kt846

I have two "members" on this site.
One of them - GC - is a good friend; I know him well.
The other is kt846.  I have no idea who this is!
Very exciting.

Oregon

This week my job takes me to Oregon.  I've never been before so all the pastures are new.  It also marks the greatest dispersion of my family at any one time.  With my wife and older daughter in the UK, my younger daughter in Melbourne and me in Oregon, I think the average distance between the four of us has never been greater.  If we each took a letter (A,B,C,D) then, I believe, the average of A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D is at a maximum.  I am going to have quite a bit of dull time between Newcastle and Corvallis.  I just might work that distance out.

China

I have just returned from China. The plan went so smoothly you might be deceived into thinking it was planned. Fly from Newcastle to Dubai (16/2/12) and connect with a flight to Hong Kong (17/2/12) to stay in the beautiful Marco Polo Hotel overlooking Kowloon Harbour. Lots of meetings with the parents of my students (all went very well) then [after three nights] off to Guangzhou on the train for one night in the Holiday Inn Guangzhou. Same deal, parents and agents. Then a flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai. Two nights in Shanghai then on to another aeroplane bound for Beijing. Three nights here. Busy on two days. Sightseeing the third with an old friend. Then, final leg, a big Airbus 380 to Dubai and a much smaller Airbus 330 to Newcastle.

Back here at my desk it doesn't seem possible that it all went so smoothly. But it did.

Thanks to all my colleagues in HK and mainland China. I am so impressed!

Back again...

I'm really sorry that this blog has sort of lapsed. It wasn't a conscious thing; I used to use this blog as a vehicle for ideas and feeling that meant a lot to me. Perhaps I don't feel things quite so strongly these days. Perhaps I don't have any feelings.

Anyway, enough of the talking utter bollocks. Let's get on with the blog.

My feet hurt. My fault. Brand new shoes plus good long walk equals blistered heels. So far so obvious. What does surprise me is how different the blistered areas are. On my left foot I have a region of pulped flesh directly outside my Achilles tendon. On my right foot it is lower, to the left and augmented by a blister on the side of my big toe.

Now, this is odd. I don't walk that asymmetrically. My feet are not that dissimilar. The shoes are enantiomorphs. Very odd indeed. If anyone has any suggestions I am happy to hear them.

The Sky

When I was a kid, I used to paint pictures. Grass was green. Sky was blue.

Now I am older and if I was asked if the sky was blue I would stop, hesitate, then prevaricate.

It is, I suppose, blue if you create the limits for that blueness. No clouds, Sun well above the horizon. Yes, blue. Different shades. Milky blue when dust-laden. Dark blue when the Arctic air spills down to these latitudes. At night, of course, it is anything but blue. Black. With sparks of light, several thousand the last time I counted, ranging from the husky red of Betelgeuse to the icy blue of Rigel and all colours in between. At dusk the sky shifts through all the reds and oranges that exist before the inky wash of the night submerges the colours. They have not really gone, it is fair to say, simply moved on. They will return in more or less reverse order at dawn.

Then there are the clouds. White, I used to paint them. They are seldom as simple as that. There is a lot of grey in that mix. Yellows too. Sometimes both. From the wispy cirrus to the gunmetal, towering cumulonimbus. So many shades of grey.

So, is the sky blue? Certainly not. Anything but. Um. Er. So, let’s try to be adult, complicated and negative here. It sure isn’t green! I’m sure the sky isn’t green.

Through the window is the black, nearly midnight sky. There were solar storms a few days ago and the northern sky has the dancing aurora borealis adding to the mix of colours. It is green. That part of the sky is green.

Childhood was wasted on me.

The Crossing Point

The father of her people, the nomad Bakhytar, came from the southern mountains and, over time, his people prospered. Every year they cross many high mountains and many dangerous rivers. Now, her tribe of Bakhtiari, one of a dozen or so families that wander this trail, are returning to the most dangerous crossing point and here they know they will say farewell so some of their own, both goats and kin.

