Druids, Anti-Matter and an Alpine Chough

More from the blog that attempts to answer your questions on everything in the entire universe from the beginning to the end of all recordable time. Except maybe fashion.

Idea versus technical skill - which is better?

If you take a good look at the world around you will quickly see that the answer is of course neither: in any reasonable contest both ideas and technical skill will consistently trail in joint last behind “working in an office”. How can inspiration really compete against a really good two hour meeting with an agenda, some bullet points and a Powerpoint presentation from someone from marketing? Can some craftsmanship really replace the formulation of an ongoing strategy going forward to meet a set of core objectives? Thinking of it as an econo-socio-political game of scissors-paper-stone, imagine the tool-like scissors represent the power of technical skill to craft and shape. Ideas then are represented by the paper, the medium whereon we express our thoughts. And "working in an office" is represented by a massive bewildered yak that eats the paper, sicks it up again on the scissors and then kicks them both into a swamp. Then gets that all typed up in some minutes.

Why is it when women are tasked with purchasing something mundane, but essential such as a replacement telephone handset for the house they in fact end up drawn magnetically to the shops selling lovely winter boots and coats?

We all know how water will draw down the tip of a dowsing rod carried by a man with an awful beard and clothes that smell of the underneath of a toddler's car-seat. In just the same way an unusually nice coat will draw any shopper after household goods away from their initial path. Tacitus tells us of the mysterious rites of the druids who often went out to observe certain alignments of the moon, stars and lay-lines, and came back with a really natty pair of suede knee-high stilettos.

Is procrastination ever a good thing?


I notice this question was posted in April. Let me get back to you.

What if you are wrong about something?

I’m assuming this question relates to the possibility that this blog might contain inaccuracies. It seems to posit that in some respects this blog may be not so much a series of scientifically-demonstrable accounts of the nature of the known and unknown universe as some half-baked internet whimsy randomly chucked together by just some bloke. And as such it introduces a very important idea that underpins a lot of the work I do here on Some Kind of Explanation.

For a long time particle physicists have known that alongside particles there exist anti-particles, and hence anti-matter. In much the same way I’d like to postulate the existence alongside “explanations” of “anti-explanations”. These anti-explanations behave very much like conventional explanations except that they are the opposite in terms of being correct. So just as matter and anti-matter co-exist in the universe, these explanations and anti-explanations must co-exist in any attempt to explain the universe. So the existence of anti-explanations (in laymans terms “stuff that’s wrong”) in this blog clearly make it a more accurate tool for describing the nature of the universe. Look over there! Isn’t that an alpine chough? Oooh, you missed it.

On the other hand if the question is intended in the sense “What should one do if one is wrong about something?” my suggestion would be to throw up a smokescreen of scientific-sounding rhetoric, and if that fails change the subject with a spurious sighting of a rare corvid.


That's all the scientifically-verifiable results I've had back from the lab for now, but do kep the questions coming if there's anything else you feel needs explaining.

A Poorly Spaniel in a Wet Tweed Suit.

More from the only blog that answers the question “What does it all mean?”  without inviting you to a series of friendly “meetings” culminating in some sinister chanting and a standing order form.

Could you demonstrate that I exist?

It is a scientifically observable phenomenon that when a toddler is taking his jumper off and it is pulled up over his face he becomes completely invisible. And yet his existence continues. As I write this you are completely invisible. So, like the aforementioned toddler,  you must therefore also exist. This is of course all assuming you are wearing a jumper. If not then I’m afraid I can’t vouch for your existence of otherwise.

Why do my clothes smell like this?

This question highlights one of the fundamental problems with discussing smell, namely the vagueness of the terminology. There’s just no simple way for me to know what you mean by “like this” and that’s typical of the way that everyday language stumbles when it comes to finding a way to describe the olfactory. And yet it doesn’t need to be like that. Here I’d like to propose a radical new way to categorise and evaluate smell that I’m calling The Roquefort Scale.

Force 1) a scent. For example thyme warming in the summer sunshine. Bees gather. Breathing deepens.

Force 2) a waft. Freshly laundered sheets. Lungs fill.

Force 3) a whiff. Onions frying on the other side of the car park. Noses twitch.

Force 4) a niff. Onions frying on the same side of the car park. Noses sniff.

Force 5) a tang. The smell of garlic on the end of your fingers. Nostrils flair.

Force 6) an odour. Some socks just taken from a pair of brogues. Eyebrows crinkle.

Force 7) a pong. Some socks just taken from a pair of trainers. Eyes water.

