Gods Day Off

We all know the bible says that God created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested. Well lately I have been wondering what did God do on his day off. There are some challenges if you think about it. Maybe his mates came round and said:

“Alright God? Wanna go down the pub?”

“Nah, not really,” says God, “I’m already there.”

“Oh,” say god’s mates “Well do you wanna get a DVD out? Maybe the new Mel Gibson flick?”

“Oh in the name of humankind, no!” exclaims God, “I made the movie, I've seen it, anyway I'm already there. And you know Mel was a bit of an accident. My hand slipped and when I looked down there was Mel and Tom Cruise.” apologetically, God adds, “Sorry about that, lads.”

“For God's sake, God!” say his mates, “This whole omnipresence thing is really boring! Almost as bad as you being all knowing and all seeing”

“I knew you were going to say that” Says God with a straight face, “The all seeing thing is cool though you should see what Lilith is up to today."

Of course my wife, who is much more learned than me, pointed out that the bible actually says that God spent the day admiring his work.
And that in itself is funny because whenever I put up a shelf or a curtain rod and stand there admiring my work; she gives me a hard time. I asked her if god was allowed to take a day to admire his own work why can’t I? She pointed out that actually when I put up a shelf I'm not so much admiring my work as just backing away very slowly.

It would be unfair to print the witty response to that comment that I came with not 20 hours later.


<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza

Summer Starts When?

That same trip to Borders I was looking at an audio book version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time. I was wondering if it was read by some famous actor or would it be that computer voice the whole way through - thus proving his assertion that time does indeed lengthen. Next to the audio books were the journals. Leafing through the journals were two young ladies (I'd guess late teens or very early twenties); one young lady turned to the other and said,

"I want to keep a journal this summer; I think it is going to be a significant one. But you know what? I don't know when summer starts."

Her friend seemed lost for an answer and I caught the eye of the original speaker.

"Summer will start the day you start your journal then." I offered.

The young lady just smiled. It was a smile that said.

"What?"



Oh well.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>

Bazza

The Grand Tour for Oprah fans

Back in the 17th and 18th century the privileged offspring of European landed gentry undertook what was known as the ‘grand tour’. The BBC’s excellent In Our Time* describes it as “…The idea was for wealthy young travelers to finish their education with an extensive trip to Europe to experience its natural beauties, its cultural treasures and, if they were lucky, its sexual permissiveness.” This was basically a several months, or occasionally a several years, tour of notable European cultural cities normally ending in Italy. Most historians view the Grand Tour as a general waste of time (though the entry in Wikipedia suggests otherwise). The British Aristocracy was particularly fond of the Grand Tour and a whole tourist trade sprung up to cater to visiting rich kids. As suggested above a lot of the participants behaved exactly as the British tourist would now. Stick anyone from a privileged background on a six month jolly around Europe and guess what? They behaved badly, followed the trail blindly and learnt very little.

I have a very dim view of the Grand Tour and had almost forgotten about it completely until a recent trip to my local Borders. Borders isn’t exactly the highbrow Mecca but it is a still book store. As I stood in the meandering check-out line I looked around and took in all the summer titles that were being heavily featured (pushed). A lot of them were in the form of "How I changed my life" or “Look how unusual my life is”. As I got to the very front of the queue was a large picture of all America's favorite, ever morphing woman: Oprah. Along, with her beaming image was a large tray full of copies of her book of the month. I don’t know exactly what it was but it seemed to be some tome which would allow a reader to experience someone else’s life. That was when I suddenly got an image of all these middle class woman on their own version of the Grand Tour. Those Oprah lovers slavishly following her recommendation and experiencing at a distance someone else’s life while making no change to their own....

But that does the rest of us no harm does it? Probably not but it does have an impact on what does or does not get published. Have you noticed how many of those books there are out there at the moment? To get onto Oprah’s list is to sell millions and millions of books. Surely every publisher wants a piece of that. To a certain extent Oprah has turned the high street (or Mega Mall) book store into the literary equivalent of reality TV.


<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza




*In Our Time, Originally aired 5/30/2002. IOT is well worth a listen most weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20020530.shtml
Link for full page and archived show – will need RealPlayer to listen.

Guess Who's Back?

After the discovery of the chipmunk babies (now called McSparky and McSpeedy though honestly I have no idea who sired them), I felt there was little left to get excited about for the Connecticut summer. However, last Sunday we sat in our sunroom, eating ice cream and watching the dusk close in and we saw a bird like creature flying erratically between the trees. Batty was back!!! Batty was spotted, and named by 13 yr old Moochey, last August. I believe the chiroptera is a Little Brown Bat. I was afraid that due to White Nose Syndrome Batty may not make it back to us but he is and I am very pleased.

Welcome back Batty! Now get those mosquitoes boy.

<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here>


Bazza

More info here:

Four Babies and a Woodpecker

Standing in the kitchen the morning after the drive back from Chicago, my back and legs ached and my head felt as if all thought was being filtered through a thick piece of cloth. I looked out of the kitchen window at the grassy bank that leads to the road. It was incredible how much had happened out there in a week. We had aimed the car at the sunset nine days before and when we left the three mature trees out the back and the bushes at the front were starting to show signs of leaves. Now, the neighbours downhill and to the front had disappeared behind a wall of green. And looking out to the back the mid Sunday morning sunlight was all but occluded by the green canopy from the trees. The shadows of the leaves allowed only tiny dots of bright light through, I was watching, mesmerized, at how the patterns shifted and changed. Suddenly I noticed two chipmunks quite near to the house and huddled close together. This is unusual as chipmunks tend to be territorial. As I continued to watch a third and then a fourth chipmunk appeared and I realized these were smaller than either Speedy or Sparky. These were four chipmunk babies.

I guess this was a sign of true summer. Breeding season is February to April and gestation is a month while weaning is four to six weeks. Add all that time together and we were definitely at start of summer. Our second spring in Connecticut had had its nature highlights. We spotted two or three blue jays and a very red cardinal has taken up residence in the trees outside the front of the house. We had seen other birds too; a couple of very colourful finches visited for a few days, some swallows arrived and back in early spring I caught sight of a woodpecker that was high up in a tree overlooking the valley. Finally, of course, there are always the common populations of Robins, Sparrows and overhead, Turkey vultures and falcons.

We will see what Mother Nature has for us during the summer – maybe another mountain lion like last year?



<Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza
PS I discovered the really cool pictures of some chipmunks at the site below.

http://www.pbase.com/cecilg/squirrels_and_chipmunks