Hydroids |
noun: plural of hydroid; any of several types of invertebrate sea creatures with a saclike body and a single opening or mouth, such as the hydra, Portuguese-man-of-war etc. |
Souvlaki |
noun: a Greek dish involving meat (usually lamb) cooked on a skewer. |
‘Come in, sit down,’ said Dr M. Dale Stokes, ‘would you like a cold drink?’
This is possibly a good moment to mention that we were not in the Antarctic.
Dale’s Antarctic Journal had been written several years ago and he had since returned to his more permanent residence in San Diego. He was a research scientist working at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and it was there that he’d agreed to meet me.
The desperation I’d felt at the prospect of a trip to the Antarctic had been replaced by joy when I discovered I didn’t even have to leave the State of California to get my man. There’d been a spring in my step as I left Julie’s bound, not for the airport, but the train station.
A magnificent, double-decker train chugged its way down the coast covering the 100 miles in a little over two hours and depositing me at the Santa Fe railroad. San Diego had, under the auspices of Dr Gish, been a part of my earlier downfall, but now I hoped the presence of another Dr would make it the scene of my resurrection.
From the centre of town I’d jumped into a cab and asked for La Jolla. Five minutes later, when I’d worked out that it was pronounced ‘La Hoya’, my 25-minute cab ride through stunning scenery had begun.
La Jolla itself was beautiful. Huge, individually designed houses delicately stacked up on a low mountainside overlooking a clear blue ocean. Palm trees cast dramatic shadows in the early afternoon sun. As I got out of the cab I saw a rich woman with too much jewellery walking a tiny dog with too much jewellery as three suntanned surfers parked their artfully beaten-up VW campervan on the side of the road.
There was a cluster of modern buildings made from dark timber with huge industrial girders and high tension steel wire pulling things together that looked like large Ikea bookshelves – only without the wobble factor – and it was on the terrace outside these buildings that Dale met me. We sat at a picnic table and opened a can of pop apiece while we chatted. Dale was possessed of a rugged Indiana Jonesy quality. He was an academic but he was an adventurer too and he held me in thrall as he told me about his time in both the Antarctic and the Arctic. How many people have you met who have literally been to the ends of the earth?
‘But that’s enough about me, eh,’ he said modestly, ‘tell me about yourself. Is this your first trip to San Diego?’
‘Actually no,’ I said, ‘I was here about a week ago.’
‘Really?’ asked Dale. ‘How come?’
‘I was meeting another googlewhack,’ I shrugged. ‘But I’ve been to Holland, Texas, Mexico and LA since then.’
I suppose throwing Mexico into the mix was a little disingenuous – I had only been there for a couple of hours – but I was in the company of a real explorer and I didn’t want him to think my travels weren’t serious.
‘So what was your other San Diegan googlewhack like?’ he asked.
‘He was a bit odd really,’ I said awkwardly. I’d learnt to tiptoe my way around the subject of creationism.
‘How come?’
‘Well …’ I weighed up my surroundings; Dale was an academic, a marine biologist of all things. If anyone was going to be properly informed on the origins of life it would be him. ‘… Well, he was an 81-year-old creationist.’
‘Pfft, I see what you mean; definitely a bit weird,’ said Dale, his eyes rolling in their sockets. ‘I expect he was one of Gish’s lot.’
The mention of Gish’s name caught me by surprise and I was mid-gulp at the time. I snorted in amazement, sending fizzy 7Up shooting up the back of my nose and out through the front. I jumped back from the table as if propelled by the jet of snotty pop.
‘One of Gish’s lot!’ I yelled, my eyes watering from a carbonated nostril. ‘One of his lot! It wasn’t one of his lot, it was Dr Gish!’
‘You’ve met Gish!’ exclaimed Dale, his jaw dropping. He was lucky he didn’t have a mouthful of anything fizzy at the time.
‘Yes!’
‘Oh my God! What was he like?’
‘He wears a wig!’
‘Fantastic!’ Dale yelped with delight, we were like schoolboys sharing an embarrassing discovery about an unpleasant teacher. ‘I can’t believe you’ve actually met Gish!’
‘I can’t believe you know who Gish is …’ I said.
‘What do you mean? He’s one of the most powerful creationists in the world! You’ve met the top dog,’ said Dale. ‘Ooo, I hate Gish! I’ve seen him debate. He’s a nasty piece of work. He’ll go against a young, naïve evolutionist and he’ll tear him a new asshole. He lies, uses bad science but he plays to the crowd.’
‘What? Dr Gish?’ I asked, amazed at what I was hearing about the old buffoon.
‘Did he show you their museum?’
‘No, not really, I went to the offices but …’
‘When I was a student I wanted to go round and trash that museum.’ Dale’s expression was loaded with contempt. I looked at his eyes and watched the pupils contract as thoughts were formed and then dilate suddenly as an idea hit him. ‘Oh! Oh yes … I’ve got something that might interest you … come with me.’
