Oh, you think you’re very clever
With your surveys and your mapping,
Your stratigraphic columns
And your geo-seismic zapping.

You can work out strike directions
And calculate the dip,
But you can’t predict eruptions
Or when my plates will slip.

Your boreholes barely touch me,
Even though my crust is thin.
You’re just an irritation
That’s tickling my skin.

Your tiny toy submersibles
Just potter round my oceans,
And you’ve only just discovered
My plate-tectonic motions!

At least you know my age now,
And how I came to be;
But I doubt you’ll ever get to grips
With the very core of me –

My life is still in turmoil,
I feel my insides churning.
Just bear in mind how little
And how shallow is your learning . . .

[Image: clipartpal.com]

As I might have said before, Professor Rory Mortimore
Is just the guy you need to give a talk
On the varied lithographics and the complex statigraphics
Of that soft, white, porous limestone we call Chalk.

Inspired, perhaps, by moles, he is happy boring holes
But examines every core for tell-tale signs:
In cold and draughty shacks, he looks for fossils, flints and cracks
To check it stratigraphically aligns
With exposures, known to most, on our sunny Sussex coast,
Where the flint and marl bands show in all their glory.
That way he gets a clue about what tunnellers must do.
But visual correlation’s half the story.

Borehole geophys is the latest thing there is –
It can spot phosphatic chalk. And, what is more,
Cameras can record all the layers freshly bored,
As back-up to each frail, extracted core.
Initially, he’ll drill his boreholes far apart, until
A sequence goes against his expectation.
Then, because it’s made him warier, he drills out more cores in that area,
So tunnellers have better information.

“Expect the unexpected; be excited, not dejected
If things don’t always turn out as they should;
For knowledge must advance by serendipity and chance,
It’s much less fun if everything ’s understood!”

[Photo: The Sun]

Come and shop until you drop,
Come and eat until you pop!
You’ll be welcome when you stop
Here in Horsham!

We’ve a Carfax, not a Square,

We’ve a Causeway; but beware –

There’s a dragon in its lair,

Here in Horsham!

We do music, arts and dramas,
We’ve got markets for our farmers,

Check our Wealden panoramas

Here in Horsham!

Sip your coffee, beer or tea
In a town with history,
And relax, unwind, feel free,
Here in Horsham!

[Images: www.chiangmaiexpatsclub.com, micromagus.net, Wikipedia Commons, roadsofstone.files.wordpress.com, www.horshammarkets.co.uk, s0.geograph.org.uk]

Reductionism’s met its match!
Where quantum physics reigns,
At sizes down at Planck length scales,
It’s too much for our brains.

[Image: symbolic-mirage.blogspot.co.uk]

The text I see in front of me,
When magnified, looks spotty
How come, then, it looks smooth to me?
(And don’t tell me I’m dotty.)

It seems we live in a granular world
Where things are all in pieces;
And when you try to look at them,
Their mystery increases.

We like to think we’re solid stuff;
But we’re on shaky ground,
It’s quarks and quanta that make up
The things we see around.

Max Planck said space, and time as well
Are not continuous things:
Each has its smallest little bit –
Complexity, it brings!

Which means, in fact, that you and I
Are really rather gritty,
And all the washing in the world
Won’t help to make us pretty.

But if the world is granular,
I reckon it explains
The lost-sock mystery: it must
Have slipped between those grains . . .

[Image: Wikipedia Commons]

We give them the conditions that allow them to have fun:
They run and jump and frolic as they soak up all the sun.
At night-time, they can snuggle into beds of pristine straw
In conditions of such luxury you’ve never seen before.

Come and view our free-range lovelies on their eco-farm in Devon;
See how blissful their existence is in chipolata heaven –
It’s why their skins turn golden brown, and why they taste so yummy.
But please don’t ever tell them they’ll end up inside your tummy . . .

[Image: abelandcole.co.uk]

If ever you are lost, and are driven to accost
A local for directions, I’m the chap
Who with confidence will say, “Oh, it’s easy – that’s the way…”.
(You’ll wish you’d come prepared and brought a map.)

I’ll dish out clear directions so chock-full of imperfections,
They’re guaranteed to drive you round the bend –
So many bends in fact that, though I might have lacked
Precision, you will get there – in the end . . .

And your knowledge of the place will have grown at such a pace
That, if people ask you which way they should go,
You can confidently say, “Oh, it’s easy – that’s the way…”,
And it’s me you’ll have to thank for all you know.

[Photo: solidaritysojurns.org]

The wrongly-used apostrophe
Is like a weed. It is, you see,
Good punctuation, in this case
Appearing where it has no place.

You mustn’t think of them as cure-alls.
They can’t turn singulars to plurals:
As every well-read over-eight knows*
There should not be one in “potato’s”.

You should develop this obsession:
An apostrophe denotes possession;
And also, you will find it fits
Where something’s missing, as in “it’s”.

(But rules like that can cast some doubt,
For “its” – possessive – goes without!)
Don’t let the weeds grow. Make a fuss
And, if in doubt, consult Lynne Truss . . .

* I wonder if this is true, these days?

[Image: http://aworldelsewhere-finn.blogspot.co.uk]

Shopping’s not simple in Waitrose.
Hard enough to decide between brands;
But then, when you’ve filled up your trolley,
You’ve another tough choice on your hands.

Three charity boxes accost you,
In which you can see little mounds
Of green plastic tokens from shoppers
Which Waitrose will turn into pounds.

How do you decide which to favour
With the token the checkout girl gave you?
Well, help is at hand in an email
From swimmers who’re training to save you:

“Hoard all your discs until April,
Then into the box with the label
‘Horsham Lifesavers’ appended
Please post every one, if you’re able.”

It’s the first time I’ve ever been lobbied
To influence how I should vote.
But I’ll donate my little green tokens
In the hope that they’ll keep me afloat.

[Photo:www.oxshottroyalsfc.co.uk]

These eggs aren’t just for bakin’,
There’s more that they can do:
And one of these days these eggs are gonna
Give you breakfast too.

You can fry ’em, poach them, boil ’em
Use ’em in your shampoo;
But one of these days these eggs are gonna
Get you bakin’ too.

That’s why these eggs from Stonegate
Were ‘born to be baked’ – it’s true,
Cos that’s what Ella Valentine
Wants y’all to do.

Are you ready, eggs? Start bakin’!

[Image: www.ellavalentine.co.uk (used with permission). Apologies to lyricist Lee Hazlewood, and singer Nancy Sinatra, whose 1966 boots were made for walkin’.]