Look, no hands!

I bust my tendon running

2012-01-18T14:55:00.000Z

I bust my tendon running,
And didn’t even know,
There was no pop or crack or stab,
I just got very slow
And by the time the finish came
My feet would hardly go.

I gave myself some blisters
Running the day before
I should have stopped much earlier
When they started getting sore
But no, I kept on going
Being greedy, wanting more.

If I had been unwise then
I got unwiser the next day
When I covered sores with plasters
Then set off on my way
Careering ‘cross the Common
Up steep muddy pathways.

The first four miles were fine
But the final one was not,
I stubbornly still jogged along
Then walked then limped then hopped
All the way back to the car park
Where I found a seat and flopped.

I took my foot and prodded
As hard as I would dare
But however much I pressed it
The pain just wasn’t there
Though as soon as I stood up
It hurt enough to make me swear.

There is no inflammation,
No redness, bruise or bump,
My foot - it looks just fine,
While I’m a proper grump
Cos instead of being active
I’m stuck sat here on my rump.

So I went off to the doctor
To see what he would say
Hoping for nothing serious
Like a fracture, tear or sprain,
Instead a little bruising
That would clear up in a day.

The brave man took my foot
Twisted it from side to side,
Did some more expert prodding,
Then seemed to decide
His inspection was sufficient
And pulled out a fat guide.

He opened at a picture
Of a big foot all laid bare
Pointed at the ‘Peroneous brevis’
Saying “Look, it’s that one there,
You’ve probably inflamed it
Just rest and take some care.”

So it seems it’s ok really,
But I’ll have to take a break
And pop some paracetamol
Or put up with the ache.
I just hope it gets better quickly
For my sanity’s sake...

Science is boring

2011-03-09T17:41:00.000Z

Science is boring.

Science is hard.

Science is irrelevant.

Scientists are all men with crazy hairy white coats.

Scientists are dull.

Scientists have no social skills.

As a scientist myself, I disagree vehemently with the statements above. However, I'm willing to bet that if you plucked a random member of the public off the street and showed them this list they’d nod their heads in agreement. This is something that frustrates me deeply.

We can live to a ripe old age. We can travel all over the globe. We have plenty to eat. We can talk to pretty much anyone, anywhere, from anywhere. We don't all have to slave away at manual labour. We have ridiculous amounts of entertainment available. Thanks to what? Science and engineering. Are these things bad? No! So why, as a rule, do people hate science?

In the UK we have a culture that worships wealth and celebrity. We no longer care about actually making things or discovering things. Instead it's all about the marketing, the advertising, the 'doing business'. We are concerned more with the superficial appearance of products than with their inner workings.

From an early age children are taught that science and maths are hard, only for geeks and nerds. There's no shame in not understanding; in fact to fit in with our peers ignorance is positively encouraged. Once these views are introduced they quickly become entrenched, with disinterested kids becoming adults who boast at dinner parties of their inability to add up.

This is a monumental reconditioning. By our very nature humans are curious, creative creatures. We begin life fascinated by how things work. And the whole point of science is to find out how things work. How every single thing in the entire universe works. How can that possibly be dull? How can people look at the world around them and have no desire to understand it? Yes, the understanding is sometimes hard. But many things worth having are hard to get, and often the greater the challenge the more satisfying the rewards.

The lack of scientific understanding in the general public causes many problems. For scientists themselves it's pretty rubbish as we are unappreciated and looked down on. But that's a minor issue. Much more important is the fact that if people lack knowledge they can be easily manipulated. The media can whip up scare stories and people are unable to filter the truth from the fabrications. Ill people can be persuaded to go and see homeopaths instead of doctors, parents deprive their children of vaccinations against terrible diseases, politicians don't think that changing the composition of the atmosphere will change the climate. This is dangerous.

I love learning new stuff. Most people don't. Why?

My old lab looks a little like this. I think lasers are cool.

Mark Thomas at the Exeter Phoenix

2011-02-11T12:06:00.000Z

Mark Thomas is a political activist/comedian who makes a living by getting worked up about various causes, going on trips to find out more about them and then returning to the UK to tell us all what he's discovered via books and shows. Previous issues that he's tackled include the arms trade and human rights violations committed by Coca-Cola, but this tour he's turned his attention to the Middle East. His slightly deranged plan, which he's termed 'extreme rambling', was to walk the entire length of the separation wall, the barrier constructed by the Israelis ostensibly to prevent suicide bombers crossing into Israel. Along the way he would speak to both Israelis and Palestinians living nearby, to try to better understand what they believed and to work out whether this wall could possibly be a good thing.

Given the militarised state of the West Bank, and the fact that people get shot and gassed all the time for going anywhere near the wall, this was quite a big ask. However, being British (fake-Scottish to be more specific) and having the assistance of a local 'fixer' proved considerable boons, and he actually managed to complete his walk. Along the way he met a whole host of fascinating people and learned an awful lot, experiences which he is truly eager to share.

Like most comedians he's a bit of a lefty, and so his natural sympathies lie with the oppressed Palestinians. However, he doesn't attempt to ram ideology down our throats; rather he tells us stories about what he saw, the people he spoke to, and leaves his conclusions until the epilogue. The subject matter is at times utterly horrifying, but Thomas simply states these facts in a low sombre tones, then quickly moves on to a more light-hearted anecdote. This deft way of mixing serious issues with laugh-out-loud comedy is what makes Thomas so successful. The audience gets the message but goes away uplifted rather than depressed, and doesn't get bogged down in the horror of it all.

After the show we stayed for a beer, and after a while were shocked to see Thomas appear in the bar area wearing a suit. A suit? Crikey, that's not what we expected. However, it fit well with his professionalism, and he took the time to have a decent conversation with everyone who had hung around. He seemed genuinely grateful that people had come along rather than being resentful that he had to sign stuff. We had a good chat and shook his hand. It's nice when your heroes don't disappoint you.

Mark Thomas

The Smoke Fairies at the Exeter Phoenix

2011-02-02T12:22:00.001Z

The Smoke Fairies are not your usual kind of group. The music produced by Katherine Blamire, Jessica Davies and their backing band defies easy categorisation: a mix of folk (but not in a hippie-with-guitar way) and bluesy Americana with occasional smatterings of rock combine to produce a shivery, soulful sound. This is music filled with winter, best listened to in the woods at night in the freezing cold with a full moon rising (probably).

It was therefore a bit of a shame to see them indoors, in the hot and stuffy auditorium of the Exeter Phoenix. The advantage of the venue is that it is rather small, and so everyone is close to the action and can admire the skill with which the girls play their licks and slides. The guitar work looks pretty complicated, and is perhaps the reason why they never looked like they were enjoying themselves; too much concentration required to crack a smile. They did however engage with the crowd in spurts of banter between songs, revealing at one point that they were tanked up on an odd mix of Lemsip Max and whisky.

Thankfully no hint of a cold was evident in their voices, which are sublime. They complement each other beautifully, weaving their way through luscious harmonies and counter-melodies. Their slightly nervy, Home Counties-accented speaking tones seem jarringly ordinary in comparison.

Normally I prefer music at the rockier end of the spectrum, but the Smoke Fairies work best when pared down. This was illustrated perfectly when the rest of the band went out back, leaving just the two girls on stage to perform the song 'Erie Lackawanna'. A slow and melancholy tale of old age, this was truly haunting. Faster numbers such as 'Hotel Room' were also very good, and provided a welcome change of pace, but lacked the shiver-down-your-spine quality.

Support came from Sea of Bees, whose performance was elevated by the lead singer's unique voice, although it did at times feel like an on-stage therapy session. The music was well done, but not really to my taste. Overall though, the evening was excellent and an absolute bargain at just seven pounds for a ticket.

Smoke Fairies

Hash House Harriers: the drinking club with a running problem

2011-01-26T13:13:00.002Z

Running? Not my cup of tea, thanks. All that Tarmac pounding and extra effort in order to move marginally faster than I can walk? The expensive shoes, the fluorescent jackets, the god-forsaken Lycra? The near-guaranteed knee problems? No, I'm definitely not interested.

Unless ...

What if the whole aim of the exercise was to work up a good thirst for the beer afterwards? What if you didn't trudge up and down the same route time after time, but had a different trail each week? What if you could pause and walk whenever you felt in need of a breather, and no one would think any less of you? What if there were enforced sweetie and beer stops along the way? What if you were running with a big group of friendly, and utterly bonkers, people?

That sounds much more appealing.

But does such a group exist? Brilliantly, yes it does. Not just in the UK but all over the world people calling themselves hashers are running riot through the countryside and the cities, confusing passers-by and livestock alike with their cries of 'On on!' and 'Checking!'. What's more, they've been doing this since 1938, when the whole idea was devised by a group of British officers in Kuala Lumpur.

Picture stolen from Isca website. Don't worry, they won't mind.

So what exactly is it they are doing? Well, the whole idea is based on paper chases, whereby a person known as the hare sets the trail and the rest of the pack follow it. It isn't an easy route however, being littered with false trails, dead ends and loops of differing lengths. Various symbols are marked out in chalk, flour or sawdust, the most important being the circular check. When a check is reached the hashers at the front of the pack (known affectionately as the Front Running Bastards) go off in search of dots which mark where the trail goes next. While the FRBs are doing this hunting the rest of the group can catch up, ensuring that everyone is kept together and that things don't get unpleasantly competitive.

The trails tend to be circular, between 4 and 7 miles long, and finish off at a pub. Before the serious business of drinking can be undertaken however, all the hashers have to form a big circle so that the Religious Adviser (a member of the Mismanagement) can dish out the Down downs. These are awarded to thank the hares, to punish those who have been 'naughty' during the run, or for any other tenuous reason that can be conjured up. As can be guessed from the name, those given a Down down have to drink half a pint of (usually) beer all in one go, whilst being jeered at by the rest of the pack.

One additional idiosyncrasy is the fact that no one goes by their real name. This custom derives from hashing’s colonial beginnings, and allowed men of all different ranks to run together as equals. Names range from the gently teasing to the crude, and once chosen can't be changed. To give you a general idea, my hash name is Twice Nightly.

I've been a hasher for about three months now and I'm in danger of becoming addicted to it. I'm still terrible at running of course, but that isn't the point. What could be more fun than careering through the muddy countryside with a bunch of great people followed by drinking proper beer at a nice pub? Not a lot, I reckon.

Find a hash near you:

The UK Hash House Harriers website

Groups I've hashed with:

On on!

University shouldn't just be for the rich

2010-12-07T12:44:00.000Z

A bit of a cheat of a post this, but it may be useful for anyone similarly enraged by the UK Government's planned desctruction of the higher education system. Finding myself in too much pain to do any science this morning I instead wrote to my MP to urge him to vote against the proposed reforms on Thursday. He's an old Etonian Tory so there's little chance of this, but hey, one has to try. I took a more emotive, personal approach rather than concentrating on the cold hard economic arguments, but feel free to steal as much of this as is relevant to you and use it to write to your own MP. The more people who complain the better.

Here's the letter:

Dear Mr. Swire,

Re: Changes in higher education funding

I am writing to request that as my MP you vote against the proposed changes in higher education funding. Drastically cutting university funding at a time when high skill levels are vital for rejuvenating the economy makes no sense. Indeed, the vast majority of other countries are doing the reverse of this, seeing education as a valuable investment in the future. I cannot believe that these countries are all wrong and that the Coalition Government alone is correct.

Shifting more of the burden of higher education funding to students by tripling the level of fees charged is also an action that I am deeply opposed to. I am well aware that the threshold at which repayments start is being raised, and that initially the repayments may be lower than they are at present, but these details do not make up for the sheer size of the debt that students will accumulate. Leaving young people with mortgage-sized debt before they have even had the chance to earn money for themselves is wrong.

I am aware that for most of the current cabinet a debt of around £40,000 (when both fees and living costs are taken into account) would seem trifling. However, for the majority of the population it is a quite frankly terrifying amount of money. With this burden at the age of 21, how on earth are young people going to be able to ever buy houses and to save up for their retirement? Once more the younger generation are being punished for the excesses of those who came before them.

The claim that students should pay because the average man on the street has not been to university and so doesn't benefit from higher education does not stand up to scrutiny. Each time people visit a doctor, speak to a solicitor, or deal with any number of skilled individuals whose services they require, they are benefiting from higher education. Much better and fairer therefore to fund the universities from general taxation, but simply to increase the higher rates of tax and crack down on avoidance. This way those who earn more thanks to their degrees will pay more back automatically.

I personally attended university when the fee levels were much lower. I was very successful, coming away with a first-class masters degree from a redbrick university. In my final year I was shortlisted for the award of best chemistry student at the Science Engineering and Technology student awards. I am currently studying for a PhD. By all accounts I am quite good at what I do. However, I am not from an overly rich family and if fees had been as high as is proposed there is no way that I would have gone to university. This is not because I do not understand the proposals, as some ministers have suggested. It is because the amount of money involved is huge, and as a scientist I am highly unlikely to ever have a correspondingly huge salary. Is this right? Do people like me not deserve to go to university?

The government quite rightly thinks that having huge debt is a bad thing; it certainly seems in a hurry to reduce that of the country. Why then does it think saddling young people with enormous debt before they even get started in life is a good thing? Please help prevent this by voting against the proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Kiera Jones

Felix Dennis at the Exeter Phoenix

2010-09-22T18:33:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I went to see a poet. This was a rather odd thing for me to do as poetry isn't usually my thing. Or rather, the kind of poetry I got forced to study in English classes at school isn't my thing. I truly thought that the vast majority of poems in the GCSE syllabus were dire.

There was one occasion when we were all bundled into a coach and driven to London in order to listen to some poets read their work. One by one, they took to the stage to regurgitate their poems, robot-like, with monotonous voices and no detectable enthusiasm. The teenage audience fidgeted and yawned. But then Benjamin Zephaniah entered the room, and everyone was transfixed. It wasn't just because he was a colourfully-dressed Rastafarian with long dreadlocks tumbling down his back, although that certainly helped get people's attention. It was the poetry: it rhymed, it was funny, it had a beat, and most importantly, it was performed.

In my mind, performance is an essential part of poetry. Verse intended only to be read silently from the page whilst sat alone in the corner of an empty room often seems to end up dry, boring and pretentious. The aim is no longer to put together a bunch of words that sound good and mean something, oh no. Instead, those writing such poems seem to compete with each other to see who can produce the most inaccessible, obscure, unpopular work. If ordinary people actually enjoy reading the stuff, it is somehow seen as having less value. But what is the point of writing words that never get read?

Despite the fact that he is one of the country’s richest men, I had never heard of Felix Dennis until a flyer fell out of my copy of the New Statesman. And I must also confess that I probably would have remained blissfully ignorant and said flyer would have gone straight into the recycling bin if it hadn't been for the sentence 'Did I mention the free wine?' emblazoned across the top.

I'm a student. Go figure.

My interest thus piqued, I looked Dennis up on youTube and found a video of him performing his poem 'I love the French ... the bastards'. It was hilarious, it had rhythm, and it rhymed, and so I duly booked tickets. They were pretty cheap, and hey, there was going to be free wine, so I thought it wouldn't really matter much if the poetry wasn't that great.

So, yesterday evening I arrived at the Phoenix having just staggered off a train from Birmingham, where I had spent the day trying to understand quantum dynamics calculations (this is a distressingly difficult thing to do). I was exhausted, and my brain was fragged, and so a nice glass of red was exactly I needed. We staggered up to the bar, expecting cheap plonk, only to be confronted by a whole array of bottles containing wine that looked really rather nice. We had a sip: crikey! This was good wine.

We spent the best part of an hour lounging around, contentedly drinking, before being called into the auditorium, which was packed full of people of a certain age and a certain demographic (as usual, a demographic to which I do not belong). Once everyone was in, the lights went down and a deep booming voice resonated out from somewhere backstage. Moments later, the owner of said voice strode out onto the stage, accompanied by a microphone and, of course, a glass of white.

Felix Dennis is an interesting-looking chap. He has the scruffy nonchalance of a man who could afford to dress much better but chooses not to. His hair and beard are grey masses of unruly frizz, his eyes are alert but slightly sozzled; he is short of stature but wide of girth. He wears a baggy shirt and trousers, just about kept under control by a tan-coloured waistcoat, and seems perfectly at home upon the stage.

The evening began with the obligatory thank yous and plugs for The Week’s wine club and travel service. But these were quickly over and we entered the meat of the proceedings: the poems. Read in a voice whose timbre ranges from the everyday to the husky and dramatic, these were in equal parts amusing and melancholy. Many were accompanied by animations projected onto the back screen. These, produced by a mixture of collaborators and fans, were on the whole well-made and apt, but most of the time I found my eyes drawn to Dennis himself.

Dennis clearly holds similar opinions to my own on modern poetry, and takes aim at the concept of 'free verse' at several points during the evening. Although he occasionally points out that a poem follows a particular style, it is clear that the technicalities are irrelevant. What matters is that his poems sound good, and that they have meanings that the audience doesn't have to go hunting for. They are enjoyable, accessible, but still provoke thought. Each one was met with enthusiastic applause.

The first half lasted for around fifty minutes, followed by an interval in which there was ample time to top up our glasses. The second half was of a similar length to the first, but was kicked off by Alyson Hallett, a local poet who read a handful of short works. She was fine, but lacked Dennis’ vigour, and I found I actually preferred her ‘pre-poem chat’ to the poems themselves. This addition to the programme was however a nice idea, and as the tour continues it will hopefully give a few under-appreciated poets the chance to reach a wider audience.

When Dennis returned the atmosphere took on a less light-hearted tinge, as he recited poems ruminating on age, death and regret. It wasn't all doom and gloom however, with plenty of laughs squeezed in before his rock star-esque double-encore finale. Then it was back out to the bar for more wine and book signings. We came away with two of his collections, his latest 'Tales from the Woods' and 'Nursery Rhymes for Modern Times': one to make us think, one to make us laugh. Dennis signed both, and to his credit seemed to be genuinely engaging with each person who queued up to speak to him. He didn't however seem overly taken with my suggestion that he should take the role of Poet Laureate; a shame because if he did I think poetry would become much more popular.

Go see him!

Felix Dennis

La Bête at the Comedy Theatre, London

2010-08-24T17:28:00.002+01:00

Molière, the real one.

Written in 1991 by David Hirson, La Bête is set in 17th-century France and apparently aims to be a light take-off of plays by Molière. It is a comedy with a serious undercurrent, namely the age-old debate of quality versus commerciality in the arts. Now, I know virtually nothing about Molière (my only contact with his plays has been an abridged version of one that I saw whilst doing A-level French), and so can't comment on how it compares with the more esteemed playwright's work, but this didn't detract from the experience. In fact, my relative ignorance may have even enhanced my enjoyment of the play, as it was by far at its weakest when trying to have a 'message' or 'deeper meaning'.

The play opens to the scene of a dinner party, the guests of which are members of an acting troupe retained by a Princess who sees herself as a patron of the arts. However, all is not well and the troupe’s leader Elomire (can you see what Hirson did there??) soon stomps off to sulk in his library, where he proceeds to moan to his loyal friend. The cause of his disgruntlement is soon revealed: the Princess has declared that a new playwright and actor, Valere, must join the troupe. This Valere is not, however, a purveyor of the kind of 'high art' that Elomire likes to produce, rather he is little more than a street clown.

The audience doesn't have to spend long wondering if Valere can really be as bad as all that; within scant minutes he bursts onto the scene in all his dishevelled, tramp-like glory. We quickly become sympathetic to Elomire’s point of view as Valere embarks upon a drunken monologue that, astonishingly, lasts a full half-hour. During this time the clown doesn't just talk, he also relieves himself and hides away in a box. Elomire just stands there, his expression becoming increasingly pained.

Thirty minutes seems like an awfully long time for one actor to be speaking, especially when you combine this with the fact that the entire play is written in rhyming couplets. Remarkably, it works, and it works extremely well. This is mostly due to the skill of Mark Rylance, the actor playing Valere, who is superb throughout. With his raucous delivery the script becomes laugh-out-loud funny. David Hyde Pierce is also excellent as Elomire, even if all he has to do a lot of the time is look annoyed.

Any play written and performed by Valere is almost guaranteed to be awful, hence we are left wondering why the Princess would wish to employ him. The reason becomes clear when she first enters the scene: she is really rather silly herself. The original script called for a prince, but in this version the part has been rewritten as female in order to accommodate Joanna Lumley. Here, Lumley is rather out-acted by her co-stars, but she is nonetheless perfectly adequate. It would be hard for her to be otherwise; in a role as a ditzy aristocrat she is essentially playing herself.

The action unfolds on a truly sumptuous set. Crammed bookshelves take up three walls, rising ever upwards, concealing hidden doors that lead to, amongst other places, the toilet. A lot of effort has also been put into the costumes, most notably the wigs, and, I suspect, Valere’s teeth! I was sat as usual in the upper circle, in a seat with a slightly restricted view, but this wasn't much of an issue - such a stage setup will look good from any angle.

The play's message is one that we have heard many times before, and the whole thing is hardly a work of genius. Without such high quality acting it would undoubtedly struggle. However, in its current form at the Comedy Theatre La Bête makes for a thoroughly entertaining evening out and therefore is to be recommended.

Three small butterflies

2010-08-16T15:52:00.004+01:00

Lawns are not very interesting. Green, freshly mown grass may be good for walking on, for playing sport on, and for admiring from afar if orderliness is your kind of thing, but it isn't so useful for creatures. Short, neat stumps of grass aren't great for hiding amongst and don't provide much to munch on, and hence if a field is so manicured that it could be mistaken for Astroturf, it is unlikely to have much living in it. Let the grass grow just a bit longer however, so that the ends tickle your calves as you walk through it, and as if by magic the previously-barren spot will be teeming with life.

All manner of creepy crawlies like to hang out in long grass, from tiny ants and flies to bumblebees and dragonflies. Most colourful, however, have to be the butterflies, which flutter skittishly from perch to perch in search of tasty nectar. Larger varieties such as the Peacock and Red Admiral are easily recognised due to their distinct patterns, but just as attractive are some of the less well-known smaller species. I managed to spot three of the latter recently.

This little fellow is a Brown Argus Butterfly. Confusingly, it is a variety of blue butterfly, despite it not being in the slightest bit blue-coloured (the undersides however are similar). They are most commonly found in the south and east of the UK, preferring to spend their time in chalk and limestone grassland. With a wingspan of only about 25 mm they are about half the size of a Red Admiral and so can be tricky to spot in dense vegetation. If you do manage to clap eyes on one however, you won't have to worry too much about losing it for these are truly lazy butterflies. They rarely travel more than 200 m from the site where they emerged, and like nothing better than to lie around soaking up the heat of the sun. Interestingly, their caterpillars are tended to by ants: the ants provide protection in exchange for a honey-like secretion from the caterpillars’ 'Newcomer’s' glands.

This is another butterfly from the same family, but this time at least the males are actually blue! Such Common Blue butterflies are, as the name suggests, regularly seen all over the UK. They are not fussy about their habitat, and will happily live in gardens, on verges, or even on sand dunes. Similarly, they will contentedly guzzle nectar from all kinds of sources, with thistles and clover is being just two examples of the many plants they feed on. During the day they flap around casually from flower to flower, then at night they become quite sociable, and it is often possible to find a whole group roosting on the same grass stem.

This final specimen is the ominously-named Gatekeeper butterfly. There is however nothing remotely unsettling about it, it is simply a very small (20 mm or so) creature that likes to frequent scrubby grassland. The males tend to pick a shrub they like the look of and from there establish a little territory. The females find a mate and then set off to lay their eggs, of which there may be a couple of hundred. Unlike other butterflies, which tend to get through several generations each year, Gatekeepers only go through one cycle, which peaks at the beginning of August. This time of year is in fact when many butterfly populations peak, meaning that the countryside should be swarming with them. Go out and find some!

Selby shines, but Perry and Carter fail to ignite the Crucible

2010-04-27T12:52:00.002+01:00

Snooker’s most prestigious tournament, the World Championship, is currently taking place at the Crucible theatre in Sheffield. It’s a fantastic, intimate venue in which the very best players are on show, and hence tickets get snapped up as soon as they become available. Fortunately I managed to put up with the theatre’s ear-gratingly bad hold music for long enough to secure some, and so yesterday morning four of us found ourselves tucked up in the back corner of the back row ready to watch the second session of Mark Selby versus Stephen Hendry.

The atmosphere at snooker matches is always great, but at the Crucible it is perhaps even better. The crowd of students, middle-aged men and silver-haired grannies mingles together happily, with the occasional player or referee casually thrown into the mix. Snooker is a sport where fans can get close to their heroes: I strode alongside Willie Thorne for a good few paces on the way in; my friend Mike walked past Rob Walker at the train station; as we left we spotted Jan Verhaas chatting up a couple of ladies in a nearby Starbucks. It's all about the action on the table, however, and we had what could turn into a good match on our hands: a star of the future versus a star of the past.

The first session had turned out evens, with Selby and Hendry having four frames apiece. However, the situation became rapidly one-sided as the Jester from Leicester started to demolish his opponent. Hendry did start reasonably in the opening frame, but then the first of what was to turn into a series of avoidable errors allowed Selby to get straight back in, and he took no hesitation in powering through a break of 96. And so it continued. Hendry for a moment looked like he was going to get a frame on the board, but a bad miss let Selby in, and the younger player ruthlessly cleared up. Hendry sat in his seat with his head hanging low, unable to watch as the frame that should have been his inexorably slipped away. The score was now 4-8 in Selby's favour.

Any hopes that the 15 minute mid-session interval would allow the former champion to get himself together and put up a fight were quickly dashed. He did manage to come out tops in one frame, but Selby's cueing just got better and better and Hendry found himself unable to respond. Up in the commentary box Willie Thorne was getting increasingly excited about Selby's cue ball control, waxing lyrical about 'deep screws' like there was no tomorrow. This control, combined with some superb potting, earned Selby every remaining frame in the match.

We walked out pleased to have seen a player on top form, but disappointed that it hadn't been more of a contest. Maybe the afternoon session would hold more promise: Joe Perry and Ali Carter should be quite evenly matched and so surely we could look forward to some good safety exchanges and the odd dash of drama. We grabbed an improvised lunch of satsumas and Club cake bars from Somerfield, then strolled back to the Crucible.

Carter had established a decent overnight lead, and at 10-6 he had just three frames left to win in order to progress to the quarter-finals. However, he seemed to have left all his form in his hotel room and struggled hugely to pot anything. Perry was better, but not by much, and together they made a complete mess of the table for the first few frames. We looked at each other and shook our heads. This was not good snooker.

It didn't help that on the other side of the theatre there was a cracking match between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams taking place. It also didn't help that our commentating team was Neal Foulds and Terry Griffiths. Now Neal can be okay when teamed with someone able to add a bit of excitement to proceedings, but Terry's utterly inane observations, delivered in his usual soporific tones, soon had us all yawning. One by one we either took out our earpieces or switched over to listen to John Parrott and Dennis Taylor discussing the action on the other table.

How we wished the dividing screen would just go up! It seemed that Ronnie was having a good day, and that Williams was playing superbly. Alas, unless the action was taking place around the yellow spot (which we could just about see from our back-row position), we were unable to get a glimpse of it. Oh, the frustration!

Back to our table, and things did admittedly improve a little. Whatever Ali Carter did during the mid-session interval, it woke him up and he remembered how to play. In the first half of the session Perry had caught up to level the score 10-10, but a century break, followed by a solid 82 took Carter back into the lead. The final frame was again scrappy, but Carter clinched it, and with it the match. He may be through to the quarter-finals, but he'll have to play a lot better if he hopes to defeat Shaun Murphy later today. As for us, we got up, stretched, said goodbye to the Crucible and began the long drive south.

Snooker on the BBC

Snooker and ice hockey: a comparison

2010-03-04T17:24:00.008Z

On Sunday I went to see an ice hockey match. No, not Canada vs the United States at the Winter Olympics, although that was taking place at a similar time. It was the rather less glamorous line-up of ‘Guildford Flames’ vs ‘Milton Keynes Lightning’, taking place at the Guildford Spectrum leisure centre.

Ten years ago or so I used to go and watch hockey matches quite regularly, supporting what was then known as the ‘Swindon Chill’. Alas, this team was as lousy as their name and the attraction of seeing them lose every week soon wore off. Nowadays they appear to have reverted to the infinitely better name of ‘Wildcats’, but are alas still languishing near the bottom of the league.

Ice hockey is a rapidly-moving sport in which the players alternate between highly skilful puck passing and beating hell out of each other. Only the most blatant infractions are called up by the referees, who then give out penalties with wonderfully euphemistic names: ‘hooking’ appears to mean jabbing a stick violently into an opponent’s stomach and trying to haul them backwards, ‘holding’ can mean physically sitting on another player to stop them from moving, and my absolute favourite ‘roughing’ means attempted murder.

As I watched what was a very entertaining match it struck me that ice hockey is the diametric opposite of snooker, the ‘sport’ (yes, I know that any game with Stephen Lee as a top player can’t really be called a sport) that I go to see most often. Now, this may seem a senseless comparison, what with hockey being a team game played on ice and snooker being a rather more sedate affair played on a posh table, but I’m going to make it nonetheless. I also can’t confess to knowing a great deal about ice hockey, but then again I’m not convinced there is a great deal to know.

My first point regards tactics. Snooker matches are as much down to clever thinking as they are down to skill with the cue. Players have definite strategies and plan out several shots in advance. When taking a shot the goal isn’t simply to get the object ball in the pocket; in addition the white needs to land in the perfect position for the next pot. If no pot is obvious then the white needs to bring a ball into a pottable position and finish neatly lined up with it. The precision required, and the rapid calculations of velocities and angles, are extraordinary.

In ice hockey on the other hand, any tactics employed are rather less obvious to a casual observer. The aim is to get the puck into the goal. That’s pretty much it. There don’t appear to be any great over-arching strategies, and indeed there is no need for there to be. Play moves so quickly up and down the rink that there simply isn’t any time for carefully planned-out formations. The players don’t have the opportunity to consider their next move; they have to react at almost the same instant that they receive the puck. Hesitate for even a second and they’ll find themselves bashed up against the wall by an opponent.

An entire ice hockey match is over in 60 minutes of play, separated into three equal periods. Given the constant stops and starts, and the need to resurface the ice, it does in reality take rather longer than this. However, it's still pretty short for a sports match. One of the reasons for this is that it's a supremely knackering game. The players charge up and down the rink at ferocious speeds and bash into each other at full-force. To allow the team to cope with this constant exertion there are plenty more players available on the bench than are needed on the ice at any one time, and they chop and change constantly.

For the snooker player there is no hope of a substitute when feeling Tired. Here the exhaustion is mental not physical and the match is very much head to head. It also lasts for much, much longer. Ronnie aside, most players take a good few seconds over each shot, and can deliberate for well over a minute if it's a tricky snooker. In the same period of time in ice hockey there could well have been two goals and a handful of penalties. Snooker frames can be over in 15 minutes if one player dominates and has a good run of the balls, but the majority will contain more safety play and so will last for rather longer. And of course one frame is not the entire match; the final of the World Championship is the best of 35 frames. 35 frames! That's insanely long.

Another difference is that struck me was the behaviour of the crowds. At the ice hockey there was constant cheering and chanting and bashing of drums, and the rink positively exploded each time a home goal was scored. In contrast, snooker audiences keep incredibly quiet, bursting into applause after good shots but rapidly quieting down lest the referee turns and tells them off. I can't imagine any hockey referee complaining to a fan unless they actually chucked something onto the ice, and even then if it was something small and fluffy they’d probably get away with it. After all, the refs are too busy trying to stop the players from committing grievous bodily harm to pay much attention to such minor matters.

Strangely, and despite the differences of the loud and brash versus the quiet and collected, the atmosphere at both sports is really rather good. The ice hockey crowd is more obviously entertaining and being entertained, but the tense excitement at a snooker game can't be matched. Both are niche sports and have small but dedicated fanbases which give events a real welcoming feel. Personally, snooker appeals more due to its more cerebral nature and the sheer variety of play from match to match. But when I want a good burst of adrenaline, I'll certainly give ice hockey another try.

‘Waiting for Godot’ at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket

2010-02-26T11:37:00.004Z

Samuel Beckett's 1953 play 'Waiting for Godot' was one of the West End’s hot tickets last year; its pairing of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart proving so popular that every seat for every performance was sold. Luckily for the likes of me it has been revived for an additional eleven weeks this year, still with McKellen as Estragon (or Gogo) but now with Roger Rees as Vladimir (or Didi). Tickets now seem to be rather less in demand, which worked out beautifully as I was able to procure Royal Circle tickets for the princely sum of £20 each. Used as I am to sitting in the Upper Circle or the Balcony, I found this whole experience rather novel: going to see a play and not being several stories above the action? Being able to stretch my legs out? Sitting in a seat with a padded back? What luxury! I'd better not get used to it, or things could get expensive.

Anyway, to the play. It's an odd one, this. I can understand why many people don't like it, seeing as the entire plot can be described as 'two old tramps wait for a man called Godot to turn up'. That isn't a summary, by the way, it's all that happens. Most tales can be said to have a beginning, a middle and an end; 'Waiting for Godot' cannot. We simply watch Gogo and Didi over two days, two days that are essentially identical. Then it stops. The audience doesn't need to see any more; if there were to be a third day it would simply be the same as the first two, and so there is no point in carrying on.

Put like this, it all sounds terribly dull, but somehow, and I'm not exactly sure why, it isn't. It definitely helps that the two tramps are quite entertaining characters who keep a veneer of comedy to hide the tragedy of their lives. They are rather like a musical double-act that has fallen on hard times, an impression reinforced by the ruined-theatre setting (the script originally called for a country road) and the little dances and hat-switching routines that they perform. Neither managed to completely conceal their deep-seated despair, however. For Gogo this manifests as grumpiness, resignation and thoughts of suicide. Didi, on the other hand, expresses his discontent in animated monologues and restlessness.

The pair mostly seem to pass the time with brief, intense conversations and by trading insults. Each day this interaction is interrupted by the arrival of the rich, larger than life Pozzo and his slave Lucky. Pozzo, who is played with great gusto by Matthew Kelly, has a rather strange relationship with Ronald Pickup’s dutifully obedient Lucky. The two are linked by a rope that runs around the latter’s neck, and although Pozzo is clearly the dominant one it would seem that neither could do without the other, much as is the case for Gogo and Didi. Pickup has a wonderfully crumpled old face and an impressive head of long, white hair that is probably a wig but that I wish was his own. Most of the time he is left to stand, eyes to the ground, as the action (such as it is) carries on about him. He is not without his moment of glory, however. This comes when he is asked to dance, and then to think, at which point he lets out an incredible, barely-comprehensible monologue that is really rather exhausting to listen to.

There are many themes that could be said to run through 'Waiting for Godot', from the religious to the political, from the existential to the absurd. Many trees worth of paper has been consumed in its analysis, a process that I find rather mystifying especially given that even Beckett didn't seem too clear on what it was about. For me, it was a great evening out at the theatre seeing an interesting, impeccably-acted play in which not a lot happened. That's all it was, and in my mind that's all it needs to be. I would thoroughly recommend it.

Waiting for Godot

The Walnut Orb-Weaver Spider

2010-02-25T10:40:00.002Z

I found this spider crawling around on the side of a shed last summer. With its dark, leathery, flattened body and disconcertingly slow movement, it seemed rather, well, sinister. It certainly appeared much meaner than most of the spiders to be found in the garden: a sneaky, dangerous-looking creature with something of the night about it. Concerned that it might be capable of a nasty bite, I left it well alone.

In fact, this little beastie is a perfectly ordinary, harmless garden spider. Despite being extremely common it is rarely seen as it is mostly active at night. During the day it squeezes its thin body into crevices, often under bark, hidden well out of sight of any predators. Then in the evening it emerges, cautiously, and spins its flat, circular web. Once it has finished this construction it will move to the web’s centre and stay there perfectly still, waiting for unwary flying insects to get trapped.

If the spider feels spooked during the night it will return to hide in its crevice, slowly following a guideline of silk. Before the sun rises it completely dismantles its web, leaving no trace that it was ever there. Given that the webs can reach 70 cm in diameter, this daily cycle of building and demolition seems like an extraordinary waste of effort. Maybe all this work just fills the time, or maybe the webs are actually a bit naff and so wouldn't last more than a night anyway.

If you spot one of these spiders it's likely to be a female. These are bigger, at up to 15 mm long, and are active all year. Males on the other hand only ever grow to 9 mm and are only out and about during the summer. Interestingly, if you pick up a male it may bite you, although however hard it chomps down it won't do you any real harm. The Walnut Orb-Weaver would seem therefore not to be the villain it appears. It does 'live in the shadows' as its Latin name Nuctenea umbractica implies, but this is simply because it is too cowardly to come out during the day.

Have the Brecon Beacons ever looked so good?

2010-02-23T12:51:00.007Z

The Brecon Beacons National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty beloved of British Army trainees, who frequent it for weekends of exercise, fresh air and teamwork.

Or maybe not.

Maybe it's an area that can look quite attractive on the rare occasions when the cloud lifts and it stops raining and you can haul yourself high enough out of the bog to get a look. And maybe the reason the Army uses it so much is that getting round the place is quite hard work, but not such hard work that they can't load up their recruits with ridiculously heavy bags and still expect them to run for 12 hours non-stop.

The hills themselves are quite strange beasts; their broad, plateau summits and perilously steep sides give them the impression of being vast mountains that have had their tops lopped off. On paper they would appear to be quite easy to conquer, and although they are certainly no great behemoths those flat areas are no walk in the park. Rather, they are a walk through a peat bog. Now, don't get me wrong, bog hopping can be quite good fun if you haven't done it for a while, but its appeal tends to wear off rather suddenly the instant you find yourself thigh-deep in brown, smelly goo. Gaiters will of course help to lessen the effects, but there will almost always be a bit of damp, runny mud that manages to trickle its way into your boot, down your ankle and onto your already-cold toes. And that is not a pleasant feeling at all.

So, as we set off to south Wales last Saturday morning we were expecting to spend the weekend trudging through the mire. We weren't particularly concerned about this as it's what we end up doing a lot of the time, and strangely we do quite enjoy it. However, as we drove further west the world became whiter and whiter. Snow! Amazing! My excitement was tempered somewhat by the fact that I was on hold to the Crucible Theatre box office in an attempt to get snooker tickets and the music they were forcing down my ear was really quite piercing, but by the time we reached the National Park proper the tickets were booked and my attention was turned fully towards the hills. Darn, they looked good!

Our initial plans were for a rather long day out. We parked next to Talybont Reservoir (SO 099197), with an out-and-back trip to Pen y Fan as our goal. As we trudged up through the ever-deepening snow to Allt Lwyd (078189) however, it became clear that this was a little on the over-ambitious side. Not to worry though, the day was quite simply glorious and we didn't really care about tagging summits as we had, after all, been up them all before anyway. We were out and about, with blue skies and sparkling snow, and hardly anyone else was up there with us.

As we ascended a fine ridge up to the first plateau of the day it almost seemed like we were in the Alps, so impressive was the view. Once up on the flat we meandered around in a general north-westerly direction, hoping that the looping tracks we were leaving would make a good pattern when viewed from above. Amusingly, on our way back we discovered that people coming afterwards had used our tracks as a guide, thereby wasting themselves huge amounts of time if they had wanted a direct route to the next hill! We carried on through the col at 057206 and onto the next area of plateau, at which point the view really struck us:

Wow! Pen y Fan looked like a monster! A huge, snow-covered beast with sharp ridges, plunging cliffs and precarious cornices. I desperately wanted to hurry on and climb it. Except, hang on a minute - what's that?

Yuck! People everywhere! Clustering like flies all over the mountain’s towering glory. Maybe we would give it a miss, after all.

You see, a major part of the attraction of the hills for me is the sense of solitude. We live our lives in towns and cities, surrounded by other people, crowded and hemmed in, and so every once in a while (actually, as often as possible) it's good to get away, to stand somewhere in the countryside and have no one else in sight. I am too antisocial to enjoy walking up a hill in a line with tens of others; I want it to be my hill, with my view, and I don't want to share it with anyone other than my close friends. Selfish, I know, but that's the way it is. So I was happy to leave Pen y Fan to the masses and instead enjoy getting knee-deep on Gwaun Cerrig Llywdion.

We did go and tag Fan y Big (036205), mostly because we are shockingly immature and find its name hilarious. But otherwise we were happy to stumble about on our plateau, keeping to the centre so as to avoid the people following the line of the paths which skirt the edge. It was hard going pushing through untrodden snow, and walking through the peat hags felt rather eerie, but I was happy. The hags themselves may have been imposing, but the icicles forming on their sides were beautiful. I broke one off to try as a free 'lolly', but didn't get very far through it as, somewhat predictably, it tasted rather too much of grass and peat.

We wandered back through the col and onwards to the eastern edge of the hill, where we had a decision to make: same way down, or different? Obviously we plumped for the different way, which turned out to be a most excellent choice. The first part of the descent was fairly steep and fairly uninteresting, but then the gradient became even more extreme. There was no way we were going to bother walking down that. Not when we could slide! Richard pulled on his friction-reducing waterproof trousers, I jumped into a survival bag, and we were off!

Initially, Richard was having a great time sliding rapidly downwards, but unfortunately for me we had gone at about the same time and it was all I could do not to slam into his back. Even with my elbows jabbed into the ground to try and brake I was gaining on him. Just as I was about to lose control I lurched over to the right, pulling myself clear. I then careered at an incredible speed down the hill, going faster faster faster. This was better than any rollercoaster ride! After what must only have been a handful of seconds, but which felt much longer, the ground flattened out and I spun myself to a halt. That had been amazing! A university group had watched our descent, and I could tell they were impressed. Casually, we packed the survival bag and trousers away and continued on back to the car.

The Libel Reform Campaign

2010-02-19T14:47:00.004Z

If you have any interest in maintaining the freedom of speech, the openness of scientific debate and the ability of people to question the actions of corporations, the Libel Reform Campaign needs your help. The extent to which the UK’s woeful libel laws are harming not just the individuals being sued but the public at large is frightening. Defendants are presumed guilty until they can prove their innocence, injunctions are rushed out to block any reporting of cases, and lawyer’s bills quickly mount up to millions of pounds. It doesn't matter whether the alleged slur took place in the UK either; cases can be dragged into London from pretty much anywhere in the world in what is known as 'libel tourism'.

People certainly need a means of recourse if something false and reputation-damaging has been said about them, and so the campaign is not suggesting that the libel laws are abolished altogether. However, it does question whether large companies should be treated in the same way as individuals, whether comments made on Internet chat forums should be treated in the same way as the formal articles in the national press, and whether payouts should be so huge that making a libel claim is seen as a valid way of earning money. With the laws as they are, the only real winners seem to be lawyers and those rich enough to afford their exorbitant fees.

A lawyer, the only sort of person who really benefits from the law as it stands.

There have been three recent cases involving scientists which highlight quite how dangerous the current situation is. Firstly, there is Simon Singh, a mathematician and author of many popular science books. His problems started when he wrote a comment piece in the Guardian newspaper in which he accused the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) of promoting bogus treatments. Following the piece’s publication, the BCA sued for libel.

Now, if Singh had been rubbishing the whole of chiropractics with no supporting evidence, the BCA may have had a point. However, all he was pointing out was that no evidence exists for chiropractors’ claims that they can cure things like infant colic and asthma with their back manipulations. If anyone was at fault then surely it was the BCA for promising results from treatments that have been shown to be ineffective? Not according to Mr Justice Eady, who ruled against Singh. Aware of what a damaging precedent this could set for freedom of speech, Singh decided to risk his money on an appeal, which has yet to take place.

Another example is the case of Henrik Thomsen from the University of Copenhagen. Thomsen, a radiologist, had long been concerned about the safety of a gadolinium-containing contrast agent (something given to patients before they have an MRI scan to help things show up better) called Omniscan. Worrying numbers of patients suffering from kidney problems who had taken Omniscan ended up developing a very serious medical condition known as nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. As any responsible scientist would, Thomsen spoke about his fears at a conference in Oxford.

Rather than looking at Thomsen’s research and considering whether they should act to stop Omniscan from being used on vulnerable patients, its manufacturer General Electric Healthcare instead decided to sue Thomsen for libel. It claimed for damages and legal costs (probably more than £380,000) and attempted to gag the radiologist, preventing him from spreading his message further. Luckily, GE Healthcare have now dropped their suit, but what if similar companies are doing similar things? What if deaths are being caused by companies hiding evidence in this manner? In this light, the need for libel reform seems really rather urgent.

Peter Wilmshurst, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, has been sued for libel by NMT Medical over comments he made about their product STARFlex, a device that is designed to close holes in the heart. Wilmshurst was involved with research that was investigating whether STARFlex helped to reduce the incidence of migraine in some patients. The result of the trial was negative; the device didn't seem help with what it had been designed for. Wilmshurst came up with some ideas as to why this was so, but NMT Medical disagreed. When the cardiologist spoke about the trial at a conference, criticising the company, they sued.

Science will just stop working if things carry on in this way, with scientists at risk of being sued for libel if they say anything, however justified, that criticises a company or its products. This is not a system designed to let the truth win out; rather it allows the people or entities with the most money to stifle debate. Singh and Wilmshurst are risking everything they own in order to fight the charges against them. Not every scientist is in a position to do this, nor would every scientist be willing to, believing the risks to themselves and their families to be just too great.

And it's not just science that is the issue here. Journalists, comedians, broadcasters, anyone who writes or says something potentially controversial is at risk. Things need to be changed.

Please go to www.libelreform.org and sign the petition there.

The Victoria and Albert Museum

2010-02-15T13:23:00.007Z

The Victoria and Albert Museum is hardly 'unknown' London, being as it is the world's largest museum of art and design containing over 4.5 million objects. And yet, even on supremely busy days when the queues to get into the Natural History and Science Museums are snaking their way down Exhibition Road, it is possible to find a quiet spot where you can peruse the exhibits in peace. This is for two main reasons: firstly the museum's sheer size (I have visited a fair few times now and am still finding a wealth of new galleries on each visit), and secondly the fact that it doesn't really appeal to children. This is not a museum filled with hands-on displays, flashing lights and electronic beeps; instead it simply presents its objects as they are, letting the sheer quality do the talking.

The variety of exhibits is astounding. Where else is it possible to view samurai swords, Renaissance sculpture, one of Mick Jagger's stage outfits and a hurdy-gurdy all under one roof? And remarkably it is all interesting. Even the things that sounded hugely dull to me before I visited turned out to be fascinating. For example, a gallery dedicated to ironwork that I expected to walk straight through ended up containing extremely intricate locks with their mechanisms completely visible as well as imposing gates and a rose with petals so delicate they almost looked real.

My most recent visit was this Saturday, and as usual I covered a considerable amount of new territory. Here are some of the objects that I regarded as highlights:

Samson slaying a Philistine by Giambologna, 1562, Florence.

My favourite sculpture in the whole of the museum, this grand piece has recently been moved near the entrance to give it the prominence it deserves. One of the very few works by Giambologna to have left Italy, it was based on an idea of Michelangelo and was his first major commission. It depicts the Old Testament Judge Samson slaying a Philistine with an ass’s jawbone; a common subject but one rarely executed with such skill.

Despite having spent more than three hundred years outside, the marble is still incredibly detailed and we can see clearly the lean muscle of the men, the intricate folding of the cloth and the texture of their hair. Unlike many sculptures this was designed to be viewed from any angle; it does not have a 'front' and so the viewer has to walk all around to appreciate it fully. The cold stone may be immobile but this does not prevent it from having a real sense of movement, of violence and of urgency. The men's faces also tell a tale: the features of the Philistine convey real panic, whereas Samson shows only cool dispassion.

The Upas, or Poison Tree, on the Island of Java by Francis Danby, 1820s, Britain.

The work of Francis Danby belongs to the school of Romanticism with its towering hills, dazzling sunsets and epic vistas. 'Romantic' scarcely seems like an appropriate word to describe this painting, however. At first it appears simply to be a view of a clearing surrounded by steep-sided mountains; dark, yes, and certainly grand, but nothing too unsettling. A step closer, and everything changes. The man in the foreground who from a distance could be thought simply to be leaning over is revealed to be turning away in disgust and fear, patterns on rocks are resolved into skeletons, all suddenly reeks of death and decay.

The inspiration for this painting came from a poem by Erasmus Darwin, who wrote the following notes:
'There is a poison-tree in the island of Java, which is said by its effluvia to have depopulated the country for twelve or fourteen miles...condemned criminals are sent to the tree...and are pardoned if they bring back a certain quantity of the poison.'
A grim subject indeed. The painting is not without a ray of hope, however. Far away in the distance are the snow-covered peaks of less doom-filled mountains and the stars are still twinkling in the blue-black sky.

Iron comb, Berlin, 1820s.

The Victoria and Albert Museum contains a great many shiny things, and the highest concentration of these is found in the jewellery section. 'Dazzling' is the only word that can adequately describe this gallery, surely a criminal's dream with so many diamonds and precious gems all lined up together. I personally am not a great jewellery fan and so found many of the items hideous, but it was nonetheless impossible not to admire the skill of the craftsmen who had created such things.

One case in particular stood out to me, being as it was an oasis of light relief in the midst of all that sparkling. There were no jewels to be found here; instead all the pieces were fashioned out of cast iron, giving them a delightfully Tim Burton-esque feel. The comb above is a prime example. Its dark, Gothic decoration makes it seem suited to the graveyard, and yet such items were only worn by women in the very upper echelons of Society. The style is known as 'Berlin iron' and was not widely popular outside Germany. Unfortunately most examples have now rusted away.

The Ommeganck in Brussels on 31 May 1615: The Triumph of Archduchess Isabella by Denis van Alsloot, 1615.

This remarkable oil painting, which shows a grand circus-like procession, is one of the first exhibits to be seen in the Theatre gallery. The above scene is only a tiny portion of the painting, which in turn depicts only one sixth of the entire parade. The whole event, bizarrely held to celebrate the moving of an image of the Virgin Mary across Brussels a long time earlier, must have been truly spectacular!

The style of painting is not the most accomplished and is rather cartoony, but given the subject matter this seems appropriate. Most impressive is the sheer amount of detail that has been crammed in. We can see each individual performer, each crowd member (some of whom appear to be engaged in scuffles), each horse and rider, each banner. It is a scene full of energy, full of excitement, full of spectacle, and as such is a perfect introduction to all the aspects of theatre that are explored later in the gallery.

Plaster cast of the Tomb of St Sebaldus, Peter Vischer, 1519, Nuremberg (original).

I will never tire of the cast rooms in the Victoria and Albert Museum, they are quite frankly amazing. Unfortunately one is undergoing work at the moment, but the other is fully available to wander around and gape at. The idea behind them is this:
In most cases if the British wanted something archaeological or cultural from a different country they just took it (see the British Museum for extensive examples of this). However, in some countries, such as most of Europe, this sort of stealing wasn't an option, and so instead plaster casts were taken. These plaster replicas allowed students of architecture, for example, to learn and be inspired by all sorts of objects without having to actually go abroad to see them. Lots of these casts now have ended up in the Victoria and Albert Museum, collected together in these huge rooms. Tombs, archways, Tabernacles, pulpits, statues and (most impressively) the enormous Trajan’s column, are all sat there right next to each other. It is completely bonkers. Go and see it.

Once you have got over the sheer wow-factor of the room it is possible to take in and appreciate some of the detail. When looked at closely, the Tomb of St Sebaldus shown above is hard to beat. Little creatures and people are everywhere, playing instruments, arguing with each other, looking bored, looking menacing. No surface is left undecorated, even those too far into the centre to eyeball closely. St Sebaldus himself is something of a mystery. No one seems to really know when he lived or what he actually did; he might have been a hermit and was probably a missionary, but as for anything else, who knows? Regardless of whether it was deserved or not, there's no denying he got a cracking tomb. My favourite thing about it? It's supported by snails!

All pictures are from the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Hermit crabs

2010-02-12T15:06:00.002Z

Hermit crabs are a common sight by the seaside, most often spied crawling around in rock pools. Adults vary in size from around 15 to 150 millimetres. Their most prominent features are their shells, and yet these are not really part of the crab at all. Most crabs have a hard carapace that they produce themselves, but hermit crabs have soft, easily-damaged bodies and would quickly be killed without further protection. Because of this they search out the empty shells of gastropods such as whelks and periwinkles. As they grow they have to find bigger shells that can accommodate their increased body size. There is often much competition for the best shells, but once a crab has successfully obtained one it will insert its asymmetrically twisted abdomen far inside until only the front two pairs of legs remain out in the open.

Technically the crabs have five pairs of legs, but the back two of these are too small and puny to be much use for anything other than holding on to the shell, and so remain tucked away inside. The second and third sets are larger and stronger and so are used for walking, but even these are dwarfed by the first set. The front right leg has a large claw that is used for holding food and for fighting, and the smaller claw on the front left leg is used to help with eating.

Hermit crabs aren't fussy about what they eat; if they can catch it they'll have it. Any animal and vegetable matter scavenged from the seafloor will do. The crabs often have a symbiotic relationship with other creatures such as sea anemones which come and live on their shells. The crabs get camouflage and protection and in return the anemones get to eat any leftover food. Sometimes this relationship becomes so established that the anemone will 'move house' along with the crab when it changes shells.

Male hermit crabs can be quite aggressive when the time comes to mate, and will grab hold of female crabs, fighting off any competing suitors with their large right claws. Male reproductive organs are located behind their rearmost legs whereas those of the female are on the third pair. On the left-hand side of the female abdomen are structures known as pleopods which are used to carry the fertilised eggs. The baby hermit crabs do a fair amount of their development whilst tucked away here inside the eggs. When they eventually hatch and venture out into the sea they are tiny, shrimp-like creatures in desperate need of a shell.

This hermit crab lives in a tank at the Anglesey Sea Zoo, a small aquarium that only has native sea creatures on display. It is well worth a visit, with its lobster breeding programme being a particular highlight. The zoo is also a good reminder of what a great range of sea life we have in the UK, and reinforces the fact that creatures don't have to be exotic to be interesting. Great satisfaction can be derived from learning about the animals 'indoors' and then going and finding the wild versions just outside.

Anglesey Sea Zoo

Bushy Park

2010-02-11T17:48:00.004Z

City as it is, most of London life takes place indoors. There are of course stunning views to be had strolling down the Thames but most such walks will be undertaken with a building as their goal, be it a museum, a theatre, a friend’s home, or even a workplace. We humans are not however meant to have a roof above our heads constantly, and so once in a while (or as often as possible in my case) it becomes necessary to get out in the open, to give our legs a stretch and to breathe in some fresh(ish) air.

One good place in which to enjoy such an escape from the built environment is Bushy Park, situated between Teddington and Hampton in south west London. I should note straight away that some people would not take this to be in London at all, lying as it does in the relative ‘sticks’ of Zone 6, but personally I adhere to the view that anything inside the M25 is part of London, whatever its residents may argue to the contrary. But anyway, back to Bushy Park. One of the old royal deer parks, it is second only to nearby Richmond Park in size, but has, I feel, a nicer atmosphere to it. The bulk of its area is left fairly scrubby, with unkempt grass in spring and summer being replaced by tall bracken in autumn and winter. Scattered groups of trees add interest, while long, wide rides in the southern half add a sense of grandeur.

Not all of the park is laid out so openly, however. There are two fenced-in plantations containing much denser vegetation that are also worth a look. Parts of these have been elegantly landscaped, with artfully-placed trees overlooking ponds frequented by all manner of ducks. Better though are those sections that have been allowed to grow a little more wildly, where the bushes are not as neat and the paths not as clear-cut. I have managed to spend whole afternoons tucked away in these upper reaches without coming across another soul.

Back outside of the fences two of the most prominent features (excepting the road that unfortunately blights the centre of the park and the Diana fountain that this winds around) are the Heron and Leg of Mutton Ponds. These attract a quite impressive selection of wildfowl, with red-crested pochard and Egyptian geese being often present in addition to the more usual gulls and mallards. On one of my more recent visits I was able to get within a metre of the very obliging heron pictured below.

Less water-inclined birds also abound. The green parakeets are worth a special mention; with their in-your-face plumage and piercing squawks they are pretty hard to miss. They are also rather exotic, and it is quite a shock to see these creatures flying happily around suburbia. After all, they are normally associated with rainforests and other such areas with rather balmier weather. Native birds such as green woodpeckers, thrushes and jays are also common, and one time I even caught sight of a cuckoo.

Not all the park dwellers have wings. Although not technically ‘wildlife’, the deer roam around freely both in herds and individually. There are a good mixture of fallow and red to see, and all are pretty well used to humans, allowing us to get much closer than would ever be possible out in the real countryside. Mingled in with the brown deer are a smattering of completely white animals. The limited herd sizes seem to allow the albino genes to propagate much more extensively than would happen normally; these white deer stand out a mile which is hardly a good survival trait when predators are lurking nearby.

The most common creature by far in the park however is unfortunately two-legged. A third car park complete with cafe has recently been opened, and this has encouraged the humans to swarm. I don’t wish to begrudge anyone their fresh air, but most seem to come in their cars to harass the deer, make lots of noise and then leave. As more people come the park becomes less of a haven for wildlife, and the sense of peace visitors feel is being gradually destroyed. So my advice would be to visit, but to come by public transport or by foot, to stay clear of the areas around the car parks, to get lost in the wilder sections of the plantations and to head to the corners the parents with buggies have not yet found.

Royal Parks website

'An Inspector Calls' at Wyndham's Theatre

2010-02-08T16:32:00.003Z

'An Inspector Calls' is an extremely famous play, long a staple of school English Literature syllabuses. However, for my GCSE course I was lumbered with other things, and so although I could name JB Priestley as the play’s author with barely a second thought, I knew nothing about its plot. Yes, there is a rather large hint in the title that an Inspector may be involved, and it's a good bet that he will get up to some inspectoring, but beyond that I had not a clue. I wasn't about to spoil it all by looking up what happens on Wikipedia, and so booking tickets became therefore a slightly risky business. Would it all end up a bit Agatha Christie-esque? (I saw 'The 39 Steps' a couple of years ago, and although mildly entertaining I wouldn't rush out to see anything similar.) As it turned out, I couldn't get cheap tickets for much else and so the decision was made for me. Luckily, 'An Inspector Calls' is hardly your standard murder mystery fare; in fact it's really rather good.

The first thing to say about this revival of Stephen Daldry’s 1992 production is that it looks amazing. The atmosphere is wonderfully gloomy due to the liberal use of smoke, restrained use of lighting and the presence of drably-clothed street urchins. Not only that, but it rains! Yes, water really does come tumbling down, right there on the stage, so that the actors’ clothes get wet and mucky. Marvellous.

In stark contrast to this doom-laden greyness on the outside are the bright reds and golds adorning the rich family's house that occupies the bulk of the right-hand side of the stage. This house is quite a contraption; the walls swing open to reveal a gaudy dining room, a set of railings is magically transformed into a usable stairway. Its best trick is revealed about two thirds of the way in, and I won't give away the surprise, but suffice to say they must have got through rather a lot of crockery during the course of this run.

With a set like this the actors have to try pretty hard not to be upstaged by it, and fortunately by and large they succeed. The actor playing the Inspector was sometimes inaudible from our lofty position in the balcony, but otherwise his calm approach punctuated by flashes of rage worked well. The by turns haughty and hysterical Mrs Sybil Birling had a commanding presence, dominating even that of her fat and booming husband Arthur (a former Lord Mayor of Brumley, don't you know).

'An Inspector Calls' has an interesting parallel with the last play I saw at Wyndham's Theatre, 'Madame de Sade', in that the central character in each never appears on stage. In the latter play it is the Marquis de Sade who, despite being imprisoned far away, is the subject of all conversations; in the former it is a young working-class woman, Eva Smith, who cannot possibly appear as she killed herself earlier that day (or did she?). It is this piece of information that the inspector arrives at the Birling residence to divulge. Initially it appears to them to be irrelevant, but as he proceeds with his questioning the family members learn one by one that they are implicated in the sorry affair.

It is easy to see why this play is so popular with examination boards. In fact at times it feels as though the central themes of responsibility and common humanity are being shoved down the audience members’ throats. However, even if Priestley's socialist message is painfully obvious it is still very interesting to see the family members’ contrasting reactions to their implied guilt, and it makes us wonder how we ourselves would react in such a situation. Less obvious is the nature of the inspector himself. Is there something supernatural about him? Personally I would like to think not, but it is certainly an interesting question, and I have yet to come up with a workable alternative. But anyway, things get rather boring if we know all the answers, don't they?

An Inspector Calls

Picture is of Sir Charles Wyndham, the founder of Wyndham's Theatre.

The Guardian attempts to inflame climate change denial

2010-02-03T11:14:00.003Z

The Guardian has been getting on my nerves for quite a while now, what with its ever-escalating attempts to become the most pretentious newspaper in Britain, but over the last couple of days it has really, really done my head in. Both today and yesterday its main headlines have concerned the leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, a story that came to the fore just before the meeting at Copenhagen and that really doesn't need to be dragged up again. Blasting it over the front pages doesn't achieve anything other than to give fuel to the sceptics who pounce on any trace of scientific fallibility and proclaim it as proof that the whole idea of anthropogenic climate change is a lie propagated in order to provide evil scientists with jobs and money.

A tiny handful of scientists seem to have behaved inappropriately, and a tiny amount of dodgy data seems to have crept into the IPCC’s report, but none of these 'new revelations', as the Guardian calls them, have any effect whatsoever on the bigger picture. A few choice quotations from over 2000 e-mails sent across a period of more than a decade are hardly cast iron evidence of a conspiracy. And some of these 'damning' quotes are nothing of the sort. For example, Prof Michael Mann apparently suggested that his colleagues should stop submitting papers to the journal Climate Research following its publication of an article that disagreed with his own research. This could suggest that he was stifling alternative views, or, with equal validity, could suggest that the journal’s standards were slipping and that it had begun to publish junk which undermined the field of climatology as a whole. Without context, and without knowledge of the research involved, we simply don't know which is true. This didn't stop the sub editors (most likely people from an arts background with zero knowledge of science) from emblazoning the page with the headline 'How scientists kept sceptics out of print'.

Journalists always like a bit of conflict and are well known to create it where none exists in order to manufacture a good story. In a piece in today's Guardian, however, they seem to be implying that no conflict should exist between scientists! Disagreement over the famous 'hockey stick' graph showing temperature rise over the past thousand years is portrayed again as evidence of the suppression of different views, whereas in reality it is just normal scientific discourse. A major way in which knowledge progresses is by scientists talking to each other, arguing with each other, picking holes in each other's ideas until they come to an agreement. At the end of the conversation, hopefully they will have a better theory to explain what's going on than they did at the beginning. Again, where's the conspiracy?

I might have more time for these kind of stories if everyone was held to the same kind of standards as these climate scientists are. Especially journalists, who let’s face it aren't exactly renowned for their accuracy and agenda-free reporting. I should imagine that if we looked at anyone's e-mails across a long period of time we would find instances where they'd said something that sounded incriminating, made an error, or called a person a rude name. If these journalists were being bombarded with Freedom of Information requests from non-experts whose sole intent was to discredit them and their work, I should imagine they might not respond in a particularly friendly or speedy fashion. Why then should scientists, who are human beings too, be expected to behave angelically?

I know that there are some scientists who have ulterior motives, I know that a lot of the time climate doomsayers go completely over the top, and I know that there are still a lot of unanswered questions. I've been a student at three different universities, so I know how academics can sometimes be egotistical and overly-competitive. But the scientific method is such that the truth will win out, and to the best of our knowledge the truth is that anthropogenic climate change is real. And we don't need shoddy journalism trying to hide that fact.

A tramp through the remains of the snow in the Black Mountains

2010-02-01T11:09:00.006Z

Christmas, family commitments and wisdom tooth removal operations both real and imagined have rather got in the way of any decent hill days over the past few weeks. The recent snowy weather has compounded such problems, for me at least. Whilst others gaze at snow-blanketed slopes and think 'Brilliant! Let's crack out the ice axe and crampons and go on an adventure!', I have alas been reduced to thinking 'Oh dear, looks like ice axe and crampons are required, I'd better stay indoors.' Such are the woes of wrists that don't work.

However, all was not lost as a couple of weekends ago I did manage to make it out. Rather sportingly the weather warmed up sufficiently to clear the roads of snow and so a group of us set off from various corners of the country and congregated in the car park of 'The Rising Sun' in Pandy, a small settlement to the east of the Black Mountains. This pub - a cosy, friendly establishment that serves a tasty cheesecake - has the added bonus of a campsite attached to it, thus reducing the always unpleasant late-night pub-to-tent dash to mere tens of metres. Treats such as beer and pudding have to be earned however, and so we all set off in one car and drove to the tiny village of Llanbedr.

The Black Mountains are hardly the most rugged or extensive of hills, with there being really only two big horseshoe walks available, however they are not without their charm. Once up on the grassy ridge it is possible to tramp along for miles and miles and miles without any real patches of strenuous ascent; certainly not a place to hone those scrambling skills but ideal when in the mood for a jolly good leg stretch. The views, when they exist, showcase the more famous Brecon Beacons to the west and the vast expanse of the flatter borderlands to the east. A fairly easy, hassle-free, day on the hill then?

Er, not so much in the snow. Okay, so it was hardly chest-deep and in most places it wasn't made horribly slippery by a thick covering layer of ice, but stomping through snow is just so much more tiring than walking on more solid ground. Legs have to be lifted much higher, bodies have to be braced as it's never clear how far down feet will sink, precious calories have to be used up in order to keep warm: in short, it can be quite hard work. Unless, of course, you reach a nice downhill section that's a fairly steep without too many rocks and where the snow is consistently thick. In these circumstances things become much easier: instead of plodding down uncertainly step by step it is much better, and infinitely more fun, to get down on your arse and slide.

Ah, Wales. (wistful sigh)

We left the car in Llanbedr (SO239204), and after a brief road walk found ourselves climbing through farmland up to Table Mountain. This little hill, rising to a modest 450 m, is maybe not quite as impressive as its South African namesake, but it does host an Iron Age hill fort, evidence of which must have been covered by the snow when we visited. From there it was onwards and upwards to the first trig point of the day, the 701 m high Pen Cerrig-calch (217224).

I suppose that Pen Cerrig-calch is a nice hill; in fact I know it is, as I've been up it before with (shock horror!) blue skies and sunshine. But on a cold, drizzly day with the grey clag limiting visibility to a handful of metres it does lose some of its appeal. There was no need to get too grumpy though, as summits are excuses for snacks stops, and in addition to healthier things like dried apricots and malt loaf we had Monster Munch.

As welcome as the food was, you can't stay stopped for long in near-freezing conditions and so we trundled on. It seemed to take an age to get to the next top, Pen Allt-mawr (207244). It may have been only 2 1/2 km away, but the snow had slowed us to a snail's pace. As such, it was a relief when the grey outline of the trig point finally appeared through the fog. The next section was rather more fun as it was downhill and some presented us with some opportunities for sliding; opportunities that we took up with some gusto. Such frivolity was short-lived, however and we soon found ourselves back trudging along on the flat.

We continued on, following the ridge as it wound its way northwards, until we reached a col marked by a well-made cairn at 204286. Here it was time to take stock of things, and to get down to some serious refuelling. It was unanimously decided that the constant drudgery through the clag was wearing rather thin, and so we binned our idea of completing the whole horseshoe and instead decided to take a path heading south east down the valley. This proved to be a wise decision, as barely ten minutes after leaving the col we were rewarded with a view! The sun had managed to sneak through from somewhere and was illuminating the snow-covered slopes of the hills rather nicely. We still couldn't see the tops, of course, but at that point even a partial view was a result.

Our initial jubilation eventually fizzled out and the path became, well, quite dull really. There is a reason that we are hill walkers and not valley walkers. The irritation provoked by the monotony was aggravated further by the condition of the path, which was covered in snow of uneven depths under which lay a soggy, boggy ground. Needless to say, it's not exactly fun when you place your foot forward and it plunges straight through the snow and you end up knee deep in cold, runny mud which inevitably creeps its way over the rim of your boot and down to your already-chilly toes.

There was no choice but to persevere onwards, however and eventually we reached a patch of wood (228245), which made a pleasant change. We continued through this to its end, then trundled through some farmland for a further kilometre or so, at which point we reached the road. From here it wasn't far back to Llanbedr, where we eagerly bundled into the car just as the last of the light was fading, more than ready for our pub dinner.

My wisdom teeth are now in a clinical waste bin somewhere

2010-01-26T14:13:00.003Z

Well, it turned out that I didn't have to wait for nearly as long as I had suspected to get my wisdom tooth operation rescheduled. Amazingly, there was a slot available for me last Wednesday, and so I duly trudged off to the hospital yet again, slightly nervous but not overly bothered: after all, I'd done all the mental preparation and panicking a fortnight earlier and could see no need to repeat it. The weather had, almost inevitably, turned white that morning, but fortunately this snow was of the unpleasant damp, slushy variety that although useless for building snowmen is nonetheless good in that it is rarely causes major traffic disruptions.

We arrived at the hospital in good time and headed to the Day Surgery Unit where my long-suffering boyfriend Richard dropped me off. There was apparently no room for friends and relatives to wait with the patients, and so while I settled down with a Terry Pratchett novel he ventured out to savour the many delights of Swindon (stop laughing at the back! it's twinned with Disney World, don’t you know). I'd only managed to read the few pages before I got called away to see the first of many medical professionals. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this first guy might have been the surgeon. He entered the waiting room, all gangly limbs swathed in ill-fitting blue scrubs and called out for 'Kiera Morgan'. Now, despite its worrying rise in trendiness due to the likes of Ms Knightley, Kiera is not as of yet a common name, and so I assumed this was me, and followed him into a small dark room. He pointed out, yet again, quite how awkward my wisdom teeth were, got me to re-sign a form, then sent me back to the waiting room.

A couple of pages of Pratchett later and my name was called again, correctly this time. A smiley nurse introduced herself with a 'my name is Helen', spoken as if following a script, and led me into another small dark room where she proceeded to take my blood pressure and weigh me; all the normal nursey things, but somehow made more sinister under the dim glare of the emergency lighting (apparently there was some kind of test going on with the electrics). The next call was from the anaesthetist, another friendly, jolly sort who exuded an air of competence - rather reassuring at seeing as she was the one who was going to be making sure that I didn’t wake up mid-operation.

Then, back to my book. Time passed, I managed about a chapter’s worth then another nurse called me over. Great news (for me, anyway)! The person who was at the top of the list hadn't turned up and so I would be the first to be operated on. I was told to get dressed into an NHS-regulation gown with NHS-regulation dressing gown over the top. Both of these garments were covered in a plethora of little ties which, despite their great number, didn’t seem to pair up in any sensible way. I did my best regardless, tying the sides of the clothing together in the most sensible way I could fathom, and so made myself half-decent. I briefly wondered what kind of operation the previous wearer of this get-up had undergone, but rapidly decided I’d rather not go there and banished such thoughts from my mind. As instructed, I placed my belongings into a locker then returned to my seat.

Alas, I was left to wait for a further 45 minutes. A whole three-quarters of an hour to fill and my book, my only source of entertainment, was locked away in a small metal box. Frustratingly I could see said small metal box; it was a mere four metres from me and yet it was completely inaccessible. Now, I am not very good at sitting quietly and doing nothing. Not very good at all. I fidgeted uncomfortably for a little while and then spotted a newspaper on a table. A newspaper! Something to read! Salvation was at hand. I rose, grabbed the paper and turned it over.
It was the Daily Mail.
Bugger.
Tentatively, I flicked through the first few pages, but depressingly the standard of journalism was exactly what one would expect from such a publication. Not wishing to risk polluting my brain with right-wing anti-immigrant bile any further I instead endeavoured to do the cryptic crossword. This was rather a tricky task given that I had no pen, but I persevered regardless.

At 2 o’clock on the dot I was called away by yet another nurse. Limping alarmingly, and attempting some small talk in a most unenthusiastic manner, she led me through a maze of corridors and past tens of operating theatres to a little room containing my anaesthetist. Here I was quickly put at ease, laid down on the bed, and injected with drugs. The world went funny for a few seconds and then drifted away.

I came to in the recovery room. I can vaguely remember it being a large room, but without many other beds in it. Being still very drowsy I wanted to immediately go back to sleep, but the nurse looking after me, Helen again I think, wanted to talk. She kept asking me all sorts of questions, many of which were just about me in general and not related to the operation or my current pain levels. This I found most annoying. I suppose she did it to ascertain how much the anaesthetic had really worn off, but responding to her questions with a seriously-inflated, painful face mostly covered by an oxygen mask was not the easiest of tasks. The friendly anaesthetist came over at one point and told me I’d done very well, a nice compliment, but I do feel that all I did was lie back unconscious, they did all the work. Apparently the operation itself went fine; it took over an hour rather than the standard 20 minutes, but it nonetheless proceeded without any problems

I was soon (I say soon, but I didn’t have any real concept of the passage of time at that point) taken back to the ward, where there was a new group of nurses. One came over and tried to get me up and dressed, but as this resulted in me almost falling over it was decided that more time in bed was in order. Eventually I regained full consciousness and was able to leave, after being provided with a brown paper bag full of drugs – not dodgy-looking at all! The ever-obliging Richard collected me and we drove back to Fairford. Annoyingly I then had to stay up until 10pm to take some of the pills- I would much rather have gone straight to bed.

Since then I have mostly been doing not a lot. Today is the first day I have been able to speak, and therefore write, without it being overly painful. The doing 'not a lot' has been wearing thin, as has my diet which has mostly consisted of soup. I suppose soup is nice but over the last few days I have developed a deep-seated dislike of it. I watch my parents eating their pizzas, pasta bakes and other such culinary delights and I inwardly seethe with jealousy. But things can only improve. After all, following several days with a face that I thought might burst if I pricked it with a pin, things have started to calm down. I look more like myself again, which is a relief as looking in mirrors and seeing an over-stuffed hamster staring back was freaking me out. These quibbles have been but minor inconveniences however: the most important thing is that the evil wisdom teeth are gone and so can trouble me no more. Hurrah!

Bullfinches

2010-01-14T10:39:00.000Z

Bullfinches are quite secretive birds that are rarely seen; once spotted, however, they are unmistakable. Despite being only 15 cm or so in length, fairly standard for a finch, they look considerably larger due to their stocky, bullish shape. Adult males have a dark black cap, grey backs, black tails, white rump and, most strikingly, a bright reddish pink breast. In adult females the breast is a duller more plum-like colour which is less eye-catching but equally attractive.

Bullfinches can be found all over the UK, although they are most concentrated in the south east. They spend most of their time well-hidden in dense undergrowth in woodlands, but will sometimes venture into gardens, especially those which are large and contain plenty of shrubs. They are birds that like company, and will normally be found in a pair, or in a family group in the colder months. Their diet consists mainly of buds, berries and seeds, particularly those from the Ash tree. Unfortunately their penchant for the buds of fruit trees can make them hugely unpopular with orchard owners, who used to trap and kill hundreds of the birds. And on-form bullfinch can apparently destroy thirty buds per minute; it is unlikely to even eat all of these.

Bullfinches are not ones for flying great distances and rarely travel over 100 km in the UK. Their cousins in northern Europe are more adventurous, and often make migrations in search of food, but those here prefer to stay put, making use of garden seed feeders in times of scarcity. To breed, female bullfinches find concealed spots in bushes or small trees and build small, untidy nests from twigs, moss and fine roots. Into these they lay four to six greenish blue eggs which soon hatch into fledgelings that are looked after by both parents.

A female bullfinch seeing off the approach from a greenfinch on a snowy day in the garden.

Despite their reputation for shyness and secrecy, the family of bullfinches that have taken up residence in our garden this year are rather ballsy characters. Whereas most birds fly out to the feeder, hover there long enough to take a quick peck and then scarper, the bullfinches will quite happily sit on the feeder’s edge for extended periods of time, shooing off any other birds who try to get close. They are not at all easily spooked and give off a definite air of being 'in charge'... at least until something really big like a buzzard turns up!

Fieldfares

2010-01-13T14:52:00.001Z

Fieldfares are the most colourful members of the thrush family. About the size of a blackbird at around 25 cm long, they are distinguished from other thrushes by their blue-grey heads, black tails and reddish breasts. They are common in northern Europe and Asia all year round but only visit the UK for the winter. Most fieldfares seen in Britain have made the substantial trek over from Scandinavia, arriving exhausted at our shores from October onwards. Once here they are most often head for farmer's fields and parkland, where they form large flocks with similar birds such as redwings. If food is scarce they will occasionally venture individually into gardens, taking advantage of grain and seed left out for them by humans, but by far the best place to see them is the open countryside.

Their diet mostly comprises worms and insects, which they peck their way through soft earth to find. If the ground freezes and this activity becomes impossible then they will feed instead on fruit and berries, with hawthorn bushes being a particular favourite. In the event that conditions become particularly harsh they may even give up on the UK and migrate further south into the continent. Fieldfares are rather nomadic and have no real loyalty concerning where they head to. They will migrate to a different place each year, if they bother to migrate at all; many are quite content not to fly all the way over the North Sea and hence remain all year in Scandinavia. Those who do come over here will return home by May at the latest in order to breed. They build their tidy nests in trees, often in groups, and lay five to six speckled blue eggs.

This particular fieldfare has spent all day in our garden, putting up with the odd bit of bullying from blackbirds in order to feast on some apples that we laid out this morning. He (or she, the sexes are very similar in appearance) has grown in confidence throughout the day and now seems quite content in what for him is not a particularly natural environment. In fact, as I write this he has grown sufficiently cocky that it is him chasing other birds away rather than the other way around! The snow has been lying thickly on the ground for over a week now, and so he has ventured away from his normal haunts in search of an alternative food supply, which we are more than happy to provide him with. As long as he leaves some for everyone else...

Recipe for an unexciting snooker match

2010-01-11T14:09:00.004Z

Ingredients

One Peter Ebdon. This is by far the most important ingredient, and without it your snooker match runs a high risk of being entertaining.
One Marco Fu. Can be replaced with another player, as long as they possess a slow, steady and not-especially-inspirational style of play.
One snooker arena. Best to make it a little too cold, with hard plastic seats that are a little too close together. After all, you don't want your audience to fall asleep, which they would most likely do if it was warm, comfortable and they had plenty of space to sprawl.
One commentary box containing Willie Thorne and John Virgo. This is the best combination as neither understand that it isn't necessary for commentators to be talking all the bleeding time. Willie Thorne could be substituted for Terry Griffiths on a bad day, but you would probably risk having the occasional insightful observation, which is not the kind of thing we are setting out to achieve here.

Method

Combine all the above ingredients.
Try to pay attention to the match.
Fail, and spend the time thinking about what's for dinner instead.

I've been to the snooker a fair few times now, and yesterday's first round Masters match between the aforementioned Peter Ebdon and Marco Fu was by far the least enjoyable that I've seen. To be honest, I hadn't been particularly impressed by the morning’s game, in which a competent but nowhere-near-his-best Mark Selby completely demolished Ding Junhui 6-1. In comparison to the afternoon session however, this first match was snooker gold.

Now, I wasn't exactly expecting a cracker. Peter Ebdon isn't a name one would usually associate with thrilling play, and I can't help but view him as a money-grabbing tax-dodger since his move to Dubai, but I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Marco Fu is much less abrasive character-wise, coming across as a perfectly pleasant, polite young man, but again he doesn't exactly set off fireworks when he's at the table. And unhappily for everyone in the audience, the combination of these two led to an almost mind-numbingly dull first few frames.

Given that they are both meant to be top-16 snooker players, their play initially was appalling, and unfortunately Marco never really improved. Their pot success rates were rock bottom, their safety exchanges were painfully bad, and on occasion Ebdon seemed to go for the kind of 'just hit it really hard and hope' shot that I used to play when I was in a bad mood. After much agonising tit for tat between the players and precious little break building Marco took the first two frames, only to have Ebdon claw back the next two to leave them equal going into the mid-session interval.

I don't know if Ebdon used this break to have a strong cup of coffee or simply to give himself a good kick up the backside, but when they restarted he seemed to have remembered how to play. The next four frames all went his way, and he did even pull off the occasional shot that was really rather good. Alas, this resurgence was too late for me. My attention had already wandered; I tried to pull myself back into the match but failed miserably. All in all, it wasn't a bad day, and it certainly hasn't put me off going to see more snooker in the future, but I do think I will tend to avoid these two, especially if they're playing together...

The 10:10 Campaign: reduce your CO2 emissions by 10% in 2010

2010-01-11T11:28:00.006Z

Climate change is one of the most important issues facing mankind today. It has the potential to completely alter life as we know it on this planet. However, it is a problem that we find very difficult to grasp, not only because of its scientific complexities, but because very few of us have any direct experience of it. We may have a vague feeling that we are getting more rainfall and flooding, or that recent winters have been rather mild, but there is certainly nothing apocalyptic about either of these. For those living on low-lying Pacific Islands who are seeing their homes get swept away the problem is rather more immediate, but such events are unlikely to happen in the UK for a long time yet. It is therefore an issue that it is quite difficult to get worked up about, and as such difficult to do something about.

The media doesn't help. We are bombarded by conflicting stories: half say we're doomed, half say it's all one big conspiracy and humans don't have any effect on the climate. Anyone new to the issue would be hard pressed to come to any conclusions if simply presented with a range of newspaper articles. It doesn't help that such articles are almost always written by people with no scientific training whatsoever who are more interested in getting a headline-grabbing story than accurately reporting the underlying facts. These journalists aren't interested in a story unless there is conflict, and the trouble is there isn't really any between the scientists researching this area. There will of course be disagreements as to how exactly data should be interpreted, as to what should and shouldn't be included in models and as to what exact predictions can be made, but when it comes down to the basic question of whether anthropogenic climate change is real the answer is a resounding yes.

Climate sceptics jump gleefully on the news that the past decade has shown a slight cooling rather than warming; they claim the scientists are making it all up so that they get rewarded with grants; every single prediction that doesn't match up with the reality is held up as proof that researchers don't have a clue what's going to happen. And in some cases, this is true: climate science is such a vast, horrendously complicated field that there are many things that we simply do not know. It is fiendishly difficult to make a model containing the whole atmosphere, the whole of the sea, the whole of the land and the whole of human activity and to get it to give the right answer every single time. But despite these enormous hurdles, scientists are making progress, they do know that the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane are affecting the planet, they can make predictions with reasonable accuracy. It is however much easier to make long term forecasts rather than shorter term ones: in fact, we can be much more confident about how the climate will be in 100 years time than how it will be in 10.

Even if we remain unconvinced, if we are uncertain about the science and mistrust the scientists there is still a case for action. We simply have to weigh up the different costs of different scenarios. We could be in a situation where climate change isn't real and we don't do anything about it. Result: everyone is happy. What if climate change isn't real and we did take lots of expensive action against it? The world could be plunged into a deep economic recession. This would not be good at all. How about then if climate change is real and we still spend all that money combating it? We'll be poorer economically, but we'll still be alive and the planet will still be in reasonable shape. Result: everyone is happy. What however, if climate change is real but we decided not to do anything about it? in the worst case we’ll be faced with droughts and floods, freak weather will be widespread, people will starve, less and less of the planet will be habitable, in short it will be a complete disaster. Faced with these possible outcomes we need to make a decision: do we act or do we do nothing? Which is the worse scenario: an economic downturn or global catastrophe? The answer seems pretty clear.

So, the science is sound, the effects of climate change are already being felt in some parts of the world, and if we do not act there is a chance that life on Earth will get seriously hard. What do we do now? How do we act? The most important thing to realise is that we cannot rely on other people to act for us. Governments can pass legislation but this will only ever be weak and easily avoidable - no party will ever get elected if they run with a manifesto of cutting energy and curbing people's lifestyles. Many people view the recent International conference at Copenhagen as an abject failure, and it is true that no legally binding targets were set and that very little substance is likely to result from it, but is it not remarkable that the meeting happened at all? People from all over the globe, from countries who normally spend most of the time knocking blocks of each other, sat down and talked about the release of a gas, a substance that we can't even see, into the atmosphere. And they broadly agreed with each other! Although we can be disappointed that concrete measures weren't laid out, the fact that the meeting took place at all should give us a sense of optimism.

The other major players in the world, often possessing more power than governments, are the large corporations. These vast businesses are unfortunately more willing to spend money on adverts that make them look green than actually carrying out environmentally-friendly measures. They have a legal duty to maximise returns to their shareholders and so will only take action when it is economically essential for them to do so. And we must not forget that these corporations only exist for our benefit; if we did not buy their products they would not exist and no emissions would be let out into the atmosphere.

If we want to mitigate the effects of climate change then it is clearly us who must act. You, me, every one of us should try to reduce our energy use and hence reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that are pumped into the atmosphere on our behalf. The bad news is that this will result in some lifestyle changes. The good news is that these lifestyle changes can be very small, will save us money and will scarcely make any difference to our quality of life - in many cases they may even improve it!

This is where the 10:10 campaign comes in. The idea is to get as many people as possible in the UK to reduce their CO2 emissions by 10% in the year 2010. This can be done in very simple ways and will make a huge difference. In 2007, the last year for which full figures are available, 9.4 metric tons of CO2 were emitted per capita. 10% of this is almost a ton, a staggering amount. If every person, organisation and business in the country does this, that's around 57 million metric tons less CO2 in the atmosphere this year. These numbers sound really impressive, and what's best is that they are easily achievable.

All it takes are simple measures, like switching lights off when no one's in the room, walking to the local shop instead of driving, turning the thermostat down a degree and putting on a jumper. There are so many little, seemingly-trivial ways in which we can save energy, that will have no negative impact on our quality of life but will nonetheless make a difference. A difference not only to the atmosphere, but also to our bank balances. No one likes to get high energy bills, and it is so easy to reduce them with just a little thought and consideration.

To provide inspiration, the Fairford Environmental Society has produced a booklet chock full of ideas for reducing energy consumption. This will shortly be found on the Society's website:

www.fairford.org/fes

More information about the nationwide campaign can be found on the following website:

www.1010uk.org

Why not sign up?

I think the NHS might have something against me

2010-01-07T13:33:00.005Z

I shouldn't be able to write anything today. I should be sat in a chair feeling miserable with a hugely swollen face and four fewer teeth. However, I am sat here at my computer writing away with just the usual level of tooth and wrist pain, periodically staring outside at the snow and wondering if I should go and build our snowwoman a friend. So far I have managed to resist the temptation; after all my wrists are still feeling rather weak from yesterday's construction efforts, and somehow I get the impression that 'Luella' isn't all that sociable.

Since June last year my wisdom teeth have been giving me grief. The little darlings have decided that instead of just coming straight up and slotting in neatly at the back of my mouth it would be far more fun to burrow at funny angles into neighbouring teeth. Not surprisingly, this isn't all that pleasant for me. The resulting compression causes pain in all the other teeth, and whole areas of gum become tender. The mouth is a rather bacteria-rich environment and partially-protruding wisdom teeth are places in which they flourish, meaning things get nasty and infected to boot. Clearly, these teeth are far more trouble than they are worth, and so my dentist referred me to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon to get them removed as a matter of urgency.

Someone else's mouth, featuring wisdom teeth at silly angles. Think this looks bad? Mine are worse!

I am well aware from numerous wrist-related appointments that 'urgent' is often interpreted as meaning anything but. The referral was sent in August, I got an appointment for November, which I duly attended, at which x-rays were taken. A couple of forms were tortuously filled out by a student nurse (I had to help her with spelling and remind her that she had to take my blood pressure and weigh me), and that was that. I would be sent a letter with a time for an operation at some unknown point in the future which was likely to be at least twelve weeks away. By December the pain was so agonising that my dentist sent off another letter to the hospital to hurry things along. The result? An operation scheduled for January 6. Fantastic!

Yesterday duly arrived, and with it came snow, a good 20 cm deep. Nervous that this would result in a cancellation, I contacted the hospital admissions clerk who happily confirmed that the operation would go ahead as planned, no problems. Feeling relieved we set off, well-stocked with warm clothes and chocolate in case the roads became impassable. In fact, the roads were fine. A bit slippery in places, but nothing unmanageable providing you drove slowly and sensibly. It took us a whole hour to make the 17 mile trip from Fairford to the hospital, but we made it. And we weren't even in a Land Rover, but a humble Nissan Micra.

We arrived at the hospital half an hour before I needed to be there. It turned out that I was the only patient who'd bothered to turn up - great, we thought, I get to be done first and get to go home as quickly as possible. My entire team had made it to the hospital, I saw the nurse, got the wristband, saw the consultant who explained all the horrible things he was going to do to me (lots of chopping out bits of bone, sawing teeth in half before pulling them out - details I'd rather not know, to be honest). All that was left was to wait for the anaesthetist, who was overseeing another operation until two o'clock. We therefore sat down and waited.

After we'd been in the hospital for going on two hours, the two nurses sheepishly entered the room with faces bearing expressions of embarrassment and anger. My operation had been cancelled, they said. They'd only found out because they'd phoned around to see if they could get me through sooner, what with me being the only person there. Instead of an affirmation they were told that their list had been cancelled half an hour previously; a trivial fact that no one had bothered to inform them of. To their credit, they then frantically tried to see if there was any alternative, begged and pleaded with the people in charge, but to no avail.

Essentially, one anaesthetist in the whole hospital hadn't turned up and so mine had been pulled in to cover him. My operation was deemed to be 'elective' (although why I would choose to have for awkward wisdom teeth removed unless it was strictly necessary is beyond me), and therefore eminently cancellable. There was a possibility of having the operation done under a local anaesthetic with sedation, but as my teeth are in such bad positions the only option was a full-on general; not something that could be done without the proper anaesthetist. All we could do was trundle back to Fairford and hope that it won't take another five months to get a replacement slot.

I wasn't best pleased.

On the plus side, I got to help build the snowwoman. She is greater-than-human sized, in a kneeling position, and quite frankly terrifiying: I have never seen a snow creation look so menacing, we have truly created a monster. And she's still out there now, resplendent in the sunshine.

The lovely Luella.

SNOW!

2010-01-05T15:51:00.001Z

Lo and behold, it is snowing outside. This is a very exciting development. We had a brief smattering of flakes here in Fairford a couple of weeks ago, but this is proper stuff, with big, thick flakes that are settling beautifully on every flat surface that they come into contact with. It's the kind of snow that can be easily moulded into snowmen, and that makes an immensely satisfying half-creak half-crunch when you step on it. It started a couple of hours ago and is still going strong, leaving me hopeful that it will emulate the snow of last February which was of a similar superb quality and so vast in quantity that we were able to construct not just a snowman but also a tower, a throne and an almost-igloo. Things are boding well: the sky is of that intense white that looks a bit fuzzy and seems to suck away all the light, and nothing appears to be melting. Hurrah!

Ding Junhui 10, John Higgins 8

2009-12-14T15:16:00.002Z

Ding Junhui last night won snooker's UK Championship, the second most important ranking tournament in the game. It was by no means a classic match, with much scrappy play and a profusion of errors, but nonetheless Ding can be very pleased with his performance and his title is certainly well deserved. It is only his fourth ranking event win, the last having been the Northern Ireland Trophy back in 2006, but as he is only 22 years old he has plenty of time to build on this collection!

Ding seemed a much more confident, well-rounded player around the table than he has been in recent years. He has previously tended to become demotivated very rapidly after making mistakes, to hang his head down and in some cases to seemingly give up completely. However, he appears to have matured immensely and now remains very level-headed, refusing to beat himself up over every slip and instead concentrating on enjoying his snooker. This change in attitude has made him a much more dangerous opponent, as John Higgins discovered last night.

The run of the balls was not especially conducive to big breaks, normally one of the mainstays of Ding’s game, and indeed it was Higgins who made the only century of the match, an excellent 115 in frame 17. However, Ding responded to this by ratcheting up his safety play to a new level, doing everything he could to make life even more difficult for the beleaguered Scotsman. With neither player willing to take chances on long pots many of the frames were drawn-out, tactical affairs, and although Ding always looked to be the stronger player the scoreline was pretty even right up until the very end.

In fact, it could be argued that the final scoreline was rather flattering to John Higgins, who was playing at the far below his best. He often looked uncomfortable round the table and made some terrible misses, completely unexpected from a player of his calibre. The bungled brown in frame 15, which allowed Ding to move within two frames of victory, is likely to haunt him till the end of his days. It is likely that exhaustion from his epic 9-8 victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan the day before contributed to Higgins' lack of form, and although he will obviously be disappointed at his loss he shouldn't worry himself unduly. He is still provisional world number one, and with a lead of 7705 points over his closest rival it is highly unlikely that anyone will catch up with him over the rest of the season.

Indeed, if anyone has something to worry about it is new UK Champion Ding Junhui. In addition to the £100,000 prize-money he has been awarded with his body weight in Pukka Pies. With 69 kg of pie lard stacked up in his fridge he's going to have to exercise like mad or he’ll turn up at the Masters in January looking like Stephen Lee...

World's smallest snowman

2009-12-11T12:38:00.003Z

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory have made the world's smallest snowman, just 10 microns across.

Watch the video and be amazed!

Death of a bookshop: the combined perils of Amazon and private equity

2009-12-11T12:21:00.003Z

The Borders chain of bookshops is in administration. The shops are being stripped of not just the books but also the shelves, magazine racks, chairs and desks; everything is being sold to leave only an empty, soulless shell. This is rather depressing. There are few enough bookshops on high streets as it is, and with the closure of Borders what is left? There are indeed still plenty of branches of Waterstones, busily expending all their energy promoting the latest celebrity ‘auto’biography and mass-market TV tie-ins. Always in the midst of a closing-down sale but never actually quite getting round to shutting, The Works trundles ever onwards with its emphasis on low price and even lower quality. WH Smith's doesn't really count and Foyle's and Blackwell's chains are too small to really be noticeable; a smattering of independents try hard but invariably struggle. In short, the book industry is in a bit of a crisis.

Why is this? People still buy books and there are more and more published every year. Around 118,000 books were published in 2007 in the UK (according to a Nielsen Book report); admittedly most of these will have sunk without trace, but sufficient were sold to net the book trade around £3 billion (according to their Publishers Association). However, more and more of these books are being sold at heavily discounted prices in supermarkets and at Amazon, bypassing dedicated bookshops and drastically reducing the income that authors and publishers receive for their work. Being an online retailer Amazon can obviously offer low prices due to its lack of overheads, and with its vast warehouses it can afford to stock even very obscure books. Supermarkets on the other hand will concentrate on a small handful of surefire bestsellers (think Dan Brown and Katie Price) and will use their great clout to arrange it so that they pay the publishers mere pence for each copy sold. Proper bookshops just can't compete.

In the case of Borders such increased competition wasn't the only problem. It only arrived in the UK twelve years ago, back then part of the huge bookstore chain in the USA. In 2007 however, it was sold off to a private equity firm called Risk Capital Partners before being sold again earlier this year. Alarm bells start to ring whenever private equity becomes involved with a business, as where private equity appears doom is sure to swiftly follow. These companies seem to operate according to the following formula:

Borrow a huge amount of money at low interest rates.
Use this to buy a profitable business.
Asset-strip the business, selling off everything in sight and thus making megabucks to be paid in bonuses, dividends etc.
Watch company disintegrate into bankruptcy as it is saddled by huge debt and now bereft of any means of repaying it.
Run away.
Pick another profitable business, and repeat.

Against such rampant greed, Borders didn't have a hope in hell.

I went to the Borders branch in Kingston upon Thames yesterday and I must confess I bought all the books I could carry. Many others were doing likewise. The poor staff, all about to lose their jobs, were working extremely hard to keep everything under control. Incidentally, they only found out that their company was going into administration when they heard it on the evening news; such is the calibre of the upper echelons of management that they chose to communicate nothing to those actually doing all the work. It must be rather stressful to be a Borders employees right now. I was therefore shocked and rather disgusted by the behaviour of one fellow customer who decided to kick up a huge fuss.

She had apparently phoned in to reserve a book about a week beforehand and had yesterday come in to collect it, by which time it had not surprisingly gone AWOL. Instead of accepting this as inevitable in a shop with an air of barely-contained chaos and where all the stock had to be got rid of as soon as possible, she got very annoyed and demanded some form of compensation. Somehow, the soon-to-be-unemployed staff managed to be extremely polite to her, even when it became apparent that she couldn't even remember what the book was called and began to rant on about the much-diminished nature of the children's selection. I think if I had been in charge, she would have got a slap!

The Giant’s Chair of Natsworthy and Jay's Grave

2009-12-09T11:12:00.003Z

When walking on the eastern edge of Dartmoor a few weeks ago we came across a chair. Not just any old chair, but a huge, wooden chair staring out onto the moor, devoid of any explanation or seeming purpose. It was far too big to sit on, and in any case it had no seat to speak of, being essentially just a frame. We attempted to climb it regardless, but were scuppered due to lack of rope and other equipment. Bemused, we wondered ‘why is it here?’ What role could it have, being both pointless and unusable, but at the same time really rather good? And with that question, the answer became obvious: it must be art.

The chair has apparently been gracing the field just off a footpath not too far from Hameldown Tor (SX724800 or thereabouts) since late 2006, erected on private land by artist Henry Bruce. 6 m high, it is made from untreated oak obtained locally and was constructed using traditional methods. Unfortunately, planning permission was not obtained before it was built, leaving its future precarious. Retrospective permission was eventually granted but only for a period of three years, up until March 2009, after which point it was supposed to be dismantled. A handful of people with no sense of fun complained, accusing it of making the moor into a theme park and over-running the footpath with traffic. Luckily, the chair was still there in November, so fingers crossed it will remain intact for some time.

About a kilometre or so east from the giant’s chair lies a much more famous Dartmoor landmark: the grave of Kitty Jay, the story behind which is rather sad. Supposedly in the late 18th century an orphaned baby girl was taken to the Poor House at Newton Abbot, where she was raised and given her name. When old enough to work she was sent to a farm near Manaton where she laboured long and hard both in the house and out in the fields; a tough, lonely and miserable existence for which she would have received very few rewards. When still in her teens she fell in love with a man on the farm, possibly the farmer's son or possibly a hired hand, by whom she became pregnant. Back in the 1700s this was seen as a terrible crime, but one for which all the blame was laid on the woman. Kitty was therefore thrown out of the farm in disgrace, left alone with no prospects and nowhere to go. The sense of shame and thoughts of her bleak future were too much for her to bear, and so tragically she hung herself in a local barn.

There was a huge stigma attached to the act of suicide and so people who died in this way were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. Kitty was therefore interred at a crossroads, a site chosen so that if her spirit arose it would not know which way to turn, and so would be unable to either make its way to heaven or to return to haunt the living who were the cause of its great pain. This practice of burying suicides at crossroads was an old tradition that continued until 1823, after which point the bodies were finally admitted to churchyards.

The headstone that is now in place was not erected at the time of Kitty's death, but rather several decades later, in 1860 or thereabouts. At this time a group of men, aware of the legend and curious as to its veracity, did some digging at the crossroads and discovered the skeletal remains of a young woman. Assuming that these were indeed the bones of Kitty they placed them in a coffin, reburied them and marked the site with blocks of granite.

The grave has ever since been associated with unusual occurrences. A spectral figure has reportedly been spotted on multiple occasions, although there is disagreement as to whether this is the ghost of Kitty Jay herself, or that of her guilty lover. The grave is also always adorned with fresh flowers, usually yellow, but apparently no one has any idea who puts them there. It is a popular spot to visit however, and when we passed we saw not just flowers but also coins placed neatly atop it.

Both of these interesting spots can be visited as part of a fairly long circular walk taking in the surrounding tors. Starting in the village of Widecombe in the Moor, the walk first proceeds along the Two Moors Way as it heads northwards over the gently-rising hill of Hamel Down. After standing on as many tops as you care to, head down by the edge of the wood to the road at Natsworthy. From here, take the footpath east which leads past both the chair and Jay's grave, then stroll up onto Hayne Down, enjoying the impressive natural sculpture that is Bowerman's Nose. Next, make your way down for a brief walk along a road heading south, then stroll up onto Hound Tor, an irritatingly busy place, but one which boasts plenty of good rocks for scrambling on. Head south east through the ruins of a mediaeval settlement, pop down into the valley and then ascend up onto the group of hills crowned by Haytor Rocks. There are multiple car parks within sight of this tor, meaning it has been colonised by climbers, but one would imagine that when the weather is less than fair these will rapidly disperse. The next tors to take in are Saddle Tor, Rippon Tor across the road, and finally the twin tops of Top Tor and Pil Tor. From here bust your way downhill to the west, taking care not to end up waist-deep in bog, then at the edge of access land rejoin the road and stroll back into Widecombe, which will provide you with both tea and beer. I have sketched out the route below; my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired but hopefully it gives the general gist of way to go.

UK Championship Snooker in Telford this week

2009-12-08T12:23:00.006Z

Rejoice! for this week there is snooker on the telly. This will almost certainly mean that the productivity of snooker fans such as myself will plummet, either due to putting work aside and succumbing to the delights of the red button or, if no television is available, by clicking ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds on the BBC sport website. Especially keen souls who are adept at multitasking and have both television and computer available will have one table showing on the TV and the other being displayed live on the internet (whilst this method definitely has its benefits, the aural cacophony produced by two conflicting commentary streams can be a tad confusing). Alas the BBC is only filming two of the four tables in action in the opening stages of the championship, precluding those with multiple computers from being surrounded by snooker on all four sides.

Of course, the best way to watch the snooker is to actually go to Telford International Centre and see it for real. Compared with most other ways of spending a day off it works out pretty cheaply, although the relative economy of the ticket prices can be wiped out if, like us, you live about 150 miles away and thus have to expend a good proportion of a tank of petrol getting there and back. Some may baulk at the thought of travelling for many hours to a big shed in an unremarkable Midlands town to essentially sit on their arses all day watching some blokes use big sticks to move some balls around on a table, but more enlightened souls will realise that this is in fact a splendid use of time and that any small hardships are well worth overcoming.

The snooker world is a small one, and as such it all feels quite friendly and inclusive. The referees and occasionally players will quite happily stroll through the crowds of Pukka Pie-eating punters, and the opening BBC segments are filmed with John Parrott, Steve Davis and the smiley Hazel Irvine standing mere metres from the queue to get into the arena. The spectators don't seem to fit any particular stereotype: male and female, young and old, every stratum of society is represented, all sat next to each other on not-particularly-comfortable plastic seats. As an example of the audience’s diversity, but universal enthusiasm for the game, there was one verging-on-goth-looking teenage girl (by no means a stereotypical snooker fan) who could not help herself from crying out excitedly "Oh my God, that's Jan Verhaas!" as the tall Dutch umpire walked past her in the corridor.

Once seated to watch the game, the atmosphere becomes electric in spite of the fact that watching snooker mostly involves being very, very quiet. There are of course bursts of applause after good shots, sharp intakes of breath as the cue ball teeters on the edge of a pocket, and cries of 'Come on Ronnie!' whenever the great man takes to the stage. There are also now, thanks to the ingenious little over-ear radios that allow spectators to listen to the commentary, rumbles of laughter/groans in response to the poor jokes being cracked by, for example, John Virgo and Dennis Taylor.

Other aspects which cannot be properly appreciated unless there 'in the flesh' include the wonderful clunk as the cue strikes the white ball, the click as it collides with its target and the thump as the object ball falls into the pocket. It is also possible to better eyeball the weird and wonderful expressions pulled by the players in response to events in the frame, with Ronnie O'Sullivan in particular being amusingly rubber-faced. Other entertaining players include Mark Selby, who looks positively daemonic as he bends down to eye up a shot, John Higgins who grimaces as though under intense strain and Neil Robertson who is wont to stick his tongue out every time he plays a shot he isn't completely happy with. Stephen Hendry, however, provides poor value in this aspect of the game as he just looks bloody miserable the whole time.

So, if you can get away with it, go to Telford this week! If not, at least enjoy it on the BBC. The second session this afternoon of the match between Mark Selby and Stephen Hendry should be a cracker if yesterday was anything to go by, and this evening Ronnie, ripe from his victory over Matthew Stevens, takes on Peter Ebdon. I'm not going to be getting much work done.

Birdseed: a universal foodstuff?

2009-12-01T12:05:00.003Z

Most creatures are quite specialised in what they will eat, carving out a niche based upon a particular foodstuff in a particular habitat, becoming perfectly adapted via the evolutionary process. However, if the evidence from our garden is anything to go by, many animals will quite happily cast aside millennia of specialisation in order to gorge upon Haith’s Original Wildbird Food. As the name would suggest, this feast of seeds and grains has been concocted with wild birds in mind; small, busy birds like blue tits and robins and chaffinches. It was not, it is safe to say, designed for cats, deer and foxes.

Haith's Wildbird Food: manna from heaven?

Why then do these three in particular go crazy for it? Deer at least are herbivores, and so seed isn't too much of a stretch from their usual diet of leaves, twigs, fungi and the like; foxes are omnivorous, although most of their diet is made up of invertebrates; but domestic cats are carnivores through and through. Their bodies just aren't designed to deal with nuts and seeds. What is it then about birdseed that is just so good?

One possibility is that the cats are simply pretending to eat the seed, lurking around the vicinity of the feeder in the hopes of ensnaring an unwary bird. Or it could be that the seed, having often been kept in garages or warehouses where small rodents abound, smells irresistibly of mice. However, a lot of the time the cats do seem to be genuinely eating the seed, fully concentrated on gobbling it up and as such blissfully aware of what is going on around them. And I have heard tell that dogs will lap the stuff up also.

One factor that may well play a role is the huge amount of energy packed into the tiny seeds. For example, sunflower seeds provide a whopping 6.5 kilocalories per gram (compared to 5.0 kcal / g in custard creams and a measly 0.3 kcal / g in carrots). When it's cold outside and food is scarce, this is not to be sniffed at, providing one has a digestive system that allows it to be absorbed. The ruminant stomachs of deer will certainly be fine, and that of the fox will have a good bash, but cats? They simply don't have the right kind of teeth to even get started on the process.

Perhaps cats are simply not very bright. This is certainly the case for one of ours, and indeed it is she who seems to chomp down the birdseed most voraciously. Or perhaps they are simply economically savvy: after all, Haith’s sunflower seeds for birds cost around £2 per kilogram whereas those designed for human use from Julian Graves come to an astonishing £7 per kilogram. It would thus seem that people should start munching on the birdseed too!

Fairford Town Council election result

2009-11-27T14:57:00.003Z

Congratulations to Caroline Mumford who has won the Fairford Town Council by-election. A great result that should be highly beneficial for the town.

The Cherry Orchard at the Palmer Hall, Fairford

2009-11-26T13:58:00.003Z

Anton Chekhov's 1904 tragicomedy ‘The Cherry Orchard’ is a brave choice for an amateur dramatics group, and is certainly a far cry from the pantomimes that are usually the closest thing the small Cotswold town of Fairford gets to proper theatre. The play has a substantial cast, with many complex themes, and although some of its subtleties are lost in the mix, overall the Meysey Players have put together a very good production.

The Cherry Orchard of the title is situated on the estate of an aristocratic Russian family that is struggling to adapt to the changing times. The emancipation of the serfs had occurred some forty years beforehand, allowing former peasants to rise up and become successful businessman and at the same time reducing the power of the landed gentry. As such, nobody is quite sure where they stand in relation to both one another and the world in general. Servants come and go seemingly as they please, the aristocrats continue with the extravagance to which they have been accustomed despite the fact they can no longer afford it, and members of the emerging middle class take advantage wherever they can.

The nobles who live on the estate, led by Mrs Lyuba Ranevskaya who is ostensibly the head of the family despite her complete inability to make decisions, are at the beginning of the play so much in debt that their home will have to be sold. This is such a distressing situation that they do their utmost to avoid thinking about it, dismissing the plan of local businessman Lopakhin to sell some of it off as summer cottages, a plan that would indeed result in the destruction of the orchard but would at least allow them to keep their ancestral home. The servants, although concerned that they will lose their positions if the estate is lost, are wrapped up in pointless love affairs and it is only Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter Varya who makes any attempt to economise and thus improve matters.

Most of the comedy is in the form of farce, with a clumsy clerk and poor-mannered nobleman providing the bulk of the laughs. The overall feeling of the play however leans more towards tragedy; themes of unrequited love and loss abound, and the only characters who are satisfied by the finale are Lopakhin and the highly objectionable manservant Yasha.

The production was rather slick for the first night of a complex play performed by a group of amateurs, with only one slight slip up on lines noticeable throughout the whole evening. Some of the acting was perhaps a little over the top, but mostly the characters were very well realised. Special mention should go out to the actors playing the roles of Firs, the aged servant whose decline was symbolic of that of the Russian aristocracy, Lopakhin and Gayev, Ranevskaya’s slightly loopy billiard-obsessed brother. All of these had real stage presence and could easily put some professional actors to shame. The costumes and set were also impressive, especially as they had so much to fit onto such a small stage.

The play is running every night until this Saturday, 28th November, at the Palmer Hall in the middle of Fairford, and there are plenty of seats left. Tickets are only £10/£12 and can be bought on the door. The action starts at 7:30. This really is a good event for the town, and I highly recommend anyone in the area to go and see it.

The Meysey Players

The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons

2009-11-25T11:16:00.005Z

The Hunterian Museum, named after the 18th century anatomist and surgeon John Hunter, is perhaps one of the most disconcerting places to visit in London, and as such is not recommended for the squeamish. It lies inside the grand Royal College of Surgeons which takes up most of the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, a typical London square bursting with interest. Open from 10 am to 5 pm Tuesdays to Saturdays, it is free to enter. Simply collect a visitor's pass from the front desk, walk up the staircase along which portraits of past Fellows of the College stare out, and enter the lower level of the museum.

Most immediately striking is the sheer quantity of specimens on display. Brightly illuminated glass cabinets are full to bursting with jars containing bits and pieces of every creature imaginable. From the tongue of a chameleon to the large intestine of a whale, the specimens are both fascinating and repulsive. Apart from those few examples where the entire animal is contained within its formaldehyde tomb, it is almost impossible without hunting out the label to guess the organism from which the sample came.

Around the edge of the room are displays which detail the history of both the College and of the science of anatomy in general. These are illustrated by both its human samples and by the tools that were used to obtain them. A particularly interesting exhibit shows large wooden dissecting boards with a different section of the nervous system on each. Less easily stomached are the examples of diseased body parts, showing starkly how things in the body can go horribly wrong. Other curiosities worth singling out are the towering skeleton of Charles Byrne, a so-called 'Irish Giant' whose body was collected by Hunter contrary to his wishes, and the pickled brain of the father of computing, Charles Babbage.

Picture by Paul Dean

For some light relief, head to the far end of the museum where a small collection of paintings are hung. These are not the kind of pictures that would normally be found in an art gallery, not due to lack of merit but rather due to the unusual subject matter. They depict people or animals which would have been highly novel at the time of painting: a rhinoceros hangs close to a portrait of a native American; a hugely obese man looks across at a noble with dwarfism.

Upstairs the exhibitions are more informative and less nausea-inducing. Here the story of surgery is dealt with, moving from Joseph Lister's groundbreaking discovery of antiseptics to bang-up-to-date methods such as keyhole surgery. It is staggering how much practices have evolved and improved over the past hundred years or so. I left the museum feeling slightly freaked out, but also very glad that I was born now rather than in the times when barber-surgeons considered a filthy, blood spattered apron to be a badge of honour.

The photograph on the top left of this post shows the skeleton of a hydrocephalus sufferer.

Birthday cakes

2009-11-24T11:00:00.004Z

Birthdays are good for many reasons; reasons such as beer, presents and general frivolity. They are also a great excuse to make cakes, not just any old cakes but proper, highly decorated, completely over-the-top cakes. The kind of cakes that take a whole day to make, involve scary amounts of butter, chocolate and sugar, and weigh in at over a kilogram. It is no longer just about making something tasty to eat; rather the purpose is to make something that looks amazing. Any pleasure that can be derived from actually consuming the cake is very much a secondary consideration. If the recipient of the birthday cake doesn't feel a pang of guilt when cutting into it, quite frankly, not enough effort has been put into its decoration.

How then to go about making the cake look spectacular? An obvious starting point is to make it into a non-standard shape. It is unlikely that there will be strangely-proportioned baking tins in the cupboard, so a better bet is to make a round or rectangular cake as per usual and then cut it up and put it back together in an unusual fashion, using icing to fill in the gaps. This way the cake can be made to resemble a myriad of objects: a snake, a Lego brick or a house, perhaps.

Next, consider the icing. There are many different types, and the variety chosen will depend on the precise design of the cake. Rolled icing can be best for more regularly-shaped cakes, glacé icing makes a good cement, and creamy chocolate fudge is good for covering imperfections, but perhaps most versatile is simple buttercream. This can be applied using an icing tube with nozzle, or simply smeared on directly with a knife.

The birthday cake will look rather dull if the icing is just white or cream. Bright, gaudy colours are much more fun; obtaining these necessitates the use of food colouring. The little bottles of red, green or blue normally carry a warning, saying for example to only use 1 teaspoon per 250 g of icing, but this guidance should be ignored. After all, the whole point of using food colouring is to produce a vivid, unnatural hue, which often means putting in half a bottle. The people consuming the cake will probably be so high on sugar that they will hardly notice the difference from an extra drop or two of E numbers.

If after the addition of icing the birthday cake is still lacking a certain something, do not fear. A quick peek into the baking aisle at the local supermarket will reveal a mind-boggling assortment of sprinkles, chocolate chips, candles and silver balls. A selection of these should almost certainly make their way onto the cake where they can join other sugary delights such as chocolate-covered raisins, jellybeans and fudge. Worries that the whole thing might be looking rather crowded should be brushed aside; when it comes to birthday cakes the old adage that less is more should be thrown out the window.

Once the cake is complete the problem becomes transporting it to the birthday boy/girl. Often this is no mean feat as the distances are long and the cakes are quite fragile. However, it is possible to get the cake, perfectly intact, to just about anywhere. I personally have carried cakes whilst walking for a couple of kilometres through the suburbs of Birmingham, have taken one on a bus and another on the Underground, and most recently have held onto one for dear life as my boyfriend drove us for 10 miles through the hazard-ridden streets of south-west London.

It is possible that at some point during the epic journey of cake creation and transportation the question "why didn't I just buy one from the supermarket?" will arise. Banish such thoughts. Making a birthday cake from scratch may well cost dearly in both pounds and in time, and afterwards the kitchen will almost certainly resemble a war zone, but it is all worth it. It is worth it because, however good they may taste, and however much hassle they cause to be avoided, shop-bought cakes are lame.

My most recent birthday cake, a mountain complete with chocolate raisin scree, marshmallow sheep, matchmaker trees, a caramel stream and a fudge trig point.

Leafcutter bees

2009-11-18T11:24:00.003Z

I am always impressed at how obliging wildlife can be when we try to attract it to our gardens: put up a bird box and before long it will be occupied by a blue tit, dig a hole and put some water in it and as if by magic a whole wealth of aquatic creatures will appear. This year we put up a solitary bee home, and lo and behold, solitary bees appeared. It was fascinating to watch them as they went about their business, and highly impressive to see the rate at which they made the tube-filled log their own.

Most people imagine bees to be highly social creatures, living in large colonies to do the bidding of an all-powerful queen. This is indeed the case for common bumblebees and honey bees, but there also exist a number of solitary bee species, of which the leafcutter bee is one example. Leafcutters are fairly small bees at about 10 mm long. Their bodies are a dark brown with a dip in the abdomen where they store pollen; this differs from other bees which store pollen in sacks on their legs. They don't live long, normally only for two months, but they fill this brief existence with frantic activity

Upon emerging from its nest the female bee quickly finds a male with which to mate. Once it has done this it goes about finding a suitable nest site, ideally somewhere providing a hollow tunnel of a similar width to the bee itself, although it can dig out a tube if necessary. The nest could be in the stem of plants such as roses, in the soft depths of decaying wood, or in the tubes of a shop-bought bee home. Once a site has been located the bee will start collecting leaves. Whole leaves would be rather awkward for the little bee to carry, and so instead it cuts out small semi-circles which it carries back to the nest. It then uses these to fashion several compartments in the previously-constructed tunnel, into each of which it leaves an egg and a ball of pollen and nectar before sealing it up. Once the nest is completed the bee abandons it to fate.

Each female leafcutter bee lays up to 40 eggs, which means up to 40 compartments need to be made - this equates to an awful lot of leaf building material and explains why the bees are so busy. Life for the larva is rather more sedate. It soon hatches and consumes the ball of pollen left for it, then hibernates for the winter. The following spring it comes round and pupates, emerging as a fully-fledged bee at the beginning of summer. Males tend to develop in the compartments closest to the end of the nest, and so emerge first. Their sole purpose is to mate with the females, and after they have done so they die, taking no part in the nest-building process.

Miss Julie at the Rose Theatre, Kingston

2009-11-17T16:22:00.005Z

'Miss Julie', playing until 28 November at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames, is an 1888 drama by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It is a relatively short play, running here without an interval, but manages to pack a considerable emotional punch into its 90 intense minutes.

The bulk of the stage is taken up by a large 19th century kitchen, complete with working stove and water pump. On either side of this are bedrooms, and behind it lies a slightly creepy, ethereal wood, with long thin trees reaching up to the rafters. The play opens with a lone servant cooking onions - certainly the first time I have ever seen actual cooking taking place on stage. These onions turn out to be for the dinner of Jean, a smartly-dressed valet and the man betrothed to Kristin, the cook. The pair work in the stately home of a great Count, a man who is never seen but of whose presence we are very much aware. Despite their engagement, the pair seem somewhat prickly towards each other, perhaps reflecting their different desires in life. Kristin is devoutly religious with a strong sense of what is proper, and is content with her position of servitude. In contrast, Jean is a fiery, well-educated man tortured by the senseless inequality of his position who dreams of being his own master.

They start gossiping about Miss Julie, the Count’s daughter who has recently broken off her engagement, an event about which she seems to feel a sense of humiliation. To escape these unpleasant thoughts she has taken to frolicking with the servants, raucously dancing at their Midsummer's ball and generally behaving in a way inappropriate to one in her position. She bursts into the kitchen and begins to flirt outrageously with Jean despite Kristin's presence. Kristin, exhausted from her hard day's work, soon falls asleep, provoking Miss Julie to be even more blatant in her attempted seduction. Jean is initially reticent, but eventually succumbs to his lust, with the end result being that he pulls Miss Julie off into his bedroom and they have sex.

This is the pivotal event in the play, and the bulk of it is spent with the two protagonists arguing over its consequences. Miss Julie feels she has fallen and can no longer occupy her lofty position as a Count’s daughter; in contrast Jean feels this could be his chance to rise up and follow his dreams. However, both characters are confused and they constantly change their minds as to what is the most appropriate course of action.

Miss Julie herself is a mass of contradictions; she has been fed starkly opposing views and values by her mother and father and as such has no idea who she really is and what she actually believes. Her indiscretion is the last straw that causes this inner turmoil to break out and she rants and raves as it threatens to tear apart. Jean is the more grounded of the two, coming up with genuine plans and suggestions in amongst Julie's hysteria. Whenever the Count is mentioned however, this steely façade crumbles and he becomes the humble, pathetic servant once more. They are doomed and both know it.

I saw the play this past Saturday, at the matinee performance. The Rose is a fantastic, modern theatre not yet two years old, which has an expansive stage and has been designed so that every seat provides a terrific view. Unfortunately, barely 10% of the 900 seats were filled. This is a crying shame, as 'Miss Julie' is well worth seeing, and certainly a better use of time than shopping, which is what the majority of visitors to Kingston that day seemed to be absorbed in.

The acting is excellent. I felt a little sorry for Lucy Briers, the actress playing Kristin, as she had to spend most of the play pretending to be asleep, but when she did get to do something she did it well. Rachel Pickup captures the wildness and instability of Miss Julie but gives her enough depth that she seems human, allowing the audience to feel sympathy for a character who could easily be made abhorrent. Daniel Betts is also good as Jean, changing in a more controlled fashion between calm realism, passion and cruelty.

My only complaints would be that it is not completely clear why the initially level-headed Jean would risk all for a moment of passion with his feared employer's daughter, and that the ending is rather sudden. Otherwise though, it was a play that I am very glad I went to see, even if the experience was not exactly enjoyable. I was left feeling emotionally pummelled, and that, for a cast of just three in a near-empty theatre, is no mean feat.

Rose Theatre

Bad taste

2009-11-12T13:52:00.003Z

When recently confronted with the above object all I could think was why? Why would such a hideous thing come into existence? Why would someone design it? Why would some company agree to manufacture it? Why would some member of the public then hand over their hard-earned cash in exchange for it? And now I have to ask myself, why am I sharing it with the world?

I simply do not know the answer to any of these questions.

Marmite marble cake

2009-11-11T11:20:00.004Z

Marmite, the thick black goo extracted from yeast left over from the brewing process, is well-known for being one of those rare things which incites either all-out revulsion or all-out adoration in those brave enough to try it. I fall into the latter camp, feeling especially that cheese on toast without Marmite is scarcely worth eating at all; the thin veneer of the black stuff elevates this humble dish to positively divine heights. Marmite is of course perfectly acceptable when spread straight onto toast at times when the extra lardage provided by the cheese would just be too much, and can be added to cooking sauces in order to provide an extra kick, but surely more can be done with it, surely it can break out of its restrictive savoury mould and assume its rightful place in the ranks of the most versatile kitchen essentials?

With this goal in mind, I have endeavoured to include Marmite in recipes where its presence would normally raise eyebrows, to venture forth into previously undiscovered Marmite territory. Some of the results have been surprisingly successful, including that of Marmite marble cake, the recipe for which I will give here. This tasty snack met the approval of not only myself and my parents, but also of my grandmother, who does not hesitate to say exactly what she thinks and so whose opinion can be considered highly reliable. Here goes:

Ingredients

175 g self-raising flour

175 g caster sugar

175 g butter

3 eggs

a little hot water

Marmite (1 tsp to 1 tbsp, according to taste / sense of adventure)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 °C or Gas Mark 4.

Cream the butter and sugar together, thus creating one of the most horrifically calorific, yet strangely compelling, substances known to mankind.

Add the eggs to the mixture. If you are feeling brave, crack them directly into the mixing bowl. If, like myself, egg cracking is not your forte and such a method would result in a cake full of bits of eggshell, crack them into a mug first, then transfer.

Mix together vigourously to create a sloppy mess.

Bit by bit, stir in the flour.

Divide the mixture into two separate containers.

Dissolve the Marmite in the minimum amount of hot water, then stir this into one half of the mixture.

Grease a cake tin with a little butter, then add alternate dollops of Marmited and non-Marmited cake mixture to it in such a way as to produce a nicely marbled effect.

Bake in the oven for about half an hour, until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. If the top starts to go overly brown cover the tin with foil.
Leave to cool, then try a bit.

Be pleasantly surprised!

A (heavily extended) stroll in the northern Carneddau

2009-11-10T12:22:00.007Z

The Carneddau comprise the largest area of high ground above 2500 feet in the UK south of Scotland, and as such provide a wealth of entertainment for the keen hiker. The southern half of the range, containing peaks such as Pen Yr Ole Wen, Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewellyn, is easily accessed from the Ogwen Valley and as such is normally crawling with people. Indeed, until a couple of weeks ago the car park at Ogwen Cottage had been the only starting point from which I had successfully completed walks in the Carneddau, and these walks had only yielded very limited views. They had provided other entertainment, such as gusts of up to 70 mph which on one occasion knocked myself and my entire group off our feet, and which almost lost me my much-prized ‘skull and cross bones’ Buff, but had yet to give up the stunning vistas that I knew must be possible.

In contrast the northern Carneddau are much more rarely frequented. The hills have a completely different character to their southern brethren; in place of steep ascents and bouldery summits are grassy slopes with more occasional rocky outcrops. The paths are less eroded and have only been reinforced by paving slab-wielding National Trust volunteers in a handful of places. Quite a few sturdy-looking ponies inhabit the lower reaches, and at the beginning of the walk we paused to watch several sheepdogs at work, herding their charges off the hill and down to the valley bottom.

We started our hike from a small car park near the end of a minor road leading south east from the village of Abergwyngregyn. Most people parking here do so for the brief trek to see the Aber Falls a couple of kilometres away; these waterfalls do indeed seem to be impressive, but alas it was too dark to properly appreciate their splendour by the time we reached them. Rather than crossing a nearby bridge and heading straight for the falls we instead continued along the road to its end where it turned into a gravel track. We quickly left this behind us, and freestyled our way up through patches of prickly gorse to the top of the first hill, the diminutive but still rather nice Foel Ganol. From this vantage point we could see across the Menai Straits to Anglesey looking one way, and to the cloud-swathed peaks that were our playground for the day in the other direction.

The ponies viewed us with a mixture of contempt and annoyance, clearly not impressed to have humans invading their space. We brushed off this unfriendly welcome however, and strode on, across Pen Bryn-Du and Carnedd y Ddelw. We ascended this latter well and truly enveloped in the clag; a minor annoyance, but not anything to get too worked up about as after all, we were in Wales and this is the sort of weather that Wales does best. Next up was the refreshingly-pronounceable Drum, where we stopped for a well-earned snack, followed by Foel Fras; a thoroughly respectable 942 m high and bearing the first trig point of the day.

It was at this summit that we came across our first fellow hiker, sheltered behind a wall and enthusiastically tucking into his sandwiches. There was also a scattering of sheep posing quite elegantly by the edge, providing perfect foreground interest for when the clag momentarily cleared:

Things were starting to get rather good. After a few minutes more walking in the grey the cloud rose again, lifting our spirits with it. The sky revealed itself to be a bright azure blue streaked with wispy white, the sun beat down with a strength belying the fact that it was almost winter, but best of all was the way in which the low clouds still remaining were gracefully decorating the flanks of the hills before us. By the time we reached the rocky rise of Garnedd Uchaf (recently renamed Garnedd Gwenllian after a Welsh princess who spent most of her time locked up in a Priory), the view was spectacular.

Our initial plan had been to use this walk as a gentle warm-up, and to descend over Llwytmor from Foel Fras and to be down by early afternoon. However we were hungry for more and hence had stayed up, continuing on to Garnedd Uchaf. It didn't take us very long once here to decide to extend the walk still further; after all Foel Grach was only a kilometre away and the view was so good that it would seem rude not to keep going. At Foel Grach a similar argument spurred us on to Carnedd Llewellyn, whose summit provided one of the best views I have ever seen in my life.

The clouds were positively caressing the mountains in front of us; pouring over the ridges like breakers on the sea. The grand figure of Snowdon stood proudly in the background, itself for once completely clear. The low afternoon sun illuminated the scene beautifully, catching the tops of the clouds and making them shine pearly white. I could have stayed and watched forever. Alas, the sun was descending rapidly and we had a long way to walk back to the car, and so we had to tear ourselves away.

We retraced our steps over Foel Grach, skirted past Garnedd Uchaf and moved on to Bera Bach. This impressive pile of rock was crying out to be scrambled over, but alas we had not the time, and so reluctantly passed it. The last hill of the day was the cairn-topped Drosgl, from which we could look back over the chains of now completely cloud-free mountains. There was no opportunity to linger so we headed down to the col, from where we used sheep tracks to make our way down to the valley bottom. Fortunately luck was with us, and we easily joined up with the wide tourist trail leading to the waterfall. It was now rather dark but we resisted getting out the head torches, preferring to let our eyes adjust naturally to the gloom. Before long we were back at the car, looking forward to sating our post-walk hunger for tea and cakes.

Millipedes

2009-11-03T13:36:00.002Z

There are around 8000 different species of millipede in the world, of which 52 are present in the UK. The name 'millipede' translates as ‘thousand legs’, and although these creatures are indeed many-legged none of them quite reach the thousand mark, with 750 being the record (held by Illacme plenipes of the USA). Their bodies are made up of multiple segments, most of which carry two pairs of legs and are protected by a chitinous cuticle. The different segments are connected together by ball and socket joints, allowing the creatures to be incredibly flexible, and they will often curl up into a compact spiral if they sense that a predator is nearby.

Despite all those legs millipedes are rather slow-moving in comparison with similar critters. They are herbivores and therefore have no need to chase prey, preferring to spend their time burrowing through the leaf litter and chomping on the decaying vegetable matter that is highly unlikely to run away. This lack of speed does put them at a disadvantage when escaping from predators, and so as well as employing the tactic of coiling up they can emit unpleasant chemicals such as hydrogen cyanide in order to make themselves less palatable. Despite this defence other creatures do manage to eat them; they are at risk from frogs, toads, some spiders and birds. Starlings seem to find them especially tasty - millipedes can make up half of their diet in the spring.

I have recently spotted two different species of millipede. The first, shown above, was hanging out on a shady crag close to a forest in Northumberland, at a rather higher altitude than they would usually be found. This was a White-legged Snake Millipede, a common species that can grow to about 5 cm long. The second, shown below, was much smaller, barely more than a centimetre in length, and at first glance I thought it was a woodlouse. Its very shiny body and evenly-sized segments however proved it to be a Pill Millipede, a less common species whose party trick is rolling up into a tight ball. I found it on a beach on Anglesey, not its most usual habitat by any means. It is much more likely to be found, like the others, in woodland and on rough pasture where there are more tasty dead leaves to munch on.

Castles in North Wales: Penrhyn vs Conwy

2009-11-02T16:31:00.004Z

I have just come back from a week in North Wales, a part of the country I knew well from a hiker’s point of view, but no so well from that of a tourist. We therefore took the opportunity of a longer-than-usual stay to visit some of the region's lower altitude attractions. I am a bit of a sucker for a good castle, and so we ended up visiting two. But which one was best?

First off, I freely admit that this is in no way a fair comparison. Although both termed 'castles' they are completely different beasts, both in age, style and most importantly purpose. We also visited one when we were completely fresh, and the other after having done a 17 km hill walk, the exertion from which had made us more interested in tea and cake than in culture. Despite all this, in my mind there is a clear winner.

Conwy Castle occupies a commanding position on the edge of its small walled town. Considering that it was built between 1283 and 1289 it is in excellent condition, with most of its towers and even a few archways still intact. It is one of many castles built for Edward I after his suppression of a major Welsh rebellion, and was designed in part to guard the mouth of the River Conwy. It proved itself able to withstand a lengthy siege a mere six years after its construction, but by the 17th century had fallen into disrepair. It is now under the stewardship of Cadw, the organisation charged with the preservation of Welsh history.

Conwy Castle is from the outside a grand structure, a dominant presence that looks just like castles should with its thick walls and sizeable turrets. Inside however, it is slightly disappointing. Yes, there are plenty of spiral staircases to climb up and down; and yes, the views from the tops of the towers are impressive, extending over hills, river and sea. But the explanatory signs are few and far between, one tower is much like the next, and it is difficult to get a real feel of what the castle would have been like in its prime. Many rooms are simply latrines for the pigeons and the only real attempt at an exhibition is a display about chapels in Welsh castles in general, which failed to grab our interest. We stayed just a short while before moving to a nearby pub to put our booted feet up.

Penrhyn Castle on the other hand had me captivated instantly. It is an entirely different proposition: rather than being a true castle designed for defensive purposes it is a 'fantasy' Neo-Norman stately home built by Thomas Hopper for the astoundingly rich Pennant family from 1820 to 1845. The Pennants made their fortune from slate quarrying in the surrounding hills and from the sugar industry in far-off Jamaica, getting rich off the labours of others who unfortunately included a large number of slaves. The grand scale and lavishness of the castle reflects well this extreme wealth, and it must have been a magnificent, if rather unnerving, place in which to live.

The first room entered after passing through the entrance corridor is the dazzling great hall. This is a vast space with an intricately patterned vaulted ceiling, stained glass windows and imposing fireplace. It has a cathedral-like atmosphere to it, and must have made visitors feel very small indeed. The next room is the library and it is here that the full force of Hopper's over-the-top design hits you. Everything is unique, no surface remains undecorated, gilded ornamentation and intricate carving abound. It doesn't necessarily look good, but it does look 'wow'!

Another highlight is the grand staircase. I originally thought that the pillars and walls were made of plaster casts but it had in fact all been carved out of sandstone. Gargoyle-like faces look down on you from everywhere, each one different, each one intriguing. Upstairs things are toned down slightly, becoming merely excessive rather than extravagantly so. Few sandstone creatures inhabit the bedrooms, supposedly in order to let their human occupants sleep without being terrified, however Hopper couldn't seem to resist putting a few wooden ones on the furniture. In short, the place is full of the stuff of dreams, or the stuff of nightmares, depending one’s individual inclination.

So, which castle is the best? Older or newer? Practical or fanciful? Style or substance?

For me, Penrhyn Castle wins easily. Its ostentatious design is almost certainly all in very bad taste, but nonetheless I find it mesmerising.

I am now of course going to make the above comparison completely pointless by concluding that if I had time to visit just one castle in North Wales it would definitely be that of Caernarfon, which is a fantastic, immense and mostly-intact structure containing ample nooks and crannies which allow for a cracking game of hide and seek...

Conwy Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Caernarfon Castle

Nick Griffin on Question Time

2009-10-23T11:40:00.001+01:00

Before seeing Question Time last night I had thought that allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin onto the political discussion programme was a thoroughly bad idea. I didn't agree that the BBC absolutely had to invite him on in order to fulfil their charter, instead I thought that the move was more about securing publicity and ratings. I also shared the concerns of those such as Ken Livingstone who worried that giving racists a platform would lead to a spike in violence against Muslims and black people.

However, having seen the programme last night I have changed my mind, and think that it was probably a good move. This is because Nick Griffin was just so utterly pathetic. I would be extremely surprised if any undecided voters were to turn to the BNP as a result of his wretched performance, and would hope that those who supported him in the European elections are now regretting their choice.

Nick Griffin is one of the most hated people in the whole of the UK. He has put himself into this position, which cannot be pleasant, because of his fascist and racist beliefs. If he believes these things to be true so strongly that he is willing to be the target of so much venom in order to support them, then one would have expected him to defend them passionately. Instead, he attempted to deny he had ever said pretty much everything he's been recorded as saying.

Griffin complained that he was one of the most misquoted people in the British media. However, when asked by the chair David Dimbleby to give an example of one of the things that he'd been reported to have said that he hadn't actually said, he couldn't come up with anything. When questioned about his views on the Holocaust he claimed that they had changed, but that he couldn't explain the reasons why. His bizarre excuse for this was European legislation preventing such things being discussed. The rest of the panel nonetheless tried to draw something out of him, with Jack Straw pointing out that he was the Justice Secretary and so could guarantee that Griffin wouldn't be prosecuted. Still the BNP leader was evasive, giving the impression that he was simply clueless.

Why wasn't he just honest? Who was he trying to appeal to? By denying everything he stands for he alienates his core membership, and to everyone else he just looks like a bumbling fool. Sat next to Griffin was Bonnie Greer, playwright and Deputy Chairman of the British Museum, who seemed to be on the show as the voice of reason. She spoke in a very matter of fact fashion, and treated Griffin like a misguided little schoolboy, which is exactly how he behaved.

Griffin floundered for the rest of the programme. He appeared completely out of his depth, not really understanding what was going on around him. He smiled and laughed when people made jokes at his expense, applauded and nodded in agreement with those who suggested that people only voted for the BNP out of disillusionment rather than due to any engagement with their policies. If he truly thinks that, why isn't he hanging his head in shame? Surely a political party has failed if no one really agrees with its principles.

BNP supporters are today saying that the programme was completely unfair, that the audience and other panellists were overly hostile and didn't allow Nick Griffin to get his points across. Yes, the prevailing mood was against him, but I don't think someone who incites hatred based on ethnicity can complain about this. And yes, he didn't get his point across, but this was not due to others preventing him from doing so; rather it was because he did not have any coherent points to make. It is very sad that such a spineless, incapable man is present on the political stage in this country.

Man in wheelchair abandoned on Snowdon

2009-10-19T17:26:00.002+01:00

On Saturday a group of six martial arts enthusiasts attempted to walk up Snowdon carrying their wheelchair-bound friend. This was apparently as part of a record attempt for charity. They got partway up the Llanberis path, decided they were getting a bit tired and so left their friend sat in his wheelchair on the path whilst they went up to bag the summit. They then descended, and instead of taking their friend back with them they decided it would be a better idea to save themselves the effort and to call mountain rescue who would, they figured, get him back down quickly in a helicopter.

The mountain rescue team was, unsurprisingly, less than impressed. Fifteen people carried the by then rather cold man to the railway and the train took him down to the valley bottom.

The first entry in the catalogue of stupidity demonstrated by this group is the fact that none of them had even been all the way up the Llanberis path before. Common sense would dictate that if you are set on performing such a ridiculous deed as carrying a wheelchair up a mountain, you would check first to see if the terrain is going to be okay for this. If the rocky reality of the mountain landscape had failed to dissuade you it would then be sensible to consider whether a mere six people were sufficient for such an undertaking. To which the answer would be no.

If, once embarked upon this fool's errand, the group started to get tired, you would have to consider the best course of action. Would it be to all descend together, using your last vestiges of energy to carry your friend down, or would it be to indulge the desires of the able-bodied group members to get to the top, hoping that somehow you would have enough juice left to carry your friend afterwards? Any person with half an ounce of consideration would go for the first option, and so of course this sorry lot plumped for the second.

I admit that I have only heard about this from news websites, and so there may be extenuating circumstances of which I am not aware. I doubt it though. It would seem to be yet another example of people treating mountains as toys, as tourist attractions, not as vast and often-dangerous masses of rock which demand respect. When I first started properly going out into the hills, a mere seven years ago, the sight of a mountain rescue helicopter was a rarity. Now they seem to be out and about every weekend in the Lake District and the north of Snowdonia.

People seem to think that they have a right to summit the mountains (especially if it's for charity) and so go tramping up pitifully ill-equipped. Sometimes it works out okay; the weather is good, the path is easy. But often the weather is foul, the way is unclear, and that clown costume which seemed such a good idea down at sea level is suddenly not quite so funny. An accident happens, the good people of mountain rescue are called out and yet again they risk their lives in order to help those too naive to help themselves. The hills in the UK may not be especially big, but that doesn't mean they can't pack a considerable bite. Give them the consideration they deserve.

Too many snails?

2009-10-14T16:23:00.007+01:00

A resident frog

The garden pond has been a source of much entertainment for me over the past year. One of the few advantages of being in too much pain to work is that I have been able to take the time to simply sit back and watch as nature has gone about its business. Our pond is only about 6 m² large and is not very deep, but there is so much going on. It has been simply teeming with life, from the alien-looking larvae and diving beetles to the much larger visiting frogs and dragonflies. Best of all has been watching the newts, from their first appearance in spring, through the frantic breeding season to their departure in early autumn.

Back in the spring the pond was in a sorry state. It was still full of creatures, but these were scarcely visible due to the suffocating swathes of blanket weed and duckweed clogging up the water. The pond was also choked by a proliferation of decaying leaves, deposited there by a nearby tree the previous autumn. Drastic action was required.

We decided that the best way to clean up the pond was to remove huge clumps of the leaves and weed by hand, sorting through the noxious-looking mess to ensure that no living things were discarded. Before long we had a whole menagerie of weird and wonderful creatures collected in a bucket: beetles, bugs, and boatmen mixed in with the occasional amphibian. It was tiring but fascinating work. When we were done the pond was by no means perfect, but looked significantly better. We returned the creatures to their home and waited for things to settle out.

One of the newts I found in the mess of leaves

The duckweed had been conquered and the bulk of the leaves removed, but things were still not right. Despite our best efforts, the blanket weed was still there. The problem with blanket weed is that it grows, and it grows fast, expanding at a quite frankly terrifying pace on hot days. It had to be removed, but how? Luckily, inspiration struck and I devised a cunning approach to this: using a broom to simply sweep out the weed. Its green fibrous tendrils stick readily to bristles, meaning that with just a few minutes work the pond could be made much clearer. However, if even the smallest bit was left this would expand rapidly and the next day the pond would need to be 'broomed' again.

We had discovered one good weapon, but we needed to open up another front on which to attack the masses of blanket weed. The broom was a mechanical approach, and so perhaps it was time to attempt something a little more biological. We headed off to the garden centre and returned proudly wielding a water-filled bag containing seven snails. We crossed our fingers and hoped that these would be hungry molluscs, eager to chomp down every last vestige of weed.

At first not a lot happened. The pond still required regular brooming, and we rarely clapped eyes on its newest inhabitants. But then, one day, the blanket weed was gone. The water was crystal clear; we could see everything. And everything included one hell of a lot of snails. They were everywhere, not a single patch had been left uncolonised. They came in all sizes, from the barely perceptible to those several centimetres long. It was a remarkable transformation.

It is of course good to be rid of the blanket weed, but we are now wondering if we have simply substituted one bane for another. Can such a huge number of snails be healthy? Will they naturally regulate their numbers in a sensible fashion, or will there be a population explosion followed by a mass death as the pond is drained of resources? Will their excrement make the pond too toxic for other creatures? Troubling questions indeed.

Friend or foe?

Deciding that no harm, and potentially some good, would be done by a little intervention, I decided to remove some of the snails. Just working from one corner I scooped out about fifty and put them in a bucket along with some weed and sediment for them to munch on. The places these had occupied were quickly filled by others, and when I returned a mere quarter of an hour later it was impossible to tell that I had taken any out.

And now I have a new dilemma. What do I do with a bucket full of snails? I could try to sell them back to the garden centre, thus making a huge profit, but I'm not sure they'd be accepted. I could try and fob them off on neighbours with ponds, but they probably have plenty of snails of their own. I can't put them in the river as we can't tell for certain what type of snails they are, and we don't want to risk harming the ecosystem there. I need a plan, and I need one fast as I doubt snails enjoy living in a bucket. Any ideas?

That's a lot of leg!

2009-10-14T15:58:00.007+01:00

I found this creature on the outside wall of the house yesterday and thought 'surely that amount of leg can't be necessary?'! The little critter is a harvestman, a type of arachnid that differs from spiders as its body comprises only one segment; the head, thorax and abdomen being melded together. It also possesses a mere two eyes as opposed to the spider's eight, and can't produce the silk needed to make webs. Birds are one of the harvestman's main predators, but to help deter them it can secrete a substance from the base of each front leg that smells really bad (if you happen to be a sparrow or a blue tit). It also relies on raw speed to help avoid becoming another creature's next meal - enormous legs and minimal body weight come in handy for this! Interestingly, it sheds its exoskeleton every ten days or so, like a snake shedding its skin. Harvestmen are normally nocturnal, but nonetheless it is still quite possible to see them out and about during the day. If you do spot one, try to resist picking it up as if you do, one of its legs will probably fall off.

The only way is up!

2009-10-14T12:23:00.003+01:00

On Monday 5th October, Dr Chris Welch of Kingston University gave a talk at Kingston Grammar School entitled 'The only way is up! Space propulsion systems past, present and future'. I was lucky enough to be able to sneak along as part of the National Physical Laboratory contingent (I still don't work there, by the way). It was an interesting presentation, suitable for a broad audience, made into more of an 'event' by liberal use of dry ice and purple lighting, and by a funky display of model rockets that pupils had made beforehand. Dr Welch began by explaining the basics behind rocketry, then moved on to describe the subject’s history, detailing various inventions and developments as well as the colourful characters behind them. He ended by giving a whistlestop tour of the new ideas that could influence the way spacecraft are propelled in the future. All good stuff, and ideal topics for outreach as they cover aspects of science that pretty much everyone is interested in: space travel and blowing things up.

I have always been amused by the proclamation 'I'm not a rocket scientist!', uttered by people trying to protest their less-than-super-human levels of intelligence, as rocketry is perhaps one of the easiest areas of science to understand. After all, a rocket is simply something that moves forward due to mass being ejected out of its end.

This can be described more formally using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation:

Δν = ν_e ln(m₀ / m₁)

where Δν is the change in velocity of a rocket, ν_e is the exhaust velocity, m₀ is the initial total mass and m₁ is the final total mass.

The complications arise when deciding what this mass should be and working out how to throw it in the right direction. And, as the talk demonstrated, this can be a little tricky.

Dr Chris Welch

A soggy weekend in the Rhinogs

2009-10-13T14:08:00.005+01:00

Ah, the Rhinogs. One of the few groups of hills in Wales that you can visit with the guarantee that you will hardly see another soul. This is due to two main factors: firstly, the hills are too gnarly to appeal to your average hill walker; secondly, the visibility will almost certainly be such that unless a fellow human being comes within five metres of you, you will have no idea that they are there.

My friend Murray has a perverse fascination with the kind of hills that nobody else likes; the more obscure and unwelcoming the better. He therefore schemed a plan that would see us start in the seaside town of Barmouth, catch a train to the rarely-frequented village of Talsarnau, hack our way inland and then walk back south across the mountains over two days. Linear walks incorporating a wild camp are always appealing, and so four of us endeavoured to put the plan into action...

Day one

Everything started well; we caught the train with no problems and our pronunciation of 'Talsarnau' was sufficiently good that the guard understood where we wanted to go. Before long we had left the (limited) signs of civilisation behind and were surrounded by craggy wilderness. Leaving our heavy packs hidden in the remains of a small ruined hut, we headed north to bag the first two peaks of the weekend, Moel Ysgyfarnogod and Foel Penolau. Both of these are very satisfying tops, with the second requiring some minor scrambling in order to reach the summit, and are well worth a visit. We were fortunate in that the cloud was quite high at that point, and so we had some stunning views, with the Llyn Peninsula to the west and a vast valley to the east.

Soon afterwards we were in a slight quandary: the next peak on our list, Rhinog Fawr, was some way to the south. Did we embrace Pythagoras’ theorem and take the direct route, or did we stick to the path, which would mean walking further and required considerable re-ascent? Given the trickiness of the terrain, the rapidly-lowering clag and the fact that Murray had just become intimately acquainted with a bog, we plumped for the latter.

By the time we reached the ‘Roman Steps’ path that skirts the side of Rhinog Fawr we were all beginning to feel fatigued, and started looking around for a possible campsite. As all around us was steep, rocky and heather-infested things didn't seem too promising. Fortunately we did manage to find a place that was fairly flat and wasn't too squelchy, and before long we had all three tents set up. Dinner was pasta tarted up with ground pepper from sachets 'acquired' from a workplace canteen, followed by hearty slices of Yorkshire Tea Cake. This tastes good anywhere, but in a cold tent after a hard day's walk it is elevated to the divine. The evening’s entertainment consisted of an unsuccessful game of 'mind snap' (i.e. the card game but with no cards), a rather more rewarding session of tent-bound ‘I Spy’ and a great quantity of borderline-amusing jokes.

Day two

The next day we awoke to much more typical Welsh weather: cold, wet and windy. Before setting out on the trip we had scoffed at a weather forecast which had promised a cloud base at a mere 49 m - far too low even for the Rhinogs, we thought; unfortunately that prediction appeared to be coming true. Despite many and prolonged protestations – ‘You expect me to come out in that?!’ - we eventually got everyone out of their sleeping bags and packed up ready to go.

We followed a reasonable (for the Rhinogs) path up to the summit of Rhinog Fawr, where we hunkered down to eat some snacks and wonder what the view might look like in the absence of cloud. This is one of life's great mysteries, and I am not sure anyone truly knows the answer. The way down Rhinog Fawr is rather less distinct than the way up, lacking any real paths, leading Murray to comment that it is never possible to descend by the same way twice. Our chosen route was perhaps the worst of all the possible options, and I take comfort in the fact that I am very unlikely to repeat it. We unsteadily picked our way down a steep, unstable pile of boulders, unpleasant at the best of times but made worse by the rain which had made them incredibly slippery. With these conquered, the terrain turned more heathery; equally steep and even less reliable.

A typical Rhinogs view

It was a grumpy group who finally reached the bottom. Soaked through, with strained knees and sore wrists we contemplated the shadow of Rhinog Fach in front of us and thought 'no thanks'. Not liking to bail the walk, but at the same time having no desire to continue hacking through the heather, we decided to head west down the valley, hoping to catch a train from the station about 10 km away at Llanbedr. A couple of hours later a much happier gang were mere minutes away from the station when we heard a train approach. We tried to speed up, but to no avail. There was no chance that we could get there in time, and so the train trundled past without us.

It turned out that we had just missed the only train running that day - such is the nature of public transport in rural Wales on a Sunday. Somehow, being late by such a short amount of time felt much worse than if we had missed the train by a good few hours. Dejected, we slumped on the station bench and consoled ourselves with Bournville. Then it was back to the village to inspect the bus timetable, which was similarly sparse. Luckily, however, a helpful soul at one of the pubs provided us with taxi numbers and for the princely sum of £12 a friendly driver allowed the four of us and our gear, all damp and smelly, into his nice clean car.

Barmouth is a seaside town which still has character and, despite the tackiness of some of the establishments, I like it. It also has a very good chip shop, the Harbour Fish Bar, which we were very happy to make use of. Alas, time was getting on, and so after finishing our meals we got back in the car and began the long drive south. All in all, it was a good weekend despite the unforgiving nature of the hills, although it may be some time before any of us attempt to the Rhinogs again.

Sir John Soane's Museum

2009-10-09T11:08:00.002+01:00

Sir John Soane (1753 - 1837) was the architect who designed, amongst many other buildings, the Bank of England. Strongly influenced by what he saw on an early study tour to Italy, he decided to specialise in the neoclassical style, bringing the majesty and elegance of Greece and Rome to his own country. He did not allow his humble beginnings as the youngest son of a bricklayer to impede him; thanks to his inclination to work hard and his natural talent he soon found success and was able to thrive. A few years after winning the Bank of England commission he purchased number 12, Lincoln's Inn Fields, eventually acquiring numbers 13 and 14 as well. It is in these houses that the museum now lies.

Soane was passionate about his favourite branch of architecture and sought to pass this enthusiasm on to students. He therefore transformed his house into a museum showcasing the best of classical design, not only by displaying ancient objects but by manipulating the rooms themselves. He hoped that young architects would come into the house and find inspiration, encouraging them to incorporate some of what they saw into their own plans. Every nook and corner is filled with another treasure: a piece of fresco here, a cast of a statue there. As the rooms themselves are mostly quite small this proliferation of objects could easily feel claustrophobic, however Soane’s canny use of light, often entering the interior through coloured glass, alleviates any sense of enclosure.

It is difficult to pick out highlights in a museum so full of interest, and where the building itself is such an attraction, but there are nonetheless a few things which truly stand out. One of these is the sarcophagus of King Seti the first, residing in the catacomb-like basement. Although the London air has unfortunately corroded away much of its former glory, this find, one of the most important relics ever found of ancient Egypt, is hugely impressive, being entirely covered in skilfully-etched hieroglyphics. The catacombs also contain a grave, supposedly that of the invented monk Padre Giovanni, but actually containing the remains of Mrs Soane’s beloved lap dog Fanny.

The picture room is truly a marvel. Faced with a large number of paintings and not enough space in which to hang them, Soane devised a novel solution: what appear initially to be static walls loaded with artwork are in fact hinged screens which can open out to reveal yet more pictures behind. The paintings themselves are more than worthy of note. Perhaps most striking are those by William Hogarth, of which there are two series: 'An Election' and 'A Rake’s Progress', highly satirical works whose messages are just as relevant today as they were in the 1700s. In addition to these are drawings of Italian buildings by Piranesi and watercolours of several of Soane's designs by Joseph Gandy. Had all of these latter actually been built, London today would be a very different place indeed. One view of the city is particularly far-fetched, having grand mountains as its backdrop, so perhaps these ideas were based more in Romanticism than in reality.

Soane's museum is not on the standard tourist itinerary, and so is often one of the last museums that people get round to visiting. Once they have done so however, it becomes a firm favourite. The house is not that large, and so it does not take long to wander around it, and it is definitely time well spent. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable; it is obvious that they are passionate about the place and enjoy showing it off. An extra bonus is that the museum is completely free, although it is so good that it feels rude to leave without giving a donation. After all, there are few places in London as interesting or as atmospheric.

The museum's website

Lincoln's Inn Fields is an attractive London square located just east of Kinsgway. Sir John Soane's Museum is on the northern edge. The southern edge is home to the Royal College of Surgeons and Lincoln's Inn itself lies on the east side. The closest tube station, just two minutes walk away, is Holborn (Central and Piccadilly lines).

Ode to the LDV Convoy

2009-10-08T15:38:00.002+01:00

I make no pretensions to being a poet, but as today is National Poetry Day in the UK I thought I would give it a go:

Alas, poor LDV Convoy,
Murdered by credit crunch cruelty,
Will we ever see your like again?

Your struggling diesel engine,
Sputtering along the highway,
Letting out a roar with each gear change.

With walls thin as tissue paper,
In the event of a collision
We knew you would always come off worse.

Never a comfortable journey
For any sort of passenger,
‘specially not for those with quite long legs.

I once got you up to 90
Driving downhill on the M6,
You shook so hard I thought you might burst.

But I need not have worried as
You always got there in the end,
The wonderful, incomparable, irreplaceable, quite phenomenal LDV Convoy.

Ok, so it's probably not an ode, but I'm not particularly au fait with poetry classification. I challenge you to come up with your own poem!

Show the government your appreciation of LDV
National Poetry Day

A brief guide to snooker referees

2009-10-07T17:09:00.017+01:00

The snooker season is now well and truly underway, with the Grand Prix taking place in Glasgow right now. I therefore thought it would be timely to provide a brief guide to the people wearing the white gloves.

Appearance	Well done! You've spotted...
Tall, Dutch and friendly. The kind of guy you'd employ to be your butler if you were stinking rich and owned a castle.	Jan Verhaas. He performs the initial toss using a half guilder coin.
Welsh, balding, glasses-wearing. Bears more than a passing resemblance to the fat controller.	Eirian Williams. Apparently enjoys a spot of karaoke outside of work.
Female. Killer heels.	Michaela Tabb. Used to be a professional eight ball pool player.
Old and smiley with a cheeky streak. Could easily be a grandad from a Werther's Original advert.	Alan Chamberlain. Before he was a referee he sold ladies underwear.
Looks like his suit might burst. Kind of like Mr Blobby, but without the spots.	Peter Williamson. Has officiated six 147s.
Small, hesitant, slightly Transylvanian.	Terry Camilleri. Comes from Malta, not Romania.
Round face, glasses. Fairly unremarkable but nonetheless naggingly familiar.	Colin Humphries A poker-playing Liverpudlian.

Picture from Maciej Jaros on Wikimedia Commons

Moctezuma at the British Museum

2009-10-06T14:29:00.005+01:00

I had never been to an exhibition at the British Museum before last week, mostly due to the fact that there are a staggering number of interesting things that you can see there for free. Handing over at least £10 for a ticket has therefore never seemed necessary, and, if the current Moctezuma display is representative of these exhibitions, is not something that I will be doing again in a hurry.

It doesn't help that they have taken over the reading room in order to stage this exhibition. I love the reading room. With its multiple storeys of heaving bookshelves running around the outer wall, all in good old-fashioned heavy dark wood, and its desks protruding in a star-like fashion from the centre, it is my idea of heaven. Having all its glory hidden away behind screens irks me. Especially when the reason for it is so underwhelming.

The major failing of Moctezuma is that it doesn't have a coherent story to tell. There are indeed some nice objects to look at (although the masks that were my favourites are normally available to see in the Museum anyway), but many of the descriptions are repetitive and failed to provide any useful insight. The exhibition is supposedly divided up into sections on such things as religion and warfare, although if it weren't for the signs it would be difficult to tell this. Little is truly engaging, which is a huge disappointment as it wouldn't have taken much extra effort to make this a must-see event.

For example, there was a diagram comprising of three gears showing how the Aztec’s, or rather the Mexica’s, (the refusal to call people by their commonly known names was another annoyance) calendar worked. Why not make actual gears rather than just drawing them, so that people could move them and hence understand better how the whole system slotted together? Instead of just having small models of temple buildings why not make a mock-up of the interior of one of them that people could walk through? The Aztec way of drawing is highly stylised and figures are often difficult to pick out on the un-painted stonework, so why not give an explanation as to why their artists worked in this way?

I came away not really knowing what Moctezuma was like as a king, what society was like in the Aztec civilisation, or how the ordinary people went about their days, all things that I had hoped that the exhibition would shed light on. I could probably now sketch out a map of the centre of Tenochtitlan, or tell you the outline of the myths surrounding its creation, but I didn't feel in immersed in the culture. I appreciate that there are many things that we just don't know due to the Spanish invasion, but even if it wasn't completely accurate a bit of speculation could have added much needed colour, and the points we can be more certain on could have been fleshed out. The exhibition has received rave reviews, and so maybe I just didn't 'get' it, but I would still caution those thinking of spending a lot of money on a ticket.

Montezuma: Aztec Ruler

Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic

2009-10-05T10:28:00.003+01:00

Showing at London's Old Vic until 20th December, Inherit the Wind is a 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee based on the famous Scopes monkey trial of 1925. The play's revival is timely given both the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth and the rising tide of Christian fundamentalism in places such as the USA; indeed one wonders what kind of reception it would receive in that country at present. However, the main aim of the authors was not to specifically espouse evolution but rather to champion the rights of people to think for themselves, a pertinent issue in the fifties due to the scaremongering of McCarthyism.

In the first half of the play the scene is set: we are in a small town in Tennessee, populated by inherently good-natured but easily led Christians who are stirred up with a mixture of excitement and revulsion. They are thrilled that the famous politician Matthew Harrison Brady is coming to town and greet him with cheers and a picnic, but the reason for his visit - the fact that a local teacher, Bertram Cates, has given lessons on evolution, and is to be prosecuted by the state - has them fuming. They are even more riled to discover that Cates is to be defended by the famous agnostic lawyer Henry Drummond, thought by some to be the devil himself. The bulk of the action takes place in the courtroom, where these two legal titans battle it out; one using his conviction that every word in the Bible is literally true, the other by appealing to common sense and rational thought.

The play has a large cast of 41 (and one monkey) which is used to great effect to create the early 1900s small town atmosphere. One scene, in which an eager audience hums the tune to ‘Amazing Grace’ whilst the preacher bays his message of damnation and hellfire, is particularly chilling. Best though, is the acting of the two leads. David Troughton is utterly convincing as Brady, a man desperate to return to the political spotlight who is well-meaning but blinkered by his narrow religious viewpoints. In stark contrast is an almost unrecognisable Kevin Spacey, whose sharp comic timing and stage presence are ideal for the quick-witted Drummond. The play's ending is perhaps a little forced, with one event in particular seeming unnecessary, but everything up until that point more than makes up for it. In short, ‘Inherit the Wind’ is both entertaining and thought-provoking, and so is well worth going to see.

The Old Vic

Scopes Monkey Trial

The Monument

2009-10-01T13:49:00.006+01:00

A good way to get a panoramic view of London is to climb the Monument. Erected from 1671 to 1677, it was designed (as were great swathes of the City) by Sir Christopher Wren and commemorates the Great Fire of London in 1666. The height of the Monument, at 61 m, is equal to the distance between its base and the site of the bakery in Pudding Lane where the conflagration started. A towering Doric pillar of white Portland limestone, the Monument is the tallest freestanding stone column in the world, and yet nowadays it is barely visible, its dominance having been usurped by the numerous high-rise buildings that have sprung up around it. It is hence something to be stumbled upon, rather than to be admired in awe from afar.

Despite this, the view from the top is surprisingly good, and well worth the meagre £3 entry charge. The towering skyscrapers of the City, such as the famous Gherkin, and the vast dome of St Paul's Cathedral dominate the view to the north, but to the south the view opens out over the river. Tower Bridge lies a little way to the east, and to the west it is possible to make out the London Eye, carrying round in its pods the tourists who have paid far more for their panorama.

One of the best things to see, however, lies within the Monument itself. To reach the viewing platform it is necessary to climb 311 steps, which ascend their way heavenwards in a tight spiral. Once at the top it is mesmerising to stare downwards into the pillar’s core, looking at the stairs as they go round and round and round...

If you visit, do spare a thought for those who work in this place. As I descended the steps with a friend we were stopped by a terrified woman going in the opposite direction. Her eyes glued to her feet the whole time, she hastily thrust a couple of certificates in our direction. We thanked her, and she explained that she had to go up to the top to make sure everyone got this memento of their visit. Unfortunately, this simple task was made rather daunting due to the fact that she was petrified of heights...

Picture from Wikimedia Commons user Artybrad

The Monument's website

Jupiter

2009-09-30T10:10:00.003+01:00

Last night we popped outside and happened to notice a very bright object close to the moon. It increased in size when viewed through binoculars, so we concluded that it was probably a planet. A quick check on the Internet revealed that this was indeed correct, and that the planet in question was Jupiter. The sky was at this point fairly cloud-free and so we thought it would be worth our while to get the telescope out. It had been a long time since I'd looked at anything through the scope and so I was filled with child-like excitement when I got my first close-up peek. It got even better when we switched to an eyepiece offering higher magnification, and after a bit of work fine-tuning the focus we were able to make out two of the red bands wrapped around the planet's girth, and possibly one of its moons.

It is easy to forget that the rest of the universe exists when we are trapped here on Earth, absorbed in the minutiae of our mundane terrestrial lives, unable to even see many of the stars due to the dirty brown haze emanating from our cities. When we do take the time to look up it is difficult to absorb the reality of what we see: how can there be so many stars, how can they be so far away, how many millennia old can the light hitting our eyes right now really be? Actually seeing a planet for yourself, and it looking vaguely like the object you've seen in countless pictures brings home the fact that however incomprehensible the universe may be to our Earth-shackled minds, it is indisputably real. All you need to do is look. And when you do it is a wonderful experience.

Jupiter as photographed by NASA. They have a rather bigger telescope than I do.

Blackberry and elderberry cordial

2009-09-28T10:46:00.006+01:00

I noticed a little while ago that a fair number of blackberries were lurking in the hedgerow running down the side of the garden. A good proportion of these have now ripened, and so yesterday I decided it was time to harvest them. This is a hazardous endeavour, not only because of the prickly thorns on the brambles themselves, but also due to the ranks of stinging nettles lined up to defend them. Armed with long sleeves, long trousers and insufficiently long socks (resulting in stings all around my ankles) I ventured out, and before long had almost a kilogram of shiny blackberries, with a few elderberries chucked in for good measure.

Once the berries had been collected, we had to decide what to do with them, and although it was tempting to try and produce some wine or other alcoholic beverage we eventually plumped for the instant gratification of a cordial. Should you be inclined to try this yourself, here are some instructions:

Put the berries in a colander and wash them under running water. Perform this step even if you would normally eat the blackberries straight off the bush as it will make your mother much happier about the whole enterprise.
Remove errant snail from colander.
Dump the berries in a big heavy saucepan.
Add enough water so that the berries are all covered. Then chuck in a bit more for no apparent reason.
Add some sugar. The amount of sugar should be equal to what is available in the cupboard minus the amount that will probably be needed for cups of tea later in the day. For us, this worked out to be about 400 g.
Let the mixture simmer until the berries are starting to burst, or until you get bored, whichever is soonest.
Realise that you don't have a sieve available, and so find a (admittedly jumbo-sized) tea strainer to use instead. One ladleful at a time, strain your berry mixture into a large bowl, using a spoon to squish as much of the juice out as possible. Find another bowl to put the leftover solids in.
Use a potato masher to extract the last bit of juice from said leftover solids. Wish you had a bit of muslin, as that would make this step much easier.
Sample a bit of the liquid, and be pleasantly surprised. Chuck in an arbitrary amount of cinnamon, and stir.
Leave the cordial to cool, then bottle.

The cordial we produced by this method was actually rather nice. We used about one third cordial and two thirds water, and added a few drops of lemon juice before serving. Next time I would use slightly less sugar, but other than this minor quibble the whole endeavour was remarkably successful.

A breakthrough HIV vaccine?

2009-09-25T15:01:00.003+01:00

Over the last couple of days the media has been full of stories reporting the results of a HIV vaccine trial, purporting to be the first ever to show that such a vaccine is both possible and safe. Although the reported efficiency of the vaccine in preventing HIV infection is just 31%, it is being portrayed as a major breakthrough given that all the other candidates so far developed have been unsuccessful. It does indeed sound like a huge step forward; one that is much needed given the ever-increasing number of people affected by the virus. However, my suspicions were stirred when I saw the numbers involved: out of a group of 8197 given the vaccine 51 people became infected over the three-year trial period, whereas out of a group of 8198 given a placebo 74 became HIV-positive. These numbers are small. It was claimed that the results were still statistically significant, but not being one to take media science stories at face value, I wanted to check for myself. My mind was full of questions: how did the people in the two groups compare, how were they chosen, were the ones who became infected simply at a higher risk than the others? The research paper would surely give me these answers.

Except that it didn't. Why? Because it doesn't even exist yet. All these articles in the media have been produced off the back of a press release, a document produced by the division of the US military running the trial which of course has an interest in the favourable dissemination of the results. Nothing has yet been peer-reviewed, there is no way for anyone interested to make their own interpretation of the results, to banish any suspicions they may have.

So why did they issue the press release this week? Why not let the story break on the same day as the full results are published in a reputable journal? The vaccine isn't going to save thousands of lives imminently, so it hardly matters if the news comes out today or in a week’s time. It is perfectly possible to let journalists know about the story beforehand, so that they can get their story prepared, but have them agree to only publish it at the same time as the scientific article comes out; this kind of arrangement happens all the time. Why didn't it in this case? The cynic in me wonders what they had to hide, and so I automatically become less trusting of the results.

I truly hope that it was a very carefully controlled study, that the results are reliable and that it really does herald a new leap forward in the worldwide fight against HIV. Other things about the trial which make me uncomfortable (such as the fact that it was run by the US military but carried out on people from Thailand) may well prove to have very reasonable explanations. It's just that without being able to see the evidence myself, I don't know, fellow scientists don't know, and the journalists certainly don't know, and that is a bad situation for all concerned.

Read the press release

Spiders, spiders everywhere!

2009-09-24T19:53:00.006+01:00

I like creepy crawlies. I'm not the kind of person who will run a mile if an insect scuttles past; I’m much more likely to pick it up and inspect it more closely. So yesterday I decided to wander around the garden and see how many spiders I could find. And I can conclude that they are absolutely everywhere. I can also conclude that they are not that bright, as several seemed to go to huge amounts of effort to build beautifully-crafted webs directly behind those of other spiders, thus guaranteeing that no flies could possibly come their way. Many more decided to set up home on the doors of an old shed, piling layer upon layer of sticky yarn over the door handle and hinges. Again, a position where catching bugs is unlikely.

In fact, they seemed to be making such a concerted effort to prevent the shed from ever being opened again that it left me wondering if there’s something inside that the spiders don't want us to see. Maybe they're not so stupid after all...

Bye-bye bluefin tuna

2009-09-23T18:13:00.002+01:00

Yesterday the European Union decided not to impose a temporary ban on the fishing of bluefin tuna. Specifically, Mediterranean countries with lots of fishermen such as Spain, Italy, Greece and shockingly France (whose president had appeared to be seeing sense on the issue) blocked the move, citing insufficient scientific evidence (?!!) and the economic drawbacks of such a ban.

This is the kind of news which makes me very very angry, and makes me despair of politicians. If our leaders are so short-sighted and downright stupid what hope is there for the future? They don't seem to understand that if you fish a species to extinction now, it (by definition) won't be there in the future. I'm sure life must be difficult for the fishermen who are returning with ever decreasing catches, and there probably are some who are genuinely struggling to feed their children. But if they carry on this way, in a few years’ time there will be no tuna left at all, and what will they do then?

Fish are not an infinite resource, they have to be left to breed if you want more. So doing things like taking the young ones and fattening them up in captivity, thereby removing any chances of them ever reproducing, is clearly a very silly idea. As is catching in the region of 50,000 tonnes of bluefin in a year when scientists estimate that the removal of any more than 15,000 tonnes will almost certainly push the species beyond the brink of no return.

But hey, if politicians dare to think long-term they might temporarily lose the vote of the fishing community, and that is of course a much more important consideration than the potential loss of an entire species...

Cnicht and the Moelwyns

2009-09-22T11:49:00.006+01:00

After far too long an absence, I finally returned to Snowdonia this weekend. Wanting to steer clear of the hordes and also wanting that rare commodity of a Welsh hill we hadn't already been up, we decided to stay just south west of Blaenau Ffestiniog and try out the Moelwyns for size.

Hence on Saturday morning we found ourselves tramping up to the summit of Cnicht, a rather deceptive hill commonly referred to as the Welsh Matterhorn. Indeed, from the village of Croesor in the valley bottom it appears a sharply pointed, towering beast, however as you ascend the very pleasant path it becomes clear that the monster is actually quite diminutive, and the top is easily attained. By the time we got there the cloud had alas descended and so our efforts were rewarded only by that most common of Welsh views: soggy greyness in every direction.

Undeterred we continued north, down the gentle ridge to Llyn yr Adar, lake of the birds. The terrain here is grassy, with lots of little humps and bumps and little in the way of clear paths, making navigation rather tricky. Visibility had reduced to less than five metres, and it wasn't long before we had an inkling that we weren't quite in the place that we had meant to be; the 'path' we had been following had veered too far to the south. Out came the map and compass, and after much squinting into the clag in search of a feature, any feature, we worked out what had gone wrong. We strode forth on a bearing of due east and within a few minutes the cloud lifted a little to reveal our target: a ruined slate mine.

Such relics of our industrial heritage are always impressive, and having them appear as if out of nowhere adds significantly to the atmosphere. We descended into the crumbling buildings, now populated only by sheep, and had a good explore, finding an old wheel here, a still-intact fireplace there. Entrances to the mines are dotted all over the place and the temptation to venture inside is strong. Tales from cavers of the instability of such places, and an unwillingness to get our feet wet, caused us to resist.

Instead we continued with the walk, beginning the ascent of the next hill by hauling ourselves up long-disused inclines. Dubious-looking slate walls towered precipitously over us, and multiple signs warned of danger. Such things did nothing to dampen our mood however, as the sun was coming out, the clouds were rising steadily higher and it had all the makings of a thoroughly nice afternoon. Indeed by the time we reached the summit of Moelwyn Mawr the last vestiges of clag had disappeared and the view was incredible.

I have always struggled to get my mental map of Snowdonia right, the hills just haven't seemed to click together in the way that those in the Lakes or the Yorkshire Dales do. The Moelwyns have gone a long way to solving this problem for me; in fact I don't think there is anywhere better from which to survey the Welsh mountains. The whole panorama stretches out in front of you: Snowdon, the Glyders and the Nantlle Ridge to the north; the Rhinogs and Cadair Idris to the south, to name but a few. And, because the Moelwyns are rather less famous than many of these, you are likely to get the view all to yourself.

The remainder of the walk led us over the satisfyingly-rocky spine of Craigysgafn, up to the final top of Moelwyn Bach. We reluctantly took one last look around us then began the descent, an easy stroll down a fairly wide grass-covered ridge. After a short stint along the edge of a wood and about a kilometre on a rarely used road we were back where we had started. We garnered some strange looks in the car park by doing some stretches, sneaked a Revel to a dog with a nose tuned to chocolate, and then headed off to the cafe for well-deserved tea and cake.

Pollock's Toy Museum

2009-09-18T12:18:00.003+01:00

London, a place where I have been spending a lot of time recently, is full of things to see and do. Unfortunately this fact is well known and so it is also full of people, who are wont to get in the way and detract from the whole experience. It is rather harder to appreciate a painting if there is a crowd three-deep in front of it, for example. I have therefore been trying to seek out the less obvious places to go in an attempt to escape the hordes of tourists.

One such place is Pollock’s Toy Museum, situated just off Tottenham Court Road just west of Goodge Street tube station. Despite containing hundreds, if not thousands, of toys, this is not a museum aimed at children. Walking inside is like entering an Angela Carter novel and can be rather disconcerting. Eyes stare at you from everywhere: from the cracked wax face of an ancient doll, the threadbare head of a long-dead child's prized teddy bear, the maniacal glare of a wooden Punch puppet. A place not of dreams but of nightmares.

The building itself adds to the mood. Despite being two houses joined together the feeling is one of claustrophobia, with narrow twisting staircases leading to a maze-like collection of tiny rooms. Every bit of wall holds a display case, the contents collected together in themes which vary from room to room. There are doll's houses, wind-up tin machines, toy theatres, board games; toys from Europe, the Far East and Africa; soldiers, castles, farmyards. I especially appreciated a beautifully-made wooden Noah's ark in which the grasshoppers were the same size as the lions.

It is both fascinating and frightening, it makes the visitor feel both illuminated and ill at ease. But most of all, it makes you wonder why our ancestors insisted on making children's playthings that were so downright creepy. Then again, with things like Bratz dolls currently being hugely popular, maybe all kids want is to be given the heebie jeebies...

Pollock's Toy Museum

Image by user Mupshot on Wikimedia Commons

Protons for Breakfast

2009-09-17T09:53:00.007+01:00

The British Science Festival recently took place in Guildford, Surrey. Speakers such as Simon Singh and Robert Winston took to the floor in order to enthuse people about science, to batter down its complicated, unfriendly image and to show how important it is in everyday life. I was involved on the opening Saturday, representing the National Physical Laboratory (NPL, an organisation for which I do not, and have never, worked) for the second time at such an outreach event.

My job was to lure passers-by in, to pique their interest sufficiently that they turned up to one of the 90 minute lectures that NPL were running. In order to do this we had been supplied with some fun toys: a static electricity wand, a Wimshurst machine and copious amounts of liquid nitrogen. The wand was great for the smaller children, who ran about the place suspending foil shapes in mid-air, and the older ones were suitably impressed by the sparks produced by the Wimshurst machine. Best of all however, was the liquid nitrogen. We smashed leaves to smithereens after dipping them in it, then briefly put our own hands in before removing them unscathed. The assembled crowds gasped as we spilled it over the table, and we had great fun with balloons, putting them in the dewar (essentially a big thermos flask) so that they shrunk down to nothing and then placing them back on the table where they slowly increased to full size as if by magic.

The best tricks (including the glowing gherkin and the electric sausage) were left for the lectures, devised and delivered by the fantastic Michael de Podesta MBE. These covered the themes of electricity, light and heat; basic topics which are often poorly understood. They all boil down to essentially the same thing: jiggling. The atoms in hot things jiggle much more than the atoms in cold things, as they jiggle they give out light, and so on. A great way of describing things, and one which was lapped up by the audience.

The lectures were in fact a very condensed version of the first three sessions of a six-week evening course that Michael runs, called 'Protons for Breakfast'. The aim of the course is to give people a basic understanding of science so that when confronted with the latest media scare story they can cut through the rubbish and make up their own minds. It has so far been hugely successful, and I would highly recommend it to anyone living in the Teddington area. The course is suitable for everyone aged from 9 to 99 who wants to get a better understanding of how everything in science fits together.

Protons for Breakfast
British Science Festival

Well, it's easier than transporting it back to Teddington...

Cat plays table football

2009-09-15T18:53:00.005+01:00

For some reason or another on Sunday evening we ended up watching some old home movies, the kind which are alternately hilarious and excruciating depending on whether you are currently the person onscreen. I truly hope that the vast majority never makes it into the public domain, but I feel this clip needs to be shared. The title says it all really, and I personally think it's brilliant. The cat in question is a little tortoiseshell called Frisky, who was huge amounts of fun but was sadly lacking in road sense. The poor thing actually ended up spending several weeks of her life stuck in a rabbit hutch so that she could recover from a broken pelvis, an injury sustained in a collision with a car. Alas she did not learn from this lesson and so was only with us for a short period of time. She did however, as you can see, live her brief life in style.

The quality is poor as the original was filmed many years ago using an enormous clunky Video8 Camcorder, but after much manipulation I have managed to get it into a post-able form. The background music I believe is Led Zeppelin, a fine example of the classic rock I was brought up on. Enjoy.

Culture? In Swindon?!

2009-09-14T20:05:00.005+01:00

On Saturday I went to see the Old Town Theatre Company's (OTTC) production of ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ at the Swindon Arts Centre. The play, written by Stephen Lowe and based upon the novel by Robert Tressell, charts the progress of a group of painters and decorators, and that of their employers, over a brief period of time in Edwardian England. This may not sound the most promising of themes, but within a few minutes I was gripped. It begins with the workers chatting as they get on with their job, and it soon becomes clear that there is a socialist in their midst, the opinionated and highly skilled Frank Owen (there is a particularly inspired scene in which Owen explains how capitalism works using no other props than knives and slices of bread). Pitted against him we have the foremen and the owners, who are bleeding their workers dry and in the process becoming filthy rich, having convinced themselves that they are worthy of such excessive remuneration because they ‘work with their minds’ whereas the workers ‘work with their hands'. The struggle for survival in which the workers are embroiled is wonderfully evoked, and we empathise fully with their dilemma: do they fight to try and change the system, and risk losing their livelihoods, or do they shut up and bear it, reminding themselves that they are fortunate to have a job at all?

The acting was uniformly excellent; the only quibble I could think of being that the accents were wont to lapse from thick Yorkshire back into Swindonian. This was an amateur production, but if I hadn't known this I wouldn't have guessed it. And being amateur, it was incredibly cheap at just £7.50 for a full price ticket - a bargain by any estimation. The set and props were basic, but this was what was needed, the play after all being about a group living in abject poverty. In short, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and I would strongly urge anyone in the Swindon area to go along to the OTTC’s next production.

The OTTC website
Swindon Arts Centre

Photo-shoot

2009-09-11T17:49:00.005+01:00

Today I went on a photo-shoot. The concept of a photo-shoot sounds glamorous and exciting (or if like me you hate having your photo taken, daunting): bright lights, impeccable styling, diva-like photographers making sure that every last thing is put precisely in its place.

This was nothing like that.

Instead I was the token under-50-year-old in a small group whose job it was to stand on footpaths and look grumpy. More precisely, narrow, ugly, fenced-off footpaths going across beautiful countryside which used to be freely accessible to all, but which has now been taken over by hugely affluent developers in order that they can build second homes for their equally affluent friends. Not surprisingly, local people get rather upset when this happens, but having little financial clout their views count for rather less than those of city bankers who want to buy their own little bit of sanitised 'countryside' as a weekend retreat. This has been taking place for some time in the area in which I grew up, but now a persistent soul who lives a few miles away (where the situation is even worse) has managed to get a national newspaper interested. Okay, so it's the Sunday Express, not a rag I'd usually pay money for, but it's better than nothing. So this morning we tramped out and, under the direction of a very friendly and not at all prissy photographer, walked up and down some rather unattractive footpaths very slowly. Repeatedly. Two hours and heaven knows how many clicks of the shutter later, we were done.

The kind of thing that gets our goat.

This is me

2009-09-10T10:25:00.003+01:00

I am a PhD student who has been suffering from chronic wrist pain for the past year. I have therefore been spending my time doing not a lot when I should have been in a lab playing with ultrafast lasers. Unfortunately for me, most things in life involve the use of hands, and so the amount I can do (be it typing, scrambling, sport, chopping vegetables etc.) has been drastically reduced. Fortunately for me, voice recognition software has improved in leaps and bounds since I first came across it many years ago, so I can now 'talk into the machine' and words bearing a pretty good resemblance to what I actually said will appear on screen. This blog is an attempt to force myself to write something every weekday, which should in turn force me to do as many interesting things as possible so that I have something to write about!