A new species of hummingbird has been discovered in Colombia. Which must be very exciting for Colombian ornithologists, although the bird itself probably doesn't care one way or another. But what I love about the story is the name they've given it: "the gorgeted puffleg". Doesn't that just ravish the eardrums? It sounds like something wonderful yet slightly preposterous from the more obscure writings of Lewis Carroll, or maybe Mervyn Peake. The gorgeted puffleg, incidentally, is already at risk from human encroachment. "Human". No, I don't like that word nearly as much, preposterous as it may be.
Closer to home, wherever that is these days, a response to the redesign of the Guardian website: "I hate the new front page. It looks like a blog rather than a newspaper."
Which surely prompts a question along the lines of the one about how many gorgeted pufflegs can dance on a pinhead: what does a blog look like?
9 comments:
Doesn't Gorgeted Puffleg sound like a medieval fop? NTTAWWT.
I've been rereading A World Lit Only by Fire.
And it's an anagram of "Pet Dogg Grufflee".
(or guff pet doggerel)
The only interesting item on Beeb breakfast this morning (apart from Sian Williams' dimples, obviously) was about a pair of Ospreys up in Scotland. Apparently there was huge jubilation when the pair met up then, it seems, they had a bit of a barney and - cut a long story short - the male party's legged it (well, flown off actually - in high dudgeon, presumably. Or possibly Gus.) Anyway, while he's away, Mrs. O. has a bit of a fling and when erstwhile partner has a change of heart and comes back, he finds (to his undoubted chagrin) not just another gentleman's kippers in the grill, but also a pair of freshly laid eggs stamped with a Lion mark and the words "not yours, mate" on the side... Anyway, long and the short of it is, he's only gone and hoofed these poor little chicks-in-the-making out of the nest to their certain doom....
Birds, eh?
L.U.V. on ya,
Bob
That's true Jun - something out of Blackadder, perhaps?
If anyone could write convincing doggerel about pet guffs, it's you, Murph. With sound effects.
And only you, Bob, could interpolate a reference to Elton John's old producer into a discussion of domestic trauma in the osprey community.
I'd be more worried if the paper paper (there's an interesting construction) looked like a blog.
what...the Guardian has conga lines of animated pikachu now?
(almost finished with WTTM. stunned and amazed that you've even heard of the Nearings 'Good Life' books. also rather embarrassed. yeesh; the Nearings.)
Maybe The Guardian should have a revolving design policy, so every day it looks like a different blog. Yours first. Pink.
Oh yes, FN. And Schumacher.
At the risk of boring even myself, I'd guess that in this context 'it looks like a blog' means 'it looks like Comment is Free'. Which it does.
I think we should organise an 'open blog day' for Guardian hacks, where we invite them to look around our stately blogs and ornamental blogrolls. That way they can learn what proper blogs look like and appreciate that they exist.
I thought that one might get you going.
Post a Comment