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

It was foggy here first thing this morning. But it's lifting, so we might go out walking after lunch - Ashdown Forest probably. No godwits and avocets there, but there might be celandines and promroses.

I haven't heard of 'Murder She Wrote' jigsaws either. Wouldn't it be annoying to do most of the jigsaw and find the last bits missing?
Reminds me of that classic Tony Hancock comedy where he has a murder story with the last page missing.

Gorgeous sunny morning here a lazy, hazy Sunday morning

I am going to get my knockers out later, (knockers = binocculars, the kids hought it was funny to call them this and it has kind of stuck), the trees out back are full of life but the sun is streaming in from behind them.

I hope you enjoy your walk mvp

The jigsaw is about half complete, the remaining pieces are brown and black, with some orange, a desk, chair, wood paneling would put it past them, lots of wood anyway...

There is dropped gem, this might be a clue within the jigsaw,
although the cup of tea in the booklet was a red herring in jigsaw terms but might help sove the mystery when the picture is complete

It is a great bit of retro this puzzle, green desklamp and all

Wouldn't put it past them, with the wood panaling

So it's a case of 'in the library with the candlestick'?

The walk was good. You can see a long way from Gil's Lap at the top of Ashdown Forest - Pooh's favourite spot. (why no teddy bear smiley?)

The only birds I saw were crows, and the only flowers were gorse. But the catkins are growing long, the honeysuckle leaves are emerging, and the silver birch clumps have a fuzzy look about them. So perhaps spring is coming.

I hope you got to see some more interesting birds than I did.

I'm fond of crows, a couple of years ago we had a couple nesting in the tree out back, I think we called them George and Mildred.

It took them ages to get the first sticks of their nest sorted but they built a good one, there was much excitment when Mildred started nesting and more when she started feeding again, then there were four little crow babies

Crows are interesting, because they're clever, and I don't think they're as aggressive as seagulls.

We usually have in a bird box in our garden, but they didn't nest last year. It was so wet there weren't many insects about.

The most exciting thing I've seen in our garden was a sparrowhawk eating a blackbird. It was probably as big as a crow, with bright yellow eyes. Sorry about the blackbird though.

about blackbird.

Crows are dead clever. Oxford University has studied them, and I remember an excellent film somewhere about a crow that figured out how to steal fish from an Inuit ice fisher.

Apparently, crows are brighter than US commentator Stephen Colbert, as he gladly demonstrates:

http://www.channels.com/episodes/show/16982934/Craziest-F-King-Thing-I-ve-Ever-Heard-Crows-Using-Tools?page=125#/episodes/show/16982934/Craziest-F-King-Thing-I-ve-Ever-Heard-Crows-Using-Tools?page=125

Good evening crow poets

Cue Edgar Allan, oh no wait, that was the raven. What's the difference between a raven and a crow? And then there are jackdaws.



George and Mildred , sparrowhawks with yellow eyes , clever crows, and other feathered treasures .

The link will only stream in the United States, well, that's OK I guess, except now I want to swim in your stream. The stream is always greener , , the green, green stream of home.

That was an outbreak of greenstream. . The greenstream of consciousness.

That song used to make me cry, the green green grass of home, especially with Tom Jones singing it. mmmm



I spent a year of my life drawing crows, with charcoal, in the middle of the night. I specialised in the crow drawing, in fact. They didn't look a lot like crows, not like Willem can draw them , they looked more like peculiar angel shamans wearing black feathers. I used to have dreams that I met them in a lobby of an hotel in Arizona, and they would tell me secrets about life, but I can't remember the wisdoms, I fear they weren't really very clever. .



My brother is getting married at Easter, in an Hotel, capital H, , so I have to dig out the M and S black velvet skirt, and the retro 70s cuban heel cowboy boots, the purple velvet Hendrix jacket. Everyone else will be smart, but what can I do, I feel different at social functions, best to wear the clothing I love, then I will be happy.

Perhaps I will meet my black feathered crow shamans in the lobby, that would be good. Especially if the other guests see them too. Help! Help! There are crow shamans in the lobby wearing shades and jackets adorned with black feathers!



Where do ideas come from? I asked myself in the early hours of this morning, very philosophically. I turned on my laptop to find some answers. Then I saw the Google logo celebrating the 540th birthday of Copernicus, with all those beautiful mandala planets circling around the sun, and I thought yes! yes! that's where ideas come from!

And, with my inner eye, I saw a golden orb of energy, like an energy source, and ideas were being born from it, streaming out of it, and taking shape, like beautiful shiny bubbles, or mandala planets circling around the sun. I think it was a map of the brain, it was very cosmic!

And then I went back to sleep and dreamt I was going for a walk with a large enthusiastic brindled boxer/staffie mix, and then the alarm woke me just as we got to a river with grey foaming water, and there were odd shadowed people on the bank.

And now I am hoping to eat some spinach and feel philosophical again.

And then to .

I'm sorry that video didn't stream - I searched all over for it. I knew Colbert's website probably didn't stream in the UK, so I hoped that one would. He was bragging on the crows, and pretending to try to do the same trick, without success. He ended up smashing the experiment with a hammer. Alas.

Where does inspiration come from? I had a dream last night:

I was taking some sort of university course. The class met in a very small, very old Catholic church. Stone, with bad stained-glass windows.

The instructor explained that each of us would redesign some of the windows. I was picking out some windows, and thinking, 'blue'. While he was talking, a small China White piglet climbed into my lap and went to sleep, contented.

