I had promised myself that I'd wander over to the campus pond this afternoon but I hadn't banked on the rain. The Met Bureau had forecast it but ... pffft! ... who believes them after the last couple of misses. Well, it did rain. Not very heavily—we only received about 4 mm—but enough to stop me from sticking my toe out of the door until it was absolutely necessary. So I didn't go to the pond. In fact, if I wait long enough, the pond will probably come to me.

Still chaotic at work. But the good news is that I've got two weeks of leave coming up very soon. Don't know if I'll get away but I think I should. I'll see what the GP says tomorrow when I go back for a check up.

I haven't been writing lately. Not only the blog but the fourth (fifth?) draft. Not-writing is easier than writing—for a couple of days. Then not-writing becomes the more difficult task. But right now, I can't do it. I can't string sentences together to tell a story. I'm sure it will pass but it's bloody frustrating. It's not helped by memos from work that turn nouns into verbs (or should I say, memos that verb nouns). Nor those that list approved verbs for use in describing learning outcomes for units of study. (Understand is not one of them.)

Still, it's sort of reassuring that we're not alone in this madness. Don Watson's Weasel Words site will either entertain you or drive you to the edge of insanity. (I recommend that you watch the whole intro. It doesn't take long.)

Maybe a few days off work will clear my mind enough to be able to tell stories and revel in the natural world again.

I read Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic The Road over three days. It's not a long book and would have taken me less time, but I didn't want to finish it. I was afraid of how the story might end ... I didn't want something terrible to happen to the central characters — even though they were non-existent people in a non-existent world, nothing more than print on a page.

But story-telling is alchemy. Forget all that base metal to gold nonsense. (Can't you do that with some fancy physics, anyway?) When those black lines transform into people and places and actions in your mind ... Now that's a transmutation to make a fuss about.

As you know, the fun never stops at the Snail Shell. Let me give you an example. Yesterday I woke up with a revolting headache. It wasn't a migraine. (I'd had one of those on Saturday afternoon.) It was much worse. I get these headaches occasionally and they're characterised by being completely unresponsive to any type of analgesic—aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine ... None of them has any effect. So I have to sit out the headaches.

Yesterday, the headache was accompanied by nausea. Well, not just nausea but rather spectacular vomiting. I was impressed. I'd forgotten how much force lies behind a serious chunder. You can launch diced carrots into space.

After spending the day unable to keep down anything (including water), I decided to take myself off for medical treatment. Of course, I couldn't get an appointment with a GP at that time, so I went to the local hospital. (You can't imagine the discussion I had with myself about whether I should bother them with something so trivial. Hardly an emergency.)

Luckily, the Emergency Ward was quiet on Monday night. One man had been bitten by a spider. (I thought of offering to identify it.) Another had dropped his motorbike and hadn't realised how much damage he'd done to his foot until he'd taken off his boots some hours later. And then there was me.

I got a new graduate at the end of his shift. He'd ask me a series of questions, then do the Columbo line, "just one more thing". Unfortunately, he kept forgetting what it was, so he'd conclude with "there is no one more thing".

While I was rehydrating at the end of a saline drip, I had to listen to the person in the next bed. He had experienced chest pains (which turned out to be gastric reflux) and taken the day off work. Not only did he want a medical certificate for the next two days but he wanted the nurses to get him sandwiches. (Apparently he hadn't eaten since morning tea. Try last night, bucko.) He was appalled that they couldn't offer him a menu. I felt like shoving my IV stand up his arse. I got very close to it when his pal brought his mobile phone in—the ring tone was Achy, Breaky Heart.

I got out five hours later. I felt much better.

The heartwarming tale ...

... of a villainous publican and an albino vicar.

Arrrrr, I'm listening to a dramatisation of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn on BBC Radio 7. It's been years since I read that rollicking yarn of wrecking and multiple murder in 19th century Cornwall. You can hear the first part here (starting at 11 am). The next three parts play over the following days. If you want to listen, you'll have to be quick because the Beeb rotates its programs.

