Semetivae

My Share of The National Debt

2008-11-29T22:16:00.000Z

The Poetry of Economy

2008-11-13T11:40:00.002Z

Poetry has always been very hard to pin-down, to define in universally-accepted terms. A poem may have meter, but it is not neccessary. It may rhyme, but then it may not. A poem may have form or be completely formless. It is as though poetry is mutually inclusive of nothing.

But for one thing. The one thing that poetry definitely possesses is an economy of language. With exception only to the Beats (who I don't think should be classed as poets, as such), all poetry harnesses its own essence with the fewest words possible.

I would go as far to say that economy isn't something included within poetry, it is synonymous with poetry.

And I would also suggest that our great privation is of economy, ergo poetic experience.

"Economy" I intend as an all-ecompassing term. I mean, the information and media that permeate our lives are unpoetic precisely because they have no economy, no restraint.

We live in an age where fame for fame's sake is a recognisable objective. People desperate for fame willingly sign up to publicise their hitherto private lives in the pseudo reality of the Big Brother house or some other misnomered "reality" TV show. What shows like Big Brother give us - rather than the opportunism of opening a public debate on some manifest fault, foible, friction or handicap - is an excess (rather than economy) of information.

The viewer is exposed to the vulgar minutiae of those terrified of their own anonymity. Television would be richer if only it were more economical - we do not need to witness the pointless banters and behaviours of a decagynia of cherry-picked oddballs rattling around in a fabricated house for an hour (or twenty four hours, if you have cable).

It is true to say that films were better in the black & white days because they had poetic economy. Sex was always implied, never shown, in the Golden Age of Hollywood and was all the more poetic and arresting for this economy.

Since the technicolour of the Sixties, sex on the screen has become progressively longer and increasingly embarrassing. The fact of its excess renders it unnecessary. That is not to be prudish, merely to point out that Double Indemnity in the 1940s was far better than its remake, Body Heat, in the 1980s.

True the original script and cinematography were better, but also in Double Indemnity neither did you have to sit through thirty minutes of "steamy" smooching before the plot even thought about slotting into second gear. "The lead characters are passionate about each other - we get it already!"

In many ways this lack of economy is an insult to the intelligence: Subtlety must be banished because they think we're too thick to "get it" when it's only implied.

At first I thought it was typical Labourite socialism on the part of Hazel Blears to denounce political blogging on the Internet. This isn't Russia, Blears. But, though I disagree with her, I can sympathise with her point: Anyone out there can open a blog (such as myself) and write a load of visceral, uninformed drivel (I'm setting up a very obvious put-down to anyone who hates me or my blog, here).

There is no restraint, no economy. There is mostly a needy vying for attention - Chris Crocker's impassioned defence of Britney Spears, for example. His inability to economise his emotional outpouring will mean - in spite of the fame he earned from his YouTube clip - will be his burden: The dignity he publicly sacrificed when he filmed himself bawling.

Allow me to leave you with this: At the train station near my workplace there was a fatality. A woman - it was reported to me - was pushed/fell onto the train-track.

As well as being killed, this woman's leg was severed.

The person who reported this news to me was himself at the train-station at the time of this horrific tragedy. By coincidence he had a good camera on him and because "never seen a severed leg before" decided to capture the loose limb as a high-resolution image. Not only content with satisfying his own curiosity, he proceeded to turn his camera 180 degrees to give me a glimpse of the macabre.

Again, this is an example of excess rather than economy. The severed leg is something we do not need to know. More than that, it is one final assault upon the deceased, first for their life to be taken and then for their privacy and dignity.

When we have poetic experience, we can make sense of life - and death. We console ourselves with our metaphorical position in the universe - ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But that is lost when we move from economy to excess, when we adopt a fascination with a limb detached from its owner. It is lost in the idiotic theatre of reality television when we witness live on-air Jade Goody being diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Above all what has been lost is this: The ability to ignore information which we do not need. With the excess of information out there - on the TV, on the Internet, in the newspapers - the onus is ours to select the information that truly benefits us and improves our life, health and intelligence.

Why We Need Wasps

2008-09-30T09:36:00.006+01:00

There is a stock conversation, which most of us participate at some point, the purpose of which is to ascertain the existence of a completely superfluous entity of flora or fauna in the hope of denying its very right to exist.

Recently I got into this very debate about wasps. They're pointless, right? Someone asked me recently.

An innocent enquiry that betrays a human inability to see the worth of an animal unless it has some form of obvious employment (cow) or a high aesthetic value (peacock). And without obvious form of employment the event of its non-existence doesn't upset the equilibrium of the world.

Wasps don't make honey after all.

And herein is the egoism that a species must have an employment which benefits human-kind.

The absenting of wasps from the eco-system would of course, if not apparently, upset the balance of the natural order. But if it's human application we're looking for:

Wasps are a natural pesticidal. They eat many parasites which feed on our crops. Without wasps we would require more pesticides on our crops; that would mean more toxic chemicals on the skins of our apples and carrots, ergo our bodies.

Without wasps we would be devoid of another of life's poetic sequences too: That the fig must be pollinated by a female wasp. In order to pollinate the fig, the female wasp enters the fig flower and loses its wings in this floral labyrinth; it has no means of turning back. It dies, there, of loneliness. A fig fruit is created.

Without wasps there would be no figs; no fig trees left in spite of their Biblical precedence. No leaves to disguise man's original sin.

Sementivae Update - Update Your Bookmarks

2008-09-29T14:13:00.005+01:00

A friend once quipped that using the resource-draining Internet to harp on about harpooning and environmental catastrophe is hypocritical.

The same could be said of a pro-environmental book. It too wastes resources - trees, pulping, printing, (usually) a supply greater than demand etc. We wastrels can only hope that our environmental endeavours are more valuable to the planet's welfare than the initial outlay.

In the hope, or belief, that I can recoup more than - through this blog - what's wasted (and watts wasted) I have invested in the domain name www.sementivae.com

Actually, my wife invested in it on my behalf. Very astutely she (metaphorically) swam against the current of my dispassion over acquiring www.sementivae.com by appealing that it is one of the very few single-word domain names left unmolested in the great expanse of the Internet.

Because of she-who-must-be-obeyed's meddling, you will now need to update your bookmarks for this site to http://www.sementivae.com (the old address will still redirect here, nonetheless).

Hopefully it will give Sementivae the air of professionalism that can only be attained through independence from blogspot's urls.

The Worst of All Possible Worlds

2008-09-12T10:48:00.004+01:00

In Voltaire's riotously funny novella Candide, the object of ridicule, Dr. Pangloss espouses that we live in the best of all possible worlds. Modelled on the lampooned philosopher Leibniz, Pangloss reasons:

It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles.

The novella's protagonist, Candide, a student of Pangloss experiences a journey through hardships that lead him to reject Pangloss' theory of optimism.

The debate in literary and philosophical circles is whether Voltaire was, conversely, advocating pessimism - or, simply, a pragmatic view of the world.

