Whee. That was a fun weekend.
I, despite my best efforts, completely failed to leave the pawns up a tree near Thetford
so we trundled onwards to Norwich, where they’d laid on a parade and fireworks for us. Which was rather kind, I thought. The Lord Mayor came out and waved to us too, so rather a fun evening.
Sunday morning we got back into the hire car and braved the wilds of deepest Norfolk, rocking up at Chez Gee.
A lovely time was had by all, as were chips and fish and pies, and I found a complete fossil record of Henry Moore’s early works. We also discovered Microsoft’s attempt at an iPhone, and here’s Henry using it:
The ultimate in silicon technology
Seventy million years in development (the iStone, not Henry): proof, if it was needed, against intelligent design.
I did want to write a serious blog post on intermediate fossil forms and the dangers of science, in that it can often show you want you want to see, but (a) Henry has the photos and (b) he’d probably make a better job of it than I, being a palaentologist.
We came home to the blessed safety of the south of the River, checking each other’s hands for the right numbers of fingers and feet for webbing. I’m pleased to report that we remained non-NFN.
Oh, and for those of you who remember the arm-wrestling competition last year, in which Henry cheated by using two arms to my one, you might be interested to learn that despite hours of practicing against his daughters, he was only able to win our table-top football match by 10 goals to nine, and refused a re-match.
Chicken.
Yay!
Yay? I drive 300 miles, brave the wild man of Norfolk and paddle in the North Sea and all you can say is ‘yay’?
Yay.
I just saw the ISS fly overhead! That’s a ‘yay!’.
As promised: Henry’s thesis on the evolution of rocks.
I may be deliberately missing the point, or winding him up, or both.
It was fun to follow your peregrinations in real time, as I sat put in my yard in Toulouse and perused PubMed and OMIM. And have missed the ISS, somehow. Sigh. Would I have seen it from this far south?
Don’t know Heather. But http://heavens-above.com is a nifty little website that tells you where it’ll be RIGHT NOW (actually it was @kejames reminded me this time).
Can anyone join in?
‘Yay’.
Only on Twitter.
Thanks, Richard, will RT. It would have been possible, but tricky b/c low on the horizon and with city lights… I’ll check it out tonight.
It was pretty bright, even in London. And we saw the Progress 33 preceding it (question: when docking, does the P33 overtake the ISS or vice versa? So were they about to dock or had they just decoupled?)
Does Henry’s iStone have that app that alerts you to upcoming subduction zones and tectonic movements? Because it can really delay your commute when you’re not up on the latest geologic upheaval.
I think that’s application you have to pay for, Jenny. About thirty quid from the Hard Rock Store.
@ Jenny: there’s a better app that tells you when the tube platform you’re on is about to experience a plutonic intrusion.
@ Richard: by the way, that’s a super photo of the Jardin Des Girrafes. Looks almost civilized.
PPS: I won that football match fair and square, despite your efforts to subvert the match by encouraging Crox Minima to work my goalie. How we laughed on the way to the FA disciplinary tribunal.
Thank you, Henry. I must confess to a little surprise when I realized it was your artwork. I thought a professional had done it for you.
And I’m pretty sure your striker was offside for that final goal. But the ref was blind.
The full story of the signage appears here – one commentator suggested my girrafe looked like a golden retriever wearing a girrafe costume. Pretty astute, I thought.
Ah, brilliant. Thanks for that, Henry.
You still suck at table football, though.
Hah. Sore loser.
No… just pointing out that you suck.
Anyway, is anyone else not getting notifications of comments when previously they were?
If I suck, then you suck worse. Just sayin’.
But I have potential to blow, that being my first game.
So ner.
Blow. Yes, that just about sums it up.
Penny, if you’re still reading, get to the GPs and get prophylactic Tamiflu. KTHXBAI
I don’t think she’s reading. She’s gone to bed with a cat, and I am editing Mallorn.
Sounds like domestic bliss, to me.
Speaking of (i)Stones, Henry, it looks as if your routine changes are serving you well; I am under the impression that I am seeing less of you in your “modeling” picture. I’ve also been quite out of touch with all things NN and distance always changes perspective. Either way, good show.
It is so nice to find you together, my friends, that it provokes me to write the comment here after more than year :-).
Seventy million years in development (the iStone, not Henry): proof, if it was needed, against intelligent design.
Boris: Great :-). This is Richard the (number is optional :-)
My sincere regards to Henry :-).
New Mallorn! Yay!
