Definition of a Writer

Writer / “ruiter”

noun

1. a particular species that can convert caffeine into a blog.

Folding phones that become tablets and a robot news announcer? These two headlines caught my eye. 

Firstly a folding smart phone, why would you want to fold your same phone? Well it has been noted that the phones are getting bigger and bigger and our tailors are doggedly making our pockets the same as they always have. Solution seems to be having a phone that unfolds into a small tablet. Phones are now 6 x 4", so unfolded, your phone is now a 6 x 8" tablet, brilliant, almost as good as Christmas mince pies in November. 

Now mentioning Christmas brings me swiftly on to the fact that summer is officially over. Whilst that means long days in the sunshine may be behind us, much to Susan's displeasure, another spectacle of the season is making its presence felt. It’s autumn, and that means the leaves on the trees are turning beautiful shades of yellow and red, before falling off entirely.

For those who do not know why this happens. it’s a way of protecting the trees, and making sure they survive the winter and beyond. Leaves die during the winter months. If those dead leaves stayed on the trees, and new, working ones didn’t grow in their place, the trees would have no way of processing food for themselves.

Why the extraordinary colours? When leaves are green they are working as organs for the tree. The green colour comes from a part of the cell called chlorophyll, which processes sunlight into sugars that the tree can ‘eat’. As the weather gets colder, the days get shorter, and there is less sunlight for them to munch on, the rest of the tree starts to absorb these useful parts of the leaves. It then stores them for winter in its roots. As the tree does this, the green chlorophyll is removed, which reveals hidden colours in the leaves.

The first colour to appear is yellow, the cells clear, revealing the vibrant reds and browns that dominate most of the woods and forests during autumn. 

Lesson over, interesting and well worth the research. I am happy in the knowledge I have helped you all to understand the basics of why trees behave as they do in Autumn. Carmine from Canada, sent me a photo of her dog running through a carpet of red leaves. I have attached the photo and just wonder if anyone can see the dog? Reminds me of Robert's photo the red car?

The second headline about the robot television announcer in Japan. From what Susan says, the Japanese are a nation of semi robots anyway, why not just convert to proper robots. Sorry, I mean they are very punctual and correct, in a nice way. The fact that the robot will always pronounce 'Toyota' the very same, every time, will be a comfort to them.