The Daily Liam

I love Dairy Milk

2012-02-13T22:58:00.001Z

I am pretentious. I want to like the sorts of comestibles that a Guardian-reading, university-educated, middle-class liberal twerp ought to like, so I convince myself to go out and buy them. From fairtrade fusilli to organic aubergines to free-range vodka, I snap pricy products up readily.

When it comes to chocolate though, I've been fooling myself. As pleasant-tasting as Lindt Fleur de Sel or Green & Black's Maya Gold* might be, the only chocolate bar I really, genuinely, honestly, love is this one:

Cadbury's Dairy Milk

I realize that, living in the home town of Rowntree's and Terry's, I shouldn't be supporting their Brummie rivals. I don't care.
I also don't care if our continental cousins regard it as non-chocolate. Dairy Milk is simply delicious, and simply the best. You can take your Swiss confections and your Belgian pralines and melt them down for cat food. They aren't a patch on this stuff:

Now, Mr Cadbury's Parrot, where is that lifetime's supply of sugary cocoa goodness you promised me?

*Do be careful when Google Image searching for this name, though, as Maya Gold is also the pseudonym of a Hungarian porn star.

The Adventures of Hadrian's Mole

2012-02-13T22:00:00.000Z

Possibly because I've never really grown up, I often come up with ideas for children's stories or characters.

Most recently, by combining the 30th anniversary of the appearance of Leicester's greatest (what do you mean only?) literary character, with my lifelong love of Henry's Cat, I came up with an excellent historic cartoon idea: Hadrian's Mole*.

Set in a two thousand year-old version of Leicester, Hadrian's Mole is the story of a burrowing soricomorph who travels the length and breadth of the Roman Empire (of central England), encountering trouble and confusion wherever he goes.

His sidekick is a rodent called Ratae, who, unlike HM (and unlike the TV version of his human counterpart), hails from the West Midlands.

Baths fit for a mole

All I have to do now is actually write some episodes.

(*I thought this was most amusing, and have to confess I had no idea that Castel Sant'Angelo, the mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian in Rome, was known colloquially by the same name.)

The Canadian batman

2012-02-13T17:40:00.000Z

Just in case you don't follow the Canadian section of the ESPN Cricinfo website, where I write fairly frequent missives on the region's cricketing curiosities, here is my latest offering:

You may not get many home-grown cricketers but you can get a home-made bat

As the bat-maker in question - Mark Warburton - notes wisely, there aren't any huge profits to be made as a North American pod-shaver.

From hockey stick to cricket bat

Blow Your Own Trump-pit - The Revenge

2012-02-09T22:22:00.001Z

Donald Trump lambasts Scottish offshore wind plans

He's only worried what the turbines will do to his beautiful tonsure. But seriously, Donnie lad, if the prospect of an innovative, sustainable future for Scotland seriously offends you, you can always just rip up your ridiculous Golf Yankee Hotel plans and Foxtrot off back to Noo Yoik. You will not be missed.

The Daily Liam for toddlers

2012-02-09T21:51:00.000Z

I was most amused / ENRAGED to discover that not one but two toddlers called Liam have set up blogs with the same name as mine.

http://thedailyliam.tumblr.com/archive

http://thedailyliam.blogspot.com/

What is the world coming to when the under-threes can use the internet more efficiently than a middle-aged man? Damn you, tiny children!

Why birds aren't bird-hipped

2012-02-09T21:17:00.001Z

I was teaching a palaeontology class a couple of weeks ago, and showed a phylogenetic tree of the Dinosauria, with birds as the extant clade. The discovery of Archaeopteryx in the 19th century first hinted that our avian friends might actually be 'living dinosaurs', but it's only in the last few years that the Chinese dino-birds have shed a whole new light on the issue. No palaeontologist or evolutionary biologist would now dispute that birds really did evolve from dinosaurs.

An artist's reconstruction of Anchiornis, a Jurassic 'dino-bird' from China

Interestingly, though, one of the students in my class noted something I hadn't. Although dinosaurs are divided into the bird-hipped (Ornithischia) and lizard-hipped (Saurischia), birds are placed in the latter, not the former. How could birds not be bird-hipped, he asked?

"It's probably convergence," I speculated, but I didn't know the answer, and had to go away and look it up. I was relieved to know that my speculation was correct, but it's still an interesting point, and one that I shall refer to in future. And when doing so, I might just use this little passage of text from the University of California Museum of Paleontology website:

"The etymology behind the two names ("bird-hipped" vs. "lizard-hipped") is rather confusing,since some saurischians had bird-like hips, and ornithischians' hips weresomewhat birdlike due to convergent evolution, not due to shared ancestry.Birds are apparently descended from saurischian dinosaurs, but have a reversedpubis like ornithischians do. Some close relatives of birds within saurischians have this same feature, too, so the ornithischian-saurischiandichotomy is not so simple. The names "Ornithischia" and "Saurischia" areused to refer to the common ancestry of their respective members. The namesdon't necessarily have to mean anything. They are just names, that's all."

"Hello Anchiornis huxleyi, how are you today?" "Very tiny indeed, thanks. And truly ornithischian!"

Spending too long in the pub

2012-02-09T20:20:00.001Z

WATCH ALL THE ACTION

LIVE HERE

says a banner outside Yates's. Unfortunately, looking at the state of some of the clientele inside, I fear they have misunderstood that 'live' was meant as an adjective, not a verb.

Snow bull warning

2012-02-09T20:05:00.002Z

Ah, how I love it when it snows. Especially in winter. Oh to step outside in one of the months of the year when it is supposed to be cold, snowy and icy, and find that the weather is cold, snowy, and icy. It lifts my spirit.

The 18.37 Transpennine Express service from Harrogate to Alaska.

Sadly, it seems there are many others for whom it doesn't. People like Dick Lindley of Altofts, Normanton, West Yorkshire. Mr Lindley is apparently upset and baffled by winter weather during the winter. It's them 'green fanatics', telling us good, honest folk that, for global warming to exist, it should be hot all year round.

It probably doesn't help when national newspapers describe a few centimetres of snow and some near- or slightly sub-freezing temperatures as 'extreme weather'. Especially when that self-same newspaper employs a chap whose opinions on climatology are, how shall we put it, confused?

It's February, it's Britain, it's quite chilly, and it's quite snowy. It tells us nothing, except that the sensationalist media love sensationalism, confused theory-deniers love denying theories confusedly, and that lots of people love moaning about the weather. Just get your sledge out and enjoy it, for peat's sake!

London 2012: Isles of Wonder

2012-02-07T16:36:00.001Z

The opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics is to be themed 'Isles of Wonder', according to artistic director Danny Boyle:

BBC News | Isles of Wonder theme for Olympic ceremony

I like Mr Boyle's work very much, so I am sure it is going to be great. If, however, he is still in need of a really top-drawer beginning, my Shane MacGowan idea is still available.

Just drop me a line Danny and, for a packet of chocolate buttons and a walk-on role for me, it's all yours. You can even develop it into a ceremony lasting longer than four minutes, if you wish.

Saniflo TV commercial 2012

2012-02-07T14:10:00.001Z

So a badly-dubbed plumber turns up to a woman's house and before she can stop him, he starts clicking his fingers and turning every room in the house into a toilet.

