Green Ideas

What science is for

2010-03-10T22:17:00.001Z

In 1972 and 1973 the Pioneer 9 and 10 spacecraft were launched. I remember them well because they had on them this intriguing plaque.

A message to another world

I had a book by Carl Sagan that explained all the symbols ¹

Forty years on the spacecraft are at the edge of the solar system and are even more intriguing than when they left, for they are not where they are supposed to be: each year they travel a few thousand kilometres less than the laws of physics say they should. This is known as the Pioneer Anomaly

One of the experiments that was designed for Pioneer was to demonstrate that the Law of Gravity works just the same all over the solar system. The unexpected result of experiment suggests - tantalisingly, impossibly - that perhaps it doesn't.

I love this inspiring passage from the latest report of the scientists investigating the anomaly:

In the short run, knowing the gravitational constant to one more decimal digit of precision or placing even tighter limits on any deviation from Einstein's gravitational theory may seem like painfully nitpicking detail. Yet one must not lose sight of the "big picture". When researchers were measuring the properties of electricity with ever more refined instruments over two hundred years ago, they did not envision continent-spanning power grids, an information economy, or tiny electrical signals reaching us from the unfathomable depths of the outer solar system, sent by manmade machines. They just performed meticulous experiments laying down the laws connecting electricity to magnetism or the electromotive force to chemical reactions. Yet their work paved the way to our modern society.

Similarly, we cannot envision today what research into gravitational science will bring tomorrow. Perhaps one day humankind will harness gravity. Perhaps one day a trip across the solar system using a yet to be devised gravity engine may not seem a bigger deal than crossing an ocean in a jetliner today. Perhaps one day human beings will travel to the stars in spacecraft that no longer need rockets. Who knows? But one thing we know for sure: none of that will happen unless we do a meticulous job today. Our work, whether it proves the existence of gravity beyond Einstein or just improves the navigation of spacecraft in deep space by accounting for a small thermal recoil force with precision, lays down the foundations that may, one day, lead to such dreams.

That's what science is for.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
¹ From memory:
- the two circles, top left, represent a hydrogen atom
- the lines, with binary numbers along them, are distances from the sun to major pulsars (and hence our position)
- along the bottom are the planets, with distances to the same scale - our ship came from the third one
- the hand is raised because we come in peace
- the people are the same scale as the picture of the Pioneer craft behind
In 1972 that the couple were naked was a source of great controversy.

Spring Clean

2010-03-06T21:01:00.005Z

The sun is shining the crocuses are coming out and each day is two minutes longer than the one before. It is enough to raise the spirits of even the gloomiest blogger. Next week I plan to cycle to work again.

nickwheeleroz

In the meantime, a spring clean, there, doesn't that look better?

The prism of the past

2010-03-02T21:20:00.003Z

We invited our old English teacher round for dinner.

picture B T

Well, not that old: after all 60 is the new 40 and if I'm honest he didn't seem that much older than us. You should certainly be thinking Dead Poets Society more than Goodbye Mr Chips

"Oh Captain, my Captain", I essayed when we shook hands in the hallway, and then "Ouch" as Mrs Botogol kicked me sharply in the ankle; but she needn't have bothered because Mr Robb wasn't paying any attention to me.

We are the prisoners of our pasts and captives of the prism through which we are perceived and in his eyes I was still 15, and my dad was the maths teacher, and I was giving up English in favour of computers and physics and if there are two cultures, I am in the other one.

Mrs Botogol, on the other hand, went on to A-Level English. Indeed she studied the subject at his alma mater.. there was a bond.. as there was also with the our eldest whom Mr Robb was there to coach, for she faces A-Levels of her own this summer "Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools", I said, "wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it. Wisdom is of the soul, it is not susceptible of proof, it is its own proof."

They weren't listening - they were discussing an article Mr Robb had written for an on-line journal comparing Brideshead Revisited with The Great Gatsby.

"That Anthony Andrews never did much, really, after Brideshead", I opined. Cast as the oaf I rose easily to the challenge: "when you think about it Robert Redford was much more successful".

"Be a dear and go and check the potatoes, will you"

And so it came to pass that during the only literary meeting in our house for eleven years (I am not allowed at Mrs Botogol's book club) I spent the hour in the kitchen while Mrs Botogol and our guest settled in the drawing room (no, we don't normally have a drawing room but somehow it had risen to the occasion) where they engaged in grown-up literary criticism of the most sparkling and erudite kind, occasionally sending for more smoked salmon blini (easy on the dill, dear, and can you have a look in the cupboard for those smoked almonds we got from the nice deli in Winchelsea ?)

When eventually the roast was captive and the vegetables under control and I ventured in to top up their glasses they were talking about Chekhov "Did you tell Mr Robb how I once wrote a blogpost about Chekhov", I asked lamely, and there was a sudden silence. I realised was trying too hard.

"What?"

"I said how long do you reckon it takes to cook a Yorkshire Pudding? Only my batter looks really watery - do you think I should add another ten minutes?"

I am large, I contain multitudes.

We had roast beef and plenty of gravy, and although the Yorkshire was soggy (no one asked me for the recipe) the potatoes were perfect. Mr Robb and I drank two bottles of red wine between us; he asked me if I was in IT and in retaliation I told him about the teachers at school whom I had particularly admired.

Next week my mates are coming round and we are mostly talking rugby.

