The Surrey Puma was one or more phantom cats, supposedly black pumas, seen around south western Surrey from the 1960s onwards.
The first possible sightings were recorded in 1959, when police received a number of reports of big cats in the Farnham area, near the Surrey/Hampshire border.[1] Two further sightings were recorded in 1962 bywater board personnel in Hampshire, while in the winter of 1962-3, a "cat-like beast" was seen at Bushylease Farm, near Crondall in Hampshire. When a police officer sighted the supposed Shooters Hill Cheetah in 1963, media interest turned to other big cat sightings.[2]
In August 1964, a bullock at Bushylease was found, severely lacerated. Following press coverage, numerous other reports of contact with the animal, dubbed the "Surrey Puma", came in, ranging from the fanciful to some taken seriously by the police.[3] At Godalming Police Station alone, 362 reports were received in a two year period.[2] The station also kept a cast of a massive paw print on display, identified as that of a puma by London Zoo, although several reports noted that its size implied an extremely large specimen and that there were distinct differences between it and the prints of other pumas.[4] The investigation was not closed until the summer of 1967.[2]
In August 1966, a former police photographer took a grainy shot which he claimed showed the Surrey Puma in Worplesdon.[5] In 1968, a farmer claimed to have shot a puma, but could not provide any evidence. Sightings gradually tailed off, although paw prints found in the snow in 1970 generated a flurry of further reports.[1] In 1984, hair samples taken at Peaslake were identified as puma.[2]
In 1983, an alien big cat featured in The Archers, and the Beast of Exmoor entered the news. Sightings of the Surrey Puma were again recorded,[2] and have continued to the present day.[6][7]
Indeed, the lights are on in the street, the carols are playing from ‘subtly’ placed speakers, the coca cola advert is playing on television stations, and thousands of mini Santa’s are breaking into balconies all over the island.
*sigh*
I love it.
Yesterday had my fist shopping trip with Matt and Kai (dumdumdumdum da da dumdumdumdumdumdumdum dumdumdumdum da da, da da) and it’s something special seeing Matt loose all his maturity at a specific Christmas Carol (Can’t remember what it was).
Lol: check your balance Matt … fail.
I must say though, as a shopping expedition, if f-f-failed FAILED! Meaning no Christmas present was bought. I did buy Matt’s Birthday ’09 present though ^^ late, obviously, but it’s part of an agreement so, in the words of Charlene: “hush!”
An addition to my Christmas rituals, this year, is me looking up bass tabs for Christmas carols :) The repertoire so far include: Little drummer boy, jingle bells, silent night, and Auld Lang Sang. And Matt agreed to cover the Little Drummer boy, we might have to tackle Luca to stop him playing, but it should be fun.
Something I am honestly missing this year, it the frantic, insecure shopping for the present for the girlfriend. It is always a hassle, the worrying to find the right gift, and is it meaningful enough? Is it too cheesy? But it was fun in an exciting way, and a big part of the Christmas atmosphere. I miss it. Ah well. It’s ok though, I’m not letting this thing ruin my Christmas spirit.
ALSO!
The Santa Letter Hunt still goes on. For those of you who have not read my last blog, my mum said that she will still be able to find a hidden Santa letter if I had to hide one today, like she used to do when I was younger. Well, I took on the challenge, and wrote a Santa Letter, and hid it. The rules where, the letter could not be hidden among books, notes, or other papers. Fair enough. Many females, where sure that mummy power will help her find it. I on the other hand am sure she won’t.
In fact, today, 14 days from the end of the hunt, my mum came up to me and admitted that she tried to look for it and has no idea where it is. She asked for a hint. HA! Santa never got any hints!
Oh, I think I’m going to be kind and make the ending time and date for the hunt midnight on the 24th of December. So she still has a while to look around.
I think I’m going to write another Christmas list because leaving it to my mum finding the letter is going to leave me without my preferred pressies :S
So comments: other songs I need to know for your entertainment, and if my mother will find the Santa letter on time.
Out.
Parumpumpumpum!
In sixth from for systems of knowledge I had read a book called ‘Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. I’m sure many of you had read it. Besides narrating the story of a journey and some psychological journey as well, it discusses the dichotomy of technology versus aesthetics. At least it does, if I remember correctly and understood well.
Basically, for those who didn’t study this yet, or couldn’t be bothered during their years of studies, it’s the problem with technology that a person can usually either understand how a machine works, or appreciate the aesthetic beauty of it. In other words, someone is either and artist (or designer) or and engineer.
That is not to say that there is nothing beautiful about a machine working perfectly, and that there is nothing at least mathematical about aesthetic design.
If I remember well, the conclusion of the author is that there are people who can both understand a machine and appreciate the external beauty of it, but will be inclined one way more than the other. So, I can see a car has nice curves and the design is sleek and elegant and so on, and I know a bit about how it works. Or I can dismantle an engine and put it back together in minutes and look at the body work as a nice way to cover it up.
I am not going to discuss how true or false this is in humans, my thoughts are on how it’s definitely not true for our Engineer (as mentioned in the last blog).
So, God is the creator of all. Yes? Yes.
Moving on from there:
Now let’s look around, what do we see?
