Pliny's Mum's Birthday.

Today is Pliny's mum's birthday. Pliny is busy making a Chocolate Cake for her mum. The Chocolate Cake has passed the first hurdle, which is Pliny's ad hoc throwing together of ingredients. The Cake is out of the oven, cooling down. As usual Pliny has failed to do the thing which prevents a Chocolate Cake from cracking on the top. If she knew what the thing was, she would do it.

She knows however, how to hide a crack, from long practice. She fills the crack with extra Chocolate Icing. In all the years that Pliny has been making crack-topped Chocolate Cakes, no one has ever complained about this.

Except for one time....... The crack was so deep that when she cut the cake in half in order to fill it with whipped cream and jam, the top half broke irreversibly into two separate pieces, and though Pliny stuck the two pieces together as best she could, the iced cake suffered from slippage and looked, as everyone must have noted, like a jaunty Chocolate Beret.

That will not happen today. The cracks are passable.

Preposterous

I was playing with my stones, trying to build a stone man that kept falling down. This was a pity because I had the ideal head. A triangular shaped stone with three holes in it, two eyes and a mouth. It looked like the head in Munch's painting The Scream, except Munch's head was more like an upside-down pear. When I say ideal, it wasn't really because the point of the triangle was where the chin would be, so the head wouldn't balance on any other stone no matter how flat. Nor would Munch's have though.

Pliny the Elder appeared. You have a collection of stones! he exclaimed. May I see them?

Alright, I said, giving up on my man. See. These are my 2 favourites, a fossil, and an opposite-of-fossil.

There is no such thing as an opposite-of-fossil, said Pliny.

Yes there is, I said. Have a look.

Hmm, said Pliny, very amusing. And what are these?

These are river pebbles from Tasmania. This is a conglomerate. This is a quartz, with dirt on it. These two green ones are malachites I found at Burra. This is Munch's head. This one looks like a gingerbread man, running. This one looks like a toffee. These are two I picked up at Glanum, in Provence. Personally I believe that they are bits of pottery but no one else does. And that's a shell.

You are very fond of stones I see, said Pliny.

I am, I said. I sometimes think I must have been a stone in a former life, I added recklessly.

Preposterous! spluttered Pliny. If that were so you would still be one today!

Inukshuk

Look at this, I said to Piny the Elder this morning. It is a photogaph of an Inukshuk.

It looks like a pile of stones, said Pliny.

Yes it is a pile of stones, I said, but it is in the shape of a person. I googled Inukshuk. It's Inuit for something that performs the function of a person.

So it is, said Pliny, looking closely. But the photographer, if you care to read his text, does not claim it is an Inukshuk, but that it is like an Inukshuk.

I suppose it can't be an Inukshuk unless it functions as one, I said thoughtfully.

But what is the function of an Inukshuk? Pliny asked.

Well, it seems the Inuit made them for navigational purposes, or as memorials, or to indicate a migration route or a place where fish could be found.

This one is in Northumberland, said Pliny, but it could still serve one of those functions. Perhaps there is a fish under it.

Do you think that would make it an Inukshuk? I asked.

Pliny thought for a minute. No, he said finally, but it would make it more like one.

Ishmael

One upmanship indeed, said Pliny the Elder. So your art film was merely a spy-cam. I hope you are proud of yourself.

It was just stab in the dark, I replied. I knew you would be tempted to read page 470 if I asked you not to. What did you think when you read it?

I was quite put out of countenance. But I decided nevertheless to read the book in its entirety. I have been reading it at night after you have gone to bed. I find that I am much of a mind with Ishmael on many topics relating to the whale.

I thought you might be, I said. In fact Ishmael reminds me of you. In Chapter 80, for example, called The Nut, where he claims that the whale's magnificently proportioned spinal cord ought properly to be considered as part of its brain, which would otherwise seem disproportionately small, and in support of this claim he cites the German conceit that the vertebrae are undeveloped skulls.

