Here's a nice story

While humans do their best to avoid potholes, marauding South American army ants have discovered a better solution: they plug the holes with their own bodies.

These foraging army ants form "living plugs" to fill gaps in the trail leading back to their nest, making a flatter surface so prey can be delivered at maximum speed.

"I think every road user who has ever inwardly cursed as their vehicle bounced across a pothole – jarring every bone in their body – will identify with this story," said co-author Nigel Franks of the University of Bristol in the U.K. "When it comes to rapid road repairs, the ants have their own do-it-yourself highways agency."

In the study, which is published in the British Journal Animal Behaviour, the researchers drilled holes of various sizes in wooden planks and then placed these planks in the path of the army ants. Not only did the ants form "living plugs" to fill the gaps as they "walked the plank", they also size-matched themselves to a particular hole and cooperated to fill larger holes.

Speaking to the BBC News website, co-author Scott Powell, also of the University of Bristol, explained: "The ants have a very large size range within their colony … When the ants bump into a hole they cannot cross, they edge their way around it and then spread their legs and wobble back and forth to check their fit. If they are too big, then they carry on and another ant will come along and measure itself in the same way. This carries on until an appropriately sized ant plugs the hole".

These hole-filling ants can remain in place for many hours. When the forager traffic diminishes, the well-trodden ants climb out of their holes and go back to the nest.

I can remember when we were on Holy Island we had a discussion in the group with Alistair over whether animals had a more or less enlightened existence. His view was that life as an animal was hard and mainly comprised feeding and avoiding cold and predators. All true, but this story of army ants puts me in mind of the Buddhist sacred text, Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva :

May I be a guard for those who are protector less,

A guide for those who journey on the road.

For those who wish to go across the water,

May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.

May I be an isle for those who long for landfall,

And a lamp for those who long for light;

For those who need a resting place, a bed;

For all those who need a servant, may I be their slave.

This incredible selflesslessness in the face of suffering, this support of the collective against the furthering of the individual is incredibly humbling. To think that a tiny ant can lay itself down so others can pass over it, then dust itself off when the army has passed over while I get frustrated at being stuck behind a car doing 47mph in a 60-limit and yet my mind (at least in size) is greater than any insect ... well, it makes you think doesn't it?!

Call the police...

... There's a madman around.

Are you gonna go?

... to the Sodom and Gomorrah show? Just on the way down to see the PSB at the Hammersmith Odeon or whatever it's been rebranded to.

Back to the garden

All the rain we've had over the past few weeks and then the blazing sun has made our garden run riot. Charlie likes to drink from the pond when he's hot.

Bilbao

So then I took a bus to Bilbao for the weekend. Robin and I have been before and by chance stayed in the same hotel that I'd booked. Guess what? The Guggenheim looks just the same, the 'exhibitions' they had on were the most boring grey, miserable bits of twig and string and lead baths that I have ever had the misfortune to have to gawp at in the name of art; I was an insufferable pseud and took the audio guide in Spanish, but then spent all my time listening to my iPod to cheer myself up from the quite insufferable tat on display; and it rained all weekend .. but meanwhile I managed to have a rather marvellous time, thanks in part to good company, great food and what is a really nice city.


Incidentally, if you doubt the truth of the vacuousness of the works on display and are tempted to see for yourself (by looking here, Kiefer Interactive for example) then trust me this is FAR more interesting than actually seeing the works. Really.

The dog in the picture below belonged to an equally small woman working from the doorstep of her florist's shop. It was Mothers' Day in Spain so she was running round madly while the dog played at her feet.

Santander

This is dawn breaking over the sea. I'm not usually awake at dawn, but as it turns out the days of the conference started very early each morning and finished very late, so I either took this photo after a late night out or an early start. Why we ended up in an Australian bar one night I can't remember. I do remember standing on the balcony in the middle of the night in a vain attempt to relieve cramp. That would be dehydration perhaps.

Overall the trip went well and the other people at the conference were a great bunch. By chance, a whole bunch of them had also booked into the same hotel as me in Bilbao so we all met up again there for the weekend.

Santander

Early May is another trip abroad, this time to a conference in Santander then a couple of days off in Bilbao. Santander is a nice city and the hotel we're in looks out over the bay.

The next few days are going to be very busy with the conference, so just taking a moment to enjoy the fact I am sitting on a balcony responding to emails to the sound of the sea. Wifi and a beach-front hotel make all the difference!