Swimming Pools

What on earth to write about Swimming pools? Frankly, the topic's wasted on me as I never learned to swim. However, I know some cats that do, so we're heading off to Türkiye today (not literally). I haven't yet visited that country, but I've long been intrigued by its breed of swimming cats and by the cascading thermal pools of Pamukkale. I once thought they went together.  I was misinformed. No matter. I pair them up here for your delectation and will finish with a new cat poem that's not entirely on theme. 😸

otherworldly Pamukkale

Pamukkale is an UNESCO world heritage site in south-western Türkiye. Its terraces are made of travertine, a spectacularly shimmering white limestone deposited by mineral waters which have been cascading down from hot springs into its layered pools for millennia. The name in Turkish means 'cotton castle' and it is easy to see why.

There are seventeen hot springs and the waters at source vary in temperature from 35C to nearly boiling. By the time they have mingled and flowed down the cliff to the pools below they are pleasantly warm the year round.

Pamukkale's thermal springs and pools have been attracting visitors since antiquity. The ancient Greek city of Hierapolis, founded as a spa resort, stands above the springs on the site of what was once a cult centre of the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele. It was founded in the 3rd century BC and there is abundant evidence, in the ruins of the city and its nearby necropolis, that many came to the pools for their supposedly - though clearly not always successful - curative powers.

Although this otherworldly site is now carefully curated, it is still possible with permission for visitors to bathe and swim in designated pools at Pamukkale today.

I was led to believe, many years ago, that Türkiye's swimming cats regularly enjoyed the waters of Pamukkale, an unfortunate conflation of facts. The snag is a geographical one, for Pamukkale, as stated, is in the south-western region of the country in Denizli province, while the water-loving cats live over a thousand kilometres away in Anatolia, eastern Türkiye, near Lake Van from which they derive their name...and in which they do swim.

They are distinguished by their snow-white fur, except for brown markings on their head and ears and their brown hind-quarters and tails. They also have odd coloured eyes (quite common elsewhere in white cats, apparently). It is believed they have lived around Lake Van as a feral landrace for several thousand years, originally brought there as pest control by early Anatolian settlers. 

swimming Van cat

Nowadays there are only a couple of hundred pure Van cats living wild in their native area, but breeding programmes have spread their numbers around the world in the last thirty or so years. I wonder if this domesticated diaspora will retain its love of swimming. Only time will tell. I'm just thinking that if I were a Van cat, I'd love to swim in the year-round warm pools of Pamukkale.

I was originally going to call this latest poem Mrs Schrödinger's Pussy, in an oblique cultural reference to the 1970s TV series 'Are You Being Served' and its standing joke about Mrs Slocombe's Pussy, but on consideration I thought it deserved more gravitas than that. 

It is based on the lives of Erwin Schrödinger (of Schrödinger's Cat fame) and his wife Annemarie and the essentials are absolutely true. As well as being a brilliant (and Nobel Prize winning) physicist, he was a serial philanderer with a predilection for young girls. He was twice Annemarie's age when they married in 1920. She was a photographer and supported him financially for many years. As a couple they were childless and she did have a cat called Milton (and another called Marvell, as it happens). She also remained loyal to him despite his many transgressions. The twist is my whimsical invention. 

Mrs Schrödinger's Cat

In the dull red glow 

of an ornate Austrian washroom, 

expectant faces stand by the bath. 

Something is developing slowly

between Anny and Erwin.

They don't speak, don't touch.

 

She's teaching him,

who is so cleverly theoretical,

the practical art of the photograph -

learned in her youth

from her father, chief lensman 

by appointment to the Royal Court.

It ought to vex her

in years to come,

married to a man twice her age,

that they still survive

mostly off her wage

while he tutors young girls

 

and researches particles and waves,

strays away for days and nights

so that sometimes 

when she's half sleeping 

she doesn't know if he's out or in.

But she has her cat,

jet black and blind like the poet

after whom he's named.

So Erwin frames his wife: white-dressed

and clutching furry Milton to her breast 

in affectionate pose...

and now they're waiting the reveal.

