And Gemini Division, after much ballyhooing, finally premieres online -- but does the Rosario Dawson-starrer live up to the expectations placed on it? Find out at NewTeeVee Station!

Though the orginal clip is hardly any less amazing.

(via Handolio at Hackbash)

Pues bien, gracias a que Tiwanacu ha dejado puesto en su blog una serie de enlaces a programas de REDES, Documentos TV y La Noche Temática, entre otros, que están colgados en esta web, he podido encontrar la serie documental completa de La Vida Privada de las Plantas.

Así pues, de recomendarla, paso a ofrecerla en esta entrada. Son séis episodios de 50 minutos aproximadamente. La calidad de la imágen no es excesivamente buena, pero se ve y se oye bastante bien.

Episodio 1 - Viajando

Episodio 2 - El Crecimiento

Episodio 3 - La Floración

Episodio 4 - La Lucha Social

Episodio 5 - Viviendo en Común

Episodio 6 - La Supervivencia

------------------------

AVISO:

El autor de este blog no se hace responsable de que dichos vídeos se encuentren en internet, puesto que han sido subidos por otras personas, habiéndose limitado únicamente a enlazarlos para ofrecerlos en pro de la divulgación y el disfrute de sus lectores.

------------------------

Bwahahahahaha!

The original here.

via neatorama

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One of the greenest food producers is in a remote part of the Great Australian Bight. They grow abalone in floating nets well out to sea with no added feed or chemicals.

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Ah, work! The feeling that you are contributing to the greater good. The warm feeling when you succeed in the face of adversity and resulting orgasmic climax of getting paid bloody peanuts at the end of the month. Realizing its probably not worth going in on Monday so you might as well phone in.

At my place of work yesterday and the unrecognised centre of the world, two things happened that are most likely not worth repeating here. That none the less has never stopped me before, the red baron entered the building through the front door with his child which would only be a snack for one co-worker but he kept the child close as old Hanging Lip looked for more beans. Its a fact and most likely a European union directive that every work place has to have at least one old Hanging Lip.

The second event and every thing out of the ordinary is an event at ground zero. The manager was talking to a woman, not even a blonde which he enjoys so much. The woman had a laugh like this,

Whoop, Whoop, Whoop, Whoop

Our guiding light and small framed powerhouse of doom answered this with his normal,

Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye

I felt like Sir David Frederick Attenborough as they danced around each other and slightly dirty which is always a bonus.  At the end of the day there was no sign he was gathering twigs in his mouth to build a nest but we are hopeful.

I expect most of them cry a lot and spent five trillion pounds on an eco holiday which involves them squatting on top of a tall pole with a pair of binoculars watching the natives raze the flora and fauna to the ground to put up Barratt homes with satellite television and hot and cold running McDonald's cattle farms.  In the midst of all this carnage, somewhere, in a teeny, weeny, pocket handkerchief sized bit that's miles away from encroaching civilisation are Ray Mears, David Bellamy, David Attenborough and Joanna Lumley with television crews, tripping over each other's cabling and trying to pretend that they're the only ones in the forest for hundreds of miles around.  I bet a load of bitch slapping goes on.  That and stealing each other's biltong. 

My money's on Joanna Lumley in a fight.  I've always been very impressed that she managed to make herself a pair of slippers from a bra in the dark on a desert island.  I expect she went to Roedean.  I hear that making shoes out of your own bra is one of the extras that daddy can pay for along with stripping down an engine without getting grease on your tiara and learning how to make a shit hot Pimms and lemonade (cucumber is the secret ingredient apparently).  I went to a standard high school where they taught you how to skive off from double history by going down the park and how to eat four tea cakes in one go without choking to death.  No wonder the education system is in tatters.

Jason is fending off flung baked beans downstairs, which acrobatics are known in other people's houses as tea time.  I am upstairs 'running the bath', which means turning the hot tap on, flinging some lavender oil in, and scarpering to come and sit here in peace for a few minutes whilst being delighted that I am out of the range of bean juice myself.  Even though he's had a hard day at work he didn't have to survive Oscar trying to put masticated shreddies down his vest with a cold teaspoon or listening to Tallulah giving a half hour lecture on the advantages of the Sontarans vs. the Daleks, complete with diagrams and a rather excellent picture of the Tardis at bay.  This is why I am up here and he is down there.  If I hear the word Sontaran again today I may actually rend my hair and weep.

Tallulah's revived interest in Doctor Who is beneficial only in that it is taking her mind off of counting her money.  As we are all interested in Doctor Who, except Oscar who has to go to bed before it starts, it is not too much of a hardship, and at least we know what she is talking about most of the time.  She is particularly excited at the moment because Rose (A.K.A Billy Piper) has suddenly reappeared.  Tallulah has a massive crush on Rose.  She has newspaper clippings of Billy Piper's recent wedding which she keeps safe in a special plastic bag, and has memorised everything that Rose/Billy has ever done in a Doctor Who context.  She even has a Rose action figure.  It is a rubbish action figure, as all it does is crouch in a small plastic way with its arms akimbo, looking rather like it needs a pooh, but she loves it anyway. 