Saniflo television advert 2012

"What's that, missus?" he grins. "Don't like this utility room and its boring old ironing board?"

"Erm, well, erm, I'm not sure. I do use it sometimes, though I wouldn't mind a downstairs bathroom..."

"That's sorted then," he beams, clicking his fingers. The ironing board his gone. In its place, a shiny new bathroom.

Delighted with his work, off he marches upstairs, and into her bedroom.

"You didn't want any of these old clothes, did you?" smiles the maniac. "No, I thought not. What you wanted was... another bathroom!"

And before she can stop him, he clicks his fingers again. Another bathroom appears.

"Oh, erm, I did need some of those clothes for work tomorrow, but it does look quite nice. You can never have too many bathrooms, I suppose," she half-laughs to herself.

"Quite right," says the simpleton, still gurning like an X Factor contestant. "You can have toilets everywhere!"

"Even in the basement?" she asks, wondering if her family will mind that she has swapped every single one of their belongings for plumbed-in ceramic fixtures.

Oh yes, even in the basement, comes the subliminal reply. With a click of her own fingers, both the plumber and the bicycles are gone, never to be seen again.

An hour later, and every space in the house is plumbed in.

Saniflo - Who Needs Beds or Bikes or Baking Facilities When You've Got Bathrooms?

Megabus in Doncaster

2012-01-29T21:09:00.002Z

On the outward journey, we stopped at a set of traffic lights on the outskirts of the town. A sign in front of us said:

Doncaster - the journey starts here

Processing Food Chain

By-products

Coming back, we stopped at the bus station, where a spud-faced youth with a bull terrier stood in an archway. I glanced across at him, and he gurned imbecilically at me before giving me a single-fingered salute.

Perhaps for these reasons, the town's tourist figures are on the increase.

Doncaster by bus

Trilobites!

2012-01-26T21:40:00.001Z

If you are interested in trilobites, that most successful and fascinating class of Palaeozoic arthropod, I heartily recommend visiting Sam Gon's website: www.trilobites.info

Trilobites - well-worth keeping an eye on.

And if you're looking for a really excellent guide to the group, click on the link on the front page and shell out a measly $6 (£3.95) to download Sam's pdf. With clear diagrams, wonderful pictures, and fascinating text, you won't be disappointed.

Countdown - the Series 65 finals

2012-01-25T23:23:00.002Z

So, with Jeff Stelling departing the show to focus on football, Nick Hewer is the new host of Countdown. He's definitely a surprise appointment, and, watching his debut, it was strange seeing someone spiky rather than avuncular in the hotseat. I can't say I enjoyed it, but it's early doors, so let's give the man a chance and see how he gets on.

In the mean time, let's rewind the Countdown clock somewhat, and see how I got on in virtual competition with the series 65 finalists. I have to say I was disappointed not to make it through, especially as it was Jeff''s finale, but (as you will see) I wouldn't have progressed very far. Nonetheless, it was fun to test myself against everyone else in the quarter-finals.

This is how I fared...

Quarter-final 1 - David Butcher (8) vs Mark Deeks (1).

Mark would have thumped me: the only times I got a longer word than him were with 'betaken' in round 3, and 'rewire' in round 12. I did better against David, though, and am fairly sure my scores would have beaten his. Result - Lost to No. 1, beat No. 8.

Quarter-final 2 - Nikki Roberts (7) vs Graeme Cole (2)

Graeme would have thumped me (again) even more thumpingly than Mark. I only beat him on round 2, when his bongoes were disallowed. Nikki would probably have defeated me too, but at least it would have been closer. Result - Lost to No. 2, lost to No. 7.

Quarter-final 3 - Paul Keane (3) vs Dave Taylor (6)

I didn't see the polentas in round 1, but I was elegant in round 7, and managed to modernise in round 12. By my noddy calculations, come conundrum time, I was just behind Paul (89-97), and well clear of Dave (89-68). That's good enough for me. Result - Lost to No. 3, beat No. 6.

Quarter-final 4 - Jayne Wisniewski (4) vs Carl Williams (5)

This was a toughie. Carl would have beaten me thanks to his numbers games (I should really practice them some time), but I was glad to get pauses in round 7, and spot a coquina in round 9 (I knew my marine palaeoecology training would come in handy one day). As for Jayne, it's hard to say - I think we'd have been pretty much neck and neck. Result - Lost to No. 5, equal with No. 4.

So after playing along to all four matches, and never beating both contestants, I could relax in the knowledge that I only missed out on one more game. From a purely personal perspective, however, I was pleased to see Graeme emerge victorious in the final. Knowing I lost only to the eventual series champion is something to cling on to.

So, that's that for Countdown from me. It was great fun going on the show, and I would heartily recommend sending off an application if you're interested. If you're not quite sure, here is some (additional) insider information that might be of use:

Official guidelines

1. "we get complaints for no “pleases” and complaints for too many!"

What kind of loon writes a letter of complaint to a television quiz show about its contestants saying please too often? Hmm, actually, don't answer that.

2. "viewers are not impressed by clever dicks."

I think you'll find they are. Countdown is a gameshow for clever dicks after all.

3. "When clapping, please just pretend to do so."

"That was a very feeble clap," texts my friend Kate, when I first appear on the show, so I explain this to her.

4. "One last thing is pronunciation of the word ‘consonant’. In the past anything from ‘continent’. ‘condiment’ to ‘constanant’ has been used, much to the irritation of millions of viewers. Please try to say ‘consonant’ as clearly as possible."

Five condiments and four bowels, please. I think I may have gotten carried away with a fear of saying this, so I over-enunciated consonant, especially the final T. As a consequence, Kate texts again to say I sound very posh, as I weren't speakin' proper Lestoh.

5. "The make-up department will not... give you a shampoo and set."

No wonder I looked so bedraggled.

My slightly modified rules on word eligibility:

I. "there are particular types of mass nouns that can take a plural under certain circumstances, such as venom and butane."

II. "Made-up words that sound like they should be words are also acceptable, such as beration, benefficient*, and micier."

With all this insider information, perhaps coupled with a few practice matches on Apterous, you'll be a sure-fire Countdown champ. Who knows, you might even get a smile out of Mr Hewer?

*I used 'benefficient' in an A-Level maths project in the early 1990s, but my teacher, Mr Atter, wouldn't have it. I still think if something is efficient and beneficial, it should be benefficient. Maybe one day it will make it into the OED.

The most over-rated acts in pop music

2012-01-16T22:47:00.000Z

There are plenty of recording artists I hate, plenty of truly dreadful groups and soloists out there in music-land, but they're so bad that anyone with functioning ears can recognize them. Bands like Stickelback and The Tweeling and The Tragic Slumbers were clearly just invented by record company execs who knew that people with no palpable taste in music would lap up their vapid offerings.

Far more problematical are those acts who get raved about by people with generally good taste in music, but who are actually rather rubbish.

1. Paul McCartney

The prime example of my case study. The two genuinely talented, innovative and interesting Beatles are dead, so McCartney is able to milk the band's legacy unchallenged. And how his sycophantic fan base lap it up. One ridiculous poll named him "The Greatest Composer of the Millennium".