Anny checks a stopwatch

as the magic starts to happen

and a grainy image emerges:

her languid figure, her happy smile,

her empty arms. They stare. Both know

the camera never lies and yet

there's no cat in the photograph,

not even a blurry shadow 

of Milton's cradled feline form.

Her white dress, her empty arms,

her knowing smile, his reeling brain.

This is some serious sorcery.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Swimming Pools

I note that the theme is entitled Swimming Pools and my immediate reaction was open air pools or Lidos. I also note that the word is Pools and I wish it were so here in the North West. Indeed, I wish there was actually one that I could highlight. It used to be the case that nearly every town and city would have its own lido but no more.

Before I can go any further it has struck me that I don’t know why it is called a Lido. It seems that it was first termed this in the 1930s and is an Italian word for ‘beach’ such as Lido di Venezia, the barrier beach enclosing the Venetian Lagoon. There is another article on this at some point.

But for now I want to concentrate on this area and one place that is fighting back against the closures and that is the Grange-over-Sands Lido which opened in 1932. The buildings are in Art Deco style. Historic Pools of Britain describes the lido as ‘A very fine intact Art Deco mushroom shaped lido in a stunning setting on the edge of Morecambe Bay’.

Grange Lido in its heyday

English Heritage state the reasons for the lido's Grade II listing in 2011 as:

Completeness: as a complete example of a 1930s lido with the survival of all key ancillary buildings and structures
Pool: for the unusually shaped pool, designed for multiple uses and which retains its original stepped diving stage
Historic: as an evocative reminder of the former popularity of sea-side towns such as Grange over Sands and the inter-war cult of fresh air, fitness and mass leisure.

The lido closed in 1993 after a report suggested that necessary repairs would be too expensive to be justified and then crucially in 2011 the Save Grange Lido campaign was established, aiming to "transform it into a vibrant community owned leisure facility with a restored 50m pool at its heart." Save Grange Lido Ltd incorporated as a Community Benefit Society in January 2019.

the derelict Grange Lido

The Society has grown year upon year, and now comprises people from a range of different backgrounds and specialisms. It includes experts in leisure management, lido operation, business, civil engineering, restoration of historic buildings, tourism, marketing, planning, law, IT, journalism, history and architecture, as well as concerned mums, dads and grandparents. All those involved in the Society are volunteers. The group produced a detailed business plan setting out how it believed this could be achieved. It also has a Friends of Grange Lido.

In February 2019, the local council allocated £2 million for ‘light touch refurbishment’ of the lido, to include making it structurally sound, bringing it back into public use, and providing refurbished units for community groups or entrepreneurs.

In February 2023, it was reported that the repair work was to start the following month and later that year the lido's pool was given a ‘temporary infill’ of stones in order to create a public space. In March 2024, works were anticipated to finish by summer, however in May 2025 it was announced that the reopening had been delayed due to issues with concrete repairs.

At present the Westmorland and Furness Council is carrying out a £6.8 million pound restoration and promenade project and recent progress includes the upgrading of the central pavilion, making an accessible promenade entrance, stabilizing changing areas, repairing the diving board structure and adding a playground.

the planned SGL renovation

The Council's current stage of work on the Pool Basin involves a temporary infill of the main pool area to create a multi-purpose public space rather than an immediate refilling for swimming. Meanwhile Save Grange Lido are pushing for future stages to fully restore the 50 metre pool for swimming and to add a cafe, gym and community hub.

Back in 2019 I wrote this poem about the Lido which was published in Magma in July 2020 but I don’t want to use all of it just a few lines from the middle:

Grange-over-Sands Lido

...to stroll along the Promenade
in time with tipping our hats
to folk with dogs
and it was all a bit splendid

apart from the fact
I knew it would end
when she peeked through gaps
in the Lido’s wall
at shattered Art Deco
splattered in filth and graffiti

and end it did
she was heartbroken
even before finding
photos from the fifties
pasted on the fence
of kids diving through summer...