When Rose left at the end of the second series I thought we might have to take Tallulah for counselling.  Now that Rose is back it is a mixed blessing.  I think she's only going to be in one more epsiode and the series finishes, and then she's coming back next year but only for four episodes, and that is a whole year away.  A whole year is a long time in a small girl's life, and Tallulah has a peculiar approach to time at the best of times. At the weekend she asked me if she would be six next year.  I confirmed that she would indeed.  She asked if she would be having a party next year.  I said it depended.  She said rather thoughtfully: 'Yes, 'acos I spose you might be dead by then, what with being old and everything.'  I said it was more likely that she would be dead from being a bloody nuisance.  She laughed gaily and skipped away clearly thinking: 'You fool! You, who are old and near to death, while I, I am young and full of life and immortally indestructible. Mwah hah hah haaaah!'  Later on she asked me who would look after her and Tilly and Oscar if Jason and I were to have a horrible bus accident and die together.  It was not in a sad, mournful tone of voice, rather a cheery, practical, a girl has got to make plans sort of voice.  I told her that Aunty Rachel and Uncle Chris would be in charge, at which she looked positively gleeful.  I am now checking the whole house for traps.  Tallulah loves Aunty Rachel quite a lot and can probably see many positives in becoming an orphan which weren't previously apparent to her.  I expect it's her that's given me chiggers.

Mick Jagger pineapple.

Is this the naming roses thing again? Are Chelsea hosting a stand based solely on Rock Star Fruit this year?  I'd love to see Liberace as a mango, or Chris Martin from Coldplay as a kiwi fruit. Or is it that you think Mick Jagger looks like a pineapple? I can’t see it myself.  I mean, pineapples are craggy and Mick Jagger looks a bit craggy, but there endeth the resemblance.  I do think Keith Richards looks a bit like a very old lemon you find lurking in the bottom of the fruit bowl though.

Can you pull a hair out of a mole?

Is this one of those philosophical questions along the lines of how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin? In which case, six and Hmmm! Would be my best guess.

Otherwise it could be a conjuring trick, in which case yes, and then you could pull a shrew out of a vole and keep going.  Rather like one of those weird Christmas treats where they stuff an elephant with a wildebeest and so on until you reach the tiny gnat stuffed with a raisin in the middle. And yes, I did know that it’s hair and not hare, but I couldn’t resist the mental picture.

To answer your question properly (ha!). No, you can't pull a hair out of a mole because if you do it's a well known fact that you will unravel and your husband will come in to see why you haven't brought his cup of tea in, only to find a small hairy mess on the carpet.  What a way to go.

My aunty having black nipples.

Is she a jelly baby? Perhaps that would explain it.  Maybe she colours them in with eyeliner when she’s bored.  After all a woman has to get some pleasure out of their nipples, and most of the time they’re just a bloody nuisance and stand out like chapel hat pegs ruining the line of a perfectly good t-shirt.

Muffin top remedies.

• A scythe might help.
• Eating less muffins, thus removing the ‘muffin’ from the equation
• Baler twine and a lesson in rolling pork from the local butcher
• I’ve heard that sellotape makes it better, that and the brisk application of Brillo pads.

Nail varnish remover in eye.

That’s just silly.  Nobody thinks varnishing your eyes is big or clever these days.  Now you can get contact lenses in all different colours you know.  Plus, eyes are a bit waterproof, so you generally don’t need to varnish them.  If you're over zealous on the varnishing front, all the tears get trapped inside until you get horrible bulgy eyes.  That's what happened to Sarah Brightman.  Then, as you have so recently found, there’s the whole varnish removing issue, when you get bored with it all.  You’ve only got yourself to blame.

Alien transvestite in Glenfield library.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t see them in the Co-op this week.  They may have moved to the library now that there’s so much interest in their activities in the Co-op.  Perhaps it’s a pod snatching alien type thing and soon they’ll be in the Post Office and the Butchers as well.  God help us all.  I would tell someone, but nobody would believe me until it was too late.  That’s the way it always works in the films anyway.

How to spot pineapple pooh.

With some rubber gloves and a pair of binoculars.  Keep a safe distance from their chosen poohing place.  Pineapples are social creatures that like to drift across the plains in herds.  If spooked they can stampede.  You really don’t want to be caught in the middle of a stampeding herd of wild pineapple.  Those spines are razor sharp.

Kaolin and morphine – Safe?

I believe it may be the word ‘morphine’ in the title that is the tell tale clue in this little scenario. Morphine, to my sure and certain knowledge, has never been described as ‘safe’.  Nice, splendid and addictive are words I more readily associate with morphine.  It won’t leap out of the bottle and kill you, if that’s what you’re asking, but I wouldn’t depend on it in a crisis.

Seven months pregnant and I can’t reach t…

‘h’ and ‘e’ buttons on the computer keyboard? You must be really, really pregnant bless you. So pregnant you can’t stretch your little sausage fingers across the keyboard to finish the sentence. If you’re anything like I was you vomited into the keyboard and then fell asleep on it.

Alien abduction family dinner.

Will you be having it on the mother ship or at your house? Maybe you could clear something up for me.  Do you really drink glasses of water using your finger or is that just my misperception thanks to the media?

Ray Mears ate my hedgehog.

Well, if you will leave them lying around.  Plus, let’s face it, if you invite him round he’s hardly going to be tucking in to Findus crispy pancakes and curly fries now is he? He’s a man of the wilderness.  He eats branches and jam made out of twigs.  A hedgehog is just an hors d’oeuvres with prickles to him.  Give him an oven mitt with which to approach it and it’s game over hedgehog.

Is tonight a good night to pick mushrooms?

Why don’t you give Ray a ring and ask him.  It’s the sort of thing he’d know about.  I hear that nice Antonio Carluccio is a dab hand at mushrooms too actually, and if you ring him he’s not likely to try and eat your hedgehog.  Better safe than sorry.

Smell mice don’t like.

Apparently they can’t abide the smell of strawberry pop tarts.  It makes them sick.  I hear chlorine gas makes them feel a bit queasy as well, although you might want to go easy with that one unless you fancy a bout of leaky lung yourself.  If you've got a gas mask though you should be ok.

Hot tea and hotter nudes.

