A-Z Blogging Challenge: Gargoyles and Grotesques

These have always fascinated me but I thought they were the same. It turns out they aren't. Even more what we tend to think of as gargoyles - well, what I think of as gargoyles, bizarre creatures that lurk on the roofs of medieval buildings - turned out to be grotesques or chimeras. This is because gargoyles are actually disguised water spouts. 

So these - at Quito Cathedral in Ecuador - are gargoyles. 

 

    Author : Delphine Ménard (notafish }

    Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France

This is also a gargoyle  - photo taken by Jon Sullivan at the Natural History Museum, London, England and released into the public domain.

But this little creature from Winchester Cathedral is not.

Author: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK         

                             Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

 Nor, I suspect, is Le Stryge at Notre Dame de Paris

(photographed with Henri Le Secq by Charles Nègre in 1853).

They are both grotesques because they don't incorporate a spout to take water away from the building and are purely decorative. Grotesques can be humorous, have human faces or form or can be fantastical creatures like griffins or mixtures of animals in which case they are chimeras.

So I learned something new today. Always a good thing.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Foxes

This is a European red fox (Vulpes vulpes)

                                          Image from Public Domain Pictures.net.

Handsome fellow, isn't he. You wouldn't think that he and his fellows have been listed among the most damaging invasive species in Australia, would you, but, along with rabbits, feral cats and cane toads, they are.

Adaptive, opportunistic and intelligent it's estimated there are as many as two million red foxes on mainland Australia with only the tropical north and some isolated islands free of them. Tasmania has, until recently, has been free of foxes. Although they were introduced early in European settlement no permanent populations were established - it's believed they were wiped out by Tasmanian devils - but since 2002 there have been persistent reports of reintroductions and an eradication program has been started there.

How did they come to Australia? They and rabbits were introduced in the mid 1800s - rabbits for food and foxes for recreational hunting - although early releases seem to have failed. Foxes didn't spread rapidly and widely until a release on the Werribee Park property of the  Chirnside family in 1871. Thanks, Chirnsides. While rabbits are a major prey for foxes - their spread followed that of rabbits - they are equally likely to prey on small animals like newborn lambs (which makes them a major pest in pastoral areas) and native mammals, frogs, birds including poultry, reptiles, insects, fruit and carrion. They are also carriers of a number of diseases and there is a well founded fear that if rabies ever reaches our shores - Australia is the only rabies free continent - they would form a reservoir for the disease. As a result extensive baiting using 1080 poison (which is not poisonous to native animals) is being widely carried out in some states to try to control them.

But foxes are not just bush or farm dwellers. These days urban foxes are increasing. Opportunistic scavengers as they are, and with their ability to make dens in burrows, under bushes and in hollow logs, they are perfectly adapted to make use of suburban gardens, parks and nature reserves. 

The old folk song, The Fox - you can hear Nickel Creek's version here - epitomises the fox's reputation for cunning and slyness. A little unfair perhaps for a creature just trying to survive. It's hardly its fault we brought it to places where it has no natural enemies. That said though we have no choice but to wage war on them.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Elephants - Casualties of War

The African Elephant is an extraordinary creature but even it has problems - and some are unexpected, at least by me.

I don't know why I hadn't realised before just how much damage our wars inflict on the animal world. I'd heard about - and been shocked by - the threat to the lowland gorilla by the civil wars in equatorial Africa but I hadn't considered the obvious implications that this means to other creatures. I guess our focus is so much on human loss that we tend to not see the other losses.

This was really brought home to me, though, when I saw a documentary recently on the elephants in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. When the country was torn first by the war for independence starting in 1964 and then by the civil war, which followed it between 1977 and 1992, both soldiers and rebels slaughtered wild animals for food but elephants suffered even more with the rebels also killing them for their tusks. (Sadly, poaching is still endemic in much of Africa despite the world wide ban on the sale of ivory.) Given that elephants are long lived, have excellent memories and live in close knit family groups, this has left a serious on-going problem of elephant aggression.

For the most part adult elephants are protected from predators by their size and while they may give threat displays they rarely do more. They don't have to. If you are faced by a tusked, 4 metre tall bull elephant weighing 6,000-7,000 kgs or even a smaller mature adult cow elephant standing at 2.2 metres and weighing 3,000-3,500 kgs unless you are armed and/or in a vehicle, you are not likely to stay around to test how serious they are. But during war, armed soldiers in military vehicles are not so limited. Threat displays are useless and what follows is remembered.

Since the war ended the people of Mozambique have been trying to rebuild their country. Restocking and rebuilding Goronsoga National Park was part of this. The park was reopened to tourists some years ago but elephants have long memories and they have attacked people, particularly those in vehicles. This is not just bulls in musth - testosterone fuelled breeding mode - but mature cows as well. Many of these were orphaned or watched members of their families slaughtered during the war and their behaviour seems directly linked to their or their mothers' and grandmothers' experiences during that time.

Something had to be done and in 2011 Dr Joyce Poole, a world leading expert in elephant behaviour, was brought in to conduct a wide ranging study into the elephants of Gorongosa, including the effects of the war on their behaviour. Given their intelligence she believes she can rehabilitate the elephants so they understand that tourists don't represent a threat and there already seems to be a change. Let's hope she is successful because these are not the only elephants traumatised by war in Africa and aggression is occurring in a number of other places, too. Finding an answer to trauma caused aggression here could then be applied to other populations and, given the massive decline in their numbers, anything that lessens the conflict between these amazing creatures and people is to be encouraged.

You can read an interview with Dr Poole about her work here. She also works with Elephant Voices.