An interesting idea, said Pliny, and worth pursuing.

I also like his idea that Saint George may not have fought and killed a dragon, but a whale, as in many old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and it would be a much grander exploit to have battled with a whale than a mere crawling reptile. Saint George, he claims, could well have been mounted on a seal, or a seahorse. Artists in those days were ignorant of the forms of aquatic creatures, which would explain why he was depicted slaying a dragon while mounted on a horse.

An intriguing conjecture, agreed Pliny. I also find the story most exciting. Do you think Captain Ahab will eventally do battle with Moby Dick?

Everything points to it, I said.

Examples

Yes, I admit I could have chosen a better example, but you led me into it.

I did?

You did. When you referred birds pecking at a painting of a bunch of grapes.

Ah yes, that is my favourite art anecdote, the competition between the 2 Greek painters, Parrhasius and Zeuxis. Parrhasius paints a bunch of grapes so well that birds come down to peck at them. Parrhasius is certain that he's won, but he asks Zeuxis to pull back the curtain to reveal his painting. The curtain is my painting, says Zeuxis. Then you win, says Parrhasius. I only fooled the birds, but you have fooled me.

It is a wonderful anecdote, but what are we to learn from it?

That the best art is the truest.

Or the trickiest. Let me now choose another example to illustrate the relevance of film art. Imagine a framed image on a wall. An image of a darkened room. For a while, nothing happens. Suddenly a light comes on in a corner of the room. A man enters, holding a book. He sits down. He opens the book to page 470. We see a closeup of the man's face. He looks like he has just heard a gunshot.

May I ask what you propose this as an example of?

Sorry. One upmanship.

Tedium and Uncertainty

Art takes strange forms these days said Pliny the Elder. By your account the exhibition was a series of cynical exercises in tedium and uncertainty. I prefer art to be more straightforward. A fine statue. A painting of a bunch of grapes so well executed that the birds fly down to peck at them.

That is old fashioned, I said. People still do produce art like that. There is nothing wrong with it. But imagine an amazing lifelike picture of some grapes on a vine. Imagine that over the course of a few weeks the grapes grow and ripen and eventually go rotten and shrivel up. Would not that be fascinating? That is a framed art film; you could hang it on your wall.

Or I could look out of the window, said Pliny drily. Perhaps you could have chosen a better example.

Duality of Light 2

They sat down in front of the 3 screens on the bench the 3 women had vacated. The images on the screens were almost identical. Mountain tops enveloped in slow moving clouds. They knew at once the clouds were moving, from the experience of the tree.

I'm sure, said Pliny's mum, that when I turned around earlier I saw a bright red flower on one of these screens. One by one the images changed. Snow covered mountains, and in the foreground, frozen images of a woman covered head to toe in a fine white veil. Through a series of stills the veil changed shape in the wind, mirroring the folds of snow on the far off mountains. In the last, the woman had turned to reveal her face. She wore the expression of someone hearing a gunshot. Then, the brilliant red poppies in closeup. There they are! said Pliny's mum.

They took the lift up to the next level. Here were 2 white pedestals next to a doorway. Take a bowl and enter, said a sign on the wall. Someone, it appeared, already had, so they sat down to wait. By the laughter escaping from the doorway they guessed it was the Japanese party. After some time the Japanese party came out, apologised and replaced the bowls.

Pliny and her mum went in, carrying the white bowls. The room was dark except for 4 bowl-sized pools of light on the floor, projected from overhead. If you held your bowl under a light it filled with luminescent moving images of microscopic marine life and telescopic astronomical imagery in brilliant kaleidoscopic colours. If you tilted the bowl the glowing images spilled out over your hands and arms. It was amazing. transporting, delightful.

They should have left, after that. Instead they went back to the tunnel.

Duality of Light

On Friday Pliny and her mum went to see an exhibition called The Duality of Light.