I have a vision of an elderly vicar in carpet slippers with a pipe typing this in surrounded by an aroma of Tetleys and damped down erotic excitement. Thanks for that.  I’d be careful of hot tea and nudity myself, especially if a cat were to jump on your knee just as you were about to take a mouthful.  Tepid liquids work best with situations au naturel.  Nobody likes a scalded vicar.

Vanessa Feltz transvestite.

I’ve often wondered about that to be honest.  She does like puffy sleeves quite a bit.  Unfortunately I think you’re wrong there, because to be brutally honest, if you were a transvestite you’d surely go for perkier breasts than those modelled by Miss Feltz wouldn’t you?  I always worry, when she wears plunging necklines that she might chafe her ankles with her nipples.  It’s the gravitational pull of middle age.  Surely a transvestite would go more for a firm pair of knockers that stay roughly where they’re put, and don’t start running away to make a career of their own?

What kind of cake do hedgehogs eat?

According to David Attenborough they can’t get enough of McVities Jamaica Ginger Cake, but they will only eat it with hot Birds custard.  They’re very fussy.  After all, if they’re going to go to all that effort to go to the supermarket in disguise they have to get it just right, otherwise what’s the point.  I have it on good authority that they despise Dundee Cake.

Uses for second hand fish fingers.

• Loft insulation
• Pipe lagging
• make a home made banjo out of them, spaghetti could be used to make the strings, as long as you don't go for hoops.
• You could put cocktail sticks into them and use them as stickle bricks.
• Luring unsuspecting shrews to their death by dangling them on a string over a bucket of water lit seedily by neon tubing which flashes to make a picture of a beckoning finger.

What kind of monkey is Ray Mears?

A really clever monkey who learned to shave and managed to con the BBC into giving him his own television series, that’s what kind of monkey.  He’s certainly far too big to be one of those cute ones with little droopy moustaches.  He’s more of your primate, apey sort of monkey.  Going off at a tangent he may be Mike Nesmith without the bobble hat.

Who is plotting the demise of Ray Mears?

Celine Dion apparently, if that other rumour about him plotting her death circulating round the internet is true.  Better to get in there first in these life and death situations.  Plus, she’s sort of French.  She likes to get one up on her Leetle Eenglish Choooms.

What make of watch does Bill Oddie wear?

He is in fact an amateur horologist and makes his own, when he’s not cycling round Springwatch with a lurid green puppet in his wake and spying on poor unsuspecting birds.  He made this particular one out of some second hand fishfingers he just happened to have lying around.  Graeme Garden makes his own shoes and Tim Brooke Taylor is a home dry cleaner.

Elephant and dog mix.

An elog or a dogephant? You decide.  Either way up it will produce a hell of a lot of shit.  I hope you’ve got some industrial sized poop scoops on hand.  Still, I expect your dahlias will come up a treat.

What happens if people eat pooh?

They pull a funny face and go ‘ewwww’ would be my best guess on that one mate.

Fireman’s lift while pregnant.

Are you premeditating being rescued from a burning building whilst gestating a child? That’s quite elaborate fantasy there.  Let me just say, you should be so lucky.  Prepare to turn into an oven chip.  When I was eight months pregnant they wouldn’t even let me try the recovery position at a first aid class.  You’ll rupture something, probably the fireman.  Why not try lying on the floor and whimpering gently instead.  It worked for me.

Child swap at Euro Disney.

Great idea Cheggers.  I’ll meet you outside the Dumbo ride at 15.30 hours.  I’d like Kerplunk by MB games.  In exchange I’ll give you three, slightly worn children in excellent working order.  Unfortunately there is no guarantee and I’ve lost the original packaging.

How can we get cat pee out of chipboard?

The same way you got it in I expect.  You could always try sucking it out like they do with snake venom.

Not fair things.

• Life
• The universe
• Everything.
• The fact that I’m not a millionaire
• The decrease in size of the average Curly Wurly since 1974
• The fact that moths are nocturnal but really like light bulbs

Why is Gillian McKeith still alive?

Luck and her ninja like reflexes.  She can also see in the dark and has a doppelganger who she deploys during times of international crisis.  She is sponsored by the kumquat marketing board.

Pineapples make my wee smell funny.

My advice to you would be to stop pissing on them then.

How to get cat stuck in chimney.

Lure it up there with a chimney sweep’s brush made entirely out of catnip and shiny bells.

I had four drinks.  Will I have a hangover?

That all depends on what sized drinks they are and what kind of drinks they are.  Four buckets of Horlicks would be fine. Four bottles of rum and you’re probably going to feel slightly under par for the rest of the day.  It’s all about balance.  Try two buckets of Horlicks to every two bottles of rum and see what happens.

Do penguins fall asleep in dark places?

Oh yes.  I’m always having to evict mine from the back of the airing cupboard.  They also like falling asleep inside shoes, underneath stones and with dark glasses on.

List of things that always come back.

• Curving Australian sticks
• Genital Warts
• Dale Winton
• Asparagus smelling wee (only when you eat more asparagus, oddly)

If I didn’t pooh for a month would I explode?

I don’t know.  Shall we wait and see?  It might be an interesting experiment.  Of course, you’ll have to have a control subject just to make it more scientific.  I tell you what. I’ll go to the toilet every day and do a nice satisfying pooh.  You hold yours in for a month and then if you haven’t exploded at the end of it, perhaps you could write in and let me know? I’m sure the Lancet would be interested in an article and I’d be willing to share the credit.

Beetroot addiction – Am I pregnant?

It’s not a classic symptom, I have to admit.  If you feel like you’ve been possessed by an alien, you vomit every time you smell dairy products and you fill your gusset with pee every time you sneeze, then these things coupled with beetroot addiction could lead me to say yes.  Oh yes! And the swelling midriff and bosom area.  Wait nine months and I’ll be able to tell you for sure.