Then a few years later I wrote this poem:

Grange-over-Sands Lido II

She was so excited
she started to mix up
her SGLs and her SLDCs
while I was no better
as I tried to get to grips with
Community Benefit Societies

all so different to the last time
when there were no noticeboards
just black and white photos
of folk gathered round summers
that had closed years ago
and I wondered if any of the kids
paddling in those photos
are part of the campaign
that we’re reading about
friends and then Friends
who’d dropped a pebble
in the centre of dirty water
and seen ripples spreading
past filth and graffiti
ripples cleansed and clear
pressured by their campaign
battering against rusting wire

we strolled along the Promenade
back to the railway station
signed up by mobile phones
pleased to be part of success.

Published in Reach Poetry, 2026

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Lancashire Dead Good Poets' October Open Mic Night

...on zoom coincides happily with National Poetry Day on Thursday October 1st at 7.30pm BST. The non-compulsory theme in 'Wonder'.

All are welcome. There are 20 x 5 minute slots. Email: deadgoodpoets@hotmail.co.uk to sign up.

I hope you can join us for a magical night of poetry.

Steve ;-)

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Reflect

Reflect is one of those odd words in English that can have completely opposite meanings. Reflect as in a mirror which is instantaneous or Reflect as thinking about a subject deeply. I wondered whether there is a word which describes this state of affairs and lo and behold there is.

The dictionary meaning of the word contronym is ‘a word having two meanings that contradict one another.’ A contronym is also called a ‘Janus word’ or auto-antonym. It's a word that has contradictory (or reverse) meanings depending on the context.

For example, the word ‘transparent’ can mean either something that is invisible or obvious. Or ‘dust’ which can mean to remove as in dusting a shelf or to add as in dusting a cake.

My new printed Oxford English and my old Chambers dictionaries do not have definitions but the online Oxford does. OED's earliest evidence for contronym is from 1962 in the writing of J. Herring.

I’m going to have to choose which Reflect to look at and it’s going to be this one.

Whenever I think of poems or literature about looking back to reflect on things done or not done, then the following poem by William Wordsworth usually comes to mind. It’s generally known as 'Tintern Abbey' but I prefer the full title. This is the extract that does it for me.

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Wordsworth claimed to have composed the poem entirely in his head, beginning it upon leaving Tintern and not jotting down so much as a line until he reached Bristol, by which time it had just reached mental completion.

Well, considering the poem is 160 lines (give or take) that’s pretty good going and I do wonder if anyone challenged him on this. Not to mention the fact that his rather talented sister, Dorothy, was walking with him.

I’ve just given myself 5 minutes to have a Reflect on times past. I don’t think that reflections such as these need to melancholic, indeed as Wordsworth says ‘sensations sweet’ can be the order of the day.

So, in my 5 minutes of time present there were memories of a phone call I didn’t make, the sheer joy of vomiting after a hard training run over sand dunes in Great Yarmouth, a railway journey along the west coast of Wales to Pwllheli, getting rid of my mortgage, a poetry event, friends.

I had to drag myself away from all that looking back to think about a poem to go with the thoughts. I think this will do the job and it sort of covers the same concerns as Tintern.

Maritime Museum, St Helier

I didn’t know that fathom
came from faedm,
a measure of outstretched arms
no longer than the arrow
which had stopped me
on a hot March day
as I wandered on my own
following signs
in a museum sort of way.
An arrow,
a wordvane dipped
in terms of the sea
and its turning turned
my day around
as back to the start
and a boy again
I mixed up sand and water
and launched my boat on the pond,
pushed on buttons I shouldn’t
and ran round corners to hide,
let fingers brush the rich black tar
in timbers
that shivered my soul,
made up yarns for pictures
that soon became a scene
where a father
taught his son the knots
and splices of his skills,
around the tree and down the hole
the rabbit had tried and tried
but here,
I can’t believe it,
the bowline came first time
and for a time
I felt a smile but with
Force 2, precipitation,
that brought me back
to the forenoon watch
and ready to run ashore
not sure
I’d play the boy again
the hours for that have passed
but glad of a place
where the sea’s embrace
can be measured
in outstretched arms.

First published in Iota, March 2003.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Reflect

 

Our summer didn’t turn out as we hoped. One thing after another put obstacles in the way of our plans, but we were fortunate enough to salvage one pre-booked break away by changing location. We’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the situations we’ve faced, and looking ahead, think about what to do next. We’ll take what comes and do our best to keep a positive outlook.

