Now just hang on a minute there.

I was in the middle of my viva voce, a pre-graduation interview in which an external examiner ensures you’ve not blagged your way this far (as a serial blagger, this was actually quite worrisome). We were discussing my dissertation, and in particular a feature of the parasite I studied, the function of which was still uncertain. A couple of references had suggested it was vestigial, but the examiner was unconvinced. I took this as my cue to spring to the defence of parasites.

In his excellent book Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer describes how these organisms have been much maligned, even by biologists, over the years. He quotes 19^th century zoologist Ray Lankester’s view that they were little more than degenerates, abandoning the adaptations natural selection had crafted in their ancestors and seizing the chance to become featureless nutrient-suckers: “Let the parasite life once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, eyes and ears; the active, highly gifted crab may become a mere sac, absorbing nourishment and laying eggs”. Lankester’s essay on degeneration led another writer to describe parasitism as “one of the gravest crimes in nature”, which, if nothing else, gave a whole slew of sexual activities a brief break from moralistic denunciation.

This attitude continued well into the 20^th century. Zimmer quotes parasitologist Horace Stunkard; “the dependent animal is proverbially looking for the easy way” and Konrad Lorenz; “If one judges the adapted forms of the parasites according to the amount of retrogressed information, one finds a loss of information that coincides with and completely confirms the low estimation we have of them.” to highlight the ongoing view of parasites as lazy, degenerate and feeble. The rest of his book then goes on to show how utterly wrong this viewpoint is, that parasites “are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life”. If nothing else, we probably have them to thank for the existence of sex – were we somehow able to pin pizza and beer on them too, I’m pretty sure I could get a parade going in their honour.

So, anyway. For my dissertation I studied the effects of host starvation on the parasite Schistocephalus solidus, a tapeworm that has rejected the simple life in favour of a rather more complicated state of affairs, growing in two different hosts (a freshwater copepod, then a stickleback) before reproducing in a third (a fish-eating bird). As with the other parasites described by Zimmer, Schistocephalus is no passive drain on its host’s hard-won resources. There is, for example, evidence of what may be active manipulation of host behaviour to increase the chances of transmission to the next host in the cycle: infected copepods show a preference for fish odour – risky behaviour, to say the least – and infected sticklebacks are less alarmed by, and recover more quickly from, simulated bird attacks.

I studied Schistocephalus in the copepod host (pictured in situ here). When the worm has matured and is capable of infecting a stickleback, it has an obvious circular structure at one end, called a cercomer. It’s so strongly associated with the ability to infect the next host that it’s generally thought to help in establishing the parasite in the stickleback’s body, but exactly how is unknown. Indeed, a recent paper has shown that the cercomer is actually discarded by the parasite early in the infection process, and it has been suggested by JD Smyth – a man who, frankly, knows his cestodes – that it might in fact be vestigial.

The external examiner in my viva wasn’t sure about this. And so I talked about how complex these creatures actually were, so well-adapted to multiple hosts and multiple environments, surviving passage through mouths and stomachs and able fight off the immune systems of three different animals. About how it wasn’t too long ago that some biologists could barely bring themselves to acknowledge that parasites had even the most rudimentary adaptations, something that turned out to be completely wrong – why, then, could they not have vestigial organs, too? In my head, I may even have heard some stirring music begin to swell as I fought the good fight for the dignity of parasites everywhere. I know, I know, just be glad you’re not me.

As a postscript to this tale, I downloaded the Timetree app the other day and, being a massive nerd, decided to see how closely related we are to Schistocephalus solidus. According to Timetree it’s about 650 million years since we shared a common ancestor. Next I checked the copepod, and was somewhat startled to see that almost 1 billion years separated humanity and the humble crustacean. I’m not sure this is actually accurate – a quick bout of googling suggests both are equally related to us – but the point is that it felt instinctively wrong. How could it be that we were nearer to the tiny, hermaphroditic, boring worm that hung around doing nothing but suck up nutrients all day, rather than the independent, sexually reproducing copepod; the mobile, active hunter? It was, of course, simple human egotism, the sort of thing that encourages us to see kinship in the majestic likes of tigers and sharks and not so much in dung beetles. We want to be associated only with what we perceive to be admirable, and not with what we believe to represent laziness and degeneracy. Even I, arch-parasite defender, was not immune. Perhaps there’s hope for me yet.

Among that subset of the population that has slogged through the entire Dark Tower series, I don’t think I’m alone in saying that part of me wishes Stephen King had never finished it.

