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Olympics

Friday, August 8th, 2008

It’s looking to prove an eventful Olympics for the Brits, even before the games have started.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been glued to the BBC documentary series ‘Olympic Dreams’ which profiled Olympic hopefuls. The last episode was particularly evocative with Tom ‘Teen’ Daley making the grade as Britain’s second-youngest Olympian at only fourteen. He is great fun to watch away from the pool as well, and it’s no wonder that he has acquired an instant fan base. But the same episode also featured Jessica Ennis’ unfortunate setback when a fractured ankle destroyed her dream and a very real medal hope in the year that her chief rival, the world’s favourite, won’t be competing in the heptathlon.

That really sucks. I feel for her.

Then—only yesterday—the British reigning World Amateur Boxing Champion Frankie Gavin was handed his ticket home after failing to make the target for the lightweight category by a paltry 3 pounds. What a wretch. I feel for the lad because he is probably still growing (he is certainly building up muscle) and it is plain that the lightweight category isn’t his natural target.

Kavin Kayes, the leading sports nutritionist, who has been called in to help the boxer achieve the target weight, but who has not been invited to the training camp in Macao, blames possible water retention. He bemoans the failings of the Amateur Boxing Association both to plan ahead and to deal with the situation safely (link as above). I agree. Having the boxer stop drinking enough water to keep properly hydrated would have been a short-sighted and dangerous policy, as the coach rightly pointed out. You’ll have to be training at 35° C-plus for six hours a day to get an understanding of how much fluid is required (I’m talking from past experience, but it was certainly not at Olympic level—LoL).

So, mixed feelings. A lot of disappointed athletes (including the many profiled by the BBC documentary who came so close to fulfilling their dreams only to fail by a whisker), but still a lot of promise.

And (already!) slander and self-flagellation from both the press and the Great British Public alike.

Sometimes I think we don’t deserve such talent.

Posted in Neither here nor there | Comments Off on Olympics

Writers’ Retreat

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Last week we were on a writers’ retreat in Assynt, deep in the Scottish highlands, and —true to form—I didn’t get anything much written, nor blogged.

But it was glorious, so here are a few photos:

View from Glencanisp Lodge

‘Mount Improbable’, as seen from Glencanisp lodge. It didn’t take long for the members of the writers’ group to come up with the name, but sadly it wasn’t me. I kept thinking ‘Zuckerhut’. Having another German there does it…

Lochinver

The Assynt Foundation is based in Lochinver, which looked unfeasibly idyllic during (one day!) of sunshine. Sadly I didn’t get a better shot because I was to lazy to walk up the pier. Then it started to rain…

forested island

A curious thing about the H ighlands are the miniature forests that grow on islands in the freshwater lochs. This is particularly striking in the Assynt area which has very little forest because the glaciers have scoured the mountain sides down to the bedrock (elsewhere in the highlands, deforestation is to blame). Again, I could have obtained a better shot. This was taken from the car window. (Well, it was half a mile to the lodge…)

Stoerhead, Assynt

Even in the middle of the tourist season, the Assynt coastal route is remote…

Village Sheep

…not counting visitors, there are more sheep than people!

Posted in Neither here nor there, Short Trips, Travels on my Doorstep | 1 Comment »

Discrimination: positive or otherwise

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

You can’t help wondering what direction your life might have taken, had things been different.

I still wonder sometimes, even after all these years.

I also wonder how history is recorded.

The current occasion that caused me to wonder is the image of a woman scientist posing in her drysuit in Antarctica.

Search as I may, I can’t find any reference as to when women were allowed to work as equals among men with the British Antarctic Survey. Up until well into the nineties, ads for research positions which were permanently based in the Antarctic stipulated that applicants must be male and physically fit (and—so the joke went—must have a beard).

My entire cohort was denied the opportunity to work in the Antarctic, at least with BAS. I remember that one of the scientists at the Millport marine lab had to start up a collaboration with the Australian Antarctic Survey so that he could allow his female PhD candidate to carry out essential fieldwork there.

And yet, look at the BAS website or at wiki entries and you find no reference that such discrimination ever existed. I can understand that they don’t want to bang on about it, but I believe that my generation of Zoologists is owed an explanation, and an apology. I think that current and future generations are owed the same if they are ever to make sense of their own history.

Whitewashing isn’t the answer and ‘positive discrimination’ is right out. Discrimination, no matter what motives lie behind it, is never positive.

Posted in Neither here nor there | Comments Off on Discrimination: positive or otherwise

Trip Writeup

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

I’m in the process of writing up the Greece entries. They’ll be backdated and can be found in the Greece category, for ease of navigation.

The write-up proper starts here, then follow the right-hand link above the entry to get to the next one, etc.

Posted in Neither here nor there | Comments Off on Trip Writeup

Comment Spam

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

Hm, I see: an entry I wrote while still in Greece has not been posted. That is because of the crappy WordPress layout. For most blogs, a highlighted ‘save’ option means the entry is published. WordPress saves it as draft. I doubt that I’ll ever get used to it, but it sure drives havoc with the order of my entries.

Then again, since this was the only entry I have written while actually on the road, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the entries will follow over the next week or so, once I’ve sorted out my pictures and whenever I get some spare time.

In other news, this blog has been hit by hundreds of spam comments. Since I get so few genuine comments I’ll just delete them all unread (being unpopular can have its advantages 😉 ). Sorry for anyone who’s posted a genuine remark.

