Coconut Crabs

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If you’re surprised that I’m talking about coconut crabs on ‘Sunday’s Child Lives At Annie’s House’ I don’t blame you. But here’s why:

If I said that I knew exactly what caused the crash that killed Princess Diana the first thing you’d say to me is, ‘but you weren’t there.’ I would stutter and splutter to try and put forward some kind of argument to validate my claim, and you’d be right to point a finger in my face and laugh at my ignorance.

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Scientists however, have a history of doing this sort of thing, and because they’re scientists people all over the world subscribe to the brilliance of their ‘findings.’ (And this is where coconut crabs come in).

Amelia Mary Earhart, an American aviation pioneer and author, disappeared in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean in the general vicinity of Howland Island, which is halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Of course, this island is claimed by the US, and why not. It’s rich in natural resources and sits in a strategic location. No one knew where Ms Earhart was or what happened to her. Yet, years later it’s claimed that she arrived on one of these Islands (the home of coconut crabs). This has caused widespread Internet conjecture that upon arrival, she must have been promptly eaten by one or a few of them.

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These crabs as you can see are giant crustaceans. They can crack a coconut open by just squeezing it with their pincers. They’re 3 feet from head to toe and weigh about 40 pounds. When I was a little girl growing up in South America, I had hundreds of run-ins with coconuts, mainly trying to chop them open with machetes. This took me several minutes to achieve, so I for one know how determined coconuts can be.

If poor Amelia had a run-in with one of these, that strong determined woman she proved herself to be, would’ve had it stewing in a pan before you could say ‘curry sauce!’


So, what weird thing have you heard lately?

The Magic of Daylight Saving Time

What do you normally do with your extra hour in Autumn when the clocks go back? Do you savour the hour on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning?

See, me, I’m a Saturday evening kind of girl. I like to take that extra hour the night before because I don’t really see how it works in my favour the following day. I have kids, and even if I was a fan of lie-ins, I wouldn’t be able to do that for very long. Besides, I go to worship on Sunday mornings. I’m up early anyway.

On Saturday evenings before the clocks go back my husband and I gleefully go around the house changing all the time pieces. We do this just after 11 p.m (even though the change doesn’t officially come into effect until 2 a.m) because somehow, this gives us a false impression that we’ve cheated time in some bizarre way.

For the next two days or so he – my husband – will be saying, ‘but your body thinks it’s an hour earlier so we should do this or that.’ I don’t think of it in that way at all. Do you? Once Saturday night is gone, the magic is gone for me.

I’m already planning what to do with my extra hour tonight. I’m going to make sure it does not involve anything with a laptop perched on my lap. There will be no Facebook, no Twitter, no StumbleUpon, no Blogging.

When you see me next, I would’ve had a leisurely extra hour doing something just for me. How about you?

And how do you remember if the clocks go backward or forward? Someone (an American) once told me this and it stuck; ‘Spring – forward. Fall (Autumn) – backward.’ Easy, right?

Is Kanye West Dead?

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After the incident at the 2009 Video Music Awards ceremony when Kanye West barged on stage during Taylor Swift’s speech, many of her fans may have felt like they wanted him dead. Yesterday it seemed their wish was granted.



When the news surfaced of his death in a car accident, the Internet ballooned in a flurry of excited Google searches. Even Twitter added fire to the rumour with RIP messages emerging as one of the trending topic, until Kanye’s girlfriend, Amber Rose retaliated with tweets of her own.


This is yet another celebrity false-death rumour, and this particular one has come at a time when West has just released a short film called, ‘We Used to Be a Fairy Tale’ (with his song playing in the background, no doubt) watch it here.

 In the film, incidentally, Kanye pulls something looking like a teddy bear that’s lost its fur, crossed with an elderly rat/weasel thing from his belly, and gives it a knife to kill itself. It does after some deliberation and head twists. In addition, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just signed a new bill to ensure the safety of people undergoing cosmetic surgery. This bill is to be named after Kanye West’s mother, Donda West, who died following elective surgery. This new bill requires the potential patient to undergo a mandatory physical examination before going under the knife.

All in all, it's great to hear that Kanye West is alive and well. It's not appreciated however, when fans and family have to put up with this kind of false rumour. I'm sure it must have been a very stressful time for them.

So, what else have you heard lately?

Books in Cyber Space

Today I contacted one of the publishers who’s reading 'Sunday’s Child.' I’m still waiting for an answer. Since I last ‘finished’ it again, I’ve had it professionally edited. All that’s left now is for me to find the publisher who would invest a fraction of the time into it as I have.


