Let’s hear it for pigeons

Pigeons successfully learned to discriminate color slides of paintings by Monet and Picasso.

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Rossetti’s wombat

Sigrid Nunez: The Friend

The three quotes at the beginning of The Friend are a kind of triangulation, three lines drawn towards the point where the writer is to be found.  But where is she to be found? She doesn’t know that herself.

Things we didn’t know about Lemurs

(Lemurs) live in matriarchal troops, with an alpha female at their head. When ring-tailed lemurs are cold and frightened, or when they want to bond, they group together in a furry mass known as a lemur ball, forming a black and white sphere that ranges in size from a football to a bicycle wheel….

The Dictionary of Animal Languages: Heidi Sopinka

We meet Ivory Frame, the protagonist of Sopinka’s tale when she is aged ninety-two but still  receiving surprises from life. And what a life it’s been. Being at first passionate about painting she has devoted the greater part of her life to recording the languages of animals…before they all become extinct.

A wedding you’ll never forget

 

With weddings in the news (and who among you didn’t watch the recent Royal Wedding?) we have some suggestions of what not to do when planning one of your own. There are perils to be avoided far worse than gospel preachers.

Dancing with dogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-EZY1JDR2g

Where has Gert been the last 10 years that she didn’t know about the booming sport of dancing with dogs?

Sara Baume : spill simmer falter wither

Spoor