Trust the map
Bringing Ethel, our capuchin monkey friend, along for the ride turned out to be a mistake. For one thing, she insisted on navigating. 鈥淎re you sure this map is up to date?鈥�
鈥淧tolemy was the finest of Roman cartographers,鈥� we snapped, 鈥渁nd if he placed the Welsh coastline 13 kilometres further into the sea than it鈥檚 currently rumoured to be, that鈥檚 good enough for us.鈥�
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Feedback stabbed at the latest issue of Atlantic Geoscience, which the existence of two lost islands in Cardigan Bay, identified by Simon Haslett at Swansea University and David Willis at the University of Oxford through folkloric accounts, field studies, geological surveys and 鈥� the clincher 鈥� a medieval map. 鈥淟egend has it that the bells of the lost kingdom of Cantre鈥檙 Gwaelod can still be heard on quiet evenings!鈥�
鈥淵ou do know, don鈥檛 you,鈥� said Ethel, carefully, 鈥渢here is a difference between present and past? And that there鈥檚 such a thing as erosion?鈥�
Meta miracle
We scoffed at this primate鈥檚 primitive conceptions. 鈥淲e live in an age liberated from linear time! Consider how Mark Zuckerberg, the Moses of metaversal reality, has recently appeared to the world embodied as an 18th-century infant Jesus.鈥�
Arix King, a product designer at Riot Games, was on a date with his girlfriend at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art when the CEO of Meta appeared to him in the form of a 300-year-old plaster sculpture from Peru. The photographic evidence brings to this tale is impressive: the Virgin in the Virgin of Mercy, or 鈥淧ilgrim of Quito鈥� is quite clearly holding, in place of the Saviour, a diminutive Zuckerberg.
Ilona Katzew, the curator, anatomised the figure鈥檚 鈥渟mooth and youthful features, rosy cheeks, lifelike eyes made of glass, pursed red lips, and plump, shiny flesh鈥︹��
鈥淚 wonder what she thought of the statue?鈥� 鈥淔unny,鈥� Ethel grumbled, crumpling the ancient map in her paws.
Sound judgement
鈥淟ook, I鈥檓 trying to sleep, do you mind not making those vroom-vroom noises the whole time?鈥�
鈥淏ut Ethel, we鈥檙e in an electric car! We need vroom-vroom noises!鈥� Why else, we explained to her, with a saint-like patience, would Dodge have built the Charger Daytona?
This electric vehicle comes complete with exhaust pipes that make noise and a transmission that, quite without need or reason, shifts gears. CNN that, in an effort to reassure a clientele wedded to the muscle-car aesthetic, it has been equipped with various exhaust pipes that generate up to 126 decibels of vroom.
鈥淎las, we have to wait till 2024 to be able to buy this excellent vehicle, so until then 鈥� VRRRRR鈥︹��
鈥淭hat鈥檚 it!鈥� Ethel cried. 鈥淚鈥檓 phoning the cops.鈥�
Call of nature
If only she followed , she would have known that this call wouldn鈥檛 end well.
On 13 August, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff鈥檚 Office received a silent, abruptly truncated 911 call from a California zoo. There was, it transpired, no emergency, but assistant director Lisa Jackson had recently lost her phone while riding a golf cart through the zoo with a 10-month-old capuchin monkey called Route. Route, playing with this new toy some hours later, seems to have hit upon a lucky button combination.
Ethel was scandalised. 鈥淚鈥檓 no phone thief!鈥� she cried. But the Welsh constabulary were having a quiet day, and soon blue lights appeared in our rear-view mirror.
We pulled over. Ethel flung open the door and, screaming various imprecations, scampered away over the Brecon Beacons, pursued by law enforcement. Feedback noted, with irritation, that she still had our map. How selfish!
Wrong side of the bed
But this is the sort of behaviour you can expect from the sleep-deprived. The Science Daily currently features a study led by Eti Ben Simon and Matthew Walker at the University of California, Berkeley, which shows that sleep deprivation makes people less willing to help others. Charitable giving drops 10 per cent after the beginning of daylight saving time. Walker goes so far as to assert that sleeplessness 鈥渄egrades the very fabric of human society itself鈥�. Reflecting thereon, Feedback opted for a little doze.
Moonraker
Up among the hills, we contemplated a sliver of daytime moon and wondered (as one does) if Earth could sustain more than one such satellite. A recent study in reckons Earth provides stable orbits for two more moons like ours, four Pluto-mass moons and seven moons the mass of Ceres.
A thought experiment, of course 鈥� but we couldn鈥檛 help but wonder, as we dozed off, why our sky was so empty. Where might these extra moons of ours have ended up? Did they fall to Earth in ancient times, like that second dinosaur-killing asteroid, whose impact crater has been discovered off the coast of Guinea, it was reported last month? And if they did, where might they be buried?
We shut our eyes, bathing in the evening hush, and far to the west, from deep under the waters of Cardigan Bay, came a gentle peal of bells.
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