Speak No Evil

2011-09-04T23:28:00.000Z

I recently caught the new Planet of the Apes film at the cinema, and I was actually pleasantly surprised. I’d gone expecting some simian based action, mixed in with a little dollop of pseudo-science. What I got was a story about people , prejudice and an honestly sincere attempt at explaining how we got from less than a million apes and almost 7 billion humans, to a world where primates dominate the planet and keep people as pets.

Now, from here on, there’s going to be some minor spoilers, so read on at your peril.

I liked the fact that there was no full on man-monkey war in this film and I thought the concept of the retrovirus was inspired. Something that not only increases the intelligence of simiankind, but that also kills humans. Brilliant and simple (speaking in terms of a literary device).

The only thing I’ve taken umbrage with is the idea of talking Apes. Apes that sign, sure, I dig that. It’s already a thing. But, I simply can’t accept the idea that a Chimpanzee, without invasive neck surgery , would have the ability to say even basic words. Their vocal chords are just not set up in the same way.

Therefore, my verdict is that, on the whole, this film is rather good. The science is alright – as far as Hollywood goes – and I’m looking forward to the next film, which I’m assuming will be along the lines of 12 Monkeys, but with a man-monkey war mixed into the cocktail.

I will, however, choose to imagine that Caesar never spoke English and that, instead, he continued to sign until is dying day.

Human-like speech took generations to evolve. Simiankind speak English as it was the holey language – being the language that Caesar wrote in. And he would have written the first book of simian law.

Hello World

2011-09-02T18:30:00.001Z

So, hello then. Before we begin, then me introduce myself.

My name is Daniel, I’m a twenty-something graduate of creative writing – which means I should be good at doing this sort of thing. I’m not.

Currently I work as a Senior Customer Care Representative for a company that provides eClinical solutions for pharmaceutical companies. Depressingly, that sounds better than it is. In truth I spend my days talking to folk from the Americas, France, Spain, and Germany about how they’ve entered a patient's birth date as 1885, and making simple (read: boring) corrections to databases.

In my free time I read, play video games, post stuff to twitter and make tea and toast for my pregnant wife.

I’d like to add writing to the above list, but with my chronic procrastinating and abundant dilatoriness I think it’s unlikely.

Anyway, that’s me. Hi.

Person; People; Organ

Speak No Evil

Hello World