The Last Samurai

She said: Are you telling me you don’t care what he’s like? You’ve read hundreds of travel books. Who’s the worst writer you can think of?

I didn’t even have to think.

Val Peters, I said.

He had had an affair with a Cambodian girl with one leg and he had written a book about Cambodia and the girl and the stump with poetic evocations of what remained of the countryside and the leg. This was the worst book I had ever read. It wasn’t really that he was a bad writer, though—even though I was only eight I could see he was quite a good writer.

She said: If that was who it was would you still want to know?

I said: Is that who it is?

She said: VAL PETERS! Why the man’s a veritable Don Swan.

I said: Well then who is it?

She said: You don’t want to know. Why won’t you take my word for it?

I said: Because you’re a market of one.

Sibylla said: Well, you may be right. Would you mind if I had a look at that book on aerodynamics I got you for your birthday?

and without waiting for a reply she took the book from the table and opened it and reading began to smile.

The present was not much of a surprise. Sib came across it at Dillon’s Gower Street and about three pages into the book began to laugh and to pace up and down repeating the words THICK MANTLE OF FEATHERS while the three other people in the room got out of the way. WE APPROXIMATE THE BIRD’S BODY BY A SPHERE OF RADIUS 5CM, said Sib, I had no idea aerodynamics was so entertaining, and under the impression that everyone in Dillon’s would like to share the joke she said Just listen to this example:

Grebes (an example is the common ‘hell-diver’) are among the birds that hunt their prey underwater. Unlike ducks and other surface water birds, whose feathers are completely water repellent, the outer two-thirds of the grebes’ body feathers are wettable. However, like the duck, they require the buoyancy as well as the thermal insulation of the air trapped by a thick mantle of feathers when they are on the surface. In order to facilitate the underwater maneuverability required to catch its prey, the grebe increases its specific gravity to near that of the water by drawing its feathers close to its body (each feather has eight muscles); their partial wettability assists in expelling most of the air, leaving only a thin layer at the skin surface for thermal insulation.

We approximate the bird’s body by a sphere of radius r = 5cm and assume it has a specific gravity of 1.1, and find the thickness Δr of the layer of air under sea level conditions required to bring the specific gravity of the combination to unity.

Did you know that each grebe’s feather has eight muscles? asked Sib.

No, I said.

Did you know that the outer two-thirds of their body feathers were wettable?

No, I said.

I did not point out that everyone within a radius of 10 metres knew it now. I said I didn’t think I was ready for aerodynamics, not because I didn’t think I was ready for aerodynamics but because the cheap books in the room were £20.

Of course you’re ready for it, said Sib flipping through the book. You can tell just from the names of the mathematicians. Bernoulli’s equation—Euler’s equation—Gauss’s divergence theorem—I have no idea what these actually ARE, but essentially the mathematics at the heart of the subject seems to be post-Newtonian developments in calculus, 18th 19th century stuff. How hard can it be? And look, it’s got an appendix on natural prototypes with a discussion of the hummingbird and aerodynamics of insect flight.

I said: When was it published?

1986, said Sibylla.

I said in that case maybe we could get it secondhand at Skoob.

Good point, said Sib. Would you like something on Laplace transforms?

No.

What about Fourier analysis? Not for your birthday, obviously you can’t have Schaum’s Outline Series for your birthday, but just to have? It says it’s a crucial mathematical tool for modern engineering.

No.

We’ll see if they’ve got it at Skoob, said Sibylla, and of course when I opened my presents not only were there the books on aerodynamics, Fourier analysis and Laplace transforms, but also Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse, Njal’s Saga in Icelandic & in the Penguin, various other bargains and a new skateboard.

I wanted to throw everything on the table to the floor and shout. All I wanted was something that everyone else in the world takes for granted and instead I got Laplace transforms and the aerodynamics of insect flight. I was about to say this when I saw that Sib had stopped smiling and was now holding her head in her hand, even thick mantle of feathers had not kept away whatever it was she didn’t want to think about. I thought I might say something anyway if I stayed, so I went out to ride my skateboard.

3

Funeral Games

Well, now I know.