I have myself wondered - of the Planet in its current mode, of developed society in its current mode - whether we occupy the worst of all possible worlds.

That is to say, in a 21st Century developed society, our raison d'etre seems twofold. To live, as it were, (1) to not be sued and (2) to act and legislate as if the worst possible outcome will happen. The latter ostensibly legitimising the former, or vice versa.

I learned recently from a friend that an old Willow in Blackheath by the pond had been uprooted for 'Elf & Safety reasons. The reasoning behind the council's mission to uproot this lovely, inoffensive willow was that someone may trip over the overground roots of the tree, injure themselves and seek compensation from the authorities for their failure to vanquish the errant tree.

For fear of being sued, a thing of natural beauty has been destroyed. The world is a little uglier.

And with regards to preparing for the worst possible outcome I remember at a workplace we had an intruder. Someone high on drugs went on an intoxicated rampage throughout the workplace. In response to this, one office in the workplace cordoned off its main entrance and insisted that all staff access the office via a secondary, more remote, less convenient door.

This practice continued for some months, until the impracticality of this detour was realised. I ascribe this to simple lack of common sense. That was the one and only intoxicated rampage that occurred in that workplace, ever.

Common sense would have decreed the unlikelihood of that random event being repeated. The irrational fear is borne from employers acknowledging the odds-against chance of the event reoccurring and being sacked or prosecuted for not taking the safety of the workforce into consideration. Thus daft little gestures such as sectioning off the main access door suffice in case the event repeats itself. I did something.

It's much like those who refuse to fly immediately after hearing the report of an airline crash on the news. Actually, this would be the safest time to fly. Probability-wise it is unlikely that two planes are going to have unrelated but similar accidents in a short space of time.

But I am not criticising the aviation-abstainers, far from it. They have been introduced by way of example only.

Who I am criticising are the employers, the authorities who make life as miserable for the sake of protecting their jobs, their salaries, their legal freedom.

To illustrate a point this is one of those mad health and safety mandates requesting that an elderly gardener, June Turnbull, who cares for the flowers in a village in Wiltshire, has been ordered to wear a fluorescent jacket and place signs around her so as to satisfy 'Elf & Safety demands.

So the innocent pleasure and pastime of an elderly woman, and the upkeep of flora and fauna in Wiltshire village, are second to the off-chance that June Turnbull will be flattened by a stampede of sabre-toothed tigers whose ferocious attacks can only be repelled by one object known to man - the fluorescent jacket.

Aside from documenting my general loathing of Health & Safety and Political Correctness, my reasoning for writing this is to return to the argument that nature is best left to its own devices. If there are trees with exposed roots, then nature will favour he who is vigilant of exposed tree roots.

Take this Health and Safety nonsense to its logical conclusion: Should all land be flattened out so no one trips? Should we have no jagged or sharp branches lest someone is cut? Should we have no fig trees lest they encourage wasp nests and increase the chances of wasp stings? Should we chisel down all mountains so no one falls off them? Should we erect posts at every one meter to sign every potential danger within that radius? File down a lion's teeth so that it poses no danger to tourists on safari?

Terraforming, according to Health & Safety regulations, would lead to a dull, bland, tamed world. What is worse is that this Healthier, Safer world provides no benefits to anyone except the stupid and luckless. To all else, it is the making of the worst of all possible worlds.

I personally would rather have that willow tree and risk cracking my head open falling over its roots.

Zen At War?

2008-09-04T11:00:00.003+01:00

I have in my hands a book called Zen At War. Not read anything of it except the blurb, which goes: "Zen At War challenges Buddhists to think through the ethical consequences of venerated doctrines and examine them in light of the Buddha's original teachings". The cover art depicts Japanese military manoeuvres, implying a contrary violence.

The author's name is Brian Daizen Victoria, and his biography reveals that he is a Soto Zen priest.

I will be interested to read this book as it is my opinion that Zen is no more Buddhism than Protestant Christianity is Sufi Islam, though both have a definite point of historical confluence.

The War In Darfur and Climate Change

2008-08-20T12:08:00.004+01:00

In recent articles I have theorised that overpopulation is a cause of both environmental destruction and war. Specifically, that conflict acts to depopulate a species which has multiplied to the extent that it threatens environmental stability.

As such, I felt, in part, vindicated by this quote from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the causes of the War In Darfur deriving:

"[I]n part from climate change...to some degree, from man-made global warming. The scale of historical climate change, as recorded in Northern Darfur, is almost unprecedented: the reduction in rainfall has turned millions of hectares of already marginal semi-desert grazing land into desert. The impact of climate change is considered to be directly related to the conflict in the region, as desertification has added significantly to the stress on the livelihoods of pastoralist(sic) societies, forcing them to move south to find pasture,"

The Birds: A Prophecy?

2008-08-11T13:08:00.007+01:00

I never appreciated the reverence afforded to Alfred Hitchcock. The majority of his films - aside from 39 Steps, Psycho and Vertigo - were insipid and, when shot in technicolour, nauseating. The Birds was one such film which, though disliking, enthralled me nonetheless with its hypothetical scenario of beasts conspiring against man.

Trying to do for avians as Psycho did for showers or Vertigo for nuns, the film set about commodifying a terror - and, though confined to the realms of fictionalised horror (as it would have been at the time of its release), we are now seeing an uprising of animals against man analogous to that of The Birds.

This article in The Telegraph reports there are an increasing number of assaults by animals upon humans. Further to Sementivae alluding the plight of pachyderms, it would seem that elephants have had their fill of humans' abuse and are now fighting back.

What is curious is not so much that elephants are attacking humans without precedence, but that elephants continents apart in both Asia and Africa are doing so. In fact, not just elephants but many other species of the animal kingdom from chimpanzees to crocodiles to badgers.

More than just coincidence or scaremongering or glorification, this intriguing phenomenon is accepted scientifically. In the name of science we ask why and how is this happening?

The most casual explanation is that there are an increasing number of humans which means an increasing number to be attacked by animals, but this doesn't explain why hitherto benign animals are assaulting humans - fox attacks in Edinburgh being one such example.

We could say that animals have realised that humans as prey are relatively defenseless. Indeed, take away our weapons, our harpoons, rifles, bombs, then we are - so to speak - quite toothless. Physically weak as the human species is, not all animals attacking humans are predators of humans - Sea-horses, anyone?

I wonder if this is not evolutionary pressure. This biggest threat to the existence of every mammal on the planet - whether directly through hunting and scientific testing or indirectly through global warming - is humankind.

It makes sense, in context of these species' survival, that they compute the threat of humankind and act to combat that threat, consciously or intuitively. Where chimpanzees' territory and livelihood is endangered by humans, you want chimpanzees that are powerful enough to defend what is theirs.

But what is most remarkable is that this is an inter-species attack. It would be much less inscrutable to the human mind if, say, sharks had conspired among themselves to increase their diet of surfers intra-species without other species similarly increasing their attacks on humans.