The instructor explained that each of us had a pig. We were to name the pig. I was worried - but the instructor promised that the pigs would go to a sanctuary for pigs after the course was finished. They would live happy lives.

I wanted to name my pig 'Bosco', but I overheard someone else saying he wanted that name, so I rethought. I wanted another saint's name, so I asked some parishioners what the church was called. 'The Church of the Redeemer', they said. Oh, well. I was going to have to think of another saint. Some of the students had joined the parishioners in a side chapel for Communion. I heard a small organ playing. The organist was improvising, a bit fancy, I thought, and it occurred to me that it was Paulh.

(Bosco is a saint's name, and we used to know someone whose last name was Bosco, who was a church organist in a Catholic church. I think Paul, who is musical, reminds me of this musician, who intensely disliked Puccini, for some reason.)

As I walked around, the little pig followed me everywhere I went. I decided I liked him.

Now, figure out what that has to do with inspiration.

I guess saints and music and pigs all provide inspiration Dmitri ...

Cactuscafé, ravens are in fact species of crow, as are jackdaws and rooks. Ravens are the larger species and most of them have 'hackles' (pointy feathers0 on their necks. Biologically the term doesn't mean anything since different large crows belonging to different subdivisions of the crow genus (Corvus) are all called ravens. Here in Africa we have for instance white-naped ravens which are closely related to thick-billed ravens of Ethiopia but not to Northern ravens. Northern ravens (occurring in Europe, Asia and America) are probably related to Brown-necked ravens of north Africa and the deserts of Asia, but probably not to fantailed or dwarf ravens. The Chihuaha Raven of Mexico might be a relative of the Northern Raven but I'm not sure. The Australian ravens belong to a different group, more closely related to the Australian crows than to other so-called ravens. So basically people just call the larger or largest crows in any particular region ravens.

And yes, they are very clever!

I want to see a Chihuahua raven.

Does it annoy Chihuahuas?

Should be Chihuahuan raven, I typed that rather hastily! But here is a picture:

http://wildobs.com/Pipinz/950-Chihuahuan-Raven

They probably snack on those little doggies ...

They're pretty.

Quieran tacos, I suspect.

(Gloss: In the US, the commercials showed a Chihuahua dog that said, 'Quiero Taco Bell.' This food is as unlike real Mexican cuisine as possible while still containing corn, meat, and beans...)

I love that little piglet. I think it is inspiration itself. . If I had a piglet, I would name it Bosco. Or Margery. . The inspiration piglet. As for the rest of the dream, it's the Dream Genius brain of the DG , for which there is no explanation. .

(ref of course, the piglet called Margery. Margery is my middle name, for real, I am named after my grandmother, a very spiritualist name forever now, in fact because of I now love my middle name. ) .



Thanks Willem! for the Knowledge, re crows, rooks, ravens and jackdaws. The chihuahua raven is very shiny blue/black fellow. If I was a little chi dog I would leggit. Mind you, someone told me that chi dogs are very aggressive, and can hold their own, despite their size.

What makes birds shiny? What makes the sheen on the feathers? Male peacocks, ravens and other shiny birds.

Why are birds shiny? I must make a list of shiny birds. The mallard duck! Yes! The male mallards have a green sheen on their necks.

. I'm like a kid with my questions. . I really want to know, though.

I'll bet Willem can tell us about bird wings, I'll let him do it.

But I know all about fierce little Chihuahuas. When I was a teenager, we lived in a place that was really in the mountainous countryside, though only 45 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh. It's the geography, you see. Our roads were built on old Indian trails, and in spite of the 20th Century, we had a lot of nature all around. On full-moon nights, the basset hound two doors down bayed at the moon. Mornings, if your window was open, you'd be awakened by the Scotts' rooster down the hill. Once, my sister and a friend got lost in the woods and ended up at Sutter's turkey farm.

That's pronounced 'Soo-ter'. As in Johann August Sutter, the man who lost California to the Gold Rush. Those people are his relatives. Pretty nice, too. They entertained the girls and brought them home. We had lots of beauty all around when we went for walks. And then there was the lone cow that used to graze in the triangular strip of grass at the remote intersection near the Mafia neighbourhood...I don't think the cow belonged to the Mafia guys, only that's where it was...

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, Chihuahuas. Our little church was a mixed congregation - one-half Southern diaspora, one-half local folk. Two of the ladies from Birmingham, Alabama, had imported those miniature Chihuahuas from the home provinces. Tiny things. One was named Rebel, and one was named Bama, and both were full of Attitude with a capital A.

They would dance around you on their spindly legs, yipping furiously, and nip at your ankles. We kids would laugh, and then walk carefully to avoid stepping on them, while their owners would coo, 'Aw! Ain't she the sweetest thang?'

This is inspirational. So, here's a poem.

If you seek inspiration
walk from your mundane hotel room,
observe shadows in doorways,
imagine shamanic figures
cloaked in black and raven feathers.

Find a picture of the solar system,
transform planets turning round the sun
into mandalas woven with music
and shimmering colour.

Look at faded stained glass windows,
dream of walking in the chapel
with a litle dog or white piglet,
planning windows in blue and gold.

Know that even ordinary streets
yield to vistas of ancient hill forts,
or hide carvings of breadfruit
telling stories of mutiny at sea.

Love it.

This has just been stolen for the 4 March Post.

Is 'Inspiration' okay as a title?

Inspiration is fine .

You just have to hang around on cc's daydream journal...

Indeed, this is true. I can plan the Post from here.