Inna stands by the water’s edge. The Bazuft River is swollen with spring meltwater that has turned the normally placid watercourse into an angry torrent. Two years ago she was only barely able to get across and was exhausted when she did. Last year she nearly drowned here and was only rescued when God sent the fallen tree to help her. The main task is to get the herd across. Without the herd they will all die, not just the old and infirm.

The men are loading the goats on to their shoulders. The women are making fast the bindings that will hold their children to them. The young boys and girls judged strong enough to cross by themselves have bundles: tents, cooking pots, a few possessions. They have fear in their eyes. All of them.

For fifty-four years Inna has crossed this river every spring. She can remember being a terrified three-year-old tied to her mother. She can remember carrying her own children. She remembers the mixed feelings on reaching the other side where the exhilaration is replaced with exhaustion, the fear is replaced with relief and the old are replaced by the surviving young. Today, another woman will replace her as Grandmother to the whole tribe. She knows that. She knows that there is no-one left or able to save her when the river claims her.

Should she try to cross and be drowned? Is it better to stay and, eventually, to starve? She does not want to repeat the fear of the previous two years. Better to starve. She stands back from the uneven join between water and pebbles. Her people understand.

Then, the crossing begins. The men are shouting and some of the children cry in terror as the water batters the breath from their lungs. To stumble is to die. To hesitate is to die. To carry even the smallest amount of ill-luck is to die. Only minutes later, at the other side, the first and strongest men are clambering out. Then the most resolute women with that fierce protection afforded to their infants follow them. But Inna can hear the crying. Not everyone has reached the far bank.

Her son waves a goodbye to her across the surging river. Then he turns away and walks off. She will never know that he had tears streaming down his face as he did so. Likewise the rest of her tribe, her family, her friends. Ten minutes earlier she was part of a fearful throng. Now she is alone with only a single, distant gesture to mark the change.

She has nowhere to go now. The Bakhtiari follow trails; they do not own land. Their kingdom is a thin thread across the landscape. It has no width apart from the odd wandering of a hungry goat, who will soon return to the herd. She has nothing but the clothes she stands in and no sound except the growling river.

Then she sees him.

Some way up the steep valley side he is sitting. Her need to talk to someone, anyone, is greater than her shyness and she walks over to him. She knows this man. They met as children and again later. He is from another tribe. Every once in a while the various Bakhtiari tribes will meet another.

He stands to greet her and bows slightly as he does. He is about her age, maybe a year or so older. His face is craggy and lined. He beckons her to share the tattered rug that he is seated upon. Demurely, she does so. He offers her water, gratefully accepted, and some dried meat, equally so. His meagre rations were handed to him as a final gesture of farewell by his daughter earlier that morning. He was also, this year, too old to cross the river.

With nowhere to go, they go nowhere. Their people are long gone and high up in these mountains where the Bazuft River hurls itself through the valley below they have no future. Miles from here, on the other side of the crossing point, their families will be making camp for the night. Warm fires, hot food and blankets to stave off the sub-zero temperatures.

As nightfall swept across the landscape, he and Inna shared their memories and the remnants of his food. With the sputtering fire to keep them awake they relived their separate, but achingly similar experiences. Eventually, sleep overcame them and, peacefully for them both, his hands holding hers, death.

Dawkins to Die Out: Official

Great news for theists and, grudgingly, agnostics! Atheists are (and I love this!) dying out because of evolution. So my favourite hate figure and his breed of godless heathens will be wiped out by the very "god" they trumpet so loud and long: genetics.

It works like this...

On average, believers have 2.7 children per couple*. The atheists have only 1.7, which is nowhere near enough to last more than a few generations. If Dawkins is right (God forbid) and we are merely genetic material with horribly selfish tendencies then there must be a "Believe in God Gene" being passed down the generations. If this - as it appears to be - is tied to the "Have quite a few Kids Gene" then believers will increasingly outstrip the non-believers and their "We don't believe in God and don't have many Kids Gene". Excellent.

Me?

I really don't know. Sometimes I think I do but that just turns out to be the effects of Guinness. Sometimes I think I don't but that comes to all Middlesbrough FC supporters. I think believing might be the better path. It gives you someone to talk to in Church and when you are saying your nightly prayers.