Am I broody?

Are you stealing eggs out of the fridge and sitting on them making clucking noises? Nope?  Then you’re probably not broody.  Are you stealing children from shopping centres and sitting on them? Nope? Then you’re probably not broody.

(warning: some shots are pretty gruesome; some are kind of funny, although not necessarily for the mouse.)

click on the pics to make them bigger. turn your head to see them upright.

The mice come in a Chinese take-out box, because snakes prefer oriental cuisine.

Snake has not been fed in two weeks. When we put the mice in the tank, he immediately came out. The pea brained mice were completely oblivious.

This picture is kind of gruesome. If you look closely, Snake has grabbed the first mouse and wrapped him up. The mouse looks like he's screaming, or at least having his head squished really tightly. Admittedly, this pic gives me the creeps.

One of life's more intimate moments. Mouse's behind looks just ridiculous sticking out of Snake's mouth. How embarrassing!

Seeing this part made me feel less sorry for the mouse. At this point the tank was completely open and the remaining mouse could have tried to bolt at any time. Instead, the nit wit just sat there while his buddy was downed like an egg noodle. Mice never seemed this dumb in Disney movies...

Finally, Snake goes for the second mouse. This is a pretty amazing shot, if I don't say so myself. The mouse seems thoroughly surprised and Snake seems thoroughly in his element. Within minutes, this mouse goes the way of the first.

And that, as they say, is that...

Actually it's none of these. In fact it's the name of a bird, a pair of which have taken up residence in our garden. Weird name eh but it's a quite beautiful thing with a long curved beak, this wonderful crest, a pink/fan-coloured body and these zebra-like markings on its wings. Take a look and try and convince me this isn't a handsome bird:-

I know we seem to have segued from Call My Bluff into Life on Earth but these two birds have really captured my imagination. They play around the car which is parked up right outside the house, capturing bugs and things which seem to be attracted to the warmth of the metallic bodywork. Apparently (and you'll have to imagine me talking breathlessly like David Attenborough) these charming creatures are visitors from Africa. Just occasionally they'll overshoot continental Europe and land, exhausted, in S England to the delight of the twitcher community. But here in Italy they are plentiful at this time of year. Interestingly, they tend to stop off en route from Africa for some R&R in Israel. It's only a short stop but it has been long enough to endear themselves to the Israeli population who have recently, and rather ironically, made this pretty visitor their national bird.

Hey, that's not bad is it? Move over David, naturalist paulie is in town.

np

Bananas it seems are a naturally perplexing fruit.  I recall several years ago my friend Stevie and I having a very confusing conversation where I thought she had told me that bananas share 98% of our DNA.  It turns out that it was the half a bottle of red wine that I had just consumed that contributed to my hearing problem, and that although we do share some DNA similarities with bananas it's not that high.  It took an hour of incredulous debate and a lot of arm waving before this could be established, and actually it was only because Jason got back from wherever he had been too and hadn't drunk half a bottle of red wine that the problem was resolved at all.  Left to us we'd probably still be having that very same conversation.

Then recently a friend of mine tells me that bananas are sterile and that soon there will be no more bananas at all.  At the rate Oscar eats them this tragic tale of genocide is likely to be over much more quickly than scientists estimate.  I may have to write them a letter.  I have a feeling that they'll be back though.  After all, there is no Latin for Banana because the Roman's didn't have them, and they conquered most of the known world.  Then suddenly, after the Romans there were a plethora of bananas and banana related language.  Probably they're alien fruit that dropped from the sky and after a few years of not having any the mother ship will sail over us again and drop off some more.  That would be good.  Not that I'm a huge fan myself, but I wouldn't like Oscar to be deprived.  The fact that we share DNA with alien bananas is probably great news for conspiracy theorists everywhere.

You'll have to excuse my blogging today.  I wrote quite a lot of this last night and was too tired to edit it properly.  Then today I've been weaving backwards and forwards in between dealing with a particularly grumpy toddler, inserting random thoughts as I pass, which explains the oddly bitty nature of the entry.  It's as good as it's going to get today.  Tempted though I am to blog the entire day away, I have promised myself that I will be good, resume Leonardo and write an essay this week.  I am starting tonight.  I am already thinking of ways to wangle out of it...

This is a bit of yesterdays:

When her father came back from taking Tilly out for the day and was telling us what a great time they’d had, Tallulah was sitting at the kitchen table drying her nails where I’d just feebly painted them for her.  She was feeling pretty left out, but that doesn’t deter her.  She just determinedly made her mind up to shoehorn herself into the conversation by hook or by crook.  She had nothing to say about the world of climbing which is what they were talking about so, out of the blue she just said: ‘Daddy? Don’t you think that it’s not fair when people with really pretty names have really ugly faces? I really don’t like that at all.  They should change their names…’ and then got back on with the job of contemplating her nails while we all stood and looked at her.

In the afternoon when we had returned from our garden centre odyssey we let them watch television for a while.  On Sunday afternoons on CBeebies they often show signed programmes which Tallulah was watching in a derisory manner.  She doesn't like the fact that some of the programmes had sign language subtitles.  She tells me that she doesn’t like the way they stand around flapping in the corner of the screen because; ‘they just look really, really stupid.’  I explained the concept of sign language and how brilliant it was and said that if she were deaf she would be utterly delighted to have those people there or she would never be able to watch television.  She just looked at me disparagingly and in that very clinical and matter of fact way that children often have went: ‘Well! Yeah! But I’m not deaf am I? And they’re still stupid.’ It's hard to know what to say to that.  I do try to inculcate a sense of charity towards others and a healthy regard for difference, especially given that my children may not be deaf but they are most definitely different.  I feel we have some way to go.

