Saturday 16 November 2019

Ants, wine and cryonics



I love reading weird but useless facts, useless until the right story comes along. A recent example is the Saharan silver ant that can run 108 times its body length in a second or, in human terms, Usain Bolt reaching speeds of 470 mph. Apparently it gallops. Another useless fact. You want more? As it approaches its top speed, none of its legs are touching the ground but are flicking back and forth 40 times a second. It is their way of dealing with the Saharan sun and temperatures of 60 degrees centigrade. This is when lizards, their natural predator, are comatose in shade allowing the ant to emerge and scavenge what’s left to find. Speed rather than shade is their only protection. One imagines if their legs touched the ground overlong, they’d sizzle and crisp.


Evolution is a wonderful thing, which brings me round to the Zos Wine Saver at £49 a pop and cylinders (they come in packs of two, each one reusable 15 times—another useless fact unless you see this as a commercial) at £14.99. 



They can, apparently keep wine fresh for up to eight weeks? Grief, you could buy a case of wine for the price of a Zos Wine Saver + cartridges.

And who, in God’s name, is going to keep a bottle of wine for eight weeks anyway?  What parsimonious, miserable soul would do such a thing? The hospitable Temperance man or woman might feel obliged to keep a bottle of wine for the occasional guest, Okay, I get it. But they’d be a damn sight better off giving it away afterwards  rather than dabbling in vino-cryonics. The grateful guest will remember them. The Zos Wine Saver will not.

Unlike the Saharan silver ant, we keep wine a week, sometimes a tad longer. In such cases a piece of twirled up kitchen paper is more than sufficient. But here is a beautiful illustration of two parallel worlds. The Saharan silver ant has little interest in keeping wine fresh for eight weeks, but the miserable sods who owned such a thing wouldn’t last long in the Saharan sun.

5 comments:

Maria Zannini said...

re: What parsimonious, miserable soul would do such a thing?

Raises hand nervously. LOL!

We're not big drinkers. I drink maybe once or twice a year and only if it's got more fruit than alcohol. Greg drinks the occasional glass of wine or beer.

Since he's the only real drinker, I often have lots of half bottles in the fridge. God forbid he finish a whole bottle before opening a different one.

I try to use up the leftovers in cooking.

Mike Keyton said...

The joy of a rant, you know you're going to offend somebody :) But I'm sure you're not.

I only drink twice a week ie the weekend, and between us we'll finish a bottle of wine, or at worst save the remnants for the following Saturday before opening another bottle.

Maria Zannini said...

We're not wine connoisseurs so do let us know if there's a particular kind of wine you like and we'll make sure to stock up.

Mike Keyton said...

Maria, please don't worry about that. Our tastes are simple, The only American wine I remember buying/enjoying in America was Californian. Do they have Texan wine served in Texan sized bottles? That sounds good :) ) Take us to a supermarket and we'll buy the wine as any good guest should t- but I draw the line at a Zos Wine Saver : ) Whatever the case please don't worry, Just looking forward to seeing you all

Maria Zannini said...

There are quite a few vineyards in north Texas so I'm sure we can find some Texas wines nearby. I'll keep an eye out for tastings and such.