This is despite musical crime after musical crime. From Ob-la-di, ob-la-da to Mull of Kintyre, Silly Love Songs to We All Stand Together, the songs he's spewed out have been almost unremittingly twee, dull and dreadful. Occasionally he produces something fantastic, like Live & Let Die, but mostly he doesn't. Quite how he continues to be idolized is beyond me.

He even manages to ruin Live & Let Die with a pompous intro

2. Marc Bolan

Hot Love, Get It On, Jeepster, Telegram Sam, Metal Guru: all the songs of T. Rex are the same. Devotees claim that Bolan's death robbed us of one of the icons of rock music, someone who was already a star, and would have gone on to become a music legend. This is utter piffle, and his recorded material gives no evidence this would have happened. The first T Rex single, Ride A White Swan, was issued in 1970, and Bolan died in 1977. This means he had 7 years to develop in new and sonically interesting directions, and he simply didn't do it. Rather like Donovan, he thought he was amazing, but he was just derivative.

Compare this with David Bowie, who in the same 7 year interval went from Space Oddity to Hunky Dory to Ziggy Stardust to Aladdin Sane to Diamond Dogs to Young Americans to Low to Heroes. Watching a recent Top of the Pops re-run from the 70s, the comparison becomes even more stark. Bowie is bewitching, and continues to be so to this day. Bolan has no real charisma, and his songs are really not much cop.

Magical music by a real star man

3. Foo Fighters

I like Nirvana, I like Dave Grohl, and I want to like Foo Fighters. Unfortunately, every song I've ever heard of theirs is just insipid. They get lauded by the music press, yet they just produce rawk of a mediocre calibre. A far less-lauded and infinitely more praiseworthy outfit are their contemporaries, eels, one track of whose is worth the entire Foo Fighters back catalogue.

eels - Last Stop: This Town.

4. Red Hot Chilli Peppers

In a similar vein to number 3, RHCP are inexplicably massive, despite producing mostly middling music. The Pixies are approximately eight million times better.

Where is my mind, if I think the chilli peppers are red hot?

5. The Hollies

The Sixties were good, but they weren't that good. Though I love Brian Matthew, listening to his show makes this abundantly clear. Still, many of the bands he plays never made it big, and at least deserve a second listen, decades later.

The Hollies, however, are the opposite. They made it big, they've been played for decades, and they deserve no further listening. Their songs are anodyne or asinine; records like Bus Stop, Carrie-Anne, and On A Carousel sound like they were written by whiny, lovestruck schoolboys. They were the Keane of the 1960s.

Give them a miss. Play the Kinks or the Animals or even the Troggs instead.

6. Elbow.

I want to love Elbow's music, I really do. They seem like a great bunch of guys, they make music for themselves, and I saw them live at the Connect festival a couple of years ago, and they were very engaging. Problem is, they've only produced a single great song.

Only one song like this.

7. Bob Marley

The greatest reggae star there has ever been, or probably ever will be. An icon to millions of people across the world. A man who died tragically young. And sadly, a chap whose tunes are beloved by too many white, British middle class wannabes with spliffs and acoustic guitars. He wrote some decent tunes, but after hearing about three of them, I begin to switch off.

The secret life of starfish

2012-01-15T23:32:00.001Z

Inevery sea, in every ocean,

Beastsof freakish locomotion

Prowlthe substrate, seeking prey

Tofeast on in a monstrous way.

Dinneris served. On a plate before you, a delicious roast chicken. Thebird, however, is larger than your head and you have no hands orteeth you can break it up with, let alone a knife and fork to use. How are you going to eat it? Are you going to push one half of yourstomach out through your mouth, smothering the chicken in digestivejuices to dissolve it, then haul your stomach back into place,slurping up the nutritious broth as you go? No? Well you'reobviously not a starfish then.

Larval stages and anatomical structure of a starfish (by Ernst Haeckel, 1904)

Membersof the class Asteroidea, to give them their proper name, are amongthe most familiar of all sea creatures, the five-fingered favouritesof many a seaside publicity brochure. Yet even a cursoryinvestigation of their biology, ecology and evolutionary historyreveals the familiarity to be a deception. These icons of theintertidal are about as strange as life on Earth gets.

If theirfeeding habits weren't weird enough, asteroids have a skeleton madeof crystals, possess extraordinary powers of regeneration, and movearound on a system of tiny hydraulic tentacles. And they don't evenhave a brain.

Whatthey do have is membership of an exclusive club: the Echinodermata,or "hedgehog-skins". If you've ever seen footage ofcrown-of-thorns sea stars chomping their way across the Great BarrierReef, you'll know how they get their name.

The crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci

Echinoderms aren't justspiny, though. They also share a fondness for the number five: thefive living groups (starfish, sea urchins, sea lilies, brittle starsand sea cucumbers) all have five-fold body symmetry. Sea lilies canhave scores of feathery arms, but always in multiples of five, andthough sea cucumbers and some sea urchins are at first glancebilaterally symmetrical, the quintupled body segments are still thereif you know where to look.

This pentametry is unique in the animalkingdom, though five hasn't always been the magic number. There wereno starfish, sea urchins or brittle stars in the Cambrian, but theirrelatives were plentiful, and whilst most looked pretty familiar,there were some with only three-fold symmetry, and some withoutsymmetry at all. For reasons unclear, though, only the pentametristspersisted.

Athird feature that links all echinoderms is the structure of theirskeleton. In sea urchins the elements, or ossicles ('little bones'),have fused to form a rigid shell known as a test. In sea cucumbersthey are often reduced to microscopic specks in a gelatinous bag ofsoft tissue.

Sea cucumber: not good in salad.

All, however, are formed of the mineral calcite with auniquely porous structure, called stereom. Optically, each ossicle functions like a single crystal, so somebrittle stars – echinoderms with rigid, disc-shaped bodies andwrithing, snake-like arms – can literally see through their skin,whilst there are sea urchins that can peer through their spines.

Theimage resolution of each ossicle may not be of the highest quality –biologist Adam Summers likens it to ‘lookingthrough a peephole covered with tissue paper’ – but the compoundeffect at least enables the echinoderm todistinguish dangerous daylight from the cover of darkness. Inavoiding predation, every little bit helps, though it must makeechinoderm optometry a complicated business.

Notas optical as a brittle star’s, nor as flexible as a seacucumber’s, an asteroid body consists of myriad tiny ossicles heldtogether by collagen and other soft tissues. The preservationpotential of the average dead starfish is therefore about that of thecake left out in the MacArthur Park rain*, but they do getfossilized. Indeed, thanks to the intermittent benevolence of thefossil record, we know that asteroids have been shuffling about theoceans for just shy of half a billion years.

Riedaster reicheli, from the Jurassic of Germany.

Forthe first 70-odd million of these, starfish were small andfive-rayed, rarely much larger than a strawberry, but around 425million years ago, in the Silurian period of geological time,something changed. One of the most catastrophic mass extinctions inEarth history had occurred at the end of the preceding geologicalperiod, the Ordovician, when an estimated 86% of marine speciesdisappeared.

