I'm Joseph Jameson-Gould and this is my blog.
I'm a born and bred Londoner, that's London, the capital of the UK and, er... this is my blog!
Now, Britain isn't well known for its terrifying, monstrous wildlife. Green and pleasant land seems to largely lend itself to pleasant, clement fauna, not that many of them are green either. More brown, really. And grey. Still, I was lucky enough to be able to spend a couple decades of school holidays at my grandparents' house in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. I say house, I mostly mean garden. I made jam jar traps, collected beautiful little yellow snails, caught baby lizards in my hands, tried year after year to keep caterpillars until they pupated but never succeeded, smashed up termite tunnels and watched as they were rebuilt, raced leaf cutter ants, found these tiny little snake things, saw a giant millipede on a little tree, somehow spotted a tiny scorpion mite, caught flying things in my hand and saw it was an earwig or an itty bitty mantis, watched strange wasps with impossibly small abdomens, followed ant trails and marvelled at them carrying off a massive cockroach, I once witnessed a lizard catch and eat a butterfly, little ants that walked slowly in single file, larger ones with long legs, hyperactively carrying eggs from some place to some other place, big ones that seemed to work all on their own, I tormented jumping spiders that seemed to look right into my eyes, tried to catch grasshoppers and leafhoppers, wondered why a two inch moth was laying all its eggs on a load of bricks a good few feet away from any plants, found those tiny caterpillars all over the place for days to come and, of course, turned over dozens of rocks thousands of times.
Yes, I spent a long time in that garden.
Anyway, life or whatever and then this is my blog!
Real Monstrosities
This is my first proper foray into blogging. I tried one a couple months before this but quickly found I hadn't the passion, knowledge or time to find out. I decided to rekindle my love of creepy crawlies and years of avidly watching David Attenborough documentaries and create this, Real Monstrosities. Life at its most bizarre. A collection of creatures strange in body or habit. The weird, the ugly, the monstrous. Naturally shy and wary of humans, it feels like an odd thing for me to be doing. But it's pretty fun!
So please take a look around, follow as it grows, sing its praises far and wide. Read the blog. Love the blog. OK, I think I went too far about a dozen syllables ago. Enjoy it and if you like what you see, leave a comment and tell a friend :).
This is my blog!