The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1646 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Let me get this straight, Robocop hijacked you and made you drive to a beauty spot on the downs and then you dissected his brain, he ’fessed up and broke down, and you sent for his boss?”

“More or less, it took a bit longer than that, but essentially, once he knew he was going to be caught, he told me what happened. Little Micky was his illegitimate son and he needed to punish someone for his loss.

“Apparently he abandoned the girl before the baby was born...”

“There’s a surprise,” observed Simon.

“So much of his relationship was in his head rather than hands on.”

“I’ll bet lots of parents are like that, especially fathers. They have this fantasy picture of how they’d like it to be, close ties with the kids, except they do nothing towards it. We saw it all the time at school, parents who loved their kids so much they sent them away to school because the child’s presence was inhibiting from doing what they wanted to do. Sure it costs money, but so do child minders and twenty four seven care is probably dearer than boarding school, if you take out tuition fees.”

“I have no idea, but I suspect boarding school would have killed me.”

“Why?”

“Oh come on, Si–a feminine and smallish child, I’d have been bullied to hell and back. Plus they’d have made me cut my hair.”

“Not necessarily, you could have told ’em you were Sikh, but you’d have had to grow a beard.”

“Beard? I’ve never shaved in my life.”

“Lucky you, it’s a prize pain.”

“Not for Daddy.”

“Well if you want to walk round looking like the business end of a sheep’s arse...”

“I beg yer pard’n, young Cameron, but whit’s this aboot a sheep’s errse?”

I don’t think I had ever seen Si’s face go bright red so quickly, he looked like he was about to have a stroke.

I left the two men to sort it out, I had better things to do than watch force feeding of humble pie. I’d fed Catherine and my breasts felt much more comfy than they had while I was sitting in the car with that smelly policeman. It was currently parked in the drive with all the windows open.

I went into the lounge and watched a rerun of Horizon, a BBC2 science programme which Trish and Livvie were watching. It was about the unconscious mind, which suggested that most of what we do and think we do is run by the unconscious mind.

Apparently we can only cope with doing a couple of things at once, proving that multitasking is myth, unless the subordinate task is so automatic that a second one can be indulged in, like riding a bike and talking with someone at the same time. Apparently they discovered by studying some woman knitting in some sort of scanner, they discovered that well learned tasks or activities are governed by one part of the brain which is very different to that which is required to learn a new task.

Not entirely surprising as we’ve known about nerve pathways for a long time, but seeing how it works is new. It’s also no surprise that one of the big investors is the US military–ironic that they are probably the most technologically advanced military in the world, and yet they still can’t beat fanatics. I know the argument is more complex than that, because western forces are looking to minimise casualties on both sides, where as the fanatics are uncaring about their own safety and so can frequently cause chaos even to technology. The British found the same with the Mad Mahdi, so invented the dum-dum bullet by cutting a cross in the front of a bullet, it meant that on impact it blew a huge hole in its target and even fanatics when hit by such a missile tend to stop immediately. It would probably stop a horse or a camel as well.

I caught up with Simon and Tom who were still talking in the kitchen when I went back there after the programme finished. I was quite pleased that I already knew much of what they were talking about–some of it was old science–such as a blind person being able to ‘see’ movement or the direction of it, though not being able to see with their eyes. We also have a secondary system which is much greater in things like fish, amphibians and reptiles which doesn’t feed into the visual cortex, so we can detect movement even when our use of the visual cortex is damaged and we are technically blind. It’s primitive but obviously useful. The blind chap they used in their experiment was able to correctly detect thirty seven out of forty movements, as the scientist concluded, ‘it was quite significant’. I’ll say.

As I watched that bit, I did wonder if that was why martial arts fighters and gunslingers used to stare into the eyes of their opponents, because they’ll pick up any movement by their non-seeing sight.

The only problem was that with gunslingers, they tended to shoot more of the bystanders than opponents–it appears it’s hard to draw, aim and shoot and actually hit the target at the same time.

Simon had closed the doors and windows of my car as it looked like rain–it probably did, it was another weekend coming up and he’d be glued to the telly most of Saturday watching the rugby. I suppose I might watch a wee bit here and there if I got the chance, “Efter a’,” as Daddy said, “Scotland micht jest beat thon Italians.” Simon was hoping to see Wales do a grandslam by beating France.

“Can’t any of the others win it then?” I asked casually.

His retort made me feel about two years old and two foot tall. “How can the others win it if Wales have already beaten everyone but France? A grandslam means beating all the others.”

“Well I didn’t know, did I? I’m a cyclist not a rugger player.”

“But you went to a grammar school, they all had good rugby teams, so you should know this by osmosis.”

“Well I don’t.” I felt like screaming at him instead I asked quietly, “So, Mr Smart-arse, who won the Paris-Nice, last week?”

“How do I know? Cavendish?”

“He’s a sprinter, it’s a stage race.”

“I have no bloody idea.”

“Seeing as you expect me to acquire information by osmosis, when I had nothing to do with the rugby team, except being abused by them, I’d have expected you to absorb information by the same system from sleeping with me–and believe me–you have closer contact with me than I did with my old school rugby team.”

“Very funny, who did win it–don’t tell me, Dave Millar?”

“No, Brad Wiggins.”

“I was going say him next.”

“Sure ye were,” I replied, “And I was going to explain the difference between a ruck and a maul, the offside trap and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.”

“While you make the dinner? I am impressed.”

“Go away the pair of you while I make dinner.”

“What’re we having?”

“Salmon–why?”

“No reason, just wondered, that’s all.”

“When is Henry bringing Jacquie back?”

“Tonight, I think, why?”

“I’ll keep her a meal, in case she’s hungry.”

“Jason is very cock a hoop with the events of the day, he thinks the Appeal Court will be bound to overturn the conviction and he’s pushing for a full pardon and compensation. He’s also got the local constabulary investigating the unit Jacquie was in–I think he has a name for the doctor and the priest.”

“I already have them, James got them and sent me an email while I was out. I have him tracking them down.”

“And you don’t believe in multi-tasking?” Simon almost gasped at me.

“No, it’s delegation–but then as a manager you’d be familiar with that, especially commissioning people who have special skills to use them.”

“Of course, I delegated you to do the cooking soon after we first met,” he said quickly and ran out of the kitchen as the wooden spoon I had in my hand crashed against the kitchen door a moment later.