They entered the exhibition space. There didn't seem to be much in it. At one end there were 3 screens in front of which sat 2 women talking. At the other end, a framed picture in the middle of a huge wall. It looked like an ordinary landscape, a tree and mountains. Pliny and her mum sat on a bench in front of the picture. It wasn't a painting, but a projected image. They looked at it for a minute or two. Is it moving? asked Pliny's mum. It didn't seem to be, but it was nice to sit down.

Pliny stood up and went across to another installation. This installation is meant for one person at a time, said a sign on the wall near a dark entrance. There were 2 lights on the wall. The one marked 'enter' was on, the one marked 'wait' was off. You go in, said her mum. I'll wait here and see if anything happens.

Pliny went in. It was a long dark tunnel. Sounds of dripping water came from somewhere overhead. There was a screen at the far end, and a person was standing in front of it. Pliny caught a glimpse of an image on the screen. It was a ghostly white image of an anxious-looking woman walking cautiously towards the light. The person was looking at the image of the woman. Pliny was embarrassed. She backed out slowly and went to sit with her mum in front of the picture of the tree. I'm not sure, said her mum, but I think the tree is brighter than it was.

They sat a bit longer. A woman came out of the tunnel and went over to the 2 women on the seat at the other end of the room. That was amazing, she said. The 3 of them turned and looked towards Pliny and her mum. They were laughing. You can go in now, said Pliny's mum.

Pliny went in. She walked towards the screen at the end of the tunnel. There was a bar of dim light across the floor and some kind of barrier in front of the screen indicating where she should stop. On the screen appeared the image she had seen earlier of a woman approaching nervously. It was an image of herself, she realised, but it was herself from a few seconds earlier, so that she was standing watching herself getting nearer, which made it quite unsettling. The more so when she realised the other woman in there earlier must have seen her too. The image suddenly exploded into dots and lines floating across the screen like pieces of spatial traffic. Pliny watched this for a long time but nothing altered, so she began to back away.

Was it good? asked her mum. It was, said Pliny. Has anything happened to the tree? Yes, replied her mum, it is all glowing orange. I have been watching the sun come up. In real time, said Pliny.

Just then a group of 4 Japanese students came in and headed straight for the tunnel. They all went in together. Sounds of laughter mingled with the doleful dripping of water. Now I've missed my chance to go in, said Pliny's mum. Wait till later, Pliny said, and we'll go in together.

Page 470

It is past midnight. Someone is creeping down the passage. Entering the kitchen he gropes on the cupboard near the radio. It is Pliny the Elder and he is searching for Moby Dick!

He locates the book, picks it up and tiptoes into the lounge, where he closes the sliding doors behind him and turns on the dimmest of lights by which it is still possible to read. He sits down on a comfortable brown leather 2-seater and examines the book.

It is an old well-thumbed paperback copy, with water-stained sides, and from somewhere near the middle a cardboard bookmark sticks out. It is a remarkable bookmark, in the shape of the flukes of a whale. But Pliny is not interested in the bookmark, which marks page 278. He is interested in page 470.

He opens the book, locates page 470, and reads:

DOES THE WHALE'S MAGNITUDE DIMINISH? WILL HE PERISH?

Assuredly we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk....... But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of today is as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a whaleman, ( more than he was ) will make bold to tell him so.

Monstrous! exclaims Pliny. I am defamed! I was only reporting tales I'd heard from others. Does no one understand authorial irony? I will not get back to sleep tonight. I'll make myself a cup of tea and commence reading Moby Dick from page one. No book is so bad that one cannot learn something useful from it.

Moby Dick

Did you know that you get a mention in Moby Dick? I asked Pliny.

No, he said, and who is Moby Dick?

It's a famous book by Herman Melville I replied, about a fearsome white whale, and Captain Ahab, who is obsessed with killing it. I'm re-reading it. In the chapter called Cetology he lists all the men small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen who have written about the whale, and you are third on the list.

Third? After whom?

The Authors of the Bible, and Aristotle.

