It has been unseasonably warm in southern Australia recently. I haven’t really looked into the Bureau of Meteorology’s historical data, but my memory of November is of a month of bright sunny days, followed by rain, followed by wind, then more sun, then lots of cloud cover, etc, etc. Anyway, this current hot patch has had everyone talking about summer. Summer of course means flies. Great. Flies always remind me of a great Australian science story. It’s tale of science, of people and of times past. It’s true, its old and everyone should know about it.

It was a big deal when Queen Elizabeth visited Australia in 1963. The tour was scheduled between 18 February and 27 March – summer and peak fly season. More . . .