You Yangs Twister

It's not something that you often worry about in Victoria, but we do get the occasional tornado. This one formed near the You Yangs on Monday. Wish I'd seen it.

The entrance and exit ramps on the Tullamarine Freeway are like the staircases in Hogwarts. Last Saturday, when I went to pick up my guest from the airport, the entrance ramp was a narrow, orange pole-lined slalom with an unexpected fork that demanded an instant decision: Tullamarine or Calder?

But one week later, that fork leads to a construction area and the freeway entrance is kilometres further on, with a signpost a hundred metres after the turn off. We've now seen rather more of Niddrie and Keilor that we really needed ... but we did get to the airport on time, so that was okay.

So now I'm back to blogging ...

A friend is down from Queensland for the week to attend a vet conference in the city. She arrived yesterday morning. After lunch in Yarraville (at Hausfrau in Ballarat Street), we decided to go for a walk in the You Yangs. That was the plan. The reality was a bit different.

'You'll like the You Yangs,' I said. 'They're the most prominent landmark on this side of the city.'

Well, Matthew Flinders may have seen them from the Bay, but we couldn't see them from the freeway (which is much closer). The whole area was blanketed in smoke from a fire somewhere. There was no point heading up the hills because the view would have been awful, so instead we went for a drive. It seems to me that every intersection (not that there are many in Mad Max country) bears a signpost for the Anakie Fairy Park*. Forget about Rome, all roads lead to the Fairy Park.

We opted for Serendip Sanctuary and got there about 45 minutes before closing. On the way in we saw a brown falcon (Falco berigora) but no wedge-tailed eagles, which are fairly common around the You Yangs. (Presumably the smoke was making it difficult for them to spot food. Or paragliders.)

Only a handful of people were at the Sanctuary, so we could watch the birds in relative peace. Within moments of sitting down in the first hide, we saw four whistling kites (Milvus sphenurus), two black kites (Milvus migrans) and a lone brave and/or foolish white-plumed honeyeater that thought it would harass all of them. (We also saw the usual array of magpie geese, chestnut teal, Pacific black ducks and masked lapwings and the odd eastern grey kangaroo and emu.) It was three-quarters of an hour well spent. I really must get down to the Sanctuary more often.

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* If you really need to know what this is, Google on Anakie "Fairy Park".

The Dawkins Code

Flacco has been reading The God Delusion. He found something startling within its pages. So he took the opportunity offered by ABC radio's Science Show to tell the world about his discovery. You can hear the audio of the show here. (Flacco aka Paul Livingston is on at about 51 minutes.) Here's the transcript.

After rereading Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion, it has become clear to me that the text harbours a hidden message from the creator himself. You see, I have uncovered the Dawkins' code. The evidence that this book is the word of God is overwhelming. One need only peruse the dust jacket to reveal within the bar code the numbers 999 which is the number of the beast lying on its back. Mere coincidence? I think not.

Also one will find that a simple rearrangement of the letters of the author and title reveal this sentence; 'A rich hard dog is on the lead'. Can it get any clearer than this? The book itself is published by Bantam Press, 'bantam' being an anagram of Batman, who of course was played by Adam West, an anagram of 'Adam West' being 'a mad stew', and of course an anagram of 'anagram' is 'a rag man' which was the state of Adam West's career after the series ended in the 60s. Oh, uncanny, to say the least!

For those who still doubt, try this at home. Grab your copy of The God Delusion and randomly hold any given page before a mirror and you will find the text is riddled with reverse writing. I rest my case. But by far the most telling evidence is this; by rearranging certain words which are ingeniously spread throughout the entire book, hidden within otherwise innocent sentences, I found this clear message from God, and I quote:

'Hi there, it's God here, and after reading Richard's book I have found his argument so compelling that I have realised that the possibility of my existence is extraordinarily remote. In light of this revelation I hereby declare that I, God, have become an atheist, and as this will be my last message to humanity, I therefore lay the weight of responsibility for mankind's wellbeing on Mr Richard Dawkins himself. And while he may not quite be a god, he certainly does move in a mysterious way. Put it down to the lumbago. And so may you all rest in the security that all your dreams, hopes and beliefs are nothing more than the rumblings of a few strands of proteins assembled by no one for no higher purpose. Have a nice day. Amen.'

