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Me

Egypt

in Taba Heights.

Not having dived for 10 years, I had to do a full scuba review – a written test, and all those skills like the maskless swim, buddy breathing, etc etc. Which was probably a good idea but a bit tedious. But did four proper dives as well.

Highlights – Crocodile Fish (Carpet Flathead), quite a big squid, some attractive spotty morays, pyjama slug (a kind of nudibranch), partner gobies with their little shrimp friends, a good view of a stonefish, blue-spotted ray, juvenile Emperor Angelfish, some attractive versions of Lyretail Grouper (purple with little blue spots and a yellow trim). Lots of pretty fish generally. Christmas tree worms in lots of colours; attractive ferny-looking black crinoids. Lots of scorpionfish.

I get the sense that the diving at Taba Heights is a bit limited, really – all rather the same – but good enough for a short trip. And the snorkelling outside the hotel was excellent – when the water wasn’t too choppy.

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Me Nature

Egypt

List from Taba Heights (a dive resort in Egypt): House Sparrow, Blackstart, White-crowned Wheatear, Spectacled Bulbul, Laughing Dove, Collared Dove, Swallow, House Martin, Sand Martin, Rock/Crag Martin (not sure), Swift, Kestrel, Sooty Gull, European Bee-eater, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Little Green Bee-eater, Mangrove Heron.

The Bee-eaters are probably the pick of that list, though I didn’t see any of them very well. The distribution maps in the book were clearly unreliable for the area, and I never managed to decide whether they were Rock Martin or Crag Martin.

One day I spent some time trying to track down a bird I could hear making a loud ‘chk chk’ call – I thought possibly a warbler. Eventually I was looking directly into a bouganvillea, not more than 4-5 feet away, and I couldn’t understand how I couldn’t see the damn bird, and I realised that on the wall directly behind the bouganvillea was… a gecko.

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Me

possible poem for tomorrow

in case I forget

I cut a slice through my fingernail a few days (a week?) ago, while cooking. It’s nearly grown out. I read once that the moon retreats from the earth at about the same speed our fingernails grow. I can see that growth happening. I feel there’s a poem in it somewhere.

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Me

the hall of dancing horses

the hall of dancing horses
the windows rattle in the frames

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Me

stuff

while in the tree, the dunnock flicks its wings

idea for poem: 30 final lines

under sodium streetlights, daffodils are the same colour as concrete

the smell of smoke turns a spring night into autumn

I don’t know why I’m producing all this nature-stuff particularly. ho-hum

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Me

more thoughts on ID/evolution

it may be unwise of me to try and do US atmosphere/imagery too much, since I’m not of there. But hey-ho.

Bryan Newbury’s post From Flatlands to Flat Earth is interesting, but perhaps not enough to build a whole poem around.

What do I know about Kansas? I went across it once on a Greyhound from Salt Lake City to Kansas City. My considered opinion – golly it’s flat. It makes Norfolk look like Switzerland. Again, not enough to build a poem around.

It’s suggestive that the only Western country where the teaching of evolution is controversial (as far as I know) is the one with the biggest legacy of racial tension. The Scopes Trial took place in apartheid Tennessee. The US is also unusually religious, of course, but as far as I know, other countries where religion is often a political force, like Italy and Ireland, are fine with evolution. Even Ian Paisley, who is as crazy as a ferret, doesn’t seem very interested in the subject.

Which is odd, really, because you’d think that evolution gave more scope for racist ideas than creationism. Or at least, creationism in the loose sense could allow for separate creations for people of different races, but creationism rooted in biblical literalism is surely restricted by the Adam and Eve story. “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman?”, as Wat Tyler put it.