Life Less Literary

I really ought to link to this thread on Naomi’s livejournal, because it seems to contain lots and lots of my (gulch’s) thoughts on science, god(s) and food from the wild, which would be just as at home on my blog.

Noticed something very strange on the way to take Rowan to school a week or two ago (in fact, the day the cold weather hit). The pavement on Townend Road is tarmacced (rather than paved), and was resurfaced only a few months ago. When the cold hit it suddenly, overnight became decorated with a pattern of almost-parallel wiggly lines, kinda like contour lines on a map (or, as Lola said, “it’s like a seaside and the sea”).

Now, I may have lead a very sheltered life up until now, but I don’t ever remember seeing a pattern like this on a pavement before, certainly not as bold and clear as this one (I keep meaning to take a picture but… well, y’know) and I can’t help wondering what caused it. One part of my mind is sure that the men who laid the pavement must have fucked up somehow, done a rush job, and this is the result. It reminds me of chromatography, the way different constituent parts of something will fan out at different rates. So I’m wondering - what is it that’s inside the tarmac, and why/how is it coming out in this way? Anyone know?

I’ve viewed the news of Concorde’s retirement with almost total disinterest. My meories of it are of living in Teddington though - Concorde accelerating over my parents’ house twice a day, rattling every window in the street and drowning out conversation.

But then when I actually thought about this being Concorde’s last flight, reading
Niina’s thoughts on the subject, I remembered watching its first commercial flight - in 1976 I think, and the constant talk of the noise for weeks afterwards. On the day of the flight, all the children were all ushered into the playground of St Mary’s School, Twickenham, gazing North across Amyand Park Road and seeing it streak across the sky, visibly faster than anything we’d ever seen before. The more mathematical among us calculated that at something like 600+ mph it was eating up miles in seconds. Wow.

And watching the news now… I realise that I actually would quite like the chance to accellerate to 250mph before takeoff and experience supersonic flight.