I don’t recall writing anything to antagonise the wicked Ms Nature recently so I am at a loss as to why lefty is playing up. I can only think that my ex-wife has made some sort of faustian pact because there is no logic in its behaviour. I am getting a lot of pain in my left hand which makes no sense, my right hand is a bit of a historical mess and obviously my wrists, well they are no longer wrists but the left hand is pretty much ‘out of the box’. It’s not arthritic pain and I havent done anything to injure it must be the work of Ms Nature, I am sure a hot bath will resolve it.
I was idly listening to a combination of daughter, mother and grandmother on the train into work this morning and was wondering why people lie to their kids. The daughter was asking various questions about trains and railways in general, when she asked what the external door control was on a passing train nan confirmed it was “where they put the fuel in”. The discussion about the overhead wires and how they were connected to the train revealed that this was the “power that they put into the rails”, this gem confirmed by mum. The daughter was at least 12 and had a smart phone, why not tell her you don’t know the answer. That was three generations that were perpetuating a myth, alright it’s not a critical piece of information but that’s not the point. If you ask me whether cats like lemonade or if mushrooms can hear human voices I will tell you that I don’t know, what is the point in making up the answer. Information is so readily accessible now that there should be no excuse for not providing children with the correct answer. If we lie to our children then they will not trust our answers and there are some pretty important questions that you want them to listen to the answers to. If you don’t want little Janet thinking she can’t get pregnant if Johnny leaves his T-shirt on I suggest that you learn the phrase “I really don’t know, lets look it up”.
It did occur to me that the subject of misinformation may be linked to a conversation from the weekend. I sat in the Driftwood watching fisherman with Dave and we got to wondering, how do you know when its time to move, when you wont catch a fish in that location? We concluded that fish are far from territorial, they don’t have little plots of ocean or river, they just kind of mooch around so presumably if you stay still long enough they will come by. hen of course you have to question night fishing, given that its dark under the sea why would fish be more prone to snacking at night. We concluded that worms must be an obscure delicacy for fish, after all they don’t dig their own do they. Why on earth would a fish decide to eat a worm hanging on a hook any more than I would eat a pencil dangled in front of me. Top marks to Dave though, when we considered why you catch crabs with bacon his response was “well bacon goes with crab”. Have generations of fishermen used worms because one young boy asked his dad what fish eat and rather than admit he didn’t know he said “worms”. A final word on fishing, it disproves the theory that I read in a paper today that nature favours cooperation. You see if fish cooperated then by now they would have sussed us out “Oi Bob have you seen this, there’s a bloody great worm just floating in front of me I’m gonna see what it tastes like” “Nooooo Bob don’t do it, George said the same thing last week just before he shot out of the water and we havent seen him since”