The Red Notebook

I have finally got round to getting my Darwin posters/stamps framed and hung on the wall:

A Darwin groupie’s study today.

…my Darwin groupie’s study is finally complete!

• More photos »

Today is my 44th birthday.

Charles Darwin spent his 44th birthday working on barnacles, his great theory of evolution by means of Natural Selection already documented and filed away, to be published in the event of his untimely death. I shall be spending the afternoon of my 44th birthday in the pub, drinking nice, non-chilled, British beer with friends and family. Barnacles or beer: it’s a fine line between scientific genius and having a life.

Those many thousands of you who are racked with guilt for having forgotten yet again to send me a birthday card, will no doubt want to make amends by making a small donation to the Beagle Project. Tell them it’s in lieu of Richard’s birthday card. They’ll know what you mean.

I was at an all-day conference today. At lunchtime, the caterers entered the conference room bearing food of a distinctly buffetty nature. But I wasn’t looking at the food: I was staring open-mouthed at one of the gentlemen bringing it in. For he was none other than Charles Robert Darwin, scientist, explorer, and originator of the single greatest idea anyone has ever had.

What on earth was Charles Darwin doing serving me lunch? It was unmistakeably he: the bushy beard, the bald head, the distinctly ape-like brow. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

After a while, I realised that it couldn’t possibly be Charles Darwin, because Charles Darwin has been dead for almost 127 years. But it was a truly uncanny likeness. I wanted to rush over to the very distinguished elderly gentleman and ask, “Do you know that you’re the spitting image of Charles Darwin?”, and show him my Charles Darwin key-fob to prove my point. I didn’t do that, of course, for I am British, and that is not how we Brits do things. Besides, I was supposed to be taking minutes.

Over lunch, I asked my boss if he had noticed Charles Darwin serving us lunch. He hadn’t. But he did see him a short while later when Charles Darwin came back to collect the empty plates. Nobody else had noticed. Only my boss and I realised that we were in the presence of greatness.

Richard Carter, FCD (right) and a very old friend last Saturday.

I had my photograph taken with the man himself on Saturday. It was only when I loaded the photo on to my computer that I saw its filename: IMG_1809.JPG

1809: the year of Darwin’s birth, 200 years ago this year. What are the odds of that, do you reckon? (Actually, the file numbers rotate every 10,000, so the answer is 10,000:1.)

I love meaningless coincidences.

My dad at the British Open Golf Championship, 2008.

Today is my dad’s 74th birthday. When I phoned him this afternoon to wish him a happy birthday, I pointed out that, as of today, he has overtaken Charles Darwin: Darwin only made it to 73, you see. I think dad could have done without that particular snippet of information.

It’s funny, though: whenever I think of the elderly Charles Darwin—the one who wrote the earthworms book—I always think of him as a really old man. But I don’t think of my dad as old (and neither does he); I just think of him as my dad—a man who went out into the snow today and came second in this weekend’s competition at his local golf club.

Perhaps I shouldn’t think of Charles Darwin as an old man, either. His mind was every bit as astute when he was 73 as it was when he was researching and writing On the Origin of Species.

Those awfully nice chaps over at the Beagle Project have assimilated me into their Beagle blogging collective. My current designation is Four of Four. Look out ScienceBlogs, Discovery Network and Nature Network, we’re about to eat your lunch.

I have no intention of closing the Red Notebook—even though, let’s be honest, I don’t post to it nearly as often as I should—but, from now on, my more Beaglesque posts will be over at the Beagle Project blog. My first three posts over there were:

• Conrad Martens’ sketchbooks
• Download it while you still can
• Beagle barks and poops

I’m 43 years old. Ever since I learned that there was a word for such a thing, I have desired a study. Today, I am delighted to announce, I took up official residence in my brand new study. Mission accomplished! Magic mustard!

No, I can’t show you photos of it just yet—the shelves are mostly bare, and there are empty cardboard boxes all over the floor—but I have definitely moved in: I am writing this post on my brand new computer in my brand new study.

The Gods of Serendipity have evidently conspired to make this an auspicious day on which to move into my new study. Not only is it the summer solstace, but today’s entry in the thoroughly excellent Writers’ Rooms series in the Guardian newspaper is about Charles Darwin’s study.

I call that spooky.

… Hey! I’ve got a study! W00t!

Charles Darwin to Albany Hancock, 12th February, 1853

My dear Sir

I will begin a summary of what I have been able to make out on Alcippe, imagining you feel interest enough to read my scrawl: you must believe, that I express myself positively only for brevity sake. […]

Female organs of generation, all quite normal, as described under the Lepadidæ. The ovigerous fræna are very large & are destitute (as in some species of Pollicipes) of glands: they probably serve as Branchiæ, as well as the universally admitted Branchiæ in sessile cirripedes, of which they are the homologues.

Male organs none, except a rudiment of penis in normal position between & on ventral side of 6^th cirrus.

Farbeit from me to criticise Charles Darwin on any front, but what kind of saddo spends his birthday writing about the sexual organs of barnacles?

Having said that, what kind of saddo spends his birthday blogging about somebody else writing about the sexual organs of barnacles?

I’m off down the pub!

Nunatak over at the Beagle Project blog throws down the gauntlet and demands photos of disturbingly handsome people ‘in fantastical and/or embarrassing fieldwork gear’.

Herewith my entry, taken floating just above the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia in November, 2000:

Struth, Bruce! Cop a load of that natty FOCD T-shirt and Pommie sunburn!
(But kindly ignore the rather magnificent beer-gut.)

Steady on, ladies (and possibly gentlemen), I’m spoken for, I tell you!

