Having collected Graham from Norwich International Airport, Heidi and I took him for a long walk through the woods, down the Stairs of Cirith Ungol and onto the deserted beach at Cromer. Weather here – wish you were lovely. Lots of scenic opportunities for Cromer: Darwin’s Lost Weekend.

Back at the Maison Des Girrafes, the chickens are rehearsing their roles as Darwin’s finches, while the guinea pigs are even now being trained up as giant tortoises. Guinea pigs are, in the zoological parlance, as thick as shite, but giant tortoises probably don’t pose too much of an acting challenge. The only problem we can see is that the g-pigs will run too fast to be convincing giant tortoises, but we can always get round that by playing the film in slow motion, or nailing the recalcitrant rodents to the floor, whichever poses the fewest technical difficulties.

The bad news is that Karen James, who is scheduled to play Mrs Darwin, has been nobbled by a creationist adenovirus so might not be able to make it…

Signing off now – the next event will be tonight when most of the CISB09 delegates meet at 7.30 at the Cliftonville Hotel. To see what we’re up to, visit our Friendfeed Room . Any publicly available tweet containing the hashtag #CISB will find its way to the FF room, so do leave comments and join the throng.

Even as I type, Graham is installing software on my laptop that will allow live video feeds. More on this later…