Colourful oddities.

Out and about in recent weeks I have had occasion to comment on the colours of autumn, indeed to post pictures of the colours of autumn onto Facebook. 

Today we once again spotted some trees showing off their autumn colours. The surprising thing was that these seemed to be fir trees. The shape looked right for fir trees but they appeared to be turning a golden brown colour. Surely fir trees are not mean to do is. So intrigued were we that when we came close enough we took a picture of a couple. Are we mistaken? Are these not fir trees after all? Or has the world gone mad?

In Alice in Wonderland the queen of hearts has some playing cards painting white roses red. At least I seem to remember that that was going on. No-one ever really explained why it was necessary to do so. In any case, if you disobeyed the queen you were likely to lose your head. In the House of Commons gardens recently they have had gardeners picking yellow leaves off trees rather than leave them to fall and sweep them up. A spokesman is reported to have said, "it is more time efficient". There have been accusations of the government cancelling autumn. Life imitating literature perhaps! 

Then there's the doughnut burger, eaten as a challenge by Zoe Williams of the Guardian. It consisted of two burgers, two sugar doughnuts, bacon, cheese and some kind of relish. Standing seven inches tall, it needed squashing down to a biteable size. Why would anyone want to eat that, even for a newspaper challenge! The world is mad. She didn't manage to eat it all but did get through three quarters of the disgusting object. 

Another bit of oddness! I heard that a tiger was spotted prowling around in the woods near Paris. Children were escorted home from school by police. People were advised to stay indoors. No zoo reported a missing tiger. Yesterday I read that there is some belief that the tracks found were actually those of a dog. How disappointing! I commented on this to some friends who were visiting this weekend. They live in France but have seen no wandering tigers. One of them, however, swears that she did once see a panther near Cambridge when they lived nearby. But I have also read that most places have myths of big cats on the prowl. Most of the photographic evidence has been proved to be wrong, not wilfully so, just mistaken. Some of the romance and excitement is taken away by such reports. 

Romance is not dead though. The Rosetta mission has delivered the "lander" Philae, dropped bouncing onto Comet 67P. This has excited everyone and awakened dreams of space travel once again. The Philae has sent a lot of data for the scientists to examine but its solar-powered batteries are not getting enough sun to recharge and it almost certainly can't continue. Such a shame, but what names, what poetry: the Rosetta satellite went up there to land Philae, there's a measuring instrument called Ptolemy and the on-board camera is Osiris. Names to conjure the imagination. And yet people are writing letters to the papers saying that the lander should be looking for life. The dream of meeting aliens is not dead. 

Finally, the weekend newspapers publish lists of birthdays of famous people, often more people I have never heard of. Sometimes, though, the names themselves are enough to amuse me. Yesterday I discovered that Billy Twelvetrees, a rugby player was 26 years old. Is it really possible for someone who is not a hobbit to have a name like Twelvetrees? 

Bits of poetry all over the place!