugs and snails and things from absolutely wrecking
My handiwork?” “Ah, yes,” he’ll say, “hang on, I’m just re-checking. . .
Thought so – it’s really simple: cover all your soil with decking.”

[Images: homeshoppingspy.wordpress.com; Richard Saker/Rex Features (guardian.co.uk)]
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Carithmetic

Posted on February 9, 2003 by GJ

Someone I know actually does this. “It helps exercise the brain”, she says.


When the traffic’s at a crawl
And you’ve hardly moved at all,
Do some sums with number plates. Here’s how it’s done:
To each letter (A, B, C . . .)
Give a value (1, 2, 3 . . .),
Tot ’em up, then add the numbers, one by one.

It’s a harmless mental test
That will leave your friends impressed
And amazed at skills they didn’t know you had.
Either that, or else they’ll mutter
Sotto voce, “She’s a nutter –
All the stress of driving’s sent the poor girl mad”.

[Cartoon: annedroid-annedroid.blogspot.com]
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There’s always one

Posted on February 1, 2003 by GJ

This one was provoked by one of four nuts holding the exhaust pipe on my son’s car firmly to its manifold. I think it was trying to warn us against pursuing our intended decapitation of the engine. It succeeded.

Ain’t it odd, when something tricky must be done,
And you’ve mustered up your courage and begun,
That, just when you’re feeling good ’cos it’s all gone as it should,
One last screw is rusted up? There’s always one!

You have done the usual things to get it out,
And you’ve tried the clever tricks you’ve read about;
But no book on “How it’s Done” ever says “there’s always one”,
Yet it’s true – there always is, without a doubt.

If you wonder why the traffic flow has slowed,
It’s because there’s one rogue driver on the road
Thinks the overtaking lane is for chumps like him to stay in.
You can tell he’s never read the Highway Code.

Have you noticed, when you’re washing clothes, it’s queer
How a single sock can simply disappear?
There is always one that goes – it’s a loner, I suppose,
Seeking freedom. Who are we to interfere?

On a train, one man is bound to have a cold,
And there’ll be one child who won’t be good as gold.
Can you guess what they will do? Well, they’ll both sit next to you:
He will sneeze, and she will not do as she’s told.

Have you crossword addicts met the problem, too?
Do you rack your brains to solve the final clue?
Well, you might as well forget it ’cos there’s no way you will get it,
So there’s just no point in getting in a stew.

It’s no different when you go out for a meal:
Choosing something from the menu’s an ordeal;
Then the dish you’d like to scoff is the only one that’s “off”,
So you have to order one with less appeal.

Why’s it true there’s always one? It drives me mad –
Is there not a hope of good things to be had?
Sometimes, surely, one is best, standing out above the rest?
No it’s not –  if there is one, it’s always bad . . .

[Photo: Jim (flickr.com)]
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Duetting

Posted on January 2, 2003 by GJ

It’s fun to play duets on a piano, but you have to get used to certain things: playing while offset from middle C and perched on one or other end of the stool; having to ignore half the printed music; avoiding clashing hands or entangling arms with your partner; and, most importantly, matching your playing to hers.

To play duets, you need four hands, which might seem quite a lot
For one piano. Two are yours, the other two are not;
So players have to listen hard to what the other’s doin’,
Or else they’ll soon get out of sync and it will end in ruin.

The music has two separate parts. Take Mozart’s Turkish Rondo:
The upper part’s called Primo, the lower part’s Secondo.
Now Primo, with the better tunes, can really show off with ’em;
While Secondo usually plods along just banging out the rhythm.

You must match each other’s tempo, whether speeding up or slowing;
Once you’ve started, there’s no stopping – you must keep the music flowing.
The best advice to duet players boils right down to this, my friend:
Do make sure you’re both together at the start and at the end!

[Image: musicnotes.com]
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Streptomycin

Posted on January 1, 2003 by GJ

I was happy to part company from my 11-year old appendix when it got infected and threatened to kill me just before I was due to start secondary school.

“It’s peritonitis,” they cried
As bacteria filled my inside.
With death I was dicin’
Until streptomycin*
Was jabbed in my tender backside.

My life now extended, I’m thrilled
That all those bacteria got killed –
It was their life or mine.
But now, I feel fine:
All the damage they did has been healed.

My thanks to the nurses and docs
Who cured me and other young crocks;
Without them and their drugs,
Those bacterial thugs
Would have put me too soon in my box.

* First isolated by Albert Schatz only 10 years earlier in 1943

[Image: onely.org]
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The highway toad

Posted on January 1, 2003 by GJ

It seems that toads have not yet come to terms with the modern world. In late February and March, they follow their natural inclination to return to their breeding areas, usually en masse, and often via a roadway. . .

As you drive to your cosy abode,
Keep an eye out for me. I’m a toad
With an urge to respond
To the call of my pond
On the opposite side of the road.

Every year, on a cold, damp, dark night,
We expatriate toads all take flight
As, all danger unheeding,
We rush to get breeding.
It’s our nature – we’re not very bright.

In the past, many brave toads have died,
For the road we must cross is so wide;
And with sex on our mind
We are quite traffic-blind
As we hop to that far-distant side.

Perhaps we should set up a school
To teach toads this one golden rule:
“If you’re not a fast hopper
You’ll soon come a cropper,
For life on the road can be cruel”.

[Image: BBC]
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All lit up

Posted on December 17, 2002 by GJ

Given the shortage of halls to deck around Christmas time, you’ve got to admire the dedication, if not the taste, of people who dress up their entire house and garden in a blaze of kitsch. But I wonder if they have taken a certain seasonally important factor into account. . .


It’s quite a surprise on these dark winter nights
When you come across houses all covered in lights.
Look! There’s reindeer, bells, Christmas trees, angels, a star,
And a giant inflatable snowman – bizarre!
All of them lit up, from inside or out,
So you’re obviously meant to be left in no doubt
That their owners are making their personal bid
To drain all the amps from the National Grid.

And fairy lights flash in their manifold hues,
All strung out on wires from a 13-amp fuse,
Draped over the trees pretending they’re leaves,
Racing up walls, creeping under the eaves,
Up to the roof and the tall chimney stack,
Over the front door and round to the back,
Winding round drainpipes and hanging from gutters.
What’s up with these folk? Are they artists or nutters?

Their houses and gardens light up the night sky,
They’ve spent lots of money – the question is, why?
I reckon these people should all be reminded
That poor Father Christmas is easily blinded;
His night flights with reindeer to slumbering tots
Might not be so easy if thousands of watts
Interfere with his Present Delivery System,
And millions of kids wake to find that he’s missed ’em.

[Photo: bbc.co.uk]
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Poor Santa

Posted on December 5, 2002 by GJ

I was dismayed to find signs up all over our town telling the punters that Father Christmas was not well, and felt that some sympathy was called for.

When your beard is all knotty
And your insides feel grotty
Since a night on the tiles left you blotto,
It just seems so unfair
When there’s signs everywhere
That proclaim to the world: “Santa’s grotto”.

[Image: ‘Family Guy’ on Facebook.com
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Did I turn the oven off?

Posted on November 29, 2002 by GJ

A friend recently admitted that, whenever she goes away from home, she takes her iron with her. That’s the only way she can be sure she didn’t leave it switched on.

I worry when I go away –
I do, you mustn’t scoff.
Are all the things at home okay?
Did I turn the oven off?

Perhaps the freezer door’s ajar,
Or the kettle’s boiling dry?
I can’t stop thinking that they are,
However hard I try.

I didn’t lock the kitchen door
Unless I’m much mistaken:
It’s let in burglars by the score,
And everything’s been taken.

The gas fire’s on, I’m sure of that;
And the bath is overflowing.
Maybe the budgie’s in the cat?
There’s just no way of knowing.

But wait – I have a cunning plan:
I’ll sell the house and quit,
And then I’ll buy a caravan –
The touring sort. That’s it!

And so, when next I go away
And worries come to mind,
To check that everything’s okay
I’ll simply look behind.

[Image: schoolphysics.co.uk]
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No time like the present

Posted on November 25, 2002 by GJ

We encounter the world through the senses, as interpreted by the brain. That means our perception of events is delayed. So we can’t actually experience “now”. . .

I need a neural upgrade – my senses are too slow.
There’s a problem that brings furrows to my brow:
Whenever something happens, it’s a while before I know;
So, although it happened “then”, to me it’s “now”.

We’re all living in the past because the present’s been and gone
By the time our senses recognise it.
Our poor brains, the last to know it, do their best to work upon
All the data coming in, to analyse it.

Then our brains make moving “pictures”, but the fact we can’t ignore
Is: however good the “movie”, or how pleasant,
Like film the pictures only tell of what has gone before –
So it’s true to say there’s no time like the present.

See also What time is it? and Now and then.

[Image: thoughtco.com]
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To those left behind

Posted on November 1, 2002 by GJ

It only takes one human sperm to fertilise an ovum. I heard recently that the average number involved in the attempt is about three hundred million. So how do the other 299 999 999 feel?

Three hundred million sperm set out
To do what sperm must do;
Yet out of all that wriggly lot
It’s only one gets through.

It seems unfair, to say the least,
That all the rest get trashed;
So many expectations raised,
So many futures dashed.

Now they’re rejected, cast aside,
Unwanted DNA.
No destiny for these sad souls,
Except to fade away.

The frantic journey they have made,
All thrashing head to tail,
The energy they must have spent –
Yet all to no avail.

How can the great Creator watch
Such manifold rejection?
There must be something He could do
To lift their grave dejection.

He could provide some counselling cells,
Who’d be around if needed
To listen, nod and sympathise,
And kid them they’d succeeded:

“It’s taking part that matters, chaps.
Big prizes? You don’t need ’em.
At least you haven’t been absorbed,
At least you have your freedom.”