The Simon Singh Bandwagon - Skeptical about Skeptics

2010-02-26T07:00:00.004Z

The longer the Simon Singh case goes on the more disquiet I start to feel. It seems to me that a skeptical Bandwagon (how's that for an oxymoron) is rolling, with those tell-tale signs of a bandwagon: groupthink and proselytising righteousness

In other words I am skeptical about the skeptics. I will try and explain why

(Aside: if you are unfamiliar with Simon Singh case read about it here and here)

First, let me say that I am no fan of chiropractic, nor any other form of CAM; but I am a fan of Simon Singh, owning two of his books, hearing him speak several times. I hope that he will win his case.

Having said that, here are the three things about the Bandwagon the case has attracted that worry me

1 It's really not about the Science

The bandwagon presents this case as being a noble one about the science: about the evidence for and against chiropractic, and about a scientist's right to question and criticise evidence, all exalted and privileged matters which do not belong in a libel court.

I do not agree. I don't think this case is really about the science - I think the heart of this libel case is Singh's ill-worded comment about the conduct of the BCA and the implication that they have been behaving dishonestly; and an allegation of dishonesty (if indeed that is what it amounts to) is an entirely proper subject for a libel trial.

This is what Singh said: the offending sentences are in blue, the rest is for context

"You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world's first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions."

You will observe that Singh is using unscientific and quite immoderate language - whacky, bogus, fundamentalists - not at all the measured language of the scientific debate that the Bandwagon like to present him as conducting.

In my opinion it's clear that

a bogus treatment is different from an ineffective treatment. A bogus treatment is one that has been prepared or applied in some way dishonestly
anyone happily promoting bogus treatments is behaving dishonestly.
so it's quite a serious thing to say

You might disagree. I won't rehearse my word by word arguments on meaning here, but will refer you to

the arguments in the comments here
Justice Eady's very well written summary (see 12 and 13) of what he took the words to mean

So my first remonstrance is: this is not a case of the noble scientist speaking up for a truth suppressed by the bad guys. Its a wildly and pejoratively worded allegation of reprehensible conduct, defended.

2 That's not what he said / that's not what he meant to say / even if he did say it, he didn't mean it.

My first reaction on hearing about the case, and reading the words was: of course the treatments are bogus, and of course the BCA happily promote them. Keep strong, Simon.

What concerns me about the Bandwagon is that so much effort is spent trying to shy away from that firm and clear position - instead it is concerned with weaselling: while it might look bad at first glance, what Singh wrote doesn't really mean what it seems to mean. Argument proceeds on several lines

bogus doesn't really mean dishonest, it simply means ineffective
even if bogus does imply dishonest, 'happily' doesn't mean that the BCA know that the treatments are bogus
not a jot of evidence doesn't mean literally 'not a jot' - of COURSE there are 'jots' of evidence, what Singh meant that the jots are unconvincing and overwhelmed by the balance of of other evidence to the contrary

Well, Singh could have expressed himself in the more temperate language; he could have said something like

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is no reliable evidence to support this. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it promotes ineffective treatments.

The bandwagon will have it that this IS what Singh said, or at the very least that's what he meant.

But he didn't write like that. If he had written the sentence above I don't think he would have been sued. He went further. In particular I suspect it was the conjunction of 'happily' and 'bogus' that prompted the BCA to sue.

3 The Bandwagon has been a bad day for the Twittersphere

The Appeal Court expressed astonishment that this foolish case hasn't settled already.

I wonder if a big part of that was the twsunami that engulfed both sides on Twitter and the blogosphere when the case started. It made it hard for either side - but especially the BCA - to quickly back down.

Yes the twitter chat provided valuable moral support for Singh - and that has been good. But I do wonder if it has helped to keep the whole case alive.

One Drug to Rule them All

2010-02-23T21:28:00.001Z

"It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him" - Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

Modafinil tris by Arenamontanus

Professor Barbara Sahakian, speaking at the Royal Institute on Monday, is a softly spoken academic. She's an unlikely-looking herald of a new world order, but that exactly is what she is for in her laboratory in Cambridge she is testing a collection of smart drugs that boost attention, memory and cognition and which, just possibly, could change what it is to be human.

She is disquietingly relaxed about it all; I wasn't certain that she realises the power of what she is helping to unleash.

Life as a Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology is varied. Some days she gives Ritalin to test subjects and monitors their improvement at Tetris; other days she slips the Ring idly on to her finger just for fun, and walks the halls of academia invisible and unseen (far away the Nazgûl stir).

The smart drug of choice at the moment seems to be Modafinil: with few known side effects and seemingly non-addictive it reliably boosts attention, concentration and cognition no one knows exactly how. What's not to like? Her drug-ingesting students are occasionally asked how it feels. They tell her it feels good, and they scurry far away to make preparations for their exams.

How can you get some? Unfortunately it's prescribed only as a treatment for narcolepsy so it would take some dedicated fakery to get it from your GP, even if she is Private. If you want it merely to become superhuman (this is called an off-label use) you'd need to buy it from a reliable source on the internet. Alas Professor Sahakian didn't give reveal her favourite, merely observing that when you buy something on the internet you need to be careful, or you might end up with an inert sugar pill. (not unlike the NHS)

It was an intriguing talk.

Smart Drugs offer a world where we all can become brighter and more focussed. Where the effects of old age are staved off, and where no one need fear the terrible loss of self that is dementia. It's an artificial boost for the mind - like plastic surgery for the body, but a lot less dangerous. It's the way we will all live someday: if Modafinil was cheap and legal now it's hard to imagine who wouldn't try it.

And eventually, like the one ring, perhaps it will gain control of us.