She took particular umbrage with one of the signers who had a small stripe of beard down the middle of his chin.  She really didn’t like that at all.  It didn’t matter if he were the best damn sign language signer in the whole world, because his beard was just too ridiculous to contemplate.  She went on about it so much that Jason and I stared, rapt at the comings and goings of Bob The Builder for five whole minutes so we could appreciate the absurdity of such a beard.  Actually, she may have been wrong about sign language, but she was dead right about the beard.

When I was at university we used to have a beard chart of excellence. It was the time in the early nineties when goatees of all shapes and sizes were beginning to make their first big resurgence since about 1888 and most of the men at university either had them or were attempting to cultivate them.  We had a ranking system for beard wearing activity.  I can’t remember what the categories were now, although I did write an article for the magazine about it.  It never got published. I believe the editor may have been a practitioner of the art of the goatee at the time and I had touched a raw nerve.  Growing your first fledgeling beard is never easy.  I should know, I’m at about that age now where I have to keep my eagle eyes peeled for any sign of incipient bum fluff around my jowels.  All hail to the menopause and the wonders it brings.  I might go for a Zapata moustache and pointed devil beard myself.  It makes a change from a blue rinse and a lot of sandalwood.

Tilly had a wonderful day out with her dad yesterday and didn't get aerated about the world of beards or killer monkeys in the process, which is good.  As I mentioned they went climbing.  It turns out that Tilly is a naturally gifted climber and that Jamie wants to talk to me about arranging lessons for her.  I’m really pleased that she loves it, and that she is good at something so physical rather than her usual cerebral pursuits.  I am less pleased about the fact that Jamie talking to me about it will probably involve him trying to work out how I can do all the running around after her.  This sounds really selfish I know, but with three children of such disparate ages it isn’t that simple to do lessons of any kind.  Yes I can get them there, usually, but then what do I do with the other two kids while the third one is enjoying themselves hugely?  Well, what usually happens is that the other two get very bored, very jealous and very fidgety while I spend the whole hour having to explain to them that yes when they are older they too can dangle from the ceiling festooned in crampons, but until that time they have to sit still and be good.  It isn’t much fun.  Next year when Oscar will be coming up to three life will be so much simpler in lots of ways.  We can start taking him to the cinema and he can become more involved in the activities the girls do, until then it’s just a juggling thing where I always know that balls will inevitably be dropped, usually on my toe.

Tilly watched a Bear Grylls type survival programme with Jason last night before she went to bed.  As an aside, I have to confess that I like the fact that Bear Grylls survives by going to five star hotels.  I'd let him do all the chewing beetles stuff and just wait for him back at the hotel. I hear that Ray Mears is very cross with him, but much as I revere King Ray, not all of us are fit for a life whittling our own bread boards.  Some of us need five star service and pancakes delivered by room service.  I know this to be true.

Tilly was very impressed by this programme and what with this and her climbing experience she was inspired to give it a go herself.  When I went to get Tallulah up for a wee I found Tilly covered in bits of string, dangling from the ladder up to her bed.  I asked her what she was doing and got a very enthusiastic babble which when decoded into English turned out to be an explanation that she was playing at being a survivor in the wilderness.  Apparently surviving in the wilderness involves hair bobbles, string, teddy and a fluffy heart shaped pillow.  These must all be strapped to your person whilst you dangle upside down until your ears go purple and then voila, no bears will eat you.

About twenty minutes after that I could still hear her crashing around, so I went to investigate (French for shout a lot).  Turns out that she had discovered a moth in the bathroom and was stalking it.  She wanted to know what moths eat.  To be honest this one stumped me a bit, apart from letting their larvae chew tweed hacking jackets I have very little information on the culinary disposition of the humble moth.  I do wonder if their fatal attraction to light bulbs is indicative of the fact that they actually survive on beams of light.  I'm grasping at straws here to be honest, but you never know.  Well, actually David Attenborough does, but I'm not going to bother him on a Monday morning over such trivialities so we'll just have to keep guessing.  I’m clearly going to have to look it up because Tilly announced that she has now adopted the moth and that she is going to call it Softy the moth.  Nice one.  Just what we need, another complicated diet and mouth to feed.

It might not be too bad actually.  Softy was hanging out on the landing wall this morning when Oscar spotted him and has also taken a shine to him.  I spent twenty minutes chasing around after the bloody thing trying to protect it from Oscar's evil clutches.  I've managed so far, but I don't think I'm going to be able to exert that high a level of vigilance all day, which probably means that poor Softy's hours are numbered and I won't have to worry about what to give him for tea after all.  I am now worrying about the etiquette of moth funerals. If it's not one thing it's another.

So, the kids have gone back to school this morning, hoorah!  It wasn’t too horrible either.  I think they had about as much fun at half term as I did, so were absolutely gagging to get back to school and their non-nagging friends.  They were practically battering the door down this morning and Tallulah even remembered her p.e. kit voluntarily which may sound trivial, but which I’ve had to write down because it’s a historical first, and probably last, but never mind.  For a Monday and a school day, and the first day back after the holidays it was one of the smoothest starts to the day we’ve had in a long time.  I was very impressed of them.

Oscar on the other hand has been vile.  He refused to have a nap yesterday and was steadily more hideous as the day wore on.  Another tooth came through last night, which might explain things, but he doesn't seem to have gotten any less vile in the intervening hours.  I had lots of chores to do in town today, but decided to put them off until later in the week because I thought Oscar could do with a day at home, his naps and some kind of return to his regular routine so that he can start to feel more normal after having been so poorly and disrupted last week.  I have so many jobs to do at home as well it really doesn’t matter too much.