It wasn’t the end of the world, though, and theSilurian survivors had room to experiment. It seems starfish seizedthe opportunity. Long-armed asteroids appeared, and reallyshort-rayed forms more biscuit than animal, but most bizarre of allwas the evolution of species that broke the five arm mould.

Thefirst of these deviants was discovered in 1850 by the Manx naturalistEdward Forbes, in the Much Wenlock Limestone Formation of the Welshborderlands. With its wide body an explosion of bony shards and itsarms like corns-on-the-cob, Gray's scaly star (Lepidastergrayi)was defiantly at odds with its contemporaries.

Corn on the cob arms and an explosive body: Gray's scaly star (Lepidaster grayi) from the Silurian of England.

It wasn't just thearms' appearance either, it was their number. Not a quintet, nor asextet, or even a septet. No, Lepidasterhad thirteen. As author-illustrator of the definitive British guide,Forbes knew his living starfish, but this fossil baffled him. Atfirst it reminded him of the common sun star Crossasterpapposus,individuals of which often have 13 arms, but Forbes began to have hisdoubts. Was this palæontological oddball even a starfish at all? Could it be the missing link between starfish and sea lilies, theirmany-armed cousins?

Sadly,Edward Forbes died before he'd resolved the mystery, and Gray's scalystar drifted into obscurity. More then 60 years passed before anyoneexamined it properly again. The scientist who finally took up thechallenge was William Kingdon Spencer.

A school inspector whoclaimed to make the best omelettes in England, Spencer was fascinatedby fossil starfish, and, on the cusp of the Great War, began amonograph that would take another half-century to be publishedcompletely. He'd be dead by then, too, but only after he’d broughtprimæval asteroids to life.

Not made by W. K. Spencer.

Spencer was able to prove Lepidasterwas a starfish, his detective work turning up some exquisitelypreserved specimens unknown to Forbes. What he couldn't figure outwas why the fossils always seemed to be found upside-down. HadGray's scaly star flipped itself over and taken to living with itsmouth pointed towards the surface, its extra arms helping to gatherwhatever morsels of food drifted its way? It was an unprecedentedconcept, but then so was the starfish.

Inthe end, Spencer’s hypothesis gained no followers. Palæontologistsare fairly parsimonious, and there was no compelling evidence thatGray's scaly star hadn't functioned like living forms, with arms forlocomotion and its mouth against the substrate.

The broader puzzleremained, though, of why a lineage of starfish ended up with not oneor two extra arms, but eight. Then a second triskaidekaphile turnedup, in slightly younger rocks from Australia, and the waters weremuddied further. Among Silurian starfish, 13 was clearly lucky forsome, but how had they evolved?

Supernumerary, but super?

Todecode this enigma, we need to look at modern bodies. Bilaterallysymmetrical humans acquiring a third copy of everything would bepretty freaky – Anextra eye in your forehead, sir? A third arm protruding from yourrib cage, madam?– but multiradiate starfish are common at the present day. So ifthe biological present is the key to the palæontological past,living asteroids can help us unlock the mysteries of their ancientancestors.

Havingmany extra arms might seem to undermine the hypothesis that five-foldbody symmetry is a defining characteristic of living echinoderms. Indeed, in his book ClimbingMount Improbable,Richard Dawkins argued just that. Marine biologist andpalæontologist Fred Hotchkiss, however, has demonstrated that evenmultiradiate mutants begin life with five body segments, adding extrarays later in development. As a result of his work, it is nowgenerally accepted that living echinoderms have five-part bodysubdivision programmed into them at a basic level, even if it getsobscured subsequently. So why do only some starfish go strange?

Itmight be a corruption of their regenerative powers. Imagine you lostyour arm in an accident, and it grew back. You'd be pretty pleased. But imagine how you'd feel if not only your arm reappeared, but yoursevered arm grew a whole new you. Suddenly you'd be a twin.

Iwouldn't recommend trying it, but many starfish can do exactly this:sacrificing a limb they'll grow back later, and in some species,reproducing themselves from a cast-off. With tiny new rays buddingfrom a nucleus, and a streaming one-armed 'tail', such asteroids areknown colloquially as comets.

Regeneration is another echinodermeccentricity, taken to the greatest extreme by the sea cucumbers. When faced with a potential predator, these garish mobile sausagescan self-eviscerate, spewing out all their internal organs beforewriggling off to grow them back in safety.

Regenerating rays in the sunflower star Pycnopodia helianthoides.

It’s a long way fromcertain, but multiradiate mutants might just be starfish that addedextra arms without having lost any in the first place. Switch a geneon at a different point in development and five rays might becomesix, seven, thirteen, or even fifty, the record set by the Antarcticsun star Labidiasterannulatus.

Thenext question that arises is: does having extra arms help? If theratio of body size to arm length is kept consistent, but eight extraarms are added, the volume (or biomass) of a multiradiate starfish isroughly double that of a 'normal' form. This means a marked increasein the energy required to keep the animal functioning.

If you needmore food, there are two ways you can go about getting it. You canout-muscle your competitors for existing food sources, or you canstart exploiting new ones. Many starfish with supernumerary raysseem to have taken the latter course of action, from consuming coral,to eating other echinoderms, even to scoffing fellow starfish. Perhaps Gray’s scaly star was the pioneer. With its mouth in themiddle of a much larger and more flexible body than that of itscontemporaries, it would certainly have been capable of doingsomething different.

My,grandma starfish, what a lot of arms you have!

Allthe better for grabbing you with!

Whygrandma starfish, what a flexible mouth you have!

Allthe better for extruding my stomach and smothering you with!

Pisaster ochraceus tries to pull a mussel.

Itwon't come from the sky, but, if you are a coastal fisherman, thethreat of an asteroid impact is very real. Oyster- (and mussel-)slurping starfish are a nightmare for most commercial shellfishharvesters. The sucker-covered rays wrap round the shells of theoyster and exert an opposing force to pull them apart.

Oysters canpull their shells together incredibly tightly, but starfish suctionneeds only to outlast the muscle power of its opponent. Once thebivalve tires and its shells part ever-so-slightly, the asteroid haswon. Its stomach can squeeze through the sliver of an opening andliquefy the shellfish inside.

It is said, perhaps apocryphally, thatfishermen used to solve this problem by dredging up the starfish,chopping them in half with a knife, and then chucking the bodies backinto the sea. They didn't know, of course, that this was simplyhelping their opponents double their numbers.

Oystermen in theeastern US thus developed alternative strategies to keep their bedsasteroid-free: wagon-loads of starfish were carried off for use asfarm fertilizer, or the pests were mopped up from the seabed withspecial cotton-tipped poles and boiled alive in on-board pots. Asteroids may have many abilities, but they aren't invulnerable.

Don'twrite asteroids off as a soft touch, though, certainly not if you'rea small sea creature. The surface of various starfish is covered byunpronounceable weapons called pedicellariæ. These snapping pincersare so independently minded that they were thought by many earlyresearchers to be separate organisms entirely, rather than part ofthe asteroid.

Pedicellariae of a sea urchin (from the Natural History Museum website)

They resemble miniature tulips, but pedicellariæ arecertainly not flowery. The valves bite at anything that touchesthem, deterring small organisms and parasites from setting up home orhitching a ride, sometimes with a dash of poison as extradiscouragement. In one species – the velcro star Stylasteriasforreri– this has evolved to the level of lazy but very sophisticatedpredation.