"A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later - later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last - sooner or later the dark power will devour him"

***updated ***

the Guardian were there as well

Table for One

2010-02-15T08:07:00.001Z

Amongst strangers and casual acquaintances who do not know me well one should never underestimate the dazzling effects of an Oxbridge degree¹ and a blue chip employer (even a bank). In consequence I cannot claim to be an entirely low status individual.

Fifteen Moai by anoldent

But no man is a hero to his family and in the Botogol family it is taken for granted that although I sit at the head of the table, I occupy the bottom of the pecking order.

Well, second bottom, I'd claim; above the cat, for while the cat has free access to the garden and all the food it can eat, they don't trap me in a small box to travel in the car. Not normally, anyway.

However the ability to lord it over the cat, while reassuring in the privacy of my home, does not wholly compensate for my lack of status and no doubt my deference at home does not help me to command the respect that my casual acquaintances assume is mine at work.

For I am not at the apex of Project Phoenix, and Project Phoenix, is not the most prestigious project in the bank.

Even so: I was still disappointed last week when, covering for a sick secretary², I made a rare trip to the C-Suite on the 27th floor, to photocopy and deliver a deck of handouts to the Project Phoenix Supreme Oversight Governance Committee, where I distributed biscuits³ and helped them dial into the audio call.

I was little hurt that my appearance in this modest guise evidently lacked sufficient incongruity to even raise a smile.

"My deck is stapled at the bottom", complained the Senior Business Sponsor of Workstream Three, with just a hint of menace.

I had done it wrong

"Can I get you anything else?" I asked the Overall Programme Controller.

"No, Alfred, that's fine just close the door as you leave" he said in the Voice.

I was glad it was Friday, with all the senior brass occupied in the Governance Group I could sneak off home early and beat the cat.

------------------------------------------------

¹ long forgotten in the real world but still occupying a mantelpiece on my cv,
²Off for two weeks; hiring a temp takes three weeks
³ Yes, the meeting attendees really are that senior

Out and About

2010-02-13T15:16:00.001Z

We are going to the Magritte Exhibition

A glimpse of the holodeck?

2010-02-08T08:00:00.001Z

The Third and the Seventh : a short film made entirely using CGI.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Advice: Click through to Vimeo and watch in full-screen, HD.

Of course doing this in 3D would be a whole order of magnitude(s) harder, and aren't people hard to do in CGI? But still, it's remarkable.

(HT Robin Hanson)

Parents Evening

2010-02-05T00:08:00.001Z

old classroom (Mie Prefectural Normal School) by shuichiro

"You're so rude", said Mrs Botogol under her breath, "You sat at that table with the Johnsons and you acted for all the world as if you didn't recognise them"

"well...ummm"

It was parents evening. So many parent evenings, so many parents. It wasn't that I hadn't recognised the Johnsons, I hadn't recognised them yet.

The school has an unusal system: the teachers ask to see you if they think they need to. Fourteen teachers considered that they needed to see us. The trains were running slowly and I received two "absents" and a "late".

And four "please pay attention"s and one "if that message on your android phone is so interesting Mr Botogol, perhaps you could share it with the rest of us"

I don't think I'd like to be back in school. It's a bit too much like work.

Twitter

2010-02-05T00:01:00.000Z

I am Twittering a bit. You can follow my travails, wry remarks and routine humiliations here http://twitter.com/botogol

Nothing about what I had for breakfast.

I was at the Iraq Inquiry watching Alastair Campbell

2010-01-14T07:00:00.002Z

In the very moment before Sky News started their interview with me I snatched off my hat.

"It was an odd thing for me to do", I mused to Mrs Botogol later that evening, over a glass of red wine. "Well, not that odd", she said "when you consider the hat."

All is Vanity.

"Will I be on the telly?", I had asked the reporter when she approached me "Not necessarily", she said, "We're chatting to a few of you in the queue; it depends what you say, really".
She asked me why I had been prepared to stand in the cold three hours waiting to watch Alastair Campbell.
"I like Alastair Campbell"
"Oh, yes", she said, "you'll definitely be on the telly"

Unfashionably enough: I do like Alastair Campbell. He's a person whom it's acceptable for the public to hate (he has that in common with Mrs Thatcher) but he's also a man who shows great resilience and purpose, and who commands a tremendous personal loyalty from friends and colleagues: intriguing and valuable qualities, and not to be underestimated. I have a lot of time for him, and I certainly don't blame him for sticking up for himself and his boss yesterday.

I will admit that I overestimated his public appeal though: with only sixty seats available to the punters at 9am I judged it necessary to be there at 6:30, at which time I was comfortably the first in the queue. By 7am there were two of us, and a sympathetic receptionist took pity and let us into the warm foyer. By 8am there were still only seven when we were thrown back out on to the street by an unsympathetic security guard and told to form a proper queue, already, why don't we? And who let us inside anyway?"

For while the Iraq Public Inquiry makes the public welcome, but it doesn't like to let them get too comfortable.

The tiny Hearing Room was crazily organised such so that the person we had actually come to see was the least visible: In fact Alastair Campbell was practically invisible, seated with his back to the audience, his face displayed on a corner TV monitor, on which video and audio were unsynchronised.

It was no compensation at all that we had an excellent view of bored Benny Hill look-alike John Chilcott and the miscellaneous Bufton-Tuftons on his panel (from the position of the furniture someone glancing casually in might have gathered that they were the stars of the show..)

Note to organisers: change the layout of the room so that the panel and witness sit sideways across the front, so that the public can see them all.