I was a fool to myself.  We should have gone out and damned the expense.  He is absolutely shattered and has been since breakfast, but he is refusing steadfastly to go to bed or to eat breakfast, at which he has now had three failed attempts.  I have tried once to put him to bed and he screamed for twenty minutes, which wasn’t very restful for either of us.  But when I get him up he keeps making nests everywhere and climbing into everyone else’s bed.    He insists that he is not tired, he just wants stories.  So far I’ve read Topsy and Tim get a dog twice, Charlie and Lola three times and Old Mother Hubbard complete with flaps and actions twice.  When you tell them to him he really is too tired to listen and his head keeps drooping onto my shoulder, but if I skip a page he goes mad and wakes up instantly. 

I’m in disgrace because I’ve just refused to read Old Mother Hubbard for the third time.  He is now sulking with me by filling one of the girl’s toy suitcases with all the books off of my shelf and trying to take them away, probably to burn them on the lawn.  Luckily for me he has put David Crystal’s Glossary of Shakespearean Terms in there and now can’t propel the suitcase along the ground it is so heavy.  He has just had to have a little break, lying on the floor and scowling at me in a manner that suggests he’s just off to learn to bench press encyclopaedias and he’ll be right back on the case, as it were.

So far this morning it has taken me over two hours to clean the kitchen and drink a cup of coffee.  It’s all a bit tragic really.  I don't know about him needing a nap, I know I do.  Instead of which I am going to attempt to get him to go to sleep once more, and then sweep strange crunchy things off the hall floor.  Wish me luck...

You, on the other hand are probably going to get really bored that I keep churning out this stuff, and my sense of humour really hasn’t progressed at all.  Still, if that is the case you must do as the ‘Why Don’t You Gang’ tell you, and: ‘go and switch off your p.c. and do something less boring instead’.

Let Aunty Katy’s Question Time Commence for this week.  Hem, hem:

Qualities Of Elton John:

Never mind the quality, feel the width, as my mother would say.  Otherwise: quite singy; agile in the finger department due to playing lots of piano; somewhat synthetic of hair; prone to spontaneous outbursts of man made fibres.  Slightly rippled with a flat underside.

Slight Food Poisoning From French Fancies:

Well done! You must be the only person in the entire world to have been poisoned by Mr. Kipling.  How do you get ‘slight’ food poisoning though? Did you only eat half of it perhaps? Maybe you left the icing and just ate the spongy bit inside? Perhaps you ate too much of that lovely synthetic cream (I hear Elton has suits made from it).  I have the feeling that you’re telling a teeny, weeny, in fact ‘slight’ fib here aren’t you?  I don’t think you can call being sick because you’ve eaten an entire box of French Fancies all to yourself, food poisoning.  I know I wasn’t allowed to.

Things To Do In Half Term In Skegness:

Get down on bended knees and thank God you can leave in a week. Buy a one way ticket to London and get a life.  Avoid greenfly in your candyfloss.  Never visit the Wall of Death.

Beetroot Addiction:

You need BA.  Look it up in the phone book.  If they are apologising for delays with your luggage, you have the wrong BA. Don’t be alarmed when during withdrawal your wee turns from pink to yellow.  It’s a good sign.  Try to buy the stuff in the plastic boxes while you’re coming down, you don’t want to drop the glass jar on your toe while you have the BT’s. (Beetlerium Tremens)

Emergency Wee:

I always carry a small flask of emergency wee around with me in my handbag, just in case I don’t have time to go myself.  I have a tiny silver hammer so that I can break it during times of crisis.  Improper use warrants a penalty of fifty pounds.

Eating A Sandcastle:

My advice would be try sandwiches instead. If you’re still dead set on it I would start small with a simple conical shaped one, and save those fancy ones with turrets and flags for later.  If you’re not careful the flags stick in your throat and you’ll be just like the Queen Mum when she choked on that fish bone. I’d advise something to wash it down with, creosote might work.

How To Make Baked Beans On Toast:

You really need to ask?  If you’re that daft I advise a string vest, some carbon fibres, a lemon and a squeegee.  Combine gently using the backs of your hands.  Fill a parasol and cook on gas mark five for six years. You fool.

Elephant Loo: How Does It Work?

It uses the Wankel Rotary Engine and the principles of Quantum Physics, by which to deposit the effluvia in a stream just outside Chipping Camden, where it will harm nobody of consequence and we can all rest easy in our bed, safe in the knowledge that we will never be swamped out of house and home by a barrage of elephant pooh.  It was invented by Stephen Hawking last Thursday when he had an odd half hour between pensioner’s lunch at The Crispy Mermaid Fish Bar and Grill and his weekly Bingo Session.  It’s going to revolutionise the world of elephant hygiene.  You can write to the government for a white paper on it.

Do Kids Eat Cheese And Pickle Sandwiches?

Only if you pay them sufficient funds for them to be able to buy a McDonald’s Happy Meal and  McFlurry afterwards in my learned opinion.  Baby goats on the other hand eat them all the time, along with buttons, hair pins and small children who resolutely refuse to eat cheese and pickle sandwiches. It’s ironic really.

How Do You Pronounce Drawing Pins?

Mell - Oh – Tron  Fan – Daaaannn – GOOOO – It’s from the Arabic meaning: ‘I’d rather stick red hot needles in my eyes’.

Unless you mean how do you pronounce them in a marital or medical sense, in which case:

1)     I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Drawing Pin

2)     Time of death, 3.52 p.m. precisely. Cause of death, extreme pointiness without due care and attention.

