5 Fun stuff

John Brennan, former CIA director, regarding Trump:
'When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.'

Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics:
'It is incomprehensible to me that a moron like this holds the highest office in the land and that there exist people stupid enough to think this is OK. I can't believe that in 2020 I have to caution anyone listening to the president that injecting disinfectant could kill you.'

Regarding UK PM Theresa May's third attempt to get Parliament's approval of her virtually unchanged Brexit deal with the EU: TV host Emily Maitlis told minister Tobias Ellwood:
'You're putting back on the table a horse so dead, flogged to death, it's practically a glue stick.'

From a BBC News web page:

'The secret of enjoying good wine:
1. Open the bottle and allow it to breathe.
2. If it's not breathing give it mouth to mouth.'

CHEMISTRY

Chemical compounds with unusual names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chemical_compounds_with_unusual_names

BIOLOGY

The Fly Trap, by Fredrik Sjöberg, ISBN-10:184614776X / ISBN-13:978-1846147760

'I realised I had to write my book for people not interested in flies'.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/14/fredrik-sjoberg-hoverflies-the-fly-trap

To know a fly, humorous (if cruel) tale by famous biologist Vincent Dethier, ISBN 0816222401

The cartoon on page 18 accurately depicts female eyes further apart than male eyes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Dethier

To love a fly Late October 2019, a small house fly flew into the top floor flat where I was staying. I noticed it on the patio doors and assumed it wanted to go out so I opened the doors but instead it flew deeper inside. Despite leaving the door open for some appreciable time it stayed well away. The next day when the sun was out I noticed it on the door again and I again offered it a way out but again it refused, even though I left it open a good half hour. It was obvious it didn't want to go out so I gave up opening the door, which suited me as I hate the cold too.

I'm quite fond of flies having spend a significant amount of time marvelling at their complex bodies revealed by SLR macro setups in various tropical environments across the World. My favourite is a huge beautiful robber fly I captured in Cairns that buzzed like a bumblebee [Photography, 4: Flies Bees Wasps Hornets].

But this was more than just a fly buzzing around me; it seemed to like being near humans. The next day it buzzed a workman in the flat to his annoyance and that evening buzzed my partner on the other side of the room, much to her disgust.

After a couple more days it took to landing on the top of my old XP PC, sitting a mere 12 inches from my head, or standing in the middle of the buttons on the calculator I leave on top of it. I eventually worked out it liked the PC because it was warm. Flies don't have human like body organs but they do have cell like structures with similar functions. Between them is a liquid like substance (hemolymph) and when it's cold it's less runny, so flies need to warm up before they can function normally.

After a bit of research I discovered female flies' eyes are further apart than male flies and comparing images on the net, I concluded it was a female, which I had begun to suspect from the way it preened itself on my dressing gown whilst I wore it. I read female flies are the ones that like decomposing matter because they lay their eggs in it, and male flies like sweet things such as ice cream.

Wary of a fly that could carry bacteria around I decided to tempt it with a less toxic diet. I left a tray by the calculator that once had a sweet strawberry tart in it, still littered with the remains of its sickly sweet strawberry compote, but the fly shunned it.

Flies eat by 'barfing' over a substance to reduce it to a liquid to suck up. I decided I might have more luck with a ready-made liquid treat. I sprinkled a small amount of drinking chocolate powder onto a drop of water on a teaspoon, slowly placed it on top of the PC in front of the calculator and enticed it in.

Flies taste with their feet and after a few tentative steps it stuck its proboscis into the liquid, at first a few slurps then becoming faster and more frantic, almost like a toddler discovering sweets. After a long time and when it had stuffed itself silly, it retired to the top of the PC, clearly too engorged to climb up onto its favourite position on the calculator. After a few minutes I heard a short buzz as it tried to take off but hilariously it was too full to even do that. I counted a good hour
before it could fly again.

A couple of days later when the fly was on my calculator I took an eye loupe I use to magnify small objects and slowly edged it to a couple of inches away from the fly to get a good look. It was certainly young and healthy (I get small yet bold jumping spiders in the bathroom that I thought were also being friendly until I looked more closely and found them grey and therefore old and dying when they emerge fearless. I wondered if the fly was the same, but it was in fine fettle).

