Pet Rock －ペットのロック－

I was listening to the BBC news this week, and there was an item about pets.  Apparently, the number of dogs and cats in the U.K. is very large – more than 13 million dogs and more than 12 million cats in a country of 69 million people. 

To give a bit of context, a news reporter went to a pet museum, where an expert talked about the history of pets.  That expert also talked about odd trends in pet ownership, such as the mummification of cats in ancient Egypt and the invention of Tamagotchi as virtual pets.  Then he mentioned “pet rock.” 

I had a sudden image of a rock band featuring pets.  The human drummer bangs his drums:  badda, badda, bing, bing, crash!  The human guitarist strikes his instrument: kerrang!  Then the spotlight shifts to the vocalist: miaow!!! 

I realized that this would be ridiculous and then had another thought.  The rocks are diamonds, emeralds and rubies.  Rich pet owners are dressing their dogs in jewellery for a walk in the park. 

But this thought was wrong too.  Apparently, in the 1970s, an American businessman picked up some stones and put them in a box with “breathing holes.”  He then sold these rocks as pets, and made a successful business out of his pet rocks. 

The real pet rock turned out to be the stupidest idea of the three.  I actually think a cat vocalist accompanying loud guitar and drum music would do well on Spotify.

 

Smarter than the Average Bear －平均的な熊より賢い－

“I’ll steal from the rich and give to a poor bear – me!”

Cartoon character, Yogi Bear

 

I have been reading an interesting book about the attempts of scientists to communicate with animals. 

There is a lot of scientific debate and disagreement about how intelligent different animals are, and whether animal communication can be called language. 

On the intelligence of bears, the writer mentioned a problem staff had at Yosemite national park in America.  Nobody could seem to design a bin that would allow human tourists to put their rubbish into, which the bears would not be able to also access. 

A frustrated staff member said, “There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest human tourists.”

 

Three More Pizzas, and a Little More Gold, Please －ピザをあと3枚、それとゴールドをもう少しください－

The Oscar Awards will take place soon.  After the ceremony, there will be a celebratory dinner for 1,500 guests. 

The feast will be prepared by 75 chefs, who will cook a variety of foods, from sushi to vegan options, Austrian dishes to Mexican.  It sounds a bit like a buffet breakfast in a nice hotel, except probably better.  I wonder if they have those little sausages you usually get at a buffet? 

The guests will also receive a statue dusted with real gold.  That reminded me of comedian David Cross talking about his experience of being given a meal to eat with real gold on it. 

“Odorless, tasteless gold – to eat!” 

As he said, is there any reason to eat real gold except to laugh at poor people? 

The organizers are also preparing to serve 7,000 glasses of Champagne, 600 pizzas and 90kg of steak. 

Of all the delicacies you can imagine, from all over the world, and prepared by high class chefs, would you really order pizza?

 

Eyes, or an Eye, in the back of my Head －僕の頭の後ろにある目－

I remember wondering about eyes when I was a university student.  I understood the idea of evolution, and accepted that it was the best explanation for how life appeared and spread across the Earth.  But I couldn’t imagine how eyes could have evolved.  If each evolutionary change was a small step, how could something as complex as an eye appear?  How useful is half an eye, or a quarter of an eye? 

Luckily, there are scientists who study these things.  There are stages in the development of eyes, from more simple to more complex and effective (and sometimes back again, such as creatures that start to live underground).  We can feel sunlight on our skin.  Perhaps the eye started with a patch of skin that was just a little bit more sensitive at finding the sunlight. 

I heard about some new research about the evolution of eyes this week.  Scientists have found an ancient life form, which lived before the evolution of fish.  It had a worm-like body and one simple eye in the top of its head to help it detect sunlight.  The scientists believe that later animals such as fish evolved from these creatures.  So if you travel back far enough into our evolutionary past, there was a time when we were born with one eye, not two. 

The story also made me think of the English expression, “I have eyes in the back of my head.” 

Parents often say this to their naughty children.  It means, “I can see you, even when you think that you are out of my line of sight.” 

“Stop reading manga when you are supposed to be doing your homework!  I have eyes in the back of my head.”