2007 — 1 June: rabbits!

We saw lots of them on the circuitous, casual, orchid-hunting ramble back from the hospital yesterday evening, plus one common orchid (which I spotted first). But today has got off to a horrible start with the newsagent delivering, not the Guardian but (far, far, worse) the Daily Mail — yikes! I'm unlikely to find in that "paper's" letters columns the neat definition of evil offered by biologist Steve Jones yesterday having been challenged for one just the day before:

Lizzi Collinge asks for my definition of "evil". How about "telling lies to children"; the universal habit of all religions through the ages?

Professor Steve Jones, writing in the Guardian

Of course, I have no way of knowing if he's been further challenged on this.

He, Richard Dawkins and Astronomer Royal¹ Martin Rees were, it seems, all together on a panel at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival this week. Lord Rees² was suggesting that science needs to cuddle up somewhat with the "less extreme" bishops etc. (probably for the sake of a quieter life with fewer pitchfork-wielding peasants [or worse] showing up to surround your science lab whenever they are incited to demonstrate their disapproval of some fact that sits unsteadily alongside their preferred belief system).

I think I need Christa's salty glucose nourishment drip to elevate my current blood sugar level! Yes, I'm afraid she is still not yet back on solid food though she tells me this morning that there is some talk of unplugging her drip tonight.
Good news mid-afternoon update: Like my Dylan MTV CD, She is now unplugged!

Guest appearance

I've just heard Christopher Guest (aka Mr Jamie Lee Curtis) extolling on NPR's Morning Edition the merits of Extras as the best comedy made in the last 25 years. Not certain I agree. And now I've just learned that "the Atlantic hurricane season lasts for the next six months". Do you suppose the hurricanes know that? Plus, it seems, Dubya now wants to leave as his Presidential legacy a substantive piece of progress on behalf of his country towards the diminishing of the gas emissions that lead to global warming (having presided over an administration that steadfastly denied any such thing happened, and actively encouraged the editing of scientific reports by non-scientists to that [non]-effect). Not that our Tony is any less in deficit on this account.

Footnotes

¹ Anyone know what use the queen makes of her astronomer? I think we should be told!
² I'm using memory here, as I've just discovered a) I can't find the issue I was reading upstairs as it's downstairs, and I'm not, and b) I've further discovered that the online variant of the Guardian [though satisfactorily distracting me by telling me that Apple's latest DRM-free music downloads now slightly sneakily embed your email in the files] doesn't seem to reproduce its letters column anywhere.
Found it! See above.