Fish, Fish and More Fish

Very fine programme about fish in Japan on BBC4 last night. Not sure why this appealed but it turned out to be a random walk around those islands with a loose connection to fish and other sea-creatures. I was going to say seafood there but not all the fish were eaten - the Koi Carp are worth thousands of pounds and are definitely not on the menu. However, because of the rarity of various other fish which are eaten, the value of things such as Blue Fin Tuna approaches £100 per kilo which is just silly. I was a bit squeamish about the snapper which was caught, prepared for being eaten and served up on a bed of its own flesh while it still alive, but I've eaten snapper that was just as fresh though hopefully it was dispatched before being portioned.

The panorama of trees outside the window is looking especially subtle and spring-like this morning despite the fact that I had to scrape the windscreen today. While I can't actually see any leaves or even buds on the trees, something about the weather or the quality of the air suggests that such things are about to appear. What is it about the quality of the air that lets us know what the season is? Maybe it's just a memory of times that went before.

Well today is Ada Lovelace day which is a great idea. Ada Lovelace - charming, attractive, intelligent, comfortable in high society, daughter of Byron but not bad, mad or dangerous to know. Worked with a well-known curmudgeon, pedant and persecutor of buskers. Positive discrimination at its best. Sounds like nothing has changed in the field of computer science.