Campbell actually looked nervous when he entered the room, grasping a large blue folder of notes and reminders, and he focused hard on the opening questions, but as the panel wasted no less than an hour to establish merely that he was one of Blair's inner circle and, yes, he had access to everything, Campbell relaxed and grew more ebullient, combative and sure of himself even correcting chronological mis-statements from the panel.

The questioners had a go at probing but Campbell reckoned he was better at this game than they were; and clearly he was right: they wasted so much of the morning session on protocols and procedures that Campbell ended up mentioning the dossier before they did.

The cached thought you'll read in the press is the panel needs a lawyer, but when Campbell made his "I don't read the headlines" claim it was a snorting Jeremy Paxman who might have made a real difference.

But if Campbell didn't think much of the panel, neither did the panel think much of his evidence "I think we're coming from a different direction from that", observed Lawrence Freedman at one point drily, and portentously. Just as Campbell had prepared his answers in advance of the questions so, I suspect, have the Inquiry worded their report in advance of his evidence.

Campbell's key messages were two:

John Scarlett was completely in control of the contents of the dossier, and the forward. He could make any changes he liked and all the changes he wanted were actioned. He held the pen. [Translation: if anything in the document is wrong it's not my fault]
The Intelligence Services are hardly innocents when it comes to the world of spin. Three times Campbell told us that they alone of all the departments 'got' the new media world. [Translation: even if the dossier was sexed up, it wasn't him what did it]

By 11:15 when a short break was announced, I had been at the QE2 Conference Centre for five hours neither eating or drinking and I asked the staff if there was anywhere where I could get a coffee. [Now, pause for thought here: I was in a Conference Centre…at 11:15… asking for coffee, clearly such a substance was availaible]

"No... I am afraid not", said the staff member, evenly... but not quite smoothly: a tiny hesititation giving away a flicker of conscience.
"In that case", I said, "can you tell me on which floor is the Technology Conference"
"It's Third floor", he said mechanically…but why.. oops"... and I ran for the lifts and made it to the mingle room where I had three cups of coffee and eleven biscuits"

I bet the Panel get a cup of coffee in the breaks. And the witness. And the press. Just not the public.

About 10 years ago I worked on a dossier. I was a consultant and it was a proposal for large bank, we had to prepare a detailed statement of qualification. We had two weeks to write it and on the seventh day, just 48hrs before the deadline, two previously unseen senior partners arrived in the war room (yes, blush, we called it the war room) to take charge of the 'presentation' of the document, and they rewrote it all.

The thing is: they did make it better. A fresh eye, especially an experienced and wise one, does add value and although we cursed as we cut and amplified, and toned down and sexed up, we were also caught up by the transformation of the stodgy inventory we had prepared into the selling document it became.

At just one point did I object to a claim I thought particularly egregious and the partner put down his red pen and he asked me "Alibert, of course there can be nothing factually incorrect here. If you are telling me it's wrong, well then I'll change it.. Is it actually wrong?"
"Well no, but..." '
"Good"

I was only a Junior Consultant, and still it stings to tell the tale; but you couldn't bully a head of the Joint Intelligence Committee like that, could you?

In the second phase of the Inquiry they will call Scarlett back to the stand, and he's going to be in a tricky position:
- "The dossier was dodgy, but I didn't object" sounds feeble
- "I said it was wrong, but they wouldn't let me change it" feebler still.
- but "I agreed with dossier" ..well, that's not so bad, is it.
Choose one from three. I know where my money is.
All is Vanity.

Back at Work...

2010-01-08T21:54:00.001Z

... after the holidays. I should have more time to blog now.

(This is one of my favourite Dilbert cartoons.
Seeing inverted commas around the word 'Powerpoint' makes me feel old)

Trend Hunting

2010-01-06T22:09:00.002Z

Hunted by kaibara87

1 - In 2010 real people who you know, not geeks, will switch their family and personal calendars out of that that blasted book in the kitchen (you-think-you're-going-out-do-you?-well-its-not-written-in-the-diary) and on to their iphones and blackberries. Calendars belong in the cloud. Before the end of this year you'll be inviting your friends for a beer electronically.

2 - Before the year is over you'll discover one of your friends is taking a smart-drug like Modafinil and Adderral or Ritalin. Unless you already have. Or perhaps you already do. And if your friend is buying it off-prescription then congratulations: they've joined the war on the drugs. On the dark side.

3 - At some point between now and the General Election you will come across the Pirate Party somewhere other than on my blog.

4 - Just starting up in 2010 public opinion will almost imperceptibly start to shift against cats, in a few short years time it will come to seem incredible that we tolerated such carnage amongst small animals, and put up with so much cat mess in our flower beds. It wasn't so long ago that we shrugged at dog mess in our parks and pavements.. once that tide turned it didn't take long

5 - During 2010 it will become possible, in polite society, to criticise the values of Islam.

6 - If you are not on Facebook already then you will join it in 2010, which is ironic as in rerospect 2010 will be recognised as Facebook's zenith, the last year of unstoppable ascendancy. Before the end of 2010 doubts will appear.

Your task is to rank these predictions in order of likelihood.

a change of climate

2009-12-16T09:12:00.000Z

9 Lessons and Carols for the Godless, Robin Ince's annual atheistic shindig at the Bloomsbury Theatre, demonstrated last night (just in case there is any lingering any doubt about the matter) that themed comedy doesn't really work.

The brief for the comics *was* a hard one: tell us some jokes about science; poke fun at religion, but DON'T be rude; be funny and only Dara O Briain really managed it, although respect to Josie Long who bravely snuck an anti Dawkins joke into an otherwise clumsy routine ("If this doesn't work I don't want any of you blogging about it, OK?" Oops.)

