A Wind Egg

Look Pliny, tell me what you think of this, I said, showing him a photograph.

Hmmm. Is it a wind egg? he asked, peering over my shoulder.

That depends whether a wind egg is a sea urchin skeleton, I replied. It is very beautiful, is it not? Look at the delicate patterns on the shell and the pretty eyelets, like broderie anglaise.

A sea urchin! said Pliny. I have written on the subject of sea urchins in my Natural Histories. Now, what was it.......oh yes, I remember. The sea urchin is famous for its intelligence.

Oh I said, and why is that?

Because, he answered, the sea urchin, having spines instead of feet, moves by rolling like a ball. Before a tempest, it collects stones and weighs itself down with them to avoid being easily shifted, and so that its spines will not be worn out with too much rolling. Whenever sailors see this they make fast their boats with several anchors.

Oh really? I said. That seems super-observant of the sailors. Wouldn't the sea urchins have been rolling around ( and trying not to ) on the bottom of the sea? Wouldn't it just have been easier to look for storm clouds?

The sea urchins begin collecting stones well before any storm clouds are visible, said Pliny firmly. Sailors would notice this perhaps in the early morning, when gathering sea urchins, or later, when eating them, they might find them to be full of stones.

You are making that up, I snorted.

Only about the sailors' breakfast, he replied. And yet it is quite probable, for sea urchins are highly prized as a delicacy, particularly the 5 ovaries, which are often coral-coloured and have a wonderful bitter taste. Furthermore, sea urchins are much sought after as a remedy for sea sickness, and an antidote to poison. But most of all, they are prized for their magical properties, and that is why I referred earlier to a wind egg, for I thought that I was looking at an ovum anguinum.

How mystifying you are! I cried. What the devil is a wind egg?

I shall tell you tomorrow, said Pliny, primly.

Amendments

Pliny the Elder would like to suggest an amendment to "Part 1. Ways to get rid of flies that are bothering you inside your house." He suggests it should be listed immediately after a) Use fly spray, and he suggests it should be worded this way:

b) Whack the fly hard with a rolled up newspaper. ( It is advisable to use a newspaper you have finished reading ).

I agree this is a good addition to the list. I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. Nevertheless I don't like this method, because 1) there is squashed fly all over the newspaper, and you feel bad about recycling it after that and 2) there is often more squashed fly on the table, or cupboard, or window sill, to be cleaned up as well. On the plus side, it is satisfying if you are in a bad mood.

I would like to suggest a further addition to "Part 1. Ways to get rid of flies that are bothering you inside your house." I suggest it should be listed either after a) as the new b) or after Pliny's new b), in which case it would be the new c) . Pliny and I will need to discuss this further. In either case the old b) and the old c) would then be the new d) and the new e).

My suggested addition is as follows:

b) Hold your hands apart just above the fly. Clap your hands. Wash your hands. ( I got this off the internet. Apparently it never fails, because a fly flies directly upwards before it orientates itself and works out which way to escape. Brilliant, but kind of yucky.)

The List

The following day I sat in the same place at the same time of day with the same book and was not visited by the fly. This led me to hypothesise that one way to rid yourself of an annoying fly is to stare it out. Obviously is difficult to catch the eye of a fly and the method is only suitable for use out of doors. Nonetheless let us add it to the list.

WAYS TO GET RID OF FLIES.

Part 1. Ways to get rid of flies which are bothering you inside your house.

a) Use fly spray ( this rarely works nowadays).

b) Wait until the fly sits on a glass sliding door, open the door very slowly while encouraging the fly towards the open air. When it flies out, close the door very quickly. ( Or it will fly back in. )

c) Open any window in the room you and the fly are in. Wait until the fly lands on the flyscreen. Close the window, trapping the fly between the window and the flyscreen. Open the window a little, very carefully, and undo the plastic latches at the base of the flyscreen. Close the window. Go outside. Remove the fly screen and release the fly. Make sure it's gone. Replace the flyscreen. Congratulations, you've done it. ( This won't work on a very hot day. The fly will not be attracted to the outside air and won't go anywhere near the window.)


Part 2. Ways to get rid of flies that are bothering you in the Temple.

a) Sacrifice an ox. ( Pliny the Elder recommends this. Apparently there were no flies in the Temple of Hercules Victor.)


Part 3. Ways to get rid of flies that are bothering you out of doors.

a) Wave your arms about ( a bit tiresome ).

b) Grow thyme ( a long term solution, from Pliny).

c) Stare it out ( a fly does not like to see, with its compound eye, millions of versions of you looking at it. This is just a promising hypothesis, in the testing stage).