Saturday put a smile on my face. It wasn’t just Blackpool F.C.’s 4-0 win placing them at the top of the League One table, it was the return and involvement of the player in the number 12 shirt, Jerry Yates. His signature song, ‘Spirit in the Sky’ never sounded better. If you’re reading this, Jerry, - you never know – welcome home.

Sylvia Plath’s only novel, The Bell Jar stayed untouched on my ‘awaiting reading’ shelf for months before I decided it was time. Things I’d read about her unnerved me and yet I felt compelled to read her work. I wanted to know. I wanted to understand and reflect on the complexities of her life. I found it to be a great read. I took it slowly, to process carefully and often stopped reading to reflect on what she, or her main character, Esther Greenwood was doing. I found this poem,

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful,
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Lost In Translation

Some (on the right, in the fossil fuel lobbies, among the climate catastrophe deniers and net zero detractors) are advocating heavily for the UK to increase rates of extraction of oil and gas from our offshore North Sea fields, by honouring two licences currently subject to litigation and by approving new licences.

They claim it will (a) bring down the price of fuel to UK consumers, (b) make us less reliant on imports of oil and gas, (c) provide revenue to the exchequer, (d) create jobs and (e) that as everybody else continues to drill anyway, why shouldn't we, "in the national interest".

Leaving aside that such a move would run contrary to both the legally binding Climate Change Act (2008) and the current government's manifesto, there are several compelling reasons for not doing so, but they mostly get conveniently lost in translation, so let me set the record straight.

this leads...

Even giving the go-ahead for the already approved Rosebank oil and gas field near the Shetland Islands and the Jackdaw gas field near Aberdeen won't actually achieve objectives (a), (b) and (c) for the following reasons:

Rosebank contains very little gas: it is 90% heavy crude oil. UK refineries are not equipped to refine it, and as such, it is not suitable for domestic use. It would be loaded onto tankers and sold by the fuel companies on international markets at global market prices to the highest bidder. Extracting more of it would not change the international cost of oil and gas. It would not heat British homes, fuel British industry, or lower British bills. Activating Rosebank would actually increase the UK's CO2 emissions by some 10% per year!

What is more, the primary financial beneficiaries of proceeding with Rosebank would be its owners, not the exchequer or UK taxpayers. Rosebank is owned jointly by Shell and Equinor (80%) and Ithaca Energy (20%). Based on a long-term average oil price of $70 per barrel, the field's owners stand to earn £1.5 billion in profit. UK taxpayers, by contrast, would shoulder over 80% of Rosebank's development costs through tax relief. Shell and Equinor effectively pay no tax in the UK because it is offset by the tax relief they receive, and Equinor pays tax in Norway, to that country's benefit.

Jackdaw has gas, probably enough to supply a mere 2% of UK requirements up to 2036. It would be relatively straightforward to connect that platform to the UK pipeline network. However, the gas beneath Jackdaw is CO2 dense and drilling it could produce 35.8m tonnes of carbon over its 10-year lifetime, the equivalent of 90% of Scotland's emissions for 2023. As for new jobs created, the estimate is 15 permanent positions (yes 15). 

Shell owns Jackdaw, so the financial caveats attached to Rosebank largely apply to Jackdaw as well. The fuel company and its shareholders will be the prime beneficiaries and any potential revenue to the UK exchequer will be offset by the tax relief the government affords Shell (which paid zero tax in the UK last tax year).

Those are the facts which have been roundly ignored in the pronouncements and soundbites of Tory and Reform politicians advocating a "drill, baby, drill" policy in recent months.

Actually, the best way to achieve the goals of (a), (b), (c) and (d) is by steadfastly opposing option (e) and by accelerating our endeavours to switch over to renewable energy and achieve net zero as fast as possible. Britain has led the way since 2008. Our best hope is to continue to do so.

The alternative is more of what we have seen this summer.

...to this

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” (King Lear IV:I:37–38)

Here's my latest, a work-in-progress:

Bad Gods And Greedy Fools

If ever the saga of our hellish end-of- times 

gets uncovered by some intrepid voyagers 

from across the sea of stars, as they

disinter our history from the planet's silent, 

cinderous shell, wondering what catastrophe 

befell so mighty a civilised world, will they 

struggle to believe they've translated aright, 

that we brought destruction on ourselves? 