Hmmmm. I do not think much of the Bible. But to Aristotle I am pleased to defer. Am I quoted by your Melville?

Not directly, but he agrees with you that the whale is a type of fish.

Great Jupiter! I am vindicated. Does he say why he thinks so?

Yes, he says it all depends upon the definition. Linnaeus's opinion that the whale is not a fish because of its warm bilocular heart, its lungs, its moveable eyelids, hollow ears and mammalian qualities, he dismisses as insufficiently reasoned humbug. The correct definition for a whale, he claims, is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail.

Pliny beamed. And does he list all the different kinds of whales? he asked.

He does. And later chapters are called "Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales", " Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales" , and " Of Whales in Paint, in Teeth, in Wood, in Sheet-Iron, in Stone, in Mountains, in Stars".

This book, said Pliny rapturously, must be a truly wonderful account of whales. May I read it after you?

Yes, I said, if you promise not to read page 470.

Idolator

I did not know that you were an idolator, said Pliny the Elder after reading my blog yesterday.

I'm not. I'm more someone who doesn't know where to put her bits of jewellery, I said. The Buddha used to belong to my daughter. It always seemed alright to me to drape him with jewels and artificial flowers. He never complained before.

Does he often talk to you? asked Pliny, looking interested.

No, of course not. He usually sits there dreaming away about whatever Buddhas dream of, I said. Once I took him outside, sat him under a tree and took his photograph . I'd stood a little carved wooden sailor in the window behind the tree and I called the photo Buddha dreams of a fisherman dreaming of the Buddha. I sent it to my daughter in London.

And what did she think of that ?

I don't remember. I often wonder what the Buddha thought of that.

Annoying the Buddha

O unenlightened one!

Ooh, who said that?

I, I mean Me.

Oh my Buddha!

Not your Buddha.

Are you displeased with me O Blessed one?

Yes I am. I have sat blessedly upon your chest of drawers for many years and the number of particles of dust in my cracks has increased with the passing of time. I note you have not dusted me of late. I have been a patient Bodhisattva as you know. I have put up with you decorating me with many a foolish trinket. I did not bat an eye when you put the boho necklace of cheap red stones round my neck. Nor did I complain when you hung the orange and brown spotted feather earring over my right ear. Beatifically I put up with the artificial pink rosebud that you wound around my topknot and did not lose a smidgeon of my equanimity when you hung the little plastic mobile phone decoration with 2 Snoopies in flying goggles from my topknot on the other side. I was imperturbable when you placed the heavy rhodium bracelet over my shoulders and I had to wear it like a dog collar, although this morning I almost achieved Nirvana when you decided to take it off again at last. All these things can be borne by an enlightened mind.

Well then ?

It's this pink ribbon that you have wound twice around my shoulders, that ends in a giant bow. It makes me look like a chocolate box or an old woman in a bed jacket. I must insist that you remove it at once.

Oh at once my teacher. Will you keep the earring and the necklace and the rosebud and the Snoopy mobile phone toy ?

Ommmmmmmmm!

Clearing the Air

I see, said Pliny the Elder, that you had a most interesting sojourn in the place you call Carrickalinga.

We did, I replied. You would have enjoyed it a great deal.

Why then, he said, looking at me darkly, did you not invite me to come with you? You know how interested I am in natural history and the natural sciences. The landscape you describe would have delighted me and afforded me much knowledge.

You are too old, I said, and would have stumbled on the rocky platforms and fallen into fissures. I do not doubt that once or twice you would have fallen backwards into the sea.

Is that so? he bristled. And how old am I, in your opinion, as a matter of interest?

Ancient, I replied.

In fact, he said, I cannot be older than 57, since that is the age at which I met my end. That makes me younger than you, correct me if I am wrong.

Oh come on, I said. Add 2000 years to that and then you will be right. So you're cross are you? Is that why you didn't bring the bins in, water the plants or eat the cheese?

Quite possiby, he said. And while we're in this mood, why didn't you thank me for my poem about tomatoes? Did you not think my joke was very funny?

