Dear Una,
In this column about boiling frogs, Cecil recounts a conversation where you said:
Did you really say that? If so, awesome! 
Also, how much of these little conversational tidbits are real and how much are made up for the column?
Lastly, the column ends with the myth that’s indeterminate, pending Una’s change of heart. Has The Master ever thought about, you know, doing the experiment himself?
I said a lot of things on that subject I can’t remember - I’m pretty sure I said words to that effect. I was adamant that I did not want to risk boiling frogs.
Cecil and I have a lot of conversational back-and-forth, by mail and by phone (and very rarely, in person). Because we don’t transcribe everything we discuss it isn’t always a direct quote, but in some cases it is. I honestly don’t remember these things and our mail correspondence numbers in the thousands, if not more than ten thousand mails over the years, so it’s hard to keep track. It’s hard to even find important conversations sometimes, even with Google search.
Cecil will have to answer that, but he tends to leave the experiments to myself and others.
Maybe this is confirmation bias, but it seems that of the 3-4 old columns and 1 new column on the main page, I noticed that he tends to do the experiments or at least the research himself way back in the day, but many of the recent columns are by the staff. Is that a true assessment?
The columns themselves aren’t by the staff; the work behind them sometimes is. Cecil still does the write-up, though, with only (to my knowledge) two exceptions, both attributed in the column to Colibri.
The columns are by Cecil, but he has helpers to do some of the grunt work. I look up research papers and books, send mails and make phone calls, and do experiments.
[sub]I sort the mail.[/sub]
And we’re all terrifically grateful for the awesome way to do that critical task. Keep up the good work!
At least Cecil hasn’t asked you to boil amphibians.
We’ve been asked to do worse things.
I think this was about the worst ever –
I couldn’t bear the experiment – every time a mosquito landed on my arm I’d slap out of reflex and annoyance. Cecil’s lucky none of the SDSAB developed malaria or bird flu or something. (I just got welts.)
I want to try that mosquito thing! But there are none around here, I think it would be cool to watch. I wonder if there’s a Youtube video…
I can’t help but think that’d be far worse.
(Transposed from other thread).
It was actually discussed. I wasn’t as squeamish as Una, but I couldn’t see how to do it without running the risk of frogs hopping around the kitchen, and Mrs Haven would… um… react poorly.
Frog soup.
That’s “The Fool doth think he is wise, but the wiseman knows himself to be a Fool.”—AYLI V.i.
Colloquial English translation.
That’s the problem with Shakespeare, he writes in cliches.
Constable Clitoris and I are from the Hygiene Squad, and we’d like to have a word with you about…
Fo! A great Victorian wordclot like “…thinks himself to be…” is no more colloquial than it is Shakespearean.
I don’t know but I been told
boilin’ frog ain’t got no soul…
But seriously, do frogs migrate north/south as a result of global warming? If they don’t but other species do, it would at least hint that they are oblivious to changes in temperature.
I’m fairly certain frogs hibernate, and are not oblivious to temperature.
Ah, excellent. An apropos quote of lyrics from the very famous 1971 Led Zeppelin song “Black Frog”.