Literary Influences

I was sitting outside the back door under the pergola yesterday reading a book. It was hot but I wanted fresh air. I was sitting on a kitchen chair, in the corner between the yellow wall and the sliding glass door. My book was Species of Spaces by Georges Perec.

A fly settled on my left leg. I brushed it off with my left hand. It returned to my left arm. I flapped my arm, it flew away, returned and landed on my right arm. When I waved it away again, it flew back and landed on my right leg. This state of affairs continued, with random variations, for over twenty minutes, while I remained engrossed in my book.

Georges Perec was describing the objects on his work table, what they were, where they had come from, whether he had had them for a long time or acquired them recently, whether they really ought to have been kept somewhere else, whether he had too many of them ( such as pencils ) and what they looked like. He said it was important to him to do this because it marked out his space, it was an oblique way of approaching his work, a way of talking about his history, work, preoccupations, and a way of grasping his experience, at the very point where it emerged.

You are brilliant, Georges Perec, I thought. I really ought to have a closer look at this pesky fly. So the next time I felt it settle on my skin I looked down instead of twitching. But alas, no matter how many times I tried to get a good look at my fly, I failed, because it flew away before I had time to focus.

There was only one time I got anything like a proper look, just 2 seconds. It was a substantially middle-sized common house fly, with white bulging multi-cellular eyes, and a irridescent green bottom emerging from under its transparent wings. Interesting, but not prepossessing. I could see that it felt much the same about me.

Diamond Rings

What did you talk about? I asked.

Oh, many things, said Pliny. Arthritis, diamond rings, dogs that urinate on carpets. Your mother is a lovely woman.

She is indeed, I agreed.

How old is she? he asked, carelessly.

Eighty three.

Oh, he said.

Why Pliny, I said, are you lonely?

Oh no, he said quickly. Is she?

Oh no, I said.

Myxolydian Mode

I had a headache this morning so Pliny the Elder went to the Lunch Hour concert in my place. When he got home he told me all about it.

I had a very nice lunch with your mother, he said, at the Blue Lemon Baguette Bar. Then we proceeded across the road to the Elder Hall. There we were given a programme to read while we waited for the music to begin. The theme was African Music. I was excited because as you know I served in Gaul, Africa and Spain, and of the music of those countries I thought African the most exotic.

And did you enjoy it? I asked.

No I did not. The music did not sound like African music at all. It was played in a mode that they called Jazz. If anything it sounded a bit like the Myxolydian mode. It was a kind of cacophony of sounds, everyone playing different instruments in different rhythms at different speeds, or so it seemed to me. Every now and then one of the players would stop playing and the audience would clap. I had no desire to do so myself.

Didn't you like any of it? I asked.

There was one piece I thought I was going to like, he answered. That was called Beauty of Sunrise. It began with the bellowing of elephants, played on the trumpet, very realistic. But then instead of evoking the beauty of the sunrise it degenerated into a sort of warlike Phrygian dance.

Oh well, I said, bad luck you. And how did you get on with my mum?

Very well indeed, he replied. But I'm not sure she knew who I was.

The Song of the Woolly Mammoth

I am a Woolly Mammoth
From North Siberi-ee
A relly of the elephant
As you can plainly see.

We used to live in Africa
But when we moved up here
We found it very chilly
' Bout the nose, our toes, each ear.

So we changed our haemoglobin
Before our species froze.
We are extinct now anyway,
But that is how it goes.

What a silly song, said Pliny the Elder. It proves nothing.

Woolly Mammoth

You would have liked the lecture at the Museum last night, I said to Pliny the Elder this morning.

What was the topic? he asked, looking up from a decrepit-looking diary that I recognised.

Ancient DNA, just your thing, I replied. Or don't you know what that is?

Of course I know what that is, he said. I like to keep up. Tell me all about it.

Well, I said, we went into the foyer with lots of other people, the sort of people you might imagine to be interested in paleontology, and drank 2 glasses of wine on an empty stomach, while looking in glass cases at replicas of fossils, which looked back at us with horrible expressions except in the case of one which appeared to be smiling.

I do not wish to hear this part, said Pliny. Just cut to the lecture, if you please. Although if you had 2 glasses of wine on an empty stomach perhaps you will not make a reliable witness.

I was fine, I said. We went up the wide red-carpetted staircase into the Pacific Cultures gallery and sat down under a suspended plaited straw alligator, near some spears and painted masks. The professor told us that ancient DNA was DNA that has deteriorated. Then he told us about discoveries of caves of moa bones in New Zealand and how a lot could be discovered from ancient moa poo, such as what they used to eat; and that told you a lot about the plants as well.

Fascinating, said Pliny. We used to find giant bones in my day too, and exhibit them as evidence of giants. Some of them were bones of woolly mammoths. Of course we knew that really.