Well, I’m seeing my kitchen, so hold on…
Up on the roof…well, fine, the roof doesn’t help as all I can see is buildings any way. Hmmm…
Let’s imagine we’re in the country side :)
What we see is beauty. The sky, the clouds, the rain, the sun the rainbow, the stars and all the stuff out there in space. Trees, grass, rocks, plants, all beautiful, and then of course we, ourselves, yes, I don’t care what inferiority complex you have, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL.
Right, so we have to say that God is an amazing artist, and knows how to make things aesthetically brilliant. I mean seriously, from the totally unbelievable pinks, oranges and purples of a sunset to the beautiful grays, blues, and indeed purples of a storm cloud. From how the light shines through clouds, to how it reflects off drops of water on leaves after a rain.
He’s an artist, a brilliant one, and please let’s not forget, he works in 3D and is changing his masterpiece constantly.
Right, and we know that He knows how things work. Please refer to my last blog. But besides what I said then, I want to mention a few other little things.
Lol…little things… you’ll get it in a bit.
Now, I know that all of you know what I’m about to talk about, but think about it in this point of view, and it’s more amazing.
Everything is made up of atoms! No, seriously, everything from the nail on your little toe to the island we’re standing on (I live in Malta for any random reader) is made up of little tiny particles, which in turn are made up of even smaller things grouped together or spinning around sharing stuff and so on… simply put. But! The point is they’re there, and they work, and they’re still spinning or vibrating or whatever, and they hold together. They’re a googolplex googolplexes of little tiny universes right next to each other forming, technically, the universe we live in.
Universes inside universes, as Stephen King explains in one of the Dark Tower books.
Lets go a bit bigger, the human body. THE HUMAN BODY! Yes, you are one of those universes. A universe made up of organs and cells moving around one another, interacting, and, most of the time, working wonderfully. And please remember, everything in you is also made up of those tiny other universes mentioned earlier.
Ignoring all the other living things on our dear little green, blue and sometimes grey planet, lets go bigger to our actual universe. Meaning all those big balls of gas, fire, rock, metal and all that spinning around in an amazing intricate dance choreographed by physics and gravity. And it works!
It’s beautiful and it works.
The moon, a piece of rock that inspired so much science fiction, poetry and myths, is undoubtedly beautiful, both when it’s a nice orange or when it’s a cold mysterious silver. But there’s a lot of physics and science keeping it from crashing into all those poets. And the Creator made it beautiful, and knows how it works.
I'm not going to try go into all the galaxies and stars and other stuff out there. but just think, it's pretty and complicated.
For all the physics students out there. We say Newton or whoever discovered the laws of motion (inexact as they may be) but who wrote them? Who actually installed all the laws we take for granted, that make everything spin and dance wonderfully? HE DID! Indeed, our Engineer, our Artist, our Mechanic, our God.
The human body is a machine. Think about it. We are a wonderfully constructed, multi-purpose machine. We travel, fast or slow, we lift, we think, we do delicate work, we write, produce art, we can do practically anything. It’s amazing how many things any one can do.
Something even more amazing, is how one person can then turn the machine into a more specific one.
There are people who become faster than others, and I mean fast! There are those that can jump more than 9m in length. Do you know how long 9m is? Take a three story modern building and flip it on its side: that’s 9m. There are people that can pull another machine apart, and put it back together in a few minutes, there are people that can keep ten or more objects flying through the air in a dance against gravity. How can a brain cope with that amount of information? How can a body produce such forces?
I mean think about it, anyone can train their body to become better at anything. ANYTHING!
Besides the fact that each person, each machine, can be trained to make itself more efficient as some things, it does not loose it’s initial basic functions, keeping it a multi-purpose machine.
Fair enough, these people spend most of their time training in the chosen activity, so in a way, it’s less surprising how they manage to do this things. (Although they still are incredible, I mean 9m!). So, let’s move away from the extraordinary.
Our bodies, these machines, and more importantly, our brains, the computer running our machines, perform amazing actions everyday. Let’s ignore the functions of the body such as breathing, and blood circulation, and digestion and so on I might talk about that another time, and lets leave aside the whole wonderful process of learning.
I’m talking about the simple tasks we do everyday, and do not even think about. Writing, for example is simply amazing. We think up something in our heads, and produce is on paper for others to read. In the process, we’re holding a pen or pencil and moving that around on a piece of paper.
Let’s go bigger. Catch a ball. The amount of maths and physics going on in that simple movement would take me the best part of an hour to calculate on paper, and our brains, our computers, do it in split seconds. It tells us where to put our hand, how fast we have to do it, we usually won’t be looking at the point of contact when we actually catch the ball, think about it, and it even tells us if we have to jump. That’s all that calculation, followed by the control of practically the whole body. In less than a second! And we don’t even do it consciously!
For those of you who drive: you control a fraking vehicle, using… wait for it, all four limbs in synchronization with your eyes and ears, AT THE SAME TIME! I’m getting excited! While driving you’re seeing the road in front of you, using your hands and arms to direct the vehicle, pressing the gas and brake when needed with one foot, the clutch with the other, while at the same time changing gear. All this is being processed by your computer, which is also, processing the route where you are going, spatial awareness of the rest of the vehicle, the mental image of the other vehicles on the road and if you’re having a conversation, it’s processing the communication! ARE YOU AWARE?
Many of the examples are obviously learnt, and like I said earlier that’s another amazing thing we manage to do, but something I’ll leave alone for now.
What’s my point? Well, if we’re machines and our brains are computers, we have one amazing programmer and engineer. Do we not?