Lego Knobs Flu:

God! That sounds terrible.  I hate treading on Lego.  There is nothing more guaranteed to make you cry.  Imagine if you were covered in Lego like knobs and you just couldn’t get comfortable no matter how hard you tried.  It would be like endlessly treading on Lego.  That’s a terrible, terrible thing.  I advise a trip to Legoland at Windsor immediately.  They may be able to help, or in the worst case scenario, turn you into an exhibit and help you earn some cash until you can afford a specialist.

Life Of Dead Foxes:

Quite short and fairly retrospective, due to the fact that they are dead.  I got that straight from David Attenborough himself, so don’t look at me in that funny way.

Beehives On My Head:

Amy love, you’ve got nobody but yourself to blame. Now stop bothering me and go and make some lovely, lovely music, there’s a dear.  You could always try keeping the headscarf on.  You know wandering about uncovered only encourages them.

God Bleeding On The Carpet:

Not again.  He’s very prone to nosebleeds apparently.  It’s all that hanging upside down doing the fiddly bits of creation.  All the blood rushes to his head.  I’ve said it before, but don’t scrub the stain.  Pop a little cold water and some salt on it and pat it with a damp tea towel.  You can ring the insurance company in the morning.  I did say not to go for cream, it shows everything up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t covered for random acts of God.  You can’t tell him anything these days.

‘Findus’ Cat Treat:

I did wonder about those Crispy Pancakes.  The catnip flavouring was a bit of a giveaway, that and the mouse’s tail sticking out of the crimped pie crust edging.

Cheese Up Someone’s Arse:

I suppose it would be alright if it were a soft cheese, something like Boursin, Brie or Philadelphia.  A bit of ungrated Parmesan might prove problematic.  Do you want me to endorse it, encourage it or get cross about it? I certainly wouldn’t advise it during this spell of warm weather.  It will be somewhat odourific.  Applying it to the arse wouldn’t be a job I’d be lining up for either, not even with rubber gloves and a surgical mask.

Shaved Her Head And Eyebrows Off:

I hate to break this to you, but if she’s shaved her head off, it’s hardly likely to matter if she’s shaved her eyebrows off, due to the fact she will have no head.  A nasty way to go that. I expect it takes a while.  You’d really have to be dedicated to commit suicide by shaving your head off.  Probably using a carpenter’s plane would be quicker than using a Bic, but it’s still not going to be swift.

Copperfield Gnomes:

Thanks for letting me know.  Like gnomes in their raw state aren’t frightening enough without the demonic face of David Copperfield leering at you from a pointy hat and a fishing rod every time you go to weed the begonias.  It’s posts like that that give me nightmares.  I’ve a good mind to report you.

Can I Feed My Children’s Python A House?

I suppose, as the children probably aren’t feeding it anything by now, seeing as they’ve had it for two days, it doesn’t light up, give them extra points or play the theme tune from Mario Brothers, that you can feed it what you damn well like.  As they generally like to eat things like rodents, you might want to cover your house in mouse fur before you start. It’s going to make them a lot more biddable, and when you’re tempting a python you need all the help you can get.

Pictures Goats In Canada:

Do you? That’s sweet? Do you dream of chipmunks in Brazil and ponder badgers in Wiltshire as well?

Pineapple Wardrobes:

It’s messy but entirely feasible.  Kumquat footstools would be good too.  I once helped my friend design a pair of curtains using pictures of Helicobacter Pylori.  Anything is possible, particularly in the strange and wonderful world of fruit.  I once saw a kiwi fruit that just looked like a hairy chin.  It was frighteningly realistic.  If you’re into this kind of interior design you could probably utilise them to make either cushions or those peculiarly hairy, but yet perennially popular Birkenstock shoes.  Not that they are furniture, but you often see people in those decorating magazines wearing them she said tenuously, winding her way to the end of another overlong blog…

The fact that the BBC put it on the Internet might make you think that they would like this to be read, seen and listened to  by a large, global audience.

So, you can read the transcript:

Watch the video:

Listen to the aud... - ooooooops!!!!!!!!! No audio:

It's blocked to non-UK Internet users.

The BBC iPlayer is the name for the on-demand service and also the software used for the media player.

The service uses GeoIP software to block users outside the UK from accessing the iPlayer on-demand content. They are also integrating the iPlayer software as the embedded  media player across the site.

So, they have a service which blocks IP addresses to on-demand content, software which acts as a front-end to this service and is also the embedded media player for the website.

Result - cross-infection.

So which of these is the future of the BBC - both audio and video should be blocked? Audio shouldn't be blocked? Audio, video and transcript should be blocked?

Or, to make things a bit more surreal, could it be the case that the video shouldn't be blocked but it should be re-dubbed with, say, Gerry Adams reading the transcript?

And if you're wondering if this is a one off - the previous lecture by David Attenborough is exactly the same:

Also, why the BBC Parliament feed isn't expiring after 7 day iPlayer window is a mystery to me. Has something changed since Tom Loosemore pointed this (rights-free) issue out previously?

As for the Stephen Fry lecture itself and what he had to say - more on that to follow.

Insect Hunters
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3354025317017763809&hl=en]

Plant Predators
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7134218175566955586&hl=en]

Chisselers
*mangler*

Meat Eaters
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4092324927146982329&hl=en]

The Opportunists
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8455600441641985576&hl=en]

Return to the Waters
*mangler*

Life in the Trees
*mangler*

The Social Climbers
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3470667453083091421&hl=en]

Food for Thought
[googlevideo=http://66stage.com/documentaries.php?pl=goo&url=-1248017579876493518]

I tried to upload a copy of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case, but I guess you'll have to use the Wikipedia article (with the memo related to the verdict under Wikisource) while I figure out why I can't upload files to my blog.

In the meantime, I have to go take a shower, have lunch, mind the gap and commute for hours for a meeting. Pff...

