Way back when I was very young I had a fascination for dinosaurs. Time and again I would leaf through books showing artists impressions of lost worlds, painted images, rather than the photoreal imaging that is increasingly common in childrens books today. Back then dinosaurs were an object of curiosity but unfashionable. Kids generally preferred football. Not me. In my imagination I walked among the swamps andf orests of the Jurassic world.

These dinosaurs are immensely popular. And to underline the point, last night I was bombarded with television programs about them. Planet Dinosaur, the latest BBC 3D animation fest, told me about the chinese fossils, ranging from small semi-birds to violent carnivorous turkeys weighing a ton and a half. How To Build A Dinosaur showed me the expense and expertise of recreating dinosaurs for chasing museum security guards. Extinct showed me how even in the last few decades, our 'Golden Age' of fossil finds has found many times more new speices and even more detailed investigation into colour, form, lifestyle, and behaviour.

Enough. My primitive 1960's brain can take in no more information. The thing is though when I learned about dinosaurs as a child they were no more than monstrous lizards, ferocious carnivores and huge grazers wallowing in deep swamps. As we learn more about these extraordinary creatures, it dawns on me how alien and bizarre they're becoming. Yet the toy dinosaurs on sale at my local supermarket haven't changed a bit. The truth is that like all those strange supernatural hazards of past ages, we want them to be ferocious monsters.

Not Quite Extinct Yet

By now most of you will know that birds are the modern descendants of the dinosaur breed, and increasingly researchers are using birds as a guide to what the dinosaurs actually were. Generally speaking though birds don't do anyone any harm, apart from muggijng old age pensioners for bread crumbs in the local park. Only Alfred Hitchcock could make birds scary, though I have to admit watching an angry swan cross the lake toward me at full attack speed was a bit hair raising, though in fairness the swan was annoyed at some upstart goose and wanted to beat him up.

Just of late though there's been a lot of reported shark attacks. Sharks are another great survivor. They've been around since before the dinosaurs, and only four million years ago a giant shark finally died out. It's a funny thing though. In popular culture sharks are depicted as ruthless and cold blooded killers. In some respects they are. But the sailors of those tall wooden ships in swashbuckling days never mention them. With the british Navy sinking every suspicious vessel on the seven seas in a hail of gunpowder smoke, you'd think sharks would merit some form of threat.

Maybe the sharks are trying to find something to eat? With trawlers reducing fish stocks around the world perhaps sharks are getting so hungry they have no choice but to eat us instead. Or perhaps they've gotten fed up of all the trash we throw overboard?

Waiting For The Big One

After all the fuss I made about the extent of borrowing the Labour Government did when they were in power, it would be a litle hypocritical to ignore the fact that our current coalition government has borrowed at a heavier rate. We have the deputy prime minister telling us yet again that life is going to get tough. Is Britain going through it's Cretaceous Period, struggling with an increasingly difficult financial enviroment and in danger of rapid extinction from some big european asteroid?

At any rate, we now have clear evidence that the British Politician is not yet an endangered species. Strikes me though they survive because we feed them breadcrumbs or else.