We heard about the woolly mammoths, I said. The research shows that they developed a special type of haemoglobin to stop their ears falling off in the cold.

Hmmmm.... said Pliny. Are you sure you heard that right?

The Lesson

Pliny the Elder, who seems to think he can read anything of mine without asking, has been looking through some of my old diaries for seascapes.

Look at this one, he says excitedly. "Sunday, January 22nd 2006. By the time we realised it was cooling down enough to go for a walk, at about quarter to five, a horrid pall of smoke had enveloped all of Glenelg, and as we later found out, the whole of Adelaide. It was smoke that had blown over from Kangaroo Island where 3 fires were burning."

What memories this brings back!

What memories? I ask.

Of my volcano, he replies. But let me read on.

"Pat and I sat on a seat looking at the smoke-enshrouded sea, whence appeared pallid ghostly marine craft, with and without sails. Pockets of people stood waist deep in the water."

Oh! says Pliny, I can see it all !

"A young man with a smooth brown back cast a line in. What did he think he would catch, we wondered. An older man on a bicycle rode past and patted his saddle in what could have been construed as a lascivious manner, but did not stop."

Oh, that's the end. Pliny looks disappointed. What happened after that? Did the rescue ships arrive in time? And what has the man on the bicycle got to do with it?

Nothing, it rained the next day and the fires went out. They didn't need to send rescue ships. The old man just happened to be passing. But I wrote down what he did to teach him a lesson.

How might that work? No one will read your diary. Well, that is, I ............

Problems with Seascapes

Sunday afternoon at Brighton. Pliny, her mum, and Nostradamus are walking along the esplanade towards the Brighton jetty. It is sunny but windy, and Pliny and her mum are feeling a little bit cold. Pliny is trying to think of an interesting way to describe the jetty.

The sun shines on the bleached wooden pylons, each space between the pylons framing a blue rectangle of sea. Between pylons 17 and 18 the rectangle frames a red and yellow surf life saving boat, further down the bay.

The following day Pliny writes that down.

You have only described what was under and beyond the jetty, observes Pliny the Elder, looking over her shoulder.

Just trying to give a different perspective. I don't like the Brighton jetty very much.

Perhaps you could make it talk, like you did the sea the day before. That was very innovative.

O thankyou, but if that jetty could talk it would only say beware.

Why?

Because it has a mobile phone tower at the end, cunningly disguised as a ship's mast and crow's-nest. But yes, I like to write about the sea. My diary is full of seascapes.

I should like to see those, said Pliny the Elder.

So should I. They aren't very easy to find amongst all my other remarks.

Here is my edge

Pliny and Nostradamus are walking on the beach from Semaphore South to Largs. It is Saturday afternoon, around half past 2.

The air is warm, with a mild cool breeze. The sun is shining in a wide uneven strip of blue sky between clouds. The clouds are light grey and dark grey, stirred with curdled cream.

The clouds have turned the sea the colour of sage. It is glittering, tight-lipped and foamless. On the horizon, 3 ships move slowly north on a silver ribbon of light.

The Semaphore jetty is black against the sage and emerald sea. The sun and the dark clouds have turned it into a painting. Young people standing in the shallows near the jetty have become part of the painting. They are tall and richly coloured and they do not move in the glittering sea.

( the sea is glittering, is sage, the sea is thinking sagely, and in triangles, little triangles of light, foamless and sage..... the sea is thinking sagely...... here is my edge....)

Under the sand is a thin layer of green.

Ca me derange! C'est a dire .....

Well now I have learned something. It is: that it is difficult to write a mathematical proof using only words.

No, that's not it. It is: that it is easy enough to write a mathematical proof in words, but it will be almost impossible for anyone to follow it. You need diagrams. Also, it would have helped if I could have done squared signs.

I did try. I googled 'how to type squared', and learned how to do it. But you need a numeric keypad, and I don't have one. It is holding me back.

It means I can't do French accents either, because you need a numeric keyboard to do them as well. I can't properly write, for example, That deranges me! It is to say you do not wish Easter eggs? in French, as I had occasion to do just the other day.

Needless to say, my daughter did not reply.

Pythagoras's Theorem

Here is another pencil, I said, handing him one. Do continue.

He looked pained. Then he began to concentrate hard. He drew a very faint horizontal line out from the base line of the triangle, beginning at the right angled end. Both he and I knew at once that wasn't right.

It will come back to me, he muttered. It is a long time since I've done it.

How are you doing? I asked sweetly. Would you like a rubber?

No, thank you. Now, if I extend a vertically and b horizontally ....... Yes! I have it! Extend the lines until they are at a point which forms a right angled triangle with a corner of the square! Complete the larger square! Now I have a large square composed of a smaller square and 4 equal sized right angled triangles. That's it.