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena)

Another day, another endless meeting. While the talking went on, I watched the very welcome Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) doing their death-defying aerial stunts in the narrow space between the walkway and the window.

A friend thinks that these birds look a bit menacing. It's the black mask, you see. Not so much Zorro as Ronnie Biggs. I think they're wonderful and their antics entertained me as the meeting went on. And on.

Like Barn Swallows, they often construct their mud nests on buildings and bridges. Caves and cliffs—the natural sites—aren't quite so popular. The species seems to have benefited from European settlement. One pair of Welcome Swallows built their home on the deck of a paddle steamer that cruised the Murray River in South Australia from Murray Bridge to Morgan. Even if they're not nesting, swallows make use of the vessels on the Murray. I've seen birds perched on ferry railings, taking the easy route across the river. Once the boat docks, the birds take off. Lucky things.

Reference
Marchant, S & Fullagar, PJ. (1983). Nest records of the Welcome Swallow. Emu 83: 66–74.

Cool crinoids

In Seeds of Doom, Dr Who was menaced by giant, ambulatory vegetables called Krynoids. The monsters weren't always called that. The scriptwriters named them Crinoids initially, until someone pointed out that crinoids were alive and well and filtering suspended particles from the ocean in an entirely unmenacing way.

Crinoids (sea lilies, feather stars) are elegant relatives of starfish and sea urchins. Many species have long stalks that hold the animal above the sediment. They look like strange flowers. And, like flowers, they were thought to be fixed in place. But in the late 1980s, stalked crinoids were observed moving very slowly, using the tips of their arms to drag themselves along. (This locomotion is known as the finger-tip pull. It could be worse.)

More recently, Tom Baumiller and Charles Messing filmed the tropical Atlantic Neocrinus decorus moving at a heck of a pace across the sea floor using the (commando) elbow-crawl. You can read the article on line here and see the Quicktime video here.

Nature is wonderful.

I and the Bird #48

Another entertaining edition at Greg Laden's blog.

Should I be worried?

Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: You are your own God or Goddess   Sorry to say, i have no answer that fits you. You are your very own person, and you like to do things your own way. You have stumped me this time, but i will soon make a quiz that will have your answer, just you wait...
Satan
God Zeus
Goddess Sekhemet
Jesus
Goddess Bast
Buddha
The Christian God
Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz

The fun never ends at the Snail Shell. Today I bought a new vacuum cleaner. (And not before time because the dust bunnies at home are roughly the size of small cattle. It's the island effect, you know. In isolation, animals get smaller or bigger.) Buying a vacuum cleaner is not that easy. The sales person asks questions that you can't answer, such as "what sort do you have now?" I wanted to ask if I looked like someone who would know the brand and model of her vacuum cleaner but decided to refrain because I wasn't going to enjoy the answer, whatever it was.

Anyway, I am now the less than proud owner of new house cleaning equipment. Didn't I say that the fun never ends?

And to reinforce that notion, let me tell you about Friday. This was the plan. Before I went to Corio Bay on the great infaunal bivalve hunt, I had to drop off the Daewoo at the garage to get a roadworthy certificate for it. The garage is about 3 km away. Not very far. I thought I'd take the car in nice and early and then walk back home because, frankly, I need the exercise. Then I could drive into work in my Ford and head out from there.

But it didn't quite work that way. I was so anxious about work that I forgot about the roadworthy test. By the time I remembered, it was no longer nice and early. I couldn't risk missing the appointment (it had taken a fortnight to get a booking), so I leapt into the Daewoo and hurtled drove sedately down to the garage.

