Saturday 13 February 2010

Green

One of the most memorable scenes in the Elizabethan series of Blackadder is when Percy thinks he's produced gold by alchemy but when he shows the substance he's discovered to Edmund, the response is:-

Blackadder - "Percy, it's green"


Percy - "I know, my lord ..."
 
Blackadder - "Yes Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's called gold. What you have discovered - if it has a name - is green."
 
Well "green" occurs naturally on Flores in the winter. So much so that green is the colour I associate with winter here even if that does sound like an odd thing to say from the perspective of more northerly climes where the colours associated with winter are white or brown.
 
I'm not sure what the scientific name for green is - it's vegetable (as opposed to animal or mineral) but it's too small to be moss and algae floats in stagnant ponds doesn't it? Hence why I just call it green. It's a product of our year round mild and humid climate but it doesn't like the sun, hence why it flourishes in winter. Green seems to have been particularly invasive this winter - I don't remember it so bad in previous winters. You would never know that these walls and surfaces had all been freshly painted last summer:-
 


As spring arrives and the days lengthen and sunlight gets back in to corners it hasn't penetrated since November, green withers and retreats but the walls will nevertheless need a good scrub and possibly re-painted as a result.

If you look cloesly at the last photograph, you'll see a different coloured stain on the wall as well. I'm convinced this is run off from the telhas (roof tiles) but I have heard it said that this is a different kind of moss/algae or whatever. So I call it green as well - even if that does invite the rejoinder:-

Yes Neil, I don't want to be pedantic or anything but the colour of green is green. That's why it's called green. What you have observed - if it has a name - is pink.


(BTW - as I don't know how you em-bed (if that's the right the word) YouTube videos in blog posts - and am not sure I would want to even if I did - here is a link to the full Blackadder "It's green" sequence for those not familiar or wanting to be reminded.) 

4 comments:

Kathie said...

Our household's resident biologist reassures me that the "green" is/are algae (or algæ, if you prefer).

Marisa said...

It's "Limos", and they appear everywhwere, old houses, new houses, it's a plague. Inside the houses we call it bolor (molt/d?)and it tends to appear on leather stuff like belts, and shoes, and bags. It stinks.

Heather said...

You know what this means, you'll be able to "revive your fortunes" and "buy back your house" by selling green splat jewellery....

H

Kathie said...

Congratulations on Great Britain's first Gold (not green) Medal of the 2010 Olympics!

Your homeland's Kerr siblings (Sinead and John) from Edinburgh also performed admirably in tonight's first round of the ice-dancing competition, the compulsory dance, the Romantic Tango.