That bad gods and greedy fools conspired

like wanton boys to wreck the very paradise

they enjoyed, the ecosphere that sustained them?

How could such crass stupidity, such lack 

of care, of empathy play out on a rare sphere

once both beautiful and bountiful, now pocked

with burnt out cities and the ashen ghosts

of monstrous fallen data temples dedicated

to Artifice? How could they give nature the slip?

Why did nobody try harder to stop such madness? 

Was it some decadent death wish allowed

That bad gods and greedy fools conspired

like wanton boys to wreck the very paradise

they enjoyed, the ecosphere that sustained them?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Lost in Translation

Robert Frost is usually credited for the quote that ‘Poetry is what gets lost in translation.’ But however good and whatever is translated in poetry or prose then what is also usually lost is the name of the person who translates the work. Which seems unfair as it is a highly skilled art and profession which I know little about.

All of Georges Simenon's Maigret works have been fully translated into English. Jean Stewart translated them through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 

In 2013 Penguin translated the full series but included no information whatsoever about the translators, such as Linda Asher, Anthea Bell, or Siân Reynolds. They are credited on the title page, but otherwise completely anonymous.

However, there are two organisations in the UK that do represent the profession.

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is a professional association representing translators, interpreters and language services businesses. ITI is affiliated with the International Federation of Translators (FIT). As the principal professional association of translators and interpreters it has become one of the primary sources of information on translation and interpreting to government, industry, the media and the public.

The Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) is the UK's not-for-profit royal charter body for languages and linguists. They support linguists in their careers and lives. They do have a Diploma in Translation, a Master's-level qualification for work as a translator and a Certificate in Translation a Degree-level qualification for translation.

The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) is an international professional association of translators and interpreters based in Argentina. I mention this as on its website there is an article by Marie Lebert entitled ‘60 translators who changed the world’. Well worth a look.

The Bukhman International Booker Prize, which is awarded annually, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.  It recognises the vital work of translators, with the £100,000 prize money divided equally between authors and translators. In addition, shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500. This year ‘Taiwan Travelogue’ by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, was announced as the winner.

In February of this year The Society of Authors announced the following:

‘Tonight we shine the spotlight on the often “invisible” creativity of translators, at a ceremony announcing the winners of our 2025 Translation Prizes.

Nine literary translators and one editor will be named winners at the event at the British Library, with more than £32,000 in prize money shared among the winners and runners-up. The prizes celebrate outstanding translations of prose, poetry and non-fiction, from languages from around the globe and across a range of genres.’

But I can only judge by how my reading has been affected by a translated book. I have no idea if they follow the original or read as well in English but I have loved them when reading. These are a few of my favourites.

'The Name of the Rose' by Italian author Umberto Eco was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.

'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was published in 2004 and translated by Lucia Graves.

The Icelandic crime novel 'Jar City' by Arnaldur Indriðason was translated into English by Bernard Scudder.

When I was working at Butlins back in about 1970 the bloke in the next staff chalet said ‘You like reading, don’t you? Try this.’ It was a Penguin Modern European Poets copy of 'Rilke Selected Poems'. 3/6. Translated by J.B. Leishman. 

I was knocked out by it at the time. But I’m mentioning it now to show how there is no one way to translate a piece of work. I’m taking the first verse of Autumn Day from that book translated by J. B. Leishman and showing other translations.

Autumn Day

Lord, it is time. The summer was so great.
Impose upon the sundials now your shadows
and round the meadows let the winds rotate.
                                                  J. B. Leishman

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
                                                  Galway Kinnell, Hannah Liebmann

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
                                                  Stephen Mitchell

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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DNA

I wonder if the name Colin Pitchfork means anything to anyone reading my DNA blog. The possible early release from prison of violent offenders is a hot topic at the moment and although Pitchfork (now aged 66) was originally sentenced to imprisonment for 30 years in 1988, he is still behind bars 38 years after his conviction, and was last denied parole by a review board in 2025.

