Revised Dates

Apparently the universe is 50 million years older than we thought it was.

Also- according to the latest research- the Neanderthals died out 15,000 years earlier than we'd been thinking. A cache of bones found in Spain that we'd been radio-carbon dating to 34,000 BC- and interpreting as the remains of a late-surviving colony- were contaminated with modern carbon- and new tests (which can filter out the contamination) have given us the new- more distant- dates.* Bother! If this finding holds it means the Neanderthals were long gone by the time our ancestors reached Europe- and a lot of once plausible fictions about the two groups meeting have been demoted into unhistorical fantasies- Boneland and Clan of the Cave Bear among them. On a positive note it means we no longer have to feel bad about wiping them out. Whatever killed them it wasn't us.

*This information comes from World Archaeology #58 which is reporting on an article recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Spring Weather

The wind is roaring. Ailz got up ridiculously early because the wind roaring gives her bad dreams. Also we have snow. 

Nothing Better To Do With My Time

There's heavy snow in West Yorkshire and heavy snow in North Wales. We're in the middle of those two areas and are getting off lightly. Most of the snow that fell last night and this morning has melted (though I can see it lying on the hills). The wind is still blowing hard and there's snow in the air- with the odd flake making it down to the ground.

Ailz just sang me a snatch of an old song. "You won't know it," she says. But of course I do. "A little mouse with clogs on?- that's Danny Kaye. No wait a minute, Max Bygraves. I was thinking it came from Hans Christian Anderson but that's Denmark and the mouse is old Amsterdam- so no connection there after all."

Now I'm going to look it up.

Well, blow me it's neither of those guys; it's Ronnie Hilton. And there's a video to go with it- a woman dancing with mice on her head. Warning: it's a bit of an earworm.