(no subject)

I really want to get back online. I'm not well and so far viral conjunctivitis is winning. I had a strange dream in which all/everybody's RPG characters and muses had been discontinued or something and the characters had to apply for their writers - I had sixth-season Willow asking me to write her and some kind of application from Buffy, I think; I never managed to read that because I woke up.

(I also vaguely remember Dru wanting to write the character of a Mun.)

since some of us are weight conscious (aren't I, just!)

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I cannot sleep

I can't sleep and I just saw something on TV that I'm having trouble believing.

There is a bottle-nosed whale in the Thames. Not a dolphin, an adult whale. It was photographed almost under Battersea Bridge - that is, it's in central London not too far from the Houses of Parliament; imagine the postcard, Big Ben, Parliament, London Eye and a real, live whale in the river!

As far as experts can see it is healthy and well-fed, but horribly disoriented (they said it was also very old but I don't know how they would know.)

I have never seen a whale and there is a real live wild whale about 4 miles away!!! I can't go there because it is 11 p.m. and London closes at night. Nothing like this has ever happened since records began. People have brought their babies out to see.

Apparently it hasn't been seen for a couple of hours and the last possible sighting was at Greenwich. That would mean it is moving back to the sea. The Thames is a tidal river and that would give the poor creature a chance it find its way back. It would be great if it could live in the Thames for a bit but the trouble is that the river tide goes out.

I used to live in Cheyne Walk, beside Battersea Bridge, and in a couple of hours that part of the river will have exposed mudflats and a central stream that could be quite shallow; (I don't know the likely depth.) We used to say that the mud was so soft that a child or a dog could just be sucked down ... I don't know if that is true either, and I don't know if very liquid mud would support an air-breathing whale safely enough to prevent its own weight crushing its internal organs. (This is probably waffle anyway. The programme said that it beached once and a big man waded out and pushed it away. They showed the man standing upper-waist deep in water and he didn't seem to be sinking into mud.)