Grabbing hold of fish that mistake the asteroid for arather spiky rock, the pedicellariæ skewer the stricken animal and,like rock fans moving a crowd-surfer, pass it across the surface ofthe starfish and round to the jaws.

Perhaps you might like to tryyour own version of this next time you feel a bit peckish whilesunbathing on the beach? Part-conceal yourself face-down in the sandand train the hairs on your back to catch unwary gulls and deliverthem to your mouth. It’ll save you a walk to the fried chickenvendor on the promenade.

Andsince we've come full circle, re-imagine before you the dinner Ibegan with. If you're thinking that a bird-eating starfish is a bitpreposterous, I offer you this. In the early 1980s, scientists inBritish Columbia were studying the dietary preferences of the Pacificsunflower star, Pycnopodiahelianthoides.

With 24 arms and a body up to a metre wide, this is a sea starsupernova. Not only is Pycnopodiabig, it's also fast and flexible, having almost nothing in the way ofa skeleton to slow it down. This enables it to scuttle over theseabed at speeds of up to ten feet a minute, chasing down crabs,hoovering up sand dollars and panicking molluscs into taking upswimming. Some escape, but many don't; one sunflower star was foundwith 110 individuals of the orb clam Diplodontain its stomach.

Impressiveas it was, however, this gluttony soon paled into comparison, foranother Pycnopodiawas caught in the act of consuming an alcid, a member of the birdfamily that includes puffins and guillemots. The sunflower starmoves relatively fast, but how could it have captured a nimble divingseabird?

Had the starfish lain in wait till one came within reach,then reared up off the seabed, stretching its suckered arms auk-wardand grappling it into submission? Sadly not. It was apparently justscavenging a carcass it had come across. Nonetheless, if you do findyourself on the Pacific coast, you might want to keep any smallanimals you own away from the water. There's no predicting whatstarfish might master next.

(An earlier version of this article was published in Deposits Magazine.)

*Ifyou’ve never listened to Richard Harris’s epic take onpsychedelic pop, I suggest you remedy that oversight soon.

A shale gas/boxing joke

2012-01-13T13:01:00.000Z

Q. Why do organic-rich mudstones and Muhammad Ali have in common?

A. Both used to be gaseous clay.

[Please note that although I thought this joke highly original, many others have apparently used the term already, such as Viz, MTV, and a musical outfit named Boomish.

Please also note that one of the biggest shale gas plays in the world is the Marcellus Formation, in the Appalachians. And what perchance, was Muhammad Ali's original middle name? Why, it was Marcellus!]

It's a cracker!

2012-01-09T09:48:00.004Z

(Re-posted from the excellent Angry People In Local Newspapers blog.)

A Stafford family apparently had their Christmas "wrecked" thanks to an out-of-date quiz question inside a cracker. For once, the the posts in the comments section are more reasonable than the story.

As the article manages to include ruined, offensive, destroyed, insensitive, devastating, tasteless, atrocities, shocked, dreadful, disturbed, and inappropriate, we can only assume that either the family or the journalist got a thesaurus in their stocking.

Gent of Leicester

2012-01-06T13:58:00.001Z

Though he died almost 16 years ago, I see my paternal grandfather nearly every day. I'm not turning supernatural, even in Britain's 'most haunted city'. It's simply that I'm often in York railway station, and when I check the clocks there, I go time-travelling.

York railway station, 26th May 1958.

Grandpa was a lovely man, who I remember with great fondness, but he died before I was old enough to know him properly. There are lots of things I'd like to ask him about his life, but I can't.

One thing I do know, though, is that he was a charge-hand at Gent and Co. in Leicester. A charge-hand was a workman responsible for supervising a particular piece of work, normally a grade below that of foreman.

As for the business itself, Gent and Co. was founded in the 1870s by John Thomas Gent. The company first produced heat detectors and call systems, but by the early 20th century had moved into manufacturing clocks.

They soon built up a reputation as builders of high-quality time-pieces, particularly master clocks for the telecommunications network and the railway system. As York was one of the hubs of the British railway network, precision horology was required, and Gent's stepped up to the plate.

Main clock outside York railway station (Made in Le'ster, apparently).

Gent developed two time-keeping systems that were apparently revolutionary: the Pul-syn-etic and Waiting Train systems. I'm not enough of a technically minded soul to understand their full significance, but if you are technically minded, click the links for further info.

By my reckoning, York station has five Gent's clocks in total. The main one outside the station (above) is the grandest, whilst at least two of them are Pul-syn-etic:

The Gent Pulsynetic clock on the main concourse at York railway station, above W. H. Smith's.

One of them (below) is rather less grand than the others, but its condition doesn't worry me unduly. The fact the clocks are still there and still working is testament to the quality of Gent's workmanship.

The rather grubby clock on platform 6.

Grandpa knew how to repair watches, but I'm not sure if he actually worked in the time-keeping department. It doesn't matter. Every time I visit the station I see the giant time-pieces and think of him, and smile.

These will always be my grandfather clocks.

P.S. Having written all this, I have suddenly remembered the first destination I visited by train after moving to York. The Belgian town of... Gent.

P.P.S. Doreen Deacon wrote a rather lovely recollection of working for Gent & Co in their Kibworth factory, which you can read here.

The Daily Mail - igneous ignorance and non-science nonsense

2012-01-03T00:45:00.002Z

"Is a super-volcano just 390 miles from London about to erupt?" trembles a new article on the Daily Mail website. I was unaware of any super-volcanoes in such close proximity to the offices of Paul Dacre's rabid mouth-piece, so was most intrigued, and gave it a read.

The piece, written by a chap called Ted Thornhill, names the dormant super-volcano as the Laacher See, not far from Koblenz, in Germany. It is known to have erupted spectacularly about 13,000 years ago (Schmitt et al. 2010).

I assumed that Thornhill was publicizing some amazing or controversial new data showing the Laacher See was about to blow its top again. The scale of the last eruption was certainly pretty enormous, so such findings would be very interesting.

The Laacher See

Instead, and to my almost complete non-shock given the organ publishing his work, Thornhill's piece is absolutely vacuous. No new data whatsoever is cited; not even a single scientific study of the area's volcanic activity. In classic newspaper-speak, Thornhill simply refers to 'experts' and 'volcanologists', without naming a single one. Comparing his text on the Laacher See with that of a well-known free online encyclopaedia, it would seem Thornhill's expertise comes from those reliable sources, Mr Ian Ternet, and Dr Worldwi Dweb.

I don't want to get excessively annoyed by it, but it's maddening. Yet again, a huge media organization is printing 'scientific' articles that are nothing of the sort. Thornhill's piece is, quite simply, bollocks. If you don't believe me, read the blog post on Wired by volcanologist Erik Klemetti.

So where does the story come from? Did Thornhill just stumble across the Wikipedia entry, chew it up briefly, and then spit it out again? Or is he being guided by mysterious forces we mortals don't know about?

FOOTNOTE - I wonder if this doom-laden website is in any way connected to the article?

Happy New York!