Yet the species are fighting back in concerto against human kind. The most rational explanation is that humans have simply pissed off a great number of species instead of their being a collusion telegraphed between chimps and rhinos and sharks, but the phenomenon is no less impressive.

This 'mobilisation' should never have been unpredicted by scientists, or the exclusive domain of fanciful celluloid, because its stands to reason that humans can't expect to put such a burden upon the natural world and live free of bad consequence or a massive-scale Gaian equaliser.

Cloning: A False Sense of Security

2008-07-07T12:59:00.005+01:00

The list of critically endangered species is complacently long. A portion of this complacency, I'd say, is assignable to the science of cloning. Ever since the Spielberg's cinematic popularising of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, we have been seduced by the theoretical possibilities of raising, Lazarus-like, dinosaurs from their immemorial death-beds.

The raising of the dead is misguidedly Christ-like and the creation-by-duplication of the living is misguidedly God-like. I would happily substitute the cliche of "we mustn't play God" with my own mantra that The further a thing is from nature, the worse it is. In this case they amount to the same thing.

Humanity creating life other than through sexual reproduction is not natural. We can conclude that it is inherently bad.

A practical - and famous - example is that of Dolly the Sheep. Dolly was a cloned sheep. She died at age six due to a pathologically accelerated aging process.

I don't understand the minutiae of the science of cloning, but I can't see how it it any different to making a colour photocopy of Starry Night. The masterpiece - mastercopy, even - would reproduce, but several times degraded.

There are three main pro- arguments of cloning that I am aware of: That of food, that of medicine, that of renaissance.

The derangement that is the science of cloning attempts subterfuge by dangerously appealing to our rationality: If we can clone food, then there will be no more famine.

As the case of Dolly suggests, the quality of the food may not be wholesome if it is pathologically aged.

Not only that, the artificial creation of flesh and crops would cause an imbalance in our planet's delicate and tenuous eco-system and food-chain.

Then there are the claims that cloning will improve medicine. That may be true, but would this method, if successful in its aim of sustaining life, not unnaturally explode the Earth's population and turn it into a planet-sized Hillsborough catastrophe?

Thirdly there is the renaissance of defunct or dead species: If we believe in the potential for recreating species, we do need to worry about extinguishing those species. As such, we'd be free to go about our daily pursuits with such abandon and disregard for the organism that subsumes us (and all other life) and worry even less (if that is possible) about the consequences of operating factories, deforestation, urbanisation etc.

We can always regenerate the species that die as collateral.

The human error is to make a half-arsed fact out of a half-baked theory. Just because time-travel is shown to be theoretically possible by Stephen Hawkin or Doctor Who, doesn't mean we need to invest our resources to make it real.

Human beings can live -and have lived - perfectly contently without experiencing a wormhole, terraforming Mars or cloning their trumped-up selves.

Ours is now the burden to live, painfully conscious of the fragility of things. To forsake this burden will be perilous.

Currently there are a group of Russian and Japanese scientists seeking to recreate the Woolly Mammoth. There is no justification for this other than a childish fantasy that is pure crazy when that childish fantasy exists in the mind of the supposed academic elite.

To reintroduce the Woolly Mammoth is to alter a fact that is millions of years old - That the animal is dead.

As well as the obvious financial gains to be made from catapulting the Woolly Mammoth from a Pleistocene tundra to a twenty-first Century zoo or incubator (or - the cruelest joke ever - from one grave to another grave set millions of years apart), at the root of it there is a human inability to accept his own mortality.

The idea of creating/recreating life serves to assuage us of the inclemency of death. And this too is monetary: Broadly speaking, those civilizations and cultures who prize material possessions fear death (as they have more lose, to judge, or more to ferry across to the other side).

I'm sure an anthropologist would confirm that the more spiritual cultures (e.g., Native Americans, Tibetans etc.) are more philosophical about the fact of death; with the opposite being true of the more material cultures - I'll never listen to my iPod again!

Whatever is the impulse to clone, we need to overcome it and recognise that the false sense of security it brings is fallacious.

Proud to be a Monarchist

2008-06-05T12:27:00.003+01:00

What I can't stand is this trendy, faux-republican attitude a lot of people in Britain have towards our Royal Family. The desire for disestablishment of the Royal Family befits only the mind of immature iconoclasts.

And in spite of my own criticism of Harry's gaming, I think Harry has proved himself a true lion heart with his exploits in Iraq.

But more importantly, we in Britain - and worldwide - should feel very fortunate that we have his father HRH Prince Charles to fight a number of good causes.

The causes he has championed demonstrates his sensitivity, lucidity and orthodoxy towards the environment which should force us to a consensus that, far from his privilege background making him an ivory-towered irrelevance, he lives above the limits and disinterest of the rat-race that provides him the means to address the plight of our planet.

In the last year, Charles has voiced concern for the London skyline and its conservation - Erstwhile mayor Ken Livingstone was wont to erect ephemeral glass monstrosities and Stalinesque cinder blocks which only violated the beautiful antiquity of the capital.

He has campaigned to save an historical town in Beijing from being demolished (the rate at which China is destroying its beautiful history in the name of progress is alarming).

Now, he has patronised a website to educate us about the fatuous destruction of the rain-forest. Credit where credit is due.

I will leave you with an article he wrote for the Telegraph:

Today is World Environment Day, a day that should remind us that there is
just the smallest window left for us to act to stop catastrophic climate change.
The frightening reality is that the consequences of global warming are being
felt far more rapidly than most scientists predicted even 18 months ago.Today is
World Environment Day, a day that should remind us that there is just the
smallest window left for us to act to stop catastrophic climate change. The
frightening reality is that the consequences of global warming are being felt
far more rapidly than most scientists predicted even 18 months ago... take me to the Telegraph to continue reading HRH Prince Charles' article

Celebrities In Karmic Universes Shouldn't Throw...

2008-06-03T12:03:00.009+01:00

Is it too late for me to join in the Sharon Stone bashing? No? Good.

Stone has been worldwidely and rightly condemned for announcing that she believes that the recent earthquake in Sichuan, China was karma for China's violations of the Tibetan people.

What hasn't been suggested, I don't think, is that perhaps Sharon Stone should refrain from expressing such an opinion until she learns the metaphysical distinction between the concept of karma and the concept of a vengeful god.

Karma is not an entity and possesses no consciousness. Having no consciousness, it cannot act as a moral arbiter that can evaluate justice and mete punishment.

(I have always interpreted karma along the lines of a mathematical principle that by nature things just average out over the course of space and time - nothing more complex than that).

True, the Chinese themselves are asking whether the earthquake is judgement upon their government, but this self-scrutiny and hypothesising on the part of the Chinese is a different kettle of fish to Stone's rich (in both senses of the word), ensconced, moral showboating.

