It's a strange, but not unpleasant, way to end the year. Sat here in a mightily air-conditioned office (dubbed "the goldfish bowl"), which belches out an icy blast every ten minutes, watching old Grand Prix tapes from the BBC archives.

I have reached the 1988 Italian Grand Prix, by way of Monaco 1961, Silverstone 1973 and Spain 1991 - not forgetting Hungary 1989. Murray Walker and James Hunt are ubiquitous, and a small cheer goes up from this newsroom-of-one whenever Nigel Mansell passes Ayrton Senna. I was, and remain (somewhat more sheepishly) a huge Williams fan, and it's a treat to watch the good old days when the likes of Mansell and Patrese would wipe the floor with the hated McLarens.

Your recommendations for other good F1 races from years gone by would be much appreciated, especially pre-1997, that being the year ITV won the rights, and we don't have their tapes yet.

All of which brings us to siphonophorae.

Fresh from the Oyster's Garter, easily San Diego's finest marine biology blog - and you know how I love my marine biology - comes that video, and the below:

Siphonophores, though related to jellyfish, are not a single critter. They're actually a colony of little zooids living together in gelatinous harmony, stinging for their supper.

The dread Portuguese Man O'War is the most famous siphonophore, but there are lots more.

To expand a little further based on five minutes' scanning of Wikipedia while Senna and co make themselves at home on my hard drive, these things look like jellyfish and act like jellyfish, but are actually lots and lots of tiny siphonophores. Each one is designed to fulfil a specific role and, in many cases, without each other they would simply die.

So what you have is an amazing animal that doesn't have the component parts to exist by itself, but is still a big step away from becoming just one, big organism. And if you watched the video, you'll know they also look bloody scary.

Don't have nightmares, but do have a happy new year, wherever you're spending it. I will apparently be spending some of it in a horse-drawn carriage in a forest. I'll be taking a video camera on the off chance we get stalked by otherworldly forces and I get to immortalise myself in a Blair Witch Project rip-off before being gruesomely executed off-camera. Cheers!