And so, this message well instilled,
Their sadness would soon cease.
They’d contemplate mortality,
And then they’d rest in peace.

It wouldn’t work, though. Sperm aren’t daft.
Know why they’re looking so glum?
It’s ’cos the place they want to be
Is deep inside that ovum.

[Image: ctvnews.ca]
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Dust to dust

Posted on October 18, 2002 by GJ

We’ve got one of those vacuum cleaners with a transparent collection container, so you can see what’s been sucked up into it. I used to wonder where such huge amounts of detritus could possibly have come from – until I saw a television programme about the formation of the Earth . . .

When the universe was younger, vast amounts of cosmic dust
Coalesced to form the rocky inner planets.
On the Earth, the surface cooled to make a solid outer crust
Made of basalt, topped by continental granites.

Now the universe is older, there’s still lots of cosmic dust;
But the trouble is, it doesn’t coalesce.
It gets everywhere – just look around! – and, much to my disgust,
It’s me who has to hoover up the mess.

[Image (of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud, by the James Webb Space Telescope): NASA/wikipedia]
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Family tree

Posted on September 30, 2002 by GJ

After years of work, checking indexes (in heavy bound volumes, or on microfilm or microfiche) of the birth, marriage and death records of the General Register Office (GRO), searching the International Genealogical Index (IGI), thumbing through old newspapers in the basements of libraries and tramping round graveyards trying to make out the inscriptions on decaying headstones, I think I may have reached the point of diminishing returns . . .


Here’s our family tree: look, there’s you and there’s me!
And there’s your Mum and Dad, and there’s mine –
Many past generations, and umpteen relations,
Laid out in a complex design.

It lists hatches and matches, and final dispatches;
There are dates, occupations and places.
But it’s never enough, for all of this stuff
Won’t bring back their voices or faces.

Our forebears weren’t grand: many worked on the land
Or in factories, railways or shops.
They were servants and sailors, taxi drivers and tailors,
Clerks, plumbers, night-watchmen and cops.

There were Black Country folk (well, you know how they spoke!),
And Cornishmen, mining for tin;
Some were black sheep (well, grey . . .); some did well, so they say;
But they all were our own kith and kin.

Hinton Ampner (in Hants), Chaddesley Corbett, Penzance:
These are all on our ancestors’ path;
And some lived a spell around old Clerkenwell,
While others chose Brighton or Bath.

I’ve long squinted my eyes at the minuscule size
Of the typeface on fiches and such
To get all that I can; yet, in terms of the span
From our Adam and Eve, it’s not much.

But I cannot spend ages extending these pages
By examining old parish papers
And illegible headstones which mark sites of dead bones –
I’m done with such frustrating capers.

So our tree’s incomplete. I’m admitting defeat.
It was just a one-off passing craze.
GRO, IGI, census records and I
Will from henceforth all go our own ways!

[Image: Wikipedia]
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A bronze Head

Posted on September 30, 2002 by GJ

William Pirie was once a headmaster of Horsham’s oldest school, now a
sixth-form college but founded in 1541 by Richard Collyer. Because of this, and
the fact that he used to ride around the town in his donkey cart, he became a
Familiar Figure. This was the excuse for erecting a bronze statue, by Lorne
McKean, of him and his transport near the Waitrose supermarket in Pirie’s Place,
one of Horsham’s tucked-away shopping centres. Children enjoy climbing into the cart to sit alongside the bronze Mr Pirie, or astride his donkey. [Update: Pirie’s Place was ‘redeveloped’ in 2018, when Waitrose moved to a posh new location; but in April 2019 Mr Pirie reappeared, but now waits outside a Premier Inn . . .]


William Pirie’s in his Place, with a smile upon his face
As he sits behind his donkey in his cart
Watching customers in Waitrose at the checkouts, all in straight rows
Like greyhounds in their traps before the start.

Back in the 1840s, Mr Pirie would have taught his
Collyer’s students like the best of college dons.
Now, headmastering long finished, reputation undiminished,
Horsham’s shoppers have his statue, cast in bronze.

Now, too, the children come; you can see them having fun
By pretending they are driving Pirie’s steed.
But William’s very kind, he really doesn’t mind:
His peaceful metal visage pays no heed.

He would surely think it right that exclamations of delight
Come from Horsham’s tots and toddlers, whose elation
Is a joy for all to see. Mr Pirie’s view would be
“It’s education, education, education.”

[Photo: Paul Schreeve (geograph.co.uk)]
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Sorry!

Posted on September 8, 2002 by GJ

I broke a small coily thing from the Isle of Wight while trying to extract it from its Upper Greensand matrix. It seemed an undeserved fate after lying intact for 100 million years or so, and I cursed my rampant inexperience.


In simple phraseology,
My amateur geology
Has fractured your topology.
I owe you an apology.

[Photo: Jim Champion (Wikimedia Commons)]
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Metamorphosis

Posted on August 25, 2002 by GJ

The whole flightless, sexless existence of a caterpillar, hobbling around on stubby legs, is stuffing itself full of succulent greenery. But does a caterpillar know that it also has butterfly genes, just waiting to take over? And does a butterfly know anything of its grubby past?


Caterpillaring is fun –
It’s just continuous eating.
As lifestyles go, I think this one
Will take a lot of beating.

My caterpillar mates don’t stop,
And hardly pause for breath;
They eat so much they nearly pop.
They never think of death.

I’ve seen them die: they disappear
Inside a hard brown case –
A chrysalis. And then, I fear,
They vanish without trace.

Old caterpillar sages say,
“You do not really die,
But live in quite a different way –
No longer crawl, but fly!”

I can’t believe that it is so,
It leaves me quite perplexed.
All life must end; for all I know,
It might be my turn next . . .

Oh dear, I’ve slept. What’s this about –
I’ve found these verses written.
And here am I, atop a sprout
Whose leaves have all been bitten!

I’ve dreamt the most peculiar things.
But now I’m wide awake,
My lanky legs and flashy wings
Will help me find a mate.

Hark! do I hear old sages cry?
“Your legs were once just hobblers,
You had no wings and couldn’t fly.”
Oh, what a load of rubbish!

[Photos: wildlifeinsight.com (caterpillar), bbc.co.uk (butterfly)
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A duck, unstuck

Posted on August 11, 2002 by GJ

If you’re a duck, you find that people will feed you if you waddle a bit and quack nicely; but look out, for the tables might be turned . . .

I am just a little duck
Who has run right out of luck.
It might have been all right if I’d been thinner;
But I’ve been so amply fed
That I’ll very soon be dead
And served with orange sauce. Enjoy your dinner!

[Photo:
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Opabinia

Posted on August 7, 2002 by GJ

The fossils of the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, first discovered in 1909 by Charles Doolittle Walcott, had been rudely transported and dumped by an underwater sediment slide some 515 million years ago. But they are so different from modern life-forms that they have been interpreted as examples of evolution in action, adapting in extraordinary ways to environmental niches. Many were not “successful” in evolutionary terms, like Opabinia with its flexible forward-projecting proboscis and five eyes. This is a belated tribute to her:

O lovely Opabinia:
Proboscis curvilinia,
Petite in size, and all those eyes –
I wish I could’ve sinia. . .

[Image: wikipedia]
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What if?

Posted on August 4, 2002 by GJ

There’s an argument which concludes that the existence of humans on Earth must be a miracle, because the odds against conditions being so precisely right for us are so astronomical. Equally, your own existence among the human race relies on so many chance couplings of your antecedents that it’s quite incredible that you’re here at all! Or perhaps not . . .

Have you ever thought of this, my son and daughter, that it’s queer:
If I’d never met your Mum, then you two wouldn’t now be here!
And you could have said the same about our parents, and their forbears,
Their progenitors, their ancestors, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs.

If they’d worked out, Eve and Adam, what the odds were in advance,
They’d have seen how almost vanishingly minuscule the chance
That you’d be the folk you are; and yet you are, for that’s empirical,
So you might say that your presence here is nothing but a miracle!

But the thing is, you could not be thinking wacky thoughts like these
If your ancestors had fancied folk on different family trees.
You exist, and that is that; it’s QED, it’s status quo.
Could it ever have been different? Ask your Mum (and let me know).

[Image:pexels.com]
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Damsel in distress

Posted on July 28, 2002 by GJ

After two hours’ fruitless splitting of chunks of Weald Clay in a Sussex brick pit, I found the faint traces of a damsel fly’s wing. Could she, I wondered, have coped with knowing that this would be her fate?


“Mum, what happens when we die?” asked a little damsel fly,
One Cretaceous day above the Wealden lake.
“Do we float up in the sky? Shall we come back, by and by?”
“It’s a puzzle,” said her Mum, “and no mistake.

“Great philosophers have said that we damsels, when we’re dead,
Go to Heaven if our lives were good and kind;
So don’t fret your tiny head, think of something else instead.
There are lots more things to occupy your mind.”

“But Mum, I need to know where dead damsel flies will go.
Don’t you understand? It bugs me all day long
’Cos my best friend, damsel Flo, says we all end up below . . .
Could it be that great philosophers are wrong?”

Answered Mum: “I must come clean. By the distant Holocene,
It’s quite likely you’ll have been entombed in sludge.
And, if Fate is really mean, and the Gods don’t intervene,
You’ll be disinterred one day by that man Judge.”

“There must be another way,” cried the damsel, in dismay.
“How could Mother Nature play such awful tricks?”
“The alternative’s to stay deeply buried in the clay,”
Said her Mum, “Find immortality – in bricks.”

