Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insects. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 May 2019

A rather boring day for the readers of my Diary . . . Sorry.






You are probably thinking . . . . . Hang On this diary thing . . . . Back in the past loads of stuff happened and now it’s dead boring . . . .  Well that is a bit true; it is not the diary it used to be. Part of the reason at present is my continued work on Shed Two (My workshop) and the reason I am working away on that a great deal is due to the weather. It has been lovely over the last few days. Lovely to the point where our daughter phoned us up from her home just a couple of miles away on the Welsh side of the border to say how horrid the rain was. At the time we were sitting outside in the sun drinking tea and chilling. A short break from shed work.

I will admit I did fire up the old weather machine on the off chance it might finally do something useful and not cause hurricanes again. So maybe it might just be doing what it was always meant to do, make it sunny.   

Anyway shed two slowly develops. One aspect of designing and building buildings without any design whatsoever is things can develop in ways that you never thought they might. I do wonder if going back in time folk just built stuff and the key point of any good building was it did not fall down. It does mean they can become quite interesting as you ponder ways to resolve an issue that you had not thought about until three quarters of the roof is finished. And I think Shed Two will be all the better for all the little changes I keep making in order to make it structurally sound and practical in a quirky sort of way. I will then claim I am a Master Builder in the medieval tradition of Master Builders.

There have been a lot of butterflies about lately I suspect that is a good sign. I am not good on butterflies, but I did see a small blue one and a large yellow one earlier as well as the white ones and brownish ones.  . . . My knowledge of plants is a bit like my knowledge of butterflies by the way. . . . . .

Right that’s it . . . . I suspect you are now thinking Well that was rubbish. But it’s a diary so Poo . . . .  (again) . . .




I sometimes draw beasts seen in the garden
but do use a bit of artistic license so no one knows what they are
Including me


Monday, 2 May 2016

The Strange case of Dr Bumble Beaman and Mr Hive



We all know the plight of the humble Bumble Bee as its numbers continue to drop across the Country due to changing climate and environmental pressures, and this is the background to the rather strange tale of Dr Bumble Beaman and Mr Hive. You see Dr Beaman was a keen bee keeper and decided that he would do experiments to develop a new super nectar so that his honey bees would be strong and flourish. He was an odd character and liked nothing more than to dress up as a bee and would often be (no pun intended) seen out among his hives talking to his honey bees. Dr Bumble Beaman was a quiet reclusive man and locked himself away for hours on end in his laboratory (the shed at the end of the garden) where we would mix and stir various flowers and sugars and ferment strange substances in order to produce his new super-food for bees.

Well time passed and folk sort of forgot about Dr Bumble Beaman’s experiments until one night when the full moon was at its height a group of local villagers saw a terrible apparition. It was a huge Vampire Bumble Bee that was running up and down the street buzzing loudly and biting the heads of flowers in the villager’s front gardens. Well at another time of year that might have been overlooked, but it was only a few days until the Britain in Bloom competition, and the Small village of Upper Dilly-Pickford (where they all lived) had won the best village prize for the last four years. And if it won this year it would receive a large silver cup and appear on Gardeners World and that nice Mr Monty Don would visit to present the cup.  

Well the very next morning the village Britain in Bloom committee met and thought they must do something in case the terrible monster bee returned. It was at this point that they all thought of Dr Bumble Beaman, after all if anyone knew what to do it would be him. So the mayor and the chairman of the village Britain in Bloom committee went to see him, but when they arrived at the house a dishevelled and sick looking Dr Beaman open the door refusing to let them in. He did however say he would look into it and investigate, although he kept twitching and making slight buzzing sounds which the mayor and the chairman of the village Britain in Bloom committee put down to a bit too much gin.

That night yet again the terrible huge Vampire Frankenstein Monster bee was seen attacking the roses of Mrs White at No 22 and then eating water lilies in the village pond before pushing Mr Brown’s prized pumpkin into the old horse trough. Enough is enough thought the village, and the next evening they lay in wait near the villages centre piece, a seagull and a goat made out of geraniums and sweet peas next to the village car park where it cleverly hid the recycling bins from view. Then just before midnight running up the road buzzing came the sight and sound of the terrible monster bee. As it got close, the villagers leap out and chased it with pitch folks and extra strong fly spray. Panicked the huge mutant vampire Bumble Bee ran back to Dr Bumble Beaman’s shed and locked itself in.