2012-01-03T00:02:00.000Z

We live here:

We also live here:

It being the end of 2011, therefore, we decided to mash everything together into a New York New Year party. It was a bit random and last-minute, but having plenty of North American friends here in North Yorkshire, a bit of cultural fusion seemed like a fun thing to try.

Neither of us having been to New York (excluding the fact I once waited for a connection in Newark airport), we were fortunate to have with us a stylish gentleman who recently had. He furnished us with a model of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building, and a ghostly postcard of the New York city skyline.

We advised our guests we'd be making New York drinks, Yorkshire-style, which meant Manhattan and Cosmopolitan cocktails mixed in a Thermos, poured through a tea-strainer, and served in mugs. For food, we suggested they bring cheesecake, and one of our friends did just that:

Icing, fruit cake, cheddar: a new York cheesecake

I also thought we should offer a prize to the person bringing the biggest apple with them, but then forgot to tell anyone. I was too distracted by the challenge of putting together a mixed York-New York playlist.

Whilst the city that never sleeps possesses rock icons and songs galore, Jorvik hasn't contributed very much to the world of sonic entertainment. The late, great John Barry was born here (and, rather appositely, died in New York), and the band Shed Seven also calls it home, but that was about as far as I got. It wasn't a balanced playlist, though I did enjoy stumbling upon this:

And with that, and lots of lovely friends, Yorkers and New Yorkers alike, we were able to celebrate a very Happy New Yea-ork. Here's to 2012!

Ammonite eggs and dragonfly wings: the amazing fossils of Kimmeridge Bay

2011-12-26T23:42:00.000Z

Attempting palaeontological fieldwork in December is foolish, but the mildness of southern Britain fools you. So you head down to Dorset, and Kimmeridge Bay, hoping to rediscover the trace fossils you first saw in the summer of 2009:

Rhizocorallium, Kimmeridge Clay, Kimmeridge Bay.

The weather turns out to be surprisingly kind, but the waves of an Atlantic swell combine with a less-than-ideal tide, and the only people enjoying themselves are surfers.

Surfers clamber back towards Kimmeridge Bay.

We abandon Kimmeridge for a few days, and head to Plymouth for the annual meeting of the Palaeontological Association. There we learn that, if we can't get at the right rocks, we should go into Kimmeridge itself, and seek out a chap called Steve Etches. He collects Kimmeridgian fossils, we're told.

So upon returning to Purbeck when the axial tilt of our planet's polar hemisphere was almost at its farthest point away from the star that it orbits, and finding that coastal conditions were only slightly more favourable for trace-fossilling, we took the advice of our colleagues.

Kimmeridge Bay, December 2011

After a tasty lunch in Clavell's Cafe, where I missed a chance to drink Jurassic Juice, we went off to find Mr Etches, whose fossil collection was supposed to be impressive. We were a bit early arriving, but he welcomed us in regardless, and led us through to his fossil room.

We'd been misled. Steve's fossil collection was not impressive. It was extraordinary. Spectacular. Staggering.

Steve didn't have many trace fossils, but we quickly forgot about ichnotaxa when we saw the astounding array of Jurassic body fossils he possessed. A ray with its soft tissues. Squid preserved three-dimensionally, internal organs and all. A complete ichthyosaur with its last dinner still visible in its stomach. The skull of a pterosaur.

For me, the invertebrate oddities were just as amazing. Crustaceans fossilized inside ammonite shells, hinting at hermit-like behaviour in the late Jurassic; the eggs of the ammonites themselves, which Steve said many scientists had refused to believe could have been preserved; the solitary wing of a dragonfly.

Ammonite eggs and dragonfly wings: sounds like a Jurassic witch's recipe. But if the fossils were astonishing, the work Steve had put into collecting, preparing and displaying them was amazing too. The specimens were so beautifully shown as to look almost unreal. It was like gazing on works of art, and photographs simply couldn't do them justice.

A fossilized starfish photographed unjustly

Luckily, then, there has been a recent scientific appraisal of the collection, by Dave Martill, which includes lots of excellent photos. It can be downloaded here, and is part of a thoroughly worthy project to utilize Steve's superb collection to create a Museum of Jurassic Marine Life in Kimmeridge.

If it gets the funding it needs, the museum will enable people from all walks of life, palaeontological and otherwise, to come and marvel at the creatures that inhabited the seas of Dorset over 150 million years ago, and to pay homage to the man who brought them back to life. I hope to be back in Kimmeridge in the spring to find out more.

Flogging a dead Morse

2011-12-26T16:09:00.001Z

I watched the new ITV show, Endeavour, and quite enjoyed it (even if the John-Thaw-in-the-rear-view-mirror ending was rather crass). However, I can't resist the opportunity to use the above joke to describe its premise.

Showing no remorse.

Is no-one able to come up with new television concepts any more?

When white whales wandered White Rose waterways

2011-12-12T14:58:00.003Z

From 'Yorkshire's Whaling Days' by Jack Dykes (1980):

"Before the Humber became heavily polluted, the smaller whales...penetrated high upstream. In 1905, a beluga was captured in the Ouse near Naburn Lock, a few miles from York."

The beluga, or white whale (Delphinapterus leucas)

I have cycled over the Ouse at Naburn many times. The notion of seeing a beluga there is almost too wonderful to imagine.

Kirkdale: where Orm's stones meet Buckland's bones

2011-12-04T20:48:00.001Z

The great problem with British history is that there's so much of it. Every corner of the country has sites of great antiquity or cultural significance. There are so many that it's impossible to keep track of them, and localities that would be lauded in North America are barely known about in the UK.

Take Kirkdale, along Hodge Beck near Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire. As a palaeontologist, I knew about its cave, a fissure in the Corallian Oolite found by quarrymen in the early 19th century, which yielded the extraordinary bones that William Buckland used to make a dog's dinner. I had to go there.

The Ipswichian haunt of hippo-hunting hyaenas

However, in visiting Kirkdale this weekend, I discovered that - just a brief stroll from this fossiliferous treasure trove - there is another equally remarkable place, one that seems to get barely any attention at all.

A Grade 1 listed Saxon church, St Gregory's Minster is a curiously higgledy-piggledy construction of quirky charm, containing two tomb slabs thought to date from the 8th or 9th century. The minster has certainly served Kirkdale for nigh on a thousand years. Yet on the OS Explorer map of the North Yorks Moors it isn't deemed worthy of naming, nor was it mentioned on our road atlas, whilst its Wikipedia entry is extremely brief.

St Gregory's Minster.

If you stumble upon it on a sunny December Saturday, as we did, you might find it deserted, with just an elderly man sweeping the path with a broom. Tread carefully past him, or maybe take a circuit of the minster churchyard to avoid him; then step into the porch. There you will find its most extraordinary feature: Orm Gamalson's sundial.

The sundial of Orm

As a structure alone, it is wonderful, but what really grabbed me was the language of its inscription. Rather than the flowery foreign tongues of most ecclesiastical dedications, this one was written in an Anglo-Scandinavian I could almost understand:

Orm Gamal suna bohte Sanctus Gregorius minster ðonne hit wæs æl tobrocan and tofalan, and he hit let macan newan from grunde Christe et Sancti Gregori, in Eadward dagum cuning, in Tosti dagum eorl.