[Photo (of a new damsel fly-like fossil species, Okanagrion threadgillae: sfu.ca]
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The sixth commandment

Posted on July 22, 2002 by GJ

In the twentieth chapter of the book of Exodus, Moses is reported as declaring ten God-given rules for the Israelites, some of which have permeated into many subsequent moral and legal systems. Perhaps if Moses had been trained in today’s law schools, he would have been pressed to define more clearly the scope of some of them, like the sixth:


I’m a selfish sort of fellow, it’s myself I think of first:
If confronted with a dragon, I’d make sure he came off worst.
Yes, I know he’d need my flesh so he could fill his empty belly,
But I’m not prepared to die just yet – not on your bloomin’ nelly!

I would grab the nearest rifle, quickly load it with a bullet,
And with finger on the trigger, if he leapt at me, I’d pull it.
Yet it’s said, “You must not kill, because it’s wrong; you mustn’t do it.
No exceptions, no excuses – it’s not right, howe’er you view it”.

Do such people, when infected with a rogue bacterium,
Simply sit around and suffer, looking miserable and glum
As the blighters breed inside ’em? Sounds a trifle idiotic;
Don’t they feel the urge to kill ’em with a good antibiotic?

When the greenfly, slugs, botrytis, caterpillars, pigeons, moles
Leave your garden devastated, your potatoes full of holes,
Is it right that you should starve while such scallywags as these
Run amok among your brassicas and legumes as they please?

There are tiny flying insects, ants and spiders everywhere
Which I massacre unwittingly – I just don’t know they’re there.
I am sure I must have trodden on them, swallowed ’em or sat on ’em.
Whichever way it happens, it’s the same result: I flatten ’em.

If I pick some luscious fruit, or if I harvest ripened grain,
Have I stolen from these seeds their chance to grow and seed again?
If I cut a fresh green cabbage, have I killed it prematurely?
The alternative’s starvation, and that’s not an option, surely?

If I kill a fatted calf (which I hear’s been done before)
To provide a balanced diet, have I really sinned once more?
There’s no doubt that killing must be wrong in many, many cases,
But Thou Shalt Not Kill’s too simple a commandment as life’s basis.

We’ve survived because we’ve eaten things like beef and wheat and lettuce,
And we’ve beat the competition that was always out to get us.
We’re a selfish sort of beast, like all the others on this planet;
Seems like killing things is part of life. Can’t all be wrong, then, can it?

[Image: fortuencity.com]
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Plate tectonics

Posted on July 15, 2002 by GJ

Plate tectonics is the current theory claiming to explain continental drift, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and mountain-building. It seemed to demand an epic poem, but I ignored its demand and did this instead:

Just a lucky bit of friction keeps disaster held at bay
On the San Andreas fault from San Francisco to LA,
For the plates of Earth are moving. Yes, the plates of Earth are moving –
All the plates of Earth are moving in their slow, relentless way.

When moving plates collide they thrust up mountains in the sky,
Folding rocks in wild disorder, tilted up and all awry:
It’s the might of Earth in action. Yes, the might of Earth in action –
The great might of Earth in action, with a strength you can’t deny.

Some plate edges are subducted – plunged incessantly to Hell:
Their volcanoes spew out gases with a foul sulphurous smell,
For the fires of Earth are blazing. Yes, the fires of Earth are blazing –
All the fires of Earth are blazing, deep inside its outer shell.

And their lava, dust and ashes, with raw pyroclastic power,
Wipe out animals and species as fresh climate changes lour,
For the Earth is ever changing. Yes, the Earth is ever changing –
All the Earth is ever changing, every minute, every hour.

And submerged beneath the oceans you will find a mountain chain
With basaltic lava oozing out onto th’ abyssal plain,
Back from Hell, then quickly cooling. Yes, from Hell, and quickly cooling –
Out of Hell it comes, but destined to return there yet again.

And deep earthquakes jolt the sea and give tsunamis their foundation:
Seismic sea-waves, shifting water at high speed without cessation
Until land gets in the way. Sometimes, land gets in the way –
And when land gets in the way, it suffers floods and devastation.

Brave new creatures are evolving (some bizarre and very strange)
Which exploit emerging niches as the plates all rearrange,
For the Earth is going forward. Yes, the Earth is going forward –
The whole Earth is going forward to a future full of change.

But it’s change that Californians can’t stomach any more,
For the Earth has quaked there often; they have seen it all before.
Yet the Earth won’t show them mercy. No, the Earth won’t show them mercy –
Plate tectonics shows no mercy – that’s a fact they daren’t ignore . . .

(See also Plate tectonics – an alternative hypothesis)

[Photo: wikipedia]
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Plate tectonics – an alternative hypothesis

Posted on July 9, 2002 by GJ

Having immersed myself in the “official” theory (see Plate tectonics), I wondered if there might be another explanation:


There are giants somewhere around,
Many metres underground.
I am sure there are, ’cos continents are drifting;
And there’s earthquakes, causing damage
On such scales mankind can’t manage.
Only giants could cope with all that heavy lifting.

And just how, you might enquire,
Do volcanoes spew out fire?
Well, those giants have got a dragon as a pet.
He’s their source of light and heat
And emergency red meat.
(If you think that’s weird, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.)

When the giants go on their hols
They recruit some freelance trolls
Who parade along the beach, like little armies.
Then, with loud Norwegian grunts,
All the trolls dive in at once –
And that’s the cause of all the world’s tsunamis.

Here’s a fact that’s often missed:
When the giants get really drunk,
There are punch-ups in their subterranean bar.
Each giant wallop corrugates
Nearby continental plates –
That’s how mountains came to be the way they are.

Well, I’ve taken up your time
With my brand-new paradigm,
Which has turned old Plate Tectonics on its head.
But there’s one more thing I’ve found:
Giants and trolls stay underground,
Except when you’re alone, asleep in bed . . .

[Image: infinityexplorers.com/Stephen Quayle]
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Pikaia

Posted on July 7, 2002 by GJ

The Burgess Shale fossil, Pikaia, about 4 cm long and with a notochord (an internal stiffening “spine”) along its back, has the distinction of being the earliest known representative of the phylum to which we ourselves belong.


Well hiya, old Pikaia!
Your sleek and slender line
Anitcipates us vertebrates:
Your notochord’s our spine.

[Image: York University, Toronto]
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The fossil record

Posted on July 4, 2002 by GJ

Books on geology keep referring to “the fossil record”, but never define what it is.

They say the fossil record
Can date a rocky layer.
(That’s odd, because I’ve yet to see
A fossil record player . . .)

“I dunno what you’re sayin’,”
A nearby fossil said,
“You youngsters think yer know it all.
Get this inside yer ’ead:

“Yer gets a fossil record
If yer does a fossil crime.
(I can’t remember what I done,
But I done a lotta time . . .)”

[Image: socratic.org]
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Tethys

Posted on June 26, 2002 by GJ

The Tethys ocean was created when the giant supercontinent of Pangaea split apart into Laurasia and Gondwana. But, as tectonic forces did their thing, it closed up again until eventually Africa collided with Europe, and India with Asia. The collision scraped parts of the Tethys oceanic crust off onto what is now Tibet; and the colossal crustal crunching lifted up not only sections of sea-floor, but the even deeper upper layers of the mantle (below the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, or Moho) to such a degree that they can now be found exposed in the Troodos mountains of Cyprus. Prof. Dorrik Stow has studied them.

See the Mediterranean Sea?
Well, that’s all there is left now of me.
I once was so whopping
You could sail without stopping
Right round this great globe, fancy-free.

But the Earth, with its turbulent core,
Thought the land ought to break up some more,
So its darned plate tectonics
Disturbed my planktonics
And subducted my massive sea-floor.

Thus, Laurasia and Gondwanaland
Came to blows; but they couldn’t withstand
The colossal collision,
Which caused the abscission
Of sea-floor high up onto land.

You can see it there now, on display
In Tibet: it’s eroding away
In voluminous rivers
Whose transport delivers
Its sediment down to the bay.

And in Cyprus, I happen to know,
Deep rocks have been raised from below
With my sea-floor on top
Of a mantle outcrop
(Which means that the Moho’s on show).

So I’ve paid a great price, as you see:
Demoted from Ocean to Sea,
I have shrunk to a puddle,
My rocks are a muddle.
“How the mighty are fallen” – that’s me.

[Images: Wikipedia (Mediterranean); gondwanatalks (Tethys)]
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A spider, an ant and a fly

Posted on June 24, 2002 by GJ

I have just painted a window sill with a bright white paint that immediately attracted three of my neighbours with suicidal tendencies.

Oh why, and oh why, and oh why
Did a spider, an ant and a fly
Decide they would stick
To wet paint, laid on thick?
Well, they did, and so now they will die . . .

How could I have saved these poor things
(Twenty legs, three black bodies, two wings)?
P’rhaps I’ll put up a sign
Of a special design
That will tell what such recklessness brings:

“O arachnids and insects, be wise,
Be careful and use all your eyes.
Don’t ever alight
On my Pure Brilliant White
For it’s death to ants, spiders and flies.”

[Image: buildbase.co.uk]
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Come dancing

Posted on June 18, 2002 by GJ

After years of patient instruction and encouragement in our weekly term-time evening classes, we are still struggling with getting the various parts of our bodies pointing in the right direction at the right time, yet our ballroom dancing teacher retains her sense of humour. (The television programme Come Dancing used to show couples gliding and swirling with effortless grace across an assortment of UK dance floors.)

Our long-suffering teacher of dance
Does her utmost to help us advance:
“Look, it goes slow, quick, quick, slow,”
She says. “Heel, toe. . . no, TOE!”
Will we get on Come Dancing? No chance!

