Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi

For many years I've wondered why a blog such as mine - indeed, such a personage as Yours Truly - hasn't been honoured. I expected the odd MBE, Booker Prize or Papal canonisation but, so far, not a bleeding dickie bird. Each morning, I wait patiently for the 'clang' of a beautifully enamelled, gold medal hitting Bassett Towers' welcome mat but the disappointment is becoming part of life. This morning, all I received was a hospital out-patients appointment and, coincidentally, a circular from Saga exhorting me to go for their hospital plans which avoid NHS queues.

Talking of Saga, my 50th birthday was an auspicious occasion which was totally ruined by the "Welcome to Geriatrica" brochure from Saga that landed on the mat that very morning. Talk about being quick off the mark! Since then, they have offered me holidays, insurance, funeral plans, free ballpoint pens and numerous other emblandishments, each one is accompanied by photos of silver-haired people having a whale of a time and looking ecstatically happy; presumably because they've found some way of getting themselves removed from the Saga mailing list.

Anyway, the point of all this is to do with a certain Mr Neil Young. The more erudite among you may have read that he has been immortalised by the naming of a new species of spider in his honour. I have declined to show a photograph of the aforesaid arachnid as I know some of my readers are sensitive to such creatures but if you want to see it in all its glory, you can click on this link. Now, as part of the intensive research which goes into each of my blogs (yeah, right!) I have found that there have been other honours of a similarly strange genre. The whirligig-beetle (Orectochilus orbisonorum) was named in honour of singer Roy Orbison whilst asteroids have been graced with such august musical names as The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

I started wondering about people, both famous and friends, and what they could be named after? The wide-mouthed frog sprang to mind in many examples but self-preservation prevents me exploring this one further. Haemorrhoidus vordermanus springs to mind as doesUgliusbastardius lloyd-webberi.

How about charadniiformus drogbaii (Charadniiforms, incidentally, is a genus of diving bird)? As for me? Well, I would settle for Lama bertius - no, not as in "Call yourself a spiritual leader? Get the f*ck out of Tibet, it's part of China now" but this sort.

On now to another subject - Lenor! What's all this rubbish about new Lenor with Black Diamond and Lotus Flower? Have we run out of all the world jojoba stocks? Is the whole gamut of fruits, herbs and other things that make my Speedos so soft exhausted? Come to think of it, if there are so many things in the world so good for our hair, clothes etc., why don't we just use the nearest thing in the store cupboard?

Just imagine it - "Ooh, you hair looks so shiny. " "That's because I conditioned it with Marmite and finest pureéd Pop Tart."

Black diamond! Are people really going to think Lenor are fragrancing their conditioner with black diamonds? Come to think of it, who has ever smelt a black diamond? Now, having sniffed Mrs B's ring (so to speak), I merely detected a slight odour of Nivea hand cream on her plain, boring old white diamond but this may be misleading. Perhaps black diamonds smell differently although I might be cynical in thinking that this isn't the case. For all we know, they could put essence of bat poo into it and call it black diamond? Come on, Lenor, tell us the real story!

Final thought in today's offering: did you know that traffic roundabouts are a rarity in America? It never occurred to me until today but have you ever seen any in the plethora of American programmes tainting our channels?

Apparently, the first ones were introduced over there only in the last decade and are making a serious contribution to lessening traffic accidents. Rumour has it that this is because nobody knows what the hell they are and so just stop driving, sit there, scratch their heads and say suitably American phrases like "Goddammit, what in tarnation's that, Elmer?".

Oh and a final, final thought: if quizzes are called quizzical, what are tests called?