Friday, June 25, 2004
Last night's match was great entertainment, if somewhat stressful. It certainly wasn't quality football, but there was more than enough going on to keep me glued to the screen. The BBC's account of the match seems pretty fair to me: 'The lottery of penalties decided the winners, and while England will rightly feel robbed after Campbell's "goal" was ruled out, on a purely footballing basis justice was done.'
Eeep! Apparently cocoa crops in South America are being ravaged by disease, and this could cause a worldwide chocolate shortage. Scary. I don't eat chocolate all that often, but when I do I tend to eat it huge quantities (I used to get through one of those kilo bars with a litre of cold milk as a special treat for a quiet evening).
Apparently having a PhD increases one's life expectancy. Probably still won't be enough to take me through to the 22nd century, though...
Some new data on the controversy over the settlement of Polynesia suggests that the settlers of the remoter parts came directly from the Asian mainland.
I discovered yesterday that asparagus makes your wee smell funny. I'd heard about this before, but not being a big fan of that particular vegetable, I'd never experienced it before.
Eeep! Apparently cocoa crops in South America are being ravaged by disease, and this could cause a worldwide chocolate shortage. Scary. I don't eat chocolate all that often, but when I do I tend to eat it huge quantities (I used to get through one of those kilo bars with a litre of cold milk as a special treat for a quiet evening).
Apparently having a PhD increases one's life expectancy. Probably still won't be enough to take me through to the 22nd century, though...
Some new data on the controversy over the settlement of Polynesia suggests that the settlers of the remoter parts came directly from the Asian mainland.
I discovered yesterday that asparagus makes your wee smell funny. I'd heard about this before, but not being a big fan of that particular vegetable, I'd never experienced it before.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Weblog Conga!
Hey, I don't care if I make an arse of myself—I'm tentatively placing my metaphorical hands round Adrian's metaphorical waist, and joining the weblog conga.
Ma-i-a hi, Ma-i-a hu, Ma-i-a ho, Ma-i-a ha-ha... Ah, I love that song!
Join in! Instructions here
Update: Next in this amazing Romanian yodelling conga is Gert.
Ma-i-a hi, Ma-i-a hu, Ma-i-a ho, Ma-i-a ha-ha... Ah, I love that song!
Join in! Instructions here
Update: Next in this amazing Romanian yodelling conga is Gert.
Monday, June 21, 2004
It's been a pretty hectic fortnight, what with:
11th. Robinson Ball. Really good fun. Leila and I had a great time, and we even got a good photo of the two of us out of it. Random highlights included the dodgems, and a bloke being persuaded by a hypnotist that his balls were talking to each other. The main downer was my discoving that I'd lost my trousers only a few hours before the Ball started. I made a mad dash to Ede and Ravenscroft and bought a very expensive (but very good quality) new pair. As I was buying them unfitted (which caused great consternation on the part of the senior tailor), I had to tack the legs to the right length myself.
16th. The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic Garden Party. Bit of a nostalgia-fest for me. I think I've been to every single one since 1993. Lots of current friends there, of course, but also people from the past. Usually there's a spot of light debauchery afterwards (last year, for example), but I missed out on that this year, being too old and respectable for that kind of thing now. No, really...
18th. Big night at the Castle. First time in ages I've stayed all evening at the pub, but Leila was away punting, so I had no lift back and had to console myself with beer, song, and the pleasure of my own lewd wit. Very good turnout, and two of the lecturers even turned up.
19th. Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Hyde Park. Leila's review is about right. I think the weather was partly responsible for the crowd's lethargy, though. I'm glad I went, but it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.
Major gardening yesterday. I planted out a delphinium, a hollyhock, and some lavender, transplanted a rose that was growing in the lawn out of an old root, dug up huge great lengths of elder root (there's lots more in there, but taking it all up would've destroyed the lawn), and reseeded the lawn. I like gardening
—I have to work out the psychic conflict between the me that mucks around with computers and the me that wants to live on a wooded mountainside foraging and hunting.
11th. Robinson Ball. Really good fun. Leila and I had a great time, and we even got a good photo of the two of us out of it. Random highlights included the dodgems, and a bloke being persuaded by a hypnotist that his balls were talking to each other. The main downer was my discoving that I'd lost my trousers only a few hours before the Ball started. I made a mad dash to Ede and Ravenscroft and bought a very expensive (but very good quality) new pair. As I was buying them unfitted (which caused great consternation on the part of the senior tailor), I had to tack the legs to the right length myself.
