From motorcycle to Japanese mini truck

Après retirement...

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Carlos: I had this list you know. That was before.

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Greg: A bucket list?

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Carlos: Not exactly. Just things I thought would be good to try. One was to motorcycle around Japan.

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Greg: You had a motorcycle for 30 years, why didn’t you go then?

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Carlos: The roads were not so interesting....

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Greg: Are they any better now?

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Kei Tora

Carlos: Nope. A lot of roads are just concrete canyons, no views. There’s thousands of traffic lights. Toll roads cost. And then winters that are too cold to ride in, summers are better but sometimes too hot. A lot of rain spring and autumn. Almost thinking of buying a kei-tora*. Economical, low road tax.

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Greg: And then join the hordes of old jokers running around in white light trucks? Dreadful to drive, I hear.

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Carlos: Over time, the excitement of motorcycling around Japan just disappeared. A light truck just seems economical and practical.

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Greg: Why not just rent one when you need a vehicle? Young people do that these days.

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Voice-over

Sacrificing excitement to diminish risk seems to have come late to this old fellow. The lustre of a long-held hope dulls.

But better late than him becoming late. Issues of balance, lateral vision, strength, reaction time are a concern. And he might make some new friends in the kei tora cafe.

Better yet if he didn’t take to the road himself, but send the young bloods thirsting after adventure. Stay back and coordinate their travels. Like Carl Linnaeus. Stay on the farm.

*kei tora: Japanese mini truck

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Flower clock

A mechanical metaphor…

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Herbalist: Tokeisou (時計草). Clock flower.

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Botanist: You mean flower clock?

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Time to wake up...

Herbalist: A passiflora caruelea… it looks like a clock.

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Botanist: Sorry. I was thinking of Linnaeus. He used the term Horologium flora or “flower clock” to mean flowers that opened in the morning and closed the afternoon or evening.

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Herbalist: So you wouldn’t need a mechanical clock. Just go to the garden to know the time.

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Botanist: Not dependable though. Problems of season, weather, and animals that would eat the flowers.

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Voice-over

Linnaeus proposed a garden of flowers that would tell time in his Philosophia Botanica. For example, Hawkweed (Hieracium umbellatum) that would open at 5 AM and close at 6 PM. White waterlily (Nymphaeum alba) that would open at 7 AM, Ice plant (Cryophytum nodiflorum) at 10 AM, Day lily (Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus) that would close at 10 PM.

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Easter egg hunt with binomial nomenclature clues

You’ll find…

Uncle: Two eggs, one chicken and two rabbits, one each, underneath five of the trees in the garden.

Nephew: Which trees?

Uncle: I’ll tell you the first one. It’s Cordyline australis. Or do you want the common name?

Do Easter rabbits hatch from eggs?

Nephew: The common name.

Uncle: Cabbage tree.

Nephew: Found it. Here’s another note. “Olea europaea.” What’s THAT?

Uncle: Olive tree.

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Voice-over

And so it went. The nephew knew no Linnaean names but he recognized most trees from the common names. Helped by an accompanying picture. Rewarded with two chocolate eggs, a chocolate chicken and two chocolate rabbits. He asked if rabbits come from eggs. No, but he was rewarded in a Pavlovian way for remembering scientific names of five trees.

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Linnaeus, Garbo and the 100 kroner banknote

Brains vs Beauty…

Albert: Why are they changing the face on the 100 kroner note from Linnaeus to Greta Garbo?

Marilyn: Give a modern face to Swedish culture. Bergman is on the new 200 kroner note.

Albert: But these were film people, entertainers. Not scientists.

Marilyn: They are more popular. Internationally better known. Not everyone knows Linnaeus.

Albert: I still think Linnaeus contributed more to the world than Garbo. He proposed a taxonomy still used 200 years later. She may have had screen presence but what was her legacy?

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Voice-over

Both scientists and artists can assuredly have reputations that last as long as a generation or more, and both scientists and artists can have reputations as ephemeral as a paper banknote. But the legacy of thought or method perhaps should be the measure of the face choice on a bank note.

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