Lost love...

Well, that was quite a harrowing morning. I’ve broken the news to Wilson, and he didn’t take it well. He’s gone into a bit of a decline, sitting morosely in his box and refusing to come out. I tucked Antony in with him, but even he can’t cheer W up.

Lost love is a terrible thing. Lost first love is even worse.

Wilson ♥ Joni

It's worse than I thought. Far worse: Wilson wants to marry Joni Mitchell.

This is a tragic situation, not unlike that in The Who song, Pictures of Lily… He'll be so disappointed when he finds out Joni is no longer the lovely young girl in the photos but will in fact be 69 in a few days time. And lives half a world away.

I shall have to be very careful how I break the news to him...

Joni all the way...

The 'repercussion' I feared yesterday was that Wilson would listen to Cohen's Death of a Ladies' Man, but I should have been worrying about something else: W has been listening to Joni Mitchell. 

Michael from Mountains, Sisotowbell Lane, songs I've not listened to in decades… such a different, innocent time in my life. 

And now, it seems, in Wilson's life too.

Joni Mitchell

Wilson was working on my iMac and he accidentally turned on iTunes' Home Sharing. 

Now he's got access to EVERYTHING on his iPad: to Death of a Ladies' Man and my entire Joni Mitchell collection. 

I hope this doesn't have any repercussions…

Halloween shopping

Now that Wilson's pumpkin is carved we're at the Garden Centre choosing his Halloween outfit and any other stuff he can talk me into. 

They've got their Guy Fawkes Night fireworks on display too, plus a load of Xmas stuff. This could turn out to be an expensive trip…

Daylight Saving

I got up very early this morning… or so I thought. It turned out that Wilson had put all the clocks back by an hour.

'The hour doesn't change until next Sunday,' I told him.

'I know that,' he replied, 'but it's always such a shock to my system that I thought I'd do it a week early, to give us a chance to get used to it gradually.'

Who knows? Perhaps I'll be grateful next Sunday. After a week of getting everywhere an hour early.

What a mess!

I've just discovered where Wilson's leaf collection has been tidied away to. It's going to have to go, either in The Wilson Vermilingua Museum of Old Stuff and A Robot or on the Guy Fawkes bonfire. 

I was afraid he'd make a mess carving his pumpkin, but this is way beyond 'mess'! 

W said he was 'astonished' to find the leaves beside his bed, and suggested that Antony might have put them there...

It's Pumpkin Time!

Wilson made a pretty good job of tidying up the living room yesterday, so today he's carving his pumpkin with Antony. 

I sense that Antony is not completely at ease around sharp knives, but W has no such reservations and is wielding his knife like Zorro. 

It's made quite a mess, but W has promised me a Pumpkin-and-Ant Pie for dinner tonight. And Pumpkin-and-Ant Soup for most of next week…

Clearing up is boring!

Before Wilson starts carving his pumpkin, I've insisted he finish clearing his leaf collection out of the living room. I'm hoping he manages to remove all the insects that have crawled out of it and are now living under the sofa too. 

W is not in a very good mood — he keeps sighing and saying how instead of doing menial housework I should be letting him get on with his groundbreaking Leaf Research. 

I'd like to point out that the mop cap is not my idea — W put that on just to make me feel guilty!

Halloween

It's only a couple of weeks until Halloween, so once Wilson had cleared away (most of) his leaf collection we all went to the Garden Centre so he and Antony could choose their Halloween Pumpkin. 

The new David Attenborough?

Wilson returned from his leaf-hunting expedition with less of a leaf collection, more of an indoor compost heap. There are creepy things coming out of it and crawling under the sofa! I tried to protest, but he said each leaf had some special character or quality that he needed to study. 

I have insisted that it be moved from the living room and into the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff and A Robot, but W says it will be too cold for him to work out there. He went off muttering about how he's certain Richard Attenborough never had to put up with this when he was a child… I expect he means David. 

Leaf hunting

Readers of the National Geographic Magazine may have noticed a brief article this month called The Glory of Leaves. Wilson enjoyed this item because it related to the world immediately around him rather than somewhere far-away and exotic, and now he has decided to make a leaf collection for himself.

This seems to me a ideal hobby for W; it will get him out into the countryside, he will enjoy  the fresh air, it will be good exercise for him and it will distract him from thoughts and doubts about 'Reality'. Moreover, Autumn is the ideal time of year to start a leaf collection. 

He has pulled on his new boots and gone off to the local woods on a leaf hunt. I'll pop out later and buy him a scrapbook to stick them in and a tube of glue.

These Boots are Made for Protesting!

Wilson has been on a fundraising visit to Toys 'n' Bears, a local toy megastore, hoping they would donate some teddy-bears for him to send the the Costa Rican Sloth Orphanage. 

They refused, and when he started calling them names ('rotten meanies') they asked him to leave. 

W immediately went outside with his guitar and sang anti-Toys 'n' Bears protest songs.  

I think his protest would have carried more weight if he hadn't popped back inside to buy the Hot Wheels wellingtons he's wearing in the picture, but he said he couldn't live without them, and he'd never seen them anywhere else!