A terrible unspeakable thing happened that night and neither Dr Bumble Beaman nor Mr Hive (the Monster Bee) were ever seen again, and the village of Upper Dilly-Pickford received its big silver cup from Monty Don. Sadly though just a few years later all the bees died out or vanished and there were never any flowers in  Upper Dilly-Pickford after that and it never won the Britain in Bloom competition ever again and there was a strange lingering feeling of guilt among the villagers that eventually drove several of them mad. The large silver cup they won hidden away in a locked cupboard in the village hall.          

Thursday, 24 September 2015

Houseflies . . . . .What is their cunning game



As you know I live in the countryside with the woods to one side of us the fabled Minor Stream of Inconsequence behind us and rolling fields full of cows and the local village. I say village it is almost a village it is not big, but we do have a village hall which has its Friday market due to a twist of fate, and a rather good health food store that has been here for almost ever.

Now being rural with cows peering over the hedge at us and water (sort of) behind us means we do see rather a lot of flies in the summer, yes even the rural ideal has its little annoying issues and flies are a bit of a pain at times. But for reasons I have assumed must be connected to some sort of long term change in the world order or even linked to alien invasion, this year the flies have mutated. Yes they still look like your average housefly being blackish with six legs and wings but they are now ferocious and aggressive. 

I mean flies have always been a bit annoying but not actively aggressive dive bombing you and hitting you in the face. Flying directly at you rather than thinking OOOOoooo is a huge human I better get out the way. So why has this happened it is not something I have seen before. As I have said it must be something like aliens or the like.  I know aliens are a long shot but just imagine if insects coordinated their attack on us poor unsuspecting humans with our soft sensitive skin. I heard that once on a TV advert so it must be true, not that the insects had coordinated their attack on us, but that we have soft sensitive skin.

Another thought was maybe this is a global warming thing because insects can adapt much faster to environmental change than other critters which is why some beetles moths and other insect critters from warmer climates have been seen in Britain but not larger things such as Panthers, wallabies, porcupines and pterodactyls . . . . . AH DAMN. . .   No the point is all the big ones have been brought here by folk who then get bored and let them go, where as the little insects have made their way here by choice.


Still I may not know exactly why the flies are so aggressive (its aliens for sure), but they are; which is why we have a big glowing flyzap in the kitchen.  Finally I will say you can not but be impressed by a fly sat on the edge of a very hot frying pan like it has not got a care in the world trying to work out how to steal my bacon as it cooks. 

Saturday, 18 October 2014

Mankind's Past and Mankind's Future . . . . The SHOCK Truth



The other day someone said to me hey you are a professional blogger don’t you answer all those tricky questions about stuff. . . . To which I said yes and that is the easiest question I have ever had to deal with, but then they said well I was wondering why the social economic structure that mankind lives within is so complex when say a duck messes about, eats grass and maybe heads south for the winter.  I did try and explain that I normally only write about 500 words per post and we have already used a whole load up and have not ever started to deal with his rather complex question.

So in order to deal with this I will answer it in two bits because there are in fact two very different answers to this, one very long answer and one much shorter. Tonight will be the shorter answer. Both are equally valid and have their supporters within the scientific community at large.

So consider the dilemma of being a super intelligent lifeform keen to colonise the universe, but also aware of the issues involved. I have previously explained it is as good as impossible to do this. However there is one way it could be done and recent discoveries in space support this theory, you see the basic building blocks of life have been found in space and we need to ask ourselves why it is there. Well it is likely it was put there by a super intelligent lifeform and represents the key genetic data of their own species at a micro biological structure level, where it (the building blocks of life) drifts through space. Once encountering a planet gravity ensures it covers its surface. And because of the microscopic size it does not burn up as it falls through the atmosphere.  Once on the planet it then interferes with the process of Evolution in the most suitable species and gradually turn the DNA of the host being into the original (alien) lifeform.