Of our teacher, it’s often been said
She’s got eyes in the back of her head –
Half-a-dozen, or more,
Which can scan the whole floor.
(Either that, or she’s psychic, instead.)

She can dance as a girl or a bloke,
Which is quite beyond ordinary folk.
Should your dancing offend her,
She’ll adopt the best gender
To sort out your steps at a stroke.

You will hear her encouraging call
As you chassé and whisk round the hall.
Yes, our teacher’s employment
Provides such enjoyment
That everyone’s having a ball!

[Image: bbc.com]
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Spacetime

Posted on June 10, 2002 by GJ

To Newton, what kept his feet on the ground was a new concept called gravity, mysteriously acting instantaneously at a distance; to Einstein, it was a new concept called spacetime, whose local curvatures are affected by local mass, but whose distortions stretch out across the universe, affecting the motion of all other masses. Both are mental models, defying visualisation in terms our minds can properly comprehend. But it keeps the mathematicians happy. . .

Isaac Newton said, “It’s clear:
Forces act from far and near,
Every mass attracts each other, in proportion.”
Said Einstein, “No, not that!
You’re assuming spacetime’s flat,
But around each mass is serious distortion.”

Yet each is just a way
Of explaining things away
Which remain a total mystery for ever.
They are too much for the mind,
Which just limps along behind
While the maths men write equations and look clever. . .

[Images: britannica.com (Newton); University of St. Andrews (Einstein)]
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Coriolis

Posted on June 1, 2002 by GJ

A rocket, or an air-mass, which is moving across the Earth, but not parallel to a line of latitude, seems to go off course when viewed from the ground: to Earthlings, it appears to veer to the right in the Northern hemisphere or to the left in the Southern. But looked at from space, every place on the rotating Earth’s surface, except the Poles, is moving eastwards at a speed which depends on latitude; so, when launched, say, due north, the rocket already has an additional eastward component of speed which stays with it (more or less) during its flight. In contrast, the speed of the Earth’s surface beneath it varies with latitude. The “Coriolis force” is a fictitious force which earthbound observers, on their rotating frame of reference, need to invent in order to account for this in their Newtonian equations of motion. (This poem is written for readers in the Northern hemisphere.)

A rocket, fired due north,
Veers off east as it flies forth –
Or so it seems to earthbound folk around.
But, prior to launch, the beast
Is moving to the east
As fast as is its launch-pad on the ground.

Its eastward motion stays
After launch: it still obeys
The law that says momentum is conserved.
But, Earth’s a ball and so, er,
Earth’s eastward speed gets slower
As your latitude increases, I’ve observed.

So the rocket’s eastward speed
While it travels north (agreed?)
Means it overtakes meridians below it.
That’s why someone on the ground
Thinks a force must be around.
Monsieur Coriolis was the first to show it.

[Image from Sailingjoy.com]
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Prime cut

Posted on May 29, 2002 by GJ

It’s spring in England, and little lambs are gambolling idyllically in the fields. But not for long . . .


I am a little woolly lamb;
I have a little bleat.
I’ll have a little life, as well,
Because you want my meat.

[Photo: Giuseppe Bignardi (BBC Wear)]
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Indecent exposure

Posted on May 22, 2002 by GJ

Life’s full of cost-benefit judgements: the risks associated with crossing the road are usually ignored because the benefits are seen to be sufficiently great. It is a fact that X-rays can damage DNA; it’s also a fact that this can slightly increase the risk of inducing cancer (the UK’s National Radiological Protection Board says so). But the benefit of the information provided by a good X-ray is generally perceived as far outweighing this risk.


I’m an X-ray machine. All my X-rays, unseen,
Can penetrate through you, unheeded.
I can show what’s inside you so the docs can provide you
With all of the treatment that’s needed.

Have you’ve smashed up your knee? Maybe swallowed a key?
Or a part of you’s hurting a lot?
You just lie on my table as still as you’re able,
And I’ll pinpoint the troublesome spot.

P’rhaps you’re wondering why there’s a white-coated guy
Standing safely behind lead-lined screens?
It’s because some X-rays tend to go their own ways –
Mister White-coat, he knows what that means!

Now, don’t be alarmed, he’ll check you’re not harmed:
Back at college, they trained him a lot.
So don’t worry yourself, the effect on your health
Won’t be too bad. Well, probably not.

When I fire my X-ray it might hit DNA,
Which I honestly do not intend to;
But I will give you data the docs can use later
To find out the best way to mend you.

I’m high-energy, see, that’s the trouble with me;
And to make sure my X-rays get through you,
I use thousands of volts (less than lightning bolts).
Well, you don’t want a half X-ray, do you?

Right: just breathe in and hold . . . don’t exhale ’til you’re told…
. . . and relax now. That’s all there is to it.
Your spine’s out of line, but your abdomen’s fine –
And I know, ’cos I’ve just seen right through it!

[Image: onewelbeck.com]
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Selsey Bill

Posted on May 13, 2002 by GJ

A field trip to Selsey Bill on May 2002, to examine the Bracklesham Beds, had been timed to take advantage of a falling tide. The bad news was that it didn’t fall far enough; the good news was that among our party was the aptly named Bill Luck . . .


In the caravans of Selsey
They were warm and they were dry,
While geologists from Horsham,
Clutching trowels, plodded by.

As the tide retreated slowly,
Leaving sands exposed to view,
The trowelling-folk descended,
Each one looking for a clue.

“There’ll be fossils in abundance:
You can pick ’em up by hand.
(We should see them in a moment,
Lying down there, on the sand . . .)

“They’ll be pyritised and shiny,
And they’re Tertiary in Era.
(Er, the tide’s still not quite out enough,
But I think we’re getting nearer . . .)

“I’ll just wade out in my wellies –
Yes, the bed is well exposed . . .
. . . under water. That’s a pity,
It’s not quite what I’d supposed.

“The tide should be much lower –
Well, it was last time I came.
And now it’s coming in again,
Ain’t that a bloomin’ shame?”

Thus spake our leader, Geoffrey,
But not everyone was listening:
For our Bill had dug the beach up
And what he’d found was glistening!

Soon everyone was at it,
Getting wet and getting cold,
Trowelling up these little molluscs
In their coats of burnished gold.

Then we trudged back up the shingle,
(For the tide was coming still);
We had found some tiny treasures
Thanks to Geoff – and Selsey Bill!

[Photo: depositsmag.com]
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Rainbow’s end

Posted on April 30, 2002 by GJ

Aren’t rainbows beautiful things? Depends what you mean by “things”. . .


That big rainbow in the sky
Isn’t there. I’ll tell you why:
It’s just nature’s grandest optical illusion.
Every single drop of rain
Bounces sunlight back again
And refracts it, making colours in profusion.

But the colours don’t entangle
’Cos each colour has an angle
Which it makes between the sun, the drop, and you.
If a drop’s in every place
That a ray could hit your face,
Then you see a bow of yellow, red, or blue.

But there ain’t no rainbow there!
It’s a mirage in the air:
If you flew up to the cloud, you wouldn’t see it.
(Do you think that’s too pedantic?
If your vision’s more romantic
And includes a pot of gold, well then, so be it . . .)

[Image: Wikipedia Commons]
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Space race

Posted on April 29, 2002 by GJ

Chicken’s cheap. Here’s why:


I am a broiler chicken,
Just one among so many.
I’d like some space to get a life –
Alas, I haven’t any.

[Image: upc-online.org]
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Verdi’s Requiem

Posted on April 16, 2002 by GJ

Sorry, Giuseppe, the music was great, but what I most remember about the first time I heard this piece was the way the bass drum player made up for his lack of stature by sheer enthusiasm. His drumstick arm had a backswing like a golfer’s. Pity the poor drum.

It’s Verdi, his Requiem, they’re playing today:
Four soloists, a choir, and a band.
The lights have gone down and they’ve started to play,
But there’s something I don’t understand:

At the back of the band, by a whopping great drum,
Sits a little guy, counting his way
Through the Kyrie’s bars with his fingers and thumb.
I wonder when he’ll start to play?

Now the Kyrie’s over. He’s mopping his brow.
He pulls back his jacket’s right sleeve
And picks up a drumstick. He’s standing up now . . .
If I were that drum, I would leave . . .

Dies Irae has started – it’s loud and it’s fast,
And he’s winding his arm round his neck.
Now he lets it go – wham! – with a thunderous blast
That leaves him a gibbering wreck;

Yet again and again he creates such a din,
As the music commands him to do.
He’s worth every penny I paid to get in!
I like Verdi’s Requiem, don’t you?

[Photo showing a ‘Verdi drum’ with a full-size player and assistant: Royal Tunbridge Wells Choral Society]
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National anthem

Posted on April 9, 2002 by GJ

At great Occasions of State in the UK, everyone belts out the National Anthem, except one . . .

I know the National Anthem (all its verses), top to bottom;
It really helps to make me feel I’m King. It
Really wouldn’t matter, though, if ever I forgot ’em,
’Cos I’m the only one who mustn’t sing it!

[Photo of King Charles III: wikipedia]
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Model makers

Posted on April 1, 2002 by GJ

The folded-up grey stuff that’s packed into your head helps manage your passage through life. But couldn’t a hundred billion multiply-interconnected nerve cells be better employed?

I am locked in the dark in your skull night and day,
At the top of your long spinal cord;
I am silent, immobile, invisible, grey,
Underused, undervalued, and bored.

I mean, you’re asleep for one third of the day –
And for most of the rest, you are lazy.
Can’t you see I’m frustrated, just wasting away?
Won’t you use me, before I go crazy?

Oh well, if I can’t get you thinking great thoughts,
I will count up my neurons instead…
There, I’ve done it: a one and eleven more noughts,
All packed in here, inside your head.

