Category: Random Musings

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A Naturalist’s Diary – Feb 2026.

Autocorrect, that lurking banana skin of the keyboard, tried to title this A Naturist’s Diary. But given that it’s been –20°C some nights and the snow flirting with my kneecaps, I assure you: no naturists are involved. And no, this isn’t a promo for any of my books or photos either. It’s a Naturalist’s Diary about wild rabbits.

For several years I’ve been watching the wild rabbits (technically cottontail hares) that wander into our garden. The first one, many summers ago, we named Woomba Wabbit.

Woomba Wabbit
Woomba Wabbit

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In Search of Mr. Beta

Part 1. Mr. Beta

Calculating beta with Yahoo’s monthly 5-year adjusted price history

Right. Warnings first. This is the most geekish post I’ve ever placed here. If you’re not into stocks, ETFs and weird things like “beta”, “Sortino ratios” and “up-market captures,” or how many angels dance on the head of a pin, skip this one. It’s not as entertaining as my writing posts, or my stories of Johnny Depp or the story of the Philosophers’ Party or the Cat Who Ate Only Chicken. Not even close. And if you think it’s investment advice, it’s not. It’s purely my musings on some nerdish stuff that might, at best, amuse other nerds.

With that out the way, let’s start.

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The Strangest Tale: Trim and the Map of Australia

This sculpture, by Mark Richards, now stands in Euston Station, London UK. There are similar statues in Australia: Sydney, Port Lincoln and Adelaide; and again in the UK in Lincolnshire. Photographer not known to me.

Today I want to plug someone else’s book – a marvelous little book that’s about 225 years old. I stumbled on it by chance, I don’t even know how anymore. It’s my favourite read of 2024 so far, and I’m overwhelmed by the story and the charm of it all.

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The Philosopher’s Bicycle

“Then he simply ceased pedalling. The bicycle’s momentum carried it forward a while but—as bicycles will—the machine began to waver from side to side ever more precariously.“

I was talking to my fellow author, Daphne C., and the conversation spiralled around to our student days together. That eventually led me to trot out two stories that a philosophy student—let’s call her “Helen”—told me at the time.

Helen’s first story concerned a philosophers’ party.

Right off the bat, this had my attention as an oddball story, because philosophers, giant turtles and three-toed sloths are one of type IMO – not party animals.

Nevertheless, Helen insisted there had been a philosophers’ party which she was part of. At the end of the evening, her prof left the party on his bicycle. It was a balmy Cape summer evening, so the remaining partygoers clustered on the porch to wave the prof goodbye and watch him pedal away.

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Johnny Depp, Theseus and Mrs. S’s Kayak

“A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned,” he said, “for he will be going out on a day he shouldn’t. But we do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drowned now and again.”—John Millington Synge, The Aran Islands.

Credit: Pixabay contributor 51581

If you’ve watched any movies since the late 1980s, you will have listened to a musical genius named Hans Zimmer. His movie soundtrack credits and multiple awards include:

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