Have you noticed how Mankind suddenly headed down an entirely different avenue of evolutionary process to other apes and we now have a lifestyle closer to that of termites and ants. Just look at how folk move about in IKEA and large shopping centres, the Great Apes just sit about or chill in trees and never build large towers like termites.  If you add to this to the question of what sort of super lifeform would put the colony and species before the individual in order to colonize the universe; and the answer is clearly an insect one such as termites or ants.

We are not ants we lack the required number of limbs but viewed from a great height our cities are very similar to that of the termite and insect colonies. And we have ever increasing laws and regulations to control us, pressurizing us to conform to the will of the masses. Something clearly changed us from being apes, and it is very likely we are in the process of becoming pre-programmed alien beings.


You may laugh but just think about this next time you are following the little arrows around IKEA without question picking up large fluffy termites for the kids to play with. . . . . . . . . . .     

Wednesday, 3 September 2014

The as yet unknown Insect People of Saturn . . . . . Keep Watching the SKIES (sorry EYES)





The Ghost Writer has been in his grey office today pondering the strange world of IT, now before you all say hang on that got nothing to do with unknown things, that is not entirely true. You see he is going ga ga (as in loony, not the singer . . . .as I have said before) and so quite frankly has not got a clue what he is doing, so he spends most of his life in a state of unknown.  He is much happier like that, sometimes it is best not to know.

You are all no doubt all aware that in the last couple of days I have had close encounters with Vampire Moths and tonight I almost came  face to face with a large pale coloured spider. I say almost because it ran off and hid when I sneaked in to grab the camera. I have learnt I need to photograph everything or folk say things like O yes how big did you SAY; it stood four feet high and snarled at you……. Well if I wave a photo at them they go O MY GOD ITS HUGE KILL IT……. However the spider ran off so no picture only an artist’s impression . . . . . OK I may have got carried away a bit, but I have a theory.

Well all this insect activity made me think HANG ON maybe all these insects are just acting like pre-invasion scouts testing the lay of the land working out if us humans taste good before they (the Insect People of Saturn) attack us.  This now appears very likely to me because the small scouts (almost certainly nano robots) insects will be telling the main battle fleet in space that our main defences consist of nasty smelling aerosol sprays that are as good as useless, sticky strips of paper that catch the odd fly and scented candles which appear to choke the humans and for some reason even most humans can't understand clear plastic bags full of water hanging outside windows.  Yes it appears the insects may not only think we are weak and feeble but with rather tasty blood but also mad.


I have no plans to hang plastic bags full of water outside my windows. . . . No one is going to call me mad. Although it will make an interesting backdrop in the popular Steven Spielberg movie The Invaders from Saturn . . . . Based on a popular blog by Rob Z Tobor.

Monday, 9 December 2013

The Inside View of the Insect Societies

Insects as we all know are creatures of routine, trapped by nature too comply with the laws of the natural world. One of the best examples of the complex insect societies is the humble ant, but in order to understand the ant society it is best viewed close up, seriously close up. Yes we need to look into the ants nest at the passages the paths that these creatures take, the very reasoning behind why they do what they do as seen from the inside.




So as we always do at this time of year in our Natural History/Biology classes at school (the posh cyber-academy, as famous now in the world of fiction as Bert Drybolt) we went off on an exploratory field trip to visit the one place where it is possible to see what it is like to be an ant from the inside; to have to move about in a pre controlled order of passages and paths where the individual will be crushed and destroyed for disobeying the system.  The one place on Earth where the human mind can get a small glimpse into the world of the social insect and its strict protocol, where we shuffle round and round picking up small items and carrying them through the twists and turns of the ants nest with an intensity and desire only matched by an ant itself.  Forced into a set of decisions that make us leave the nest carrying these small items pondering why we are doing it.

We went to IKEA.


