Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks: the snow may have
stopped falling for now, but I have snubbed my big toe – and by extension, the
rest of my foot – rather badly, so I am limping everywhere now instead. Life is
not fair, it sucks, and we are stuck in it – thanks a lot, COVID-19, you really
done it now, as in ‘ruined everyone’s plans until the middle of May’. Mr. Doug
Ford, in particular, can go and screw himself – but we are getting distracted.
…Well, initially I wanted to talk about newts, but there is
not a lot to go on, once you get Newt Scamander out of equation. (With
COVID-19, it is anyone’s guess when the third movie is going to be made,
period). They are a suborder of Salamandridae order of the tailed amphibians, differing
from the rest of them by having a semi-terrestrial juvenile stage…pause.
Let us start at the beginning. Like all amphibians, newts
hatch from the eggs as aquatic larvae with gills. Unlike those of frogs and
toads, the larvae of newts and salamanders have extern gills, and their front
legs grow forth, and then the hind ones, faster too than in case of frogs and
toads. The gills, too, disappear, (in ‘true’ newts and salamanders, anyhow),
lungs appear, and the baby newts become efts.
…If you are wondering as to what an ‘eft’ is, then it is a
juvenile form of newt, (actually, for a while, newts as such were called efts
in the English language; in other languages, they were called tritons, in honor
of son of Poseidon, one of the original mermen – but we digress). An eft lives
on the ground, out of water, but in humid conditions, until enough time passes,
and it becomes a sexually mature adult. Pause.
Here where things get murky. North American newts – as adults
– live mostly in the water or near it, unlike their eft offspring. The European
species, on the other hand, return to water only to breed once they reach
maturity, but otherwise they live on land. Where the rest of newt species
falls, I have no idea. Anything else?
…There are over a dozen of existing newt genera, (anywhere
from 14 to 17 at least), and another half a dozen of extinct ones. Many more newts
are in danger of extinction, both from pollution – all amphibians are sensitive
to it – and from exotic pet trade. Ouch! Did I mention that real life sucks?
…Ergo, I have escaped into yet another DW episode – this one
from S3, ‘Joan of Arc vs. William the Conqueror’. It was the first time when one
of the titular combatants on the show was a woman; there were female
characters/warriors in the past seasons, once or twice, but never someone like
Joan. She defeated William too, you should know; and-?
…And the face-off itself was quite fair; team Joan won
because it had more derived weapons than team William did. A cannon will always
defeat a catapult; William actually had a proportionally better crossbow,
(though Joan got the advantage anyhow); and team William actually wielded a
better sword, but had inferior armor as compared to team Joan, and so they
lost. When DW wanted to, they could be fair and just without any political
correctness involved. Anything else?
Regrettably…no. As far as escapes from reality went, ‘Joan
vs. William’ was a good one, a straightforward one, but also – an almost boring
one. As the management and leadership of DW changed between S2 & S3, DW
tried to become exciting and intriguing and high-tech so hard, that it made the
audiences feel nostalgic for the previous layout, and so the ratings dropped,
and the show got cancelled for good, video games or not. At least no newts had
been harmed in the production of DW. Real life sucks and can be so unforgiving
somehow, whether you are a private person or a multi-personal company…
…Well, this is it for now, I am afraid. I will see you all
soon!
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