The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2540 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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Back in my office I passed the draft of my paper to Delia to type up properly, while she was doing this I was talking to Alan who had been looking at bits of dormouse film—he reckoned we had about twenty minutes plus he could do some extra if we needed it or we could do something on general conservation, saving not just the dormouse but saving the planet. He also proposed a link to a webcam we could have on the captive dormice when they were active.

Between us we decided we could do something about the captive breeding programme and how we were trying to boost numbers in the wild. We could explain why we chip the animals, how that enables us to identify individual animals. A script was forming in my mind, “Dormice probably recognise individuals in the same way we recognise each other, from appearance and smell, whereas to humans they can appear to be much the same. At different times ways to mark individual animals have been tried, from permanent markers, to clipping bits off their claws or coat, to ringing them. None was particularly successful, but electronic chips are. There is a minute risk to the animal but given the improved amount of data available and the potential for using it to protect future animals, the risks are considered appropriate.”

I scribbled some notes, we had spare footage of me chipping a mouse we could use. Alan told me he’d scan some more stuff he had and couldn’t we use a bit of harvest mouse film to sell the newer film? I wasn’t sure of that, the film was finished at long last, it had been too late for the BBC to use for Christmas, so Easter was going to be the showing date. Easter’s in April this year, the fifth to be precise and as the best time to see these animals would be in the spring and summer, it seemed an appropriate time to have people out looking for them. Mind you, I’ve been doing nature watching forever and never seen harvest mice in the wild, though some of them may well have seen me.

Delia finished the paper and I sent it off to Henry’s secretary who would distribute it with other documents for the bank meeting. Sometimes I forget I’m a bank director, like I forget I’m an aristocrat’s missus, or that I’m a professor—I’m thirty one years old—have I seen it and done it all? Probably not—certainly not this task for which I was chosen that Billie and the goddess talk about. I can’t believe anything I’ve done so far can be related to whatever that is.

Daddy rang mid morning and I agreed to go to lunch with him. Before that I spoke with Hilary, the technician, to organise my props for the woodland lecture. She understood perfectly. “You like to make your lectures memorable, don’t you?”

“I try, the hope being that if the thing stands out in the mind of the student, some of the information offered also sticks and may be useful.”

“I’m sure it does, Professor. Your performances are much in demand, I certainly enjoy them.”

I shrugged and went back to my office while she went off to make sure we had enough sets of things for Monday. I signed some letters, spoke with one or two colleagues about funding issues and I also raised the matter of advertising for a post grad student to study direction strategies in dormice. If Henry was prepared to fund it, we had to be ready to move quickly.

At lunch Daddy related the rumour that Dominic Gasgoine was possibly ill because he got wind that someone was digging about in his past and it worried him.

“D’you believe that?”

He shrugged, “Accordin’ tae his secretary, he wis fair worrit.”

“Why? It’s never bothered him before?”

“Hoo wid I ken?”

“You seem to have your ear to the ground more than I do.”

“Aye, weel that’s no difficult as yer heid is usually up in yon clouds.”

“Are you suggesting I’m out of touch with reality?”

His eyes sparkled and I knew he was winding me up. However some of what he said was spot on, I did tend to be up in my ivory tower much of the time—I was a professor, it’s my job to be up there supervising those who aspired to supplant me. It’s possibly ironic but it’s my job to educate and train people to replace me—hopefully not for a little while yet. Then in looking back, Daddy had done just that to me, moving on temporarily to the deanship while I got some experience as a professor. I had a feeling he wanted me to replace Prof Herbert at Sussex. That would be quite a job to get and of course it’s my alma mater.

I fancied Oxford but not being an alumnus of that university, it was unlikely—it was nigh on impossible, as would be Cambridge and London for the same reasons. Like standing for the US presidency, you have to be a native of the US. That’s all well and good but it may exclude the best person for the job.

Tom told me about the attack on the office of the French magazine and the execution of a dozen people. I don’t understand all this violence and how a couple of deranged siblings could do such a thing, let alone why. I suspected they’d been radicalised having trained in Syria and so on, in which case they’d be brainwashed into thinking as their puppetmasters wanted them. That possibly sounds patronising. It isn’t meant to, but it’s a complaint that often the people who devise schemes like the murder of these journalists and cartoonists, are not the patsies who end up doing said dirty deed.

It was interesting listening to ‘Thought for the day,’ on Radio 4, where an Islamic teacher showed how this dreadful deed was not approved by mainstream Islam, and that once again it showed how the message had been distorted by self deluding clergy who were anything but men of god. It was quite a good rebuttal.

As a non-believer, I find it frightening that much of the population claims to believe in some sort of supernatural being. What evidence they have to back up this claim, is non existent. But they claim faith is just that believing without proof. As a university teacher I have to protest at any person who believes that way because it shows intellectual laziness. Faith like politics relies on emotional decision making not careful rationale. Belief in supreme beings, shows a lack of rational thought allowing erroneous emotional ideas to push past their more mature logical ones.

Politicians use the same tricks talking about people’s differences rather than their commonalities. We’re all one species who emerged from Africa, so why do the Nasty party talk about immigrants as the major cause of all our problems? It’s a nonsense but like Hitler did in the 1930s, selling policies based upon fear or hatred gets votes, once you’ve established it.

I did some more admin work and went off to get the mouseketeers, at least they weren’t bigots.