Force 8) a funk. Some sick just taken from a pair of trainers. Windows are opened. Faces grimace.

Force 9) a hum. A poorly spaniel in a wet tweed suit. Polite conversation pretending everything is fine becomes difficult.

Force 10) a reek. Some offal accidentally left on a radiator while you went on holiday. Gorges rise. Noses are held.

Force 11) a stink. An old badger frightened to death by some off pickled onions. Insects die. Children cry.

Force 12) a stench. A skunk has exploded from a surfeit of scotch eggs and camembert in the back of a hot van used to transport herring. Windows crack. Adults burst into tears. Children burst into flames.

Why not take a careful smell of your clothes and let me know where on the Roquefort scale you would rate yourself, and then get back to me? Or if you rate anywhere over Force 7) please don't get back to me.

Why don't eggs come from eggplants?

Because they know that deep down they’re called Aubergines.

What do you do when you can't get what you want?

This very much depends on your background. For example if you are English you won’t mention it and will carry on as best you can. If you are Scottish you will feel pleased that things have panned out exactly as you predicted. If you are irish you will blame it on the English. If you are Welsh then you will remember a bygone day when you always got what you want and also the sun was shining and everyone loved you unconditionally. If you are American you might start a war. There are of course many other treasured national stereotypes that space prevents me from needlessly perpetuating.

That’s all for what I’m going to call “now” but do keep the questions coming or we’ll never get the universe explained.

Angry Spiders and a Not-Talking Mouse

More anwers to your questions from the blog that stares unblinking into the gaping maw of ignorant chaos and tells it to floss more regularly.

I need to pull my fridge out. What am I likely to find behind it?

Behind every fridge is a portal to another world. Typically this will be full of loveable characters such as Mr Detritus who is half cucumber-end half sort of brown slime, Rottycheek the not-talking dead mouse, and Mr and Mrs Important Document. If you have children they may be able to have exciting allegorical adventures there, but only if they are the sort of children who say things like “bad show” and aren’t especially interested in moral complexity.

Are there really people who can't understand what to do when they approach a roundabout?

Yes. In fact most people can’t understand what to do, and this condition isn’t affected by proximity to roundabouts.

Why does my leg hurt?

There could be three reasons for this. 1) You could be being eaten by a crocodile. 2) You could be vividly imagining you are being eaten by a crocodile. 3) Some other reason not covered by 1) or 2) above. As a general rule if there isn’t a thrashing grey-green mass of writhing reptile grasping your leg in its remorseless jaws dragging you into the murk of the swamp or reptile house pool then you can rule out 1) or 2). In extreme cases however it is possible to imagine being eaten by a crocodile while you are being eaten by a crocodile, and while this is all going on you may also be suffering some other unrelated leg pain, thus  experiencing 1), 2) and 3) simultaneously.

I'm experiencing a strong desire to purchase an occasional table. Would this be a wise investment?

No. I wouldn’t advise anyone to invest in a strong desire to purchase a table. How do you imagine you will recoup this investment? How will your desire for an occasional table become more valuable over time? Is there really any kind of market out there for a desire for an occasional table? Have you even done any kind of business plan AT ALL? No wonder we're falling into the blast furnace of global economic melt-down. Now if it were an occasional desire for a strong table that would be different.

Do spiders have feelings?

Yes, spiders do have feelings but not in a way that would make sense to humans. For example spiders feel angry about the films of Frank Capra; they feel jealous of sunlight glistening on an alder leaf; and they feel a kind of gut-wrenching panic about anything to do with upholstery. This accounts for why spiders and humans have such different priorities. In a recent survey on leisure pursuits human respondents ranked drinking a glass of wine with a friend far higher than sucking all the juice out of a fly, whereas the spiders consistently proved unable to hold a pencil long enough to tick any box.

That's all for now but do keep the questions coming as there remains a substantial part of the universe in need of explantion.

Scissors, Gold and a Swinging Cat

More answers to your questions about some of the fundamental problems of the universe, and also some of the really superficial ones.

Who originally proved there was not enough room to swing a cat?

The phrase goes all the way back to the late1930s and the unique sound of “Furry” Fred Buckman, a musical trail-blazer who advocated replacing woodwind instruments with domestic animals rotated at high angular velocity. "Swing Cat Swing!" featuring Buckman on Tibbles, a tabby belonging to one of his neighbours, marked the zenith of his career before he was relocated to new premises in the Delaware State Asylum where the small room sizes and unusually tight jackets brought his performing to a close.

Should I cash my gold?