Q: What do you call themed comedy that is actually funny?
A: Comedy

The unexpected fall guy for the evening was Johnny Ball, erstwhile star of 1970s kids' TV and father of Zoë. He died on his backside out there with "get off!" lights flashing in his eyes, hisses of "Stop" clearly audible from the wings, and slow hand-claps, whistles and boos from a riled audience.

His unforgivable crime? An agonisingly childish routine with arrows drawn on a piece of cardboard "Now it points left, but now it points right - oh no! Left again, and now its pointing up!" A trick with which I have delighted four year olds at three different birthday parties. For that he would have deserved 'the treatment' but no, the audience sat dutifully silent, no doubt lost in the mist of nostalgia.

What did trigger the audience's protest - eventually - was a sustained AGW-denial riff, that started with a childish song, followed by a ten minute rant descending to a incoherent ramble. Doubting that the tiny proportions of CO2 in the atmosphere can cause global warming at all, and doubting still more that the tiny amount of CO2 from man-made emissions makes any difference Ball was on dangerous territory: the audience had signed up for an attack on the old religions, not the new one and feet shuffled, and people murmured.

Mrs Botogol fell asleep.

The crunch came when Johnny rather clumsily invoked the discredited CRU scientists at UEA to his cause. A cry of "shame" from the audience broke the dam, the boos started and a perplexed and shaken-looking Ball was finally forced from the stage.

"We weren't telling him to get to get off because of what he was saying", reassured the hapless Ince when he finally regained control of the stage, but because he went 13 minutes over his time"

Yeah, Robin, that might have been why *you* were booing.

Ball lost his skirmish last night - but significantly he was heard out for a full 12 minutes before a counter-attack came. Since the UEA fiasco broke two weeks ago the climate of the debate at least has changed, AGW deniers have gained much heart, and they are on the front foot now.

I think that in the months to come we're going to see more and more dissent like Ball's brave, but misguided, speech last night.

the sound of guffaws

2009-12-13T18:35:00.001Z

Off to watch the Varsity match last week I searched everywhere for some old college regalia.

rugby_match by Jim Grady

My old rugby shirt? Nope: borrowed by a member of the 3rd XV for the infamous '85 tour of Wales and never seen again. College scarf? cufflinks? umbrella?. all lost. I gave up and then I suddenly realised I still have my gown!

It's kept in the dressing up box; it's commonly known as the Harry Potter Outfit.

"Don't be silly", I told myself a few minutes later, inspecting my crumpled appearance in the mirror: "you can't possibly go to Varsity match in your gown"

I took it off but impetuously stuffed it into my rucksack anyway (well, you never know). Then I headed out and followed the sound of guffaws to the stadium. Were we like that when we were students?

The first time I went to Varsity Match I was a student. It was 1982 and 60,000 people were there. We stood in the wooden West Stand and cheered the three members of my college who had made the team. Nowadays only 30,000 turn out and all the team are from Hughes Hall and St Edmunds (the undergraduates play in a U21 curtain raiser). Perhaps those things are connected.

This time I was sat in a corporate box and there were eight of us - with food for 12 as the party from our supplier's other client had failed to pitch. Beef Wellington, a glass and a half (cough) of claret, Bakewell tart and meat pies for tea, and afterwards there was a sea eagle to scare the pigeons!

What's that? Oh yes, Cambridge won.

Walking home, happily, later that evening I found myself alongside a group of girls from my old college. They were wearing their red boat club fleeces and college scarves, and laughing and joking with some rugby players from the college next door.. I felt an insane urge to approach them - "Hey, I used to go to St John's as well!"

I restrained myself - obviously they wouldn't believe me, and would no doubt take me for some random, drunk and sad, middle-aged wierdo. If only I had had my cufflinks to prove my bona fides.

And then I remembered my gown...

Rye Christmas

2009-12-09T23:35:00.001Z

More Rye Yule, really. There seems to be something, something old, something sinister, something pagan perhaps about the Rye Christmas Parade that stirs the Gods: for each year they send rain. Perhaps they are tipped off by prayers from the Kindly Ones

At the front of the parade strode the town cryer, stern faced under an umbrella, looking quite unlike the familiar, welcoming soul who announces the wedding party to thrilled tourists on a Saturday morning.

Following him: giant puppets of wire and papier-mache glowing with inner light, each accompanied by shadowy black-clad children peering out from rain-sodden hoods, and no little donkeys, oxen nor sheep neither: but bright, ungainly mermaids, centaurs, gryphons, orcs and chimeras,

And then at the heart of the procession: the Rye Drummers , blown in the sea wind, dressed in black and red, faces painted, drums adorned with skull and cross-bones, they hunched into a circle, backs to rain and the crowd, hat brims dripping, in their midst a sweating soloist as, red-faced, black-faced, grim-faced they sounded out the rythms of Saxon Rye when the sea pounded at the land-gate causeway, and the French raided and stole the church bells, when Old Winchelsea stood, still, in Rye Bay.

And it wasn't about the children, either: even as Father Christmas approached, waving and hohohoing from an ersatz american limousine, the Rolf Harris-sound-alike MC, in a gold lame jacket made sure to puncture the spirit of Santa, slurring suggestions of his half-pint too many. Beside me a mother gripped her daughter's hand tightly, a whistle blew and the drums restarted.

