Author Archives: Henry Gee

About Henry Gee

Henry Gee is an author, editor and recovering palaeontologist, who lives in Cromer, Norfolk, England, with his family and numerous pets, inasmuch as which the contents of this blog and any comments therein do not reflect the opinions of anyone but myself, as they don't know where they've been.

Chair

Posted on 21 March 2021 by Henry Gee

You’ll both no doubt recall an earlier post in which I showed an heirloom chair — one of six — that had been rendered useless (at least as a chair) by the depredations of a teething puppy. Here it is, … Continue reading →

Posted in chair, heirloom, verdant woodcraft | Comments Off on Chair

Sartre

Posted on 13 March 2021 by Henry Gee

‘Hell’, said Jean-Paul Sartre, is ‘Other People’. Although I expect he said it in French. And well might I sympathize. Much has been said about the mental health problems of people suffering from the absence of human contact during the … Continue reading →

Posted in disclutteration, Domesticrox, Dreaming, dumpster, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marie Kondo, skip, Technicrox | Comments Off on Sartre

Pliny

Posted on 27 February 2021 by Henry Gee

Pliny the Elder, yes, that’s the one, the author of Natural History, which got a very poor review on Goodreads at the time, one reader castigating the author as ‘that voluminous, industrious, unphilosophical, gullible, unsystematic old gossip’, who nevertheless died … Continue reading →

Posted in A very short history of sex and chocolate, ambry, galen, hetaera, incunabulum, pliny, procolophonid, scansioripterygid, Science Is Vital, Writing & Reading, yi | Comments Off on Pliny

Cool

Posted on 20 February 2021 by Henry Gee

What difference a couple of weeks makes. Recall that earlier this month I was out in a blizzard trying to secure a tarpaulin over the hen run, all the while running the risk of hypothermia, or at the very least … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog Norfolk!, Domesticrox, Gardening | Comments Off on Cool

Slitherin

Posted on 10 February 2021 by Henry Gee

Among the many questions that swirl around the ever-fevered Gee brain is this: how fast can snails go? They seem to go fairly fast when I chase them away from our leafy veg. But how fast is fast? This pressing … Continue reading →

Posted in Cornu aspersum, furlongs per fortnight, Journal of Zoology, snail racing, snails, speed of light in a vacuum | Comments Off on Slitherin

Cold

Posted on 9 February 2021 by Henry Gee

A pandemic is sweeping the nation. No, not that one – this one is avian flu. People with poultry are advised to keep their stock under cover. Chez Gee we have a number of semi-retired and fancy hens (that is, … Continue reading →

Posted in avian flu, beast from the east, Blog Norfolk!, cold, DEFRA, Domesticrox, emergency jelly babies, Erebus, Franklin, James Clark Ross, michael palin, North-West Passage, pandemic, poultry keeping, wind chill | Comments Off on Cold

Scrabbungulate

Posted on 30 January 2021 by Henry Gee

I’m not sure whether either of you know that I am rather fond of Scrabble. I can be found haunting the Internet Scrabble Club under the name of zedwave, (playing Scrabble online with people you know only as nicknames is, … Continue reading →

Posted in addax, anoa, antelope, bok, cottaging, dibatag, dzho, dzo, eland, gaur, gnu, impala, kob, kudu, nilgai, nyala, okapi, oryx, ox, pudu, quagga, saiga, saola, scrabble, Silliness, topi, ungulate, Writing & Reading, yak, zebu, zo | Comments Off on Scrabbungulate

Distrokering

Posted on 26 January 2021 by Henry Gee

You’ll both be aware by now that I’ve been usefully spending time learning how to record music at home, time I’d usually have devoted to live music. I’ve an album-length collection under my belt, and have even started playing music … Continue reading →

Posted in Birdland, Heavy Weather, Lockd Down and Blue, Music, These Are Difficult Times, Weather Report | Comments Off on Distrokering

Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021)

Posted on 22 January 2021 by Henry Gee

Just a quick post to announce the death of Professor Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021), communicated to me just now by his son Nick. Brian was a specialist in the evolution of fishes. He was the last surviving member of the … Continue reading →

Posted in brian gardiner, cladistics, colin patterson, dick jefferies, donn rosen, hennig, natural history museum, peter forey, phylogenetic systematics | Comments Off on Brian G. Gardiner (1934-2021)

Passeportout

Posted on 22 January 2021 by Henry Gee

Notwithstanding inasmuch as which nobody can go really go anywhere much, even if they wanted to, which I don’t, I found – quel horreur! –  that my passport was about to expire, imminently, if not sooner, and that failure to … Continue reading →

Posted in Alfred Molina, Apparitions, Carlos the Jackal, legal tender, Omid Djalili, passports, Science - Has It Gone Too Far?, the Brown Queue, travel | Comments Off on Passeportout