Sunday, November 05, 2006
End of the weekend
Another weekend mainly taken up with getting wet. Fell in the River Leam (a nice change from the canal) yesterday. Today I took the boat out towards Birmingham through the suburbs; followed a kingfisher all the way up the canal and down again. It only flew about 20 -30 yards at a time and I was able to stop paddling and glide up to it each time so I got within 5 yards of it several times; eventually it picked a high perch and let me pass underneath so I let it alone.
5 minutes further on I encountered my first ever mink. He was intrigued by the boat; he swam up to paddle distance and gave me a look over, then decided that I was harmless and he swam around me for the next 10 minutes doing his strange and minky things. I was most impressed by the way that I could track him underwater by watching the bubbles coming up. Since they are territorial and stay in the same area I shall look out for him again; it was only a couple of bridges up from home. I know they are interlopers and blamed for the water vole decline (I haven't seen any water voles since I started paddling) but he was very appealing. Boat appears to be great for wildlife watching.
I have come off the fence re Robin Hood. Although it is outrageously anachronistic in places I remain remarkably amused by it all, and I like all the main characters, which helps.
I did think that the iron mines were an example of anachronism but it appears that shaft mining was a feature of medieval times, albeit generally shallow shafts, and one would have expected a the bottom to be a bit wetter.
Read Tony Blair's interview about science in the New Scientist. The man is an idiot, or at least not a rationalist. His suggestion that scientists should ignore examples of bad science such as homeopathy and creationism and instead only debate important topics such as MMR jabs and global warming demonstrates a basic misuderstanding of the idea of scientific thinking. Why should people who believe in homeopathy and creationism believe science about the socalled big topics? Science is like religion in one respect at least; you either buy into the package or you don't. But for Blair science is primarily a useful source of technology.
Torchwood (I have almost finished calling it Touchwood) tonight. Last week a great improvement, and no sex, if you don't count the gun practice (I think I probably do). This "what's happened to Jack" thing is being done quite nicely. Didn't manage to avoid the spoilers for this week- Radio 2 ran one and radio spoilers are far harder to deal with because generally one doesn't have a remote control for the radio in one's hand (and because there is less warning).
Off to a "gig" on Thurs; Flaming Lips at the NIA arena. Yes, I know you've never heard of them. Nonetheless they are very good.
This week I watched the boaty thing; Master and Commander. I can see the Star Trek comparisons. Liked the iguanas. Found it very watchable but not sure what the point of it was. And Sin City, which was not quite what I was expecting but was very good in a gruesome sort of way. I loved the colour effects. Son and I watched a Sharpe episode; the series is new to him and he was very impressed so we shall try to remember to watch the rest of the series.
Son informs me that his WoW character has reached level 60. Apparently this is deeply significant. I tend to feel that it is less significant than the fact that he tried to write a 2,000 word essay for his GCSE coursework assignment the evening before it was due to be handed in. Stress ensued. We have agreed slightly closer supervision of his coursework timetable in future.
(It was quite a good essay, and this was apparently the draft rather than the final effort, but it was still more exciting than I really wanted.)
Waiting for Beloved to finish watching the American football so that I can watch Planet Earth. Back to Spider Solitaire (which I am playing an awful lot of) for a bit.
5 minutes further on I encountered my first ever mink. He was intrigued by the boat; he swam up to paddle distance and gave me a look over, then decided that I was harmless and he swam around me for the next 10 minutes doing his strange and minky things. I was most impressed by the way that I could track him underwater by watching the bubbles coming up. Since they are territorial and stay in the same area I shall look out for him again; it was only a couple of bridges up from home. I know they are interlopers and blamed for the water vole decline (I haven't seen any water voles since I started paddling) but he was very appealing. Boat appears to be great for wildlife watching.
I have come off the fence re Robin Hood. Although it is outrageously anachronistic in places I remain remarkably amused by it all, and I like all the main characters, which helps.
I did think that the iron mines were an example of anachronism but it appears that shaft mining was a feature of medieval times, albeit generally shallow shafts, and one would have expected a the bottom to be a bit wetter.
Read Tony Blair's interview about science in the New Scientist. The man is an idiot, or at least not a rationalist. His suggestion that scientists should ignore examples of bad science such as homeopathy and creationism and instead only debate important topics such as MMR jabs and global warming demonstrates a basic misuderstanding of the idea of scientific thinking. Why should people who believe in homeopathy and creationism believe science about the socalled big topics? Science is like religion in one respect at least; you either buy into the package or you don't. But for Blair science is primarily a useful source of technology.
Torchwood (I have almost finished calling it Touchwood) tonight. Last week a great improvement, and no sex, if you don't count the gun practice (I think I probably do). This "what's happened to Jack" thing is being done quite nicely. Didn't manage to avoid the spoilers for this week- Radio 2 ran one and radio spoilers are far harder to deal with because generally one doesn't have a remote control for the radio in one's hand (and because there is less warning).
Off to a "gig" on Thurs; Flaming Lips at the NIA arena. Yes, I know you've never heard of them. Nonetheless they are very good.
This week I watched the boaty thing; Master and Commander. I can see the Star Trek comparisons. Liked the iguanas. Found it very watchable but not sure what the point of it was. And Sin City, which was not quite what I was expecting but was very good in a gruesome sort of way. I loved the colour effects. Son and I watched a Sharpe episode; the series is new to him and he was very impressed so we shall try to remember to watch the rest of the series.
Son informs me that his WoW character has reached level 60. Apparently this is deeply significant. I tend to feel that it is less significant than the fact that he tried to write a 2,000 word essay for his GCSE coursework assignment the evening before it was due to be handed in. Stress ensued. We have agreed slightly closer supervision of his coursework timetable in future.
(It was quite a good essay, and this was apparently the draft rather than the final effort, but it was still more exciting than I really wanted.)
Waiting for Beloved to finish watching the American football so that I can watch Planet Earth. Back to Spider Solitaire (which I am playing an awful lot of) for a bit.
Labels: kayak, mink, robin hood
# posted by Louise H @ 8:17 pm 