Firstly, even King at his absolute best could never have followed through on the promise of the early instalments – not in terms of quality, but literally in terms of what was promised. I remember when I was about 12 (ok, 16. Ok, fine, 20) and thought I could write a novel. Chapter one (I don’t believe in dicking around with scene-setting or character building; when I write something, shit gets real, fast) contained a line about the greatest secret of the universe, one so mind-buggeringly devastating that all who discovered it would prefer death over living with such appalling knowledge. Clearly, I hadn’t a clue what this secret might be, or how it might factor in to whatever story I was trying (incredibly badly) to tell, but at the time it seemed that the way to hook the reader was to promise earth-shattering revelations regardless of the ability to deliver.

The early instalments of the Dark Tower do something similar. The promise of unimaginable battles beneath a far distant tower in a blood-red field of roses, of a struggle between titanic, dimension-straddling forces, a final showdown between a ragged bunch of human gunslingers and an immortal Great Evil, with the very existence of reality at stake – such talk is cheap. Following through is much tougher, and King is somewhat notorious for failing to bring his tales to a satisfying end (there are a number of exceptions, for example The Stand, Pet Semetary). It might have been better to leave our imaginations to fill in the blanks, to leave Roland’s quest unfulfilled. More appropriate, even, given the story’s ‘endless journey’ structure. The actual ending was always going to be more prosaic than that early, achingly romantic prose suggested. In a coda towards the end of the seventh book, King writes of those who demand to know what happens when Roland reaches the Dark Tower: “you are the grim, goal-orientated ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination”. He has a point, but if he really believed that then perhaps he shouldn’t have been in such a rush to finish the series.

Which brings me to my second point – he really shouldn’t have been in such a rush to finish the series. The first book was written when he was 19, and you get the impression that each of the next three followed naturally, whenever inspiration struck. Then some tool named Bryan Smith cleared him up one day while he was out for a walk, which inspired him to rattle off the last three books in quick time lest it remain unfinished.

Andrew considers the last three books a tour de force, and apparently it was book five that got him hooked. For myself, books five and six are worth reading only because they’re necessary components of the larger story – I believe Wolves of the Calla is easily the worst of the series – and book seven is only a partial return to form. I have re-read the first four books a lot, but never bothered with the last three even a second time. In this AV Club review of the final book, Robinson says “It’s easy to wonder how the series might have concluded had the accident not forced major health issues and the specter of imminent mortality into King’s life”. It’s not just easy, it’s also frustrating. Book five introduces entirely new dialogue quirks for the main characters – it seems to be a hangover from the Hambry dialect of Wizard and Glass’s flashback sections – and some meaningless guff about the number 19 and ‘going todash’. Some random – and jarring – Harry Potter and Fantastic Four references are thrown into the mix, characters from old King novels crop up seemingly because he’s realised that this series defines his entire career and so it’s worth crowbarring these survivors into the narrative and then, worst of all, King introduces himself into the story and things get seriously metaphysical. It’s a matter of personal taste, I suppose, but I didn’t like it. He even includes the Bryan Smith episode as a crucial point in the story, which was clearly not part of his long-term Dark Tower plans prior to the accident (King maintains he has no long term plans when he writes, so this is probably unfair).

The last three books are also run through with some of the writing quirks King has picked up in his later career; stuff like “that would be the last time they saw him alive”, or “you’re not going to like what happens next”. In his introduction to King’s short story collection Night Shift, John D. MacDonald – paraphrasing here, I haven’t got the book to hand – talks about author intrusion and “look at me, ma, no hands!” writing, how easily it destroys the suspension of disbelief, and how King never falls prey to it. Showy, clever-clever writing trickery, be it ever so fine, never fails to remind you that you’re reading a book, and what Stephen King is normally so brilliant at is being invisible. His stories seem to enter your brain without you registering that they’ve come via words on a page – J.K. Rowling is also good at this, and anyone who sneers at her ‘workman-like’ prose can piss right off – and unfortunately, the latter Dark Tower books don’t have that quality to the same extent as his earlier work. This might be due to the self-aware, metaphysical twist the plot has taken, but he pulls the same stuff in pretty much every book these days.

