On Lobsters By Pliny and Me

First I'm going to write about the Aging of the Lobster:

They say the lobster shows no sign of aging. It just grows bigger and bigger. It doesn't become weaker and it never becomes infertile. Some people think there must be huge old 400 pound lobsters living at the bottom of the sea. Lobsters have to die of something. What they die of usually is being eaten. The bigger they are the more likely something will spot them and try to make them lunch. And this is called the balance of nature. Even a lobster contains the seeds of its own destruction.



Now Pliny the Elder will write about the Size, Uses and Transformations of the Lobster;

The lobster is a type of crab. Lobsters in the Indian Ocean grow up to six feet long. All fish in the Indian Ocean grow large because of the richness of the water. Whales attain a size of three acres in area, and sharks are often seen to be one hundred and fifty feet long. Eating lobster is a cure for snake bite. When crabs die in the drought-ridden sign of Cancer they are transformed into scorpions.


Next I shall write Some Interesting Facts About Lobsters:

The lobster eats up to one hundred types of animal, and even eats its own new-moulted shell. In captivity a lobster will eat another lobster, if the other lobster doesn't eat it first. A lobster will bury its food and eat it over several days. The lobster uses teeth located in its stomach. If attacked a lobster will shed its appendages and regenerate them later.


Finally Pliny the Elder will address the Decay of Morality Caused by the Produce of the Sea :

But why am I wasting my time on these trivia when Shellfish are the prime cause of the decay of morals and the adoption of an extravagant lifestyle? Indeed in all of Nature the sea is in many ways the most harmful to the stomach with its great variety of dishes and tasty fish! And even this pales into insignificance when we consider purple-fish and purple robes and pearls! As if it were not enough for the produce of the sea to be stuffed down our throats......


Unfortunately I must now cut Pliny off.

And per se and

I read your blog yesterday, said Pliny the Elder.

And? I said

And, he said, I wondered about three things.

What were they?

Firstly, did the pearl simply emerge from your leg one day, or was it a transformation?

I believe it was a transformation, Pliny. Many years earlier I had fallen down when playing netball at school, and scraped my leg. I believe that pearl was formed in the manner that an oyster forms a pearl, around an irritation, in this case a tiny piece of grit or stone.

And how did it emerge?

It popped out fifteen years later, with a little help from me.

O marvellous! And secondly what happened to the Grandma?

I don't know, but I wondered if the event had been a scattering.

Surely not. The Grandma was still living, after all.

And thirdly?

Thirdly, what is the meaning of ampersand?

But Pliny, don't you know? It means a sign that means 'and'. It derives from Latin, so I thought you'd know. AND PER SE AND.

That is a transformation as unlikely as the rest.

Sand; Ampersand; Pearl

1. Sand.

We went to the beach twice on the weekend. On Saturday we went to Tennyson. The sand was white and soft and hot. I took off my shoes. The sand was already inside.

The sand was broken and in disarray. A horse had galloped over it. There is a special way of telling that. It is by the marks of the horse's shoes.

The sand was ugly. It looked as though a battle had been fought there. Smashed and bashed.

Heaps of seaweed had fetched up on the sand at regular intervals. Each heap looked like something. A lobster, a duck, a fish, a giant bee, laid flat out.

Under the water the sand was squelchy and sucked at our feet.


2. Ampersand.

On Sunday we were at Brighton. It was a very hot afternoon. The tide was coming in; there was not much sand to stand on, near the rocks north of the jetty.

A party of people stood between the rocks and the sea at the end of a ramp. They looked peculiar. They stood in an informal arrow formation. At the apex, an old lady in a wheelchair, shaded by a yellow and brown fringed parasol. We thought it might be a wedding. A funny wedding.

We went down the steps to the beach south of the jetty. Here there was plenty of sand. The sand was soft and white and hot. I took off my shoes but the sand was already inside.

We finished our walk. I put on my shoes. It was half past four.

Grandma, the wheelchair and parasol had gone. The rest of the party were still there, laughing. I knew that it wasn't a wedding.

At eight thirty we were driving home in the car. I was aware of the sand. The irritating sand. I thought that when I got home there might be pearls between my toes, although toes are not oysters.


3. Pearl.

That is not to say the human body is incapable of producing a pearl. I know that it is. Once, one came out of my leg. To be truthful it wasn't really a pearl. More like a perfectly round tiny grey stone.

Had it been a real pearl, I'd have kept it.