Wilson makes a joke!

Late yesterday evening, as I tucked Wilson up in the tumble dryer for the night, he asked me, 'New Dad – I am real, aren't I?' 

'Of course you are! I replied, in my most reassuring, confident and Dad-like tone of voice. 

'And you're real too, aren't you?' he then asked.

I thought for a moment, then told him, 'Yes. I think so. I think I'm real.'

Believing he was asleep, I crept out of the laundry room, but he called after me: 'You think, so, therefore you are! I made a philosophy joke! Ha ha!'

Great Uncle Kenneth's Theory

Yesterday afternoon over tea Wilson explained his Great Uncle Kenneth's Theory of Reality (or The Kenneth Vermilingua Unified Theory of Reality, as his Great Uncle Kenneth always referred to it). (I wonder, is Kenneth even a Costa Rican name? W assures me that it is the 29th most popular boy's name in Costa Rica, and he knows about these things!)

According to this theory, everything is made of tiny sub-microscopic, indivisible hard particles manufactured by the ants. These fundamental particles his Great Uncle called 'Antoms.' There are also some sub-antomic particles, he conjectured, but these were mostly detached bits of ants' legs etc which fall off during the antom manufacturing process. 

None of this makes any sense to me whatsoever but honestly, is Wilson's Uncle Ken's theory any less likely that that everything comes into existence only when you look at it?

As John Lennon said, 'The more real you get, the more unreal the world gets.' If that's not a Theory of Reality I don't know what is. But then, I've never actually seen John Lennon, so perhaps he never existed…

More paradoxes, and a surprise answer

Wilson insisted on sleeping in my bed last night, to be sure I wouldn't wink out of existence while he wasn't looking. As soon as he awoke this morning, he started to explain about Descartes' theory that we are dreaming Reality and it's really all in our heads, and Willard Van Orman Quine's theory that Everything is Made of All Our Minds. 

Made of our Minds? What??

Finally, he outlined Nick Bostrom's theory that Reality is just a computer simulation, and we are all just characters in some vast video game. I'm guessing it's Lemmings.

This makes little or no sense to me, and all it seems to achieve is worrying Wilson that he's not real. I'd so hoped we'd put all that behind us after the 'Moon' incident.

I asked W why he was so interested in all this paradoxical metaphysics, and his reply surprised me: 'I was expecting to be able to read about my Great Uncle Kenneth's Theory of Reality, but New Scientist didn't even mention it!'

More problems with Reality...

Today, Wilson resumed our discussion of Reality:

'Leonard Susskind and Gerard t' Hooft think that everything is a holographic projection from the Event Horizon of a Black Hole, while the Copenhagen Interpretation says that things are only real while you're looking at them!' he explained. 'That means that as soon as you leave the room, New Dad, you cease to exist because I can't see you. And I cease to exist, because you can't see me.'

'Really?' I asked, 'Is that really what it means?'

'Absolutely' W confirmed. 'So when you leave the room, will you keep talking to me so I know you still exist? I'm keeping Antony with me all the time too, so he doesn't stop existing!'

I had to agree to keep talking or singing or making some kind of noise whenever I was out of Wilson's sight, to reassure him that I still existed.

This is exactly why I try to keep W away from articles on philosophy!

The Reality problem...

Last night, fearing another Existential Crisis might be on the way, I asked Wilson how he is getting on with the What Is Reality? New Scientist special edition. He replied that it was much more complicated than he'd expected. 

Over a mug of hot chocolate he explained that there were many contradictory theories: for example the Standard Model, which is all about Quarks and Leptons, Charm and Strangeness and Muon Nutrinos, but which explains… only about… four percent of the... universe… 

While he was speaking, I noticed his chin sink slowly down onto his chest, his eyes close and a gentle snore emerge. 

I guess Reality is a complex and tiring concept, and it's just worn him out for today. I took the mug from his paw and carried him off to the tumble dryer, where I put him to bed.

Wilson is on a roll!

Wilson is on a roll! He burst into my room before I was awake, sat on the bed and sang:

Well, I woke up this morning
   Thinkin' 'bout New Dad
He's been my father longer
   Than any other ever had
De-dum de-dum de-dum
   De-dum de-dum not too bad.
   Oh yeah!

He said this needed a little bit of fine-tuning, but he wanted to let me hear it as a work-in-progress.

Antony's Bllues:

Even after thinking about it all night, Wilson had still been unable to write a 12-bar blues for Antony, so he woke up this morning, feeling kind of sad. He hugged Antony for a little while, then his face suddenly lit up. Grabbing Antony and his guitar, he ran into the living room, where after a couple of false starts he began to sing:

Well, I woke up this morning
   Feeling kind of sad;
Gave Antony a hug
   Then things weren't quite as bad;
He's the best toy anteater
  That I have ever had.
  Oh yeah!

When he finished singing, little Antony positively glowed with pleasure; I think his cheeks even turned a tiny bit pink. 

We probably shouldn't mention any of this to sTony. 

Or to the Easter Island heads in the garden.