Invitations

 

Invitations

Increasingly, during news programmes, we are invited to ‘have a listen to’ an item or a speaker. Is it a friendly, informal way of introducing a snippet of news, or are we being patronised, or even infantilised?

It’s not discourteous to say, ‘Listen to the next item.’

Sometimes we are asked to ‘have a read of’ an article. It’s not a slice of cake to be held in the hand. I don’t ‘have a read’ of a book – I just read it.

We have always ‘had a look at’ things, though perhaps we should say, ‘Look at this,’ but asking someone to ‘have a taste of’ a dish would be more easily expressed as, ‘try this,’ or ‘taste this.’

Must we mangle the language so badly that it bears no relation to what we actually mean? Do we have to wrap every sentence in extraneous vocabulary to make them more acceptable? It’s not good to be peremptory, but it makes little sense to add unnecessary words. They don’t clarify matters.

After I had written this moaning, whingeing piece, I read an article by Giles Coren in The Times. He writes so well.

Samba

 

Samba

                                Capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris)

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Samba the capybara, who escaped from Marwell Zoo, is still at large, evading capture, and hopefully enjoying her freedom. She and her sister, Tango, both nine months old, were transported from a wildlife park in Suffolk. On March 17^th, the day after they arrived in Hampshire, they both escaped. Tango was caught very quickly, but Samba is proving elusive.

Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents, and are best seen as giant guinea pigs, sharing the same docility and lack of aggression as their much smaller cousins. Adults reach an average length of 1.4 metres and a weight of around 60 kg. They are native to South America, apart from Chile. They are mainly predated on by jaguars, cougars, caimans, and anacondas, none of which they will encounter in UK.

They are semi-aquatic, with webbed feet, and are excellent swimmers, able to swim underwater for minutes at a time. They mate only in water and a female not desirous of a male’s attention, will either leave the water or submerge herself. Presumably, the male would also be able to submerge, so I can’t see how that would help. Maybe they have to keep their heads above water as they copulate.

They can also run at speeds up to thirty-five kilometres per hour for short periods.

However, Samba is one on her own, relishing the peace and tranquillity of the Hampshire countryside. Her putative keepers have used drones, sniffer dogs, and thermal imaging to track her, with limited success. They have subsequently sought and gained permission to bait humane traps with melon and banana for this gentle herbivore, foods which are unlikely to attract badgers or other carnivores.

Local residents have been asked to check their garden ponds, as capybaras are attracted to water. The last time two capybaras escaped from Marwell, around thirty years ago, it was two months before they were captured. They were found in the same area that Samba is in now, near the river Itchen. Staff from the zoo are patrolling the riverbank, but are prepared for a long period of searching.

                                Capybara with young pups

Dancing Queen

 

Dancing Queen

The two ‘Dancing Queen’ amaryllis bulbs that I planted on January 11^th are now opening their flowers. They have been growing for almost eleven weeks , so I was beginning to wonder if they would come up to snuff, but they have, and that is pleasing.The original conservatory bulb was far behind the one in the sitting room, but rapidly caught up after we moved it into the warmth to join its companion. 

Recently, Herschel caught sight of the unfurling frilly flower and leapt up to assail it. Maybe he thought it was an exotic bird set free in the house. We discouraged him, and he hasn’t attempted to attack it since. I was quite expecting to find the stem broken one morning, but that has not happened . . . yet!

I have been delighted with the amaryllis and will certainly grow them again.

Naked as a jaybird

 

Naked as a jaybird

                        Blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata cyanotephra) 

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Debby from 'Life's Funny Like That' mentioned this expression in a comment the other day and it was unfamiliar to me, so, being incurably nosy, I looked it up. It is an American idiom, first recorded in 1843, but growing in popularity from the 1920s.

It replaced the earlier saying, ‘naked as a robin,’ perhaps because it seemed a more robust phrase. Some have suggested that the original idiom was ‘naked as a fledgling robin/jaybird,’ since such baby birds are naked on hatching, but this was dismissed by others who claim that the word ‘fledgling’ was never part of the expression.

Why was the saying never ‘naked as a jay’ or even ‘naked as a blue jay,’ which has a nice ring to it?

‘Naked as a jaybird’ can be used to refer to ‘jailbirds,’ or prisoners who were stripped and disinfected before being issued with prison garb. ‘Jailbird’ has been in use since the seventeenth century in England, conjuring rather fanciful images of miscreants as birds in iron cages, or gaols. Gaol was a standard English spelling until the middle of the twentieth century, but is rarely used now.

Something else I read suggested that the expression arose because young jay nestlings, before their feathers have grown, often push their siblings out of the nest, when they are naked.

In short, I’m almost as mystified as I was before I started looking at this idiom. Of course, it is shameful to be caught naked in public, unless you’re staying in a nudist colony or disporting yourself on a nudist beach.

Is a nudist beach one that doesn’t wear clothes? What is the well-dressed beach wearing this year? 