16th. The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic Garden Party. Bit of a nostalgia-fest for me. I think I've been to every single one since 1993. Lots of current friends there, of course, but also people from the past. Usually there's a spot of light debauchery afterwards (last year, for example), but I missed out on that this year, being too old and respectable for that kind of thing now. No, really...
18th. Big night at the Castle. First time in ages I've stayed all evening at the pub, but Leila was away punting, so I had no lift back and had to console myself with beer, song, and the pleasure of my own lewd wit. Very good turnout, and two of the lecturers even turned up.
19th. Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Hyde Park. Leila's review is about right. I think the weather was partly responsible for the crowd's lethargy, though. I'm glad I went, but it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.
Major gardening yesterday. I planted out a delphinium, a hollyhock, and some lavender, transplanted a rose that was growing in the lawn out of an old root, dug up huge great lengths of elder root (there's lots more in there, but taking it all up would've destroyed the lawn), and reseeded the lawn. I like gardening
—I have to work out the psychic conflict between the me that mucks around with computers and the me that wants to live on a wooded mountainside foraging and hunting.Thursday, June 10, 2004
Election Day
Hope you like my dinky little European flag!
There's one point on which I agree with the UK Independence Party: that the UK's relationship with the rest of the EU is the most important issue in domestic politics at the moment. Education, health, etc. are indeed extremely important, but the fate of government policy on both is ultimately tied up with this country's geopolitical destiny. The current government's desire not to offend 'Middle England' is not helping anyone. For growth, security, and stability we have to have a firm plan for the future. That's where my agreement with the UKIP ends though. Where they think the UK can stand alone, or—god help us, become the 5xth state of the US, I think we should understand ourselves for what we are: Europeans.
Independence is not an option in a world of, like it or not, increasing globalisation. Countries like Switzerland and Norway can get away with it because they have a distinctive identity. (Shops might provide a good analogy: Switzerland is a specialist delicatessen in the European high street, whereas the UK is more like a Co-op. If all the other shops in the high street band together to form a single hypermarket, the specialist delicatessen will probably continue to thrive, but the Co-op will have no chance.) Attempting to disentangle the UK from the EU would be disastrous for this country, and to continue in our current position of stroppy teenager within the European family will damage us too. We must throw our lot in wholeheartedly with the other peoples of this wonderful continent, and work together to create a Federal Europe, founded on liberal ideals, capable of protecting the world from the ill-natured mercantile and military imperialism of the USA.
The only major party with the moral courage to support the European project is the Liberal Democrats, and as long as that remains the case, they'll get my vote where it counts. Today's elections are somewhat more complicated, though. Few of us properly understand the rôle of the European Parliament, and the lack of campaigning on this aspect of today's vote has not helped. It seems to me that the current Parliament in Strasbourg functions more like a mediæval parliament in relation to the royal court, i.e. merely as an advisory body to the real power of the European Commission. I think turnout at European elections would improve greatly if the European Parliament had real powers, such as the ability to create legislation. While I approve of Proportional Representation, I'm not particularly keen on it in its 'party list' form, which is being used in most of the UK. The list system encourages the tendency to vote blindly by party, rather than by candidate. And that is, in a way, also my problem with the local part of today's elections. The incumbent district councillor in my area is an Independent, and he sounds like a sound enough local representative to me. I like the idea of local interests being looked after by a local resident, unswayed by party loyalties. Should I vote Lib Dem in order to boost their position in the post-election analyses (thereby, in my own small way, making them a more credible party at the next General Election), or should I vote for the independent candidate?
There's one point on which I agree with the UK Independence Party: that the UK's relationship with the rest of the EU is the most important issue in domestic politics at the moment. Education, health, etc. are indeed extremely important, but the fate of government policy on both is ultimately tied up with this country's geopolitical destiny. The current government's desire not to offend 'Middle England' is not helping anyone. For growth, security, and stability we have to have a firm plan for the future. That's where my agreement with the UKIP ends though. Where they think the UK can stand alone, or—god help us, become the 5xth state of the US, I think we should understand ourselves for what we are: Europeans.
Independence is not an option in a world of, like it or not, increasing globalisation. Countries like Switzerland and Norway can get away with it because they have a distinctive identity. (Shops might provide a good analogy: Switzerland is a specialist delicatessen in the European high street, whereas the UK is more like a Co-op. If all the other shops in the high street band together to form a single hypermarket, the specialist delicatessen will probably continue to thrive, but the Co-op will have no chance.) Attempting to disentangle the UK from the EU would be disastrous for this country, and to continue in our current position of stroppy teenager within the European family will damage us too. We must throw our lot in wholeheartedly with the other peoples of this wonderful continent, and work together to create a Federal Europe, founded on liberal ideals, capable of protecting the world from the ill-natured mercantile and military imperialism of the USA.
