Eklil Blog – January 2025
Hello world at large. I will not wish you a happy new year, as horses celebrate new year on 28th August. No idea why, nor why steppe horses in the former Soviet republics do so on 17th September instead. Anyway, you are very cold at the moment, and I am continuing to hole up in my bunker until the situation improves. Fortunately racing has had a few abandonments lately so whenever I hear any unwarranted talk about going off to race somewhere, I can be happy in my own mind that there is little danger of that actually happening.
{Your commitment to the team is admirable – Ed.}
What I am actually doing is saving up all my energy for one day when it really matters. The parameters that mean “really matters” have yet to be established, but I am sure that they will make themselves apparent, probably in drier times. Take now for example, although by the time you may read this, now will be sometime different. There was snow forecast for early this morning. It did not turn up, so the forecasters moved it to early afternoon. It did not arrive there either, so they have gone for late afternoon. It seems inconceivable that the weather forecast could be incorrect, so why don’t we just keep delaying and delaying until it ceases to be an issue. Like filling in a tax return or visiting barmy relatives in Devon. Anyway, when the weather is cold, it makes it easier for we horses to make the care situation a reciprocal one.
{Really? – Ed.}
Indubitably. The humans give us extra, unfrosty food, any necessary medicine, rugs and duvets and a cosy bunker. In return we let you put your hands inside the rug to warm them up. For most animals this would be a disgraceful intrusion. But. We. Don’t. Mind! What is your standard body temperature?
{Ninety eight point six degrees, in Fahrenheit – Ed.}
Exactly. Ours is somewhere between 99 and 101 degrees, so we are donating back 0.4 degrees of heat. Sometimes a bit more. You are welcome, although if you bought some decent gloves, that donation would not be necessary.
On to this month’s question letter, and I am pleased to report that it comes from Mel Gibson. He asks if I believe that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl represents a bizarre dinosaur-cum-bird-mammal hybrid that emerged after the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction event. Finally I get a nice sensible question from a rational observer. Obviously I cannot prove Mr Gibson’s theory, but the idea that mammals and reptiles could create a hybrid that lived for 65 million years and suddenly disappeared when Hernan Cortes and his conquistadors turned up in 1519 sounds one hundred percent plausible to me. I cannot imagine why Monty’s Award told me to bin everything I received from Mel Gibson without wasting time reading it.
Quetzalcoatl (right) being fed human beings by what looks to be the old Kenny Everett character Gizzard Puke.