Go on then, you're only half way there.

He looked at his square. I looked at his square. I looked at him.

You don't remember it do you? I said.

No, he admitted. It temporarily eludes me.

Me too, I said. Let's figure it out together. One thing I do remember; it's logical. And it's to do with working out the area of the larger square in two different ways.

Yes! said Pliny excitedly. The area of the larger square is (a+b) squared. But it is also c squared (which is the area of the smaller square,) plus 4 times half ab, ( half ab being the area of each of the 4 right angled triangles surrounding the smaller square).

Of course! I said. So ( a+b) squared must be equal to 4 times half ab plus c squared. In other words, a squared plus 2ab plus b squared equals 2ab plus c squared.

Take 2 ab from each side! roared Pliny. Which leaves: a squared plus b squared equals c squared! I've done it! The square on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other 2 sides! What's the matter? he said, looking at me.

That used to be my party trick, I said dejectedly. At least that was why I learned it.

But, said Pliny, you hardly ever go to parties, nor do you strike me as the sort of person who would offer to perform a party trick of a mathematical nature for the entertainment of others.

I'm not, I replied. And I can never remember it anyway.

Never mind, said Pliny kindly. I am much the same. Here's your pencil, now practice on your own.

Regrets

My first regret was that we spent a great deal of time looking for a pencil. My second was that Pliny the Elder turned out to be a dab hand at drawing a Norfolk Island Pine.

You probably googled up a photograph of one after you read my blog, I said accusingly.

No, he said. I know how to draw every type of tree.

Well! I said. How extremely boastful. Why are you always trying to get the better of me?

I am not trying, he said.

I was quite annoyed and determined to beat him at something. Then I remembered my party trick. I bet you can't prove Pythagoras's Theorem off the top of your head using that pencil, I snapped.

Pliny looked taken aback. Why? he said. Can you?

I can, I said, ( hoping it was true). But let's see what you can do.

Pliny drew a right angled triangle with his pencil. Then he extended a square out from the hypotenuse. He thought for a while, then he labelled the shorter sides of the triangle a and b and the hypotenuse c. Next he labelled the other 3 sides of the square c as well. He was doing it very slowly. I knew he was playing for time. He's stuck, I thought. Hoorah!

Come on, I said, can't you remember what comes next? (I was playing a dangerous game because I couldn't remember what came next either.)

O Fortuna! said Pliny suddenly, with a jerk of the hand. I've broken the pencil.

Second Question

What is your second question? I asked Pliny. And please make it short. I have things to do.

My question is not short, replied Pliny. You may need to think about your answer and I shall not mind if you do not reply immediately.

I bet it is about pine trees, I hazarded, hoping to stump him.

It is indeed about pine trees but further, it is about all trees. You appear to be suffering from a kind of delusion in regard to the direction in which the branches of trees generally grow. You give the impression that you think Norfolk Island Pines are unusual in having upward growing branches. Can this really be so? You seem to be claiming that they do this in defiance of gravity.
Would you like to explain your position?

That is 2 questions, I said sulkily. I know very well that tree branches generally grow upwards. I just think it's funny that's all. Our own legs and arms and hair all grow downwards. Anyhow, what I wrote was less to do with trees than with the difficulty of drawing them. I challenge you to sit down right now and draw me a pine tree.

You will regret this, said Pliny, looking for a pencil.

Some Questions

I have some questions for you, said Pliny the Elder, about your last 2 blogs.

What are they? I asked.

Firstly, was the purpose of your journey to Barossa Under the Stars to observe an entertainment upon a stage, or was it to observe the moon rising between pine trees at its appointed time?

Why do you ask? I should have thought it was obvious. One has no need of tickets to see the rising of the moon.

Then why, pursued Pliny, did you spend more time describing the moon rising than the entertainment by the man in the red suit with the long face and presumably his hair in some sort of a quiff? Did he fail to engage your interest ? What instrument did he play? What style of music, in what mode? Did he speak ? Was he at all amusing?

Oh yes, He was very good, he played the guitar in a very seductive manner and sang songs both sad and arousing and made a number of jokes.

And yet you allowed yourself to be seduced by the moon?

Now you are making me feel bad. I suppose it was because we had free tickets. Or perhaps it was because of the screen. I was looking at the real man on the stage. He was miniscule, like a little red pixie. I switched my attention to the screen, where he looked a lot bigger. On this screen you could see that he looked the same as he always had on the television. This was no doubt an illusion because the screen was also quite far away. Once you start thinking like that, your attention is all too ready to be diverted by something real and dramatic, like a moon. Does that answer all your questions?

No, it does not. That was only my first question.