His crimes? The rape and murder of two schoolgirls, Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, in Leicestershire in the 1980s, plus two other counts of sexual assault on young women, and an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

The real significance of his case? It was the first ever conviction secured on the basis of DNA evidence.

Colin Pitchfork

He nearly got away with it, for when the police arranged for 9,000 men in the locality between the ages of 16 and 34 to report in and give blood for DNA sampling, he sent along a friend of his with a fake passport purporting to be Pitchfork, a ruse that was only discovered after an overheard conversation in a pub. When Pitchfork finally provided a sample, his DNA was a match for that found on both murdered schoolgirls. Professor (now Sir) Alex Jeffreys of Leicester University was the scientist who helped the police with that investigation and whose pioneering work on techniques for genetic fingerprinting and DNA profiling became standard practice worldwide.

I was intrigued by a book review in New Scientist a couple of months ago. That book is 'The Secrets of Our DNA ' by Turi King. (It's currently on order.) One anecdote in particular intrigued me, so I will share it in full with you:

"In 1993, a 62-year-old woman in Idar-Oberstein in Germany was found strangled. DNA on a coffee cup suggested that two people were present besides the victim, and that one of the apparent killers was a woman. In 2001, the suspected female murderer's DNA turned up again in Germany, this time on the body of a 61-year-old man in Freiburg. Then her DNA started appearing at crime scenes in Austria and France as well.

"In 2007, the mysterious woman hit the headlines when two police officers were shot, one fatally, in their car in the German city of Heilbronn, and her DNA was found in the back seat. This sparked a major hunt for the 'Phantom of Heilbronn' as she became known. But the phantom proved elusive, despite being linked to forty-one crimes via her DNA. In some cases, her accomplices were caught, but they denied that any woman was involved. Police started to consider the possibility that the criminal was transgender.

swabbing for human DNA

"It wasn't until 2009 that the 'Phantom of Heilbronn' was finally identified - as a woman who worked in a factory that made swabs for DNA testing! Contamination in the production process had been the problem and the police had wasted years on the trail of a non-existent killer. The 'Phantom of Heilbronn' really was a phantom."

While the majority of convictions based on DNA are sound, the example above and a few notable miscarriages of justice mean that DNA 'evidence' has to be interpreted very carefully, as crime scenes are often complex and the process of collecting materials for DNA profiling can give rise to cross-contamination, the unintentional transference of DNA evidence from one item or location to another.  

DNA is omnipresent in the animal world. There is no living, reproducing organism that doesn't have DNA as the genome. In fact all animals share some DNA with human beings - probably dating back to the origins of animal life on earth in the hot vents of underwater volcanoes in the planet's oceans.

We know there were various versions of human beings (hominins) back along our evolutionary road, maybe as many as thirteen different types over eight million years since we diverged from chimpanzees (whose DNA is 98.4% identical to human DNA). Nowadays only one exists, Homo sapiens. We know about our ancestors mainly thanks to fossil remains and DNA analysis.

There are also only two types of alligators alive today of the ten species that are known to have existed, from fossil remains and DNA analysis, and one of those, the Chinese alligator, is on the critically endangered list. In the wild, it lives only in about a 5km square region of freshwater ponds in the Anhui province of south-western China. Its close cousin, the American alligator is in much better shape, being widespread though the freshwater wetlands of the southern United States. It is thought that alligators originated in North America some 37 million years ago and that the Chinese branch migrated to Asia across the Bering land bridge some 20 million years ago. They are, of course, the template for the Chinese Dragon of myth and legend.

swabbing for alligator DNA

Why did I want to introduce alligators into this blog about DNA? It's not as though they kill people and need tracking down. That's much more in the nature of crocodiles, who are vicious predators. Alligators by contrast are quite shy and peaceable creatures. No, I had a poem about alligators and thought I might as well use it here masquerading as a DNA piece.

Alligators

There are two types of alligators.

They are known as

type 1 alligators and type 2 alligators

and it is perfectly possible 

to catch either but not both of them.

Type 1 alligators can quite often

be caught during pregnancy

or at birth. DNA might suggest 

a pre-disposition for doing so,

and for type 1 alligators

life is fraught  from an early age

which seems particularly unfair.

