Sundowners

"When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn. The heart wakens from coma and its dyspnea ends. Its strengthening pulse is to cross over into campground, to believe that the world has not been altogether lost or, if lost, then not altogether in vain.”   from The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVoto

Reading a review of the recently-reprinted book quoted above brought back happy memories of my decadent past: ruminating as the daylight faded on a Ugandan verandah, clinking the ice in my gin and tonic; or rushing through the closing items of the Governing Body agenda so as not to miss the College’s monthly largesse of spirits (rather than sherry) before High Table. Halcyon days!

My eldest son is spending his long vacation studying chimpanzees in the Semliki forest in Western Uganda, in the shadow of the Mountains of the Moon. I must encourage him to stock up with gin on his next visit to Fort Portal so that he too can look back with the same pleasure on magical Martini moments at the end of a tropical day. Duncan, take note:

"In short, the author of "The Hour" is a purist. Martinis must always be prepared just before serving, and any leftover in a pitcher should be thrown out once the first round has been poured. A smidgen of lemon rind is acceptable but not essential. The recommended proportion of gin to vermouth should be 3.7 to 1, though 4 to 1 may be allowed in the case of those who have trouble with fractions.
Like many right-thinking people, I myself incline toward W.H. Auden's view that the vermouth bottle should simply be waved over the tumbler of Tanqueray. But then -- horrors! -- I do sip the gin on the rocks: Being of a meditative character, I like to study the ice cubes while slowly jiggling the glass."   Michael Dirda, reviewer

Regular Read

So many good books to read, so little time to read them; On the Origin of Species for instance.

One answer is the excellent free service offered by the Daily Lit, bringing you a 5-minute literary shot in the arm to go with your morning coffee or afternoon tea. Receive your quotidian quota delivered by email or RSS to your preferred device, in shorter or longer chunks, a.m. or p.m. according to taste. Put it on hold at super-busy times, or order instant next instalments at cliff-hanger moments. My Daily Lit books so far this year: The Call of the Wild, The Woman in White and currently Charles Darwin's world-changing work.

Too Many Kangaroos in the Top Paddock

“Take the case of a carnivorous quadruped, of which the number that can be supported in any country has long ago arrived at its full average.”

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, Chapter 4

Was Darwin right? Why, when Australia is widely populated with large docile herbivores, is the dingo its best attempt at a meat-eater; and then it is as much a scavenger as a carnivore. How come evolution didn’t move into the obvious ecological niche before man arrived? What is so special about Australia habitats that when, for instance, the rabbit was introduced, it ran out of control for want of a decent predator?

Thought experiment: Try to imagine what would transpire if a viable population of lions (or other large cat) were introduced into the outback.

iPad Limitations

Geogebra is one of my favourite programs, a lean and powerful tool for displaying and manipulating mathematical objects defined in geometric, algebraic or spreadsheet form. It can be installed as a very small file on your hard drive or run as a Java applet in your browser.

As long as Apple restrict apps to those written in C, C++, and objective-C, we'll never see Geogebra on the iPad. That makes me sad.