Like other celebrities who seem desperate to prove that the lavatory of their mind can boast the status "occupied", she can be considered no more than a non sequitur irrelevance.

I started a poke...

2008-04-01T22:20:00.003+01:00

There is a psychological report - which may have since disappeared into the ether as I haven't retrieved it - that stated that all conversation must obey a rule: If something you say is not helpful, educational, polite or constructive, then do not say it.

It was either these four qualities or else a very similar quadruplet of factors that need to be satisfied in conversation.

When I heard this report on the radio I became nascently conscious of how I speak and how wastefully. When I realised how much of what I speak is neither polite nor constructive I felt ashamed. And by that epiphany I have made my linguistic conversion.

I have also become aware of how we painfully squander spoken language, our greatest asset. In spoken language we have something which sets us aloof from every other animal in the kingdom.

I remember once someone astutely observed that we now say How are you! and not How are you? It is a subtle detail, but a very telling one - we neglect enquiries into meaning in favour of something no more than raw percussion. How are you! You might as well shake a maraca.

So - in all seriousness I ask - what is the point of 'poking' me on Facebook? Instead of offering a meaningless 'poke' (har har), why not write something meaningful, something that may excite interest in me or give me a welcome iota of literary pleasure.

Think of all the megawatts of energy going into those servers just to provide generation with the power can poke, throw an American football at, or 'hug' me.

For God sake, say something meaningful. Do your bit stave off the existential crisis of modern existence.

Think(less) Thank

2008-03-14T15:58:00.005Z

Contrarywise to my own self-expectations, I find myself not totally uncharmed by - in spite of my long history of aversion to - the works of Banksy. On two scores I reproach myself: the first that I have a profound inconsanguinity with the (street) culture of grafitti and tagging; the second that Todd "read some feminism" Swift has lent his patronage to Banksy (and I would prefer not to be in common assent with Swift in any instance).

So, I, Mr-I-Don't-Know-Much-About-Art-But-I-Know-What-I-Hate, begrudingly tip my baseball cap to Banksy. Or I would if it were on the right way round.

No, it isn't art. But some of it is decent satire, funny in places and in others impressively illusory. In the later category I refer to his skeletal, Death-like monkey in a rowing boat spray-painted on the side of a real boat (or was it a barge?).

My own gripe with Banksy is, however, one of his defining features: his politics. Politically, like many artisists, he is juvenile and trite, shooting at targets which are both easy and have been shot at before. The monarchy, for one. It is bit like having to sit through yet another music video of Madonna "subversively" sexualising the Christian faith; or Marilyn Manson, in spite of his intelligence, repetitively drawing parallels between Christianity and fascism.

If one really insists upon making a critique of myopic, fundamentalist monothiesm, there are more contemporary, urgent variants of religious fundamentalism deserving of critique than Christianity. But that would require too much bravery.

And, for the same reason, Banksy is not only a coward but he is often boring. Why risk life and liberty scaling buildings and railways to insult a largely apolitical, benign monarchy? Because the means is more interesting than the end.

In more than one respect. Banksy's work makes overtures to anarchy and revolution. Anarchy and revolutions are mere slogans, words devoid of their original concept. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I too spoke of revolutions, not quite sure what, after revolting, one would do exactly. It's a battle-cry without a battle-field. Revolution. Anarchy.

And the whole anonymity thing is naff. Apologists - Brad Pitt among them - would argue that Banksy should be commended for his maintenancy of anonymity in an age where the goal is to be celebrity. But that's it precisely: To be anonymous in this day and age where cameras like rats (to use one of Banksy's beloved images) are never less than six metres away smacks of, well, trying too hard.

Before modernity-as-we-know it yes, sure, a highwayman, a masked-bandit or Zorro would have heightened romantic or mythic appeal. But now it's just naff.

This, being Sementivae, I couldn't forgo my diversion into the world of Banksy without commenting his spray-painting on animals: I don't even want to see graffiti on trains and inanimate objects, let alone livestock.

This was supposed to be a positive review of Banksy. It transpires that I don't like his work after all. All is right again.

The Panamanian Golden Frog

2008-02-13T13:07:00.004Z

We do not hear much of Panama. Apart from insurance-fraudsters Anne-Darwin and her formerly-dead canoeist husband, John, incriminating themselves being photographed there, we do not hear much of Panama.

Even I, who was an avid geographer in my pre-teens and learned by rote all the capital cities of the world, would have trouble finding that slip of a country that looks as though it shoulders the responsibility of keeping the landmasses of the north and south Americas from tearing away from each other.

Thanks to David Attenborough's ever enlightening wildlife documentaries - the current run named Life In Cold Blood - I know a little more about Panama. Specifically, that it is home to a fascinating but endangered amphibian, the golden frog.

Attenborough's Life In Cold Blood explores the lives of cold-blooded animals (ectotherms, to use the accurate term) such as lizards, snakes and frogs.

The focus of the last quarter of the second episode of the series devoted itself to the Panamanian golden frog.

Not only these frogs remarkable for their aurification, but they communicate with each other with hand-gestures. They wave. The exact meaning of the wave is not know. It could be a greeting, a peace-sign, or a warning. But the wave is performed with something like a refined dignity. It is both very gentlemanly and martial at once.

As I sat watching this foray into the lives of the Panamanian golden frog, I thought to myself please don't announce that they're on the brink of extinction (as you do).

My pessimism was not unfounded. The golden frog is indigenous and exclusive to Panama and - in spite of being an ever-present feature in Panamanian folk-lore - has always been a rare species.

And now they are on the brink of extinction. I was primed to get angry with humans, anticipating logging or some other autistic (in the Greek sense of the word) human activity as responsible for their demise.

But no - and if there is a consolation - it seems that humans are (relatively) blameless for it is a fungal infection sweeping through the golden frog community and wiping them out. Attenboroughs film crew had to be disinifected before approaching the frogs so as to not distribute the fungal disease any more.

Since Attenborough and his film crew captured the frogs on film in the wild, they have been extracted from their habitat and relocated to the safety of expert care. Infected frogs are in hospital.

It is hoped that the numbers of the golden frog can be raised and that one day they will be returned to their natural habitat. Other eco-systems depend upon it.

The following website offers further information about the golden frog http://www.ranadorada.org/species-info.htm as does Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_frog

David Attenborough's Life In Cold Blood can be seen on BBC1 Mondays at 21.00.

The Summer (Cold) Of A Dormouse

2008-02-06T12:37:00.000Z

There seems to be no outcry - none that I've read - that mice have been genetically modified to receive rhinovirii (which cause 3/4s of human colds) with an aim to better understanding the common cold and how to treat it.

I raise you three objections: the (1) genetic modification of (2) mice in order to (3) treat the common cold.

Damien and I once acknowledged a law that The closer a thing is to nature, the better it is with the converse also being true The further a thing is from nature, the worse it is.*

Therefore I must - and do - consider laboratory-created genetic mutations to be unwelcome interferences with nature. Dolly the sheep should not have been artificially cloned as this is an offense to nature; likewise a lab mouse should not have a human ear grown on its back. These are glimpses of a futuristic freak zoo that humans seem hell-bent on crafting.