Hoy vengo a hablaros de un documental que he encontrado por casualidad buscando en youtube vídeos relacionados con el crecimiento vegetal. Se trata de la serie "La vida privada de las plantas".

Aún no me he hecho con él, pero lo tendré pronto. El caso es que promete ser una serie documental bastante interesante, realizada por la BBC y presentada por David Attenborough, uno de los pioneros de los documentales naturales.

El vídeo que he encontrado es este:

Quizá alguno ya lo haya visto, pero merece la pena echarle un vistazo a este fragmento del documental.

Espero que os guste ;)

I replaced the Shreddies with pineapple and strawberries.  He frowned, said: 'No like it pine Apple,' and then ate seven metric tonnes of it before lobbing the remains the same way as the Shreddies.  He demanded toast, and when it arrived, refused to believe that he had ever done such a ludicrous thing in the first place.  He then wriggled like a silverfish, shrieking until I let him out.  My eyebrows now look like Spock from Star Trek due to the fact that they are full of pineapple juice and mashed Shreddie.  My vest has a large lump of something on it.  I'm not sure what it is, but I am sure I didn't want it stuck to my left breast.  Particularly as I didn't notice it until after I got back from the school run.

Tallulah, who had her fifth birthday party yesterday, was obsessing all through breakfast about the fact that it's her real birthday tomorrow and what are the chances that if the postman brings something juicy today that she'll be allowed to open it after school.  Despite my dampening; 'None!' she carried on speculating, including what her dad will give her on Wednesday when she goes to his house, and what it will be like when he takes her out for the day to Gulliver's Kingdom on Sunday.  I think I preferred Doctor Who.  I never want to see birthday cake again (which is fierce coming from me), which is a shame, because there will be more celebrations tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow).

When we got to school Oscar had to be dragged away screaming from his fan club of five year old girls, who he loves dearly, but nevertheless tries to batter to within an inch of their lives if they try to hug or kiss him.  I have explained to him that he will change his mind about this when he is about fourteen, but all to no avail.  I have explained to them that it is vital that they stay out of jabbing range as I do not want to be sued by malevolent parents because Oscar has ruined any chance that Jacinta has of becoming world shot put champion, due to the fact that she now has only one eye.  This too seems to be to no avail. 

As I hoiked him from the grasp of one particular young lady who he was just about to jab in the eye (must cut his nails when the tranquiliser darts take effect), I noticed he had weird reddish streaks in his hair line.  My initial thought was: 'Oh my God! He's bleeding, and I'm such a crap mother I didn't notice.  God will smite me down for this.'  Then upon closer inspection it turned out to be strawberry juice where he had obviously run his juicy little mitts through his hair before demanding his release from the breakfast table.  I was relieved.  Then I was ashamed that I hadn't thought to wash his head before taking him out in public.  Then I thought: 'I wonder how many mothers have to wash their sons' heads before taking them out anywhere? Am I the only one?'  Answers on the back of a strawberry...

We got home.  I rang my mother.  We agreed that we were washed up after a weekend of frantic partying and that we were putting off until tomorrow what we should do today.  I have to go into town to the sorting office to collect a parcel that arrived on Friday while I was out.  I thought about going today.  Then I cast my mind back to Tallulah's wonderings on all the acres of presents that she hopes will be being borne aloft by a weary postman.  I thought: 'If I went all the way into town to the sorting office to get a parcel and then came home to find that there was another cryptic note saying that I had to go all the way into town to get another parcel, I would be really pissed off.  I'm not going.'  I felt pleased with this executive decision.  I told my mother.  She said that it was a piece of expert reasoning and that she wouldn't go either.  I felt cheered by my brilliant rationalization of the fact that I am a lazy, lazy woman who fears the number 94 bus and its inhabitants.

I had another cup of coffee.  It didn't help.  Oscar demanded milk and my presence watching Mama Mirabelle's Home Movies on Cbeebies.  It was actually very soothing, despite the fact that he insists that all animals fall into several basic categories and won't brook any arguments.  Thus the entire programme was populated with horses, bears, birds, frogs and elephants. That is all.  He has spoken.  David Attenborough knows nothing.

He insisted that we snuggle together.  He insisted on milk being provided.  He insisted on laying his head down every few minutes.  He was tired.  I asked him if he was tired.  He nodded and said 'yes!' then he realized just what that admission meant and immediately shrieked: 'NO! No like it! No like it!'  I said; 'What don't you like Oscar?'  He said: 'No like it BED!' and immediately got down from his snuggle to make like a boy who wasn't insanely tired.  I refused to watch.  I refused to be charmed that while I was changing his nappy he was insisting that we play together and that I have his dummy because he didn't need it.  I carried him upstairs to his cot, making soothing noises to drown out the screams of protest, thinking: 'He'll go down in ten minutes because he's shattered, and then I will have a power nap.'  That was half an hour ago and he is racketing round the cot shouting: 'Din nah ready now!' and making the floor vibrate.  I am depressed.

I keep thinking. I'll give it another five minutes and then I'll give up and get him out.  The only thing is that I know he is shattered, and now he has wound himself up to fever pitch he's going to be hell on wheels.  He is a boy who needs naps.  He is not a boy who can sail through his day with aplomb, spreading sweetness and light to all around him when he is sleep deprived.  He is a boy who when he doesn't have enough sleep turns into Genghis Khan after a particularly heavy night on the Mongolian Yak's butter.  He is vile and unmanageable and far too hitty for anyone's liking.  I have tried explaining this to him.  He tried to hit me in the eye with his milk bottle. I expect that's what Genghis did to his mother as well.

Night
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A Recital of Music and Dancing from the Village of Pliatan
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