Constables with Vacuous Schedules,

The planet Earth formed some 4.5 billion years ago and for some reason or perhaps none, a multitude of seemingly impossible physical barriers have been overcome to allow millions and millions of beings to inhabit it. The first evidence of life is thought to be from simple cellular organisms living 3.8 billion years ago, and even their formation and replication is quite a miracle. How it all happened has been argued over for years; mechanisms for the formation of the amino acids that form proteins and the bases that are needed to form RNA and DNA are unknown and those proposed often seem dubious. Furthermore, the scientific community cannot decide how they formed because they are uncertain of the actual building blocks present on Earth at the crucial time; one of the few experiments of the many carried out attempting to model the formation key organic compounds on a prebiotic Earth that actually yields key organic compounds necessary for life, the Miller-Urey experiment, is only relevant if the Earth’s atmosphere consisted of reduced gases (water, ammonia, methane and hydrogen), whilst there is evidence that may suggest this is possible, this is very different to what exists today, furthermore, there’s also strong evidence that a carbon dioxide atmosphere existed at the critical time.

Once these amino acids, nucleic acid bases, sugars and other building blocks have been formed, they somehow all have to be present simultaneously at a point where they can aggregate into proteins, lipids and RNA. These products then have to amass in order to form a cell and a method of replication has to occur. The chances of this all happening, once all the obstacles, chemical, physical, spatial or otherwise are considered, are very small but it has and life really did evolve relatively quickly after the formation of the planet, compared to its age, at least. It’s a marvel that the formation of these tiny organisms all occurred during a time when the Earth was being battered by meteorites and irradiated by powerful UV rays. Once an entity has formed that can be considered “living” (the concept of what constitutes life is also debated), Darwinian processes take charge, and just a few billion years later, multicellular, skeletal creatures have developed and one of supposedly the highest stratum of evolution is skulking about in the middle of night, in someone else’s back garden with the intent of theft from a fellow miracle of creation.

I would never have bought the flag let alone, gone to the effort of erecting it. When Celtic won the SPL championship Father deemed it necessary to purchase a commemorative replica flag, and then he attached it to the pergola in the back garden. Many weeks have passed since it was erected, so it comes as a shock that it should have been stolen last night. I didn’t see the point in flying a flag of a football team, it’s not representative of me or anyone, and I have always thought it quite sad that people identify themselves solely with or as a football team; people have more in their histories than just following a football team. Although our back garden is mostly secluded, flying a Celtic flag always stood a chance of attracting some form of trouble, especially from the Sectarian bigot who lives nearby; I hope that wasn’t its purpose. While I was never in favour of the flag, I’m still a bit angry that the flag has gone; I can’t understand why someone would go to such lengths of evading the barbed wire that lines the garden wall and then clambering dangerously over the pergola to retrieve the flag from its lofty position. I’m also slightly irked that I wasn’t aware of this happening at the time, I hardly slept at all last night, I was awake for so long I nearly had to listen to the Blue Room live, but my quarters are on the other side of the house, out of earshot otherwise I might have had to ask them to leave the premises. It’s rather disconcerting that people roam others’ gardens in the middle of the night - a task surely reserved for hedgehogs – taking our flags and not slurping our slugs.

I doubt anything will be learned from this episode, I wouldn’t be surprised if another flag is erected in its place. As for the culprit, I can only describe them as a waste of 3.8 billion years.