In the same breath, or dormouse should not have its genes scrambled so that humans can inject it with virii that from which it is otherwise immune. This is an unnecessary distress to the animal.

I have always declared myself as a Darwinist, and therefore see humans as animals. An animal with a particular evolution. If humans do possess such a thing as spirit then it is mutually inclusive of all other animals.

I do not accept that humans have a divine - or any other kind of - right to hurt or imprison other animals. It is interesting that when the chimpanzee was proved to share around 96-98% of its DNA with humans, that we (humans) began to ruminate that we should not subject chimpanzees to laboratory cruelty.

It is strange that, on this evidence, instead of demoting humans to animal status, we instead elect the chimpanzee to very-almost-human status and thus privy to a piece of human sentience.

But such rationalising allows us to continue hurting non-primates, such as the poor old dormouse.

No, I am not so warped that I don't think that we test on mice for cures for cancer and other horrific diseases (although I think that the Earth has abundand natural medicines, I will leave this speculation for another time), but I mean, c'mon, the common cold. "Don't be a Jessie" as my father used to say.

As moderately inconvenient as a cold is, it's hardly worth worrying about or treating. I would suggest - though I have no medical training, so don't quote (or sue) me on the issue - that the common cold is beneficial. It's like a boxer sparring ahead of the big fight. How ill prepared the boxer would be if he didn't take a few knocks from his trainer. He'd be down in the second round for six, KO'd in the third round.

Whenever humans interfere with the harmony of nature, there is, as a consequence, some degree of disaster (splitting the atom, for example). And there will be consequences too as and when we pharmacologically medicate ourselves against the common cold.

Besides, it is one less excuse to stay off work.

*This presupposes a duality of goodness and badness, which I have always loathed, and found the recognition of such dual concepts to be childlike (e.g., a six-year olds preoccupation with goodies and baddies in cartoons), so I would rather claim that nature has - or is - a property which could be understood as goodness or betterness or harmoniousness. There are no words to describe the concept, but it is intuitively understood. As a comparison, consider Lao Tzu's Way, a concept which is easy to intuit but impossible to render into language.

From Chief Wiggum to Gene Hunt

2008-02-05T12:57:00.001Z

Back in the day when British policemen wore helmets inspired by mammaries, there at least was - what you could call - uniform justice.

In spite of now donning different style caps, the police are probably even bigger mammaries than ever before.

I was talking to a colleague today and she told me about the occasion when she was stopped and checked in public by the police for evidence of terrorism. Apparently, on no grounds whatsoever, the police searched her, appropriated her bag and emptied it, found a diary and skimmed through it (in search of lines such as "Dear Diary, today I made a failed attempt at detonating a big load of semtex strapped around my waist").

In protestation, the respectable young woman asked why the police are searching her for evidence of terrorism. Without any trace of humour, charm or irony (foreign concepts to the modern bobby), they informed her that she was their young, blonde, female quotient.

As my young, blonde, female colleague, and I (and everyone else) know, there are demographics which are more likely to be terrorists than others. This is beyond argument.

However, the police-force is so worried about not upsetting particular communities, or rather upsetting all communities equally, that it wastes our money and their time searching someone who has zero probability of being a terrorist for articles relating to terrorism.

The issue of political correctness is a divisive one. To the annoyance of its apologists, I can contentiously reject it on many levels. Surely, though, their can be no debate when so-called political-correctness overrides basic common-sense (and you, dear tax-payer, pay for these common-sense bypasses from your own pocket).

Really, the British police have too much time to do nothing. Why else to they have reams of forms to fill out? Why else would the Kent police bother arresting 81 year old war veteran and school governor Mr. Gibson when he was driving home from mass, within the speed limit?

Apparently, the police were concerned that he had driven into the middle of the road (to avoid parked cars, as we all do) and signalled him to pull over. When Mr. Gibson stopped the car, the police instructed him to open his window. Probably unnerved - and already frail at 81 years of age - Mr. Gibson had trouble winding down his window. The police officers interpreted this behavior as "confrontational". As a result, these police officers, one third of Mr. Gibson's age hoisted him from his vehicle and arrested him. The long and short of it is, that Mr. Gibson ended up in court with a fine, though is offense was negligible to say the list.

(NB. The imbeciles from the Kent police force are PCs Steven Cole and Thomas McGregor).

The police should be doing real work, catching real criminals, our streets are awash with incivility and crime. However, all the time the government chain them to their office desks or inculcate a fear of "upsetting" groups of people, then they are going to occupy their time harassing elderly church goers or young, female diarists.

The police are mammaries, but it is the government who are the biggest pair of joke breasts since that episode of Blackadder where Bl'adder's puritanical aunt comes to visit.

Paradoxes Versus Truisms

2008-01-17T09:57:00.000Z

Excepting the occassional creepy, nearing-thirty year old lurker such as myself, Yahoo Answers - or at least, judging by the general immaturity - is populated by teenagers.

I often visit this website to guage the opinion of the demographic which I no longer belong to. One particular question posted by an inquisitive young man on Yahoo Answers was

Why do people hate Jews?

The response to this question, posted by a (presumably) teenage female, that lodged in my memory was

It's called anti-Semitism - Educated yourself.

Maybe I have nothing better to worry about in my life that I became particularly rankled by this reply:

The youngster who started the thread asked an intelligent question, a question with no readily apparent answer. Without an answer to this question, it is impossible to understand the most important historical event of the 20th Century - World War II, its preamble and consequences.

To which, some haughty young strop, with an assumed air of intellectual dominance, gave an unwarranted, unhelpful and dismissive reply.

I notice young people use "educate yourself" as a suffix to any topic-of-discussion to engender a feeling of well-read superiority, a form of quasi (it's kwozzy not kwayzai, I tell you) intellectual bullying, but that wasn't, in fact, the crux of my annoyance.

My annoyance is directed at the misuse of language. To answer the question "Why do [some] people hate the Jews" with "It's called anti-Semitism" is a truism. The thread-starter was not asking for a synonym of Jew-hating. Effectively, we can render the dialogue nonsensical Why are people anti-Semitic? Because they are anti-Semitic.

Not that I mean to pick on youngsters for their linguistic failings. After all, the misuse of language is a staple of the US Presidential Campaign. Both Democratic forerunners, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama make overtures to America's voters that "The time has come for change" and "If you vote for me I will take the US forward".

What other ways are there to go, precisely? Time being linear and change being the only thing that's constant, why should the American people accept this bit of axiomatic fluff from their presidential hopefuls? Though accept they do, and it is not really much of a surprise when much of the communication people are weened on these days is condensed lowest-common-denominator advertisements and commercials.