Afterwards Mrs Botogol and I retired to the steamed-up Apothocary, its drawers with hand-lettered promises of Hemlock, Foxglove, Monkshood and Laburnum
"Well, they need to sort it out", opined a local shopkeeper, warming his hands on an espresso, "is it supposed to be late night shopping or not? We need to be organised".

Reunions

2009-12-08T07:00:00.001Z

Every year on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington would hold a banquet at Apsley House.

For the first few years the meal was in the 'small' dining room and it was limited to thirty-five or so officers who had actually commanded at the battle. In later years the Duke built the Waterloo Gallery and the guest list became slightly less exclusive and as many as a hundred of the great and good might be invited, the dinner attracting great crowds to the pavement, eager for a glimpse of the great and good - a bit like the big brother house.

Here's a painting of the sumptuous 1836 event

Wellington was son of the Earl of Mornington and brother of the Governor General of India. He was nothing if not an establishment figure and his annual dinner was a triumph of the values of tradition privilege and patronage

Even while Wellington was fighting the Battle of Salamanca in July 1812 the Grande Armee was marching on Moscow in the ill fated Russian campaign. The French army, composed of conscripts, peasants, foreigners lived through the most unimaginable conditions. Men froze in their boots standing in the cold, cut meat from their horses and stole clothes from their prisoners' backs. Only 50,000 men came home from Russia and Sergeant Bourgorgne recounted in his memoirs that whenever veterans met, years after, their talk always turned to Moscow, and Borodino, and the crossing of the Berezina.

French veterans were not recognised until 1857; they did not have banquets in Apsley house.

Which type of reunion would you be proudest to attend?

suspiciously simple

2009-12-02T23:38:00.001Z

Older daughter has brought home some recruitment brochures

Day 85/365: We Love Diversity by kugel

I am looking at a typical cover - it is for an international Fortune 500 company and it depicts a 50th floor meeting room with floor-to-ceiling windows affording a panoramic view over a blurry city.

On the table sits a laptop and a single sheet of paper: the laptop is showing a colourful, but suspiciously simple-looking, graph. Standing over it is a tall, good looking, even-toothed African American man (yes, somehow you can tell he his American) who is wearing a tie. He smiles as he points out something to a young, beautiful, smartly dressed, even-toothed, Asian-American girl seated at the table. She is beaming at him

Questions for discussion:

is this picture in any way dishonest? if so what justification could you offer for this?

should recruitment brochures portray a firm as it is, or as it would like to be?

can you name any dimension of human diversity that firms might aspire to, other than employing different coloured Americans?

in a typical Fortune 500 firm, which department do you imagine is the least diverse in terms of race and sex
- sales
- engineering
- information technology
- financial
- the recruitment department

I guess I thought...

2009-11-30T22:00:00.004Z

"Talking of kids", said Ray, "well -"
"Don't tell us", interrupted Julie, "your new wife is pregnant and you're going to be a dad again?"
"Don't tell us", said I, "one of your kids is pregnant and are you going to be a granddad?"
"Bugger off, Alibert! Really! I had forgotten what you're like!"

by seier+seier+seier

What am I like?

It was a reunion from my first¹ job: 1986 to 1989. Six of us. Twenty years ago. I have seen them all individually in the intervening years, but it was the first occasion we had met as a group.

One is now a contract project manager, one an MD in Morgan Stanley, one a housewife, one retired, one a guru, two still at the same bank. Only one in a job indescribable. None still programming, three of us missing it. The seventh invitee, absent, also programmer when we knew him (and not a good one, he ploughed my test at the interview but we were desperate and so we hired him anyway) well, he turned out to be a serial entrepreneur and is now a multi-millionaire venture capitalist in Texas, with his photograph on the front page of his company website.

How did that happen?

What was I like?

Twenty-two years ago the computer system that we all worked on went live. The six of us all laboured an entire weekend, even sleeping in the office. On the Thursday night prior to go-live the wind woke me up in the middle of the night and I went outside to shut a slamming gate and was nearly killed by great hunks of masonry falling from the roof. It was the night of the great storm and the next day the trains weren't running and I walked to Brixton to catch the tube, marvelling at the fallen trees, On the Friday, the Saturday and the Sunday we worked eighteen hour days installing the system, testing and bug fixing, waiting around and playing Digger.

It was fun.

On the Monday morning the system was live and we sat by our screens drinking coffee with our fingers crossed. And that morning the market fell 25% in a single day, and the financial world crashed around our ears - It was black monday and it was also my first system go-live and guess I thought all go-live weekends would be like that.

What was I like?

Julie had some pictures: a Christmas drinks party twenty years ago. It was in the Arbitrageur in Throgmorton Street, that underground palace to 80s hedonism. People were smoking. There was I in the background with a narrow tie and a white shirt, I put my glasses on to see more closely, to try and make some connection with the 25 year old in the picture, to establish the persistence of a unitary self.

And Julie dragged me back to 2009

"What?"
"I was saying, Alibert do you remember the support log that you wrote that weekend"
I was clueless
"Go on, of course you do! It was really good. I can still remember bits"
And she quoted^2:
-2:05am back up job finished
-2:10am arm-wrestling competition with Julie to determine who has to deliver tape to Stratford
-2:30am In taxi to Stratford
"It was funny! Alibert ...you should write a blog"

The tug of the persistent, unitary self. That's what I'm like.

