Leader of ideas in number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics. Claimed to be the first to apply geometry to curved surfaces rather than to the Cartesian Plane, and therefore the thought-father of Cézanne's pears, of Einstein's universe. Jensen's portrait shows him bright-eyed and interested in everything.
Someone else to regret never having met.
It's back! After an absence of six years, this much-loved landmark has been restored to us. Thanks to whoever made that decision.
]]>Look, you may be guessing right and you may not. We won't know until we've done the work, and when we've done the work we won't need the guesses because we'll know the answer. So what's the point of guesses? Being able to say later you were right all along.
- Rosalind Franklin in the film Life Story
A rook should be shot weekly the year thro', & its crop examined; hence perhaps might be discovered whether in the whole they do more harm or good from the contents at various periods. Tho' this experiment might show that the birds often injure corn, and turneps; yet the continual consumption of grubs and noxious insects would rather preponderate in their favour.
- Gilbert White, Journal 1775
To be cranked up, as Pirsig said, when all else fails. But I often prefer to start with it because of the looking. Both the above quotes stress the need for disinterested observation, which is ideal because it's a) lazy and b) automatically feeding into the next stage of things, data analysis. I love a nice graph, too. White is usual is punching above his weight - no-one else had come up with these kind of ideas since Aristotle, maybe. The Life Story film is really all about different ways of applying the method: slow and steady versus lightning one-shot apprehension, but ultimately my sympathies lie with Rosie. After all, I do like to see them wriggle.
Oh, miracle of our empty hands!
from A.S. Moffat, The Secrets of Angling
I forget when it was, but I was still living with my parents. I had a book out of the public library. I read not the passage above, but something similar, about how worms come to the surface on warm damp nights. The whole thing was a serendipity: I looked at the clock - ten o'clock on a summer evening. I opened the window and leaned out into warm humid air. All I needed was a torch and I was off to the park. Most natural history quests are hit and miss, a matter of perseverance and patience, but this was a scene from a fairy tale. There was no search needed: they were there for the asking in the torchlight, worms by the thousand in the damp grass. Big worms and little worms, single and in copula, with more arriving every minute it seemed. It was difficult to take a step without treading on their bodies, but they seemed oblivious to my feet. A touch from a finger or a blown breath surprised them though, sent them underground in a flash.
I haven't looked for them since. In a way I haven't needed to. It was love at first sight that night.
Do you remember how back in the old days (about a decade ago - how young and full of hope we were! and how much older and more filled with hope we are now!) - do you remember how Alamut used to have a totem animal for the year? Let's have that reference in full:
Well, this site's totem animal for 2010 will be the Earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris. We've had a brief look at worms in the past, but this year expect worm news and information of all kinds. Let's kick off with the classic Darwin quote:
Here's an extract from Jeffries' account:
A grig is, among other things, a cricket.
]]>Here's an extract from Jeffries' account:
A grig, among other things, is a cricket.
]]>- James Hurdis]]>
And in 1778:
Happy Christmas!
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caracara
dodo
can anyone add to this?
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They brought her in at about seven in the evening,
the sun hanging low between Meindert and Oudskarpel
and the Meerwater ringing with fish rising to feed;
her long dark hair matted with kelp and sea kale
had caught in their net webbing where mullet and bass
still thrashed and foundered, but she lay motionless
as the men reached into her beauty with salty hands
and guttural expression of wonder. Pieter Houyten,
known for a connoisseur of good wine and fine women,
finding that tapering fingers and exquisite manicure
proved her a Frenchwoman, whispered his little French
to her delicate drowned ear - Quy v's ez bele midons!
While poor Jan de Boek, their soft-headed handyman
from Pompmolen, blubbered helplessly Ik verzoeke jou,
geliefd' Margaretha, kom uit'n de water, thinking her
no doubt his beloved sister, vanished these dozen years.
She still lay as if stunned, bobbing among other fish,
until Rijk van der Weyden swept his steel-gutting knife
in an abrupt arc, shearing the tar-sealed seine-knots;
and then these men, knowing so much of fishes' recovery,
watched in amazement as she shook into her new freedom,
vanished at once into the complete privacy of the Meer.
Thankful, they hauled the lesser catch back to Oudskarpel,
sharing already the doubts that they knew would be theirs
When they told for the third time how she had foundered
in their nets, as they stood by, rubbing their eyes,
pinching themselves, in the hope that it might be true.
- John Gohorry
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Jacob Riis, New York, 1880s. The top photo, Bandit's Roost, is especially unforgettable, and has rattled around in my head for 30 years or so.
]]>- from Gerald Kersh, Fowlers End
]]>- Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
Found it at last! I've been thinking about this quote for years: a perfect example of the alternate universe that children (and us, of course) live in. It's been tucked away on the shelves all along, waiting for a re-read. Couldn't guess where it came from and without the exact wording Google and Amazon were unable to help. My last-ditch attempt was going to be trawling through L.P. Hartley's Shrimp and the Anemone, but now I'm spared that.
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