Before you sell anything do stop to consider how gold can have a special sentimental value beyond the purely financial. Whether it’s a gift from a much-loved Nazi uncle, or a keep-sake from that special pirate in your life, or maybe just a souvenir of a lovely day out with friends in the Brink’s-MAT warehouse, do you really want cash more than all those happy memories? On the other hand, money can also be a lovely way of saying “I love you”.

What does a guy have to do to get some service around here?

I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. The specials today are barely-supressed rage at the bitter gall of this catering servitude, or a simmering resentment of rejection letters served on my visionary rites-of-passage sci-fi screenplay.

Who invented scissors?
Scissors weren’t invented, they were discovered in Massachusetts in 1749 by Jeddadeddadiah Lowell who came across two knives that had been riveted together with a thunder bolt during a mechanical storm (the standard kind of storm before Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the electrical storm two years later). Excited by his discovery he picked up the scissors and ran home to show his family but tripped, and was naturally killed instantly.

Is it possible to be too average, and if so, how can I achieve this?

Imagine you worked hard to be as average as you possibly could. Imagine you strove for many years to be run of the mill in all your endeavours, and imagine those endeavours were as predictably banal and quotidian as the human mind could make them.  You might by the end of your life be remarkably average. And herein would lie your failure. For averageness shuns the remarkable, the extreme. To achieve true averageness you need to be only averagely average. Just as a cat shuns the lap of one who yearns for feline proximity, averageness is not to be striven for and achieved. The most we can do is simply muddle along half-heartedly, neither really going for it nor giving up completely and hope that one day averageness will honour our laps with its ordinarily soft coat and humdrum purr.

According to info compiled by Google, I can expect to live 78.7 years. What should I do with that .7 of a year?

I’m afraid you’ve already used that up at the start as the .7 of a year is all before birth. The good news is that you will have used it very wisely by spending quality time with your mother and generally growing as a person.

Now that you’ve finished reading this blog, why not recycle it by simply printing it out to make a handy piece of scrap paper to keep by the phone?

Dark energy and the End of the End

More answers to your questions from the blog that hopes to stumble on a unified field theory for all phenomena by taking an infinite number of guesses.

How will I know when it is the beginning if the end?
I'm afraid you've missed the beginning of the end. It was marked by a touching ceremony where a small delegation of early mammals presented the last of the dinosaurs with a lump of clay in the shape of an asteroid, and then out-competed it for scarce resources until it died. We are now in the early part of the middle of the end. Assuming the life of the universe is more or less like a moving walkway at an airport we will know when it is nearly the end of the end because there will be a flashing light and a robotic female voice saying "Maximum entropy is approaching, please watch your step". At that point you should get off the far end of time as we know it very carefully and proceed to your terminal.

NASA says that most of the universe is made of a mysterious substance called dark energy. Does this have anything to do with Darth Vader?
No. Dark energy is simply energy that has been made without milk. Some people find it a little bitter but it's much better for cooking.
 
Why is there a light that never goes out?
Because some people in our house think the electricity bill is paid for by the elves or something. These are the same people that never put the lid back on the toothpaste by the way.
 
What's the difference between a sofa, a couch, and a settee?
A sofa is mainly for sitting on whereas it is possible to lie on a couch, especially to a therapist. A settee is a technical term from the world of canine law and it describes someone who has had something done to them by a setter.
 
Things aren't going as well as I expected. Is there some sort of reset switch for the universe, and where is it?
It's round the back underneath the Perception socket, right next to the Hope Adjustment buttons. Just hold it down for a thousand years and the universe restarts automatically. Be careful though because any alien civilisations who are using the universe will lose any unsaved work and they are going to be incredibly cross.

Are children inherently wicked or only ever so slightly evil?
It's not really appropriate to apply our subjective 21st century human morality to children. Their brains are very different to ours and where for example we have categories such as right and wrong, two year olds have evolved to think in terms of "cake" and "not cake". Seen in the context of cake acquisition maximisation children's behaviour makes sound evolutionary sense, and in time they may even come to replace us as the dominant species.

That's all the battery there's time for, but do keep the questions coming in if there's anything else you feel needs some kind of explanation.
 
 
 

Digging It, Swan Poker and a Badger with an Assault Rifle

“But what does it all mean?” It’s time to hear that anguished cry of all humanity and take decisive action, in this instance by answering six random questions sent in to an internet blog.

I can dig it he can dig it she can dig it we can dig it they can dig it, you can dig it, oh let's dig it. Can you dig it, baby?