Their interconnections are legion; that’s why
My potential is quite astronomic.
Yet they’re stuck in the head of a lacklustre guy
Whose dominant mode’s autonomic.

They are starting to ask what “reality” means.
They can’t see things, or touch, hear or smell ’em,
But they’ve learned to construct quite extravagant scenes
In your head, from what other nerves tell ’em.

They have mastered the art of creating a model,
And it seems to keep you quite contented;
For they’ve made you believe that, outside of your noddle
There’s a ‘world’ – yet it’s wholly invented!

Could it be that there isn’t a real world out there?
That’s a problem I can’t get your head round.
I hammer away at it under your hair,
But all that I get is a dead sound.

Try asking big questions and puzzling things out:
Start by asking “Why? How? What? Where? Who?”
’Course, I can’t provide answers that banish all doubt,
But it will give me something to do.

[Image: medium.com]
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In the kitchen

Posted on March 16, 2002 by GJ

Three vignettes from the ‘kitchen’ (percussion) department of our local orchestra.

The cymbalist waits for the beat . . .
Here it comes . . . As the metal discs meet
The expulsion of air
Rearranges his hair,
Which once looked so terribly neat.

The trianglist wants to do well,
He’s counting the bars – you can tell.
But a hundred bars’ rest
Is too complex a test,
And he’s just missed his entry. Oh, hell!

The timpanist’s sturdy physique
Boosts his wickedly boisterous technique.
He insists that these wimps
Stay away from his timps;
In the ‘kitchen’, he’s chef de musique!

[Images: wikipedia (cymbals); http://groverpro.com (triangle); lpm.org (James Rago on timpani)]
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MRSA

Posted on February 10, 2002 by GJ

Research chemists are in an arms race against bacteria that have evolved forms that have resistance to common antibiotics. The most notorious of recent times is methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureas, known by its acronym, MRSA. It is a variant of the common staphylococcus aureas that survives both penicillin and its beefed-up version, methicillin.


We are staphylococcus aureas,
Past masters at making you ill.
You fought back, and were briefly victorious,
By killing us off with a pill.

So we mugged up on natural selection,
And learned to mutate and evolve
Into forms that gave us more protection
And gave you tough new problems to solve.

When we’d learned to survive penicillin,
We thought we were safe for a while;
But you found a new way of killing,
In your chemically murderous style:

Methicillin (it’s semi-synthetic –
Penicillin with knobs, you might say).
So we bred at a rate quite frenetic
And evolved into MRSA.

While you’re doing your best to destroy us,
It’s no wonder we microbes all hate you.
Though your antibiotics annoy us,
We know we can far out-mutate you . . .

[Image: Daily Mail]
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Bugs

Posted on January 20, 2002 by GJ

We are not at the top of the food chain, as we like to think. While some organisms happily coexist with us, others invade our defences and persuade our cells to feed them and help them reproduce, making us ill in the process. A few can kill us. This poem is about the ones that, these days, are more of a nuisance than a threat.

You are prey every day, in an underhand way,
To attack by invisible foes
Which go into hiding, forever dividing
So their offspring can add to your woes.

You can’t spot ’em or swot ’em, but you know that you’ve got ’em
When they’re inside your guts or your airway:
They will make you feel queer, or give you the runs –
Then you’ll know it’s not just a bad hair day.

You may nurse ’em, or curse ’em and try to disperse ’em
By taking an antibiotic.
Though some are resistant and mighty persistent,
Surrender would be idiotic;

So don’t mope like a dope, hang on to the hope
That your white cells are fighting to floor ’em.
Just remember: you oughta drink plenty of water,
Wrap up warm, stay indoors, and ignore ’em.

[Image: sciencefocus.com]
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In triplicate

Posted on January 2, 2002 by GJ

My son does this – usually without warning.

His wife left him, saying, “I’ll miss you.
Your allergic response is the issue.
Did you know, when you sneeze,
That you do it in threes:
‘Atishoo! Atishoo! Atishoo!’?”

[Photos: Wikipedia]
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A magnetic personality

Posted on December 28, 2001 by GJ

In supermarkets these days, it’s difficult to find places to park yourself and your trolley while your partner gets the goods off the shelves. There used to be suitable regions around the ends of aisles, next to the side panels of the aisle-end displays, but these have lately been commandeered for temporary cardboard stands or grab-boxes. So I have pioneered a new technique: look for products that you’d think wouldn’t sell in a million years, and stand next to them. But beware – you may be surprised at what happens next. . .  (For innocent readers, a BOGOF is an offer to Buy One, Get One Free.)


It’s motorway madness in Tesco’s,
And Sainsbury’s isn’t much kinder:
If Maureen and I become parted,
It takes half an hour to find her.

So I keep my eyes open for places
I can stop and keep out of the flow,
While the rest of the shoppers race past me
To pick up the BOGOFs on show.

I had thought that a good place to loiter
Would be next to the stuff no-one’s buying:
Quorn sausages, turnips, green lentils,
Or kangaroo cutlets for frying.

But how wrong can you get? Well, I’ll tell you.
As soon as I stop, there’s a rush
To snap up the aforementioned items,
And I’m battered and bruised in the crush.

Wherever I park, it’s the same.
What hasn’t been selling for years
Is suddenly just what folk need –
A godsend, or so it appears.

It seems that I’m strangely attractive;
Perhaps I should change my career
To make use of my magnetic nature . . .
Wait! I’ve just had a super idea:

I’ll hire out my body to Tesco’s –
It could earn me some cash, I feel sure.
They’d just stand me where sales look like flagging,
And wait for their profits to soar!

[Photo: The Guardian]
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Science and religion

Posted on December 17, 2001 by GJ

The scientific and religious sides of our minds take different approaches to the mysteries of life, both of which, by seeming to profess knowledge, tend to obscure the underlying mystery.

1. Proof without certainty

Men and women of science have long put reliance
On testing and proving ideas.
Their ideas are deemed true until something new
And demonstrably better appears.

But they can’t be dogmatic, for Nature’s erratic:
The beat of a butterfly’s wings
In the forests of Chile can make them look silly,
For they cannot allow for such things.

And they’ve all learned at college you cannot have knowledge
Of everything you’d like to know;
“Uncertainty’s rife in the science of life,”
Said Heisenberg, not long ago.

2. Certainty without proof

In religion, the truth doesn’t need any proof;
You get certainty – take it or leave it.
The message is clear: that you need never fear
Life or death if you only believe it.

To believers, old writing will often enlighten
And guide them in plotting their courses;
So their faith doesn’t falter, for dogmas don’t alter.
They can sense supernatural forces:

Both the clergy and laity experience a deity
In ways that, to them, are quite clear.
They can’t prove there’s a God, but they don’t find that odd
Because proof isn’t relevant here.

3. Mystery

So, when life behaves oddly, the faithful and godly
Will perceive Cosmic Purpose in action.
Meanwhile, scientists query: they’ll set up a Theory
Which describes things to their satisfaction.

But both are just models inside people’s noddles –
They can’t know if they’re right or they’re wrong.
So, now they’ve been rumbled, both camps should be humbled,
For the mystery’s been there all along . . .

[Image: drroyspencer.com]
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Beeing in Horsham

Posted on November 30, 2001 by GJ

‘Horsham in Bloom’ is an annual excuse for the Parks & Gardens people to pretty the place up. There are also prizes for the best gardens, and a poetry competition . . .

I’ve been around, I know the score.
Addicted, always wanting more,
I’ve buzzed until my wings got sore
In search of my next nectar store.

I’ve often had to fly for hours,
Dodging scattered thundery showers,
Employing my instinctive powers
To seek out likely-looking flowers.

But I’ve just found a special place:
It’s Horsham, and its blooms are ace!
They’re everywhere you turn your face –
It’s nectar heaven, it’s hyperspace!

So now life’s easier, you see;
With so much nectar going free,
A hive in Horsham seems to me
A blooming super place to bee!

[Image: beeprofessor.com]
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The pollster

Posted on November 19, 2001 by GJ

The trouble with polls and surveys is that they can only handle answers that fit the boxes on their forms. Give them an accurate but complex answer, and pollsters will fight to their last breath to try to persuade you that it matches one of their survey categories. It really makes you wonder what the value of these things is.


“May I question you, sir, for a moment or two,”
Asked the pollster who called at the door.
“Just some ticks in the boxes; there’s not much to do,
Then I’ll not have to trouble you more.

“Question One is straightforward. I’ll read it out now:
‘Do you think you are A, B or C?’
That’s really not hard, sir, I think you’ll allow –
You just have to choose between three.”

Well, I’m not A alone; I’m part B and some C;
It looks like I don’t fit your norm.
And some days I reckon I’m D, F and G,
Which you don’t seem to have on your form.

“Oh dear, I can only tick one box,” she said,
“Or else the statistics won’t work.
That’s something, you see, that we pollsters all dread
And drives my poor boss quite berserk.

“I’m not trying to influence your choices, of course,
But couldn’t you try to be C?”
No, the problem’s not mine, don’t you see – it is yours;
I’m not A, B or C – I am me!

[Cartoon: freepik.com]
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Santamania

Posted on November 5, 2001 by GJ

How do you explain to children the presence of multiple Santas in the weeks before Christmas?


In December, it’s pretty well known,
You can’t find a Santa-free zone.
As you go in each store
You will meet more and more –
I reckon each Santa’s a clone . . .

[Photo: mylondon.news]
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What goes up…

Posted on November 3, 2001 by GJ

The British are bombarded with safety warnings every year around Guy Fawkes’ Night. Here’s one more:


In November, it’s highly unwise
To cast your gaze up to the skies;
For spent rockets may fall
With no warning at all
And make quite a mess of your eyes . . .