----------
¹Well, the first one on my CV, anyway, but in reality my second. My first job, forgotten now, I walked out on after 6 months.
²yes, it was like When Harry met Sally

two dozen bayonets

2009-11-27T07:00:00.001Z

I waited discreetly for a quiet moment before approaching the counter with a box of 40s and a coral-pink LED as an alibi. When the assistant was busy bringing them up I leant toward her, and whispered my samizdat request andm startled, she looked left and right to make sure we weren't overheard.

without air by Daniel*1977

"It's OK, I am a regular customer", I reassured her "I bought an outside heater last year so I know how to keep my mouth shut. Its my wife, you, see she hates the dim light"

The assistant stared at me for a moment, then made a snap decision and led me up some stairs into an inconspicous store room, and there they were: box after box of 100w incandescants, frosted, opals, tulips...I felt a sudden catch in my throat an unexpected surge of emotion.
"Are you ok?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine - I just never thought I'd see so many of these in one place again"

After some negotiation she let me have two dozen 100w bayonets and put my name down for a couple of 150w screw-ins from the next drop ¹

Across the road from us lives Lillian who is over 90: she bought her house from plan and has lived in it more than seventy years. Her energy usage must be less than a tenth of ours. On the way home I knocked on her door slipped her a four-pack: I don't suppose she ever burns a light bulb in more than one room at a time and for the life of me I can't understand why it shouldn't be a 100w one.

What sort of government is so dogmatic, so puritan and so spiteful as to deny its citizens a bright light?

------

¹ OK it wasn't quite that bad. The owner told me they are still receiving 1,000 a week, but with all production forbidden and imports illegal he reckons the country will be entirely devoid of 100w bulbs by early 2010. I bought forty - a rucksack full. Stock up now before the rationing starts.

Look, I fixed it

2009-11-26T07:00:00.001Z

"I reckon I can turn my hand to any DIY task!", I said proudly over my shoulder, while feeling gingerly with my toes for the top of the step ladder.

Mrs Botogol wasn't overwhelmingly impressed. "What do you mean: any task, dear?"

"Well you know: fencing, tiling, roofing, guttering, perching"

"Perching?"

"Perching on roofs, fixing gutters."

"Ah.... So is it fixed, dear?"

Reaching the ground I turned and together we surveyed my work ¹:
- a gutter previously sagging
- a block of wood, hacked roughly to size and skillfully jammed under.

"You know: some people would get a man in for a simple job like that"

---------------------------------------
¹ If you look closely you can still see the gunge

Taylor's Mom was there as well

2009-11-25T00:01:00.001Z

OK. I wasn't necessarily the oldest person watching Taylor Swift's gig at Wembley Arena on Monday night. For instance Taylor's Mom was there as well.

taylor swift by whittlz

And younger daughter certainly wasn't the youngest person in the Arena either - for instance Justin Bieber (that would be the guy on the stage, with the microphone and the backing dancers) is only 15, going on 11... and I have to say he didn't look like he'd last long in the U16s at my local rugby club.

But even if I wasn't the only Dad in attendance, neither was I exactly a typical audience member: let's just say it was a high-decibel, oestregen rich environment, with more than a little shrieking. And clapping along: watching Bieber (who was actually quite good) I felt like Prince of Wales at the Royal Variety Performance.

But he was the mere fluff compared to Taylor Swift herself: Tall and striking, playing up the girl-next-door goofiness but at the same time more than slightly fierce; she is never vulnerable, always focused and perfectly in control of herself and her show. The demure look and shy smile that occasionally played on her lips in "London, England" was each time belied by a fiery glint in her eye: she owned the gig - and I can't help it if she looks like an angel.

But all the same: there's something different about Taylor and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that, at home, she alphabetizes her herb drawer, pairs up her socks and arranges her scarves and gloves in different ziplock bags.

Stars out of 5 : 5
Worst part of the journey home: Willesden Junction
Best Song that night - Hey Stephen. Taylor accompanying herself on by fantastically earthy-sounding 12 string.

Here's a video of her playing that song.. on a different day.

One Friday, last month

2009-11-24T00:32:00.000Z

Looking back, I had felt weird all afternoon.

Not due at the restaurant until 7.30pm nevertheless, bored silly, I left work at five and took the tube to London Bridge from where I wandered, against the flow of the crowd, through the closing-up remains of Borough market and out on to the South Bank.

It was autumn-chilly, but I wasn't cold and I pushed on past the Golden Hind, Vinopolis, Clink Street, the Globe and to a bank building where in 1996 I had worked for over a year as a consultant and where, now, I paused and stared into the windows trying to catch a glimpse of my former life.

When I reached Tate Modern I calculated I had still an hour to kill and so I went inside, vaguely in search of a Kandinsky, vaguely in search of a surprise and a few minutes later ventured, intrigued and hesitant, into How It Is, an enormous dark steel box that occupies the Turbine Hall. Completely dark, but clanking and echoing with the footsteps of others, and with whispers echoing from within, I felt not alone but disconnected : It was uncomfortable although not scary, disorientating but not debilitating and it was impossible to perceive how many people were inside with me. I was glad, when I turned around, to find that the way out was clear and obvious.

At the entrance to the box stood two identical twins in identical bright scarlet dresses, and identical ribbons in their hair, talking to a curious young man, and I thought I heard one say, quite distinctly: "Actually, we're an exhibit". At the time it made no sense at all.

They did have a Kandinsky, though it took a moment for I didn't immediately recognise it as one of his: Lake Starnberg: a confusing, false colour view of an autumnal Switzerland.

I scurried away, glad to be outside, and hurried to Waterloo.