Or

"Orm Gamalson bought St Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen down, and he has made it anew from the ground for Christ and St Gregory in the days of King Edward and the days of Earl Tostig."

Tostig Godwinson was Earl of Northumbria between 1055 and 1065, so that gives a pretty precise date to Orm's work, and to see familiar written words from nearly a millennium ago is fabulous. The inside of the minster is rather fabulous too.

Cobwebbed brass inside the minster

But don't tell anyone. Kirkdale will only start getting visitors who'll be able to find out about science, religion, geology and history in one tiny corner of northern England, and then where would we be?

Artificial Intelligence

2011-12-01T22:17:00.001Z

After attending a very interesting class this evening, I asked three artificial intelligence websites the following question:

"How do we know how old the Earth is?"

In response, Cleverbot said We don't know what is not proven.

Elbot said, In view of the vastness of our universe I am struck by the inconsequence of human reason and the immeasurability of artificial intelligence.

And A.L.I.C.E. said, Just keep talking to me as long as you can.

As a consequence, I'm not sure if this means computers are very, very profound, or very, very stupid. If anyone with experience of AI could tell me, I'd be very pleased to hear from you.

The ears of Graham Rowntree

2011-11-30T18:28:00.001Z

I read in today's Grauniad that Graham Rowntree is likely to become one of the interim chiefs of the English national rugby side. The accompanying photograph reminded me of something I had forgotten: Mr Rowntree has the most magnificent ears in British sport. This can be seen quite well in the photograph below, taken by my dear father:

Should you need further evidence, however, I recommend pictures such as this one, this one, and this one.

Cricketers, croquet players, or just plain old rubbish footballers? The Bon Accord mystery

2011-11-22T12:57:00.001Z

This weekend, I published an article on Cricinfo about the strange, sporting double-record held by the city of Aberdeen. The first is the biggest winning margin in a one-day international, which was recorded there in 2008, when New Zealand hammered Ireland by 290 runs. The second is the Aberdonian team - Bon Accord - who suffered the heaviest defeat in professional football history when they lost 36-0 to Arbroath in 1885.

New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor smacks a boundary, Mannofield, Aberdeen, 2008

To ensure a cricketing theme throughout the piece, I stated baldly that Bon Accord were a cricket team (and that the name lives on in another - though sadly unrelated - cricket team, one I used to play for).

Shortly after the piece was published, however, two dissenting voices emerged, both arguing that my claim was 'bollocks'. Bon Accord were not a cricket team, I was told, and I had just perpetuated a myth that had no basis in fact. Being a stickler for accurate research, I was rather concerned as I began to read the opposing views.

Unfortunately for any hope of resolution, the two dissenting voices didn't agree. Indeed, they were fairly diametrically opposed to each other. One argued vehemently that Bon Accord were simply a rubbish football team, nothing more, nothing less, whilst the other claimed they were, in fact, a croquet team. Rather than being clearer, the picture was now rather muddier.

So, let's look at the three opposing theories:

1. Bon Accord were a cricket team

See, e.g. Mismatches like Bon Accord always recalled, by John Inverdale:

"The invitation back then should have been sent to Orion FC in Aberdeen, but in a heartening reminder that misdirected post is not an invention of the recent past, it was sent inadvertently to the Orion Cricket Club. Obviously eyeing a spot as a trivial pursuit question in perpetuity, they decided to accept the offer of an away trip to Arbroath, called themselves Bon Accord FC, and arrived without kit or, as history recounts, much talent."

Bon Accord: definitely a cricket team in 2008.

2. Bon Accord were simply a football team

This theory doesn't appear online anywhere that I could find. However, I was emailed a copy of some text from an ESPN On This Day In History article for September 12th (the day in 1885 that Arbroath beat Bon Accord):

"the myth persists that Bon Accord were really a cricket team called Orion who turned up by mistake. But they can't have been that stupid, and anyway they'd played [a previous] football match with Aberdeen Rovers."

3. Bon Accord were a croquet team

See Arbroath FC: A Miscellany by Fraser Clyne:

"Bon-Accord were not a cricket team: a combination of impenetrably broad doric, no doubt made worse by the fact that they had in one of their player's own words "teen a bucket on'a wye doon" and a poor command of French pronunciation, meant that they were misconstrued. The truth is that Aberdeen Bon-Accord were in fact a croquet team." (Link)

CONCLUSION

I'm afraid I don't have one. The argument that Bon Accord were a cricket team is widely published, and I haven't helped in this regard, but direct evidence seems to be missing. For the second theory, however, the argument is even flimsier.

The third story is crazy-sounding, so I really want it to be true, but is there really any evidence of a Bon Accord Croquet Club? I guess I will just have to speak to Mr Clyne.

And in the mean time, in the absence of anything definitive, I'm sticking to my guns.

Another Countdown joke

2011-11-03T22:51:00.001Z

[This is an excellent* joke that was composed by Chris Corby, a Countdown fan, and posted on the c4countdown website when I was on the show.]

A COUNTDOWN JOKE

I fancied some salad for tea so went into the greengrocers to buy all the stuff you have with it. There was a small queue there and shortly after that, I turned round and it was only Liam Herringshaw, who has currently put a run of wins together on Countdown.

Well it got to my turn and the assistant ignored me and went straight to Liam.

I said, "Oi! I was before him..."

But the assistant said, "Sorry, he's the current Countdown champion so he gets first pick of the lettuce.."

*Well I liked it.

The Fruity Organ

2011-11-01T11:22:00.001Z

Taking its euphemistic-sounding name from an REM b-side, The Fruity Organ was the finest* radio show of the late 20th and early 21st century. It was on BURN FM, the intermittently broadcasting student radio arm of the University of Birmingham.

If music be the food of love, do you fancy a banana?

Given the show's etymology, it was only appropriate that the Fruity Organ's finest feature was I Do Like To Be Beside The B-sides, which featured a theme tune sung as follows:

"Oh I do like to be beside the b-sides,
Oh I do like to be beside the bees,
Oh I do like to hear my favourite song, song, song,
As the cd plays tiddly-om-pom-pom**."

It was sung every week by the presenters of the show, who were me, Nerwyg Eel, T-Bray Walile, Jeff Herring, and sometimes through the magic of the ether, Dr Phil HallBallPhilipHall.

It will live long in the memory of all who heard it, especially those who managed to win themselves a Queen Mother calendar for the year 2000 and a Worlds Apart book, and those who managed to get themselves a job as a Kerrang news reader on the pretence that they'd once worked for us.

One day it might return...

*fine in the geological sense of being extremely small.
**Tiddly-Om-Pom-Pom is not only a lovely phrase, but also a lovely blog.

Sign in a cake shop window

2011-10-31T22:53:00.001Z

Ignoring the obvious grammatical error, this is a very odd thing for a cake shop to proclaim. Surely a successful business model would be founded upon predicting that people entering the shop already wanted cake? Stating baldly that they hadn't made any cakes because they didn't know a cake-wanting customer was going to arrive is naive at best, and fatal at worst.

It might explain why the shop was closed.

