also, at the end of the day, is is a is a national hero from his days as a as national hero from his days as a as a cricket star. That certainly is that a cricket star. That certainly is uh this helps and uh you know he's you know helps. And you know, he's he's really been a he's he's really been a very effective very effective 21st century political
And here I was tapping my pencil and my pen like, really? Crickets. And I was almost in tears. Of course. I was like, I wrote this book and nobody wants to buy it or read it.
And it's like nobody heard it. Crickets. Right? And then two minutes later a guy repeats exactly what you just said, and everybody just turns to him. They're like, Dave, great idea you had, Dave.
Not all of them-- all of us-- are gifted with the same, barring you people sitting here. Cricket was a passion for me. But some or the other, I got into engineering.
expect so Evolution may be slow and costly but it is brilliant uh the late great Sir Francis Crick once made a joke about it uh M teasing in a way his colleague Lesley orgal by calling it orgal second rule evolution is cleverer than you are and what he meant is not a he he
nobody on Earth would ever be less likely to be a supporter of ID intelligent design than Francis Crick that was not his point his point is that the process of natural selection though mindless purposeless without imagination nevertheless it produc
the industry as well and it was time for his performance appraisal and he swaggers into my room collar is raised cricket and who know and there are many in India you would know this that 1989
that I remember the clearest the ones that there's no way to draw the taste of perch as we sat around the table how a Cricut had slipped through the screened windows and jumped around our bed that night how after we'd gotten it out the coolness of the lake made us draw the blankets up around us and how Katie her father and I had sat together in the warm light of the living room and played
So what we did is we just kind of did a shotgun approach to see what kind of vomeronasal receptor genes were present in lemurs, and particularly mouse lemurs. crickets can go out and collect thousands of crickets in their backyard.
What I found way more interesting is how science has been influenced by drugs, starting with Nobel Prizes. Crick and Watson, it is reputed that they got many of their insights due to experimentation with LSD. Now this is widely reported.
And-- Obviously, yes. If you can't tell all ready. Cricket. Sports. How many sailors were on the ship.
The Crick letter is the most expensive one? Crick, yeah. Wow. Yeah, the most expensive letter ever sold. But it's an incredible thing.
researching the book I happened to be in London and I don't know if any of you follow Cricket I don't really follow a cricket but when you're in London you sort of can't help it and while I was there the Pakistani Cricket coach Bob wolmer died under mysterious circumstances uh and so the speculation at first was
between the observers surroundings and the mind no it begins with a sharp critique of scientists such as Francis Crick who insist that nothing but neurons determines our daily perceptions and sense of self and a writer in philosophy at UC Berkeley he's also a member for the Institute of cognitive and brain sciences and the Center for new media over the last decade or so his
in here is about people there who train and fight crickets and people who have a deep knowledge about crickets. Cricket fighting in China has a history that goes back nearly a thousand years and I go on to some detail about this in the book. And the part that I want to read you describes some of what I learned from a very experienced cricket trainer that I met there, a man called
fighting potential, they use a taxonomy that first appeared in Jia Shi-Dao's Book of Crickets, a 900-year old manual of training and raising crickets that's been modified and supplemented but not overthrown across the centuries. The book outlines the fiercely complex system for classifying crickets. It brings request body color.
pots and in an emphatic response to my increasingly unimaginative line of questioning, took his yard grass straw and barked orders at the cricket as if it as soldier -- this way, that way. This way, that way. And the insect, to Michael's and my real astonishment, responded unhesitatingly turning left, right, left,
and he couldn't remember and if he cricketers when they beat the Australians in
understand cricket, but I don't have a sense of how special to the Australian narrative is Australian football. Yeah, So this is a game that
about cricket. But there's two really interesting things about that.
Googling crickets. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of crickets.
So I promised them that, you know, I will finish my degree, and I will do well. But cricket came alongside and I was doing decently well, reasonably well. You know, played for Karnataka under 23s, and then I played for Karnataka juniors.
And it sold just after I managed to get it cleared for the book, and it sold for 5 million pounds at Christie's Auction House. The Crick letter is the most expensive one? Crick, yeah. Wow. Yeah, the most expensive letter ever sold.
Francis Crick once said a study not worth is doing well.
Totally crickets. And then I was like, I don't need these guys.
Many found companionship in cicadas or other musical insects that they kept in bamboo cages and slim pocket boxes. And young people, not just the middle-aged, played crickets, learning how to recognize the three races and 72 personalities, how to judge a likely champion, how to train the fighters to their fullest potential. How to use the pencil-thin brushes made of yard grass or mouse whisker to stimulate the insects jaws and provoke
The insect's skin must be dry, that is, it must reflect light from inside itself not from the surface. It must also be delicate, like a baby's. The cricket's walk must be swift and easy. It should not have a rolling gait. In general, strength is more important than size.
must create the conditions in which the insect can be happy. A cricket knows when it is loved and it knows when it's well cared for. And it responds in kind with loyalty, courage, obedience, and the signs of quiet contentment. In practical terms, this as quid pro quo,
And then caddis flies, and crane flies, and vinegar flies, and botflies, and dragonflies, and mayflies, and houseflies, and so many other flies. Then one thing led to another and I came across field crickets and Mole crickets and Jerusalem crickets. And then my friend Jessie sent me a Weta from New Zealand and then the 17-year cicadas emerged in Ohio. And I discovered the thrips and katydids,
And it means that it's quite easy either to see exhibition matches of that kind or else you can go to markets, open air markets, where people sell crickets. And people go, you know obviously people are there buying crickets and you can see crickets in that context. And people have -- people have put on cricket fights there where they're just trying to show the strength of the crickets that they're
it's crickets and I think we're going to hit the iceberg really hard.
Root for Pakistan in cricket.
were watching cricket have obviously paid off yes
Such a craze about cricket in India.
of mutant crickets. Button up your collar until your mouth is invisible.
It's like crickets. And then two minutes later, a guy repeats exactly what you just said.
And even as the crickets came back in numbers, there was no longer any cricket song.
So this poor cricket has been parasitized by the fly.
When Watson and Crick identified the double helix structure of DNA in the 1950s, what they were doing was recognizing that there is a book of life.
And I was cricket crazy.
Audrey plays Jiminy Cricket, does the voice, and is one half of the puppeteering team.
And Jiminy Cricket originally was a bit of a sort of question mark.
And he's also the joint highest wicket taker for India in World Cups at 44. He retired from cricket, like I said, in 2003. And he has continued his life in that world as an ICC match referee.
Whenever I didn't do well in studies, I said, well, it is the cricket which is really coming in the way and I had to spend more cricket there. And so whenever I didn't get wickets, I used to say it's because of my engineering.
I mean, it's not that I can't play for India. I can never play cricket if things don't go right. I can never bowl again in my life.
You will be fatalistic in your thinking at times. Then you realize that cricket is not the only thing in your life. Then probably my focus on the other side of life also grew a bit.
So Francis Crick printed out, nine years after discovering DNA at Cambridge with James Watson, that in order to be a living thing
We have cricket. So yeah.
I heard crickets and/or you're crazy, you're a mad Irishman, et cetera.
the industry as well and it was time for his performance appraisal and he swaggers into my room collar is raised considered the god of cricket and he had nothing to prove even then he would go to the Nets half an hour before