(Britain's own ex-PM Tony Blair was a master of meaningless-lingo, delivering soundbites with as fewer verbs as possible. Labour's campaign slogans caught this bug:

Your family better off; Your community safer; and Your children with the best start)

If a truism is the most wasteful and vacant form of language, then I posit that the converse is true: That linguistic paradoxes are the most fulfilling.

I believe that the very essence of the universe is paradoxical - for instance light as both wave and particle, the seemingly implausible beginning of time, consciousness, Zeno's paradox and so on - therefore the most accurate language is must also be paradoxical.

This is nothing new. I am making overtures to ancient Chinese thought, in the main Taoism and Zen. I have always abstained from an enthusiastic study of Eastern philosophy because I hold a certain contempt for Westerners (and Northerners, Southerners, Easterners) who misuse it.

By saying this, I explicitly recall Lynne Franks acting moronically in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, flailing her arms about and spewing garbage as some sort of benefactor of Zen (conflated awkwardly with a number of other Easterly philosophies and religions). Equally anathemic to Franks jungle nemesis Janice Dickinson as it is to me, is her self-help book which cherishes helpful truisms such as "Be Yourself".

I digress. If truisms are the burden of language then paradoxes (when used correctly) are its liberators. Having very little in common, they both possess one same quality: That neither requires explanation.

A paradox I encountered recently, which I have developed a fondness for, and shall leave you with:

If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the peak

Or, if you really prefer truisms, I give you Vyvyan (photograph, first from left) from the Young Ones and his entry for the competition "in ten words, what do Cornflakes mean to you?"

Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes, Cornflakes

Ricky Gervais: Modern Hero

2007-12-27T22:43:00.001Z

Congratulations to Ricky Gervais who, with his television shows the Office and Extras, encapsulated the existential crisis of modern existence and - through David Brent and Andy Millman respectively - man's inevitable breakdown in response to that crisis.

The Office, in both my opinion and by general consensus, was a shade better than Extras. However, today's (the 27th of December's) Christmas edition - and climax - of Extras surpassed everything else.

I would go as far to say that tonight's episode of Extras was the best comedy - no, television - I have ever watched.

The Office and Extras were more than comedy because theirs was not the goal to make people laugh simply by reeling off joke after joke that - as law of averages would predict - eventually produce a laugh here or there. Nor, unlike most sitcoms, were its episodes self-contained: Most sitcoms are exercises in arrested development, whatever character growths occur within its thirty-minute time-slot, inevitably returns to its default settings in the next episode.

For that reason comedies frustrated me with their samsara of facsimiles. Plucking one example randomly out of the ether, Men Behaving Badly, which never progressed beyond the comfort zones of depicting two slobbish men cohabiting with their long-suffering girlfriends. At first it amused me, but then I twigged that if lives of the characters of Men Behaving Badly were so depressingly immature then why do none of them struggle out of that state of existence.

Or The Brittas Empire which featured a character, Gordon Brittas, not dissimilar to David Brent in his managerial ineptitude, who - contrary to all sensibilities, and in defiance of sanity - was still managing a leisure center many, many series later. And making the same jokes.

The lack of reality, of progression, the repetitive cycles of sitcoms depressed me. They had the opposite effect to what the writers, the producers, the actors intended.

Which is why, thank God, Ricky Gervais (and not forgetting his partner, Steven Merchant) has given situation comedy its conscience and consciousness.

The Office and Extras are aware of the absurdities of the world they exist in. Yes, Ricky Gervais has been criticised for only "doing" the comedy of embarrassment, but that is the whole point: In our behaviours, in our modern struggles, we are the most embarrassing example of humanity in the whole of history.

For all that our civilization has achieved, our lives amount to nothing more than a dingy office close to a suicidally-grey ring-road by some Slough industrial estate. And in the mundanities of this existence, we have this warped preoccupation of being someone special - an entertainer, a movie star. To make the transition from anonymous fool to celebrated fool.

The beauty of both the Office and Extras is that there is a point, after all the lead character's (Brent/Millman) self-humiliation and delusion of grandeur, is a heart-rending realisation of their loss of self and sanity as a participant of modern existence (whether that modern existence comprises an office or movie-set).

In the last episode of Extras, Andy Millman became so preoccupied with materialism and ego that he neglected his best-friend, Maggie (played by the excellent Ashley Jensen), and saw her little more as an accessory to his own existence. When he wanted to talk to her about his lack of recognition for his television work, he would take her to The Ivy. But when she spoke about her struggle as a failed jobbing actress who can only afford a low-rent apartment in the worst place in town, he didn't hear.

One scene in particular had me drying my eyes with the sleeve of my dressing-gown: Maggie in her shabby studio apartment, having returned home from her new found employment as a toilet cleaner, hoovering her blue carpet. She was the picture of dejection and her environ was depressing - a dimly-lit, claustrophobic studio porous to the outside machinations of the cruel, uncaring world - and among all her misery was the hoover itself, one of those red-ones with a smiley face. An inanimate object with a smiley face.

A smiley hoover that probably adds life to an already happy household where mum and dad have two bouncing kids. But the same smiley hoover in a dingy London studio being operated by an unhappy, lone, struggling, hurt woman is an unbearable icon.

This is what made me cry. (Okay, I know I'm lauding this as the best comedy ever and, I agree, this exegesis is somewhat contrary to joy and laughter but, please, bear with me)...

The great thing about The Office and Extras is the awakening of the main character and the redemption that comes from it.

Not until Millman was incarcerated in the Big Brother house with other celebrity-for-celebrity-sake z-listers did he have his breakdown, his catharsis. Among his Big Brother celebrity housemates were narcissistic parodies of (real) celebrities such as June Sarpong, Lionel Blair and Lisa Scott Lee, were some purposely-invented celebs such as a mother who achieved fame because her son was murdered (and seems more preoccupied with releasing a record than her son's death) and another woman who became famous for being raped (and aspires to having a Hello-funded wedding), Andy Millman breaks down.

But in his breakdown finds a vocabulary - of violence and tenderness - to articulate what I feel and, I think, many other people do too. It was akin to that scene from REM's Everybody Hurts video where they're all stuck in a traffic jam at the end of the working day and, Michael Stipe, questioning the necessity of it all, abandons his car and walks it.

To recount what Millman speaks in his breakdown would be a spoiler for anyone who is yet to see it. Sufficing to say that he makes an appeal of forgiveness from (the unreality of) the Big Brother house to his friend Maggie - the simple, uncomplicated apogee of celebrity - who is watching back home, at once usurping the degrading experiment of (un)reality television.

To have someone such as Gervais to elevate comedy into something altogether more meaningful and which isn't afraid to forsake its own given identity as a comedy to give us that which is meaningful and humane.

I honestly can say that I am proud that Ricky Gervais' work is contemporary to my own existence. Most of my literary and entertainment references are decades and centuries into the past. And as my wife put it: She is happy for Ricky Gervais that he has garnered unprecedented acclaim for projects as unlikely as the Office or Extras. His success is near fairytale.