Over the years I’ve rewritten (and finished) 'Sunday’s Child' so many times, I’ve lost count. If I had to make a wild guess it would be more than thirty times – yes that many. There is nothing else I can do with it now, even if I wanted to.

With my self-help books firmly in the front of my mind, I’m concentrating on getting them out. It makes me very sad that the first book I finished is still somewhere in cyberspace collecting cyber dust.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting.... Thankfully, I’ve got the ‘Space’ bar on my laptop to occupy my thumbs while I wait. If you'd like to read the first three chapters, go to my new writing blog at A Blogger's Books. Thank you.

A Measure of Wealth?

Has anyone noticed the ‘sell your gold’ ads which have sprung up in the last year or so on TV?

The recession is now in full party mode; the property market’s profit margin has plummeted into a dark, dismal hole, and job security is nonexistent. (Ha! Did I just say ‘job’ and ‘security’ in the same sentence?) People are turning to what is seen as a ‘secure’ form of investment. Not surprisingly, we’re falling back on the way some of our forefathers measured their wealth – in gold.

I came across a site which deals in gold coins and gold bullion from across the world. It was surprising to see common coins we use every day formed perfectly in gold. I had no idea that this was such a thriving business.

I held suspect, the smiley, shouting people on TV who try to get the public to send them their gold. I wondered about the business they received and whether or not unsuspecting members of the public did mail their jewellery in those tiny, plastic bags. I know I never would. Now I see that there is a serious side to the booming gold business.

It makes me wonder what else has been going on behind my back.

Football, Men, Facts and Fixtures

I heard on the radio the other day that all men are autistic to a degree. The interviewee claimed that boys who’re classed as ‘autistic’ are just males with an extra-heavy shot of testosterone.

I’ve been wondering ever since, if there is an element of truth in this. If we used football as an example we’ll notice that men who love the game can watch the livescore with one eye (then memorise them) and keep the other firmly placed on the game they’re watching. Yet, if you ask them to shop for more than three items, many will return home with tools, a sleeping bag and a pet rat – none of which you asked for.

Without any effort, men can commit to memory, football fixtures and bookmakers odds for all their teams with accuracy. They know the matches' start and finishing times to the precise second. Wedding anniversaries and birthdays, however, seem not to stick to the grey matter with that much intensity.

Do you know a guy who’s great with one-tracked thought pattern involving facts and stats? Is he just football crazy or slightly autistic?
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Space and Time

I’ve always had a strong interest in Space and in the planets and moons held suspended over our earth, defying the laws of gravity. It was this curiosity - not expert knowledge (as I have neither expertise nor knowledge about astronomy) that drove me to research and write several articles about these bodies in Outer Space. I hasten to add that these ‘articles’ were more a showcase of mind-blowing pictures, than exquisite, wordy commentaries. The images are complete, and words would’ve only been redundant, noisy additions to material that already said everything.

In the darkness, propelled through my quest for enlightenment, I stumbled across NASA’s gravesite which had literally thousands of random Space pictures. There were quite a number breath-taking images scattered throughout the albums of dull spacecraft pictures. Of course, in order to glean the most attractive of the collection, one had to go through all of these images individually. Although a seemingly daunting task, I managed to bring satisfaction to a huge number of my fans by digging them out.

Hours of work paid off when I put together five definitive albums of wonderful, remarkably stunning Space pictures.

A Handpicked Collection of  Ultimate Space Pictures 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

On a smaller scale, these first three Space Pictures' albums brought my fans some enjoyment too. The 10 Most Awesome Pictures Taken From Outer Space, Welcome To Mankind's New Home in Space, and Pictures of earth and Outer Space at Night. After writing these articles and collating the pictures, I edited the pieces to cut down half of the words I’d originally written. I found that the pictures were more than enough to speak for themselves.

Safe Kids

My oldest child started Secondary (high) school recently and has just started walking to and from school on her own. I keep it well hidden, but I do worry about her until she gets back to her own home where I know she’s safe and protected. I remember very clearly, the day we put up baby stairway gate at the very top, and at the bottom of our stairs.

She had just started walking, and her inquisitive nature took a particular liking to that set of steps. As any responsible parent would, we decided that it was time to invest in some baby gates. This was eleven and a half years ago and we’ve come a long way from kids-proofing our home with furniture pads and pet gates.

Life is so easy when you know just what to get to protect them, isn’t it? What kind of gate do you buy for an eleven year old?