The only major party with the moral courage to support the European project is the Liberal Democrats, and as long as that remains the case, they'll get my vote where it counts. Today's elections are somewhat more complicated, though. Few of us properly understand the rôle of the European Parliament, and the lack of campaigning on this aspect of today's vote has not helped. It seems to me that the current Parliament in Strasbourg functions more like a mediæval parliament in relation to the royal court, i.e. merely as an advisory body to the real power of the European Commission. I think turnout at European elections would improve greatly if the European Parliament had real powers, such as the ability to create legislation. While I approve of Proportional Representation, I'm not particularly keen on it in its 'party list' form, which is being used in most of the UK. The list system encourages the tendency to vote blindly by party, rather than by candidate. And that is, in a way, also my problem with the local part of today's elections. The incumbent district councillor in my area is an Independent, and he sounds like a sound enough local representative to me. I like the idea of local interests being looked after by a local resident, unswayed by party loyalties. Should I vote Lib Dem in order to boost their position in the post-election analyses (thereby, in my own small way, making them a more credible party at the next General Election), or should I vote for the independent candidate?
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Howdy.
Do you know what? I'm completely at a loss as to how I should start this entry, so...
Here's an amusing article on WWII suicide pigeons. This line must be the kind of thing that journalists live for: 'However the internal security service MI5 branded Rayner a "menace in pigeon affairs".'
And Google turned up this rather splendid site when I did a search for '"Michael Howard" twat'. 159 hits for that. Doing the same with Tony Blair, I got 2510. In the interests of political balance I had a go with Charles Kennedy too. He got just 74. We can't take these figures at face value, of course—the relative size of the 3 leaders' profile might cause a statistical imbalance. This is easily corrected, though, by dividing those numbers by the number of hits the names get on their own. Initial results seemed to indicate that Charles Kennedy is the biggest twat of them all, but this is intuitively not true. I realised the flaw in my methodology: 'twat' is not used in American English, but Tony Blair is probably much better known in America than is Charles Kennedy. This can be compensated for by including 'colour' (British spelling) in the divisor search. I can reveal that the final figures are (relative twattishness, with Kennedy as a benchmark):
I had a quick delve into the topic of 'handedness'. I'm interested in this topic because, although I'm right handed, I'm not straightforwardly dextral. My left eye is the dominant one (i.e. the one I sight with), and I can kick a ball almost equally well with either foot (some might say 'equally badly'...). This article from the New Scientist suggests that one's handedness determines how one remembers things. And this one from Nature discusses research into the connexion between handedness and which way one's hair curls, and the implications for heritability of handedness.
Do you know what? I'm completely at a loss as to how I should start this entry, so...
Here's an amusing article on WWII suicide pigeons. This line must be the kind of thing that journalists live for: 'However the internal security service MI5 branded Rayner a "menace in pigeon affairs".'
And Google turned up this rather splendid site when I did a search for '"Michael Howard" twat'. 159 hits for that. Doing the same with Tony Blair, I got 2510. In the interests of political balance I had a go with Charles Kennedy too. He got just 74. We can't take these figures at face value, of course—the relative size of the 3 leaders' profile might cause a statistical imbalance. This is easily corrected, though, by dividing those numbers by the number of hits the names get on their own. Initial results seemed to indicate that Charles Kennedy is the biggest twat of them all, but this is intuitively not true. I realised the flaw in my methodology: 'twat' is not used in American English, but Tony Blair is probably much better known in America than is Charles Kennedy. This can be compensated for by including 'colour' (British spelling) in the divisor search. I can reveal that the final figures are (relative twattishness, with Kennedy as a benchmark):
- Blair, 11.2
- Howard, 1.9
- Kennedy, 1
I had a quick delve into the topic of 'handedness'. I'm interested in this topic because, although I'm right handed, I'm not straightforwardly dextral. My left eye is the dominant one (i.e. the one I sight with), and I can kick a ball almost equally well with either foot (some might say 'equally badly'...). This article from the New Scientist suggests that one's handedness determines how one remembers things. And this one from Nature discusses research into the connexion between handedness and which way one's hair curls, and the implications for heritability of handedness.