No I didn't. And where on earth did you get all that ridiculous information from?

He looked at me, disdainfully. It came, he said, from a highly reputable source by the name of tomatoes are evil . com. I can show it to you if you wish.

Maise the Looc

The sand is fine and hard at Sellick's Beach. You can drive your car on to it. Happily not many people had. It was Friday lunchtime and Pliny and Nostradamus had stopped at Sellick's for lunch and a look around. Let us say, it wasn't quite lunchtime. They left their car at the clifftop and walked across the road, over a new bridge built over a new wetland pond and followed the new bicycle path along the clifftop, past the new grandiose houses built on dusty, stony, treeless land. They grumbled to each other about the folly of human greed.

Returning by way of the beach they were captivated by the view of the cliffs they were now walking towards. They bought a pie and a pasty at the post office/deli, and ate their lunch under a wooden shelter overlooking the beach. From there the beach was so compellingly beautiful they decided to go for a longer walk south towards the reef and the fantastical cliffs.

They walked down the car ramp and across the hard sand to the edge of the sea. The sea was flat, transparent, warm. Tiny waves dumped waterfalls of bubbles that spread like lace over the clean hard sand. Pliny and Nostradamus dragged their feet in the shallows for a while then diverged to avoid the fishing lines of a man sitting in his car.

The cliffs to their right were eggy yellow, and sculpted by the wind and tides into statues and hollowed out caves where people had etched their names, Tobias, Amy, Pat and Maise the Looc.
Further on, the cliffs opened up into a wide ravine with steep sides of orange, purple and brown,
guarded by two gigantic aloes, their elegant yellow flowers emerging like delicate pine trees out of massive spiky cacti.

Now they are level with the reef. They decide to walk upon it, after all they are wearing the proper sort of shoes. The reef is largely uncovered and flattened seaweeds lie spread out on the rocks. Little rock pools exemplify how they will look when the tide comes in. Crabs click their claws somewhere out of sight, warning other crabs. There is another sound, of glistening.

Here on the reef Pliny and Nostradmus sit and look at the cliffs. which are still quarter of an hour's walk away. The colours are muted due to an uncharacteristic haze in the air, possibly from the bushfires in Victoria. If anything this makes them even more beautiful. They are ironstone red, violet, cream and yellow, divided by lines of amazing intricacy into triangles, graphs and curves, layered, broken and rejoined. You could look at them all afternoon.

But they don't. On the way back they figure out the true meaning of Maise the Looc.
It is somewhat eroded but it once read Praise the Lord. They laugh.

Carrickalinga

The next morning was warmer, so Pliny and Nostradamus drove back to the Carrickalinga Heads carpark where the previous evening they had identified the beginning of a potentially intriguing walk.

They followed the bicycle path past the last holiday house and round a bend until they came to a cow gate. Beyond this they could see a dozen or so cows standing on and either side of a dirt track from which rose on one side a steep and stony bluff matched on the other by a sharp fall onto the rocks below. The cows began to advance meaningfully towards Pliny and Nostradamus, who decided to take a convenient down track to the beach, right then and there.

The beach was in a rocky cove that smelled overpoweringly of hydrogen sulphide. They headed north towards a limestone platform hoping to escape the smell. Here the tilted geosyncline rocks were cracked and broken into regular patterns like the skin of a giant lizard or a dinosaur. They clambered and hopped over the bodies of the rock creatures like tiny fleas. Sometimes they had to step over a fissure at the bottom of which was water or sand. Once halfway down one of these fissures they saw a smooth rock shaped like a baby whale.

After some time they arrived at a spot which looked like a good place to stop. There was a large rock pool in front of them, and on their right a fissure that looked too large to cross. A tangled length of white string joined to a length of green string disappeared into the depths of the rock pool. In other words, a mystery. They sat down on two of the least pointy rocks and stared at the green string. They couldn't see what it was attached to. The water was too ripply. The pebbly stones at the bottom of the pool danced crazily and hypnotically in a green, blue and brown pattern of rounded squares framed in reflected light. Pliny stood up, on a hunch. And was rewarded by the sight of a crab pot, attached to the green length of string.

