Nature: it never ceases to amaze. This is a clip from the BBC’s ‘Life Story’ narrated by David Attenborough featuring the courtship practices of a flame bowerbird in Papua, New Guinea. Wow, it looks like a phoenix that’s risen from the ashes! How could you not be impressed? After first building a bower from which his potential mate can watch his elaborate display, he then proceeds the wooing, first expanding and contracting his pupils alternately to hypnotize her. Then, he waves his wings around like a matador’s cape, before some impromptu bobbing and trilling. I don’t know about you, but I would have been in love before the end of the first act. Unfortunately for him, right as he’s about to seal the deal, a rival shows up and startles his mate away. In the words of Sir Attenborough, “Sometimes, whatever you do, things just don’t work out.” Ain’t that the truth, David! Take my life for example.