Flying colours

 

Flying colours

                                                Image source

Marlene at Poppy Patchwork, or rather, her little cat, Lilly, ‘passed with flying colours’ at her recent visit to the vet. That’s always an excellent appraisal, but Lilly wasn’t wearing any colours, other than her home-grown fur, so what did the vet mean?

The phrase is a maritime expression from the Age of Exploration, (early 15^th to early seventeenth centuries) when much of the globe was explored by European sailors. The ‘colours’ were the flags that ships flew to indicate their nationality and to communicate with other ships.

Ships would not legally fight unless their national flags were flying.

After battle, ships would return to port with flags flying to show that they had been victorious. If their flags had been lowered, it was a signal that they had been defeated. To pass (the harbour bar) with flying colours was a way of saying they had been triumphant, and was adopted by landlubbers as a phrase to declare success.

Sometimes, unfortunately, a ship would sink with colours flying, the crew having continued to fight valiantly despite clear defeat. Often, colours would be nailed to the mast, indicating a determination to fight until the bitter end.

To ‘nail your colours to the mast’ or ‘show your true colours’ means to show your true intent, your alliance.

Pirates and other malefactors frequently sailed ‘under false colours.’ They would hoist the sail of a friendly nation and thus be able to approach closely a ship in which they were interested, probably one carrying valuable cargo. The notorious pirate, Blackbeard, used such a ploy, but as the ships closed, he would then reveal the ‘Jolly Roger,’ (the skull and crossbones flag), and the crew would surrender the ship.

As Lilly and her family live near Portsmouth, it is appropriate that she ‘passed with flying colours.’

Driven!

 

Driven!

Jellicoe models his recovery cone

With his head securely surrounded by a blue recovery cone of washable material, Jellicoe is prevented from scratching or grooming. The hood is fastened with draw cords around his neck, and protects the site of the oesophageal tube insertion while it heals, as well as his eye. He did manage to remove the cone one day, and immediately scratched his neck and made it bleed, but we were able to replace it instantly, and no lasting harm was done.

Every day brings another small improvement in Jellicoe’s recovery. On Sunday, he headbutted me, something he had not done since his operation. It is a sign of affection and bonding, and I hadn’t realised how much I had missed it.

He is not a cat who overgrooms. Some cats wash for hours after eating, or being touched by humans, but Jellicoe and Herschel do only what is necessary and no more to keep their fur in good condition.

However, the urge to groom is extremely strong, and he licks his paw, as he would normally, to scrub his face, and works hard to complete his ablutions, ‘washing’ the exterior of his hood. It looks very endearing, but I wonder if he is frustrated by not being able to complete the task effectively. The rasping of his tongue on the material is persistent and quite loud. Eventually, he stops, and then attempts to satisfy an itch, again being able only to scratch his collar.

Gilbert quickly overcame his consternation at the sight of the wavering blue object making its way around the house, and realised it was only his little friend in strange head gear. The cone accentuates the lateral movement of the head common to all cats, wild or domestic, as Jellicoe saunters across a room.

The eye is not completely healed, but looks much less sore. Jellicoe does not appreciate eye drops being applied, but the cat heroin he is still having once a day soon sends him off to sweet dreamland.

In a few days’ time he will return to the Aura, for his condition to be assessed. Hopefully, he will not need any further surgery.

Veterinary medicine and surgery are extraordinarily advanced. There are significant overlaps and coordination between the two disciplines. For example, research into Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) has contributed to AIDs research for almost forty years, leading to the development of antivirals for the treatment of HIV.

Advances have also been made in the study and control of zoonoses. The ‘One Medicine’ concept advocates studying diseases across species, to the benefit of increasing knowledge in human and animal pathology.

Guess!

 

Guess!

‘I think I’ll get two,’ he said, apropos of nothing.

There are times when I listen carefully to any following remarks in the hope that I can disentangle what he means. Now, frequently short of patience, I am more inclined to ask, ‘What are you talking about?’

Following a butterfly mind as it flits from topic to topic, subjects often only loosely associated with each other, can be exhausting. It’s not sufficient that I note what he’s carrying so that I can tell him later where he’s left his keys, wallet, pen, notebook, coat, tablet, or any number of other items of greater or lesser importance that migrate from room to room, and occasionally to the car. No, I have to work out which of the many subjects he’s researching to understand where his mind has taken him. It could be anything from camera lenses to history to specialised wire to reading glasses.

This time, it was insulin for Jellicoe. We like to ensure that we have plenty in reserve in case we drop a bottle, which then breaks – this has happened only once, but could happen again. Each time he goes to the animal hospital, Barry takes insulin, syringes, needles, and a supply of diabetic food in case Jellicoe has to stay there. So, he decided to get two bottles of insulin from the chemist, but, as it turns out, there was only one available, and he has to go back tomorrow. Let’s hope we don’t drop any bottles tonight.

It’s a grand life if you don’t weaken!