Finshed the trilobite book yesterday and when I turned on the today programme this morning the author, Richard Fortey was on there promoting his new book about the natural history museum.

It seems that in retiring he's becoming something of a star (well, I say "retiring" - scientists never retire any more than artists do - they simply stop being paid).

My plan is to interview him for a documentary on trilobites - one of a few docs I hope to make this year... if I ever get my computers and baby all working correctly at the same time.

Houses and the end of the world
Got a call from the agents running my house in Manchester to say they've found a new tennant for it - which is good news financially - but Lisa's seriously considering buying more houses.... Worthing and Penge being favourite locations of the moment.

I think we'll see how the stock market crash and the housing slump and the credit crunch and the fiscal discombobulation (ok I made the last one up) procede first. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist or perhaps I just tend to react with alarm when everyone else blithely wanders around saying "yes I know it's happened before, but the people in charge are all SO much cleverer nowadays".


There always seems always to be an air of confidence that events which overturn our world simply aren't going to happen - just because they're unimaginable from the perceived safety of the current world.

That's why, nobody predicted the wall street crash, the rise of Hitler or the way the Internet would change our lives - even though with the benefit of hindsight they were all bloody obviously going to happen.

It's also why now it's so hard to picture global warming putting London underwater, the rise of China and India as world leaders or a crash in house prices - it's not that any of them are unlikely - we just react instantly against them ideas because they're so hard to picture from where we are now.

In reality, economic crashes happen, civilisations rise and fall, and Hitler is never vanquished - he just waits for the right combination of desperation and pride to return. People make the same mistakes or new ones and I think the veneer of our society is quite thin. We're never as safe as we think we are.

Visiting time
Sarah, Lisa's bridesmaid came over last night. She's been told by her bosses she has to find out what it's like on the shop floor, so they've sent her out to watch some people reparing water pipes... Apparently, firms today don't like their management to become disconnected from the rest of the staff. and apparently a couple of days in a boiler suit will sort all that out for them. Well, good luck.