Fri 2007-09-21 Push chairs and prams seem to be getting more and more robust in their construction, far more robust than is necessary for their purpose of carrying children. I have a theory that they are slowly evolving into tanks. First it will be caterpillar tracks, next armour-plating, then guns.
Thu 2007-09-20 
My daughter Zoe has just got home from school. As she was coming up to the back door to our flats she noticed a yellow-eyed, brown-speckled bird standing on top of this unfortunate pigeon. On seeing Zoe, the yellow-eyed bird flew off and has not returned. I suspect that it has abandoned the kill because it is too close to the flats and would involve the risk of being cornered and unable to take off.
I showed Zoe this photo of a sparrowhawk and she said "Yes, that's what it was!". I was surprised, as I had assumed that they only took smaller birds but, apparently, I was wrong.
Thu 2007-09-20 PZ Myers at his most pugnacious:
The Nicene Creed is not a profession of the basic orthodoxy of the Christian faith. It's a rationality test.
If you believe one line of it, you've failed.
Ouff!
Mon 2007-09-17 I watched the first episode of the rerun of Ray Mears' Wild Food last night. In it Ray and Gordon Hillman visit Arnhemland to find out how Australian Aborigines went about searching for and preparing their food. Towards the end of the program their hostess is preparing a type of yam that needs soaking overnight to make it edible. She takes an empty snail shell, with a stick pokes a hole in its side, and then proceeds to use it to grate the yam into thin strips. Mears and and Hillman are quite impressed by the simplicity and effectiveness of this tool and they speculate that if such a shell turned up in an archaeological dig, it would be unlikely to be recognised as a tool.
