Authors Electric

 Every so often one of those situations arises when you’re not quite sure whether you have slipped into an alternative dimension, as there is something not quite right about everything. It can be something to exploit, and extrapolation can lead you down all sorts of weird and wonderful pathways. Yesterday it was Walkies at RHS Wisley day. We were warned as we entered, because dogs are normally strictly forbidden. There were possibly hundreds of dogs there, in different parts of the grounds, all on leads. I have never seen such well-behaved canines in my life. It was uncanny, I never heard a single bark all afternoon. No dog was reprimanded for anything, no legs were lifted, none of them were pulling at their leads or trying it on with other dogs. There was every conceivable breed and every conceivable colour, size or shape. After a while my mind started to drift, and I wondered whether the dogs were, in fact, taking their owners for a walk. That positions had been reversed by some ...

         I’ve been fascinated by octopuses for a long time. They are extremely intelligent, their eyesight is very similar to ours, but they have a remarkable ability that we, most definitely, do not have. They can disappear. Just do a search for octopus camouflage on YouTube, and you’ll see all sorts of amazing creatures changing their colour, pattern, shape and size to escape predators, or lie in wait for prey. The mimic octopus can make itself look like a sea snake, a poisonous flatfish, or a deadly lionfish.       A close relative of the octopus, the cuttlefish, is even better, and disguises itself as part of the substrate. I had an encounter with one in Indonesia, and it was fascinating. To begin with, I thought part of the seaweed-covered rocks had detached itself, which seemed a bit odd. I followed it, and suddenly realised it was a living creature which had made itself virtually invisible. I took a couple of photos, and t...

There’s a wonderful clip on YouTube that shows an octopus disappearing into the background and becoming, as a consequence, invisible. This is an attribute shared by other cephalopods such as the cuttlefish, one of which I met whilst snorkelling in Indonesia. The water there is very clear, and the colourful marine life is plentiful and varied. I had a great time, swimming through shoals of tiny iridescent green fish, followed by shoals of even smaller blue ones. The seabed was packed with anemones and clams and coral and seaweed, in every colour and design you can imagine. Absolutely beautiful. And then, it seemed to me, a part of the sea floor about the length of my forearm detached itself and started to move in a sedate fashion beneath me. The cuttlefish is bottom left, using a fetching brown attire, and its tentacles are facing right. Intrigued, I swam closer, only to realise that it was a creature of some sort, as it seemed to have some small tentacles at one end. Event...

Whatever you’re writing, on the whole, people need to get from one place to another. And the more experiences you have yourself, the more likely it is to occur to you to use something a bit different. When I started thinking about this, I decided to list every experience I’d had, but, to my surprise, there were so many that I had to create some categories. So, land, sea or air, and weather. Weather is easiest. Snow and ice are the obvious examples. I first learned to ski in Poland with my father, when I was fifteen. I wasn’t very good at it, and I’m still not very good at it. But I did discover what it’s like to head down a slope which is far steeper than you thought, and the terror when you realise there’s no alternative to just keeping going. On the other hand, there was the sheer pleasure of a gradual descent through tracks in pine forests with hawfinches, crested tits and black squirrels. Skating was something that scared the living daylights out of me. But my six year-old da...