Living the Dream

This photo makes me laugh and cry in equal measure. Cry, because it's just a bit too darn unclear and if I'd only been standing about a foot further forward in the crowd it would have been a really awesome picture because you'd be able to see the guy's face properly instead of just a weirdly bright nose and mouth. In case you can't tell, it's a guy sitting on his friend's shoulders at a concert, facing into the stage lighting and getting overexcited. Laugh, because the band in question were S Club 3, the last survivors of S Club 7, who were actually surprisingly good, considering. Bradley, Paul and Jo brought the house down with their renditions of such classic songs as "Reach (For the Stars)" and "Bring It All Back", to an ecstatic audience of twentysomethings. Paul may now looks like a chubby builder straight off the site, but their enduring appeal would seem to live on.

Flutter By

Butterfly in London Zoo's Butterfly Paradise

It's a butterfly! And a very pretty one too. I like going in butterfly houses and admiring the pretties (and also, they're really warm and cosy, which is nice when there's snow on the ground outside). Admittedly I am less keen when they flap in my face, but as long as they're hanging off leaves looking pretty/eating rotten fruit, I'm happy.

While we were in the butterfly house, my boyfriend told me that some butterflies drink blood. Thinking he had gone briefly mad, I laughed and said he was confusing them with bats. But no! I was entirely wrong. It was there in black-and-white on one of the signs in the exibit. I googled it, and found this picture of butterflies drinking blood from a sock. Yes, you heard me. A sock. If you didn't know already, it turns out that butterflies are one of the sock's few natural predators. Also, here is a National Geographic article about vampire moths. Apparently in Slavic folklore, vampires were able to take the form of butterflies.

This whole discovery has rather changed the way I view these insects. I used to think they were nice decorative creatures to have around the place, sort of like nature's bunting. Now I know they are opportunistic greedy blood-sucking horrors. The butterfly house will never be the same again.

Wax & Wane

A photograph of a candle, in case you had difficulty working that out. Wikipedia, my trusty guide, tells me that while modern candles are usually made of paraffin, back in the day they could be made from beeswax, tallow, or even spermaceti extracted from the head of a sperm whale. Poor sperm whales. I was amused to note that their scientific name is physeter macrocephalus. I confess don't know what "physeter" means, but "macrocephalus" translates as "bloody big head".

I was also intrigued to discover that sperm whales have the largest mammalian brain both in proportion to its body size and mass, and is the only living creature that has a gullet large enough to swallow a human whole. The most famous sperm whale is obviously Moby Dick, but I have to admit that I wasn't a fan of the book. The only aspects of it that I really enjoyed were the ones in which Herman Melville got into the scientific aspects of whaling. There's nothing like the smug feeling of reading an author whose book you're not enjoying strenuously denying the existence of the blue whales we now know really do exist. Okay, so Melville was a Victorian living in the pre-Attenborough age, but that's not the point.

Jolly Jack Tar

A close-up photograph of some tar or similar crud on a telephone pole near my house. Hurrah for that!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas candle

I have been most remiss at updating recently. This is largely due to Christmas. I apologise greatly. However, to make up for it, here is a lovely picture of a Christmas candle. There's nothing about the candle that makes it inherently christmassy other than the fact that I took the picture on Christmas day. And obviously any candle that is lit on Christmas day is a Christmas candle. It stands to reason.

Merry Christmas!

5 Reasons Giant Pandas Are a Boost to the Economy



Stained Glass at Buckfast Abbey

 Another picture of the impressive and rather modern stained glass at Buckfast Abbey. I do like the way the light shines through it. But that's not what I want to talk about today.

There has been a surprising amount of vitriol directed at the Edinburgh Zoo's newest arrivals; two giant pandas on loan from China until 2021, Tian Tian and Yang Guan. This is largely because it is supposedly costing the zoo $1,000,000 per year to host them, which some people see as a waste of money. However, I love pandas, and so I disagree. I have thought about this complex issue in great depth, and present my conclusions below:

5 Reasons Giant Pandas Are a Boost to the Economy

1. Pandas are black and white. Therefore, as monochrome creatures, their arrival will be saving newspapers everywhere a small fortune on printing costs. Everyone knows that coloured ink is more expensive.

2. Pandas eat nothing but bamboo. As every gardener knows, bamboo grows like the blazes and is tricky to get rid of. Horticulturalists across the nation can send their unwanted bamboo to Edinburgh Zoo, and the pandas will eat for free every night.

3. Pandas are reluctant breeders, at best. Fewer panda babies means fewer claims for child support.

4. Pandas take shelter in trees or caves, but they do not build permanent homes. This means that the chance of giant pandas precipitating another subprime mortgage crisis is virtually nil.

5. Pandas, unlike many members of our great nation, are actually supposed to be fat and lazy. This means that, unlike humans of similar size and girth, they will not demand costly gastric banding procedures on the NHS.

Harlequin Ladybird

I had a lovely time taking some nice pictures of this ladybird last summer, so I was sad to find out that it's an invasive species and as far as the UK Ladybird Survey is concerned, it should be squished on sight and not treated to a photoshoot. Apparently in America it's known as the multicoloured asian lady beetle, which just seems an unnecessarily long name.

But it's not the harlequin's fault that his species is ruthlessly wiping out native ladybirds. He looks after his family, he keeps his shell shiny (if you look close you can see my reflection in the carapace), and I wouldn't be able to bring myself to squish him, even if we do meet again.

Violent Tulips

Violent Tulips, a photo by EmerGrey on Flickr.

Some manner of exciting and oddly triangular tulip. I just love the colours.

My mother has also informed me that the flower in yesterday's post is known as a "bleeding heart" which seems a rather gruesome name for such an inoffensive flower.