h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know that peole experiment at different stages an ages so an age of consent set at 12 with a two year age gap limit would be sensible and prevent situations where adults could legally exploit relative innocents, but stop short of criminallising two fifteen yearolds.

However this is sensible and does not play well to an electorate who have forgotten what they got up to as teenager and oonly think what "The Sun" tells them to think. So we will end up wiht something that serves no one but makes a good headline.

Toxx, new best time of 1'42"

Alji

Good grief, Alji. There I was wondering if you could beat 2 mins! Great stuff.

toxx

Viper Mating in The UK

Be particularly careful when out walking in the N Pennines on a warm Spring day. Our local adders are mating.

This phenomena involves the smaller bonny coloured males chasing the large dark females. The males coil competitively round the female.
Upto 4 males or more around one female.

If you stand on this lot the resultant bites can be quite serious.
This event can happen in inocquious places like roadside moorland verges. Anaphalactic shock or spasm is the reaction.

Not to worry folks but your better prepared than not.

...mosey, mosey, mosey...

Swans don't mate for life. They are capable of cheating, but, here's the interesting thing, when they cheat, they do so with a swan of a higher station in the area.

Roadie. Higher station (status?) than what? The new pair can't be of higher status than each other!

toxx

In a local area. Alpha males and whatnot. I read something about it in Nature once .

" It is ridiculous that if a 16 year old and 15 year old have sex that is illegal (and gets the 16 year on a sex offenders register) and a 60 year old can have sex with a 16 year old quite legally."

Of course, the other problem in this country is sex education. MPs were recently appalled to learn that:
(a) most sexually transmitted infections have risen five fold in the last five years, overwhelmingly among the 13-20 age group.
(b) the cause for this is
(1) the common perception created that the only disease to be afraid of is HIV/AIDs, and that has been overcome by drugs, as has syphilis & the clap. Youndsters don't realise there are up to a further 22 STIs.
(2) the common perception by most adults that if you don't teach children about sex, they won't practice for themselves. This leads to the government not putting targets onto/money into the NHS to deal with STIs. This leads to an almost complete collapse of GU clinic faciliaties under pressure, so that most of waiting lists of 6 weeks or more.
And, of course, we are still the worst (by far) country in Europe for underage pregnancies.

"Swans don't mate for life. They are capable of cheating, but, here's the interesting thing, when they cheat, they do so with a swan of a higher station in the area."

yeah, and though wolves mainly mate for life, there is at least one recorded instance of one alpha male with a 'mistress' in a den of her own he would visit. It might be more common, but there are few studies done because they're so shy.

"There have been few recorded instances of wolves attacking humans unprovoked"- this is meant to be comforting?

Roadie, yep I know about alpha males and females. But if the male goes upmarket, isn't the female likely to go downmarket or vice versa? I remain confused.

toxx

So - does that mean you lucky beggars still have wolves roaming wild in the UK? My friend told me once about a fox strolling up to his back door one evening - but really - how interesting! We have *no* native large mammals, and our fauna doesn't frequent suburbs. (Except for ducks, the ultimate comedy animal as judged by the laughlab website. We have heaps of mated pairs wandering around where I live - it honestly used to be a swamp before it became a suburb...

Roadkill

>>"There have been few recorded instances of wolves attacking humans unprovoked"- this is meant to be comforting?<<

Yep. It comforts me. I'd happily go out walking in wolf country, provided I was equipped for the terrain.

Though the number of cases of humans attacking wolves unprovoked makes me fear far more for my life when among humans...

Jez - who will be off line from now until some time late on Sunday, as she is at the PF conference in Croydon this Saturday, and is driving down tomorrow night after work, as she is, of course - heathen and witch

Well, I certainly haven't seen any wolves, though I've seen quite a few foxes prowling about! I nearly ran into one whilst walking along the flower-lined corridor of Humanities; strangely, it didn't seem at all worrying, and now I've come to find the foxes quite ordinary.

- Jordan

Jordan, so a fox walked into yopur college? Wow! I've heard they are the size of slightly overgrown cats, is that right?
Not at all Basil Brush really, though...

The last recorded wild wolf in the UK was killed in the 16th century in Scotland. There are now proposals to reintroduce them to the highlands which has really pleased sheep farmers.

What about wild bears (and boars - don't you just love the Asterix the Gaul books?)
About the same time, I hear.

'Jordan, so a fox walked into yopur college? Wow!'

Not quite - it was still outside, it was just walking along one of the corridors - an outside one covered along the top with a wooden frame supporting some creeping flowers. There are no lights in that part of the Uni, which is probably why it seemed reasonably alright.

'I've heard they are the size of slightly overgrown cats, is that right?'

That's almost exactly right. I took it for a small dog at first, but as I watched it trotting away unconcernedly, I realised it was another fox - I've seen a few since I came here, and they turn up in the oddest places!

- Jordan

Della

I don't know about the bears and boars but I'd guess you are right. If I remember correctly it was the development of agriculture rather than hunting for huntings sake that led to the large predator population being wiped out.

Jordan

When I lived in London I saw foxes on 3 or 4 ocasions, once in a friends garden, the other times on streets. They usually seemed quite self-assured. So long as you didn't approach them they just ignored you.