Newton’s Great Invention in the Carmen District
One of Valencia’s most charismatic districts is the Barrio del Carmen, the original historic city centre where you can find architectural remnants from several epochs and interesting anecdotal people and places.
The Carmen district also has an old convent that bears the same name and which is now a thriving exhibition centre with two cloisters. In the same street, Calle Museu you can find an interesting object dedicated to an old Valencian legend of the four cats and which always makes me think of home and Sir Isaac Newton.
When Sir Isaac wasn’t wandering in his orchards with an empty basket and an expression of gravity on his face, he was busy making a far greater contribution to human happiness than many of us can even dream of. I refer of course to his well-known invention of the ultimate example of suburban chic; the cat flap.
Many people see in this invention an exemplification of his third law, that: ‘to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction’. Others believe that he knocked up the aforesaid flap so as not to be distracted from his work by mewing moggies; although the question must then be asked why he, or anyone else of sound mind, would want to have a quadruped in his house anyway.
The American writer Bill Bryson once said everything that has ever needed to be said about pets:
“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They are harmless, they look nice, they don’t need a box to crap in, they keep the grass down and they are so trusting and stupid that you cannot help but lose your heart to them. Where I live there’s a herd of cows down the lane. You can stand by the wall at any hour of the day or night and after a minute the cows will all waddle over and stand with you, much too stupid to know what to do next, but happy just to be with you. They will stand there all day, as far as I can tell, possibly till the end of time. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends for ever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill them and eat them. Perfect”.
I suppose it is as well that Newton didn’t allow cows to graze in his meadow; had he done so he would have been so busy avoiding falling into cow pats that he wouldn’t have had time to notice falling apples, and we might still all be huddled under the kitchen table in fear of falling off the world.
One lesser known detail about Newton’s fruitful life was that he was a King’s Justice of the Peace, responsible for hunting down treasonable counterfeiters, having been put in charge of the Royal Mint. So successful was he that more than one get rich fast kid was hung, drawn and quartered as a result of Newton’s calculating efficiency.
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