Pencil Pines

I can now attest that it would not have been any easier to describe with a pencil. Not for me anyway. And that is not because I am no good at drawing pine trees, although I am. The pine trees I am no good at drawing are Norfolk Island Pines. I can't help drawing the branches sloping down when in fact the branches of Norfolk Island Pines slope upwards. It is not very intuitive of the Norfolk Island Pines, I mean, what about gravity, however that is what they do. But in this case the pines were Pencil Pines, and these are very easy to draw with a pencil.

No, the problem was the moon. After 2 attempts to draw a moon rising from the midpoint of the lefthand side of the righthand Pencil Pine, I realised that my 88% moon had twice looked like a biscuit with a bite out of it. And it should not look like that, for an 88% moon looks shaved, not bitten into. But you try and draw a shaved moon next to a Pencil Pine. It looks just like a full moon only further over. And misrepresents the whole point of the thing.

Under the Stars

Last night we went to see Chris Isaak playing at Barossa Under the Stars. This was because we had free tickets. We went on a coach. It was nearly a 2 hour drive out to the Barossa, once we left the city it was all dust and straw. But the Barossa was a little greener, we saw vines and peach trees and even some grass.

Barossa Under the Stars was held in a huge field surrounded by wind-tossed trees. They were wind-tossed because it was very windy. In front of the trees in a semicircle were food and wine tents. In front of the food and wine tents there were chairs and tables and people sitting at them.

Everyone there was kind of old. It was not something to be depressed about if you were the same. Everyone had brought comfortable folding chairs. Everyone was drinking 5 dollar wine out of 5 dollar glasses, and eating hamper food, oysters, burgers or curry.

It was already none too warm when the warmup band started playing at half past 5. It was too windy to catch it all. When Tina Arena came on at 7 the sun was coming in low under the clouds blinding her. She kept her sunnies on and sang The Look of Love.

By the time Chris Isaak started playing it was dark. The wind had dropped but it was very cold. I had two jackets on and a scarf and was thinking of getting out the fleecy blanket, geriatric as it might make me seem; at least it was dark.

Let me describe. In front of us were about 200 rows of darkened people. Beyond them, the stage, lit up yellow pink and blue, bristling with light boxes, equipment, instruments, the Silvertones, and Chris Isaak playing in the middle in a red suit. He looked a little like Tintin if Tintin had a longer face. To the right of the stage was a screen on which you could see Chris Isaak if you couldn't see him very well in reality, an existential thing this is, to think about. To the right of the screen and some way behind, is a row of pine trees. Above the pine trees, a sky of darkest blue with black clouds edged with frothy coffee. Rising between two pines is the moon. The moon is 88 percent of full. Pine trees are pointy. Therefore the moon appeared to be rising obliquely between the pines. All the more amazing as, the moon being closer to the right hand tree, the missing 12% of the moon, which was ( or rather wasn't) on the left, might well have been expected to compensate for this.

This would certainly be easier to describe to you if I had a pencil.

Like Tintin, if.....

Tin Tin? Who is he?

It was Tintin I meant, of course. Tintin, the boyish-looking red-haired Belgian reporter, with the famous quiff.

And this Tintin played the guitar?

As far as I know he never played the guitar, but Aleksandr played like Tintin might have played if his creator had let him.

Really? How is that?

He sat on a low stool, and instead of hunching over his guitar he strained upwards as though playing to the moon, his mouth forming a little o.

So you don't really mean he played like Tintin, but that he posed in the manner that you imagine the creator of Tintin would have drawn Tintin playing the guitar, had he decided to do so.

Yes, that's what I mean.

And he played well?

Oh yes, he played with great delicacy and sensitivity.

What do you mean by that?

I mean, errr, I don't know. I suppose I mean.....that he played softly with expectant pauses between the notes.

At last! I was beginning to wonder if you had been listening.

Aleksandr?

Cockroaches Have Eaten It

The second Lunch Hour Concert of the year. Pliny's mum was late. She'd had to catch a tram and arrived with just ten minutes to spare. So she had in her handbag a half eaten quiche that was exuding grease into an orange handkerchief. She was not very happy to see that the grease had smeared all over her glasses case as well. She placed the half quiche underneath her seat, wrapped in a paper tissue. Don't let me forget it, she warned Pliny.

The programme was Three Songs, Letters From Composers, and Three Seguidillas, sung by Emma Horwood, accompanied on the guitar by Aleksandr Tsiboulski. Emma is tiny and pretty with a high pure soprano voice. Aleksandr is tall and Ukranian and looks a bit like Tin Tin, if Tin Tin had brown hair.

Pliny liked the Letters from Composers best. Who would have thought to set such letters to music? Chopin describes his camp bed and desk to a friend. Bach complains to the Leipzig Town Council. Puccini longs for the country. I am panting for the free movement of my belly in wide trousers and no waistcoat, sings Emma, gently patting her tummy.