For type 2 alligators, generally

caught later in life 

most often as a result of being 

somewhat fat and lazy

and having a sweet tooth

despite the warnings,

it ought to be an avoidable fate.

As a result of being caught,

both type 1 and type 2 alligators

are awkward customers

prone to spiky, insulting

and moody  behaviour and need

careful handling to keep them

from becoming a threat to life.

Wait. No. What am I saying?

Diabetes, Not Alligators.

That makes way more sense.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Lancashire Dead Good Poets' September Open Mic Night

Here's notice of our September open mic night on zoom...

Everyone is welcome - to read and/or listen in. It's free and early booking is advised. To secure a slot, email: deadgoodpoets@hotmaul.co.uk

Steve ;-)

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DNA

Free flowing, attractive and attacking football is in the DNA of Birmingham City FC. 

There are quite a few inaccuracies in that statement. But not to worry as the term DNA has now been used as a marketing gimmick or metaphorical shorthand for a few years now.

Let’s get the basic bits out of the way:

DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic acid and it is the only molecule capable of reproducing itself. DNA is present in almost all living cells of all living things. Only DNA, and no other molecule, carries the ability to copy and then pass heritable information to subsequent generations.

The famous double helix structure consists of two strands of DNA combining a bit like a spiral staircase. Sugars and phosphates make up the sides and base pairs make up the middle or rungs. Base pairs are the compounds adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). Crucially, adenine (A) pairs only with thymine (T), and cytosine (C) only pairs with guanine (G). Only the pairs of either A:T or C:G fit as rungs between the two siderails.

The difference between human DNA and tomato DNA is the sequence of DNA base pairs A, T, C, and G. A common analogy used in introductions to this subject is that two different recipes in an English language cookbook may use the same 26 letters to make words but differ in the exact sequence of those same 26 letters, resulting in different recipes.

The differences, although small, can have dramatic consequences. Your DNA sequence determines your basic blood type (A, B, AB, or O), hair and eye colour, whether your earlobes dangle, and whether you can roll your tongue.

But where to go after that very brief overview? Just a couple of weeks ago I was reading this by Alison George in the New Scientist:

Ancient human DNA found on cave art for the first time. DNA from ancient humans has been found on a prehistoric cave painting and on cave walls, demonstrating the potential to one day identify individual artists and resolve the debate over Neanderthals' artistic abilities. She was writing about samples from 5,000 to 17,000 years ago.

Police now use DNA to identify long forgotten cold cases but the first use of DNA in an ongoing investigation occurred in Britain in 1986. Professor Alec Jeffreys was assisting the British police in solving two separate rape-murders and was able to prove that the man arrested was not guilty.

Historians use DNA to identify the remains of lost soldiers, from WWI infantry missing in action at Vimy Ridge to King Richard III under a car park in Leicester.

The popularity of DNA is reflected in the rise of direct-to-consumer DNA testing. For a relatively small fee, several companies will conduct a DNA analysis from the cells in your cheek swab or spit sample. However, these DNA tests are not 100 per cent accurate.

Molecular geneticists have learned not only how to read the information carried by a DNA strand, but also how to edit or supplement it. These innovations allow development of a number of commercial products such as insulin and cheese.

Much of the above was taken from an article on the BBC Science Forum by Dr Alan McHughen published on October 18, 2020.

I do feel there should be a bit of romance in DNA. This was written a few years ago.

Anniversary Road
(for the Horrocks family)

Back home
the kids probably think
you’re settling for tea
and a nice gateaux
in the boring café
of another boring gallery.

And if they were around
they’d be right,
mostly,
a touch of your fingers
hidden from a groan
of embarrassed teenagers.

But not this year
this aisle of months
leading away from silver
this is for you
twenty six years

and a letter from every one.

Amsterdam was holding hands
keeping out the cold
on the Keizersgracht Canal.
Bruges was kissing
under the tartan blanket
of a horse-drawn carriage.

Calais is a secret
that only two can share
arms linked by a window
a double helix in a single room
a bond that’s for life
discussing Dundee or Dresden.

First published in ‘away’, 2010.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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