Pliny and Nostradamus liked that spot. They sat there for a long time looking out to sea. A pod of dolphins passed them, swimming in pairs the way that dolphins swim, arching up out of the water and plunging again to appear a few more metres farther on than they might be expected to be.

Recumbent Fold

It was windy the first day at Carrickalinga, and not very hot, so Pliny and Nostradamus decided to go to Second Valley where the geology is spectacular.

They wound down through the round yellow hills and stopped at the carpark under the pines beside the ancient caravan park. Pine cones dropped dangerously around them. They walked the short distance to the lower carpark, where a busload of schoolchildren were getting into wetsuits ready to go canoeing in the sea.

Pliny and Nostradamus have been to Second Valley many times before. They know where to go to see the recumbent fold. Along a cemented path under the cliff, on the left, where once long ago the earth moved, the rocks are folded like a tablecloth or a ribbon of paper, and have turned over on themselves so that some of them are upside down. Remarkably this looks like the rings of a petrified tree, and the colours are of caramel, licorice and chocolate.

As you follow the path around the base of the cliff you emerge onto a rocky platform with multitudinous multicoloured rocks of all sizes everywhere. Most of the big ones are tilted at an angle of 45 degrees from the horizontal ( and the vertical ). The teeteringly steep cliff is behind you. If you turn and look up at it you will fall back dizzily with the illusion it is tumbling towards you. This is because the white clouds are rapidly moving over the top in the blue sky. If you were to fall backwards it would be into a rock pool of deep sea water and invisible dangers. It is advisable therefore to turn around again, and sit down.

An eerie clanging sound punctuates the wind. It is a couple of pieces of corrugated iron all but detached from the roof of one of the dozen disused boatsheds that are decomposing on the promontory several metres to your right. Totally surreal, they have been fenced off from the general public by a metal gate and a string of orange flags.

Pliny is looking at the water, but she can't see in. She pulls her hood tightly over her cap so the cap won't blow off. Nostradamus is climbing over some nearby rocks to get a better look at something. He comes back. It's time to go. On the way back along the cement path the wind drops and they see the children splashing and trying to tip one another out of their coloured canoes.

Holiday

Note to Pliny the Elder.

We're going to down the coast to Carrickalinga for a couple of days. You're in charge. Please bring the bins in. Check first that they've been emptied. Remember to throw your shower and washing up water on the plants. It's up to you which. I don't suppose I can expect you to water the tomatoes. Don't eat the strawberries in the fridge, I think they are off. Please do eat the cheese. It is nearly as old as you but will be fine if you cut the mould off first. Back on Friday. XXX

Lycopersicon Noxius

A most amusing poem, if a little long, said Pliny the Elder, and which came to grief at the use of the word reasonous. However, all amusement aside, the tomato IS poisonous.

It is a member of the nightshade family and contains solanine, a bitter poisonous alkaloid. Not enough to kill you or me, but 100 grams of cherry tomatoes could certainly kill a cat.

It is the fresh tomato that is poisonous. Tomato sauce, spagetti sauce, tomato ketchup and tomato soup are beneficial to the health. As long as the tomato product bears no resemblance whatsoever to a tomato, you may consume it with impunity.

And now, continued Pliny, here is a little poem I have written for you, with some difficulty, as there is no word for tomato in the Latin tongue, so I have had to use the term Lycopersicon or Wolf Peach, the scientific name given to the tomato in the 18th century by the botanist John Hill:

Lycopersicon noxius est
Nisi coquatus
Parvum felem necabit
Non commendo consumare
Secatum inter panem
Edere sicut condimentum
In crustum caronis
Reasonous est
( Iocus!)