The Seguidillas were extraordinary. The second one went like this:

Girl, what of your virginity, what's happened to it?
The cockroaches, mother, have eaten it.
You're lying, girl, because cockroaches don't have teeth.

Emma sang it in Spanish, in which no doubt it was equally insane.

Nobody laughed though. It was high art after all. When it ended, Pliny and her mum picked up the half eaten quiche and walked out of the auditorium, down the foyer stairs, and waited politely near the front door while a lady who had slipped and sat down on her bottom was picked up by her friends.

Reassurance

Who was that you were talking to? asked Pliny the Elder.

Sigmund Freud, I replied.

Freud ! Tennyson! Why don't you talk to me any more? he said peevishly.

OK. What shall we talk about? Moby Dick?

Why yes, I believe your son has bought a motor bike. Has he ridden it yet?

But I said ........... oh, never mind. Yes he has. Yesterday he was telling me how he decided to ride to the shops for some milk in the evening. It was a long story. First he had to put on his jacket and boots and helmet. Then he had to open up the garage, get the bike out and close the garage. He was on the bike and about to ride off when he remembered he still had the tinted visor and had to go back and change it for the clear visor, because it was night time. At the shops he turned off the engine, got off the bike and was about to walk away from it when he realised his lights were still on. He wondered whether they were programmed to stay on for a few seconds for safety reasons. But they stayed on too long for that. He stood looking at them for several minutes. At last he realised that he'd given the key an extra turn before taking it out, and this had turned the parking lights on. So at least he learned something. Then he bought the milk. Then he got back on the bike and rode home. He put the bike away in the garage. Finally he took off his helmet, his jacket and his motorcycle boots. Quite a performance, just for a carton of milk, he said.

What was the meaning of this story? asked Pliny.

Don't you start, I said. I assure you I didn't make it up or dream it.

No, but you have written it, said Pliny, with a meaningful look. So it must have meant more to you, and indeed to him, since he told it to you, than the tedious nature of the story would seem to indicate.

How clever you are, Pliny, I said. But do you know that you are going deaf? I said Moby Dick, not motor bike, earlier.

I know, said he, but I assumed it was a Freudian slip.

The Golden Pencil

Fascinating, fascinating. What a wealth of interesting detail. Triangles, a golden pencil, waving girls. But tell me more about the motor bike.

There isn't anything to tell. I saw it once. And now you've made me doubtful even of that. Anyway who are you? And I wish you would stop smoking that cigar.

Sigismund is my name. Sigismund Schlomo Freud. I'm interested in the motor bike because I believe nothing is ever mentioned without a deeper purpose.

It was just a THEME! But now you've brought it up, my son has just bought himself a motor bike.

Interesting. And what are your feelings about this development?

Well at first I was alarmed, but now I have come to terms with it.

Come to terms with it! No one ever comes to terms with anything. The thing just buries itself deeper into the psyche and manifests itself in dreams.

Or iGoogle themes. Thankyou Sigismund. It is wonderful to have one's secret fears exposed.

My sentiments entirely. Now tell me more about this golden pencil.......

Overlooking the Sea

Are you sure they didn't ride away on the bicycle? After all there was a bicycle propped up against the post outside the cafe.

Yes, I'm sure it was a motor bike. Even though I only saw it once.

Well, I don't suppose it matters, but I think they should have ridden off on the bicycle.

Perhaps it was someone else's bicycle. One of the motor boat girls, or someone who had come down to the cafe for a drink in the evening.

Where was the motor bike then?

I don't know. It could have been round the back. Stop asking me questions. I only started writing about my iGoogle theme because it reminded me of the view of the sea from the Somerton Surf Life Saving Club cafe on Sunday afternoon. Or rather the view reminded me of it. It was meant as a lead-in, but I got carried away.

Well it sounds like a lovely theme. That would be the life, eh? Sitting all day outside a cafe overlooking the sea. And on Sunday you...?

We found ourselves, after a climb up a ramp which nearly did for my mum, sitting outside a clifftop cafe overlooking the sea . We were eating icecreams and trying to keep them from melting, three of us, sitting on the same side of a small metal table under an umbrella that was angled all wrong. We were looking at the sea. It was flat and blue, but we were facing into the sun and there was a shimmering triangle of light like scribbles from a golden pencil floating mesmerisingly in front of our squinting eyes. A motor boat cut across the triangle from left to right, so far out that it made no sound. I imagined it full of waving girls.

Cobi

Whenever I want to relax I think of my iGoogle theme, which is Spanish, designed by Javier Mariscal. It changes throughout the day. Two dogs sit at a table under a palm covered awning outside a cafe overlooking the sea. One of the dogs, Cobi, wears a black beret.