Michael Barton, FCD over at The Dispersal of Darwin has tagged me with the eight things to know about me blog-meme.

Will you just listen to yourself, Richard… Tagged with a blog-meme indeed! When did I start spouting this sort of gibberish? What I meant to say is that I have been sent a chain-letter, the rules of which are as follows:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Now, the thing is, I haven’t passed on a chain-letter since I first had the maths explained to me. By the time this particular chain-letter reaches its 11th generation, assuming we don’t duplicate any recipients, it should have reached 8,589,934,592 (8¹¹) people, which is considerably more than the current population of the planet. The chain has to break somewhere, and, as ever, it is going to break with me.

But just to prove that I’m not a total spoil-sport, he is a list of eight random facts/habits about myself, many of which are true:

1. 

   The view from my garden.

   I live with my partner Jen in a former farmhouse in the Yorkshire Pennines on one of the hillsides above the milltown of Hebden Bridge—or Hippy Central, as I affectionately refer to it. Hebden Bridge is a magnet for those in search of alternative lifestyles, be they aging hippies, tree-huggers, homeopathic voodoo merchants, crystal healers, or vegetarians. The town is rumoured to be on the same ley line as Glastonbury, Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Marrakesh, and San Francisco. It is also the per capita lesbian capital of Europe.

2. I was born and raised on the Wirral peninsula, just across the River Mersey from Liverpool. My primary school music teacher told us that she had also taught John Lennon and Cilla Black. My primary school music teacher was a liar.
3. I went to a posh public school, which I greatly enjoyed—apart from the chapel, which pupils (all boys) were compelled to attend six days a week. The headmaster was a former double-grand-slam-winning Welsh rugby captain, famous for his disciplinary standards and religious views. He took my class for Divinity one year, when I earned myself a reputation as a philosophical trouble-maker. To get his own back, the headmaster made me into a monitor—a lesser prefect—which meant I had to usher people into chapel. On one such occasion, I was collared by the school chaplain in the vestry: “What’s your name, boy?” he asked. “Carter, sir.” “Carter, I need you to shake hands with the Bishop of Chester… Bishop of Chester, this is Carter.” “How do you do, Carter?” “Carter, this is the Bishop of Chester.” “Hi, Bish!”
4. In 1983, I went to Durham University to study Physics. But Physics at university proved to be a totally different kettle of fish to physics at school, so I concentrated on my beer drinking instead. I proved to be very good at this, once winning a bet by drinking three pints of real ale in 51 seconds. After the first year, I changed my subject to Natural Sciences—a strange mixture of Physics, Archaeology and the History & Philosophy of Science. If I had my time over again, I would without doubt study the History & Philosophy of Science full-time. In 1985, I went on an archaeological dig to Shetland. After three weeks’ digging in rain and blizzards, during which time my colleagues unearthed all manner of Viking and Iron Age artefacts all around me, the sum total of my finds came to 136 snail shells—all of which I dug up on my final day.
5. My first job was working in a torpedo factory. Only we didn’t call them torpedoes; we called them underwater vehicles. Underwater vehicles that happened to be programmed to bump into ships very fast. But they didn’t officially become torpedoes until the military bolted warheads on the front.
6. I have stood on the Great Wall of China and can confirm that it is possible to see space from there. I have also visited the so-called ‘Forbidden’ City—I walked straight in! In the year 2000, I visited Australia, where I bumped into a placard-wielding ex-faith baptist named Harry, who was extremely pissed off about the non-second-coming of Jesus at the end of the previous year.
7. The Friends of Charles Darwin were originally going to be called The Friends of Mary Anne Lee. Mary Anne Lee was fined by a local magistrate for dancing lasciviously with navvies at The Old Hill Inn during the construction of the Ribblehead Viaduct in the 1860s. My Friends of Charles Darwin co-founder, Fitz, and I approve of lascious dancing—especially when beer is involved.
8. 

   Down House (beech tree on left)

   In Charles Darwin’s garden at Down House, there is a magnificent beech tree, underneath which sits the worm stone. When I visited Down House some years ago, I gathered a dozen or so beech seeds from around the worm stone and gave them to my dad, a keen gardener, to grow me a scion of one of Darwin’s trees to plant in my own garden. Not one of them germinated. A classic example of Natural Selection in action. Pesky Natural Selection!

9. Following a freak accident in August 2005, I have 13 clones. I am still awaiting the call from the Nobel Committee.
10. I’m not really innumerate; I just like to break the rules occasionally.

I’m off on holiday for a couple of weeks. Back towards the end of March. Be good.

Conversation with my parents last night:

Dad: How many members have you got in that Bernard Darwin thing of yours now? …I mean Charles Darwin.
Me: Eight-hundred and ninety-eight. We haven’t had any new members for a whole week, which is unusual. I think they’re all waiting for one more person to join so they can be number 900.
Dad: [Gestures at himself and Mum, nodding enthusiastically.]
Me: What, you want to join?
Dad & Mum: Yes please!
Mum: Can I be number 900?
Dad: Go on, it’s her birthday in a fortnight; I don’t mind being number 899.
Me: But is Charlie your Darwin, mum?
Mum: Oh yes!
Me: You have to say it!
Dad & Mum: Charlie is my Darwin!
Me: You’re in!

I think my mum is pretty impressed to finally have some initials after her name after 70 years (minus two weeks) on this planet.

I very nearly didn’t let my dad (who is a golf nut) become a member: Bernard is very much my dad’s Darwin. That’s Bernard Darwin, the grandson of Charles Darwin, who helped his grandfather experiment on worms, and who grew up to become a famous golf writer when my dad was a boy. But I reckon I’m entitled to a spot of nepotism.