The tomato is poisonous
Unless it is cooked
A small amount will kill a cat.
I do not recommend its use
Sliced in a sandwich
But to eat tomato sauce
On a meat pie
Is reasonous
( Joke!)

Erroneous Terminus

To Gaius Plinius Secundus, a short Poem on the Subject of Poisons

Tomatoes are not poisonous
Tomatoes do not poison us
Tomatoes are not poisonous
Tomatoes they would not.

Chillies are not poisonous
No chillies will not poison us
For chillies are not poisonous
It's just that they are hot.

Basil is not poisonous
And basil will not poison us
But scorpions might poison us
If there are a lot.

For scorpions are poisonous
And they might really poison us
If scorpions that are poisonous
Should breed under a pot.

But tomatoes are not poisonous
And they will never poison us
It is not even reasonous
That they should make us sick.

If you think that they are poisonous
And eating them will poison us
You have erroneous terminus
(or the wrong end) of the stick.

Nest of Scorpions

Here's a story for you, I said to Pliny the Elder. A gentleman of Siena was so taken with the scent of basil that he sniffed it all the time, taking it as snuff. Not long after he went mad and died. When his doctors cut open his head they found a nest of scorpions.

Great Jupiter! exclaimed Pliny, who had just been sniffing at a bunch of basil, preliminary to making a batch of pesto. Who told you that?

It's recorded in the writings of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, the famous 17th century botanist, I said. And there's a similar story in Nicolas Culpeper's Complete Herbal , only he claims it was a Frenchman who was brainscorpioned.

Nonsense, said Pliny, these are foolish tales. Basil is a royal herb, its name comes from the Greek basileus meaning king. It is good for treating a number of ailments including stomach cramps, catarrh, vomiting, constipation, depression, whooping cough, indigestion, headache, fevers, colds, flu, warts, worms and insect bites. It also repels flies and mosquitoes. I myself find it very effective in relieving flatulence.

As to that, I said politely, I hadn't noticed, and I must admit, I don't think basil has ever cured me of anything, but I do think it is brilliant with fresh tomatoes.

Tomatoes! squawked Pliny. Do you not know that they are poisonous?

Acropetal

The basil plant, mused Pliny the Elder, grows acropetally, or upwards from the top.

You don't have to tell me, I countered, I am always trying to prevent it from doing so. If I don't keep pinching off the flowers they stop producing leaves.

I have been meaning to talk to you on that subject, he said. In Roman times women were not allowed to touch basil plants. I note you are always out there picking at yours.

What's wrong with that? I asked.

The basil plant is considered to be a symbol of malice and lunacy, he replied. Indeed they say it must be sown by curses, muttered if you have near neighbours; and if the earth is rammed down and prayers are uttered that the seeds never come up, so much the better.

Bizarre, I said. But what has it to do with women?

Women are particularly prone to malice and lunacy, he said. But further, the basil is an aphrodisiac, and is given to horses during the mating season. Women should not be allowed free access to such a herb.

I see your point, I said. But it is out of date.

Ejecta

Outrageous! I said to Pliny the Elder this morning, when I learned the answer to 10 across, in yesterday's hard crossword.

What is outrageous? he inquired. Is that the answer to the clue?

No, it's not the answer to the clue, I said. The clue was 'Material discharged by volcanic eruption ( Geol.)' Six letters with the third letter being E and the last letter A.

Ejecta! said Pliny matter of factly. You should have asked me.

But that's a Latin word which just means things which are ejected. And it isn't in my English dictionary, or the Science one. It's as if the answer to 'the square root of eighty one' should be 'a number'. Or no, not even a number, but the Latin for a number. Numerus.

I reject that comparison, said Pliny. After all many ordinary Latin words are used as technical terms in the natural sciences. Surely there were other helpful clues by which you could have deduced the answer?

There was 2 down, 'Upwards from the point of attachment ( of growth ) ( Botany)', I growled. If I'd known that was 'acropetally' I would have got the C, but who has ever heard of it?