I was going to get a taxi back. But I figured that a cab driver would never be able to find the garage, which had a very discreet frontage. So, I thought I’d walk along the main street until I found an obvious landmark or major intersection and call a taxi to pick me up from there. Unfortunately, the area I was wandering through wasn't the best place to loiter. Every time I arrived at a suitable corner, disreputable-looking people were hanging around them. Possibly waiting for taxis, but probably not. So I kept walking.

By the time I got to somewhere more salubrious I was almost home. And running very, very late. Still, I had a decent walk. And we got down to Corio on time.

Wardrobe malfunction

Defective automatic trousers hurl pilot from plane
Rogue expando-pants amok in Wallace & Gromit style devastation

Yes, things can go horribly wrong when you're wearing the Wrong Trousers.

Another day at the beach

After much prevarication, we drove down to Limeburners Bay and arrived on slack tide. Pied oystercatchers were searching for food at the end of the sand spit, so we thought we might have what they were having. We marched down with sieve and shovel. (And permit, just in case anyone asked us what we were doing.) The birds were a bit peeved with us but moved along as fast as they could without losing dignity. I have no idea what they were after because the sand was packed with empty clam shells and was apparently devoid of multicellular life.

By this time, the silver gulls were also getting peeved by our presence. They'd already seen off a juvenile Pacific gull and must have decided to go for a bigger target. They made low passes, complaining loudly as they soared overhead. But we ignored them and they lost interest after a while. Obviously, the juvie gull had been much more fun.

Well, we shovelled and sieved anoxic sand but didn't find the animal we were after. Plenty of little golden mussels (probably a native Xenostrobus), which provided a resting place for even tinier sea anemones. Tonnes of dead shells of all species — except for our quarry. Of course.

Hordes of Salinator ploughed furrows on mud just above the water's edge. (Salinator is one of the few pulmonate snails that sports an operculum.) I think I might have a closer look at them some time. They're rather interesting snails.

We returned to work empty-handed. But not before we had lunch in Geelong at a rather nice café in the city centre. I can't help feeling that we probably had a whiff of hydrogen sulphide about us, as we'd been searching through stinky black sand. Still, we couldn't smell it and no one mentioned it ...

Arrrr! Me hopeless hearties

Barbadian Stede Bonnet obviously didn't think it through when he left his landlubber's life in the summer of 1717 to become a pirate. He bought a ship, Revenge, and fitted it out with cannons. Then he hired a crew and paid them wages.

For a few months, Bonnet and his salaried scurvy dogs raided merchant vessels along the Atlantic coast of North America. They were doing quite well for a bunch of apprentices until the captain suffered injuries in a battle off the Carolinas. They sailed Revenge to the safety of the Bahamas.

Bonnet thought it might be fun to join Blackbeard (Edward Teach) in his plundering of the colonies. Still unwell from his wounds, Bonnet handed over command of Revenge to Blackbeard, who—unnacountably—didn't boot the silly bugger off the side.

After more successful raids, Bonnet and Blackbeard went their separate ways for a while. When they met again, Bonnet's crew deserted and Blackbeard took his ship. The hapless captain remained a 'guest' of the pirate during raids on the Carolinas. But by this time, Blackbeard was growing tired of being on the wrong side of the law. He petitioned for and received a pardon. The infamous pirate retired to Ocracoke Island.

Bonnet was also prepared to go straight. Well, straightish. He planned to head to St Thomas and take up privateering, which was almost as good as out and out piracy but was authorised by the government. Unfortunately, once aboard Revenge, he slipped back into piratical ways.

To ensure that he didn't jeopardise his pardon or his chance of privateering for fun and profit, he changed his name and that of his ship. Stede Bonnet and Revenge disappeared at sea. The new pirate 'Captain Thomas' led the crew of the previously unknown 'Royal James' on raids from Delaware Bay to Cape Fear. He thought he'd got away with it.