In the morning the sea is blue and they are drinking steaming mugs of coffee. Later on, the sea is yellow. Now Cobi reads a book and his friend uses a laptop, while two girl dogs speed by waving from a motor boat. Later again, the friend is out in a little boat fishing while Cobi, still wearing his beret, reads a newspaper. The sea is a deep golden colour. Two fish jump near the jetty, far from the boat. The characters are dogs but in true cartoon style they have a real dog as a pet. This dog stands near the jetty and eyes the fish. In the evening the sea is blood red and everyone has gone inside the cafe except the dog, who is asleep. A bicycle leans against a post.

Once very late at night I caught the midnight blue night scene where Cobi and his friend are disappearing down the road on a motor bike.

I love this theme, along with 31,314 others. No, that must be 31,313 others, because one of the 31,314 is me.

Eggs in Focus

And did you burn the eggs? asked Pliny the Elder, scornfully.

No I caught them just in time. But it was a close run thing.

Hah! said Pliny. That will teach you not to lose focus. Concentrate on one thing at a time, is my motto. Potatoes, rice, eggs! A ridiculous mishmash of ideas.

Yes I learned my lesson. You would no doubt have just stuck to eggs.

I would indeed. By the way, do you know what you could have done with the eggs had they turned out to be inedible?

No. What?

You could have beaten them up with nasturtium for use as a liniment for injuries inflicted by serpents.

I don't as a rule get injured by serpents. Have you anything for mosquitoes?

Pennyroyal, crushed and rubbed on the skin. But I feel I should point out that we are straying from the topic.

Looking for Potatoes

I'm cooking eggs. I'm answering the question What are you doing right now? the one that comes up on Facebook. I really am cooking eggs though. Not like yesterday when I wrote on my Facebook profile Lynn is looking for potatoes. I wasn't really looking for potatoes. I had been, but I hadn't found any and was already cooking some brown rice. So I could have written Lynn is cooking brown rice, but I didn't. I didn't even think of it.

Brown rice is nice, but lacking in literary qualities. It doesn't conjure up anything, except the idea of an exemplary dinner. Eat as much brown rice as you like. You will never get fat.

Not so potatoes. Potatoes are literary. If you read that Lynn is looking for potatoes, what vistas gather before your eyes? What scenarios? What gardenscapes, what markets, what dark pantry shelves, what kitchens, small and large? What creamy mayonnaises, what chives and butters, and what grated cheese? What knives and forks and mashers?

What famines? Yes, Lynn was only looking for potatoes. She did not say she found them. What if she had none? The Facebook friends would all be thinking about her and hoping for the best. Worrying that she might have to go to bed hungry. Not knowing about the brown rice. Or the steak and vegetables that she had with it.

Yes, it was a grand deception. But I really am cooking eggs just now.

Oh crikey, the eggs!

Variations

It is the first Lunch Hour Concert of the year, in the Elder Hall. Pliny is there with her mum. Kristian Chong will be playing variations by Brahms and Rachmaninov, and a modern piece called Toccata DNA, on the piano.

Pliny looks up. She sees the old familiar backs of heads from previous years. The man who once had a 3 inch long hair sticking horizontally out of his right ear; the man who always looks as though he is sitting in a stiff breeze; the bald man with the pitted skull; the woman who might be Mrs Bull if only she would turn around; the man in the red jumper; the mermaid with thin ginger hair.

The Brahms begins. Pliny likes variations. You know where you are with variations, she thinks. There is a theme, and then there are the variations. They are like the theme, but different. You don't need to worry that you're missing something, or wonder if it's meant to be about joy, or despair, or the properties of water.

Some people have gone to sleep already. They know where they are with variations.

Now Kristian is up to the Toccata DNA. This is a modern take on variations. It is about DNA replication and the consequences of slight changes in the double helix. What a clever piece of programming. Everyone is awake again now.

The Rachmaninov starts off with a waltz. Pliny has forgotten this too is going to be a set of variations. She tries hard not to miss anything. She tries to determine whether or not it is about water. She does not remember until much later, when she is walking home, and gets the programme out to read while she is waiting at the lights.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Your poem, though hastily conceived, has one admirable quality, boomed a voice.

Is that you, Pliny?

No, not Pliny. Alfred, Lord Tennyson is my name.

Oh, this is an honour! What were you saying about my poem?

I was about to make an encouraging remark regarding its subject and form.

Please do.

I was particularly struck by the way you ended each stanza with a long and non-rhythmical line that petered out unemphatically in a way suggestive of the water disappearing from the lake.

I'm thrilled you noticed.