It was another cool sunset tonight but only for about one minute, but as it happened I just happen to be standing holding a camera at the right time, how cool is that. This is the sort of thing that makes man a man and an ant an ant, you see ants cant press the button on the camera hard enough for it to work and they strangely are not allowed into IKEA . . . . . . .HAH HAH H HAH HAH AH HAH AH HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA Hha haha hah hah ha ha ha   Ha ha ha hah hah ahh ha ha ha ……

Wednesday, 2 October 2013

A picture tells a thousand words

I have drawn a quick picture which I think basically explains itself, you know the old saying. .. . . A picture tells a thousand words . . . . So I don’t really think I need to say much more about today except to add that Esmeralda will certainly take more care near ferrets, and George will be fine once he gets his hand out of the thermos flask.  Yes he could break it, but that might kill the stick insects inside and that is the last thing we need after today’s events.




Of course those of you reading the cheap paperback diary of Rob Z Tobor bought at Kings Cross station will not get to see my drawing, so I will just say it involves an angry swan and a plate of ice cream.   

Monday, 16 September 2013

Dragonflies, Drums, Micro Gods, Religion and the Watchtower.......

At school today as the headmaster did his morning morale speech in the main hall to cheer everyone up there was a sudden ring of the door bell at the front entrance, this is not normal, folk usually wander in and wander about lost. So everyone looked to see who it was, well everyone except me as I was watching a dragonfly pottering about near the exit. Well the next you know was everyone running and screaming out of the hall and leaping into cupboards or hiding under tables, while most of the staff barricaded themselves into the staff room, leaving just me and the headmaster. As the headmaster peered at the two faces looking rather sheepish standing at the door holding a bible and a Watchtower (the magazine not a real one) he insisted that I could go and talk to them as I was expendable.  It appears as an unpaid part time student teacher I am surplus to requirements and my specialist subjects of Obscure Irrational Theories and Zombie Defence Classes are not core curriculum subjects. He also said that if I specialize in Zombie Defence Classes and had a pointy stick then I should be able to defend myself.



At the door I chatted to the two chaps who were dead keen to tell me loads of stuff about the bible, so I explained to them the major errors of large religions and told them all about the far better idea of Micro Gods. I was planning to show then Dragonflightimus the Micro God of Helicopters, but in the stampede Dragonflightimus the Micro God was slightly crushed to death.  You see this is what happens with religion, small things can get crushed in all the misunderstanding. So poor old Dragonflightimus the Micro God has flown her last fight but will luckily rise from the ashes next year to fly again, we are talking Micro Gods they do stuff like that, which apparently is what the two chaps with their bible and Watchtower say they plan to do also. . . . . .

Anyway tonight my drumming colleague and myself have had a well good drumming session to celebrate the local Micro Gods of Autumn, we then gave him pond plants apples and vegetables in order that he can go and offer them to his Micro Gods in the Castle of the Bishop. That’s my drumming colleague not the local Micro Gods.  


Ooooo I forget to say Mr Darren tinkered with our old range in order to make the central heating work before he rushed off after seeing two strange men on the road with an old bible who were looking into the sky for dragonflies.

Luckily I have this LP and this is one of my favourite songs....

Monday, 9 September 2013

Three and Three Quarter Minutes to Midnight and the Doomsday Book

 Today is the continuing saga of volume three and three quarters, which is the cyber-diary equivalent of one minute to midnight. As it happens I am not sure what the official minutes to midnight state is at present, so I will check . . . . . .

OK it is five minutes to midnight so it appears my diary is closer to becoming doomed that the world is. This is good for almost everyone except possibly me, as I am rather dependent on my diary in order to continue to exist, yes life is all a bit complex as the slightly eccentric child of cyberspace.



Anyway today I went on a long journey to the south, much like the swallows and then I went on long journey back to the point I started, unlike the swallows, but in doing so all is hopefully better than it was before I went on long journeys. The Ghost Writer did a grand selection of IT things today although he did spend much of his time in a state of confusion talking to clever people on a phone (they were not standing on the phone)…..

I hope to start the Official Slightly Eccentric Diary of Rob Z Tobor volume four in the next few days all being well, but time and the arrival of autumn are not helping matters…….    


Oooooo the Daddy Long Legs seem to be reducing in numbers now so that is good, they are remarkably silly beasts.....

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