Until ... the vessel was careened to fix a leak.

On hearing that Revenge/Royal James and two captured vessels were stuck in Cape Fear River, the navy went out huntin' pirates. They were nearly as daft as ... er ... Cap'n Thomas because their flagship Henry ran aground on a mud bank. Bonnet sent out crew in canoes to board the stricken ship but once they got close enough to see the cannons, they paddled straight back home.

The navy blockaded the mouth of the river. Bonnet decided to fight his way out. But not before he'd sent a letter to the governor in which he threatened to burn the city of Charleston to the ground.

Pirates and navy engaged in the Battle of Cape Fear River, which seems to have involved a lot of fancy manoeuvres, most of which resulted in vessels on both sides getting stuck in shallow water as the tide ebbed.

Bonnet's crew put up a good fight. But the rising tide refloated the naval vessels and the pirates were back in deep doo doos. After failing to blow the naval flagship out of the water, they surrendered. Bonnet was disappointed in his crew's performance.

Of course. it wasn't over yet.

Bonnet escaped from gaol in Charleston. He was recaptured on Sullivan's Island in the mouth of the harbour. When put on trial, he claimed his crew acted against his wishes in raiding merchant vessels. Now they were disappointed in his performance. He was convicted of piracy and sentenced to hang. To avoid this awful fate, he offered to have his arms and legs cut off. The judge was not impressed.

Stede Bonnet was hanged on December 10, 1718, after a career that lasted less than eighteen months. At least he'd given it a go.

Extinction is forever

Why there are no unicorns. Or dragons. Or merpeople.

A pain in the ... head

That's all I need. Not only are migraines bloody painful and distressing, they're also doing damage. And it's not as if I've got that many brain cells to spare.

It rained today. Not for long. But I got soaked to the skin in a couple of minutes as I first ambled and then scurried from the car park to the main building. It's all finished now but it was nice while it lasted.

The only problem is that it will probably affect the water quality at our study site, so we might be cancelling tomorrow's trip to the beach.

Quiet weekend here in the Snail Shell. I didn't go out adventuring because I didn't want to get caught in the torrential downpours. (My mistake.) Instead, I stayed home and shifted piles of paper from one part of the house to the other. I also started reading William Goldman's Which lie did I tell? (the follow up to Adventures in the screen trade), Cormac McCarthy's The road (which I'd bought ages ago) and T.H. White's The sword in the stone (because I haven't read it since primary school and that was ... a while ago).

Not much to report otherwise. Yet another committee meeting on Monday — this one lasted three and a half effin' hours. It didn't have to continue for anywhere near that long but a couple of people were so enchanted with the siren song of their own voices that they went on and on and on. Luckily, I was facing the windows, which overlook an area of open land that's very popular with raptors. At one point, a black-shouldered kite came winging across and settled in a tree. I had my binoculars with me, so I was itching for a break so I could get them out. But the speakers went on and on and on. Of course, by the time we got a break, the kite had gone. But I spent a quiet ten minutes watching the red wattlebirds doing aerobatics around the crowns of the sugar gums, while the other members of the committee made comments about my 'obsession'.

My collecting permit turned up today, so this Friday we'll be off to Corio Bay to look for bivalves. The tides aren't particularly good — the lowest is only down to 0.18 — but it'll be nice to paddle about in the sea. I may have a different view on Friday afternoon, when I'm up to my knees in anoxic mud and being pelted by a rain-laden southerly, but right now, I'm looking forward to it. There'll be a full report on Friday.

Ha! Call that rain? 'Cause I don't.

Friday's radio and television news reported the coming cold front as if it were bringing a flood of Noachian proportions.

The Mallee and Wimmera got bucket loads* over the weekend but this part of Melbourne received only about 10 mm. Still, it's 10 mm more than we had. And there's another burst on the way, they tell us.
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* We're talking very small buckets.