Физические основы разделения изотопов плазменными методами: [учеб. пособие]

How would you spend the five months between getting engaged and getting married? Arguing over the invites? Worrying about how much it was all going to cost? Robert Twigger decided that the time would be best spent hunting for the world's largest snake in some of the more remote corners of South East Asia. Quite what his fiancée thought of this idea is another story. At this point, it should be made clear that Twigger's previous experience of snakes is precisely nil, and that his motives are purely financial. Trawling the Internet one evening, he discovered that the Roosevelt Prize of $50,000 for the live capture of a snake over 30 feet long was still unclaimed and, with a brilliant synaptic leap, reckoned that he was the man for the job.As a premise for riches it is a complete non-starter. It soon becomes clear that the reason the prize has remained unclaimed is because snakes very rarely grow to 30 feet. The longest yet taken alive--a reticulated python--measured 28 feet and no one really expects to find one any longer. But as a premise for a book, with Twigger cast in the leading role as some latter-day Redmond O'Hanlon innocent abroad, it's tremendously good fun. Twigger begins his poetic quest in Kuala Lumpur. I suppose a man's got to start somewhere but the sewers of KL aren't the first place that spring to mind. Still, it gives us the opportunity to meet a few unlikely characters --in the shape of the Jabatan boys who are happy to feed Twigger's fantasies so long as he is paying their wages. Before long, Twigger realises that his chances of finding the longest snake in KL are about the same as his chances of dating the self- styled most beautiful girl in the world--who he bumps into in a night club. We then branch out into the forests of Indonesia, where the search begins in earnest. The various encounters with snakes really serve as a backdrop for a portrait of the little-known archipelagos of Malaya and Indonesia. To describe them as a world apart is only to scratch the surface. Twigger writes with comedic ease but he still brings to light the tensions of two cultures colliding. He may have thought he was going for a jaunt in the jungle but he finds a heart of darkness. Much to our surprise--and one suspects his--Twigger does eventually locate a big snake, but the final capture is not what he expected. It spoils the ending to say what does happen--but I don¹t think I¹m giving too much away when I tell you that the snake was well under 30 feet. --John Crace