In my new life, I’m trying to be a scientist. It’s ironic really – DM calls himself an artist (and indeed has an art degree to prove it I suppose) and yet he’s the most scientific lay-person I know. There are many scientists in my world – Colin, Chris, Iain, to name but a few……David would not claim to be among them.

However, he has definitely got a scientific mind. He reads scientific “manuals” routinely, including such meaty tomes as “The Origin of Species”, “The Blind Watchmaker” and others of this ilk. (I’m sure you can see a pattern there just from these two.) it means he can converse in scientific language up to a point and has a basic understanding of matters scientific.

Me? I’m a scientific dunce. Completely. In fact, I am such a dunce that I really believed that Economics was a science. That’s how stupid I am.

So, now my days are filled with science. Some things are sticking and others are not. I’ve even taken to reading textbooks in advance of lectures to help me to understand them when they happen. (Talk about a girlie-swot.) Some of what’s in there is thrilling (like how it is that plants can persuade water to defy gravity and move up through the trunk of the plant and into the leaves……now I LOVE that one) and some might as well be in Swahili (or any other language from a far away place) for all the understanding I have of it.

One of the things I read was about how some animals mimic the size, shape and colouration of a much more fearsome beast in order to protect itself against predation. Not only that but they use bright colours to say “don’t touch me, I’m dangerous” in the most strident way possible to them, just like this little chap here.

The example used in my text book (my new best friend, saddo that I am) is the difference between an eastern coral snake (scary, poisonous, brightly coloured beast) and a scarlet king snake (which looks very similar (also brightly coloured) but is a pussycat by comparison). Apparently their territories overlap and where the pussycat lives alongside the scary beast, it rarely gets attacked by predators, however, where its territory is further away from the scary beast, it gets munched by all sorts of other critters. So, I think the moral of this is to get some big-time plastic surgery, look like Mike Tyson or David Cameron, Germaine Greer or Margaret Thatcher (yes, all of these people are considered scary enough by me to be given a very wide berth), don the purple/red/orange togs and I won’t get gobbled up myself.

OK – does that seem a little extreme? Perhaps I’ll try the other technique that this little chap is using – I’ll curl up in a ball with my head protected by the rest of my body and hope the scary stuff goes away.