By the time I reached the restaurant it was raining and it felt like a long time since I had left Canary Wharf. We were eating with another family, a birthday treat. Greasy antipasti and two cool beers later I felt the warm excitement of a Friday evening but the restaurant was windowless and too dark and it was hot and noisy. The antipasti was filling and the beer was cool and when my cheeseburger came I chewed a couple of mouthfuls and suddenly I needed to stand up very quickly.

And then I was back inside the steel box, but now the Kandinsky was there as well, and the colours brighter but it still it made no sense, and this time I could tell there were lots of other people there, and far away I heard someone shout "My goodness! - it's Alibert" and I laughed.

And then I was standing at the other end of the restaurant, leaning against a counter and a worried-looking Mrs Botogol was there with me, staring.

"You fainted", she said, "How long were you out for?" and I could only think "I'm supposed to ask that" and it wasn't fair, and I had no answer and so, for quite a few moments, I didn't say anything at all.

Dinner Party Redux

2009-11-22T22:08:00.000Z

"Are you going to blog us again?", asked my host, expertly wielding a welcome bottle of champagne, "like you did the last time you came round to ours?"

A is for Access by Ben Zvan

I was embarrassed: "Well, ha ha!, I... well, sorry about that. No, I don't think so.. I mean I don't write about everything I do!"
"Oh don't worry: we didn't mind at all: after all it was very funny"

I searched his face for any hint of sarcasm, but he held my gaze unwavering.
"Oh. Well... thanks"
"Yes, very funny indeed. The kissing and the shoulder and all that..."

I helped myself to a too-large handful of wasabi peas and groped desperately for compelling change of subject but had barely even mentioned my opinion of Jedward before my hostess edged in our direction.
"Ah, darling, I was just saying to Alibert how funny his blog was at the New Year"
"Oh yes!", she smiled, "tell me, Alibert, did Sylvie really say that to you?"
"Oh, well, I don't remember! No doubt I exaggarated a bit, you know, ha! ha! ... but hey! who would have though Simon would save them the other week, eh?"
"Oh, do you often exagerate in your blog?"
"Well, ha ha! writers' license and all that, and anyway she was hardly likely to read it, and I don't expect I'll ever meet her again"

At that precise moment,the doorbell rang. And, of course, straightaway I knew. Without a trace of a shadow of a doubt, I knew.

"You have other guests?" I asked weakly, and Mrs Botogol glanced sharply at me from across the room, "is it anybody we..."
In the far off hallway door opened and the newcomers bustled in...
"Sylvie!"

Milestones, Myths and Naked Ladies

2009-10-23T00:13:00.000+01:00

You have probably imagined me trapped beneath something very very heavy, unable to reach my keyboard to tweet for help? Or banned from any more screen-time until I have finished my chores? or perhaps, rather less plausibly, snowed under at work and too busy to blog?

The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth by harold.lloyd

Well the truth is I temporarily mislaid my blogging mojo¹.

Look, it can happen to anyone perhaps it's old age, perhaps its something else.

Not that I haven't been busy, mind; I have been. And not devoid of bloggable experiences either: why, just in the last three weeks or so I have:
- seen my eldest daughter pass two lifetime milestones
- tackled, in the den, a whole barrel of naked ladies
- been present at the birth-throes of a new, national, political party
- unaccountably failed to award a clear penalty try, and
- seen, in the flesh, but failed to photograph, an animal I've previously believed was entirely mythical.

You're wondering about the naked ladies,aren't you? Sigh, I guess every blog gets the readership it deserves.

Well anyway it was like this: red centre broke clean through on his own 22 and sprinted all the way to the line pursued by two blue players and a puffing, sweaty referee. Just before he got to the line red was brought down by a tackle round the neck, hit the deck and managed to ground the ball for a try.

Well, he sort of grounded it. Sort of fumbled it a bit as well. Indeed, someone² idly watching from the touchline just might have go the impression he dropped it in the course of being nastily high tackled as he crossed the line.. . I did award a try, mind, but .... not a penalty one....... and I did speak crossly to blue 9 (it's always blue 9) but hmmm... the try I awarded was in the corner and the conversion was missed and.....

Anyway the naked ladies... it was Mrs Botogol's idea actually, but to us both, it was totally normal for a large party like that. However it turned out that, despite all the parties the eldest Botogol child and her ilk have attended in the last few years, this was the first time they had seen anything like it. Mrs Botogol and I were quietly chuffed, but surprised - in our day everyone always got a barrel in.

You are wondering about the milestone? Well if there is a lifetime milestone more important than the passing of a driving test I have yet to hear of it³. We have a chauffeur! Yes, it does make you feel old when your children drive... but hey! the family finally has a long-term designated driver! Mrs Botogol and I didn't waste any time cashing in: we arranged to be picked up and fetched home from a dinner party last Saturday night, at 11:30. This was an opportunity too good to miss..
- at 11:25 we texted to say we weren't ready yet, could she give us an hour
- at 11:45 we texted to say was it OK if she also took our friend home on the way? Wandsworth, actually, but, look, her bf has gone off without her, so
We spared her the snogging in the back seat.

But we did regale our sober driver with incredible stories of a mythical beast. A beast not just glimpsed... but watched for several minutes in the back garden of our hosts; for we saw last Saturday night, in a suburban street near Kingston, an animal that even Outside Jane herself has never seen, an animal I was convinced was a masive hoax, an invention of the BBC...smaller than a great dane, bigger than a fox....

...a badger.

No, the elder Botogol daughter didn't believe us either.

=======================================================================
¹ I retraced my steps.
² someone like, for example, red coach.
³ except, well,, the birth of your first child would be one...a milestone which, in the case of Mrs Botogol and I, happened eighteen years ago this month.