* Technically it needs to be only 2.7 per woman but - from what I remember - the male of the species has something to do with this. Either way, it is a lot more than the 2.2 (-ish) needed to keep the human race going.

The Folk Club

I love folk clubs. I spend most of my late teens and early 20's in folk clubs. Rather hoping to regenerate that interest, I went to one such last night. A quick caricature would be "three Aran sweaters siging The Wild Rover". Indeed, nearly every song sung contained the word "rover" in the lyrics and - I listened carefully - at no time was "rover" preceded by "land" or "my dog".
Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with traditional folk but this was a bit OTT.
Kate Rusby, where were you when I needed you?

ITV

Good film on ITV tonight

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix"

Honest.

X-Factor

I got it all wrong!

Only one (Tesco Mary) got binned!

The real sadness was that Tesco Mary was infinitely better than Cher Lllllloyd who - as per bloody usual - dissolved into tears. Not one of the judges came out with the line "I have to base my decision on what I've just heard..." because Mary was sooooooooooo much better. Hypocrites.

Still, Rebecca and Matt are through. Cher will be binned first up. One Direction will go next. Then Matt to give Rebecca the crown.

Obviously.

X-Factor

Isn't it getting exciting?

The only real talent (Rebecca) is still there. Matt struggled through tonight. Tesco Mary was her usual clubland self. One Direction were, as ever, one-dimensional and Cher Lloyd again demonstrated that she was a one-trick pony. Two go out tomorrow.

Please, God, let four be kicked out to cut short the misery.

Qatar

I have nothing against the people of Qatar. I teach several Qatari students, sponsored by Qatar Oil. They are, without exception, lovely people and good students.

But why Qatar for the FIFA World Cup?

No stadium worth its salt, temperatures totally unsuitable for football (even at night), no history of the game there, no fan base, no football infrastructure at all. Nothing. Rien.

My guess is that the nation of Qatar is quite a bit poorer this weekend and certain gentlemen belonging to various levels in FIFA might be a fair bit richer.

Only a guess.

British Summer Time

I firmly believe in Greenwich Mean Time. That we tinker on with "our" time every Spring and Autumn is, I feel, abominable. I hold dear to my heart the idea that the day should be divided by noon and there should be as much daylight before noon as after. That we have the situation that, in "Summer Time" days, the afternoon/evening is much longer than the dawn/morning is, I believe, spiritually wrong.

A colleague was rejoicing in the extra hour in bed that we "gained" by putting our clocks back to GMT last weekend. I have spent hours this week finding and putting back clocks. There are clocks, it seems, in everything we have. Not just the fake carriage clock on the bookcase but computers, microwave, video, TV, DVD, oven, toaster, kettle...... Everything has clocks.

I have gained nothing. Clock-changing takes time. Lots of time. I remember that I wasted the same length of time around the Vernal Equinox putting my clocks forward (and thereby losing an hour into the bargain). This horological time-wasting must be costing the country millions of pounds.

The Anglo-Saxons (as per usual) had it right. The Sun rose at 6, crossed the southern meridian at noon, set at 6 and was as far "set" as it was going to be at midnight. In summer the daylight "hours" were longer than the night-time hours. In winter the positions were reversed. Only at the equinoxes (equi=equal nox=night) were day and night the same. Good old Anglo-Saxons.

How I wish it was still the Dark Ages.

Love it!

What if there are no hypothetical questions?
(Heard on the radio; can't claim originality. Damn)

Higher Education Rip-Off

I know I go on a bit about our Universities, but they really do deserve it.

A colleague's daughter is in the third year of a Business Management degree. She has four hours on her timetable. Three on Monday, one on Tuesday. That's it. That's what she pays her fees for, that's why she has taken out the loan (to be repaid until hell freezes over), that's it. Four hours. Three former students came to see me this week. I asked how it was going. Lectures? Over 450 students packed into a lecture theatre designed for 50 fewer, a lecturer who emerged at the front at 5 past the hour and mumbled for the next 50 minutes. No microphone used. Nothing either heard nor understood. Seminars? Between 70 and 100 students in a seminar. Ridiculous. What kind of "interaction" is that? That is not a seminar; it is still a lecture. Every student I talk to has the same opinion of their University staff: they couldn't care less.