I always notice such things these days. Ever since someone pointed out that I had used a similarly suggestive device in In Memoriam, the poem I wrote upon the death of my friend Arthur Hallam, and for which I am most famous.

Do you mean you hadn't realised you'd done it until it was pointed out?

My dear, this is just between us poets.

Thankyou, Alfred, I mean your Lordship.

No, you may call me Alfred.

Was there any thing else you liked about my poem, Alfred, since we're on the subject?

No, I am very sorry, but there wasn't. And I do think it might be better if it rhymed.

Torrens Lake

It's been raining! Now
the Torrens Lake is filling
up again. Some weeks ago the weir gate
was said to have malfunctioned and the water drained away into the sea.


It was dirty water anyway, with
blue green algae in it. There were rumours
that a council worker may have had
something more to do with it than failing to prevent the great escape.


Anyway. It was a huge
embarrassment. The Film Festival
and the Fringe were due to start
and the confluence of visitors would ridicule us for our stinky mudflats.


The Torrens flowed no more
by Elder Park, the beautified embankment.
Someone offered to donate some water
to refill it from an unused quarry that they owned up in the hills.


That water turned out to be
unsuitable, too high in sulphate. It would
have harmed the water fleas and fish,
so was abandoned as an option and we waited for the rain.


Last weekend I went with Allan to inspect,
thinking it our civic duty. We were
surprised to see the Torrens Lake
filling up a little on its own, drawing water from an aquifer underground.


It looked so natural. The water level
very low, the river banks exposed and tree
roots too, mudflats, now cleared of cars
and wheelie bins and witches hats, bristling with clay-encrusted bottles.


The Popeye barges stranded, at odd angles,
paddleboats lined up along the brink.
The fountain infrastructure looked too fragile,
but the Paper Boats in contrast were supported by huge rusty metal rings.


The stink was not so bad.
There was a smell of creosote
and ducks. The ducks and black swans,
seagulls and one pelican looked as though they'd never liked the Torrens Lake so much.

Cracks

Oh no we don't, I said to Pliny, ( 24 hours later ). I've just been looking up the origin of the name Livingstone and it has nothing to do with stones.

What has it to do with? asked Pliny, looking sceptical.

A place in West Lothian, the home of one Livingus, a Saxon, who moved there during the reign of king Edgar, 1097-1107.

So your father was named after him?

Oh no, my father was named after the redoubtable Dr Livingstone, who was thought to be lost in Africa for many years and was famously found by a journalist called Stanley, in Ujiji on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in 1871.

Alright, but you must still explain....

I hope you are not going to say the likeness?

No, no, I was going to say the proximity. The living stone creature being a native of South Australia, as we have seen.

You forget. I myself was not born here, but in England.

I see I shall have to consult the teachings of Pythagorus more deeply.

Go ahead. Meanwhile, would you like a piece of birthday cake? There is plenty left.

No thankyou. I find that there is too much icing in the cracks.

Living Stone

Pliny the Elder has been googling for a long time. He sits back, and laughs.

What's up, Pliny? I say.

You claim you were a stone in a former life, says Pliny. Well I have just uncovered the very one you must have been.

I thought you said my claim was preposterous.

It was, in terms of Pythagorean doctrine. For Pythagorus believed in transmigration of the soul, but only between humans, animals and plants, in other words, only between living creatures.

So? I say testily.

So. I thought I would do some research of my own, to see if there is any record of such a thing as a living stone.

And is there?

At first I came up against a wall of Livingstones. People with that name. I was googling through the googlepages thinking this is surely proof there are no living stones. But then I began to question why there should be so many people with this name? There must surely be a reason for that.

Why yes! My own father was called Joseph Andrew Livingstone!

Aha! Anyway, this served to spur me on. I googled to the 6th page and there I saw the words: Living stone. I clicked on the entry. Imagine my surprise when I saw a large coloured photograph of a mottled brown stone with a head and legs!

Come on Pliny, it was a fake.

No, it was not. The site belonged to the CSIRO. That is your Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, is it not? They would not countenance a fake.

No. So what is it exactly?

A Raniliella Testudo. Phylum: Arthropoda. Class: Hexapoda. Order: Orthoptera. Family: Acrididae.

That's a stone? It sounds more like a sort of grasshopper. Let's have a look.

I look over Pliny's shoulder at the photograph on the screen. It is a repulsive-looking fat brown and tan mottled creature, or stone, in the shape of a deformed tortoise, with grasshopper-like legs and a head like a small potato. It sits amongst real stones of a similar size and colour. The site is indisputably a CSIRO site, with the CSIRO logo. There is a map showing where the creature can be found within Australia. The only state where it has been confirmed is my own.

Pliny, I say, I withdraw my claim unconditionally.

I fear, says Pliny, that we now have too much evidence for that to be an option.