[Photo: Dave Green/BBC Liverpool]
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The weathercock

Posted on October 28, 2001 by GJ

You don’t see many weathercocks these days. Perhaps the rigours of the job deter all but the hardiest of applicants. Ever thought what it would it be like to spend your life swivelling around on top of a church spire? Here’s the answer from one who’s had enough; but he can dream . . .


I suppose you think I’m lucky, perched up here atop this steeple,
Looking out across the countryside and down on all you people.
Well, think again – high altitude and panoramic views
Are not much use to a cock who’s got no cock-a-doodle-doos.

And weathercock’s a silly name to call me; after all,
I can’t foretell the weather, I can’t tell if rain will fall,
I can’t predict a sunny spell, or warn you that a gale
Or hurricane is coming that is off the Beaufort scale.

I’ve been aloft for ages, getting pitted and encrusted.
There’s bird-lime on my crop, and my pivot’s worn and rusted.
My N and S have fallen off, their arms had rusted through;
The W and E came loose, and soon they’d dropped off, too.

I don’t like heights at the best of times, but when the wind gets blowing
And the lightning zaps and the thunder claps, well I don’t feel much like crowing.
Oh, you lot are all right, you’re not stuck here in all weathers
With no cover ’gainst the elements and not a hint of feathers.

The worst thing is the solitude, I’ve got no soul mates near.
Us weathercocks are miles apart – it’s lonely stuck up here.
Maybe they’ll build a church nearby, with a steeple. Oh, and then
Perhaps they’ll fix on top of it a gorgeous weatherhen . . .

[Image: Wikimedia (C. Hill)]
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Wait for it…

Posted on October 15, 2001 by GJ

Decorations seem to go up in the town, and the Christmas tat seems to arrive in the shops, earlier every year.


Christmas is coming, decorations are up
In the town, so two things to remember:
First – better check that Aunt Flo’s still alive;
And second – it’s only September!

[Photo (of shop-owner in mid-September!): Wall Street Journal]
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The point is…

Posted on October 11, 2001 by GJ

To do mathematics, you have to work with some bizarre concepts, such as something having position but no size.

.

They know I’m here, yet everyone ignores me. I persist
In fighting for a bit of recognition,
But still I get the feeling people think I don’t exist.
Perhaps it’s just a quirk of definition:

They say, you see, my area is vanishingly small;
Co-ordinates are all they say I’ve got.
So people talk about me like I wasn’t here at all:
“There isn’t any point,” I hear a lot.

Such folk are just plain ignorant – well, that’s my gut reaction;
I’d like to put their noses out of joint.
I’m really an important mathematical abstraction:
The point is – are you listening? – I’m a point!

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A parallel existence

Posted on October 10, 2001 by GJ

It may be just a mathematical abstraction to you, but a straight line has feelings too. This particular one is lonely . . .

_________________

I’m just a plain, undeviating, regular straight line,
But single, so I’m looking for a mate;
I’d like to meet another one with qualities like mine.
I’m not in any hurry – I can wait.

Though lots of other lines have crossed my path from all directions,
I haven’t met one yet that’s turned my head.
I’m looking for a rectilinear home for my affections
Then, maybe, the day will come when we’ll be wed.

Perhaps I’m just too choosy, but so far it seems to be
Impossible to make my life complete:
The only lines I fancy are all parallel to me –
There’s no way we are ever going to meet . . .

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Return to sender

Posted on October 6, 2001 by GJ

Our postman is much nicer than the one in this poem. When I noticed recently that a letter had the wrong name on, he offered to take it back, and wrote this magic phrase on it:


“This letter’s not for me,” I said when the postman came today,
“The address is right, but the name is wrong. Please take the thing away.”
“It’s number nineteen on your door,” growled the postman in a fury.
“Of course it is, it’s where I live; but the name is Judge, not Jury.”

“Look, you’re nineteen, so it’s for you, I don’t care what your name is.
If you ask me, it’s the sender’s fault – that’s where the bloomin’ blame is.
The GPO have got a rule that says I must deliver
A letter to the place it says.” Well, that got me all a-quiver.

We altercated on the step: he lunged towards the slot;
I countered with a burst of speed I didn’t know I’d got.
But posties get well trained these days: he’d just been on a course
On getting letters through the door with a maximum of force.

He punched it through the letterbox. He’d beat me, that was that.
The letter was delivered – there it was, upon the mat.
’Twas then I knew what I must do to spite this vile offender:
I popped it back in the post next day, inscribed “Return To Sender”.

[Photo: diaryofacountrywife.wordpress.com]
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Analogue

Posted on October 4, 2001 by GJ

I heard the story of a man who took a digital photo of his wife with their dog on her lap, then used his computer to edit his wife out of the picture. There’s something slippery about digital technology. I grew up in an analogue world . . .


Technology’s gone digital:
There’s much it claims to do.
It can’t do much for me, though,
I’m analogue, through and through.

I like a knob to twiddle,
A dial engraved with lines.
You can’t adjust a button
Adorned with funny signs.

A clock should have two hands on,
Not numbers flickering round.
A proper clock goes tick and tock –
It’s such a soothing sound.

I’ve hung on to my records,
Those groovy vinyl platters;
They’re old and scratched and dusty,
But I don’t think it matters.

My camera, though old-fashioned,
Still takes an honest snap.
But pixels stored in digicams
Can be altered – so they’re rubbish.

The trouble is with digits,
They go in steps, you see,
And lose some information
As they change from A to B;

They think it doesn’t matter
What happens in between.
But analogue’s continuous,
A perfect data stream!

I must type up this poem.
Oh heck, I should have checked –
My PC is all digital,
I hope it won’t object . . .

[Image: Wikimedia Commons; Daily Mail]
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Poetry in motion

Posted on September 24, 2001 by GJ

I think I’ve just realised what it is that starts me off on a poem – they don’t warn you about it in school. It’s when something you’ve seen or heard switches on a part of your brain that simply can’t be turned off until it’s ‘let out’, worked on, and set down in black and white. While dictionaries and suchlike can be summoned to help, it’s always a real relief when the thing’s finished and the brain is ‘free’ again.


If you’ve noticed something odd, or heard a really rhythmic phrase,
And it’s bounced around inside your head for days and days and days,
The only way to stop yourself from going mad, or worse,
Is to sit at your computer screen and turn it into verse.
That demon in your brainbox, as it rattles round and round,
Is playing with alternatives and juggling what it’s found,
And it’s looking at the matter first from this way, then from that,
And it’s trying hard to rhyme things, so it’s changing ‘tit’ for ‘tat’.

Yet the funny thing with poems is, they almost write themselves,
Helped along by three fat volumes that sit up there on the shelves.
They’re battered and they’re tattered, and they’re all well past their prime:
A dictionary, thesaurus, and a book of words that rhyme.
Almost all the words you’ll ever need are listed in these tomes:
There’s nouns and verbs and adjectives, all looking for good homes;
Conjunctions, prepositions (oh, and adverbs – what are they?),
Waiting quietly to discover if today’s their lucky day.

You can’t stop the fiendish creature that’s infested your grey cells,
So wait until it settles down and see if something jells;
Then jot it down, and change it round, take down your books of reference,
Adjust the metre, tweak the rhymes until they’re to your preference.
If you’re lucky, you’ll be treated to a well-deserved surprise:
The beginnings of a poem will appear before your eyes.
Then all you do is nurture it, develop it and tend it,
And give the thing a title. Oh, and find a way to end it . . .

[Image: Purdue University Department of Chemistry]
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Genesis

Posted on September 9, 2001 by GJ

Scribbled on an egg on top of a tray of free-range eggs in the local Saturday market was the claim ‘It was me that really came first”. I felt that other voices should be heard . . .


“I’m an egg, and I’m surprised that
You haven’t sorted out
That chicken-versus-egg thing.
Well, there isn’t any doubt:
Watch what happens when my shell cracks –
There it goes! Now, did you see?
It’s the egg before the chicken,
That’s the answer. QED.”

“No, the chicken came first really,”
Crowed a voice above the egg.
“In terms of things to stand on,
You just haven’t got a leg.
If you wonder why the cockerel’s
Going cock-a-doodle-doo,
It’s because he knows the truth is,
It was me gave birth to you.”

“The whole question’s academic,”
Said a nearby chef, irate.
“You ought not to waste your hours
In such meaningless debate.
Now the pair of you have pushed me
To the far end of my tether;
I will make a chicken omelette
And you’ll both go in together . . .”

[Image: The Guardian]
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The electron

Posted on September 6, 2001 by GJ

In the old days, an electron knew its place: it was a particle which could whiz round and round in one of several well-defined orbits which surrounded the nucleus of an atom, like planets around a sun. Under the right conditions, it could mysteriously ‘jump’ between these orbits without actually existing anywhere in between. But modern quantum theory now talks more vaguely of a cloud-like distribution of probabilities of finding an electron in any of several discrete energy levels; and although it accepts that the electron sometimes behaves as a particle, it says it can also behave like a wave. The electron has an identity crisis . . .


O pity the electron, it’s not sure what it is:
A wave, a particle, or both? It’s always in a tizz.
It seems to get from here to there in steps that aren’t contiguous –
A schizophrenic entity that’s spatially ambiguous.

[Image: sciencedaily.com]
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Trumpet voluntary

Posted on September 1, 2001 by GJ

Some words and phrases are in such common use that you forget to ask what they really mean . . .


That Jeremiah Clarke piece
That’s very often played –
Well, why’s it called a Voluntary?
Because he wasn’t paid?