I say, steady on, old thing. It’s not as ‘yay’ as all that (well, actually, it is, but one wouldn’t want to make a song and dance).
No, one must display a bit of restraint. Perhaps a ‘yup’.
I stand by my Yay!, but will withhold song and dance until Mallorn arrives in my mailbox.
I would reserve yup for the following:
Pinching your finger in the door of the ultralow freezer must have hurt. Yup.
A car sitting in the sun at 101F for hours must have been hot inside at the end of the day. Yup.
If this drought continues, it will be expensive to maintain the lawn in a modicum of greenness. Yup.
There are several new books available on science and religion, but you needn’t bother to read them, as they’re just beating the proverbial horse with a screechy stick. Yup.
It strikes me that this post is mis-titled: your encounter with the redoubtable Dr. Gee seems to have been rather planned, I’d say.
Nice photos though. :)
I was talking about the Rocks, not about the Crox.
At this time was just listening “Talkin Head”, no “Talking Crox”, ¿what?
Sorry, Talking Head, “g” is no gee, you understand.
There’ll never be another Gee.
is a very remote probability.
is very nice the “chicken-pollosaurio” in your photo of the chicken.
Ha ha! I hoped someone would notice that.
Anyone who’s ever doubted that birds are close relatives of dinosaurs has never given house-room to ex-battery chickens in their state of near-deshabille.
You think that the chickens are close relatives of dinosaurs?. The ex-battery chicken may seek shelter with relatives other terrestrial.
Well, actually it is something to see the chickens look like dinosaurs:
Megachikenraptorsaurius
Sorry, the chicken is similar a Megachikenraptorsaurius or Megachikenraptorsaurius is similar to Chicken?: Answer the question.
I see a little ancestor of a bird …
Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the fandango?
Or perhaps:
First a little Papageno,
Then a little Papagena,
Then again a Papageno ….
Sorry, those Chickenraptors look as if they’re dressed for opera. ;-)
Ha, Ha, Ha…You are very funny!
If I had mad Photoshop skillz, it would have been an LOLDinosaur.
As it is, I expect that Henry’s chickens will come home to roost, famously, in Darwin’s
Eglu CubeTree of Life no less, any day now. And as soon as it drops below triple digit temperatures here (which might be November, at this rate), we will have our owndinosaurschickens – some variant of the Aracauna, called an Americauna. (My Brazilian friend is quite disgusted with the way in which I pronounce these words.)I love that about americaraucana.
I love americaraucana: Scelorchilus araucana araucana live in dense forest in Chile. Is a understorey forest bird, more small size that the Chicken, and very much more smallest that the Megachickenraptor.
I didn’t know anything about Tapaculos, Alejandro – they seem like fascinating birds. All my natural history books on South America focus on the big flashy birds, like macaws and rheas.
I’ve seen all kinds of spellings for the US version of the Araucana chicken, but apparently the official version is Ameraucana. Regardless of the spelling, we’re hoping that ours will lay pretty eggs and eat lots of arthropods.
I so sorry for my English is no good.
I hope that Megachicken raptorsaurus have lived in China.
No worries, Alejandro – my spoken Spanish is very deficient, and what little there is, is actually hybrid Border Spanglish. I do a little better with reading Spanish, since most signs, packaging, and instructions are in both languages here.
That does it, I’m cancelling my trip to the forest understory of Chile.
Also – anybody who has lived with a cheeky budgie for any amount of time (or their relatives – you still there, Kristi? – will also vouch for the obvious dinosaur-bird link. Especially when it’s chewing on your earlobe, or kicking you with its feet and shrieking as you try to cut its toenails.
I’m just sayin’.
Psittacines are especially dinosaur-like when they flatten their feathers and hiss in anger or irritation, as when you try to retrieve the naughty cockatiel from a bookshelf or windowsill. Instead of remaining benignly lateral, their eyes also seem to move to a more frontal and predatory position. Something about that leathery flap of skin between maxilla beak and mandible beak is very reptilian too.
Several colleagues have mocked me for my fascination with birds-
Them: They’re just feathered dinosaurs/reptiles, you know.
Me: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
The Megachicken raptorsaurus (picture is of Luis V. Rey)is similar a Chicken pollo or Rooster?. Rooster. Don’t worry be happy.
Is an evolutionary game.
Do not grieve ex-battery, friend Henry are just light jokes.
nice pics! Makes me want to return to the land of cream and strawberries and science bloggers soon
Yay! We’d love to see you again, Pamela.