Hey, Nobbly, thanks for re-jigging it – it looks a lot better but, er… (I imagine you spent hours farting about with it, swearing at Mrs N, kicking the dog, and drinking too much vino collapso), any chance of re-establishing the verses into 8-liners (cowers cringingly, head turned away, arm bent in protective position in front of head….)

Hmmm, reckon I better had open a WordPress account if I want to postanything else!

For those old enough to remember, they’ll know them as Panda cars.

Anyhow, my mate’s brother painted the doors of his chevette white, and then added a big pink pig to the centre of each door.

They got painted out within a fortnight, as he got pulled over for some imaginary offence every time he left the house.

For my reply above I started in Notepad, to jot down, copied to OO and jiggled it to make some sense of the words. Then copy-’paste as plain text’ to MadHatter’s comment box and added the links by hand. It works!

Love the poem buddy, and agree with your other points.

Many years ago, as a young technician in a biochemistry lab, I asked myself the questions “why would the brain have receptors to a resin produced by a plant? Are there natural animal cannabinoids?”and the converse “why would a plant produce a resin which affects the animal brain?” but I was never able to follow up this research and missed a great opportunity.

After the discovery of such receptors in 1988 the effects of cannabinoids on pain relief, appetite, nausia supression, and motor nerve control (in multiple sclerosis) began to make a kind of sense. Endocannabinoids were real. Their involvement with the immune system and intraocular pressure (in glaucoma) is less clear to me, but it’s probably here where potential cancer theraputics may be uncovered.

From the plant’s point of view it’s even less clear. Resins are usually protective in some way: against sunlight, insects, dehydration, wounding and suchlike. Not to stimulate the munchies in browsing animals. Whatever the reason, varieties of hemp now grow, or are grown, all over the world. A major success for the plant kingdom.

I would guess the attractiveness of the plant to humans was originally for it’s fibre, but the bonfires of all the ‘waste’ must have been cheery places to sit after a hard days work and I doubt it would have taken a Charles Darwin to begin selecting plants for uses other than rope and sacks. After all,.hemp seeds make great parrot food and fishing bait and hempseed oil is useful and nutritious too.

Thanks stickybud, and I look forward to following your reference links ‘on the morrow’ when I’ll be less spaced