[Image: classicalmpr.org]
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Iggy

Posted on August 11, 2001 by GJ

The local free paper published a brief but well written piece on the discovery in July 2001 of a relatively complete Iguanodon specimen in the claypits of nearby Ockley brickworks. A member of the Geologists’ Association and the Horsham Geological Field Club, renowned for spotting fossils that others have walked past, had noticed a broken piece of one of its ribs exposed on the clay surface. Expert palaeontologists were summoned from London’s Natural History Museum and declared it an important scientific discovery. But then the headline writers got hold of the news . . .


Our paper’s got a story on a long-extinct Iguanodon.
A rib, exposed in Ockley’s clay, was spotted first one July day;
Then, later on, the limbs, a jaw, some bits of pelvis, skull, and more.
The NHM arrived in force to verify the bones at source:

“This find’s important; it’s quite rare to find so much in good repair.”
A soundbite you could not get wrong, but headline writers said: “Too long,
We’ll shorten it! One verb, one noun – that ought to really dumb it down!
Just ‘Iggy pops up’ will do fine.” (Oh, don’t it make you feel like cryin’?)

[Photo of Smokejacks brickpit at Ockley, Surrey: Kent Geologists’ Group]
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Lilies

Posted on July 23, 2001 by GJ

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” (chapter 6 v.28 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew). It’s meant to suggest that what you need will be provided; but perhaps a lily wasn’t the best analogy . . .


The lilies of the field, who never spin and never toil,
Look flashier than Solomon, they say.
Big deal! Who wants to live their life with feet encased in soil,
And doomed to photosynthesise all day?

[Image: whatgives365.wordpress.com]
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Reflections

Posted on July 16, 2001 by GJ

They say that, over the years, all the cells in your body are replaced by new ones. Is the result a new you?


I am in reflective mood;
I’m not the chap I used to be,
For all my cells have been renewed.
The question is, am I still me?

I think I am, and that’s what counts,
As Monsieur Descartes would have said.
The “me” that’s stayed the same amounts
To jumbled memories in my head;

That’s why I think the “me” I was
Is now the “me” that is today.
(I hope my logic’s right, because
I don’t know any other way.)

Could I be wrong, though? What if all
My memories are mental quirks?
It’s possible; for, I recall,
It isn’t known how memory works . . .

Enough! These broody interludes
Could generate insanity.
I’m giving up reflective moods –
So stuff the chap I used to be!

[Image: artandperception.com]
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Weather or not

Posted on July 5, 2001 by GJ

Praying for rain works – eventually; perhaps that’s why, even in this country, in “long” periods of drought some folks do it. And, in “long” periods of wet weather, the same folk pray for dry weather. For individuals to pray for local modifications in global weather systems seems like a recipe for meteorological chaos. (For younger readers, Michael Fish was a forecaster from the UK Meteorological Office who famously rubbished talk of an approaching hurricane the day before the Great Storm devastated southern England in October 1986.)


We’ve had some awful flooding here.
I think perhaps I can explain:
Last time we had a lengthy drought
Too many people prayed for rain.

But now, of course, their prayers have changed:
“O let these downpours cease,” they cry;
And many pray the selfsame plea,
“O make again the country dry!”

If they were engineers, they’d see
Their system lacks stability.
Perhaps they ought instead to pray
For much less variability.

Or, better still, don’t pray at all,
O ye of little faith. Instead,
Build reservoirs, keep off flood plains,
Ignore Mike Fish and use your head!

(See also Clerk of the Weather)

[Photo: BBC North Yorkshire]
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Listen to the band

Posted on June 28, 2001 by GJ

Some folk go to orchestral concerts just to listen to the music, but there’s so much to see and wonder about, as well. Here, an orchestra lets you into some of its secrets . . .

We’re an orchestra, a band of musicians, highly trained.
If you’d care to lend an ear, certain things will be explained!
We are ruled by dots on lines that dictate how we should act:
When to blow and scrape and bash, so our timing is exact.

You’ll have noticed lots of strings under chins, or held upright:
Mostly small ones to your left; rather big ones on your right.
If you see their left hands shaking (it’s “vibrato”, did you know?),
They are trying to find the note as they wobble to and fro.

Hear the gentle woodwind’s sound – smoothly lyrical, with trills?
It comes from perforated tubes, yet their music’s full of thrills.
There’s the oboes and the flutes, clarinets and big bassoons;
And a piccolo (it’s tiny, but it plays some jolly tunes).

In the interval you’ll see how the members of the brass
Exercise their embouchures as they drain a well-filled glass.
(Well, you need a lot of puff to play Tchaikowsky, Wagner, Liszt;
And experience has shown they play better when they’re refreshed.)

At the back, above it all, the percussion section doze,
Counting rest bars by the dozen on their fingers, thumbs and toes.
Then, quite suddenly, one stirs, lifts his cymbals: there’s a crash
(Has he dropped them?), and the noise wakes up the others in a flash.

Have they slept right through their cues? As they try to find their place,
Lots of bangs and clangs and booms echo through the concert space.
Then the audience applauds, crying “Bravo!”, wanting more,
For they think the loud finale was what’s written in the score!

We’ve rehearsed for weeks and weeks, phrasing this and stressing that;
We’ve been bullied and cajoled (“You are sharp!” or “No, that’s flat!”)
By a fellow at the front – waves his arms about a lot.
If our music is no good, he’s the bloke who should be shot!

[Image: thecityofldn.com]
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The lift

Posted on June 3, 2001 by GJ

There’s something unnerving about travelling in a lift that’s quite separate from the fear of hanging above a deep shaft on a length of wire. It’s this: at each floor, as the doors open, you suddenly become part of a new environment; and if it’s a building you haven’t been in before, you don’t know what you might find if you venture into it. Rather like the journey through life from its beginning in the womb – except for one small thing . . .

Hey! How did I get in here, and why is it so dark?
I feel as if I’m floating in a void.
Okay, the joke is over; it was just some kind of lark.
Now let me out, or else I’ll get annoyed.

Wow! Now it seems as though a door has opened wide;
I blink, and gulp in air with all my might.
A voice says: “Mind the door. This floor for Childhood. Step outside.”
And out I go, head first, into the light.

Coo! On this floor the drinks are free, and everything is fun,
But soon I’m back inside the lift again.
A button labelled “Up” is lit, the voice has just begun:
“Next floor for Youth and Teenage Angst and Pain.”

Gosh! This floor’s full of schools and girls and booze and raw emotion,
And other things I really dare not say.
I drink and fight and snog some girls and kick up a commotion,
Behaving in a reckless sort of way.

Phew! Back inside the lift, the button still shows “Up”, and so
I wait to see what’s next in store for me.
The voice: “This floor for Work, Bank Loans and Kids”. And out I go,
Though now, I think, more apprehensively . . .

Hell! Now I’ve got so much to do, there really isn’t time
To stop and think what all this is about.
I work, I eat, I sleep; and in a flash, I’m past my prime.
I’m getting slower now, there seems no doubt.

Stop! Get me out of this! Come, lift, and open up your door!
I hear its voice again, not far away:
“Retirement, Later Life and Death available, next floor.”
I’ll get on board, but go the other way;

God knows, I need a change! The lift has been there all along.
I step inside, but something makes me frown.
The voice says “Going up!” And then I realise what is wrong:
It hasn’t got a button labelled “Down” . . .

[Image: cranktank.net]
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Exceptions

Posted on May 22, 2001 by GJ

Mrs Cecil Frances “Fanny” Alexander’s 19th century hymn concentrates on the ‘nice’ bits of nature: flowers, birds, purple-headed mountains, sunsets, that sort of thing – a highly selective view in which the worst that could happen to you was a cold wind in winter. But there’s more to life than that.


All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small . . .
Except black-, white- and greenflies which are no use at all,
Outsize spiders, jellyfish, big crabs with sideways walks,
Bed-bugs, ringworms, fleas and lice, and slugs with eyes on stalks,

Ants and woodlice (wretched things), all nits and gnats and flies;
Oil-seed rape whose pollen clouds so irritate my eyes;
Squirrels, moles and bluebottles, fat pigeons, rats and mice,
Slithery, slimy, slippery things (not earthworms, they are nice);

Bulldogs, dachshunds, pekingese; big locusts, lampreys, leeches;
Club root, canker, mealy bugs; those wriggly things on beaches;
BSE and foot-and-mouth, meningitis, cancer, AIDS,
Gallstones, tonsils, athlete’s foot, ME that lasts decades,

CJD, MS, TB and ills of longer name,
Some of which just knock you back while others kill and maim.
Sorry, Fanny, do go on. It’s just that you ignore . . .
All things wise and wonderful . . . the things most folk abhor.

[Image: BBC]
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Edges

Posted on May 21, 2001 by GJ

Perhaps there are questions it’s better not to ask . . .


I exist in a volume of space,
The edges of which you can see.
Everything outside’s the Universe;
Everything inside is Me.

Each thing is defined by its boundaries
Which set it apart from the rest.
But a difficult question arises
Which leaves my grey cells highly stressed:

“Does the Universe also have edges?”
If no, then how can it exist?
If yes, you must ask “What’s outside them?”
It’s driving me right round the twist . . .

[Image: publicdomainpictures.net]
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The hunter’s cry

Posted on April 30, 2001 by GJ

A cautionary tale, inspired during a field trip to Burton Bradstock in Dorset on 29 April 2001 by the plight of certain professional fossil collectors overdosing on a fresh cliff-fall in the Inferior Oolite . . .

“I’ve found one – it’s enormous,” the fossil hunter cried,
“I’ll pop it in the rucksack, there’s loads of room inside.”
He found lots more and wedged them in, a masterpiece of packin’ . . .
Then, homeward bound, there came the cry, “I’ve done my blooming back in!”