If you haven't seen the Office or Extras see them. Somehow. And, yes, in spite of everything I have written just now, they are funny. Very funny.

Sementivae Update: Keeping Regular

2007-12-07T12:38:00.000Z

Apologies to Sementivae's readers for the absence of blog entries in the last few weeks. Those few weeks were hectic, with many imperatives competing for my attention.

With those imperatives done & dusted, I shall be committing myself to keeping ever regular as to this blog.

NB. I trust the bran in the picture (right) is not Kellogg's brand seeing as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg originally devised his cereals as anti-onanism weapons against (boys but mostly) girls.

Paris Hilton: What Is Her Opinion On Drunken Elephants?

2007-11-14T22:18:00.000Z

It's a rare boon to have the opportunity to legitimately use one of the world's top ten search terms in my blog title and content but, seeing as the opportunity has presented itself, it would be churlish of me to let is pass. So here goes:

Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton.

So, for those of you who are regular readers of my blog, a warm welcome back. For the guys who hazarded upon this site looking for naughty pics of Miss Hilton, there's a treat for you in the top-right corner.

Yes, it seems that the delectably pleathered Paris has hit the news for a pro animal rights comment she made. Or was it a pro animal rights comment? Her PR person says it wasn't.

You see, Paris recently expressed concern for the welfare of Indian elephants which had gone on the rampage after imbibing quantities of home made rice-beer.

Until Paris made her comments in Tokyo last week, very few of us were aware that there is an epidemic of elephant alcohol abuse endemic to North East India which is resulting in death and injury to elephants when they are in a state of alcoholic abandon.

For which comments Paris has been commended by conservationists. Oddly though, her publicist Lori (presumably by nature as well as by name) Berk, denied that Miss Hilton had ever made pro-pachyderm proclamations.

I think this is a great shame if one of the world's biggest celebrities (and search terms) is discouraged for the sake of "PR" from being anything other than politically neutral. But this is typical of the celebrity culture we live in, where the majority of celebrities (especially in the States) are coached in being apolitical everymen (or do I mean everywomen?).

Or maybe it's to pre empt people like me from drawing unhelpful parallels with Paris' own alcohol-soaked rampages and the elephants'.

Anyway, if Paris Hilton genuinely has concerns for these unfortunate elephants, she should be applauded for speaking her mind. I would hope, also, that it may give Paris a chance to derive some esteem from something other than that of being a vacuous, pampered socialite.

I am hoping that my use of the words Paris and Hilton will give me that little extra traffic. I suspect that there is one word which is often used along with Paris and Hilton which, should I use it, would bring me even more traffic.

Seeing as Sementivae is all for a good cause and deserves as many visitors as possible, I'm sure my regular readers will forgive me this opportunist streak:

Paris Hilton Sex.

The Petrified Forest: A film not to be forgotten

2007-11-09T15:54:00.000Z

The Petrified Forest, released in 1936, is a remarkably prescient film. After watching it this week for the first time, it instantly became one of my favourite films.

One of my reasons for recommending this film on Sementivae is because of, as I say, its prescience - specifically its prescience on matters of the environment.

Leslie Howard - who gives such a fantastic performance that I forgot I originally watched the film for the posthumously better-celebrated Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis - is the protagonist Alan Squier, an Englishman rambling in the Arizona desert, who meets and falls in love with Gabrielle Maple (Davis), a waitress at the cafe (and gas-station) found, geographically and metaphorically, on the edge of the expansive wilderness.

Their brief acquaintance is only allowed to deepen from passing infatuation into love when fate intervenes and escaped prisoner, sociopathic killer Duke Mantee (Bogart) and his fellow gangsters, take them hostage.

It's an excellent film with an engrossing set-up. It's a seminal gangster movie, it's a romantic movie, it has shades of noir, it is magnificently, wittily scripted and acted. For these reasons the film deserves more advocates, deserves to be remembered. But for those with a ripe environmental conscience, the film takes on another level of meaning. And all because of Leslie Howard's protagonist.

Alan Squier is a thoroughly modern man; he wishes to escape the rat-race which is how he wound up in Arizona. He is a man of capacious intellect who has never made productive use of it. He could have been a great writer, had he chosen to play the game.

His theory of modern existence, I say, is astute and even more relevant now than, arguably, back in the '30s.

That is, modern man is arrogant, he believes he can rule nature, that he can subject nature to his will. Modern man is winning the fight, but nature is fighting back. And nature's weapon of choice is neuroses. Nature is giving modern man neuroses.

How true. There is copious psychological literature that posits a correlation between modern society and a host of mental illnesses (schizophrenia, depression, stress, to name the most common), that it seems the more manufactured our world becomes the sicker we must become. This is Nature's way of informing us of our mistake of turning our back on her.

Modern society is too complex for man, it demands too much of his mental and physical resources. Rules, regulations and protocol of modern society are overabundant and it ruptures our self-identity and overworks our memory. How much of the self is left when one conforms to the protocols of an institution? How can one possibly remember all these overbearing rules and regulations?

Alan Squier is an enlightened, self-confident man (not in the macho way, but a virtue of his harmonious acceptance of the world), his wandering in the desert recall that of Buddha or Jesus. Squier is apolitical, his philosophy implicitly rejecting communism (that man cannot rule over nature) and, more explicitly, capitalism.

Drawing on the contemporary schools of Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic thought, he is a physician by his assertion that Nature is fighting back with neuroses and thus cites the aetiology of modern man's illness.

I will conclude with an excerpt from Squier's quietly impassioned observations:

"And now do you realize what it is that is causing the world chaos? It's Nature hitting back. Not with the old weapons - floods, plagues, holocausts. We can neutralize them. She's fighting back with strange instruments called neuroses. She's deliberately afflicting mankind with the jitters. Nature is proving that she can't be beaten - not by the likes of us. She's taking the world away from the intellectuals and giving it back to the apes"

If you're thinking about being my search engine, it don't matter if you're black or white?

2007-11-06T16:51:00.000Z

This is not exactly news - I am bedridden with flu at the moment and the grey cells aren't functioning, so my output is limited - but there's an interesting theory that Google (the search engine that most people use daily to perform searches) would be more environmentally friendly - that is, would consume less power - if it were black rather than white.

To this effect, Blackle, a black "Google" was created (NB. Blackle is not owned by Google). The theory is that a white screen uses 74 watts and a black screen 59. If Google itself were black, it is speculated/calculated that 750 Megawatt-hours would be saved per annum.

The reality is that Blackle probably only saves energy when used on CRT monitors but not LCD monitors.

However, Blackle - regardless of its black is more green than white claim - poses a problem to the vast majority of us who use computers - How do we make web-surfing more environmentally friendly, less energy-gluttonous?

For the time being, I may persevere with Blackle expediently. That is to say, when ill, bright, white screens cause my eyes to water.

