Entomology, chemical ecology, evidence-based environmentalism and science in general. I like big bugs and I cannot lie.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Creature comforts

I spent the weekend at my cousin's wedding, drinking wine, eating cheese and poking the eyes of my nearest and dearest out with a rather wonderful butterfly hat my friend made for me. We stayed in the 16th century hotel where the wedding was held, which unfortunately seemed to have authentic 16th century plumbing. I find it amazing that as a species we can send people to the moon, swap organs around without killing people and create an amazing global network that allows people of all nations to instaneously exchange amusingly captioned pictures of cats, but we can't seem to create a piece of equipment that will deliver a stream of water at a constant temperature, and more importantly at a constant temperature that the user has chosen. I stepped out of the bathroom surrounded by clouds of superheated steam and the faint stench of boiled human flesh, my inner environmentalist weeping for the ninety-five litres of water that had poured straight out of the tap and down the plug hole in order to induce two litres to come through the showerehead, and was about to launch into an angry tirade when a little voice whispered "It'll be much more uncomfortable in the Gambia".

The disturbing conclusions are as follows; firstly that I hear voices even without taking anti-malarials, but more importantly that I will never be able to bitch about trivial things again which anyone unfortunate enough to be familiar with my facebook notes will know is one of my main pleasures in life.

Incidentally, the groom takes amazing closeup photos of insects which can be found here if anyone's interested.

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