As I held the loupe up against it to get it in focus, amazingly it moved its head to look at me, then even more amazingly walked over and stared back at me through the loupe! Half an inch away! Embarrassed (at the same time thinking, 'this is getting silly'), I slowly moved the loupe away and the fly stood there for a while, before wandering back to the middle of the keys.

I took a photo of it on the top of the PC using flash with the simple point and shoot camera I had there at the time. I expected the flash to drive it off instantly, but it stayed put. Normally they fly off before the image sensor has time to register their presence, but not this fly. It didn't budge.

At night it disappeared into the flat to sleep somewhere, I've no idea where, but every morning when I first appeared in the kitchen it would come out to greet me with a frantic aerial fly-by above my head, almost like an excited puppy greeting its master, and I would respond "'Morning, fly".

Once I was sat working at my PC, the fly seemed happy to stand on the calculator for hours on end, but sometimes flew down to investigate what I was doing. Sometimes I'd be sitting at the PC and it would land on the clothes I was wearing, or on the back of my hand even though I was moving it to control the mouse, then wander around in a ticklish fashion before flying back up to the calculator. Annoyingly, it seemed to prefer walking on my skin more after I had just had a bath, but no-one ever got sick when the fly was in the flat.

Occasionally it would buzz my head or land on it, then return to the PC top or calculator. Sometimes it buzzed my face so close I could feel the draught from its tiny wings, which I rather enjoyed.

Although my partner understandably didn't like it, it became a part of our household. One morning I came up for breakfast and noticed the fly was absent. I asked my partner if she'd seen it and she replied "The fly's not up yet"! I think it actually heard my voice because it then appeared. More research suggested flies do actually have rudimentary hearing, and they probably have feelings too.

Every now and then it flew off for a few hours, but it always came back to me. Often it followed me as I walked around. If I went into the kitchen (the top floor of the flat is open plan with the kitchen in the middle), it often excitedly buzzed my head, but interestingly it never tried to land on our food. Often after I'd got up off my computer chair it went and landed on it, or on my discarded clothes when the Sun came out, and walked over them.

On another occasion it landed on my partner's laptop, eliciting an expected cry of disgust "Yuuug! Your fly's here!". I walked over and told the fly she didn't like it and pointed to my PC, ushering it away and indicating it should instead go back to my PC, which it did.

One morning I was sitting at my PC in shadow and as the Sun slowly rose and the fly was preening itself on my dressing gown as usual (I loved the way she raised and wiggled her wings, see video bottom right), also in the dark. I pointed up to the thin ray of sun on the wall behind me and said to the fly "You should be up there where it's warm". Almost immediately it flew up and stood in the sun on the wall. A crazy co-incidence? Or perhaps it regarded me as its guardian and did actually understand? Perhaps I was the first creature it encountered after 'birth' and it bonded to me? Can flies actually bond?! The PC below was warmer; did it stand on my calculator because it had my DNA on it?

Another morning I was sitting at my PC reading the news online whilst eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast. The fly flew down onto the desk and I said 'Wait until I've finished, then you can go in the bowl'. It did wait. I finished the bowl, pointed to it and said 'In you go' and in it went although I don't think it liked milk and it didn't stay long. Another crazy co-incidence?

The craziest of all: one morning I woke up late, around 10am, after a late night and a much needed lie-in. The flat is two-floors with my PC on the top floor, and bedroom on the floor below, down a narrow enclosed staircase. Just as I was getting up, the fly came into my bedroom as if to say "There you are - come on now, it's time to get up". Even though I doubted it could hear or comprehend anything, without thinking I said "Ok, I'm coming". I dressed and went upstairs for breakfast and a few moments later the fly had flown up the stairs to join me, again almost like a pet puppy.

My research indicated UK house flies typically live for about a month and don't hibernate, so I didn't expect it to live very long but it defied the odds and was around for almost 3 months: I went away in the middle and came back a couple of weeks later to be greeted in familiar fashion but the next time I went away for another fortnight I was saddened the fly was no longer there on my return.

I actually miss my pet fly, she was very special.

Videos: On my hand whilst using the mouse Preening herself on my dressing gown (on me).