Well, he said sagely, you must blame the Greeks for that. Now I know it's very hot, but I think you need to get out of the house.

So, I went to the beach this afternoon with Nostradamus. It was hot and windy. Men were kiteboarding.The waves were warm and leathery green, glistening, cross-hatched, and surprisingly strong. I stood in the swirling slapping wash while Nostradamus had a swim and nearly lost his hat. Then I sat on a towel and stared at the seaweed, the sand, the shells, the washed up bits and pieces, the gulls. We are all ejecta, I thought. But at least the kiteboarders are kiteboarding acropetally. These thoughts uplifted me. Hang the hard crossword, I have come out on top.

Ashbrook Avenue

It is the evening after a hot day. Pliny and Nostradamus are walking north along Ashbrook Avenue as far as the lane where figs and grapes overhang the back fences. Ashbrook Avenue is long and suburban. It is neither well kept nor neglected. There are gumnuts on the the uneven footpath. There are pine trees at the edge of the sports field inside the fence. The clubhouse at the far end of the oval is lit up and there is a sound of voices. The graveyard is quiet. Every house and block of flats has a garden, some look watered, most look dry. A peach tree on a corner. Vines overhanging fences, grapes withered and small. A man with a hose.

The sky is the palest blue. There is a pink and gold cloud to the west. Several people walking dogs, looking straight ahead.

Pliny and Nostradamus reach the lane. They find some grapes that are large and juicy, tasting of passionfruit. They eat a few. The figs are hard and unripe.

They turn towards home along Ashbrook Avenue. It is the time when evening steals the colour from the trees. The air is warm. A few stars are visible and the moon. Passing the graveyard Pliny looks for the flashing red lights on the Italian row, which once had scared her, but tonight they are off. Even the dead are saving power. From the pine trees by the oval comes a scent of long ago. It is still a fair way to home.

Existential

When Pliny's doctor told her what she had last August he asked her if she had experienced any symptoms. Pliny said that no she had not experienced any symptoms. She asked what were the symptoms just in case she had experienced them but did not realise what they were. He listed a few. None of those, said Pliny.

Some people report that they feel weird, said the doctor. I don't feel weird, said Pliny.

Some people say that they hadn't realised they felt weird until they had the operation, because afterwards they felt better, he said. Pliny thought that that was undermining. Now she had to question whether all her little idiosyncracies were merely symptoms.

After she had had the operation, she was happy to discover that she felt exactly the same. This proves, she thought, that I did not feel weird before, because if I did I would feel better now.

Adynamon

That was fast said Pliny the Elder. Was your surgery successful?

I believe so, I replied.

Allow me to look at your wound, he said. Would you like me to prepare some curative medicaments to aid in its healing? Horse manure can be used, or the urine of a child that has not yet reached puberty. A bandage tied in a Hercules knot makes healing wonderfully more rapid.
The hand of a person carried off by premature death......but perhaps that is not something easily obtainable.

No, but thankyou, I said. I just have to leave this sticking plaster on it for about 3 weeks and then go and have it removed by the doctor. The stitches should have dissolved by then.

Stitches dissolved! he exclaimed. What wonders are these? I suppose I must resign myself to not being the foremost expert on all things as I once was. However I do have a pleasant little concoction called adynamon, which is good for invalids. It consists of weak wine boiled up with water. Would you like to try it?

O yes, please, as long as it isn't salt water, I said, croakily. I know what you Romans used to do.

Your voice has been affected I see, said Pliny the Elder. I have a most reliable cure for that, which is, to refrain from talking.

Preservation

Your grapes are cooking on the vine, observed Pliny the Elder.

Well spotted, I replied. Have you tried eating any?

Yes, he said, they were extremely hot and unpleasantly soft, but tart. What are you going to do with them?

Nothing, I said, I have to go into hospital tomorrow for some minor surgery. I can't be thinking about what to do with grapes.

May the Gods preserve you! he cried. And the grapes, he added.