A Brief Guide to the Principles of Evolution, Biodiversity and the Herd Instinct

I can hear some of you saying . . . How come we humans have two legs and two arms and a head and stuff. . . . .  and it’s a good question. You see it’s all to do with evolution and although humans are a smug bunch who like to say to every other beast on the planet Ya Sucks Boo the truth is we are not as unique as some would have you think. You see just think how many critters have four limbs and a head at the front end, and dispose of food at the other, the list is huge.  Even birds have four limbs; it’s just that two have turned into wings giving them a rather clever method to get about. Whereas in our case the front limbs are arms and the back ones legs, allowing us to do stuff like ride a bicycle and poke about inside our ears with our fingers or type blogs about Evolution.

Evolution of course is a long process it takes time. . . . (I say time but as we learnt previously time does not exist it is merely a ratio of the movement of individual things in relation to the movement of other things as defined by the movement of a particular object used as the standard. . . . . but folk call it time). . . . . . . . Man now sees himself as Top Dog in this process which is very silly as we are not dogs, and shows the foolishness of us humans.  You see mankind is a relative newcomer to planet Earth and some critters have been about for ages and there are more of them too. But in most cases these critters are small, big critters have certain issues in terms of survival, they need space, they are susceptible to environmental change and humans like to eat them or jab at them with pointy sticks a bit, as its fun.

Now as time passes evolution would normally predict that biodiversity will increase, but us humans are always keen to eat new species so most of the meal sized things are sort of becoming extinct.   One of the odder aspects of man is that we are critters of habit and could be classed as one of the worlds herd animals like Cows or Wildebeest, an old survival instinct from the days when we were shoals of fish and huge prehistoric scary things ate us.  This is why we tend to take revenge on big beasts now and get our own back by eating them, but our in built herd instinct is also why we all wander round IKEA and huge shopping precincts in a rather predictable way allowing ourselves to be brainwashed into buying loads of rubbish like plastic dinosaurs.               

One final experiment you could try yourself, get two friends to dress up in raggedy clothes and cover them in tomato sauce, then get them to stagger out of the public toilets on a busy street as you shout Lookout Zombies Zombies run for your life . . . . . .  I think you will find folk will run on mass in the opposite direction much like the Wildebeest do from a Chinese herbalist.     

The incredible health benefits of the Bacon Butty (the New Superfood)

It appears that the humble Bacon Butty is extremely good for you, not something I was expecting to learn as folk tend to say that they are bad. In general over the years what I have discovered is that almost any food that tastes really good, folk always say is bad for you. This can not be right, just look at nature, in nature birds, bears, rabbits, hedgehogs, snakes, in fact almost every other creature on the planet eats what it likes and does extremely well. This is how nature works life is programmed to eat the food we need by making it taste desirable, there is a simple and understandable logic to this if any critter is to thrive in the environment it lives in.

And this brings me back to the simple and humble but rather delicious Bacon Butty, you see I tend to eat a couple of these a week. I would eat more but I am not allowed so I make the most of the ones I have.  Now here in Britain there was some chap on the television who said that eating processed meat was not good for you and that eating a Bacon Butty meant you lived an hour less.

The thing is last week I had two Bacon Butty’s and at the end of the week someone said that as a result my life had reduced by two hours.  But I thought to myself . . . . Hang on I have been alive for the entire week and instead of my life reducing by a week it is only two hours shorter than it was at the start. That means if I eat two Bacon Butty’s every week it will take twelve weeks to reduce my life by 24 hours so a year is equal to 12 X 365 (weeks) or roughly 84 years. And as I have planned to be about for another forty years at least it means that I will in fact reach the staggering age of 3430 years old. Well that is amazing and it just proves that Bacon is jolly good for you and we should all eat more of it.  

Of course if any pigs are reading this I would just like to say it is not my fault, it is not good to evolve into a creature that makes such nice sandwiches and that extends our lives by more than three thousand years

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Praying Mantis on the Shropshire Plains

Our good friend Mr F has come to visit, in fact he made it here before I had even got out of bed, but as we are now chatting to Mr F giving him the time to relax and chill I must be quick and to the point. So today I made a Praying Mantis because Mr ESB has three real Praying Mantis roaming about in his garden which is WELL COOL. A paper and card Praying Mantis is not really the same but this is Shropshire and I don’t think they like it here much…..

Animal-Scopes and other things of no importance

The weather was not so good today much colder and showers all day, but I was planning on doing some work inside by starting to make an Animal-Scope. The idea is that the children I am presently doing some art with in the local junior school can use the Animal-Scope to display their animals on it that they cut out last week, well that’s the plan anyway. I have discovered that in respect to art and small children plans are not a good idea but none the less I have one I am working to for now. So I have created the basic structure of an all cardboard Animal Scope, although moving parts in cardboard when you are trying to avoid spending too much time on the thing is tricky.

I have plans in the future to make some more Animal-Scopes because I think there is some mileage in the idea and it would be good to make a couple of them when I have more time (I need more time, time is annoying).  Anyway I have a few fiddly bits to sort before Tuesday so I will have to do a bit of time management which is one thing I am rubbish at as it happens.

I noticed on the radio this morning (faithful Radio 4) that they were discussing the WorldWorm Charming Championships that were happening today in the UK, not something I have heard of before and I have seen a few signs by the side of the road locally for the British Stone Skimming Championships which are happening just up the road a couple of miles away next weekend. It is strange what folk get up too when they are not making Animal-Scopes.

Ooooooo yes Miss I and Mr S called by as they had gone to see the Castle of the Bishop, and Miss Anne sent a message last night to say she had headed off to London on her canal boat last month and will be back sometime next month. Canal boats are like that not speedy beasts.

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The rather unforgiving properties of structural integrity and gravitatianal stability in Art

Tuesday the day of teaching young children art, well I use the word teach loosely because if there is one thing I can’t do it is teach young children.  I arrived at the local junior schools after school club slightly early while they were still getting food and drink to keep them lively and bouncy. Luckily I had managed to turn a crocodile, a dragonfly and a dog which the children drew last week into large cardboard self standing cardboard things, although I did have to tweak just a few tiny things to deal with the rather unforgiving properties of structural integrity and stability. Yes even art can not entirely escape the forces of gravity and nature sadly, which as an artist I have to admit is rather annoying. However very young children are not entirely aware of the overall principles of structural integrity and generally see gravity as a mere trifle to wave away as unimportant, until they fall over and drop their trifle. 

They also eat artistic ideas like a huge man eating sea monster eats men on Brighton beach on a sunny bank holiday Monday when it is knee deep in holiday makers and sea monster watchers and ice cream is half price during happy hour. Of course happy hour under those circumstances is less happy that it could be as everyone (and that’s loads of folk) are being eaten by a sea monster or monsters.  I would say that teaching art to small children is much like being eaten by sea monsters, I am starting to think I may have to make some sea monsters in order to keep them focused on art, although I did do one sneaky thing with today’s lot I mentioned maths. This I thought would slow them up a bit but for reasons I find difficult to comprehend it appears they are all rather keen on a bit of maths and it did not slow the whiz of pencils and the snipping of scissors as I tried to explain that most legs are a bit fatter at the top of the leg where it joins the body and thin at the other end and at least one lad did realize this after all the legs fell off his spider drawing when he cut it out. In the end a bit of Algebra confused them and square roots seemed to confuse a couple of them a bit, but they are only about seven; interestingly algebra and square roots seem to confuse folk who are seventy also, but I guess 7 is not the best number for square roots.

I would mention the rest of the day but I need to rest. . . . . .