Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end.
So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.
Sometimes someone will find the answer to a mystery and everyone learns that answer but then later, someone else finds a different answer. Then there will be two factions fighting over the answers because some will be financially and emotionally invested in the old answer and others will be similarly invested in the new answer. Mysteries are tricky things but it's the answers that cause all the trouble.
Ned Jul 24, 2025 at 8:46pm In response to "Penguins"
"Great Auk!" Sounds like some colorful expression of disgust from a turn-of-the-century teenager complaining about not being allowed to listen to the current and scandalous songs of the gay nineties. "He's the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo"
All this fuss about penguins. Everyone knows that penguins live in the southern hemisphere but there once was a bird that filled that niche in the northern hemisphere. It wasn’t a penguin or even related, although it looked very similar and was sometimes given that name.
It was called the great auk, a flightless seabird with similar habits to the penguin. Hunted to extinction by 1844, there are no great auks left. Other auks exist, however, the most closely related being the razorbill. The puffin is also related to the auks. Only the great auk mimicked the penguin to the extent of being flightless.
Not surprising they went extinct therefore. But they are high on the list of possible de-extinctions, apparently. Visions of Arctic Park…
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