A-Z Blogging Challenge - Daylight Saving

Ah yes, one of my pet hates comes to an end for this year in Eastern Australia. Why does it irritate me so much when we here in the more stubborn West have not given into it? Well, it does still inconvenience us. Any business we have with companies on the east coast - except for Queensland where they have also resisted instituting it - and that includes Canberra, our federal capital, and two of our major cities, has to be conducted in a time window of five hours instead of the six hours we have the rest of the year. Not being constrained by business hours, private individuals aren't quite so badly off but let's face it even six hours is much more limited than those on the east coast have to work with.

Daylight saving is an artificial construct that as far as I can see really doesn't work anywhere but particularly where we are located in the world. We've tried it here after much lobbying by business - three times in fact - and each time at the end of the trial it has been comprehensively voted against. You have to wonder whether that would be the same result if those on the east coast were also given a choice.

On a personal level I've loathed it every time we had a trial of it. I find it messes with my body clock and that it doesn't ever really adjust.

But it's not just my personal inconvenience. There's been research that shows our circadian clocks don't adjust to Daylight Saving Time. Other research here and here shows a slight increase in heart attacks and there's evidence that many people suffer extended sleep interference with its attendant and well documented effects.

Then there's this research which confirms what I have always suspected that Daylight Saving Time increases energy use and this one that suggests an increase in fatal road accidents.

So my loathing of Daylight Saving Time seems justified. Do you agree?

A-Z Blogging Challenge - Conventioning

Or should that be conventioneering? Probably neither. What prompted this flight of fancy is it's Easter and that means Swancon. Never heard of it? Then let me inform you.

Swancon runs for the four days of the Easter long weekend and is the annual convention of WASFF - the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation - a busy time for those of us in Western Australia interested in speculative matters especially those who write and/or read speculative fiction. Conventions are run all over the world and range from small local affairs - one I was involved in running was only one day - to worldcons which run for five days or longer and bring in people from all over the world. They all, though, aim at promoting speculative fiction and give an opportunity for authors, readers and gamers to get together and share ideas and interests. Some are more focussed on costumes or gaming while Swancon has writing panels, a gaming stream and a well thought out children's program - but they all celebrate speculative fiction whether written, in games or from television and movies.

This year Swancon is forty which is quite an achievement for a con in a relatively isolated part of the world - have a look at a map and you'll see Perth probably deserves its reputation as the most isolated capital city in the world. Its Guests of Honour include multi award winning American author, John Scalzi and best selling Australian author, Kylie Chan.

Another convention I really like is Conflux in Canberra. Its focus is very much on writing and I get there as often as I can. Relatively small, it's friendly and gives me an opportunity to catch up with other writers on the east coast.

These are only two of a number of conventions in Australia. Much as I'd love to go to them all distance (and the inevitable cost of travelling) stops me.

But Swancon is on here now. Want to guess where I'm going to be tomorrow?

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Black Light by K. A. Bedford - Reviewed

It's twelve years since Ruth Black was notified that her husband had been killed, one of many casualties during the Great War but even now how he died remains a mystery. An eccentric woman of means, she has moved to the sleepy coastal fishing town of Pelican River in Western Australia where, cossetted by her servants, she writes 'scientific romances' and is making a new life. Her comfortable existence is shattered by the arrival of her Aunt Julia warning that she has visions showing Ruth's life is in danger. Initially sceptical, Ruth and her friend Gordon Duncombe, soon realise Julia is not exaggerating. But who would hate her so much?  The three find themselves in a desperate race to stop the unknown enemy from carrying out his plan.

K. A. Bedford is better known for his science fiction - his Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait is one of my all time favourites - so Black Light, a paranormal thriller, is something of a departure but he's definitely nailed it. The meticulously researched 1920s setting is detailed but not laboured and it anchors the story in reality. That said there's a lot going on in this world that is unexpected and outside our familiar existence. There are the elves, accidentally brought by the early colonists and slowly fading away so far from their native soil, and magic - both black and white but equally dangerous. Against this background there are unanswered questions from Ruth's past and the malevolence of her pursuer which together combine to make a gripping story. The author taps into many of the ideas occupying intellectuals in the early part of the twentieth century like spiritualism ( a favourite interest of Arthur Conan Doyle), time travel (with a nod to H. G. Wells) and science which prompted the beginnings of science fiction (Ruth writes 'scientific romances', an early name for science fiction).

I liked much about this novel. In particular, I like Ruth who is not afraid to ignore societal norms - she wears 'mannish' clothes and has unfashionably short hair - although she hides the insecurities that living her life the way she wants has caused. At the same time she is intelligent, brave and thoughtful and we can see why she is beloved by those who are prepared to accept her as she is. I'd very much like to hear more from Ruth.

Black Light was published in January 2015 by Fremantle Press and is available from the publisher, and other booksellers as a paperback and an ebook and will be available from Amazon.com from June 1. Highly recommended.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: April 1

I had all sorts of plans for today's post - don't worry, I'm sure they'll be used later - but first I opened my Facebook news feed. Then I realised it's April 1 and that this was probably not a wise thing to do. April 1 is April Fools' Day, after all, and once I had read about a dozen posts, some of which are simply surreal, I realised I have no idea which of the more outlandish ones are genuine and which are having me on. The trouble is as a speculative fiction writer - and consequently with many friends who are also speculative fiction writers - I get a lot of posts which feed into our mutual interests. They can be serious science, historical research, speculative fantasies, political commentary or even works of art. By and large, anything that can feed our imaginations fascinates us and gets posted along with the more mundane minutiae of life. Most days it's easy enough to work out which is which but today, with so many creative people playing mind games, it wasn't quite that simple.

As a result normal posting will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, though, I'm sure this little fennec fox and friend is real. Oh the cuteness. Who says animals don't have friendships.