Dale was off, taking purposeful strides towards one of the buildings. I skipped off after him, all the while trying to clear the unpleasant 7Up sensation at the back of my nose.
Dale held a door open and I stepped into a vast laboratory full of incredible looking equipment. I didn’t know what any of it did, but it all looked frightfully interesting. An involuntary ‘wow’ fell from my lips.
‘It is kind of cool, isn’t it?’ said Dale.
The word ‘laboratory’ summons up a stereotypical image: all Bunsen burners and test-tubes, little flashing lights, beeping beeps and bubbling green and purple liquids, but this was far more ramshackle than that. The equipment was big, scruffy and practical: balls, tubes, planks of wood, pipes and who-knows-what all thrown together, no doubt by big, scruffy, practical men.
‘When you’re doing work that hasn’t been done before,’ explained Dale, ‘it involves apparatus you can’t buy from a catalogue so you have to build it yourself …’
‘It’s amazing,’ I said.
‘… apart from this. This thing was shop-bought,’ said Dale, affectionately patting a small white box. ‘It’s probably my favourite bit of kit.’
I looked at it, trying to work out what was so special about it. It was about the size and shape of a microwave, but I couldn’t begin to fathom what function it served.
‘What does it do?’ I asked.
‘It’s a microwave,’ said Dale.
‘What?’
‘It cooks noodles. Come on, let’s go to the office.’
We skipped up two flights of stairs, along a corridor and in to a small, neat office. The lack of personal touches made it obvious that Dale didn’t spend very much of his time in the office but then this was the Scripps Institution of Oceanography so it shouldn’t really have seemed odd that Dale spends more time in the ocean than he does at his desk.
He crouched down in the corner, opened up a small filing cabinet and started flicking through its contents.
‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.
‘Well … I’m really a research scientist not a teacher, but we are part of the University of California,’ said Dale, without looking up, ‘so occasionally I have to give the odd lecture. I keep a few essays that I wrote when I was a student because they help me to structure a lesson, but there’s one in particular that might interest you … hang on … yes, here it is.’
Dale handed me a few sheets of neatly typed A4 paper with a handwritten title page:
Analysis of a Creationist Pamphlet and Evidence for Evolution
by Dale Stokes.
I turned the page and began reading. It didn’t take me long to work out that the pamphlet I was reading about, the creationist pamphlet Dale had analysed when he was a student wasn’t just any old pamphlet. Oh no, it was ‘Have You Been Brainwashed?’, written by (and starring) Duane T. Gish!
‘This is amazing!’ I said.
‘Well … I was only a student …’ said Dale modestly.
‘No, not that,’ I said. ‘This whole thing … you and Gish and me and googlewhacking! How weird is this? Google indexes three billion pages, any of those pages might contain a ’whack. It couldn’t be more random. So what are the chances that I meet one googlewhack in San Diego, he gives me a pamphlet he’s written and then a week later I find myself back in San Diego meeting another googlewhack who gives me his analysis of that pamphlet?’
‘He gave you a copy of that pamphlet? He’s still distributing that piece of crap!’
Dale’s analysis of ‘Have You Been Brainwashed?’ made for a very entertaining read. Every point made by the pamphlet was summarily destroyed, every falsehood and half truth highlighted and … oh joy … my eyes suddenly rested on the following phrase: ‘Dr. Gish’s twisted definition of the Second Law of Thermodynamics disproves the process of evolution about as well as his anthropocentric views of the universe prove the existence of an omnipotent creator …’
‘Yes!’ I said, ‘The Second Law of Thermodynamics thing! How twisted is his definition?’
‘Oh, I know!’ said Dale. ‘How screwed up is that?’
I felt like I’d found a soul mate in Dale. United by a common enemy. Witnessing Dale’s gleeful hatred for the man and his beliefs, I found my own distaste rekindled. Dale hated Gish for his creationist views, I hated him for his failure to googlewhack, but in that instant we were both united in our hatred for him.
‘This is astounding,’ I said. ‘I’ve never met two more diametrically opposed men in all my life. You and Gish are like black and white, you’re hot and cold, good and evil, Batman and The Joker, you are the anti-Gish …
‘I’ll tell you something else about Gish,’ I continued. Pausing dramatically, I leaned forward and lowered my voice, about to reveal a dark secret. ‘He could not googlewhack …’ Dale’s eyes widened. I seized my opportunity. ‘… Tell me, Dale… can you?’
If I live to be a hundred I swear I will never witness a more motivated googlewhacker in my life. Determined to show that the only thing he had in common with Gish was a San Diego zip code, Dale sat down and went to work. Not only did he deliver two prime ’whacks but he delivered them quickly. Two minutes, two ’whacks. Anthropocentricity Waistcoat? Whack! Acehigh Lawnmowers? Whack! Scientists tend to be good at it when they put their minds to it but if you give one that kind of motivation you’ll find yourself looking at a world-class ’whacker.
Oh yes, I was well and truly back in the googlewhacking saddle. A new chain was underway. From Dork Turnspit to Hydroids Souvlaki and beyond …