It’s always wincingly amusing when scientists show up in the media saying, “We’ve got good news and bad news.” That’s in effect what happened the other day when, simultaneously, Arizona State University’s International Institute for Species Exploration unveiled its top-10 list of newly discovered species and ScienceDaily.com announced that the Caribbean monk seal is no longer with us.

One species extinct and 10 new ones found doesn’t seem like a bad deal, but of course that’s just the way the news bubbled up. In fact far more species are being lost every year than are discovered.

And a lot of people will wonder if the 10 “new” species are really that much of a boon to life on earth when they include a duck-billed dinosaur that’s been dead for 75 million years, a frog that doesn’t look too healthy either, other weird creatures like a bat, a ray and a rhinoceros beetle and the jazzy specimen pictured above, Thailand’s very own “shocking pink dragon millipede”.

Desmoxytes purpurosea, to give the millipede its Sunday-go-to-meeting moniker, “sits openly on the ground and vegetation during the day”, probably indicating that it’s toxic if eaten. That, its colour and its “common name” were enough to get it on the top-10 list.

The list is designed to thrill, with animals selected from among thousands of nominees based on unique or surprising attributes, the intent being to promote biodiversity awareness.

The Bangkok Post on June 11 quoted Somsak Panha as saying his “animal systematics research unit” from Chulalongkorn University determined that Shocking Pink — up to seven centimetres long and with 88 legs (one for every key on the piano, in case anyone wants to try training them) — lives primarily among the limestone mountains of northern and central Thailand. Despite its surmised toxicity, the beast regularly appears on rat and squirrel menus. There’s more!

As published by Britain’s Daily Express newspaper, photos taken over the years by American storm chasers Mike Hollingshead and Eric Nguyen.

Sir Arthur C Clarke, 1917-2008

Cleaning up the Not-Actually-Junk-Believe-It-Or-Not Drawer and came across a few websites I used to toy around with that must be recorded here for posterity … assuming that this blog represents “posterity”. It’s a philosophical point.

For awful fun, this hilarious trio of sites is crowned by Wagenschenke, which I always referred to as “the drunken German” site since everything seemed to be in German, but I see by the address it’s actually Swiss.

The drunken Swiss guy wants to get home, and the point is to see how far, in metres, you can escort him using your mouse. He prefers to fall over a lot. Anywhere will do.

For simple-minded giggles, the award goes to the gleeful baby at CoffeeCup.com. You just bounce him around with the mouse and try not to laugh out loud.

And in terms of outright ingenuity, ScreenToys.com is packed with technical wizardry. It’s badly in need of an update, since Enron, John Kerry and Tony Blair are among the targets, and of course George Bush is prominent, but maybe they’re waiting to see who moves into the White House next.

Among the Java-driven visual treats are world leaders who are “rubberised” (a stunt you can also do with your own photo) and a squad of “economists” who can’t take their eyes off the stock market graph, plus “Hunt the Lawyer with Dick Cheney”, a Bush to whom you can feed words to mangle (”pre-dorseylandificate” is how he pronounces this blog) and a couple of adults-only-style recent additions.

Look who was in Bangkok the other day and the bastard didn’t even call me — Jimmy Page. I don’t know the bastard, of course, but still! Maybe he was fuming over the glowing review I’d given Eric Clapton’s biography.

The Nation’s Kitchana Lersakvanitchakul managed to round up a few pertinent facts for a story, but naturally the British rock god was press-shy, so it was all after-the-fact stuff. Evidently Page was in Thailand “resting” after all the work involved in Zeppelin’s triumphant “reunion” concert for Ahmet Ertegun’s charity in London in December and then turning 64 in January.

The local Warner Records managing director, Nadda Buranasiri, was in charge of ushering, and the next thing anyone knew, The Great Jimmy Page was standing inside rockers’ pub O-Leng down on Royal City Avenue, where all the cool people hand out. Rock historians will want to know that this was on February 3.

Eyewitness Ae Wizard, who also plays guitar, as his name might suggest, explained that Page gave pub owner and Season magazine editor Tiva Sarachudha the green light to muster some talent for a jam. Tiva and Nol “Or Inca” Singholka hit the phones and within 30 minutes had half of the Kingdom’s best headbangers clinking glasses with Jimmy (who apparently stuck to Coke).

They, at least, knew who he was. Most Thais will vaguely know “Stairway to Heaven”. Led Zeppelin per se, however, isn’t even in the rock pantheon for the majority here, who tend to favour the Scorpions, if not Michael Jackson. Unfortunately, as Ae Wizard noted, Zep songs are pretty intricate, so this got in the way of Page’s new band actually playing any.

But I don’t think there’s a serious rock fan out there who wouldn’t have donated one and a half kidneys for the chance to see and hear Page and his new pals play “House of the Rising Sun”, “Crossroads”, “Purple Haze” and “Little Wing” — which is what they did play.

Ae Wizard listed himself, Pop the Sun, Moo Kaleidoscope, Olarn Phromjai and Or Inca among the sidemen in the jam session. Page took a break, Ae said, and the guys treated him to a medley of Carabao songs, including “Refugee”.

Kitchana, who’s a headbanger himself, came up with these photos. I have no idea who took them, so anyone swiping them from here really ought to credit The Nation or Dorseyland and we’ll take the court proceedings from there.

The amiable ritual of hand-shaking and snapshot-posing swept up musicians Ae, Moo, Olarn, Asanee Chotikul, Surasee Itthikul, Somchai Kamlertkul and Manote Puttan, plus Grammy Records’ Kris Thomas and DJs Pong and Wasana Weerachatplee.

There are, however, several questions that seem doomed to go tragically unanswered:

* Why are there no photos of the band playing?
* Whose guitar did Page use?
* How much does he want for it?
* Did anyone, anyone at all, bother recording the jam on audiotape or video, for God’s sake?

As a journalist I have to admit that Page was right to avoid alerting the Bangkok news media. I would have followed him around for the entire duration of his stay in Thailand, using a night-vision camera if necessary.

On February 8 Page and a pair of unidentified Western pals made their own way to Overtone, another music club on Royal City Avenue. They merely sat with the regulars listening to Chatree “Ohm” Kongsuwan playing tunes from his new album. No jam session, then.