And so I shall sign off with a sneeze and a promise that I will update properly when I have recovered from my seasonal ailment.

Harry Kills Harrier?

2007-10-31T13:20:00.001Z

The legally-protected hen-harrier is a rare and endangered bird in England, two of which were killed on the Royal Estate of Sandringham last week. Prince Harry and a friend were the only two people out shooting on the estate at the time in question which means, as to finding the culprits, we can probably file Sherlock Holmes' and Hercule Poirot's business cards back into the drawer.

I have always liked Harry, enough to forgive him his endorsement of that idiot Kanye West at the concert he arranged for the memory of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. I admire him for his determination to be deployed in Iraq and he did have a certain down-to-earth consternation about him when England were denied a cast-iron try against South Africa at the Rugby World Cup final (even if his bar-tabs are less earth-bound and more stratospheric).

Still - and whether guilty or not of killing the hen-harriers - 'gaming' is atavistic and, no matter how much of a bubble the Royals may live in (and it can't be so much of a bubble that it prevents a white British Royal's exposure to black American street culture) there is nothing about gaming that can be justified in this day and age. It's atavistic, pure and simple.

The diversity of Britain's wildlife is already depleted enough that these - surely sensitive and educated - members of the upper-echelons can curb their preoccupation with shooting stags, hunting foxes and taking aim the odd rare bird.

Is Twelve Monkeys The Solution For 25 Primates?

2007-10-28T14:08:00.000Z

I am thinking of the Terry Gilliam film Twelve Monkeys. I watched it maybe a half or whole year ago on VHS with bad audio, which made the gripping-if-convoluted plot difficult to follow. Like most of ex-Monty Python Terry Gilliam's films (the dystopian Brazil, the insidious fantasy of Piano Tuner of Earthquakes), Twelve Monkeys requires - and deserves - to be revisited.

Although I have still seen the film only once, I have nonetheless revisited it in my head increasingly of late because of its environmental subtexts.

Never a fan of Brad Pitt, I nonetheless admire his portrayal of psychiatric patient Jeffrey Goines, an animal rights activist and anti-consumerist. It is a confluence of two events - the release of humankind cleansing virus and the release of animals from captivity - that enabled (non-human) animals to once again live in freedom and prosperity.

Whether The Army of the Twelve Monkeys were responsible for releasing the virus is doubted, but they definitely claim responsibility for liberating animals from the zoo.

The question the movie has forced me to address - for I have been acknowledging it for a good duration - is if (non human) animals can only thrive once again if humans are removed from the equation of life?

It saddens me to hear that conservationists have newly publicised a list of 25 primates on the edge of extinction.

These include the Sumatran Orang-Utan, the Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey, and the Hainan black-crested gibbon and the Cross River gorilla. I have names only four of the twenty-five because three are enough to serve a purpose: One is native to Sumatra, one to Peru, one to China, one to Nigeria. Four completely distinct geographical regions.

Natural geographies the world over are being razed and our closest relatives in the animal kingdom are being wiped out. Not that their genetic proximity to humans should matter. All animals should be conserved, no matter how distinct they are from mankind.

Or should that be all animals must be conserved except the human animal? Is it time we start considering that, for the sake of the sanctity of all life, it is humans who must be sacrificed?

Without humans there would no longer be the drain on natural resources because of material greed, there would be no destruction of nature, no living in disharmony with Gaia (if one is inclined to personify the Earth).

Humans are the only life-form on the planet that has the capability of subverting nature with such disastrous effects.

In the current fear-induced climate of terrorism, eco-terrorism is never going to be thought of as a sane option, even if limited to philosophical pondering. Thus I find myself occupying a padded cell with Jeffrey Goines, deemed mad by society for being anti-consumerism and pro animal rights, unable to make the world look at itself in the mirror to see how absurd it has become. Animals are dying and the ones who care, who would counteract, are divested of power.

Without eco-terrorism as a viable option, all I can do is ask anyone who might chance upon this blog to look at the photo (left), of an Sumatran Orang-Utan cradling her infant, and ask yourself what you can do to stop this animal from being erased forever. And do something about it.

Let the tennis-playing puffins be or How to stay faithful to your mobile phone

2007-10-25T11:46:00.000+01:00

As I was driving to work this autumn morning - daylight in retreat, fog on the grasslands - I was listening, as one is wont to do on such drives, to the radio. (My station of choice is Magic FM, as I grew up in the 80s and there is a lot of nostalgia value on 105.4).

Between a segue of three songs are the adverts. The usual ones warning me that the chip in my windscreen needs to be inspected (I may have a chip on my shoulder but not my windscreen, boys), the TGI Friday one advertising Jack Daniel's Sesame Chicken and a travel agency that puns its destinations, such as "business Tripoli".

But to break the routine a little there was a new advert for a mobile phone which has the latest doo-da that replaces the old oojamafluke and it's absolutely essential that we upgrade.

Mobile phones have come along way since they resembled a brick. With every gadget and gizmo added, mobile phones become harder to recycle. They are one of the most environmentally-unfriendly technological products because they use so may different components, that it is no simple feat to break it down and recycle it.

Sure, mobile phones are useful devices, but they are a nuisance also. Many is the time I've sat on public transport and had to listen some loudmouth's inane drivel. I remember once being seated on a train in front of some woman who bellowed her medical ailments more as if she were talking to someone three carriages down rather than on her phone.

But that's noise pollution. That's a different kettle of evil (it is also a reason why I no longer use public transport - something the Mayor of London might like to address before encouraging us to go green and use the bus).

Yes, Mobile phones are hard to recycle primarily because of how complex they are becoming. I have often failed to see the point of having a camera installed on my phone. I've never used it. Okay, okay I have used it but no matter what I photograph the end result always looks like a puffin on a gravel tennis court.

Maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe the head honchos at Samsung and Erickson are developing the latest super-resolution camera for your phone so you can conveniently photograph your favourite celebrity when you see him slipping over spilled rocket leaves at your local Waitrose.

Or probably they already have. I just wouldn't know because I don't change mobile phones until one is dead. In many ways I am serially monogamous to my mobile phones.

Not that I am being holier-than-thou (oh you who upgrade your phone twice a year), indeed I was the one driving to work this morning. No, I just have no need to upgrade my phone. I don't need a camera or games, I don't need bluetooth (unless in the event that I must urgently send a photograph of a puffin on a gravel tennis court to Bill Oddy), I don't need Internet access.

All I require from a phone is the ability to call other phones and to text other phones.

Do not covet thy neighbour's Erickson. Your own phone is good enough. Forget bluetooth. Nature is red in denture and talon, not aquamarine or azure.

Don't go through serial, expensive divorces to your phones. Stay faithful, enter into a long-term commitment to your phone.

By making as much use of your current mobile phone as possible, we can help minimise the effects of pollution and environmental destruction caused by mobile phone technology.

Top right photo: A puffin, neither on a gravel tennis court nor captured by mobile phone camera.