[Image: clipartsheep.com]
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Motivation

Posted on April 30, 2001 by GJ

A small problem at the start of a field trip to Burton Bradstock in Dorset on 29 April 2001 brought out the Field Trip Secretary’s leadership qualities . . .

The geo-tribe arrived one day
At Burton Bradstock’s shingly bay.
We hoped to search the fresh cliff-fall
To find the fossils – that was all.

The map displayed a thin blue line:
A stream. Our wellies should do fine
To get us to the other side.
Then someone checked up on the tide . . .

The tide was in; our luck was out.
There were no boats or rafts about,
No ropes to rig a breeches buoy,
No Bailey bridges to deploy.

The stream was running fast and deep;
Too wide, by far, to make a leap.
So we were stuck. But then appeared
A tribal leader with a beard.

With wellies off and trousers rolled,
Into the stream our Moses strolled:
“O Dorset  waters, take ye heed,
A bit of dry land’s what we need.”

And did those waters take the hint
And open up? Well, no, they didn’t.
So Moses saith, “Pay heed to me,
We’re going to have to try Plan B.

“I’ll give you all a helping hand
To get you to that promised land.
No milk and honey, just a heap
Of virgin fossils, ankle deep.”

(He knew the thought of all those rocks
Would have us tearing off our socks.)
So jeans were hoisted, feet were bared
And knees exposed, but no-one cared.

We waded through that raging torrent,
Which prospect had once seemed abhorrent.
No money would have made us do it –
’Twas fossils got us safely through it!

[Image (showing that very stream – the River Bride): wikipedia]
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In theory

Posted on April 17, 2001 by GJ

Some physicists are convinced that they will eventually be able to formulate a theory that will link all the existing theories about the basic forces of the universe – electromagnetism, nuclear forces, and gravity: a “Theory of Everything” . . .


A Theory of Everything! Wouldn’t that be great,
If only it could be attained?
You’d put in the numbers and, after a wait,
The universe would all be explained!

But a theory must always be proved, so you make
Observations to try to reject it;
For as long as you do that and find no mistakes
You can use it – but always suspect it.

The basis of theories can only be what
Has frequently happened before:
If you see something happening the same way a lot,
You can formulate it as a ‘law’.

Yet, however consistent your law seems to be,
Remember it’s based on the past;
Don’t ever confuse it with reality –
That problem is simply too vast,

Your brain’s not equipped with the bits it would need
For such metaphysical stuff.
Your theories will work for you, that I’ll concede,
But somehow they’re not quite enough . . .

[Image: Free Physics eBooks]
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The mechanics of time

Posted on April 14, 2001 by GJ

Ever wondered how it is that time is so regular? It’s because, armed with an Avo meter, oily rag, a universal socket set and other mechanics’ tools, these guys do regular checks. The reason you’ve never been aware of this is that they can only safely do the checks while time itself is switched off, which means that events are no longer separated in time, so your memory can’t reconstruct them. Their foreman explains:

“We’ve found some leaky wormholes in the warp and weft of space
Where space-time’s vast continuum needs tweaking.
To mend a thing like that, you’ve got to switch it off, in case
You get your wires all crossed, celestially speaking.

“So time will stop for maintenance at ten o’clock tonight;
We’ll get it fixed and working just like new.
And, ’cos we’re conscientious, just to make sure it’s all right,
We’ll do a routine service on it, too.

“You’ll have to leave us to it as we go about our task,
But one thing we should mention, to be fair:
Your lives will have to stop. Now surely that’s not much to ask?
It is? Why, were you going anywhere?

“Now look: this work’s essential, so you’d better change your tone.
It’s no more than a minor irritation.
The universe is cracking up, and all you do is moan!
You ought to give us more co-operation.

“You won’t remember anything, it won’t leave any trace.
Your memory’s a sequential-time machine.
It’s time alone that separates what’s happening in space;
Without it, you can’t sense the changing scene.

“We’ve switched off many times before, in quite a similar way ­–
You’ll find our detailed records clearly chart ’em.
So why the fuss? Could it be this: did we forget to say
We’ll stop your lives…and then, of course, re-start ’em“?

[Image: freepik.com]
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Ageology

Posted on April 13, 2001 by GJ

Where age is concerned, it’s best to be honest . . .

You need not lie about your age.
Just say, “I must be truthful:
Geologically speaking, I
Am positively youthful.”

[Image: BritishMuseum (mask of Aphrodite, daughter of Didas)]
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Mathematics

Posted on April 11, 2001 by GJ

It’s an amazing collection of interlocking tools for describing and handling the fabric of life, but there’s something you ought to know . . .


Why do 2 and 2 make 4? And what on earth are fractals for?
How are conic sections turned into quadratics?
Where do logs and roots and sines fit into Nature’s grand designs?
All these questions are the stuff of mathematics.

At the heart of mathematics are cerebral acrobatics:
You  can calculate what ‘x’ is with some ease;
But for existential fun, the square root of minus one
Is for intellectual poseurs with degrees.

Mathematicians have affinity with the concept of infinity,
Which the rest of us consider a deceit;
Yet there’s something quite hypnotic in a curve that’s asymptotic
To a line that it will never, ever meet.

Raw statistics, charts and graphs may not be a load of laughs,
But can help you track your finances and shares,
And outwit the local rookies who bet money at the bookie’s –
Get the winnings coming your way, ’stead of theirs!

Are you needing some persuasion to resolve a tough equation?
Is the calculus inducing signs of slumber?
Try your hand at exponentials, which describe life’s growth potentials,
Or contemplate the famous Golden Number.

If your teacher’s stiff and starchy, you could mention Fibonacci
And his number sequence – that’ll make her grin!
Ask her, innocently, “Why’re all seed head patterns doubly spiral?” –
It’s a great side-tracking ploy that’s sure to win.

Mathematics stands aloof, upon a pyramid of proofs.
There’s a problem, though, which cannot be removed:
The point to comprehend is that its theorems all depend
Upon axioms – but axioms can’t be proved . . .

[Image: cambridgeassessment.org.uk]
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Why?

Posted on April 5, 2001 by GJ

It might be enjoyable to find a fossil (in this case, an ammonite in the Lower Inferior Oolite), extract it and clean it up as a trophy. But, as usual, there is another point of view. . .


If this is Heaven, I have to say
It’s not what I expected.
Until you came and chipped me out,
I’d lain there, undetected.

(Two hundred million years ago
My softer tissues died.
They made me what I am today
Whilst resident inside;

But, once decayed, they left a void
That calcite couldn’t fill.
I miss my innards: in my dreams
I feel they’re in there, still.)

I’d heard of resurrection, but
I never thought I’d see it
Until I heard your eager cry:
“Once more – there, that should free it!”

It was a shock to find myself
Exhumed, then cleaned and dried.
Hey, where has all the water gone
In which I lived and died?

This place is dry! That can’t be right.
The view fills me with terror;
Please put me back, I’ve seen enough.
There must have been an error,

I didn’t ask to be dug up.
(I think I’ve just seen through it:
This isn’t Heaven at all – it’s Hell!)
Why did you have to do it?

[Photo of Brasilia similis from Beaminster: earthphysicsteaching.homestead.com (Michael P. Klimetz)]
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Factorials

Posted on April 2, 2001 by GJ

The symbol for taking the factorial of a number looks suspiciously like an exclamation mark . . .

!

If you’re a factorial, answer this, sonny:
You don’t seem to me to be terribly funny,
So how come your symbol’s a fake exclamation?
You’d better come up with a good explanation . . .

“The answer, my friend, is well known to the wise.
The reason the symbol looks like a surprise
Is because we factorials are not often used,
And so, when we are, we are highly amused!”

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Hypotenuse

Posted on April 2, 2001 by GJ

Hypotenuses live on the verge of extinction . . .


Pythagoras, that ancient Greek, once taught his band of brothers:
“The square on the hypotenuse is the sum of both the others”.
So I am something special, and the reason is, you see,
Triangularly speaking, I’m the longest side of three.

My status is precarious, though, and here’s the vital clue:
The angle opposite must be exactly π by 2;
If not – I dare not think of it, I’d only get the blues –
I’d simply not exist . . . I’d be a non-hypotenuse . . .

[Image: mathworld.wolfram.com]
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Pi

Posted on March 29, 2001 by GJ

It started life as the number of times you can fit a circle’s diameter round its circumference, but it appears throughout mathematics. It’s not a simple number: mathematicians describe it as “irrational and transcendental”. In September 2010, the well-named Nicholas Size, of Yahoo, computed its value in binary to 2 × 1015 digits – you don’t often need that many . . .

It’s a very strange number, is pi:
It’s ‘transcendental’ – though heaven knows why.
3.1416 is the usual mix;
More precision’s just π in the sky.

[Image: wikipedia]
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g

Posted on March 29, 2001 by GJ

Often approximated to 10 m/s-2, g is the “acceleration of a mass falling without resistance under gravity”. But if the mass is not falling, it’s because the force stopping it is equal to g times the mass – it’s the weight of the object . . .

g

Hi, there! I’m g. To keep up with me
You’d better not procrastinate:
10 metres per second per second, it’s reckoned,
Is how you must accelerate.

(That’s not quite exact. My value, in fact
Isn’t constant, but varies with place:
Though 9.81 is the number for some,
You really should check – just in case.)

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Spring into action

Posted on March 29, 2001 by GJ

A spring demonstrates some basic engineering concepts:


Do some work, compress a spring –
Strong muscles are essential.
The energy you give the thing
Has lots of new potential.

The rate at which you do the work
(A megajoule per hour?),
Provided that you do not shirk,
Will demonstrate your power.

Now make the spring propel some rocks.
This could be quite frenetic:
The energy the spring unlocks
Is dangerously kinetic.

[Photo: Royal Society of Chemistry]
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