The Times - UK (2022-04-30)

46 Saturday April 30 2022 | the times

Wo r l d

In one boat stood three young women
in bikinis. In the other were three uni-
formed men from a sheriff’s office who
had pulled up in their patrol craft,
apparently to issue a ticket.
After drawing alongside the boat and
inspecting its occupants, the officers
decided to take a broader view of the
unknown infraction. According to a
video of the encounter, they agreed to
settle the matter with a game of rock,
paper, scissors.
In the video, one of the women could
be seen leaning over the gunwale and
flattening her hand into the shape of
paper, while an officer, clutching some
paperwork in his other hand, threw a
pair of scissors.
“Oh my god,” said a man on the
women’s boat, who was filming the

Wearing a bikini?

Get rock, paper,

scissors justice

United States
Will Pavia New York

match, as she lost the first round. But it

was a best of three and in the next two

rounds she threw scissors to his paper,

and then paper to his rock, and her

companions on the boat erupted in

cheers.

A caption on the video, which attract-

ed 18 million views, claimed: “We got

out of feloney with rock, paper, scissors.”

Most commentators were sceptical

that officers of the law would overlook

an offence — whatever it was — as seri-

ous as a felony, after losing a game typi-

cally used to resolve playground dis-

putes. It was also noted that the author,

who appeared to be based in Florida,

spelt felony as if it were a pasta dish. “Is

that [the] drunk tense?” asked one.

Others suggested causes for their

lenient treatment. “Don’t try this when

it’s all dudes on the boat,” one said.

“Results may vary on skin colour,” said

another; though at least one commen-

tator claimed that she had been let off in

a similar fashion after “a good game of

heads or tails”.

Nor was it the first time that rock,

paper, scissors had been used by officers

of the law. In 2013 three police officers

in Texas were disciplined after a video

emerged showing them allowing a

woman who was only a few weeks

under the legal drinking age of 21 to

avoid a ticket for consuming alcohol at

a music festival, after she beat one of

them in a game of rock, paper, scissors.

Randy Dixon, chief of the Cameron

police department, said at the time the

officer had decided that he would let

her off and ask her to leave the festival

if she won the game and “he was going

to make sure she won”. He felt the

matter had been “blown out of propor-

tion”, although he did not think the

game had any place in American polic-

ing. It was not a “good way to do busi-

ness”, he said. Nevertheless it has

appeared, sporadically since them,

including in a legal case in Florida

where an exasperated judge made two

lawyers play rock, paper, scissors to

settle a dispute.

There was also the case of Sting and

Peter Gabriel, who played 21 venues in

North America in 2016 in what they

called their Rock Paper Scissors tour. It

did not directly involve American law

enforcement, but one of them was a

former member of The Police.

A game of rock, paper,

scissors took place after

three uniformed men

from a sheriff’s office

pulled up alongside a

boat, apparently to issue

a ticket to its bikini-clad

occupants. A video

of the incident has

attracted more than

18 million views

In the ten years since the centenary of

his birth, the mathematician Alan

Turing has received a posthumous

royal pardon, been the subject of a big-

budget biopic and had his face put on a

£50 note. Now he is to leap into an even

grander sphere. Turing’s life is about to

become an opera.

The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing,

by the librettist David Simpatico and

the composer Justine Chen, will have

its premiere at the Chicago Opera

Turing’s enigmatic life made into an opera

Alan Turing’s life had

a mythic quality, say

the opera’s writers

Theatre next year. It charts his life from

boarding school to academia to Bletch-

ley Park, leading the effort to crack

Germany’s Enigma code, to his prose-

cution for “gross indecency” in 1952 and

his death two years later. The coroner’s

verdict was suicide — he was thought to

have laced an apple with cyanide and

taken a bite, in keeping with a pre-occu-

pation with the story of Snow White.

Viewers of the opera will be offered

other possibilities: that his death was an

accident or that he was murdered by

government agents. Simpatico initially

considered Turing as a subject for a

one-act play, about “a guy sitting in his

kitchen, getting ready to kill himself”.

But the more he thought about it, the

larger the story seemed.

“He was born in the Edwardian age

and he created the cyber-age,” he said.

“He was ‘out’ as a gay man in the 1930s,

when we weren’t out. He couldn’t div-

orce his intelligence from his sensuali-

ty.” Simpatico saw a mythic quality in

Turing’s life, alongside an intimately

personal one: “I said, ‘This is not a play,

it’s an opera.’ ”

Will Pavia

A

t any time of year in

Florida there is

wildlife to be

admired, feared or

loathed. There are

Burmese pythons that slither

through the Everglades causing

havoc with native species, tegu

lizards from Argentina that help

themselves to crops, venomous

lionfish from the Indo-Pacific

ravaging coral reefs and green

iguanas from Central America

that drop comatose from trees

on to passers-by when it gets too

cold and 1.2 million pointy-

toothed alligators statewide.

Yet it is a harmless,

half-centimetre long fly fixated

on sex that is perhaps the most

commonly dreaded fauna —

and, for the next few weeks,

residents and visitors may find

them hard to avoid. Twice a

year, in May and September,

No love lost in Everglades for spring’s

least welcome but most amorous bug

tens of millions of Plecia

nearctica Hardy — known as

lovebugs — emerge from their

larval stage, swarm communities

and couple up for an aerial

mating extravaganza.

Also known as honeymoon bugs,

airline bugs or two-headed bugs,

they can stay attached to one

another for up to 56 hours or

until they are rudely interrupted

by being smashed on

vehicle windscreens,

headlights and

radiator grills —

whichever comes

soonest.

They are

attracted to

white or yellow

surfaces and to

exhaust fumes

from vehicles and

gas-powered gadgets

such as chainsaws and

lawnmowers. Their

squashed innards splatter

windscreens and obscure

drivers’ visions, or clog radiators

and cause engines to overheat.

Unless cleaned off promptly, the

residue from their corpses and

egg masses can turn acidic

enough to strip paint off cars.

Twice annually, it falls to

Professor Norman Leppla — an

entomologist at the University of

Florida, in Gainesville — to

defend their reputation as

disgusted residents call to

complain about the swarms of

copulating critters. “The car

wash people certainly love them.

I get no complaints from car

wash people,” he says. “But after

journalists who want to

learn about them, most

of the calls I get are

complaints. People

want to know

what are they,

what are they

doing, how long

will they be here,

how do I keep

them out of my

house? People say,

‘I want them gone

but the pest control

people won’t spray them,’

— and good, because they

shouldn’t.

Lovebugs are non-destructive

and do not bite, sting or spread

disease. From October to April,

the larvae feed on decaying

organic material, then pupate

for a week or so before the adult

emerges, looking to spend its

four-day lifespan in romantic

pursuit.

Males will swarm, wait for a

female to emerge from the grass

below then swoop in and fight

for her attention; the larger and

heavier the female, the keener

their efforts — lovebugs like

their ladies on the hefty side.

Once they win approval, they

couple up tail to tail and ride the

breeze together in an unabashed

sex fest.

Lovebugs came to America

from Mexico in the 1920s via

Texas, and gradually spread into

several of the southern states

over the next half-century.

“’What’s the point of them?’ — I

get asked that a lot,” Leppla

says. “Aside from getting people

all riled up, they’re just a part of

nature... they came as invaders

and became part of our native

culture... People come here

from the north and the first year

they want to know how to get

rid of all these insects. I say, ‘You

know what — you moved here.

Just enjoy them.’”

Jacqui

Goddard

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Lovebugs can stay attached to

one another for up to 56 hours