the other day a colleague told me a little bit about the strange early history of the canary islands. in the fifteenth century, at the height of european empire-building, ships first arrived on the shores of these tiny islands off the western shoulder of africa, and set about doing what europeans did in those days (i.e. chopping a lot of people into small pieces, and converting the rest of them to catholicism). however, among the canary people and their culture they found some very odd features.

firstly, the people living on the islands were clearly not of african descent. they were fair-skinned and fair-haired, and sometimes even had blue or green eyes. these features are occasionally found among the berber people (who inhabited most of north-east africa before the arab invasions), but not like they were on the canaries.

secondly, the people of the canaries did not know how to build boats of any size - they certainly didn't have the technology to cross to the african mainland. these first two features together posed the question of how they got there in the first place.

finally, the locals had singularly weird systems of language - apprently their communication involved whistles as much as words, and on at least one of the island the local language consisted pretty much entirely of whistles. this tendency to whistle rather than speak can, i'm told, still be observed on some of the isalnds today.

one fascinating - if kind of gruesome - theory to explain all this goes as follows. the ancient romans had known about the canaries (this is historically documented) and maybe they used them as a place to offload prisoners, or undesirables of whatever kind, and conveniently forget about them. this would explain their genetic background, and how they came to be on the islands whithout knowing how to build boats. the hypothesis goes on that this prisoners - or at least a large proportion of them - had had their tongues cut out - perhaps to prevent them from organising and getting back to the mainland again. lacking the ability to speak, they would have had to develop some kind of pidgin-language based on gestures and whistles. however, the human brain being wired for language as it (arguably) is, their children would have taken these whistles and, within a generation, turned them into a complete language. knowledge of origins and the past would have been pretty much lost, as the original prisoners would not have shared a common language with their own children, but the children themselves could have used their whistling language to organise a society, and passed this strange language on to their own children, for hundreds of years.

i found this idea really interesting.

if this were a good world where justice prevailed, pretty much every politican on the face of the planet would be in jail. i feel i have accepted this truth, and i very rarely get worked up about the words or actions of politicians these days...

...but have you actually read what dubbya's telling the palestinians? he's telling them that all they're getting is a 'provisional' state, made up of about 40% of the land which is theirs under international law, and they're only getting that AFTER they've transformed themselves into the most modern free-market democracy on the face of the planet, with institutions decades or centuries ahead of their arabic neighbours (and many european countries, including britain) (and they have to accept lessons in good democratic governance from SAUDI ARABIA, for fuck's sake), AND, just to make things interesting, they've got to acheive this total transformation under israeli occupation, with curfews, travel restrictions, tanks breathing down their necks, etc.

wanker.

apparently some aussie boffins have successfully TELEPORTED a section of a laser beam. TELEPORTED, fer bob's sake! am i alone in finding this staggering to the point of slack-jawed disbelief?

this has been my first week off since i got back from thailand, and on top of that it's been the first really sunny week the north of england's had this year so far. so what does my body do? collapses with a bollock-awful case of hayfever, reducing me to a snivelling wreck, lying on the sofa watching moronic tv through watering eyes and praying for rain.

got so bad at one point, i was actually able to feel a certain degree of interest in big brother. thankfully, now the hayfever has passed, the idle backchat of a bunch of charisma-challenged muppets has lost its savour once again.

i enter a shoeshop, and ask for a pair of shoes.

the attendant brings me a pair of shoes.

i examine them briefly, then thrust them back into his worthless hands. "these shoes," i bellow, "have holes in!"

"i assure you sir," replies the attentant, "our shoes are of the highest quality. they don't have holes in."

"are you trying to tell me that these shoes do not have holes in?" i boom.

"yes sir," he responds, "that's right."

"then how," i ask him, "am i supposed to get my feet into them?"

he has no answer to give me.

he is YOU.

the whole of britain is either watching the world cup or celebrating the queen's golden jubilee - thus confirming that this entire nation is barking hatstand crazy. i heard about a 'fuck the queen' party and thought of going to lend my support, but i've actually got too much marking to do this weekend to even think of anything else.

in answer to krypto's question, i teach english language & 'study skills' at a university in the north of england. this week i gave my group the essay title, 'should cannabis be legalised?'. here are a few selections from their essays:

"if people are smoke cannabis they are feel cosy or go mad like a drunk in temporary."

"medical personnel state that cannabis is one medicine, but people which smoke it are become unhealthy, unholy, unquiet and untune people. cannabis addict is unorthodox, unpeace, unfeel and unwell."

"cannabis have some important medical benefits. it is not just for drug addicts to suck."

"cannabis can lead to some negative results, if a doggy dealer also offer cocaine and heroin as well as cannabis."

wise words.