His eyes clicked and whirred. Focusing, zooming, refocusing, sharpening, enhancing. He had been blind at birth; a peculiar foible with which he had the temerity to persist until only recently, when new technology had made it possible for him to see, and, perhaps as recompense, to see better than most. Zooming, infra-red, recording and playback – he could even adjust the colour balance to make overcast days seem sunny. These extraordinary, exciting gifts of vision, which seemed almost like the bestowal of some ancient Greek god, had added an entire layer of existence on top of the world he already knew.
He took his new eyes with him everywhere. Watching, looking, leering, peering, peeping, peeking, glimpsing, glancing, gazing, goggling, gawking, staring, spotting, spying, surveying, discerning, ogling, beholding – he did it all, simply because he could.
Then, of course: the movies. Galleries. Museums. These temples of vision, heretofore mysterious and uninteresting, they stood before him, bold and naked, and declared; “Cameras and recording devices are not permitted within these premises.”
I have always been inordinately fond of unintended consequences. There is, of course, a certain innate irony in such things, but primarily, I think, it is the almost mathematical beauty of watching a peculiarity of causality unfolding like a budding rose.
But some quirks of causality are, perhaps, better than others. Take, for instance, last night’s Today Tonight story, looking at the possible consequences of recession. Now, the consequences of such an enormous economic change will, naturally, be far-reaching, doubtlessly penetrating into spheres of life we don’t expect in ways that we have yet to imagine. Some, like the upswing in business for cobblers, seem obvious. Others, like the short-term uptick in business for high-end prostitutes from anxious businessmen are less immediately obvious, but reasonable enough when you think about it – similarly so the revelation that service at restaurants is improving. Of course, these subtleties are perhaps a little beyond the blunt instruments of Today Tonight’s editing teams, who instead opted for that direst and most obvious of chestnuts: If the recession gets really bad, HITLER WILL COME BACK.
I’m not even joking.
(Around 5:21 is probably where you should start watching)
Now, although they didn’t specifically state it, I’m reasonably sure that what they in fact meant was that ZOMBIE Hitler would be returning. For, as my mother put it; “Well, they never did find his body.“
But enough of all this recession talk; you are, no doubt, now thoroughly bored with all this economic mumbo-jumbo. Instead, I’d like to direct your attention to this article from The Guardian. It describes the discovery of the largest snake fossils ever found – indicating a snake 13 metres long. There are two important statements in the article, specifically: “ …cold-blooded animals grow much larger in warmer environments…” and “…the researchers calculated that the tropics were on average 5C warmer than they are today.“
Why is this important? Well, whilst The Guardian didn’t actually connect the dots for you – perhaps because, like Today Tonight, they struggle with the subtleties of causality – I however, am more than happy to do so. Now, I know that most people are vaguely aware of the consequences of global warming, and are, to a certain extent, fairly apathetic about them. After all, why worry about something that’s just going to mean more days at the beach, awesome skiing, and an excuse to live on a boat like you’ve always secretly dreamed? The answer, sadly, is that global warming isn’t all roses – because, along with all that awesome stuff, there’s one other thing that you’ll be seeing more of in the future:
