Lincoln, England, was home to the famous 617 Bombing Squadron in WWII. These are the fellows that dropped the bouncing bomb on the great dams in the Ruhr valley. The inventor of the bomb, didn't stop there, he had other problems to solve. Some of the Nazi emplacements were proving hard to hit as they were underground and protected by thick layers of concrete. He developed a very large 22,000 pound bomb for the purpose. Getting this bomb into an aircraft and getting that aircraft into the air, was a marvel on its own. Only the Lancaster could do it and the submarine pens and great gun emplacements were to suffer as a result.
After the war, superfluous aircraft were mostly scrapped (aircraft enthusiasts like myself, silently sob at the thought) but some were converted to 'gate guard' duty. All the heavy hidden stuff in the aircraft were removed and they took positions outside of Air Force bases around the world. 617 Squadron, didn't put a Lanc next to the gate, they put two of these huge bombs on either side of the entrance. And there they stayed, silent sentinels for sixty odd years.
When time came for the road to be widened, they brought a crane in to move the bombs out of the way and reposition them. When they began to lift, there was a problem, they were a lot heavier than expected. A few tools were brought to the site and some brave soul, opened a part up and peered inside. There waiting patiently for detonation was the 22,000 pounds of Torpex D1, high explosive. And the one a few meters away was the same. Should one of the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that passed by these bombs, miss the gate and hit the bomb, both could have exploded. This cathedral along with around a third of the city of Lincoln, ancient and modern would have been destroyed in an instant. Thousands would have been killed, many thousands injured. If this had happened during the cold war, WWIII could have started
Civilization hung upon the dodgy tyres of innumerable post war delivery trucks.
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Iridium rain
Sixty six million years ago, most of the non avian dinosaurs and surface hugging fish, just died. Survivors were mostly burrowing creatures, fish that could live below fifty meters and crocodiles. Archaeologists were first alerted to its cause by the discovery of Geologist. Walter Alverez of a strange layer of clay, later found to be all over the world. This clay layer separates like cream in a layer cake, the age of the reptiles from the age of the mammals.
Why would 75% of the population of the planet's life just die? Alverez took the problem to his Dad Luis Alverez, the Nobel Prize winning physicist. He turned out to be the best person in the world to ask. He took some of the clay and subjected it to chemical analysis. What he found, surprised them both. The clay was peppered with Iridium. Lots of it. Iridium isn't unknown on earth, but it is bloody rare, and to find a layer of clay with so much of it, was very odd indeed. There is one place where there seems to be quite a lot of iridium - In meteors. The iridium in the clay must have come from space.
Discovering a 180 km wide crater in the gulf of Mexico of the right age, pretty much determined what killed much of the life - A ten km wide meteor made a bang so big it would have echoed around and around the world many times. The equivalent of a hundred million megatons of TNT type bang. The impact point was the source for the iridium and a huge quantity of sulphur trioxide ejected into the air and spread around the planet. When you take a molecule of sulphur trioxide and you add a molecule of water you get sulphuric acid. Nasty stuff. And the air was full of it.
Also jettisoned up was a large quantity of very important silica, without which, neither you nor I, would be here, and this post would be written by a reptile. The silica as it fell through the gaseous sulphur trioxide, sulphuric acid and water vapour, collected together and formed the acid rain from hell. Concentrated sulphuric acid fell from the sky all over the earth for three solid days. Only those who could hide underground or deep under water, or like the crocs and ferns, had a tolerance for acidic water survived.
After those few days, the little furry rat like animals that managed to find safe water, survived. The rise of the mammal, was assured.
Why would 75% of the population of the planet's life just die? Alverez took the problem to his Dad Luis Alverez, the Nobel Prize winning physicist. He turned out to be the best person in the world to ask. He took some of the clay and subjected it to chemical analysis. What he found, surprised them both. The clay was peppered with Iridium. Lots of it. Iridium isn't unknown on earth, but it is bloody rare, and to find a layer of clay with so much of it, was very odd indeed. There is one place where there seems to be quite a lot of iridium - In meteors. The iridium in the clay must have come from space.
Discovering a 180 km wide crater in the gulf of Mexico of the right age, pretty much determined what killed much of the life - A ten km wide meteor made a bang so big it would have echoed around and around the world many times. The equivalent of a hundred million megatons of TNT type bang. The impact point was the source for the iridium and a huge quantity of sulphur trioxide ejected into the air and spread around the planet. When you take a molecule of sulphur trioxide and you add a molecule of water you get sulphuric acid. Nasty stuff. And the air was full of it.
Also jettisoned up was a large quantity of very important silica, without which, neither you nor I, would be here, and this post would be written by a reptile. The silica as it fell through the gaseous sulphur trioxide, sulphuric acid and water vapour, collected together and formed the acid rain from hell. Concentrated sulphuric acid fell from the sky all over the earth for three solid days. Only those who could hide underground or deep under water, or like the crocs and ferns, had a tolerance for acidic water survived.
After those few days, the little furry rat like animals that managed to find safe water, survived. The rise of the mammal, was assured.
Alien Astronomers
Looking out at the stars tonight, it was so clear that I felt I had to make use of my astro setup.
I was just cruising along the Milky Way, star after star after star. There are three hundred billion of them. Three hundred billion stars make up the Milky Way. I had to look that number up, because every time I see the number somewhere, the estimate has risen again. While looking at some of our neighbours I heard some statistics on a podcast that set me thinking of the Drake Equation. As loathe as I am to say never, I'll risk it this time to say it is one equation that will never be solved.
Professor Drake probably got asked the question a lot more than I am, and almost everyone asks me, 'Are we alone?' So he worked out a formula for estimating the number of planets with intelligent life. It is very long and I won't go through each term tonight but given the last estimate I read on the number of stars in our galaxy was two hundred million, multiplying guesses over guesses and you get a lot of wiggle room in the final figure.
The Kepler satellite has discovered over three thousand planets in our galaxy, with more confirmations all the time. It is no longer news to find yet another. However we can get some surprising figures from the Extra Solar Planets they have discovered. It seems from the figures that there is around one planet for every star in our galaxy. That isn't to say there are planets around every star, there aren't, but as lots of stars have multiple planetary systems, it averages out to one each. One sixth of these are earth sized, that makes fifty billion earthlike planets just in our galaxy. Taking all of the other elements into account, the current guess is a figure upwards of 35 million intelligently inhabited and able to communicate their presence, planets in 'our' Milky Way.
On this planet we have around half a million amateur astronomers, and as only half that number is in darkness at any one time, we should divide by two. Out of those lets say 10% are actually using their scopes at any one time. So from earth we have twenty five thousand people looking through a scope at the sky, every night. If the thirty five million inhabited planets have astronomers in the same way as we do, that means as I was looking up tonight, there were 875 Million astronomers looking back.
So next time you are out at night, look up and smile, say 'Hi' to the neighbours. Some of them must be saying the same thing!
I was just cruising along the Milky Way, star after star after star. There are three hundred billion of them. Three hundred billion stars make up the Milky Way. I had to look that number up, because every time I see the number somewhere, the estimate has risen again. While looking at some of our neighbours I heard some statistics on a podcast that set me thinking of the Drake Equation. As loathe as I am to say never, I'll risk it this time to say it is one equation that will never be solved.
Professor Drake probably got asked the question a lot more than I am, and almost everyone asks me, 'Are we alone?' So he worked out a formula for estimating the number of planets with intelligent life. It is very long and I won't go through each term tonight but given the last estimate I read on the number of stars in our galaxy was two hundred million, multiplying guesses over guesses and you get a lot of wiggle room in the final figure.
The Kepler satellite has discovered over three thousand planets in our galaxy, with more confirmations all the time. It is no longer news to find yet another. However we can get some surprising figures from the Extra Solar Planets they have discovered. It seems from the figures that there is around one planet for every star in our galaxy. That isn't to say there are planets around every star, there aren't, but as lots of stars have multiple planetary systems, it averages out to one each. One sixth of these are earth sized, that makes fifty billion earthlike planets just in our galaxy. Taking all of the other elements into account, the current guess is a figure upwards of 35 million intelligently inhabited and able to communicate their presence, planets in 'our' Milky Way.
On this planet we have around half a million amateur astronomers, and as only half that number is in darkness at any one time, we should divide by two. Out of those lets say 10% are actually using their scopes at any one time. So from earth we have twenty five thousand people looking through a scope at the sky, every night. If the thirty five million inhabited planets have astronomers in the same way as we do, that means as I was looking up tonight, there were 875 Million astronomers looking back.
So next time you are out at night, look up and smile, say 'Hi' to the neighbours. Some of them must be saying the same thing!
Tim Tams
I threatened to put this on Facebook a while ago, so here it is. One of our German exchange students is back on a working holiday/gap year and a friend of hers flew in to join her for some Aussie travel. Both lovely girls, V, the visitor went against the grain of Australian culture when she announced that she didn't like Tim Tams. Normally such an admission would have her handcuffed and escorted to the nearest airport terminal, but I managed to keep the confession quiet and instructed her not to breathe a word of it to anyone. The AFP were nowhere to be seen, so I think we got away with it.
Strangely enough, she had no problem with vegemite, these two facts I find almost impossible to reconcile.
Strangely enough, she had no problem with vegemite, these two facts I find almost impossible to reconcile.
Right wing, left wing
When I worked for a couple of unions I was considered to be dangerously right wing. When I started my own business, my business partner considered me to be ridiculously left wing.
You know you are an astronomer when:
You know you are an astronomer when:
1. Your first instinct as you step outside, day or night, is to look up.
2. When buying a home, you veto every property that hasn't a clear view of the ecliptic.
3. You consider a nap in the afternoon a down payment for getting up at 3 a.m.
4. You bought an iPhone after a lifetime of avoiding Apple computers, because Monte Huebsch showed you an app that helped identify stars.
5. You think making a Facebook post about seeing an iridium flare is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
1. Your first instinct as you step outside, day or night, is to look up.
2. When buying a home, you veto every property that hasn't a clear view of the ecliptic.
3. You consider a nap in the afternoon a down payment for getting up at 3 a.m.
4. You bought an iPhone after a lifetime of avoiding Apple computers, because Monte Huebsch showed you an app that helped identify stars.
5. You think making a Facebook post about seeing an iridium flare is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Crazy idea #374
Imagine a small shed similar in size and shape to a TARDIS. Inside is a contraption powered by solar panels upon the roof. It consists of a great jar filled with genetically engineered slime. Air is pumped in and the CO2 is broken down by the slime depositing the carbon in some nicely inert state. And releasing oxygen into the air or collected for commercial / medical usage. Every owner of every car on the planet has to have one beginning with every sale over the next five years and compulsory for every car thereafter. You don't need to keep it in your backyard. You could buy the assignment rights from someone who will position and maintain your shed for you. This would place a great opportunity for poor hot countries to get capital from rich cold countries.
Who is in and when shall we release the IPO?
Who is in and when shall we release the IPO?
My Son is an Adtronomer!
If there is a greater pleasure in the world of parenting that while it does not eclipse the birth and childhood stuff, it certainly hits an old man like myself with a ridiculous amount of pride and joy, is seeing your 39 yo offspring taking a hold of one of your passions in life and loving it. My son is texting me about what he saw the previous night through his scope! And I cannot wipe the grin off my face.
Sirius and Scotch
Here i am. Comfortably ensconced on a garden recliner. A single malt scotch is in my hand and I am looking up to a perfectly clear night sky with dark adapted eyes. A meteor just sailed across the sky and it was the third I have seen tonight. I doubt it will be the last.
It is warm and there is a gentle breeze blowing and no moon to spoil the darkness of the sky. In the west Orion is sliding behind the hills with Jupiter keeping pace and Sirius following them over. I am quite sure it isn't the scotch talking, when I say that it is stunningly beautiful.
Earlier Tonight I had Yolanda and her son visit and I had a lot of fun pointing the scope to some of the 'star' sights. The tarantula nebula is becoming a favoured spot with me. I try to imagine sailing Kirk like along those dust lanes, skimming dangerously close to a red giant star and settling in to orbit a new star firing off. The star itself is intensely bright and a flat accretion disk is already forming. Planets start to form, just lumpy bits of super-hot material , spinning and spinning and then cooling down until great clouds of steam can condense to form oceans of very hot water. The plates would then solidify and rocks begin to form in the same way as they are here on earth. The first specks of life appear from the strings of amino acids multiplying trillions of trillions of times, until primitive forms of DNA are combined with other elements and life begins.
With daydreams like these, I think I'll stick to this astronomy thing. Life ain't too bad!
It is warm and there is a gentle breeze blowing and no moon to spoil the darkness of the sky. In the west Orion is sliding behind the hills with Jupiter keeping pace and Sirius following them over. I am quite sure it isn't the scotch talking, when I say that it is stunningly beautiful.
Earlier Tonight I had Yolanda and her son visit and I had a lot of fun pointing the scope to some of the 'star' sights. The tarantula nebula is becoming a favoured spot with me. I try to imagine sailing Kirk like along those dust lanes, skimming dangerously close to a red giant star and settling in to orbit a new star firing off. The star itself is intensely bright and a flat accretion disk is already forming. Planets start to form, just lumpy bits of super-hot material , spinning and spinning and then cooling down until great clouds of steam can condense to form oceans of very hot water. The plates would then solidify and rocks begin to form in the same way as they are here on earth. The first specks of life appear from the strings of amino acids multiplying trillions of trillions of times, until primitive forms of DNA are combined with other elements and life begins.
With daydreams like these, I think I'll stick to this astronomy thing. Life ain't too bad!
Paying Politicians
I don't think we pay politicians enough. How much would you want? How much to be home maybe 2 nights a week before 9pm? How about having every weekend taken up with functions and meetings and fundraisers and all sorts of meaningless crap that they must go to and smile and be nice. How much would you want for the phone calls that come at ten at night and six in the morning? How much for missing your partner's birthday and your kids recitals? How much could compensate you for being shouted at, abused and having your personal integrity questioned? What about for your kids coming home, bullied because the bigger kid's dad comes from the other party? What about for your kids reading the paper where people are bagging you or the facebook memes that make you out to be evil, stupid or both? How much for having to hide from photographers in case you do get to lie on the beach for a day a year? And then every three or four years, the work gets notched up a couple of levels. Endless door knocking, folding letters, begging for volunteers and listening to constituents complain and complain. Often about things that you have no control over because the complainer has never bothered to understand the basics of our constitution and yet still wants to talk about parking meters to a Federal politician. And if you lose, what will you do? Who will hire someone whose politics are so open and up front? I would want a LOT more money for that.
Speaking to Newton
If I could go back in time as an experiment, I'd go speak to Isaac Newton at his family farm while he hid from the plague. I'd take an iPad upon which I had magically downloaded the whole of Wiki. Then i would sow the seed.
"What if light was at once a particle and a wave and it had an absolute speed?"
What if all physical things were made of atoms that look something like this;
Here is a book on chemistry. Alchemy is a waste of your talent. Once I had him convinced I was from the future, I'd tell him religion is bullshit. Then I would nip back to now and see what was what.
Would I get my Back to the Future hover board then?
"What if light was at once a particle and a wave and it had an absolute speed?"
What if all physical things were made of atoms that look something like this;
Here is a book on chemistry. Alchemy is a waste of your talent. Once I had him convinced I was from the future, I'd tell him religion is bullshit. Then I would nip back to now and see what was what.
Would I get my Back to the Future hover board then?
Feeding the World
Much of the world's oceans are unpopulated by much more than microscopic or at least miniscule life. I propose that 30 m square cubes made of some non corroding material and filled with a an open honeycomb like material and suspended from a floating concrete platform. (Similar to the Mulberry harbours the Allies towed to Normandy on D Day.) Life will start to congregate on the mesh and grow prolifically, small fish will eat that, larger fish eat them and we eat the larger fish. The larger fish could be 'stocked' to give us the species we prefer, and smaller fish to give the larger, what they prefer. Solving both the food and over fishing problems in one fell swoop.
Dylan Thomas on dying
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Desiterata
Short of the religious bit at the end, Desiderata is still an inspiring read.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Bravery
I once came face to face with a bank robber. He was tearing down our street with the police right up his arse. There were sirens and lights from three police cars, you couldn't fit much between them. He looked like he was in a TV shoot, he was quite good looking in a magazine ad kind of way. He had a white crew necked sweater and drove with his arms straight out. I was struck by his calmness, he was just businesslike - he could have been driving to see his mother from the look on his face. He seemed to be without any fear at all.
In wartime we can see the best and the worst of us, the heroes and those that just couldn't take it. The stories of bomber crew show the full range of reactions to fear. There were men who night after night climbed into their bomber and one night, could do it no more. Others who simply refused to fly. Punishment for both was severe. Their records were stamped with LMF. Lacking moral fibre. They lost all rank and privileges and were transferred to duties designed to humiliate and demean.
Being brave doesn't mean being fearless. I have read several airmen who referred to one of their crew as extremely brave and yet the man was absolutely terrified on each and every mission. The fact that he overcame his terrible fear and did his job well despite it, rated the man a hero in their books. I have also read accounts of people who were absolutely fearless - although, perhaps from modesty, not many write their own story.
Here are three examples of simply heroic conduct. A New Zealand flyer was in a big bomber returning from a raid when an inner engine caught fire. He hacked a hole in the side of the aeroplane, unfurled his parachute and had a comrade hold onto the end. He grabbed an extinguisher and crawled out on the wing and put the fire out. He knew that if he fell his friend couldn't hold him and his parachute would be too twisted and tangled to open. Yet he went. And survived to wear his medals.
One woman secret agent dropped into France to help organise the resistance for D-Day. She was walking toward a little village and flagged down a car containing two SS officers and their SS driver and casually asked for a lift. She was taking the most appalling risk, each of these men could torture and kill her with imagined impunity and yet, she just chatted to them as if they were old friends. Another story has her (or perhaps another, it would take too long to check) calmly walked into the Gestapo Headquarters and demanded an audience with the head Nazi. She offered to exchange a letter of recommendation for the freedom of her husband currently in the cells below. The coward folded. The husband freed.
There is another kind of bravery that I know of. My grandfather was a Black Country coal miner near Birmingham, England. His wife was the local nurse, his sons and sons in law were away at the war and his two eldest daughters were building Spitfires. He knew the risks they were taking, his own brother was killed on the Somme. Every working day, Grandad would go "Down pit" and dig the coal used to heat homes and barrack rooms across the island and even used to power some antiquated naval vessels. He went down there again and again knowing that as he descended into the ground in the cage, he was completely cut off from the world. He never knew whether he would come up to find his entire family dead or maimed, his house destroyed and all he loved gone.
Grandad will always be a hero of mine, he received no medals, he just went out every day and worked for victory. I am so very proud to have known him
In wartime we can see the best and the worst of us, the heroes and those that just couldn't take it. The stories of bomber crew show the full range of reactions to fear. There were men who night after night climbed into their bomber and one night, could do it no more. Others who simply refused to fly. Punishment for both was severe. Their records were stamped with LMF. Lacking moral fibre. They lost all rank and privileges and were transferred to duties designed to humiliate and demean.
Being brave doesn't mean being fearless. I have read several airmen who referred to one of their crew as extremely brave and yet the man was absolutely terrified on each and every mission. The fact that he overcame his terrible fear and did his job well despite it, rated the man a hero in their books. I have also read accounts of people who were absolutely fearless - although, perhaps from modesty, not many write their own story.
Here are three examples of simply heroic conduct. A New Zealand flyer was in a big bomber returning from a raid when an inner engine caught fire. He hacked a hole in the side of the aeroplane, unfurled his parachute and had a comrade hold onto the end. He grabbed an extinguisher and crawled out on the wing and put the fire out. He knew that if he fell his friend couldn't hold him and his parachute would be too twisted and tangled to open. Yet he went. And survived to wear his medals.
One woman secret agent dropped into France to help organise the resistance for D-Day. She was walking toward a little village and flagged down a car containing two SS officers and their SS driver and casually asked for a lift. She was taking the most appalling risk, each of these men could torture and kill her with imagined impunity and yet, she just chatted to them as if they were old friends. Another story has her (or perhaps another, it would take too long to check) calmly walked into the Gestapo Headquarters and demanded an audience with the head Nazi. She offered to exchange a letter of recommendation for the freedom of her husband currently in the cells below. The coward folded. The husband freed.
There is another kind of bravery that I know of. My grandfather was a Black Country coal miner near Birmingham, England. His wife was the local nurse, his sons and sons in law were away at the war and his two eldest daughters were building Spitfires. He knew the risks they were taking, his own brother was killed on the Somme. Every working day, Grandad would go "Down pit" and dig the coal used to heat homes and barrack rooms across the island and even used to power some antiquated naval vessels. He went down there again and again knowing that as he descended into the ground in the cage, he was completely cut off from the world. He never knew whether he would come up to find his entire family dead or maimed, his house destroyed and all he loved gone.
Grandad will always be a hero of mine, he received no medals, he just went out every day and worked for victory. I am so very proud to have known him
Don't jump!
Alvin Toffler once said (1971?) that hoping that technology would come to save us from the coming ecological disaster was like jumping out of an aircraft and hoping a parachute would be invented on the way down.
Gliders - the whooshing death.
The British military thinking in 43 and 44 was that Gliders would form a key component in the D-Day invasion in June 44. To this end a training unit was established to train soldiers (not airmen) in flying a glider under tow and landing. The first intake of trainee 'pilots arrived at the base, unsure of what they were getting into. The were lined up on the runway, waiting the arrival of the Commanding Officer who was responsible for their training and whose wisdom they relied upon to give them the best chance of survival. The CO arrived in a big, troop carrying glider ( I think it was a Horsa )
To make the glider behave like a combat aircraft it was loaded with sandbags. All eyes watched the glider as it turned to approach the airfield. They didn't know it, but something was terribly wrong. His speed was too high, he touched down too late, something was very wrong. It overshot the end of the runway and crashed into a house, the sandbags smashed through the bulkhead behind the pilot and killed him. The new CO was dead before he had even arrived on the base. The men watched the scene with horror and imagined that it would be their fate too. They were formed up and marched back to the barracks to await a new CO. Some of them shrugged it off, others were a little worried and some, I suspect most, decided that they were already dead, so they just enjoyed the time they had left. Not one requested a transfer.
And some did die in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Several were completely destroyed on D-Day, with all occupants killed outright, but at least one was lost to stupidity. A glider reserved for a general and his headquarters staff held a Jeep as well as a dozen or so men and all the supplies they could fit. Some idiot decided that the general was valuable so he got a large steel plate and fixed it to the bottom of the glider, hoping to minimise the danger from small arms and light flak. Unfortunately he told no one what he did, even the pilot was in the dark. As soon as they were towed into the air it was clear something was wrong. The extra weight changed the flying characteristics of the glider and made it all but unflyable. As soon as the release light went on, the glider dropped the cable and then it dropped too, it's airspeed was way too high but the pilot had no choice but to land as best he could. He landed much like the CO crashed, with the General, his staff Jeep and supplies all crashing through the bulkhead, killing everyone.
To make the glider behave like a combat aircraft it was loaded with sandbags. All eyes watched the glider as it turned to approach the airfield. They didn't know it, but something was terribly wrong. His speed was too high, he touched down too late, something was very wrong. It overshot the end of the runway and crashed into a house, the sandbags smashed through the bulkhead behind the pilot and killed him. The new CO was dead before he had even arrived on the base. The men watched the scene with horror and imagined that it would be their fate too. They were formed up and marched back to the barracks to await a new CO. Some of them shrugged it off, others were a little worried and some, I suspect most, decided that they were already dead, so they just enjoyed the time they had left. Not one requested a transfer.
And some did die in the early hours of June 6, 1944. Several were completely destroyed on D-Day, with all occupants killed outright, but at least one was lost to stupidity. A glider reserved for a general and his headquarters staff held a Jeep as well as a dozen or so men and all the supplies they could fit. Some idiot decided that the general was valuable so he got a large steel plate and fixed it to the bottom of the glider, hoping to minimise the danger from small arms and light flak. Unfortunately he told no one what he did, even the pilot was in the dark. As soon as they were towed into the air it was clear something was wrong. The extra weight changed the flying characteristics of the glider and made it all but unflyable. As soon as the release light went on, the glider dropped the cable and then it dropped too, it's airspeed was way too high but the pilot had no choice but to land as best he could. He landed much like the CO crashed, with the General, his staff Jeep and supplies all crashing through the bulkhead, killing everyone.
Theatre Icebergs
I have been backstage in many theatres and have a fairly good idea on how they work. However it is plainly obvious to me that most architects have only ever sat in an audience and have no idea what goes on backstage, and some I doubt have done even that. So, here are the steps that most theatre companies would go through to put on a show. This is how Julie Bray and I ran a theatre company, others will be different, but the principles are the same, if not the principals!
First a committee will determine which play to perform, decisions are made on various levels. The play must fit in with the philosophy of the group. Ours was always about quality and less about popularity and we didn't want to put on Benny Hill type farces, door slammers and so on. We wanted to use our resources to present plays that challenged us and sometimes our audience. Plays must have the right mix of genders and ages, for example, there would be no point in starting work on Twelve Angry Men as men are in very short supply. We did a few plays in which we changed the gender on a part, simply because few men want to act. We would try to balance out the season with a comedy, a drama, a Murder Mystery and sometimes (if we were feeling brave) we'd do a musical. More on those later.
Then we would go in search of a director for each play and sound them out to see if they were willing to take on the work. Sometimes directors would come to us with ideas or pet projects and if we could, we would oblige and use that play instead. We would then determine the season, choosing the times and numbers of performances, usually eight or nine shows. As soon as we knew what plays we were doing (usually four per year) we would write to the rights holders and ask formal permission to perform - and send them a cheque of course!
We would then schedule rehearsal times and dates, sometimes choosing a special rehearsal location and then we'd advertise for a cast. Before auditions we would decide on the crew. The director would advise as to his/her requirements and anything extra. The principal decision is the Stage Manager (SM) and the director often has a view on who that should be. The lighting rigger/designer and operator (who was often Mansell Wellings) was chosen and the set builder and designer too.
At auditions each aspiring actor would come along and 'read' the desired part, sometimes alone and sometimes with others. Once the cast was decided they would get a script and be sent home to start learning. The director would be aided by a Production Manager whose job was to liaise between the Director and the management committee. PMs kept the show on budget and allocated what resources were available and start hunting for those that were not. The director and the PM would have meetings with the costume person, set designer and sometimes the program designer, so that everyone is on the same page and working toward the same theme.
The set designer would do a few drawings and once they are approved talk to the set builder to see if it can be done. Sometimes a scale model would be built and shown to everyone, cast included. The lighting director would look at the design and discuss any problems, the set builder would also talk to the director to finalise a few details, like the height of a platform (stage speak = rostrum) or which way doors open and what can and should not be seen through them when they do open.
At rehearsals the Stage Manager (SM) attends and makes notes as to what props are required where, by whom and when. Most SMs attend most rehearsals. The first stage of rehearsals is just reading through the lines, getting a feel of the show and what happens to whom. Then a little basic blocking is introduced. This is telling each actor where and when to move and what props to use. Costume designers would come in and fit each actor with their various costumes, some may change several times during a show.
The set builders will start on the set and actors will often be dragged in to help build and paint. Once the set is substantially complete the Lighting Director would start setting the lights on the various bars above both the audience and the stage. These are plugged in to the 'board' and a rough lighting plot is worked out. The director and SM would be shown the proposed plot and adjustments made.
Meanwhile the Sound Director (SD) would be searching for various effects (phones ringing, cars screeching etcetera) and putting them together on a CD in the required order. Sometimes music was especially written for us, which made a tremendous difference to the show. The program person (often me) would come up with an idea for the program and also design the poster. Short bios are collected from the actors and directors often want to write a little too.
Photographs are taken, advertising booked and the posters distributed. The mail out is then organised and final touches put to the set and costumes. The schedule for ticket sellers finalised and the person running the tea coffee and wine appointed (Front of House, FOH) By this stage rehearsals are at the Full Dress point, all props used and lights are gradually being worked out - lighting is harder than it looks, like most of this stuff!
Actors have had their lines memorised for a couple of weeks now and should only stumble a little. In the last week before opening night the tech run is performed. This is where the LD and the SD do all of their magic. Actors are asked to 'top and tail' which is them performing just bits of the show, where the lighting and sounds change. This is usually the beginning and end of each scene. At the final dress rehearsal a full performance is done without an audience but exactly as the audience would see it.
The stage manager then takes full control of the show from the second the final dress is finished. It is his/her job to reproduce the final dress every night and matinee. This control is absolute for as soon as the handover is made, the director needs the permission of the SD to even talk to any cast or crew member. And after all of this is done and a lot more I have omitted, then and only then can the audience see the show.
As I said... it is an iceberg!
First a committee will determine which play to perform, decisions are made on various levels. The play must fit in with the philosophy of the group. Ours was always about quality and less about popularity and we didn't want to put on Benny Hill type farces, door slammers and so on. We wanted to use our resources to present plays that challenged us and sometimes our audience. Plays must have the right mix of genders and ages, for example, there would be no point in starting work on Twelve Angry Men as men are in very short supply. We did a few plays in which we changed the gender on a part, simply because few men want to act. We would try to balance out the season with a comedy, a drama, a Murder Mystery and sometimes (if we were feeling brave) we'd do a musical. More on those later.
Then we would go in search of a director for each play and sound them out to see if they were willing to take on the work. Sometimes directors would come to us with ideas or pet projects and if we could, we would oblige and use that play instead. We would then determine the season, choosing the times and numbers of performances, usually eight or nine shows. As soon as we knew what plays we were doing (usually four per year) we would write to the rights holders and ask formal permission to perform - and send them a cheque of course!
We would then schedule rehearsal times and dates, sometimes choosing a special rehearsal location and then we'd advertise for a cast. Before auditions we would decide on the crew. The director would advise as to his/her requirements and anything extra. The principal decision is the Stage Manager (SM) and the director often has a view on who that should be. The lighting rigger/designer and operator (who was often Mansell Wellings) was chosen and the set builder and designer too.
At auditions each aspiring actor would come along and 'read' the desired part, sometimes alone and sometimes with others. Once the cast was decided they would get a script and be sent home to start learning. The director would be aided by a Production Manager whose job was to liaise between the Director and the management committee. PMs kept the show on budget and allocated what resources were available and start hunting for those that were not. The director and the PM would have meetings with the costume person, set designer and sometimes the program designer, so that everyone is on the same page and working toward the same theme.
The set designer would do a few drawings and once they are approved talk to the set builder to see if it can be done. Sometimes a scale model would be built and shown to everyone, cast included. The lighting director would look at the design and discuss any problems, the set builder would also talk to the director to finalise a few details, like the height of a platform (stage speak = rostrum) or which way doors open and what can and should not be seen through them when they do open.
At rehearsals the Stage Manager (SM) attends and makes notes as to what props are required where, by whom and when. Most SMs attend most rehearsals. The first stage of rehearsals is just reading through the lines, getting a feel of the show and what happens to whom. Then a little basic blocking is introduced. This is telling each actor where and when to move and what props to use. Costume designers would come in and fit each actor with their various costumes, some may change several times during a show.
The set builders will start on the set and actors will often be dragged in to help build and paint. Once the set is substantially complete the Lighting Director would start setting the lights on the various bars above both the audience and the stage. These are plugged in to the 'board' and a rough lighting plot is worked out. The director and SM would be shown the proposed plot and adjustments made.
Meanwhile the Sound Director (SD) would be searching for various effects (phones ringing, cars screeching etcetera) and putting them together on a CD in the required order. Sometimes music was especially written for us, which made a tremendous difference to the show. The program person (often me) would come up with an idea for the program and also design the poster. Short bios are collected from the actors and directors often want to write a little too.
Photographs are taken, advertising booked and the posters distributed. The mail out is then organised and final touches put to the set and costumes. The schedule for ticket sellers finalised and the person running the tea coffee and wine appointed (Front of House, FOH) By this stage rehearsals are at the Full Dress point, all props used and lights are gradually being worked out - lighting is harder than it looks, like most of this stuff!
Actors have had their lines memorised for a couple of weeks now and should only stumble a little. In the last week before opening night the tech run is performed. This is where the LD and the SD do all of their magic. Actors are asked to 'top and tail' which is them performing just bits of the show, where the lighting and sounds change. This is usually the beginning and end of each scene. At the final dress rehearsal a full performance is done without an audience but exactly as the audience would see it.
The stage manager then takes full control of the show from the second the final dress is finished. It is his/her job to reproduce the final dress every night and matinee. This control is absolute for as soon as the handover is made, the director needs the permission of the SD to even talk to any cast or crew member. And after all of this is done and a lot more I have omitted, then and only then can the audience see the show.
As I said... it is an iceberg!
Bombing the Delft
During our obligatory visit to my parents this year, I started putting some names on photographs and she started telling stories as she saw them. I had heard this one before but there were new details that I was unaware of.
My grandmother was a nurse and midwife, she probably delivered every baby in the district for decades. My mother was ten and for some reason a young fellow called Sid was with them on this adventure. This was the day a new word came into the language penned by some Nazi functionary and approved by Hitler. The cathedral city of Coventry was being so heavily bombed that the Nazis warned that every other city and town in England was to receive the same treatment. They were to be Coventrated.
In WWII bombing was awfully inaccurate and stray bombs were falling on the small market town of Tamworth where my family lived. One of my grandmother's patients was hysterical with fear and Gran went with my mother to her house to help calm her down. As they arrived the bombing became fiercer and closer to home so Gran rushed inside and started emptying the little triangular cupboard under the stairs to use as an emergency shelter. She grabbed great stacks of expensive Delft china and slid them along the hall tiles away from the door. Breaking many in the process. Any that were not broken then were about to be. As soon as the space was clear enough, the bombing became suddenly louder and closer and they piled in. Young Sid went in first and sat on two huge pickle jars, my mother sat on his lap and the pregnant patient and Gran sat in the other end. As she slammed the door shut the bomb hit.
The brick house was lifted off its foundations and it smashed down at an odd angle. A huge beam separated the adults and children along with piles of rubble. The only injury to the little group was Sid, the pickle bottles smashed and he had a cut on his arse. Rescuers came and quickly got the adults out, but although they knew the kids were alive, rescue for them came 20 hours later. What follows are most shocking events in the story to modern eyes.
Once they were outside, the rescuers moved onto the next job and the kids were on the bombed street unsure of what to do next. Gran was off bandaging the wounded and Grandad was fire watching, his partner looked up at the wrong time and lost an eye. The kids proceeded to Gran and Grandad's house but on the way she fell into a bomb crater and was dragged out by the hair by a Methodist minister who promptly called her a 'Silly bugger'. Hearing the minister swear was the most shocking thing for my mother. She wouldn't have thought that possible.
What shocked me was that the family was nowhere to be seen, they didn't help with the rescue, they didn't even stand around anxiously waiting for news. I am sure every parent, every brother and sister reading this is thinking WHAT??? at this point. We would all be in there, dragging bricks off the great pile and lifting wreckage. We just would not stop till the kids were free. At first I thought that our family was just dysfunctional, but there was Sid's family that could have helped, and wouldn't the family of the pregnant woman feel some sort of responsibility?
They received no help, no counselling, no trip to the hospital for observation, nothing. They were just left to wander the street alone till they found someone who gave a damn.
Different times huh?
My grandmother was a nurse and midwife, she probably delivered every baby in the district for decades. My mother was ten and for some reason a young fellow called Sid was with them on this adventure. This was the day a new word came into the language penned by some Nazi functionary and approved by Hitler. The cathedral city of Coventry was being so heavily bombed that the Nazis warned that every other city and town in England was to receive the same treatment. They were to be Coventrated.
In WWII bombing was awfully inaccurate and stray bombs were falling on the small market town of Tamworth where my family lived. One of my grandmother's patients was hysterical with fear and Gran went with my mother to her house to help calm her down. As they arrived the bombing became fiercer and closer to home so Gran rushed inside and started emptying the little triangular cupboard under the stairs to use as an emergency shelter. She grabbed great stacks of expensive Delft china and slid them along the hall tiles away from the door. Breaking many in the process. Any that were not broken then were about to be. As soon as the space was clear enough, the bombing became suddenly louder and closer and they piled in. Young Sid went in first and sat on two huge pickle jars, my mother sat on his lap and the pregnant patient and Gran sat in the other end. As she slammed the door shut the bomb hit.
The brick house was lifted off its foundations and it smashed down at an odd angle. A huge beam separated the adults and children along with piles of rubble. The only injury to the little group was Sid, the pickle bottles smashed and he had a cut on his arse. Rescuers came and quickly got the adults out, but although they knew the kids were alive, rescue for them came 20 hours later. What follows are most shocking events in the story to modern eyes.
Once they were outside, the rescuers moved onto the next job and the kids were on the bombed street unsure of what to do next. Gran was off bandaging the wounded and Grandad was fire watching, his partner looked up at the wrong time and lost an eye. The kids proceeded to Gran and Grandad's house but on the way she fell into a bomb crater and was dragged out by the hair by a Methodist minister who promptly called her a 'Silly bugger'. Hearing the minister swear was the most shocking thing for my mother. She wouldn't have thought that possible.
What shocked me was that the family was nowhere to be seen, they didn't help with the rescue, they didn't even stand around anxiously waiting for news. I am sure every parent, every brother and sister reading this is thinking WHAT??? at this point. We would all be in there, dragging bricks off the great pile and lifting wreckage. We just would not stop till the kids were free. At first I thought that our family was just dysfunctional, but there was Sid's family that could have helped, and wouldn't the family of the pregnant woman feel some sort of responsibility?
They received no help, no counselling, no trip to the hospital for observation, nothing. They were just left to wander the street alone till they found someone who gave a damn.
Different times huh?
Memories of Colour
There exists a picture of my mother and I taken almost sixty years ago. I was something like three or four months old and my mother, clearly proud and pleased to have produced me. Every now and then in my childhood, I remember her bringing it out to embarrass me, the way many mothers must do as part of the normal duties, part and parcel of bringing up a boy.
I am dressed in the usual over decorated fancy hat and cape and she is wearing a dark blue dress with white piping around the edges. Or is she?
Colour has played a role in some of my former jobs, culminating in being a colour photograph printer in the early eighties. Hand printing wedding pictures takes a great deal of skill, as I am sure my neighbour Stephen Henry, photographer, will agree. Seeing the subtle shades of colour in the shadows, knowing how much colour to subtract on the enlarger so that the next print would be perfect, I found took a deal of concentration that I never knew I had.
So why is it that when I refer to the picture to my mother she always corrects my assertion that the dress was dark blue, It was, of course green. Why is it that this brain, a brain that was at least capable of being trained to a high degree of colour perception, steadfastly insisted against the evidence, that the dress was blue?
What else have I got wrong in my memories?
How can I trust anything I remember faced with this, this, memory?
I am dressed in the usual over decorated fancy hat and cape and she is wearing a dark blue dress with white piping around the edges. Or is she?
Colour has played a role in some of my former jobs, culminating in being a colour photograph printer in the early eighties. Hand printing wedding pictures takes a great deal of skill, as I am sure my neighbour Stephen Henry, photographer, will agree. Seeing the subtle shades of colour in the shadows, knowing how much colour to subtract on the enlarger so that the next print would be perfect, I found took a deal of concentration that I never knew I had.
So why is it that when I refer to the picture to my mother she always corrects my assertion that the dress was dark blue, It was, of course green. Why is it that this brain, a brain that was at least capable of being trained to a high degree of colour perception, steadfastly insisted against the evidence, that the dress was blue?
What else have I got wrong in my memories?
How can I trust anything I remember faced with this, this, memory?
Deadly Stairs
One of my fond memories of Xmas was watching the news one xmas day and I saw a group of monks upon the roof of the church in Bethlehem firing machine guns at another group of differently dressed monks. They were in dispute as to who was to maintain a set of stairs in the building.
Betelgeuse to go Bang.
When Betelgeuse explodes sometime in the next million or so years, I have said before that every intelligent eye in the galaxy will be watching. But I was wrong.
I implied that they would all see the explosion at the same time, but I had made no allowance for the speed of light. What is 'now' for us, is different on every planet in the universe.
One of the ideas I found hardest to rid myself of is that there is some sort of arbitrary time and spatial frame around the universe that we all refer to and set our reference points by. There isn't. The concept of 'now' can only be meaningful on a local scale, on a cosmic or even galactic scale it just doesn't work. Take for example three stars in a line, A, B and C. Star A explodes, 50 light years away star B is unaware of the event until the light from the explosion reaches it. Star C has to wait another fifty years to see the show, a total of 100 years delay. So it can be said that the 'now' of the explosion is at a different time in A, B and C.
What is meant by 'now' must be qualified by a 'where'. Even so, I hope Betelgeuse's explosion 'now' was a bit over 500 years ago. We will see it in the daytime!
I implied that they would all see the explosion at the same time, but I had made no allowance for the speed of light. What is 'now' for us, is different on every planet in the universe.
One of the ideas I found hardest to rid myself of is that there is some sort of arbitrary time and spatial frame around the universe that we all refer to and set our reference points by. There isn't. The concept of 'now' can only be meaningful on a local scale, on a cosmic or even galactic scale it just doesn't work. Take for example three stars in a line, A, B and C. Star A explodes, 50 light years away star B is unaware of the event until the light from the explosion reaches it. Star C has to wait another fifty years to see the show, a total of 100 years delay. So it can be said that the 'now' of the explosion is at a different time in A, B and C.
What is meant by 'now' must be qualified by a 'where'. Even so, I hope Betelgeuse's explosion 'now' was a bit over 500 years ago. We will see it in the daytime!
Mormon craziness #293
Britain went through the iron age and as a result there are the remains of thousands of little kilns and slag heaps scattered all over the island. The inhabitants of North America knew nothing about smelting iron so there are no ancient kilns found anywhere in the continent. Not one.
Mormon 'history' speaks of iron swords and chariots and a civilization that lasted a thousand years. And yet nothing remains. In contrast, Vikings made it across the North Atlantic and set up a few little villages in Newfoundland. They didn't leave much behind, enough to know who they were and how many lived there for how long.
But what is left behind from this Mormon civilization. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not a single architectural feature, no hearths, foundations, post holes have been found. No burials, no grave goods, no jewellery, no weapons, no buttons, no tablets, no writing, no painting, sculpture or other art. All we have is a book written by a convicted con man.
How is it that sane people can accept this hogwash?
Mormon 'history' speaks of iron swords and chariots and a civilization that lasted a thousand years. And yet nothing remains. In contrast, Vikings made it across the North Atlantic and set up a few little villages in Newfoundland. They didn't leave much behind, enough to know who they were and how many lived there for how long.
But what is left behind from this Mormon civilization. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not a single architectural feature, no hearths, foundations, post holes have been found. No burials, no grave goods, no jewellery, no weapons, no buttons, no tablets, no writing, no painting, sculpture or other art. All we have is a book written by a convicted con man.
How is it that sane people can accept this hogwash?
10 Books
The Fall of Berlin Antony Beevor
God is not Great Christopher Hitchens
Henry VIII Alison Weir
Between Silk and Cyanide Leo Marks
Spreading My Wings Diane Barnato
Biggles in the Baltic W.E. Johns.
Let's Go USA 1993 Various authors.
Wing Commander, Johnnie Johnson.
Stenton's History of the Anglo Saxons. (Not sure about the title)
Visions from a Foxhole, William A. Foley.
God is not Great Christopher Hitchens
Henry VIII Alison Weir
Between Silk and Cyanide Leo Marks
Spreading My Wings Diane Barnato
Biggles in the Baltic W.E. Johns.
Let's Go USA 1993 Various authors.
Wing Commander, Johnnie Johnson.
Stenton's History of the Anglo Saxons. (Not sure about the title)
Visions from a Foxhole, William A. Foley.
Advice to the Younger Me
If I could speak to the younger me, I'd tell him to be more careful with friends and less with money. I say that he should try to remember that the words he says can hurt and harm, easier than they can help and heal. I tell him to listen to those teachers, they are trying to help you. And I'd say, those things you are afraid of didn't happen and those things you held so dear, weren't worth the trouble. But most of all I'd want him to know that being good looking is fine, but what is most important, what is vitally important, that you be a good person and so that when you look in the mirror, you see something more than a reflection, you see the person you most want to be.
The Chrismas Astro story
It is time, once again, to present you all with the Christmas story from an astronomical perspective.
Every year articles appear in the mainstream press and magazines speculating on the 'real' explanation for the Star of Bethlehem. Given our modern understanding of astronomy, there a number of candidates which have been given to explain the phenomenon and fit the Bible story. However, even if the ideal star or astronomical object could be found there are serious practical problems with taking the story on face value.
The Bible gives the story as follows:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east And then: Lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
The astronomical elements of the story are: The Wise Men came from the east, they saw a 'star' in the east, they followed it and it stood stationary over the stable. The 'Wise men", also known as 'Magi' are located by a number of traditions and historians to come from Media in Persia, modern day Iran, a place to the east of Bethlehem. These men were probably astronomers and astrologers (at that time the two occupations were interchangeable) so we can assume that they were at least familiar with the night sky and the motion of stars and planets.
Stars appear to rotate in the sky around the north and south celestial poles. But as we cannot see the whole arc of the stars closer to equator, these are called non-circumpolar. At the latitude of Persia non-circumpolar stars rise in the east, trace an arc over the southern sky and then set in the west. If the Magi followed an ordinary non-circumpolar star, they would walk in ever widening circles, which may after a long journey have ended up in Bethlehem, but it is unlikely. Or they could have picked a time, noted the direction of the star and travelled that direction and reaffirmed the direction each night at the same time. Or the Bible could be literally true and the star could have just stayed in one spot in the sky to be followed. From Persia ( or anywhere east of Bethlehem) The Magi needed to travel west and yet the Bible clearly says the star was in the east. To get to Bethlehem this way would require a circumnavigation of the world through China, across the Pacific, North America, Europe and finally the Middle East. Not the route we'd consider today, even if we didn't have to rely on camels and horses.
If the star was circumpolar, the Magi would have travelled roughly north, not west, in which case they could never arrive at Bethlehem as the closer they travelled to the north pole, the more circular their route. . For a star appeared to remain 'fixed' in the sky it must counter the rotation of the earth - it would have to move relative to the other stars in the sky and follow the earth as it rotates on its axis. Einstein would have a problem with this. The earth rotates at the latitude of Bethlehem at about 1400 kph, for a star to appear stationary it must rotate around the earth at that relative speed. But the further away from earth the star was, the greater the arc it traces through space and the faster it must travel to appear to maintain its position. If the star was any further than around 4 billion km from earth it would be travelling at beyond the universal speed limit, the speed of light. This trajectory would place the star inside the orbit of Pluto.
Stars in their light emitting stages of life come in many sizes, from thousands of times larger than our sun (eg VY Canis Majoris) to red dwarfs one of which (OGLE-TR-122b) has been measured to just a little larger than Jupiter. A new strangely behaving star of any visible size this close to earth, even a red dwarf would be of interest to more than a couple of Persians. We would expect at the very least the Chinese astronomers to have recorded it but there is no other record anywhere of such an event.
As Bethlehem is not on the equator, the star would not be technically in a geosynchronous orbit, that is, not in orbit around the centre of the Earth, rather it would be orbiting some point between the centre and the north pole. At any distances required for the respective gravitational fields to interact, it would not be our little earth that called the shots - although technically we know from Newton that bodies orbit around a point between each other, the star would be dominant and we would appear to orbit it. Irrespective of this, such a body, suddenly appearing inside our solar system, would affect the planets and even our sun, probably catastrophically.
Could it have been a 'wandering star' passing through our Solar System? It strains credulity to imagine a star passing through the solar system as close as it would have to be without disturbing the orbits of our own or any other planet. If this is the explanation, surely more than a handful of people would have noticed? If it was a 'wandering star' where is it now? It could only be less than 2013 light years away, easily visible to astronomers.
What about a conjunction of planets or stars or of planets and stars? The same problems of real versus apparent motion (or lack of it) apply, plus each object would have differing orbits giving different apparent speeds across the sky. Consequently conjunctions don't last very long, far shorter than it takes to drive from Bagdad to Bethlehem let alone ride a horse or camel.
Further even if an object, let's call it a star, could point the way somewhere, it could only point a line between it and the observer. Travelling along that line could give you the direction to take but no indication of the point to stop along the line. For example, if the star shone in the sky seemingly above a stable then how would they know it was that stable and not the hundreds that lay beyond? The fact is they couldn't. Take a look at any star tonight. It may appear to be above a tree (or a house or a rock) but if you walk beyond that tree then the star is above something else. There can be no indication, just from that star, of distance from the observer.
Consequently our Magi, if they followed a star in the east, would travel in the wrong direction, possibly in circles and with no idea where to stop. That they got to Bethlehem in their lifetime, would be amazing enough, but to find a particular stable and know to stop there, must have truly been a miracle. And anyway, if the Magi could follow a star to the stable, why did they stop and ask Herod for directions. Asking a Bronze Age king where the baby is that will replace him was an incredibly stupid thing to do. What else would Herod do, but kill all the babies?
Every year articles appear in the mainstream press and magazines speculating on the 'real' explanation for the Star of Bethlehem. Given our modern understanding of astronomy, there a number of candidates which have been given to explain the phenomenon and fit the Bible story. However, even if the ideal star or astronomical object could be found there are serious practical problems with taking the story on face value.
The Bible gives the story as follows:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east And then: Lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.
The astronomical elements of the story are: The Wise Men came from the east, they saw a 'star' in the east, they followed it and it stood stationary over the stable. The 'Wise men", also known as 'Magi' are located by a number of traditions and historians to come from Media in Persia, modern day Iran, a place to the east of Bethlehem. These men were probably astronomers and astrologers (at that time the two occupations were interchangeable) so we can assume that they were at least familiar with the night sky and the motion of stars and planets.
Stars appear to rotate in the sky around the north and south celestial poles. But as we cannot see the whole arc of the stars closer to equator, these are called non-circumpolar. At the latitude of Persia non-circumpolar stars rise in the east, trace an arc over the southern sky and then set in the west. If the Magi followed an ordinary non-circumpolar star, they would walk in ever widening circles, which may after a long journey have ended up in Bethlehem, but it is unlikely. Or they could have picked a time, noted the direction of the star and travelled that direction and reaffirmed the direction each night at the same time. Or the Bible could be literally true and the star could have just stayed in one spot in the sky to be followed. From Persia ( or anywhere east of Bethlehem) The Magi needed to travel west and yet the Bible clearly says the star was in the east. To get to Bethlehem this way would require a circumnavigation of the world through China, across the Pacific, North America, Europe and finally the Middle East. Not the route we'd consider today, even if we didn't have to rely on camels and horses.
If the star was circumpolar, the Magi would have travelled roughly north, not west, in which case they could never arrive at Bethlehem as the closer they travelled to the north pole, the more circular their route. . For a star appeared to remain 'fixed' in the sky it must counter the rotation of the earth - it would have to move relative to the other stars in the sky and follow the earth as it rotates on its axis. Einstein would have a problem with this. The earth rotates at the latitude of Bethlehem at about 1400 kph, for a star to appear stationary it must rotate around the earth at that relative speed. But the further away from earth the star was, the greater the arc it traces through space and the faster it must travel to appear to maintain its position. If the star was any further than around 4 billion km from earth it would be travelling at beyond the universal speed limit, the speed of light. This trajectory would place the star inside the orbit of Pluto.
Stars in their light emitting stages of life come in many sizes, from thousands of times larger than our sun (eg VY Canis Majoris) to red dwarfs one of which (OGLE-TR-122b) has been measured to just a little larger than Jupiter. A new strangely behaving star of any visible size this close to earth, even a red dwarf would be of interest to more than a couple of Persians. We would expect at the very least the Chinese astronomers to have recorded it but there is no other record anywhere of such an event.
As Bethlehem is not on the equator, the star would not be technically in a geosynchronous orbit, that is, not in orbit around the centre of the Earth, rather it would be orbiting some point between the centre and the north pole. At any distances required for the respective gravitational fields to interact, it would not be our little earth that called the shots - although technically we know from Newton that bodies orbit around a point between each other, the star would be dominant and we would appear to orbit it. Irrespective of this, such a body, suddenly appearing inside our solar system, would affect the planets and even our sun, probably catastrophically.
Could it have been a 'wandering star' passing through our Solar System? It strains credulity to imagine a star passing through the solar system as close as it would have to be without disturbing the orbits of our own or any other planet. If this is the explanation, surely more than a handful of people would have noticed? If it was a 'wandering star' where is it now? It could only be less than 2013 light years away, easily visible to astronomers.
What about a conjunction of planets or stars or of planets and stars? The same problems of real versus apparent motion (or lack of it) apply, plus each object would have differing orbits giving different apparent speeds across the sky. Consequently conjunctions don't last very long, far shorter than it takes to drive from Bagdad to Bethlehem let alone ride a horse or camel.
Further even if an object, let's call it a star, could point the way somewhere, it could only point a line between it and the observer. Travelling along that line could give you the direction to take but no indication of the point to stop along the line. For example, if the star shone in the sky seemingly above a stable then how would they know it was that stable and not the hundreds that lay beyond? The fact is they couldn't. Take a look at any star tonight. It may appear to be above a tree (or a house or a rock) but if you walk beyond that tree then the star is above something else. There can be no indication, just from that star, of distance from the observer.
Consequently our Magi, if they followed a star in the east, would travel in the wrong direction, possibly in circles and with no idea where to stop. That they got to Bethlehem in their lifetime, would be amazing enough, but to find a particular stable and know to stop there, must have truly been a miracle. And anyway, if the Magi could follow a star to the stable, why did they stop and ask Herod for directions. Asking a Bronze Age king where the baby is that will replace him was an incredibly stupid thing to do. What else would Herod do, but kill all the babies?
Free drinks in Napa Valley
How I got a free drink at a wine bar in Napa Valley, California.
I was cruising around on my own (as I have done on many of my vacations) and dropped in to a vineyard to taste the local fare. There was the guy behind the bar and a couple of other tourists and we all talked about the wine we were drinking. The bartender was involved in the production of the wine in some way and talk got around to the label. He said that he wasn't happy with it, what did I think?
"You want me to answer honestly?"
"Yeah, what do you think?"
"I think it looks like a label made by someone who designs for the supermarket home brand ketchup" "Exactly!" He said "I'm going to tell the board that, have a drink on us!"
And I did.
I was cruising around on my own (as I have done on many of my vacations) and dropped in to a vineyard to taste the local fare. There was the guy behind the bar and a couple of other tourists and we all talked about the wine we were drinking. The bartender was involved in the production of the wine in some way and talk got around to the label. He said that he wasn't happy with it, what did I think?
"You want me to answer honestly?"
"Yeah, what do you think?"
"I think it looks like a label made by someone who designs for the supermarket home brand ketchup" "Exactly!" He said "I'm going to tell the board that, have a drink on us!"
And I did.
That perfect thingy...
One of the least known periods of my life is the mid to late 70s when I worked as a mechanic in a factory. Strictly speaking, it was a mill, not a factory as we processed wool. We took bales of greasy wool from the shearing sheds to some finished products, like blankets.
My job was to keep fourteen machines running. I oiled and adjusted them, and when they stopped, I worked frantically to get them going again. Once a machine broke down and in the process cast off a nut, depositing it in a place where it would take a complete strip down to recover it. My then boss, an alcoholic Dutchman, opened his toolbox and deep inside was a nut, perfect for the job. I looked at my shiny new toolbox with its shiny new tools and wondered how one gets a useful collection of odds and ends, springs, washers nuts etcetera, to use in situations like this.
Yesterday I fitted an extension to my tablesaw and needed a spring washer to complete the job. And sure enough there at the bottom of my nuts and bolts drawer was the perfect spring washer. I had become my alcoholic Dutch boss.
In reality I have done similar things for years, hording stuff that just might be useful one day. Not hoarding in the reality TV sense, hoarding in a practical useful sense. Having a big workshop means I can go some way toward sorting the stuff and be able to find it. When I think back to the first workshop I was in, my grandfather's, it was only a bench at the end of his garage, but we made lots of useless stuff there, stuff a kid could think up and a grandfather could show how to make. The bench was cluttered with jars of nails and screws, sawdust, oil and fifty years of dirt, gave it a colour and a smell that I'd recognise today, fifty years later.
I hope one day, to have my workshop smelling like that and be able to find, that perfect thing, you know, the bit with the bend at the end with a hole in it. Whatever it is, I'll have it there, somewhere, I'll just have to keep looking.
My job was to keep fourteen machines running. I oiled and adjusted them, and when they stopped, I worked frantically to get them going again. Once a machine broke down and in the process cast off a nut, depositing it in a place where it would take a complete strip down to recover it. My then boss, an alcoholic Dutchman, opened his toolbox and deep inside was a nut, perfect for the job. I looked at my shiny new toolbox with its shiny new tools and wondered how one gets a useful collection of odds and ends, springs, washers nuts etcetera, to use in situations like this.
Yesterday I fitted an extension to my tablesaw and needed a spring washer to complete the job. And sure enough there at the bottom of my nuts and bolts drawer was the perfect spring washer. I had become my alcoholic Dutch boss.
In reality I have done similar things for years, hording stuff that just might be useful one day. Not hoarding in the reality TV sense, hoarding in a practical useful sense. Having a big workshop means I can go some way toward sorting the stuff and be able to find it. When I think back to the first workshop I was in, my grandfather's, it was only a bench at the end of his garage, but we made lots of useless stuff there, stuff a kid could think up and a grandfather could show how to make. The bench was cluttered with jars of nails and screws, sawdust, oil and fifty years of dirt, gave it a colour and a smell that I'd recognise today, fifty years later.
I hope one day, to have my workshop smelling like that and be able to find, that perfect thing, you know, the bit with the bend at the end with a hole in it. Whatever it is, I'll have it there, somewhere, I'll just have to keep looking.
Ten things about me
1. I was a Xtian till I was eighteen. As soon as I left the influence of my mother, that stuff just fell away.
2. I wasn't a very good Xtian. 3
. I have always loved to write. I should do more.
4. It was a Sunday morning in 1983 when my headache started.
5. Aviation has been a major interest in my life. I have been in a Tiger Moth doing acrobatics. I have sat in an F16 and a Spitfire cockpit. I have been in a 747 cockpit while flying over the alps. I have been para gliding in the alps as well as flying in a Cessna 172 around them. I used to have a aircraft engine piston for an ashtray (when everyone had to have one in the house, non smokers too. I have walked through a Lancaster and a Concorde. I have sat in the doorway of a Huey helicopter, legs outside flying down the firebreaks in a state forest. I have been a passenger in another Cessna over Florida, where the pilot, just shut off the engine to practice restarts and stalls.
6. I have touched two different moon rocks.
7. I detest prunes.
8. I have another sister whom I have only met a couple of times.
9. I have had several of my plays produced, but the ones I really want to get on stage, I cannot get directors and actors for. This was a big factor in me leaving the theatre. Spending a decade facilitating other people's projects and unable to get anyone interested in mine, seemed unfair.
10. I like straight, un-iced, un-watered single malt scotch. Life is too short for blends.
2. I wasn't a very good Xtian. 3
. I have always loved to write. I should do more.
4. It was a Sunday morning in 1983 when my headache started.
5. Aviation has been a major interest in my life. I have been in a Tiger Moth doing acrobatics. I have sat in an F16 and a Spitfire cockpit. I have been in a 747 cockpit while flying over the alps. I have been para gliding in the alps as well as flying in a Cessna 172 around them. I used to have a aircraft engine piston for an ashtray (when everyone had to have one in the house, non smokers too. I have walked through a Lancaster and a Concorde. I have sat in the doorway of a Huey helicopter, legs outside flying down the firebreaks in a state forest. I have been a passenger in another Cessna over Florida, where the pilot, just shut off the engine to practice restarts and stalls.
6. I have touched two different moon rocks.
7. I detest prunes.
8. I have another sister whom I have only met a couple of times.
9. I have had several of my plays produced, but the ones I really want to get on stage, I cannot get directors and actors for. This was a big factor in me leaving the theatre. Spending a decade facilitating other people's projects and unable to get anyone interested in mine, seemed unfair.
10. I like straight, un-iced, un-watered single malt scotch. Life is too short for blends.
"Hello darkness my old friend"
"Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again."
Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel
My only true super power is that I can see quite well in very low light conditions. I don't know if this is a natural talent or something I trained myself to do in all those 'darkroom' years. But I am always more relaxed in total darkness. I just love it.
In a Lancaster bomber crew, I would be best in the most dangerous position. Tail gunner. Few populated places on earth are as dark as wartime Europe night. I'd be straining to see the bit of black on black that would be an enemy fighter sneaking up behind. The heroes up front would get the medals. But I would be scaring away Goring's night time killers. The night fighters need to disable or kill me to get up close and fire the cannon shells all the way through the ship from tail gunner to pilot. But as I can see better than most and I can see when a star's light is obscured by a fighter.
And there it is! I call the captain on the intercom and command "Corkscrew left!" The pilot kicks the rudder hard and turns the aircraft down and left in a dramatic spiral to the ground. The navigators equipment floats with our stomachs high in the air and the navigator himself has to hold onto his table to stay on his seat. As the tail flips up and right the shadow slides across my gunsight and I fire a quick burst. I can see flashes where my rounds hit the metal skin of the enemy, but I can't claim a 'kill' for that. I try to keep the shadow in sight, but he disappears. I hope he has gone looking for an easier target.
"I think he's gone Skipper." "Roger that." He doesn't say anything like 'Keep looking", because he knows I will, I'll do better than look. I'll find them, or die trying.
Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel
My only true super power is that I can see quite well in very low light conditions. I don't know if this is a natural talent or something I trained myself to do in all those 'darkroom' years. But I am always more relaxed in total darkness. I just love it.
In a Lancaster bomber crew, I would be best in the most dangerous position. Tail gunner. Few populated places on earth are as dark as wartime Europe night. I'd be straining to see the bit of black on black that would be an enemy fighter sneaking up behind. The heroes up front would get the medals. But I would be scaring away Goring's night time killers. The night fighters need to disable or kill me to get up close and fire the cannon shells all the way through the ship from tail gunner to pilot. But as I can see better than most and I can see when a star's light is obscured by a fighter.
And there it is! I call the captain on the intercom and command "Corkscrew left!" The pilot kicks the rudder hard and turns the aircraft down and left in a dramatic spiral to the ground. The navigators equipment floats with our stomachs high in the air and the navigator himself has to hold onto his table to stay on his seat. As the tail flips up and right the shadow slides across my gunsight and I fire a quick burst. I can see flashes where my rounds hit the metal skin of the enemy, but I can't claim a 'kill' for that. I try to keep the shadow in sight, but he disappears. I hope he has gone looking for an easier target.
"I think he's gone Skipper." "Roger that." He doesn't say anything like 'Keep looking", because he knows I will, I'll do better than look. I'll find them, or die trying.
Churchill's close shave.
In 1942, Winston Churchill went to meet with Roosevelt to determine policy and strategy for the coming partnership. While there he had a flight in a new long range sea plane - possibly the Boeing 314 . In conversations with the pilot, he ventured that he and some staff would benefit from flying home using this marvellous machine.
It was arranged and the party set off. The tail wind was strong and it looked like they would make good time. However when it came time to spot some islands off Great Britain, they were nowhere to be seen, the navigator had only managed to see one star through the clouds during the flight and it was clear that they were lost. A hasty conference was held amongst the crew and it was decided to turn north immediately. This they did and within minutes, spotted England and landed safely. The captain said to Churchill afterwards that he was never so happy to see land as then and proceeded to explain how close they all came to death in the last half hour of the flight.
The aircraft was considerably to the south of their intended track and if they had continued another six minutes on that course they would find themselves over the Port of Brest with its very large anti-aircraft batteries. This slow lumbering unarmed aircraft would be very easy to shoot down. A second problem arose when they turned north they appeared to be coming from enemy controlled Brest. British radar picked them up, classified them as a solo enemy bomber and scrambled six Hurricane fighters to shoot them down.
Fortunately for western civilization, the Hurricanes failed to intercept the Boeing and failed to kill Churchill.
It was arranged and the party set off. The tail wind was strong and it looked like they would make good time. However when it came time to spot some islands off Great Britain, they were nowhere to be seen, the navigator had only managed to see one star through the clouds during the flight and it was clear that they were lost. A hasty conference was held amongst the crew and it was decided to turn north immediately. This they did and within minutes, spotted England and landed safely. The captain said to Churchill afterwards that he was never so happy to see land as then and proceeded to explain how close they all came to death in the last half hour of the flight.
The aircraft was considerably to the south of their intended track and if they had continued another six minutes on that course they would find themselves over the Port of Brest with its very large anti-aircraft batteries. This slow lumbering unarmed aircraft would be very easy to shoot down. A second problem arose when they turned north they appeared to be coming from enemy controlled Brest. British radar picked them up, classified them as a solo enemy bomber and scrambled six Hurricane fighters to shoot them down.
Fortunately for western civilization, the Hurricanes failed to intercept the Boeing and failed to kill Churchill.
Attack!
At the end of 1940, Britain was in a sorry state. Churchill had only held the reins for a few months and reverses were everywhere. The Battle of France ended with his troops pushed into the sea at Dunkirk and the Battle of the Atlantic was cranking up as German submarines sank ship after precious ship bringing food and arms from the USA and Canada. The Royal Air Force had beaten back and humiliated Goring and so far everything had been defensive. Britain and its Empire stood alone against Germany, American isolationists prevented their overt involvement at this stage.
Civilisation was hanging in the balance. After the defeat of Dunkirk, Churchill circulated a directive demanding that the machinery of war not be concentrated on a defensive footing, he wanted us to attack! As soon as the fall of France was complete, Italy declared war on Britain and on November 11, she sent bombers and fighters to sink shipping in the English Channel. Italy had, on paper at least, a far greater air force and army to hold North Africa than the British.
Egypt was vital. To defend the Suez Canal, it must be held. Italy had previously showed that she was at least as ruthless as Germany when she attacked helpless, spear armed Abyssinia. But the tide was about to turn. Italy was soon to discover that fighting British and Australian troops, was a very different proposition. In obedience to the Churchill directive, Admiral Cunningham deployed the aircraft carrier Illustrious from Alexandria and shortly after dark, she released her Swordfish aircraft to attack the Italian fleet at harbour at Taranto, Italy.
The Swordfish at first glance was an unlikely hero of this battle. It looked like an aircraft from the first war and like most two winged aircraft it was slow and underpowered. But slung underneath each one was a powerful torpedo. Its slow speed made it vulnerable to all kinds of attack, even from rifles on the ground, but that also meant its torpedoes could be accurately placed for maximum effect. Air battles last for only as long as fuel does and this one raged for an hour. At the end only two Swordfish were lost, the Battleship Cavour was sunk, two others were put out of action for a year as well as substantial damage to the port itself.
At the same time General Wavell was preparing an attack on the Italian Army bent on taking Egypt. When that battle was concluded much of the entire Italian army were dead, wounded, captured or running away. At one point on the first day a Coldstream Battalion signalled that the prisoners were too great to count, there being 'about five acres of officers and two hundred acres of other ranks. The Italian Army was effectively destroyed as a fighting force. By the 5th of January, 1941 some 45,000 prisoners were taken and 462 field guns captured.
From this point on, Hitler and Mussolini were faced with an enemy who could not only defend but attack too. They were about to discover the ramifications of this fact.
Civilisation was hanging in the balance. After the defeat of Dunkirk, Churchill circulated a directive demanding that the machinery of war not be concentrated on a defensive footing, he wanted us to attack! As soon as the fall of France was complete, Italy declared war on Britain and on November 11, she sent bombers and fighters to sink shipping in the English Channel. Italy had, on paper at least, a far greater air force and army to hold North Africa than the British.
Egypt was vital. To defend the Suez Canal, it must be held. Italy had previously showed that she was at least as ruthless as Germany when she attacked helpless, spear armed Abyssinia. But the tide was about to turn. Italy was soon to discover that fighting British and Australian troops, was a very different proposition. In obedience to the Churchill directive, Admiral Cunningham deployed the aircraft carrier Illustrious from Alexandria and shortly after dark, she released her Swordfish aircraft to attack the Italian fleet at harbour at Taranto, Italy.
The Swordfish at first glance was an unlikely hero of this battle. It looked like an aircraft from the first war and like most two winged aircraft it was slow and underpowered. But slung underneath each one was a powerful torpedo. Its slow speed made it vulnerable to all kinds of attack, even from rifles on the ground, but that also meant its torpedoes could be accurately placed for maximum effect. Air battles last for only as long as fuel does and this one raged for an hour. At the end only two Swordfish were lost, the Battleship Cavour was sunk, two others were put out of action for a year as well as substantial damage to the port itself.
At the same time General Wavell was preparing an attack on the Italian Army bent on taking Egypt. When that battle was concluded much of the entire Italian army were dead, wounded, captured or running away. At one point on the first day a Coldstream Battalion signalled that the prisoners were too great to count, there being 'about five acres of officers and two hundred acres of other ranks. The Italian Army was effectively destroyed as a fighting force. By the 5th of January, 1941 some 45,000 prisoners were taken and 462 field guns captured.
From this point on, Hitler and Mussolini were faced with an enemy who could not only defend but attack too. They were about to discover the ramifications of this fact.
I had no idea...
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favour of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favour of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything." -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
The Longbow
The first weapon of mass destruction was the longbow. A good archer could loose six arrows a minute and have them travel nearly a mile. One arrow was reported to have pierced plate armour, gone through a layer of chain mail, through the thigh of a rider, through the leather and wood of his saddle and 'a goodly way' into the horse. Imagine seeing 60,000 of them coming toward you, knowing that before the first lands the rest would be in the air after it. The sky would be black with approaching death!
The last use of the longbow in battle, as far as I know, was in 1940. (No, Rambo doesn't count) The British were being pushed into the channel by the German Blitzkrieg and their last foothold was the beaches and sand hills of Dunkirk. The only experience most young officers had of warfare was the stories from the trenches of the First World War. Many thought a trip abroad could be fun and brought along horses, pianos, fishing equipment and all manner of crazy stuff. All had to be destroyed and abandoned so that as many men as possible could be rescued.
One young officer was an Olympic archer and he had brought his bow and arrows to practice with. He was in the dunes behind the beaches when he saw a German soldier a few hundred yards away. He strung his bow, aimed and became the last English bowman to take the field of battle. The German was killed and his body, no doubt, caused some medical orderlies to wonder how desperate the British must be to resort to bows and arrows in this age of dive bombers and rifles.
Archery was almost restored to the English armoury after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. A review of weapons suggested that the longbow should be brought back into service. The recommendation noted the longbow was superior to the musket in every important aspect. The longbow is lighter, cheaper, easier to maintain, has a far superior effective range and a much greater lethality than the musket. It is easier to train a musketeer, but that exhausts its list of advantages.
The last use of the longbow in battle, as far as I know, was in 1940. (No, Rambo doesn't count) The British were being pushed into the channel by the German Blitzkrieg and their last foothold was the beaches and sand hills of Dunkirk. The only experience most young officers had of warfare was the stories from the trenches of the First World War. Many thought a trip abroad could be fun and brought along horses, pianos, fishing equipment and all manner of crazy stuff. All had to be destroyed and abandoned so that as many men as possible could be rescued.
One young officer was an Olympic archer and he had brought his bow and arrows to practice with. He was in the dunes behind the beaches when he saw a German soldier a few hundred yards away. He strung his bow, aimed and became the last English bowman to take the field of battle. The German was killed and his body, no doubt, caused some medical orderlies to wonder how desperate the British must be to resort to bows and arrows in this age of dive bombers and rifles.
Archery was almost restored to the English armoury after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. A review of weapons suggested that the longbow should be brought back into service. The recommendation noted the longbow was superior to the musket in every important aspect. The longbow is lighter, cheaper, easier to maintain, has a far superior effective range and a much greater lethality than the musket. It is easier to train a musketeer, but that exhausts its list of advantages.
Marital chocolate
Mrs Me just asked me if there was any little snack she could partake of. I said "There is a pack of mint choc biscuits (US 'cookies') in the second fridge." She brought them in and opened them in front of me and pushed the pack toward me. At that moment I realised that I had to have one so that she wouldn't feel so bad about eating one herself. Then when I did, she told me I shouldn't eat it before lunch.
Such is marriage.
Such is marriage.
The Word of God!
A few years ago I heard a radio program centred on a fellow who translated for a living. Anyway he was an expert in some African language and had translated the bible for them. After he finished and had delivered the work to his employer, he flew to the little country to mark the occasion. On the flight over he was troubled by a particular passage and realised it should have a slight alteration. Fortunately this was before the text was printed. He brought the matter up when he arrived stating that he wanted to make an amendment to his work. The reaction surprised him, "But you can't do that! It is the word of GOD!"
Astrology
When I first met my first wife she introduced me to one of the world's biggest cons. Astrology.
What a great steaming pile of fetid dingo shit that is. Most astrologers divide the sky into 12 near equal portions of 31 days The position of the sun at the time of your birth determines your 'sign''. Spot the mistake yet? There are two!
The first is that constellations are not perfectly arranged in exactly 12 equal pieces, Scorpio for example, hosts the sun for only a week and Pisces for 38 days. So there should be five times as many Pisceans as Scorpios.
The second is that they have missed an entire constellation! Ophiuchus lies between Scorpio and Sagittarius. Not a word about this constellation appears in any discussion of sun signs. The next bit of bullshit is the tables they use. They worked well for Plutarch but the planets (including the Earth, but not Mercury - a different tale hangs from that phenomenon) experience precession. Our orbits are not circular but an oval shape, and the oval shifts a bit back with every orbit (year). Consequently, the stars appear in a slightly different area of the sky, and the position of the sun in relation to those (the basis of all 'tropical astrology' - by far the most popular version) is different now to what it was even last year. Over thousands of years the difference is dramatic. In fact it takes around 26,000 years to come back to its start point. Thus those complicated charts they wave around are like a broken clock, right twice a day, except we need millennia before they get it right again.
Finally, the idea that the stars can influence our behaviour, earthquakes and romance strikes me as the most absurd. Einstein showed us that nothing can travel faster than light, not even information. So for the stars to be influencing little Timmy from his birth moment, they would have to have predicted his birth hundreds of years ago (often thousands) and sent their little influencing rays then. Never mind that no 'influencing rays' have ever been found and EVERY time astrology has been tested using our greatest discovery, the Scientific Method, it has failed.
Basically as I said to the woman in the newsstand, "It's quite simple to tell the difference, Astronomy is a science, Astrology a con." She glared at me and I smiled back at her and asked "Would you care to debate the matter?" All I got was more silent glaring. When I accepted this crap wholesale it was as if I had some sort of distorting spectacles that changed how I saw everything. I'd predict people's sign and counted the hits and never the misses. I read Linda Goodman's Sun Sign - twice and confidently wandered around thinking I had the drum on everything. I was so bloody wrong, it is embarrassing to reflect upon it.
Thank Hitchens for science!
What a great steaming pile of fetid dingo shit that is. Most astrologers divide the sky into 12 near equal portions of 31 days The position of the sun at the time of your birth determines your 'sign''. Spot the mistake yet? There are two!
The first is that constellations are not perfectly arranged in exactly 12 equal pieces, Scorpio for example, hosts the sun for only a week and Pisces for 38 days. So there should be five times as many Pisceans as Scorpios.
The second is that they have missed an entire constellation! Ophiuchus lies between Scorpio and Sagittarius. Not a word about this constellation appears in any discussion of sun signs. The next bit of bullshit is the tables they use. They worked well for Plutarch but the planets (including the Earth, but not Mercury - a different tale hangs from that phenomenon) experience precession. Our orbits are not circular but an oval shape, and the oval shifts a bit back with every orbit (year). Consequently, the stars appear in a slightly different area of the sky, and the position of the sun in relation to those (the basis of all 'tropical astrology' - by far the most popular version) is different now to what it was even last year. Over thousands of years the difference is dramatic. In fact it takes around 26,000 years to come back to its start point. Thus those complicated charts they wave around are like a broken clock, right twice a day, except we need millennia before they get it right again.
Finally, the idea that the stars can influence our behaviour, earthquakes and romance strikes me as the most absurd. Einstein showed us that nothing can travel faster than light, not even information. So for the stars to be influencing little Timmy from his birth moment, they would have to have predicted his birth hundreds of years ago (often thousands) and sent their little influencing rays then. Never mind that no 'influencing rays' have ever been found and EVERY time astrology has been tested using our greatest discovery, the Scientific Method, it has failed.
Basically as I said to the woman in the newsstand, "It's quite simple to tell the difference, Astronomy is a science, Astrology a con." She glared at me and I smiled back at her and asked "Would you care to debate the matter?" All I got was more silent glaring. When I accepted this crap wholesale it was as if I had some sort of distorting spectacles that changed how I saw everything. I'd predict people's sign and counted the hits and never the misses. I read Linda Goodman's Sun Sign - twice and confidently wandered around thinking I had the drum on everything. I was so bloody wrong, it is embarrassing to reflect upon it.
Thank Hitchens for science!
Problems of the World #439
Years ago, I was working delivering car parts and occasionally, I'd have a bit of free and chat to my loadmaster, solving the problems of the world. One day after a couple of incidents that made us question the quality of young men around us, he said to me, "In 1940, when Britain stood alone against the Nazis, a lot of young men rushed to join the RAF as air crew. Those that were selected as pilots could be, and often were, 19 years old. At this age they were COMMANDING a bomber, responsible for the mission and the men in the aircraft." "How many of these boys would we give that responsibility to?"
"I don't think any of them could do it." I said "These kids have been told how, wonderful, creative and talented they are all their lives.
Now they come here and expect us to treat them like it was true."
"I don't think any of them could do it." I said "These kids have been told how, wonderful, creative and talented they are all their lives.
Now they come here and expect us to treat them like it was true."
Shameful Treatment
In World War II, long before the Americans were able to join, the Battle of Britain convinced any doubters that air power will be the way to win this war. PBI's (Poor Bloody Infantry) would eventually have to go in and take what was left, but it was the RAF who were going to be taking the war to the Germans. This they did, night after terrifying night.
To do this they would need aircraft and aircrew. The aircraft were taken care of by an amazing man, Lord Beaverbrook. He was a marked man, being Jewish, and was on Hitler's death list should he take Britain. Noel Coward, after the public release of the list, received a telegram "My dear, the people we would have been seen dead with!" Beaverbrook streamlined production and modification to a level that was little short of miraculous. Pilots were consulted and listened to, spares could be ordered direct from airfield to factory and aircraft were delivered direct to the bases, no government red tape to be seen.
For the aircrew a much wider organisation was required and the Empire Training Scheme was devised. Men were sent for different types of training and selection - Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all set up schools. And Australian flyers went to each one. Only about 3% of all enlisted Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen went to Europe and the Middle East to fly and yet from this small group came 39% of the casualties. If you flew against the Axis, your chances of coming through unscathed or coming through at all, were not great. Yet night after night these men climbed into their aircraft, flew over occupied and dangerous country, carried out their missions and hopefully, chased the sun home. To them, we owe nothing less than the survival of Western civilization.
Britons cheered them on as they flew overhead and counted them home as they landed. But after the war, when the survivors had landed for the last time, the photographs of what they had done flooded the papers. The people were ashamed of them. They were the only group of combatants to be in every theatre and every day of every battle. They fought from beginning to end, and some only stopped when they were injured or killed. I have read of men who volunteered over and over again, counting nearly a hundred trips over enemy territory. Each one capable of causing death or maiming any or all of these men. And yet, the greatest injustice of them all, they received no campaign medals, no recognition, nothing. They were shunned even to the extent that in the victory parade, they were the only group of any size that were not permitted to march.
Shameful.
To do this they would need aircraft and aircrew. The aircraft were taken care of by an amazing man, Lord Beaverbrook. He was a marked man, being Jewish, and was on Hitler's death list should he take Britain. Noel Coward, after the public release of the list, received a telegram "My dear, the people we would have been seen dead with!" Beaverbrook streamlined production and modification to a level that was little short of miraculous. Pilots were consulted and listened to, spares could be ordered direct from airfield to factory and aircraft were delivered direct to the bases, no government red tape to be seen.
For the aircrew a much wider organisation was required and the Empire Training Scheme was devised. Men were sent for different types of training and selection - Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all set up schools. And Australian flyers went to each one. Only about 3% of all enlisted Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen went to Europe and the Middle East to fly and yet from this small group came 39% of the casualties. If you flew against the Axis, your chances of coming through unscathed or coming through at all, were not great. Yet night after night these men climbed into their aircraft, flew over occupied and dangerous country, carried out their missions and hopefully, chased the sun home. To them, we owe nothing less than the survival of Western civilization.
Britons cheered them on as they flew overhead and counted them home as they landed. But after the war, when the survivors had landed for the last time, the photographs of what they had done flooded the papers. The people were ashamed of them. They were the only group of combatants to be in every theatre and every day of every battle. They fought from beginning to end, and some only stopped when they were injured or killed. I have read of men who volunteered over and over again, counting nearly a hundred trips over enemy territory. Each one capable of causing death or maiming any or all of these men. And yet, the greatest injustice of them all, they received no campaign medals, no recognition, nothing. They were shunned even to the extent that in the victory parade, they were the only group of any size that were not permitted to march.
Shameful.
Service Call
Me: Oh hello, I booked a service call for my dryer today and I have a question.
Them: yes?
Me: When I did, you asked me what was wrong with the dryer.
Them: Yes...
Me: Why?
Them: So we can tell the technician what to expect.
Me: So why didn't you? He came without the part I told you he needed. Now, I have to wait while you get the part from god-knows-where and take more time off work (slight exaggeration) so when he comes with (hopefully) the correct part I can let him in. All the intervening time we are without a dryer. And it looks like rain around here.
Them: [silence]
Me: I just wish that when service people talk to me, they would listen to what I say and act accordingly. If you are going to ignore me, please tell me in the beginning so I won't bother helping you and I know what to expect.
I say 'helping you' as this won't cost me a cent more, but you have to pay this guy to come twice.
I know you deal with a lot of idiots who wouldn't know one end of a machine from another, but I am not one of them. Perhaps you could change your default assumption from, they are all idiots, to, some are idiots, but lets give everyone the benefit of the doubt and see what happens.
Them: [Silence.]
Me: Goodbye. Click
Them: yes?
Me: When I did, you asked me what was wrong with the dryer.
Them: Yes...
Me: Why?
Them: So we can tell the technician what to expect.
Me: So why didn't you? He came without the part I told you he needed. Now, I have to wait while you get the part from god-knows-where and take more time off work (slight exaggeration) so when he comes with (hopefully) the correct part I can let him in. All the intervening time we are without a dryer. And it looks like rain around here.
Them: [silence]
Me: I just wish that when service people talk to me, they would listen to what I say and act accordingly. If you are going to ignore me, please tell me in the beginning so I won't bother helping you and I know what to expect.
I say 'helping you' as this won't cost me a cent more, but you have to pay this guy to come twice.
I know you deal with a lot of idiots who wouldn't know one end of a machine from another, but I am not one of them. Perhaps you could change your default assumption from, they are all idiots, to, some are idiots, but lets give everyone the benefit of the doubt and see what happens.
Them: [Silence.]
Me: Goodbye. Click
A tale of two tours
I have been to Rome four times and each time I went to the Vatican Museum, surely one of the great museums of the world. In the VM you can wander around aimlessly or you can follow one of the four colour coded tours. Each time, besides being fully aware of this fact, I choose the same damned tour, I forget which I have seen and yet always seem to choose the same one to see again.
Several hours west of Sydney (Australia) there are an extraordinarily beautiful group of limestone caves - The Jenolan Caves ( http://www.jenolancaves.org.au) where they also have different tours and I also choose the same caves despite trying to choose a different one each time.
These caves were popular for 'turn of the century' trips from Sydney by horse and cart taking a week or so for the trip. In the caves in those days each guest carried a candle for light and as the paths and steps were not then cut or lit, there was a lot of clambering and sliding. In one spot there is a huge rock, about the size of a one story house, that sloped around 30 degrees downward. Our intrepid visitors were required to slide down this on their arses, slowing themselves down with their hands. This left only one place to hold the lit candle - in their teeth. Men of those times sported very big beards, and it was not unusual for a man to be hurtling down the slab screaming because his face was on fire and he could either put out the flames or smash into the rocks at the bottom.
They made them tough in those days.
Several hours west of Sydney (Australia) there are an extraordinarily beautiful group of limestone caves - The Jenolan Caves ( http://www.jenolancaves.org.au) where they also have different tours and I also choose the same caves despite trying to choose a different one each time.
These caves were popular for 'turn of the century' trips from Sydney by horse and cart taking a week or so for the trip. In the caves in those days each guest carried a candle for light and as the paths and steps were not then cut or lit, there was a lot of clambering and sliding. In one spot there is a huge rock, about the size of a one story house, that sloped around 30 degrees downward. Our intrepid visitors were required to slide down this on their arses, slowing themselves down with their hands. This left only one place to hold the lit candle - in their teeth. Men of those times sported very big beards, and it was not unusual for a man to be hurtling down the slab screaming because his face was on fire and he could either put out the flames or smash into the rocks at the bottom.
They made them tough in those days.
Neanderthals
My first wife and I lived for a time, in a country town called Toowoomba. And yes, foreigners, it is as odd as it sounds. She was walking home from college one afternoon when she passed a building site. Now, for a woman, passing a building site in the new millennium is nothing at all. Worksites are surrounded with plywood walls that obscures sightlines from both directions. But back in the seventies, any woman walking past a place where men worked were likely to be subjected to a series of cat calls and wolf whistles. Her response was to indicate just how hard and exactly where she was going to put her umbrella, should they continue. They shut up immediately, probably because most women in those days would just hurry past and try to ignore the raucous Neanderthals.
Today, I suspect, any woman who was subjected to this outrage would march right up to the site office and tear strips off the site supervisor. But these were the days when advertising for an employee of a particular gender was only just made illegal. Building sites around the country resorted to creative methods of ensuring only men applied, the most popular being that applicants must be prepared to work shirtless. It occurred to me that many of the 'younger generation' would not only, not employ the 'wolf whistle', but not recognise it if someone did. I present this as evidence that society is improving, we are getting better at being decent people and recognising where others slip back into Neanderthalism.
I know we have a long way to go. Progress is always slow on a social level, but we are moving in the right direction and that is a good thing to be doing.
Today, I suspect, any woman who was subjected to this outrage would march right up to the site office and tear strips off the site supervisor. But these were the days when advertising for an employee of a particular gender was only just made illegal. Building sites around the country resorted to creative methods of ensuring only men applied, the most popular being that applicants must be prepared to work shirtless. It occurred to me that many of the 'younger generation' would not only, not employ the 'wolf whistle', but not recognise it if someone did. I present this as evidence that society is improving, we are getting better at being decent people and recognising where others slip back into Neanderthalism.
I know we have a long way to go. Progress is always slow on a social level, but we are moving in the right direction and that is a good thing to be doing.
Building the Obsevatory
This project took me 12 months from laying the concrete to lifting the turret in place. Here is what I did.
I spent a long time thinking about ways to do this and made many mistakes. The pad was my first. I tried to save money by having it poured at the same time as another slab was laid. Next time, I'd make the slab 3 meters square not four, and have it stand proud of the soil. Much less opportunity for water to get under the walls. I would also get the pipe for the pier positioned before the slab was laid, rather than rely on reo and a box of concrete to attach the pier, I'd buy it a meter longer and bury it in the slab footings. I think I probably went overkill on the central concrete column, but there is no way to tell.
I had a couple of data pipes laid underground, and got the sparky to connect the power and internet/phone line. After seeing my workshop built, I had the idea of building a three meter cube with the same method. The garage people said their engineers weren't happy about making a building and not a roof. But they were persuaded and It was a terrific solution. I put up the framing for three of the walls and then built a scaffold to hold the joists in place. Once the joists were in position I slid the floor up onto the joists attached it securely and cut the floor hatch out. The floor is just above the doorway so the top of the wall is about hip height. I then fixed a drilled steel plate to the pier, aligned it roughly N/S and welded it on. The main plate duplicates the shape of my tripod but made of a substantial slab of steel. I hadn't taken into account a protruding part of my CGEM mount, so I had enormous fun, making sparks and grinding some of the slab away.
I then had to think about the top. I couldn't get anyone to respond when I tried to buy the domes made around here and couldn't afford the one other I looked at. ($11K) My first turret was made of ply. Heavy exterior ply. I had a building designer friend tell me where I went wrong with its construction - see now, I built it like a theatre set and not like a building. So I pulled it apart and rebuilt it. I went through a lot of ideas trying to work out how to do a cut the friction as the turret rotates. Eventually I found these little Chinese rollers that are used in screen door applications and ordered 600, they are rated at 20Kg each and the turret weighed 350kg. A mate has a truck with a crane so he loaded the turret onto his truck and put it in place. It rotated, but it was just too hard to push. I had no alternative but to scrap the turret and do something else.
I had built a little 3D model that showed me I had the proportions right. (I got that idea from Medieval cathedral builders!) So I took the turret to a couple of metal fabricators and gave one the job. They did a great job and it is now on the cube and rotating well. In the next few days, I'll get my scope together, carpet both floors, put some furniture in and open the hatch to space.
Saturn
I remember my very first look through any sort of telescope. It was like most kids get, a five inch reflector. It was actually my brother's, though it mystified me why my parents chose him over me to receive this. I was the one who loved science. Anyway, neither of us knew how to work it, principally because we didn't know how it worked.
Eventually, after doing stuff to it that would require a couple of hours thought and planning and a scotch nowadays, we finally saw something. All we ever did was look at the moon and every bright star in the sky.
One night in particular I remember and I'll bet you all a dollar Wayne remembers the night this happened to him. I saw Saturn. Those rings, those gorgeous, unmistakeable rings, popped out of the blackness and seared themselves into my memory. If I could win a million dollars for it, I couldn't describe the TV I saw Armstrong take his step upon. But I remember Saturn.
In such a scope, it couldn't have been much I would remark about now, but it was beautiful. Saturn on my new scope will be another milestone along with my first galaxy, Andromeda, and my first nebula, Orion. The sales guy put it this way. "On this scope, the Cassini rings are not even a challenge!" He needn't have said another word, that sold it right there. I'll be able to see the Cassini Rings! The Cassini Rings don't actually exist, they are the spaces between the numerous rings of great gas giant. I will not only see the clouds on Saturn, but through the rings as well!
Eventually, after doing stuff to it that would require a couple of hours thought and planning and a scotch nowadays, we finally saw something. All we ever did was look at the moon and every bright star in the sky.
One night in particular I remember and I'll bet you all a dollar Wayne remembers the night this happened to him. I saw Saturn. Those rings, those gorgeous, unmistakeable rings, popped out of the blackness and seared themselves into my memory. If I could win a million dollars for it, I couldn't describe the TV I saw Armstrong take his step upon. But I remember Saturn.
In such a scope, it couldn't have been much I would remark about now, but it was beautiful. Saturn on my new scope will be another milestone along with my first galaxy, Andromeda, and my first nebula, Orion. The sales guy put it this way. "On this scope, the Cassini rings are not even a challenge!" He needn't have said another word, that sold it right there. I'll be able to see the Cassini Rings! The Cassini Rings don't actually exist, they are the spaces between the numerous rings of great gas giant. I will not only see the clouds on Saturn, but through the rings as well!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Stubborn bugger
In the thirties, like many people who came through the great depression, Grandfather was very careful with money. As he never trusted banks he kept various stashes around the house in jam jars and other secret places.
In the local town a new type of shop opened up - selling cars. Grandad decided he should have one of those things so he went to the shop and was shown the only car they had. Grandad surveyed the car, kicked a tyre or two and marvelled at the engine. He then told the salesman he'd take it. He placed a small suitcase on the table and opened it. It was full of five pound notes! In those days five pounds was a very good weekly wage - and here was hundreds of them!
When the salesman composed himself and the paperwork was complete, Grandad was told of the delivery date. "What do you mean? " he said, "It's right there, I'll take the bugger now! There's no sense in buying a bus ticket if I have a car! Don't be daft man!" Once the reality of the situation set in and Grandad accepted he couldn't take the man's only car, he left and returned on the appointed day.
In those days, licences were unknown and driving instructors unheard of. You bought a car, the salesman showed you how it worked and you drove off. And that is what Grandad did. He set off down the middle of the road, crunching the gears and terrifying horses. For the rest of his driving career, he never bothered with lines on the road or keeping left, he drove right down the centre of the road, just as he would have driven a horse and cart. It must have been a terrifying sight watching him come closer and closer with absolutely no intention of moving over or giving way. He was lucky he had the only car in the district or his perfect driving record may have been spoilt with a head on crash with some other stubborn bugger.
Hammering wisdom
Before I came to Australia my favourite memories are of spending time with my grandfather in his shed. I remember one time I had picked up a hammer and he took a hold of it in his big miner's hands and pushed my grip down to the end. He said "You hold a bottle by the neck, a woman by the waist and a hammer by the base. Every time I reach for a hammer, those words come back to me. He was a very brave man. His brother was killed on the Somme in WWI and when WWII came around he sent two sons and a son in law to war, and a couple of daughters to work building spitfires. His house was bombed twice and yet every working day he went down the mine and worked all of his shift not knowing if his family was being killed above ground. My reciting this phrase is my attempt at honouring him and passing on some of what he was to the future.
Dear Health Insurer
I just wrote this to my health insurer: Hello, I note that you provide refunds for homeopathic remedies. Given that the two basic tenets of homeopathy are:
1. Like cures like, so e.g. caffiene is given as a cure for insomnia. 2. The weaker the dose, the higher the potency. These are clearly ridiculous claims. To give a stimulant in any dose for insomnia goes against all known science. As for the dilution, typical concentrations are 1: to the power of 23 - a -1 followed by 23 zeros.
Given Avagadro's Number, there is doubt that a single atom of the active ingredient reaches the patient. They just drink water or swallow placebo pills. There is not a shred of scientifically verified evidence to support the claims these people make.
I object to you paying for these 'treatments' for three reasons.
1. It enriches these con artists.
2. It gives a level of respectability to their fraud.
3. My premiums are higher because you pay this benefit.
I doubt this will have any affect upon your practices, but could you at least grant me a reason why you will continue to support this fraud upon genuinely sick people?
Paul Hannah
Tinker Tailor, Soldier, crap.
Yesterday we went to see Tinker Tailor.
It was the Bourne Identity without any action, suspense, drama, plot or scenery. T
o say it was glacially slow would show glaciers in a bad light. A glacier would speed past this movie and wave as it went by. It is as obscure as "Lost in Translation" and as filled with action as a Bambi cartoon is filled with pornography.
To say the plot had twists and turns would be hard as there was no discernable plot. There was a nice view of Istanbul for a few seconds. The rest was dingy squalid offices, At one point one fellow was sitting on a couch and he said something innocuous and another fellow inexplicably launched into him and smacked his head around.
The other people in the room barely raised an eybrow at this outburst and the two protagonists continued for the rest of the movie as if nothing had happened. I think the assaulted fellow was as confused as I was, but he at least didn't have to sit through two hours of the crap.
The film opened with an action sequence. Which, since it was one of the few times in the movie something actually happened, the director milked it by repeating chunks of it inexplicably through the movie. The movie also had a strange effect on the nature of time. It didn't matter how many times I looked at my watch, the movie still had an hour to go.
If you insist on seeing this piece of stinking slime, you should go prepared. Take a person with you, one of you is likely to be sicker than the other and you can help each other to the nearest bar to get plastered in the hope that the alcohol will knock off enough brain cells so that you forget seeing most of the movie. A word of caution here, be sure to retain some memory of the movie no matter how awful this must be, as a safety measure. Without this memory you might go and see the movie again and no one has ever survived that experience sane. Keep your mobile phone on in case something more important turns up - what could be more important? Well a call from an Indian call centre to evaluate your phone plan would count, as would any survey by anyone, particularly useful would be a political survey. So that you can help distract those around you from the movie you should repeat each question loudly and get the consensus of the audience before you answer. Ear plugs are to drown out the awful dialogue and sunglasses should help reduce the likelihood of accidental viewing. You will need a vomit bag - be sure to keep this handy in case your eyes stray to the screen. I wouldn't eat first as those vomit bags can only hold so much. In fact you would be much safer and happier staying at home sticking needles into your eyes and then doing some amateur surgery with a chainsaw.
Facebook Canibalism
Tomorrow, Facebook will change its privacy settings to allow Mark Zuckerberg to come into your house while you sleep and eat your brains with a grapefruit spoon. To stop this from happening go to Account> Home Invasion Settings> Cannibalism> Brains, and uncheck the "Tasty" box. Please copy and repost
Modern Times
Sign of the times. My gardener/handyman brings his kids along to help some days and I give them a job and chuck 'em a coupla dollars. Given this windfall when I was 13 would have meant, a milkshake with my mates, a new T shirt or a down payment on a record. Not this kid. She put the tenner right onto credit for her phone.
Darwin Shirt
My next T Shirt:
And from the Northwest, in the land called England, shall arise a great prophet who ye shall call Darwin. He shall speak great wisdom in the matter of how one beast came to become another and the natural order of things called Evolution. Listen well, for he speaks the truth.
Dawkins 31:12
And from the Northwest, in the land called England, shall arise a great prophet who ye shall call Darwin. He shall speak great wisdom in the matter of how one beast came to become another and the natural order of things called Evolution. Listen well, for he speaks the truth.
Dawkins 31:12
A new ten (plus two) commandments
1. Don't kill anything unless you have to and by doing so you save other lives.
2. Don't steal, unless you or your family are starving and there is no other choice.
3. Don't torture, ever, for any reason.
4. Don't enslave anyone, not even a bit like paying really low wages.
5. Don't discriminate on any grounds.
6. Don't rape anyone. Ever.
7. Don't be violent or aggressive unless you are protecting yourself or other people.
8. Respect the environment, recycle, repair, reuse.
9. Be kind to the disadvantaged and respect their needs
10. Respect animals domestic and wild.
11. Think hard about your actions and their effects.
12. Educate yourself and your children.
For Kate Part One
Many years ago, when my beautiful daughter, Kate was about fifteen, she dropped a hint that I hadn't fully explained what it was that I did to support us. I made a silly off hand joke about making money out of rich lawyers and forgot about it. Tonight, dear Kate, I will answer that question. I hope you will forgive it being late and on Facebook like this, but here goes. Our state of Queensland in the mid eighties was in political and legal turmoil. There was corruption from the highest levels of government and the Police Force was literally a joke. That was what they called the corrupt ring of police officers, the 'Joke', there wasn't much you couldn't get done or not done, for the right money. There was one occasion where the front page of a leading newspaper, had on the front page, a headline quote from the minister for Police "There is no illegal gambling in Queensland" Much of the rest of the page was taken by a picture of a full sized roulette table, being craned into a building in the seedy part of town. Traffic was being controlled by an on duty, uniformed, policeman. There I was recently graduated in Industrial Relations, Psychology and English, with a minor foray into law. My friend Michael Forde, now a retired Judge, knew I was struggling financially, with only a half time job at Actor's Equity (Go on someone, ask me about Judith Durham!) and a couple of kids on my own. I had done a deal with my Ex in exchange for foregoing her contribution to their upkeep she gave me a substantial sum of money to enable me to buy a house for us. But even so, things were tight. Michael was a trial lawyer, called a 'barrister' here. One day Michael was landed with a very big case indeed. Bjelke Petersen and Cabinet v Warburton. We were talking while training to work one day and he was telling me how for this case he had 8000 documents to sort, file and keyword. I said "Well Michael, for that you need a computer." "Would you help me?" Said Michael. "Sure, whatever I can do, I will. " I replied Now, some may say that my answer was a perfectly reasonable assessment of the situation. However you might want to consider that my entire experience with computing was that once, I saw a mainframe computer. And my father had given me an Amstrad 64 a few months earlier. You should know, that I wore that 64k with pride any time I met anyone who also had a computer. Which wasn't often. So basically, I knew nothing, had no experience
Me Being Polite
A PM conversation I had moments ago with a fellow who thought my grammar could use some improvement:
Paul Hannah When I write posts on FB I write in a colloquial form, a form that reflects the casual nature of the conversations. Writing my stories and letters I write, as I was trained, in correct, formal, English.
HIM: Yeah.
Paul Hannah Do you have any understanding of the glass house you live in?
i.e. You wrote:
" ... . Its weird, I find myself correcting peoples grammar since Ive been in English class, when half the time I dont use it myself LOLOL."
Paul Hannah An ellipsis (...) indicates something missing and should not be used in this way. It adds nothing to your sentence. Contractions such as 'Its' should not be used in formal English. When you indicate possession, as in "peoples" an apostrophe is required. It should be ' people's '. Contractions, if you must use them, need apostrophes too. "Ive" becomes 'I've' and "dont" becomes 'don't'. Your paragraph would also have been clearer if you added the comma after 'time'.
Correcting grammar is a literary minefield, if you are in the position of still attending English class, you may not yet be qualified to do so. I would in this and future cases, advise caution, others may not be as polite as I.
Paul Hannah When I write posts on FB I write in a colloquial form, a form that reflects the casual nature of the conversations. Writing my stories and letters I write, as I was trained, in correct, formal, English.
HIM: Yeah.
Paul Hannah Do you have any understanding of the glass house you live in?
i.e. You wrote:
" ... . Its weird, I find myself correcting peoples grammar since Ive been in English class, when half the time I dont use it myself LOLOL."
Paul Hannah An ellipsis (...) indicates something missing and should not be used in this way. It adds nothing to your sentence. Contractions such as 'Its' should not be used in formal English. When you indicate possession, as in "peoples" an apostrophe is required. It should be ' people's '. Contractions, if you must use them, need apostrophes too. "Ive" becomes 'I've' and "dont" becomes 'don't'. Your paragraph would also have been clearer if you added the comma after 'time'.
Correcting grammar is a literary minefield, if you are in the position of still attending English class, you may not yet be qualified to do so. I would in this and future cases, advise caution, others may not be as polite as I.
Fireball!
Around this time in 1973 I was working at my first job as a pupil surveyor. I cannot imagine what possessed me to apply for that job and for the life of me I cannot think why they hired me. At any rate, there I was working in the rainforests and farmland of Mt Tamborine. Tamborine didn't have the darkest skies I had seen, but it was damned close. I was walking along Long Road, looking at the stars and suddenly a bunch of bright lights fanned out across the sky. I learned later that it was probably space junk and not an exploding meteor. But tonight, I saw, not my first meteor, but a fireball as bright as seven or eight Jupiters, It was jaw droppingly fantastic. it had a tail about as long as the radius of the moon appears and its large solid head was bright white.
Geiger Counter
The popular image of a scientist is a genial, absent minded fellow. However being bright doesn't mean you are a nice guy.
Richard Dawkins is famously known for his arrogance and superior air.
Marconi's best man for his second wedding was Mussolini!
Thomas Edison was so consumed by the competition between his DC and Tesla's AC, that he publicly electrocuted an elephant, to show the dangerous nature of AC.
But by far the worst scientific arsehole was Geiger, he of the famous Geiger counter. He reported and informed on his Jewish colleagues and sent some to their deaths.
Richard Dawkins is famously known for his arrogance and superior air.
Marconi's best man for his second wedding was Mussolini!
Thomas Edison was so consumed by the competition between his DC and Tesla's AC, that he publicly electrocuted an elephant, to show the dangerous nature of AC.
But by far the worst scientific arsehole was Geiger, he of the famous Geiger counter. He reported and informed on his Jewish colleagues and sent some to their deaths.
A win!
I think I won a Xtian/ atheist debate yesterday. I was on shaky ground as I really wanted to maintain the relationship and not be seen as disrespectful. (Even though I am!)
Xtian: I think that you can look at the bible and recognise it was made by men, showing norms and prejudices of the time. But leaving a core of truth for us to follow.
Me: I see two problems with that.
1. If you take the very core of Christianity, Christ's words and say, well at least that much is true... (Xtian nods) then you must accept that the entire OT is true and validly part of Xtianity, as Christ said explicitly that he was not here to change even a small amount of the old law.
2. If you start saying, this bit is OK, this bit is not OK, then you have to provide a rational reason (other than I like this bit, not that) for your choices.
Without that, your religion is just an expression of the personal preference of individuals and collectively meaningless.
Silence.
Xtian: I think that you can look at the bible and recognise it was made by men, showing norms and prejudices of the time. But leaving a core of truth for us to follow.
Me: I see two problems with that.
1. If you take the very core of Christianity, Christ's words and say, well at least that much is true... (Xtian nods) then you must accept that the entire OT is true and validly part of Xtianity, as Christ said explicitly that he was not here to change even a small amount of the old law.
2. If you start saying, this bit is OK, this bit is not OK, then you have to provide a rational reason (other than I like this bit, not that) for your choices.
Without that, your religion is just an expression of the personal preference of individuals and collectively meaningless.
Silence.
Honeymoon in Australia!
The fashion for holiday hotspots changes often, Australians have a love affair with Europe but most notably Turkey. However Australia seems to be a place that many people want to visit. Most Americans I have met want to visit, but our most faithful fans are the Japanese. Particularly honeymooning couples and their families. The reason is at least partially economic. The birth of a daughter in that country means the parents have to start saving for the wedding. A Japanese wedding is incredibly expensive, $100k or $200k are unremarkable expenditures.
Some years ago a Japanese soap opera showed two of its stars marrying on a beach in Surfers Paradise (Gold Coast Australia). From then on we were a popular destination. It seems it was cheaper to fly the immediate family and the bridal party here than to pay for the ceremony at home. [I understand that this may be or has already changed. In ceremonies it is becoming more common for people pay a hefty sum to attend the reception.]
There was a disturbing development that arose from this trend, bridal suicides. The bride, having discovered what a pig she married and looking at the social impossibility of divorce and the fact their family has just shelled out a huge sum for the wedding, see no option but to leap from the balcony of their luxury apartment. As a result, a special Japanese speaking hotline has been established and leaflets promoting the service are in every hotel room, hoping to talk these desperate women down from the edge.
Some years ago a Japanese soap opera showed two of its stars marrying on a beach in Surfers Paradise (Gold Coast Australia). From then on we were a popular destination. It seems it was cheaper to fly the immediate family and the bridal party here than to pay for the ceremony at home. [I understand that this may be or has already changed. In ceremonies it is becoming more common for people pay a hefty sum to attend the reception.]
There was a disturbing development that arose from this trend, bridal suicides. The bride, having discovered what a pig she married and looking at the social impossibility of divorce and the fact their family has just shelled out a huge sum for the wedding, see no option but to leap from the balcony of their luxury apartment. As a result, a special Japanese speaking hotline has been established and leaflets promoting the service are in every hotel room, hoping to talk these desperate women down from the edge.
Red Tape
Our current state government, is controlled by a party that roughly translates to the US republican party or the UK conservatives. As many would know these parties like small government and less red tape, but the truth is slightly different.
A few years ago, getting a police report for an accident, was a relatively simple matter, you just asked the cop. Now to get a police report, this is the low government, low red tape solution:
First phone the police station to get an incident report number. Then get a form from one government office that controls FOI requests. Then once you have a response from them granting you permission to access the documents, you get a form from another government department, charged with the dissemination of the documents, having filled out that form, they will probably give them to you.
It reminds me of booking a train ticket in India. First you queue to get the reservation, then you queue to pay and then, receipt in hand, you cue for your ticket.
A few years ago, getting a police report for an accident, was a relatively simple matter, you just asked the cop. Now to get a police report, this is the low government, low red tape solution:
First phone the police station to get an incident report number. Then get a form from one government office that controls FOI requests. Then once you have a response from them granting you permission to access the documents, you get a form from another government department, charged with the dissemination of the documents, having filled out that form, they will probably give them to you.
It reminds me of booking a train ticket in India. First you queue to get the reservation, then you queue to pay and then, receipt in hand, you cue for your ticket.
Old Crows
Going to my car after a hospital visit, there were a few crows making noise. Right next to them is a middle aged man pushing an elderly woman and they were both taunting the crows with their own version of a crow call.
Things that make me laugh. #427
I have an odd sense of humour. Perhaps because I am an Aussie.
I just thought it would be funny if some old bastard jumped on a table in a pub and yelled "Atheists are better at non-Euclidean geometry! I will fight any bishop who calls me a liar!."
I think it was two of the original Stones line up that used to play a prank on London pedestrians by having one of them dressed as a vicar and be strolling harmlessly down a fashionable shopping street. The other would screech up in a Rolls Royce and the two would then commence to brawl to the horror of the passers by. The sight of a vicar of the Church of England beating seven kinds of crap out of a fellow was culturally horrifying.
When I first read this I had tears of laughter, even now I am laughing writing it out.
I just thought it would be funny if some old bastard jumped on a table in a pub and yelled "Atheists are better at non-Euclidean geometry! I will fight any bishop who calls me a liar!."
I think it was two of the original Stones line up that used to play a prank on London pedestrians by having one of them dressed as a vicar and be strolling harmlessly down a fashionable shopping street. The other would screech up in a Rolls Royce and the two would then commence to brawl to the horror of the passers by. The sight of a vicar of the Church of England beating seven kinds of crap out of a fellow was culturally horrifying.
When I first read this I had tears of laughter, even now I am laughing writing it out.
A Tale of Ten Keys
In the early eighties I was a single parent of two (2 and 5yrs) and one of the things I did to keep our little unit functioning was join the Army Reserves. If I was a bit more grown up about it, the time would have been well spent, but that just wasn't me at the time, so I managed (as did a lot of others) to piss off a Warrant Officer.
The rank of WO is a sort of half way house between the lower ranks and the exalted officer levels. WO Boundy was the fellow's name and his image is seared into my memory. There were WOs who were decent, hard working fellows, who would help you understand stuff, more likely to take you to one side and give you some one on one training, than to yell at you for making a mess of something... But this fellow was a bully who got off on his power. We found out he was a security guard and the psychology students guessed he was compensating for his low social status and jealous of all of these 'smarter than he was' uni students.
Our commanding officer's main fault was that he was a bit vain and I decided to use that as a lever to get me away from Boundy and into a cushier job. At the time I still considered myself as a professional photographer and the CO had a habit of approaching grunts like me and asking "What would you like to achieve in the unit?". This was common knowledge, so I prepared my answer well ahead of time.
"Well, sir, my short term aim is to convince you that you need a regimental photographer and that I, am the best soldier for that job". It worked. The next camp, I was taken from my company, assigned nominally to the intelligence unit and had a brief to photograph every soldier (especially the CO) doing what we did.
I modified a rifle case to contain my cameras and other gear and put a nice solid lock on it to secure my stuff. QUR wasn't going to indemnify me of any losses! The keys for the case were kept on a string of communications cord around my neck. On the first day Boundy jumped on me for not being where the rest of the diggers were and he was stunned to be told, that I now reported directly to the CO and "I have my orders sir."
He was livid. He couldn't go talk to the CO directly, but I could. He was going to get me somehow.
On the first day of camp I was having a shower when he came into the room and stole my keys. (I will prove this later in the story) Consequently I had to break into my new box to get to my gear and then keep it in the guardhouse for 24hr protection. It was quite inconvenient. And he pinched my house and car keys with them! I had another 14 days to work out how I would replace them all and so beyond inconvenience, it wasn't a disaster.
On the second last day I got a lift back to HQ and commandeered a room to develop the pics. They proved to be as good as I hoped and I had a shot of all 500 or so soldiers doing exciting things. Photographs they could never get otherwise. I knew I was going to be able to sell them all and prove my worth to the CO as well as making a sizeable donation to regimental funds. (R funds were used for present and future soldier welfare matters, helping them when they fall on hard times). So I felt pretty good about my contribution to the unit.
Years later I had a knock on the door from a different WO from a regular unit, asking if they could have my negs to decorate some recruiting drive!
My next little ego boost was that I was to be on camp when my first exam results were released. I called my mother to read out my results and they were better than I could have dreamed. I had to have her read them three times before I believed they were correct. I got another lift back to the camp, to present the CO with his copies and then I re-join intelligence soldiers so I could formally finish the camp with a parade.
At this point, despite feeling very good about myself I was exhausted. I had worked in the darkroom for 16 hours straight and had no sleep for 23 hours. I was with my group sitting on the grass waiting for the bus to take us back to HQ, when I saw Boundy approach. He had my keys in his hand, and was swinging them around on the comms cord. When he asked the group if anyone had lost a set of keys, I kept quiet. I just didn't want to speak to the arsehole. He asked again. louder. I ignored him even harder. Then he walked right up to me and asked me if they were mine.
He could only know they were mine because he stole them from me! I stood up and this exchange ensued:
Boundy: You are a failure aren't you private Hannah?
Me: No sir I am not.
Boundy: I say you are a failure. Me: I can't agree with you sir.
Boundy: If I say you are a failure, you are a failure private!
Me: I can't agree with that either sir. I have just presented 500 great photographs to the CO, and when my fellow soldiers see them, they will love them sir. Further, my trip to HQ got me my exam results and I can see now, my future is bright. On that basis, I cannot see how any objective assessment could find me a failure, sir.
Boundy: When we get back, you might find yourself on a charge.
Me: Would that be in front of the CO who is at this moment looking at all the great photographs I took for him?
Boundy: Watch your step soldier.
Me: Very well sir. He dropped the keys at my feet and left. If my comrades could have cheered, they would have. Every picture was sold.
The rank of WO is a sort of half way house between the lower ranks and the exalted officer levels. WO Boundy was the fellow's name and his image is seared into my memory. There were WOs who were decent, hard working fellows, who would help you understand stuff, more likely to take you to one side and give you some one on one training, than to yell at you for making a mess of something... But this fellow was a bully who got off on his power. We found out he was a security guard and the psychology students guessed he was compensating for his low social status and jealous of all of these 'smarter than he was' uni students.
Our commanding officer's main fault was that he was a bit vain and I decided to use that as a lever to get me away from Boundy and into a cushier job. At the time I still considered myself as a professional photographer and the CO had a habit of approaching grunts like me and asking "What would you like to achieve in the unit?". This was common knowledge, so I prepared my answer well ahead of time.
"Well, sir, my short term aim is to convince you that you need a regimental photographer and that I, am the best soldier for that job". It worked. The next camp, I was taken from my company, assigned nominally to the intelligence unit and had a brief to photograph every soldier (especially the CO) doing what we did.
I modified a rifle case to contain my cameras and other gear and put a nice solid lock on it to secure my stuff. QUR wasn't going to indemnify me of any losses! The keys for the case were kept on a string of communications cord around my neck. On the first day Boundy jumped on me for not being where the rest of the diggers were and he was stunned to be told, that I now reported directly to the CO and "I have my orders sir."
He was livid. He couldn't go talk to the CO directly, but I could. He was going to get me somehow.
On the first day of camp I was having a shower when he came into the room and stole my keys. (I will prove this later in the story) Consequently I had to break into my new box to get to my gear and then keep it in the guardhouse for 24hr protection. It was quite inconvenient. And he pinched my house and car keys with them! I had another 14 days to work out how I would replace them all and so beyond inconvenience, it wasn't a disaster.
On the second last day I got a lift back to HQ and commandeered a room to develop the pics. They proved to be as good as I hoped and I had a shot of all 500 or so soldiers doing exciting things. Photographs they could never get otherwise. I knew I was going to be able to sell them all and prove my worth to the CO as well as making a sizeable donation to regimental funds. (R funds were used for present and future soldier welfare matters, helping them when they fall on hard times). So I felt pretty good about my contribution to the unit.
Years later I had a knock on the door from a different WO from a regular unit, asking if they could have my negs to decorate some recruiting drive!
My next little ego boost was that I was to be on camp when my first exam results were released. I called my mother to read out my results and they were better than I could have dreamed. I had to have her read them three times before I believed they were correct. I got another lift back to the camp, to present the CO with his copies and then I re-join intelligence soldiers so I could formally finish the camp with a parade.
At this point, despite feeling very good about myself I was exhausted. I had worked in the darkroom for 16 hours straight and had no sleep for 23 hours. I was with my group sitting on the grass waiting for the bus to take us back to HQ, when I saw Boundy approach. He had my keys in his hand, and was swinging them around on the comms cord. When he asked the group if anyone had lost a set of keys, I kept quiet. I just didn't want to speak to the arsehole. He asked again. louder. I ignored him even harder. Then he walked right up to me and asked me if they were mine.
He could only know they were mine because he stole them from me! I stood up and this exchange ensued:
Boundy: You are a failure aren't you private Hannah?
Me: No sir I am not.
Boundy: I say you are a failure. Me: I can't agree with you sir.
Boundy: If I say you are a failure, you are a failure private!
Me: I can't agree with that either sir. I have just presented 500 great photographs to the CO, and when my fellow soldiers see them, they will love them sir. Further, my trip to HQ got me my exam results and I can see now, my future is bright. On that basis, I cannot see how any objective assessment could find me a failure, sir.
Boundy: When we get back, you might find yourself on a charge.
Me: Would that be in front of the CO who is at this moment looking at all the great photographs I took for him?
Boundy: Watch your step soldier.
Me: Very well sir. He dropped the keys at my feet and left. If my comrades could have cheered, they would have. Every picture was sold.
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