“A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.”

John Ciardi

The United Kingdom

This afternoon, I am going to teach a class of Chinese students all about what we might loosely call "Britain".

The individual nations are OK. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales. Ah but. Northern Ireland is a province and Wales is a principality. England and Scotland are nations though. With a monarch. The same monarch. A United Kingdom. Our Elizabeth II is, of course, Elizabeth I of Scotland. I know they will ask "What is the United Kingdom?" I'll stutter out England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Then they'll ask "...and the British Isles?" and I will chuck in The Irish Republic and probably the Isle of Man. But what about the Channel Islands? I think they are called Bailiwicks. Not sure. Part of the UK? Not sure. Back to the Isle of Man. Not sure. They'll ask what is the difference between Britain and Great Britain. Again, not sure. Does the UK include Northern Ireland? Not sure. How are the Channel Islands part of the EU? Not sure. How come they can be tax havens. Got me. Not sure.

I'm in for a great lesson where, ultimately, they will know exactly what I know. I know that I don't know.

Did Berwick ever make it up with Russia?

Cheryl Loses It: Shock Horror

I normally rate Cheryl Cole. True, she is a bit of a professional Geordie, but relatively sweet and harmless. Then she loses all reason.
Two of her three choices for X-Factor were a joke. One couldn't sing and couldn't sing (tonsilitis) and another couldn't sing and couldn't sing (nerves). I can't recall their names. One will be eliminated in Week 1, the other in Week 2.
Gamu Nhengu. That's who should have gone into the last 12. I hope someone spots her and signs her quickish.

University League Tables

Ah! There we are. Damn. Delft University of Technology is above us!

There are just over 17000 universities in the world. The THES recently published a booklet detailing all sorts of league tables for universities but, of course, the "overall" table is the one that everyone looks at. Just like in football. We could have a Goals For league table to highlight the strong attacks or a Goals Against league table to highlight the strong defences. But we don't. We look at the overall points that these teams, with their strong bits and weak bits have managed....er...overall.

The universities that really intrigue me are those in the lower reaches. Who is 17000th? We aren't told. God! What a hell-hole that must be! Degree shops, lectures cancelled or lecturers late, exorbitant fees for an inferior product, courses cut for lack of funding, poorly qualified staff teaching vast numbers of increasingly poorly qualified students, crumbling buildings apart from the Business School and the Vice-Chancellor's new admin block with marketing dominating everything. Medium over message every time.

I'm glad I don't work somewhere like that.

Emails

I get emails (all the time!) that end with...

The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. Access to this email by anyone else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any other action taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you believe that you have received this email in error, please contact the sender. Etc. etc etc etc.

Globally, this legalese must be having a major impact on bandwidth. Truth is, we never have enough bandwidth so adding this to nearly every effing email must come at a hell of a cost worldwide.

Why can't we just add in a hyperlink to a page that gives all this guff? There would not really be a page there; no-one would ever go there.

Oops

BBC again.

Ewan McGregor and his brother Colin did a very good retrospective on the Battle of Britain a few nights ago. They both ended up flying around in a truly ugly two-seat Spitfire (which the RAF never used) but, overall, it wasn't bad.

Ewan (or his script writer, let's be fair) did make one horrible gaffe.

He was describing the tensions in the upper ranks of Fighter Command as the Battle got more and more desparate and highlighted the feud between Keith Park (OC 11 Group) and "Douglas Bader who commanded 12 Group".

Wrong.

During the Battle of Britain, Douglas Bader was a Squadron Leader commanding 242 Squadron based at Duxford and a small part of 12 Group. Air Vice-Marshall Leigh-Mallory - not Bader - was Park's opposite (in more ways than one) in charge of 12 Group based north of London. As it turned out, most of Bader's theories were simply wrong. Thank God we had AVM Keith Park in charge of 11 Group (in whose skies most of the Battle took place) and not Leigh-Mallory or (worse!) Bader.

The outcome might have been very different.

PS: Park also "won" the other crucial defensive air action of the war - the Battle of Malta.