With so many people able to dig it I don’t think manpower is going to be an obstacle to some pretty serious digging, so clearly whatever it is that’s being dug is going to get very deep very quickly. My worry is that once everyone’s lost interest in it and wandered off sooner or later some hapless passer-by, maybe even a child, could fall in it and be badly hurt. I flatter myself that I probably can dig it with the best of them, but if everyone else really is absolutely dead set on digging it I think the more responsible thing for me to do is to offer to be the one that fills it in again afterwards, baby.

I was wondering, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

That’s exactly what I was wondering too, so yes.

Why does the Queen own all the swans?

The Queen retains the right to ownership of all unmarked Mute Swans in open water in the United Kingdom. This arrangement dates back to 1823 when the Queen, or King George IVth as she was then, played all the unmarked Mute Swans in a poker game. The swans had already lost all their property (some sticks and mud) but tried to win it all back by staking themselves and all their children in perpetuity on one last desperate hand. But George IVth knew that Mute Swans have a “tell”: when they are bluffing they break a man’s arm.  The King fractured a humerus, but the swans lost the hand, the game and their freedom. Understandably they don’t like to talk about it.

Why does imaginary times imaginary give a negative?

Imaginary numbers don’t really get on with each other, and if they are forced into the kind of intimacy that goes along with multiplication they are bound to turn negative.  Other dysfunctional kinds of numbers to watch out for are the Irrational Numbers, which are unbearably capricious, and the Irritable Numbers whose product is invariably an Irascible Number.

When is right?

It’s right now.

What's the best way to protect yourself against a rabid badger?

It depends on the rabid badger’s mode of attack, if any. If it’s a rabid badger with a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle then a thick kevlar vest is your best option. Being short-sighted and lacking prehensile digits a rabid badger knows it hasn’t the prowess with firearms to risk a head-shot. If instead the rabid badger is trying to publish salacious details about you in a national newspaper then try a super injunction, though check that the rabid badger isn’t au fait with Rabid Badger Twitter or other rabid mustelid social networking sites like FoamyStripeyFacebook or OtterNutterBeBo. If the rabid badger is making sly digs about you to humiliate you in front of your friends, then maybe you and the rabid badger should reflect on what it was that attracted you to each other in the first place and maybe spend some quality time together to recapture the magic.

So that’s what some of it all means. Keep the questions coming in and with luck we’ll get the rest of the universe explained in no time.

Where all the Flowers have gone, and an Otter in Danger.

Come, bold internauts, and set sail with me across the sea of ignorance. With your questions for our oars and this blog as our ship let us discover new islands of truth amid the waves, and maybe build hotels on them.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Archeologists recently uncovered several overgrown graveyards full of the remains of a large group of soldiers. It’s hard to put an exact number on the bodies but it may even be as many as all the soldiers. Perhaps most remarkable however is that though these young men seem to have been dressed for battle their efficacy as a fighting force must surely have been compromised by the fact of their apparently carrying a large number of flowers, possibly even all the flowers. Experts have conjectured that all the young men may have been given all the flowers by all the young girls, but it’s hard to be sure as this was a long time ago.

Is terracotta red, orange, or brown?

No, that’s autumn leaves. Terracotta is a Sardinian dessert made out of milk and clay.

Why does it take me so long to draw spaceships?

The problem may be that the spaceships you are drawing are travelling at a significant proportion of the speed of light, so time passes at a different speed. Thus five minutes for the drawing of the spaceship will feel like many years for the person drawing it. You should be careful though because your drawings of spaceships are likely to have almost infinite mass. If you drew slower spaceships it would be quicker.

If a plus times a plus is a plus and a minus times a minus is a plus, why aren't minuses dying out?

There is very unlikely to be a shortage as the Government has been stockpiling them for years, ever since the minus strike. No? Oh please yourselves.

I'm suspect of the phrase, "You can't go back again". Are my feelings of unease justified?

Like so many things it depends on context. For example, at a family party my son reacted to exactly this phrase with rage when it formed my reply to his request to make a third trip to the dessert buffet. Likewise, if you were leaving your much-loved pet otter Fifibelle in the care of an avant-garde chef you were friends with at university because you were going away at short notice for a weekend in Minehead and nobody else was available, and then just as you were leaving the premises your eye was drawn to a blackboard bearing the legend “Chef’s Special Today: Mustelid Marinière” and then you heard a muffled squeal and suddenly felt an urge to return to Fifibelle “for one more cuddle”, but no sooner had you uttered this request than you were firmly propelled out of the restaurant door into the cold grey high street as a pitiless voice growled “You can’t go back again”, you would be right to feel unease.

So that’s that for now. Do keep the questions coming in, as nobody wants to live in a world where that stops being that in the future.