Day: November 21, 2009

Rocking Horse Reminiscences

Baby Rocker

This rocking horse was my kids’ favorite toy, until it was so used up it was beyong repair. Bought when we lived in Moscow but brought back to Poland in my Jeep, it was with us for about 4 years and served both Tanya and Sophie (George didn’t fancy it it so much) and now what remains is the memory – in the form of this clip.

In the beginning it used to neigh when you stroked the mane, but as you can imagine that was about the first thing that went the journey.

Most of the children born in Europe and America today will never have the luxury of a cuddly horse to rock around on, as the Health and Safety Officials of these nanny states will rule against them on grounds that a child could fall off them backwards. Even on this film some wise guy made the comment that he thought my daughter was swinging too far back. In the near future they will probably want to take into care homes and foster homes kids whose parents wantonly gave them a rocking horse like this to play on. Never caused any tears in my household, that’s all I can say to that. The scratches it made on our Afzelia wood floor whenever it made its inexorable way, nudge by nudge, off the rug are still visible, but I’m not bothered about that.

A fish with a mouthful!

Geophagus hondae mouthbrooding

This is the same tank as you saw the Megalichthys in and in fact these Geophagus hondae were breeding while the catfishes were in there with them, but because of their great mouthbrooding ability, they didn’t lose many of the fry.

You can see the full chin and cheeks being a dead giveaway that she has a lot of babies, which we will see in another clip.

The species used to be called Geophagus steindachneri, but that was considered a bit of a mouthful in itself and so it got shortened to ‘hondae’, since Honda was actually Steindachner’s favorite motorbike.

"Ja, ja. Zose vere ze days!"

Here we see the old Austrian ichthyologist himself reminiscing about riding his Honda bike in and out of Harvard Yard making as much noise as possible at two o’clock in the morning and waking up all the undergraduates, as well as Louis Agassiz.

Franz Steindachner, incidentally, would have made a great mouthbrooder as his copious beard would have provided additional cover for the fry as well as looking serious and this warning off predators.

And that’s another thing we don’t get to do in YouTube, either, and that is add still images next to the videos.  This one is from Wikipedia, so it has the GNU licence.

Megalichthys thoracutum male in breeding frenzy

Megalichthys

This Megalichthys male was in the mood for breeding, but in fact I never got them spawning back in that tank. This was in the old flat before we moved to our own place, but had less space. I must try this fish again as it is one of my all time favorites.

Swallows learning to fly

Flying lesson

This was taken in a courtyard in Katowice just off the old area at ul Kopernika, where the swallows were being given their flying lesson by the parents. They go around and around screaming at each other, and when they’ve got the hang of it, then it’s off to Africa they go, and that’s all the induction they get before needing to make one of creation’s epic journeys. This is still one of my early attempts. these days I’d have enhanced the sound, and got them going round a few more times and in slow motion, but back when this was made I hadn’t even used Windows Movie Maker. No Titles, no cutting, no nothing, just the way it came off the camera, like all the ones in the “early attempts” session on Huliganov TV.