[EDIT: comments should now be turned off. If anyone wants to contact me, you know my email, or try via my LJ.]

Posted in Neither here nor there | Comments Off on Comment Spam

Terminal Trials

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

I write this in sympathy as, for once, we have been spared the tribulations faced by passengers going through Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 these past few weeks.

Yesterday, about 5cm of snow left hundreds of passengers stranded overnight, where they slept on thin mats and under cardboard boxes after having spent the day doing the rounds from check-in to baggage claim as their flights were cancelled at the last minute up to five times in a row.

Many papers were leading with pictures of passengers huddling under thin blankets and headlines declaring the Terminal Five shambles a national embarrassment and as bringing shame to London.

In my opinion, the shame belongs firmly in the laps of the world’s least favourite airline whose bosses are responsible for operations at the new terminal. From what I read in yesterday’s Evening Standard, nine out of ten of the thousands of lost luggage items that have accumulated may never be reunited with their owners as staff shortages and renewed glitches continue to pile up.

I read the article with incredulity, wondering what could possibly have caused these renewed delays until one Swiss family pointed out laconically: “Our flight was meant to go at 7pm but we were told it was delayed until after nine this morning. This was apparently due to the snow which had fallen in the morning.”(News, p.5)

In all fairness, I don’t remember when snow last settled in London. It may have been as long ago as 1990 when I broke my little finger in a snowball fight that escalated in Hampstead Heath. But snow and frost in April are not unprecedented and an international airport ought to be prepared for such eventualities.

Snow-bells

Meanwhile, we had fun waking up in a winter wonderland with the sun glittering on sugared tree branches and the kids’ laughter ringing through the windows. Even the ‘hood’s cynical teenager joined in the frolics, their usual sullenness forgotten.

I had missed the news on Saturday evening as we were seeing some mates, but the snow had been forecast to a generally incredulous response.

“My son was practically bursting with excitement,” sighed one of the blokes in the pub yesterday, “so of course I promised he could drag me out of bed if it really should snow. And he did: at 7 am! But we were the first people out, all was quiet and there were no footsteps on the ground. It was magical.”
Washing

Posted in Neither here nor there, Tadley Times | Comments Off on Terminal Trials

From 0 To 50k in 30 Days…

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

Reading Glasses

The only travelling I’m doing at the moment (aside from a short break, but more about that later) will be in my head.

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo and I have nothing to go on, except that I’m writing a SciFi romance about cetacean communication, new programming paradigms, shoaling intelligent probes sailing past the solar system and a villain who uses the protagonists’ findings to develop AI—with the best of intentions—that turns out to be the real alien.

Meanwhile, earth is threatened by a series of natural and man-made disasters which provides intreresting background material, in case I get stuck, and also powerful motivation for the inadvertent villain who wants to save humanity from itself.

I’ll be posting occasional updates on my LJ

Posted in events, Neither here nor there | 2 Comments »

Watson: the Saga Continues

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

So it turns out that the article which may have ended Watson’s career and public standing has been written by a postgraduate student at the Cold Spring Harbour Lab who seems to have a crush on him.

Not content with the damage she has already done (albeit justifiably), she goes on to gush about how ‘his’ scientists wouldn’t be able to function if it wasn’t for their Master’s encouragement, how the war against disease would be lost should Watson not hold their hands in the lab.

If you think I’m exaggerating, read the thing.

The Times Online is a respected source, otherwise I would suspect this to be a hoax. As it is, it must be the first time that I have cringed because of my science background.

Perhaps the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory should be more discerning in the selection of their postgraduate students. Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe is the proverbial elephant in a china shop. Thankfully, after a brief moment of glory, Google News has moved on.

Choice Quote (but there were many)

“Colleagues expect Watson’s conversations to be peppered with ‘un-PC’ comments. It is part of his character. He wouldn’t be the man he is and have contributed so much to science if he wasn’t a little different to everyone else.”

All I can think of is Rosalind Franklin.

It is time for the nasty old men to go away.

Posted in Neither here nor there, Travel | Comments Off on Watson: the Saga Continues

Watson in Race Row

Friday, October 19th, 2007

At the time of writing, there are 4 comments underneath the Times Online article.

Looks like 3:1 to the racists, although the first commenter may just have been confused.

EDIT: Hmm, it now stands at 16:13, pretty close to half-and-half. What is alarming is the great proportion of unashamedly racist comments and the number of commenters who are convinced that race has a genetic basis (it doesn’t). Then there are those who think that, just because a Nobel laureate scientists says something, he must be right/must have made a discovery.

Watson making a discovery? Don’t make me laugh. If this mess has shown anything then it’s that there is a time when eminent scientists should announce their retirement. Perhaps they ought to be tested for senility, like old people having to retake their driving tests.

Anyway, in case you thought racism was rare, read the next entry.

Posted in Neither here nor there, Travel | 1 Comment »

Intermission

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

I want to resume my Japan travelogue, but I want to do it properly, and right now it’s getting in the way of a deadline and two outstanding story crits.

Meanwhile, I’m battling with the October blues while the rain is pouring down from leaden skies and the brook in front of the house is swelling dangerously. They’ve cleared it up since the summer flood. But nobody has reckoned with autumn leaf fall.

Does our letting agent know something that our neighbours don’t? While we still live with exposed floorboards and bare concrete downstairs, they have almost completed their renovation work.

Posted in Neither here nor there, Tadley Times, Travel | Comments Off on Intermission

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