Month: October 2004

Speaking of reminiscing; with all the craziness of having done an actual honest week’s work last week (no, nothing exciting, just a quick development gig, but thanks for asking) I forgot to mention a moderately bizarre occurrence on a flight back from London on Monday. Taking my seat, I was forced to interrupt a chap who was scribbling on a scrap of paper, writing ‘λ’ far more often than is conventional when doing, say, the crossword.

Eventually I concocted some sort of vague excuse to mention that my diffraction physics was somewhat rusty, and there ensued a conversation involving more than the average quotient of the word ‘Fraunhofer’. But this was not the coincidence.

The chap turned out to be Australian, and he’d taken his PhD at the University of Sydney. In the summer of 1989, he was showing students around the high-energy physics department; students from the School of Physics‘ International Science School. Five of those students were from the UK. One of those five was me.

No, of course we didn’t remember each other – but we must have first met fifteen years ago, and not on BA1498.

Small world.

In a further coincidence, at this moment the top story on the website of the UK end of the whole shebang, the Association for Science Education, is the start of the selection procedure for the next ‘5 for Sydney’. (PDF flyer). Good luck, kids. I had a blast, and apparently it’s still affecting my life.

With the last piece of furniture – at least for the moment – now delivered, I’ve been pressing ahead with the general project of ‘sorting things out.’ Which means, in practice, filing and chucking out. While it takes me a considerable time to build up speed in these activities, neither is without its rewards.

One completely random thing I came across today is the visitors’ guidebook for my degree ceremony, more than a decade ago. While I can remember the day at least reasonably clearly, none of it made any sense at the time since the evidently important bits were conducted in Latin. Mix in some genuinely arcane tradition – grabbing a finger and being led forward by it? – and it was all delightfully baffling. Now that I’ve actually read the accompanying notes, however, it starts to make a semblance of sense.

In the same pile of papers was my degree certificate, which makes up for the florid extravagance of the ceremony by being the least flowery formal document I think I’ve ever seen. It’s so plain, it’s not even vaguely convincing. Mercifully, I’ve never had to produce it. I doubt anyone would believe it.

Richard, Harro, Alan – this is for you lot.

The availability of relatively cheap video cameras has led to the mass production of two sorts of movies. Firstly, of peoples’ babies and toddlers being cute. Secondly, of people plain mucking around and playing up to the camera, often with whatever props are to hand. We’re in the latter situation here, with nutters who would appear to be French, bless ’em. They’re in a desert somewhere. The props they’re goofing around with are Mirage F1 jets.

Quicktime video here.

Remember, kids: 200ft minimum, gear up after you’ve established positive rate of climb.

My bed has arrived. As of tonight, I shall no longer be attempting to find the least uncomfortable angle between the broken slats of my once-glorious-but-lately-too-squashed-to-be-any-good futon. No. I shall be reclining in the glorious accommodations of a gigantic mattress, with pocketed springs and all mod cons, on a slatted base, on a terribly fashionable pale oak frame, supported by oh-so-modern little chromed legs. It will, I think, be the first time since I left America last year that I’ve slept in a bed longer than me.

I’ve some serious recreational sleeping ahead of me.

Just as one might have thought American politics couldn’t get much more surreal, Bush has been endorsed by a major tabloid newspaper. The paper? Bild. Um… right.

At least there’s a flash of sanity: the editor felt he had to assert that his paper’s support wasn’t a joke. Because, you know, we might all have thought those whacky Germans were having a laugh again.

The Radio Times‘ website has, in my humble, been the best TV listings site in the UK for some time now, long periods of flaky server availability notwithstanding. However, the competition has been so dire that I still didn’t think it was up to much. It did mostly work, and the design was at least reasonably clean, but that was about all one could say of it.

They’ve now unveiled a sparkling new redesign, and the site is genuinely prettier, with a neat little hover-box telling you exactly when the show you’re pointing to starts and ends (a basic problem with the previous version). All well and good. But… will they go the extra mile and provide us all with customised RSS feeds of programme times? Because then we could, you know, do really cool things with keyword extraction, scheduling systems, capture cards, and so on. Roll-your-own-Tivo would be a darned sight easier if listings were so readily available. It’s possible that The Radio Times might now allow this, but as I write the link to their ‘services’ page (mobile phones and PDAs mentioned) goes here… which is ‘not found.’

Meanwhile… why is scheduling information so hard to find? Surely it’s in the best interests of the broadcasters themselves to make the data as widely-available as possible? Or do they provide the raw data to publications like the Radio Times as a commercial venture? That is, is the schedule itself a revenue stream?

I’m just asking.

John Peel has died. Story covered everywhere, of course. I shall treasure the recording I have of him quoting something I penned in an email to friends, on Home Truths; I’ll see if I can’t post it here tonight.

No joy for me in the Children’s BAFTA nominations, again. Surprise! It’s a somewhat odd year all told, I reckon: Dick & Dom are set to stir up some controversy, what with OFCOM’s formal comment that Parent Bogies is not the sort of thing the BBC should be doing. Props to the Jungle Run team for securing another nomination, and I’m glad Globo Loco is there again – it gets neither the credit nor the audience I think it deserves.

One of the things I’ve forgotten to post here, that came out of my London jaunt, was that my chum Jem had finished his stint on Scrapheap Challenge and had picked up a jolly little gig making film props. For a Kevin Bacon film.

At which revelation, Alom* and I immediately started petitioning the poor chap to the effect that, if he wanted to remain our friend, he quite simply had to contrive a cameo in said film. Why? Because both Alom and I have been on screen with Jem, so Jem appearing in a Kevin Bacon film would give each of us a Bacon Number of 2. 2! How cool would that be?

Also, I entertain the vague possibility that I might actually have an Erdös number; my only real scientific paper listed a couple of authors who must, at some point, have co-authored with mathematicians (computational chemistry was our game), so it’s just about feasible that I have an Erdös number of maybe seven or so. Which would give me a Bacon-Erdös number of around 10, but hey – at least I’d have one!

Unfortunately, Jem finished the props and immediately took a job at Screenhouse. Which is, one suspects, the end of the endeavour. I’m never speaking to him again.

• I think I first met Alom Shaha, briefly, when I put him up for interview for The Big Bang about six years ago. We didn’t meet again until the other week, despite our paths crossing on more than one occasion – we tended to interleave at places like Screenhouse. Anyway, we bumped into each other at a bash at Imperial. Seriously nice guy: one of those people I very much hope I manage to work with sometime.

Tonight (I do like the drop-cap ‘T’ – apologies again for non-Mac-viewers), the first emailshot from the Virgin Galactic folks. The mail is signed ‘Stephen Attenborough, Head of Astronaut Liaison.’ Now that’s a cool title to have on one’s business card.

(and yes, of course I signed up for their mailing list. Durrr. Oh, and I wonder if it’s the same Steven Attenborough as the one who’s interested in traction engines?)