The first book in the series, The Gunslinger, is hard going, being the work of a 19 year old who didn’t really know what he was about. I’ve just stuck the boot into the last three books in the series. And yet, after Andrew finished The Gunslinger, I told him that “things are about to get good, and I mean ‘possibly King’s best EVAR’ good”, and I stand by that. The story itself, whilst never living up to its impossible promise, is still fantastic. The world it takes place in is complex and rich, drenched in myth and mystery. The characters are fascinating and flawed, developing in a believable and satisfying way. Moreover, books two, three and four are among the best stuff King has ever done. The plotting in The Drawing of the Three, in particular, blows me away, so intricate and yet coherent it’s like a magic trick. And the flashback section in Wizard and Glass might just be my favourite piece of King writing of all time.

So overall, it’s brilliant – read it.

Honestly, does no one just say “Shut up and crack on, Bollockfeatures, there’s a recession on” anymore?

I got 84% overall. This has made me very happy. Part of that mark was 95% for a presentation on the Cambrian explosion, probably my finest hour (6 minutes, actually) this year. Sadly none of this counts towards the final degree, but I was pleased to have made the effort when I saw a notice for 2nd years advertising work studying insect immune systems that ended – “email me if you’re interested, including your first year score.”

Anyway, that’ll do, best not to get too wanky beyond that quick summary. If the planets align correctly, I might even post more regularly over the summer.

“If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be,” he said.

“That would show faith in action, it would show the importance of cooperation between faiths, and it would show what faith can do for progress.”

It would indeed be fantastic. Mind you, faith isn’t actually a requirement in this scenario, is it? Not sure it really would be ‘faith in action’. Just, like, kindness, decency, that sort of thing. Not so much ‘look what faith can do’ as ‘look what people can do when they aren’t being arseholes’.

The last exam is on Monday, and then? Oh then, my green-labelled love, you and I will be reunited.

*10lb in 5 weeks, stats fans, other contributing factors being under house arrest and so out of the vicinity of anywhere serving curly fries; restarting my oft-restarted jogging regime; and – yes! – Wii Fit.

Anyway, a combination of 8 hours sleep a night and placing Anna under strict instructions to prod me every 9 minutes and 30 seconds sorted it and I finished Small Gods, and decided I liked this reading-without-having-to-read malarky. So much so that I bought another Pratchett book, Reaper Man, and immediately hit a stumbling block that can be summed up like so – Sergeant Colon is not Irish. I don’t care if someone can produce a quote from Guards! Guards! that starts “Sergeant Colon, his strong brogue evoking the rolling hills of the Emerald Isle,” the man is not bloody Irish. Except that Nigel Planer, the audiobook reader (and, yes, Neil from the Young Ones), thinks he is, and voices him accordingly. He also gives the Bursar a speech impediment, maintains a doddery old voice for Windle Poons even after his undeadening and gives Mustrum Ridcully a soft, posh voice entirely unsuited to bellowing at things he doesn’t understand. It is, any right-thinking person will agree, a series of outrages that simply will not stand (Miss Flitworth is wrong, too, all reedy and shrill). EDIT: I should add that the voice acting for Small Gods is really good – Vorbis in particular is perfect, and giving Didactylos a Scottish accent works, somehow. Not sure about Om, mind you, especially when *SPOILER* he keeps the same grouchy old man voice even after everyone starts believing again.

It’s unavoidable, I suppose – the reader has to distinguish between speakers somehow, and avoid droning. And it’s hardly new, as anybody who’s ever watched a film adaptation and howled (f’r'instance) “Is that fucking pleb supposed to be Batman?!” can attest. It’s pretty much put me off buying any more Discworld novels though, I’m not sure I want to know what Carrot or Gaspode the Wonder Dog sound like. Anyway, silver linings and all that – it gives me more free time to write pointless blog posts.

A certain person who shall remain nameless: So, you think it should be legalised?
Me: Yeah, I think so.
Acpwsrn: I’m against it, that stuff fucks you up. Just look at the state of Alkie Malc, he smokes cannabis.
Me: Alkie Malc?
Acpwsrn: Yeah, I’ve seen what that’s done to him, he’s messed up in the head.
Me: Alkie Malc?
Acpwsrm: Exactly.

I have a theory — probably incorrect, but that’s never stopped me before — that Steven Spielberg regarded this character as the bad-guy equivalent of Indiana Jones. A ballsy, resourceful hero who just happens to be working for the wrong side…as he crawls across the roof of the caboose, Spielberg lingers on a shot in which the officer’s hat gets blown off by the wind. Of course, a frequent motif throughout the whole series is Indy losing his fedora during action scenes, then triumphantly regaining it.

In an entirely unrelated matter, I have come to the conclusion that watching someone play a 2D Mario platform game without using the dash button is possibly the most frustrating experience in all existence.