ThursdayNext : www.jasperfforde.com
A discussion of all things Thursday !
Dodo
Posted by: Tamlin (---.blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: July 18, 2001 04:02PM
<HTML>Should dodo's be genetically re-engineered ?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Eva (---.dialin.co.uk)
Date: July 18, 2001 04:18PM
<HTML>Definitely! The world needs Dodos, man's (and woman's) new best friend.
Bring back the dodo! Bring back the dodo!
A dodo is a dodo regardless of how much flamingo or other DNA is necessary to fill in any gaps.</HTML>
Bring back the dodo! Bring back the dodo!
A dodo is a dodo regardless of how much flamingo or other DNA is necessary to fill in any gaps.</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: amanda (---.server.ntl.com)
Date: July 24, 2001 08:36PM
<HTML>would my cats get on with the dodo?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Jasper (---.server.ntl.com)
Date: July 24, 2001 11:25PM
<HTML>Almost certainly. The dodo grew up on the Mauritius islands in almost total isolation with not even the hint of a predator - Portuguese sailors made fun of the flightless bird's hapless appereance and friendly demeanour by calling it 'dodo' - the Portuguese slang for simpleton. Since re-engineerment in the early seventies dodos have displayed an almost ludricous lack of fear in respect of natural predators or modern areas of danger - hence the several thousand miles of 'dodo wire' that have been put up around motorways. An ideal family pet, a dodo will quite happily stare out of the window, watch TV or even watch the washing machine go round. Too big for a cat to attack an introduced dodo will easily make friends with any household pet (with the possible exception of a Thylacine) by it's simple non-aggressive countenance. A cat, suspicious at first, will soon get used to the large bird and regard it as simply part of the furniture within a week.</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Eva (---.dialin.co.uk)
Date: July 27, 2001 09:13AM
<HTML>Three questions:
1) What's a Thylacine??
2) Can dodos be used to mind small children?
Maybe by attaching the small child to the dodo by a leash so the kid can't stray to far. Or would the dodo just end up allowing the child to roam free and follow the child around?
3) What about baby dodos? Or are there only re-engineered adult dodos and no breeding programme? Are there any baby dodos? How big are they? Would they provide a tempting feast for some dastardly daring feline?</HTML>
1) What's a Thylacine??
2) Can dodos be used to mind small children?
Maybe by attaching the small child to the dodo by a leash so the kid can't stray to far. Or would the dodo just end up allowing the child to roam free and follow the child around?
3) What about baby dodos? Or are there only re-engineered adult dodos and no breeding programme? Are there any baby dodos? How big are they? Would they provide a tempting feast for some dastardly daring feline?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Charlotte Clark (---.btinternet.com)
Date: July 29, 2001 11:25AM
<HTML>We definitely need the dodo back, after reading the book I am desperate for a pet one, with or without wings. They should be OK with cats as dodos sound relatively harmless and my cat tends to only show bravado around anything bigger than a wood pigeon rather than hunting it, also don't dodo's have pretty big beaks to defend themselves with?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Lucy Lala (---.btinternet.com)
Date: July 31, 2001 04:43PM
<HTML>Exactly how large is an adult dodo? Does it depend on which model?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Kat (---.leeds.wwwcache.ja.net)
Date: August 02, 2001 01:05PM
<HTML>All you dodo fanatics should go to jasper's homepage (jasperfforde.com also on the links page) and look at the page on illustration ideas which is within the page on The Eyre Affair. (Or go straight to www.jasperfforde.com/illustration.html). There's a lovely picture of Pickwick by Maggy Roberts and a great description of it - don't miss the notes at the bottom of the page! It also tells you what a Thylacine is...</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Laura Shoe (---.harrowschool.org.uk)
Date: September 19, 2001 11:09PM
<HTML>I was surprised that the first character Thursday met in JurisFiction was the Cheshire Cat - considering how fond she was of Pickwick it would have been more appropriate for her to attempt to liberate the Dodo from the Caucus race. Incidentally, some years ago I remember being stuck with a copy of the New Scientist in the Dentist, which advocated that if it had been possible to win the race, the Dodo would have been in with a sporting chance. Happy as the bird might be to watch gyrating circles in the washing machine, it would have been lithe enough to outrun its opponents. All existing drawings of it show it to be a large tubby creature, but apparently this is only due to Europeans overfeeding the captive ones on ship before sketching them.
We had better clone one to see if it could withstand a fight with the family cat or not.</HTML>
We had better clone one to see if it could withstand a fight with the family cat or not.</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: jasper (---.server.ntl.com)
Date: September 20, 2001 12:23PM
<HTML>You are oh-so-right. Whenever I am in an unfamiliar city with a decent natural history museum, I like to go and see whether they have a dodo or thylacine, gliptodon, moa, great auk, etc, etc. I was in Edinburgh on a signing a few months back, I left the grown-ups on some weak excuse and went to the most excellent Edinburgh museum. All the extinctees were there (minus the gliptodon) and yes, you've guessed it, there was the sleekest, fastest, cap-on-backwards lowrunner of a dodo I have ever seen. This was a modern construction and had been built using all the most up-to-date technologies relating to skeletal density and body mass, so your theory has a great deal of validity. Also on the subject, Naturalists have conjectured that the dodo might have gorged itself in the summer season so it could survive the leaner months on Mauritius. These ''seasonal gluttons' might have been the dodos sketched in the early years and promulgated the idea of the bird as an odd-looking porky gutbucket and not the lean, mean, plocking machine that I -and Thursday, of course - have come to love.
- Jasper Fforde</HTML>
- Jasper Fforde</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: carole ward (---.dialup.lineone.co.uk)
Date: September 24, 2001 12:05PM
<HTML>If you do a book signing in Bath could you bring a Dodo?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Ralph Spurrier (---.www-cache.demon.co.uk)
Date: January 16, 2002 05:30PM
<HTML>Did I dream this or did I learn on one of those TV programmes on extinct animals that "dodo" can be translated as "big bum"? If I dreamt it I think I shall have to see a shrink....</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Jasper (---.no-dns-yet.ntli.net)
Date: January 16, 2002 09:17PM
<HTML>Quite correct. The dodo, like a turkey, stores fat in it's rump, hence the Portuguese: 'doedaars' or 'Fat-arse' . Hardly kind, but there you go.
Jasper</HTML>
Jasper</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: Alice (---.156ce.scvmaxonline.com.sg)
Date: July 27, 2002 08:40AM
<HTML>Gosh so that means when you call someone a....er....dodo, it doesn't mean their stupid but that their bums are BIG?</HTML>
Re: Dodo
Posted by: poetscientistdrinker (---.rdg.ac.uk)
Date: December 02, 2002 02:51PM
<HTML>Nothing to do with anything previously written on this thread, just wanted to see how far back I could leave my mark...</HTML>
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