More deeply, I find the reference to the song disturbing. I had to endure it on a 1950s triple-cd that a friend of mine bought in a service station in Kent, and then played incessantly during a continental road-trip. It is twee and awful and lyrically baffling. To be reminded of its existence is not a good thing.

Bridge of (ortho)Don(tics)

2011-10-31T22:27:00.000Z

In Aberdeen last month I walked past a dental surgery. In its window, it had the following sign:

Prevent tooth decay - go the dentist
Prevent truth decay - go to the Bible

I decided not to make an appointment.

Misidentification of stromatolites at the Giant's Causeway

2011-10-31T12:02:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago, the BBC published a news story describing the discovery of a 'stromatolite colony' at the Giant's Causeway.

The Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

In my role as newsletter reporter for the Palaeontological Association, I posted the link to the News Feed of the association website. I have to confess I didn't peruse the story very closely: I thought the novelty of microbes in the news was sufficient to make it worth publicizing.

I didn't realize, however, that I would inadvertently generate controversy. Today I received an email telling me I had made 'a very serious mistake' and that if the identifier of the stromatolites had consulted the Algaebase they would have found many other (non-stromatolitic) types of cyanobacteria that would fit the description of the Giant's Causeway specimens.

I was also forwarded an email from an Emeritus Professor of Botany in Ireland, who stated that "[t]he picture in the report seems to show Nostoc colonies, something I have seen all over the Irish and British coasts and elsewhere." The professor added that species of Nostoc do not have a sediment-accreting function, and are therefore not stromatolites.

In this regard, I am happy to correct my error and state that there is, at the very least, serious doubt about the true occurrence of stromatolites on the Giant's Causeway. The link to the offending news article has been removed from the PalAss website.

Unequivocal stromatolite localities - such as the UNESCO World Heritage site in Shark Bay, Western Australia (pictured below) - are both rare and scientifically highly important. I apologize if I have inadvertently helped to undermine this.

Stromatolites forming in Shark Bay, Western Australia.

The Final Countdown (part two)

2011-10-30T23:08:00.000Z

(It's only taken me about 6 months to publish this, but better late than never, I suppose.)

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

It's a May Monday morning in Manchester. In the Granada TV studios, the resident Countdown warm-up man tries his best to turn things lively before the second show of the day. Unfortunately, the audience is tiny, and the routine tired.

"Is Ted Robbins available?" asks the floor manager, with just a hint of despair.

He isn't, so the bargain basement banter continues. Adam Crozier is a lemon, we learn, and then - having so few people in the audience to work with - he turns his attentions to me, and jokes about the pointlessness of a palaeontologist. Coming from the warm-up man for a daytime quiz show, I wonder if this is ironic.

And then Graeme Cole, my sixth opponent, enters the studio.

"Thank God it's not Graham Cole," says someone on the floor. "He was the most boring Dictionary Corner guest we've ever had."

Following Graeme is the current Dictionary Corner incumbent, Shobna Gulati of Coronation Street fame. My Coro-loving friends in Newfoundland will be very jealous.

Countdown morning sunshine from a Manchester hotel room.

I knew I would lose to Graeme as soon as I met him. He was a proper Countdown player, a dedicated Apterite, whereas I was just a fly-by-night game show lightweight, in it for the novelty and the minimal fame. I wanted to do my best against him, but I had little doubt that Graeme's desire to win would see him triumph.

As a consequence, I was actually quite relaxed, and resplendent in my Father Dougal jumper*, I chatted fairly happily with Jeff. I talked mostly about the fabulous online encyclopaedia, Sporting Heroes - soon to be relaunched, by the way - and the fact that his old mate Chris Kamara makes two appearances on the site. Sadly, Jeff's response was edited out of the broadcast version.

Standing (l to r): Susie Dent, Steven Hatton, David Brown, me, Aidan Turnbull, Graeme Cole, James Hall, Shobna Gulati. (Seated: Rachel Riley, Jeff Stelling)

The contest began, and I fainted whilst Graeme inflated, giving him an 8-0 lead. The next round saw his steamed equal my maddest, and I was relieved to recombine with him in the third, making the score 25-33.

Streams and matures took us to a straightforward numbers game, where we both got 442, and that meant it was 42-50 at the break. That was easily the most points I'd accrued in the first third of a show, so I couldn't complain at all.

I could complain even less in the first letters round after the break, when I behaved venially whilst Graeme looked lively, and suddenly it was 50-all.

That was as good as it got for me, though, and ragouts, euchring and pinata ensured Graeme was 21 points ahead of me by the second break. It was the middle of those three that made me recognize my fate: I hadn't the faintest idea what the word meant!

With loricate, Graeme delivered the 12th round knockout, and despite a final show of gallantry, I'd fallen to a 93-112 defeat. As the CDB commentary rightly noted, though, I wasn't upset.

I'd achieved far more than I expected, and lost only to a future Octochamp. And of course, by way of consolation I'd gotten one of the famous teapots, with which I could make a nice cup of tea. Would you like a cup? You'll have some tea... are you sure you don't want any? Aw go on, you'll have some. Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on GO ON!

A nice cup of Countdown tea

*particularly appropriate, as he used to dream of being on the show.

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Coming up next time - a final, final instalment in which I try my luck at home against the Series 65 finalists.

A playlist for All Hallows' Eve

2011-10-30T13:19:00.001Z

Autumn Almanac by The Kinks:

Pumpkin by Tricky (feat. Goldfrapp):

Soul Limbo by Booker T and the MGs:

Ghost Town by The Specials:

There's A Ghost In My House by The Fall:

I'm Not Scared by Pet Shop Boys:

Danger! High Voltage by Electric Six:

Souljacker Part One by Eels:

Williams' Blood by Grave (sorry, Grace) Jones:

Yukio (Death and Night and Blood) by The Stranglers:

Your Ghost by Kristin Hersh (feat. Michael Stipe):

Happy Hallowe'en!

The Final Countdown (part one)

2011-10-29T14:19:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago, as I was leaving the Maltings, one of York's finest hostelries, in the company of the city's finest knitting archaeologist and its greatest sedimentological media star, a woman ran out after us. Stopping me in the street, she blurted out excitedly, "Weren't you on Countdown?"
As my companions chuckled away, I had to confess that yes, I had been. And after the buzz of being congratulated in the street had died down, I realized that I never finished blogging about it. So, to redress that oversight (and as I'm not going to make it through to the Series 65 finale), here is that long-overdue final instalment...

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THE FINAL COUNTDOWNS

Graham Linehan has written or co-written lots of great comedy, from Father Ted to Brass Eye to Black Books. But for those of a slightly geekier bent, you really can't beat The IT Crowd. And for those of a Countdownishly geeky bent, you can't beat The Final Countdown:

I was living in Newfoundland when the episode was broadcast, so I missed it. Indeed, I was unaware of it till I announced I was going to be on Countdown, and lots of people started baffling me by talking about the 8+ Club and Street Countdown and TNETENNBA.
Having now seen the episode, and filmed the show it lampoons, I am no longer baffled, or perhaps just baffled in a different way, but I have to say it is rather a good parody.
When I knew I was going to appear on Countdown, I thought to myself, "Should I do some proper practising, to try and get myself in better mental shape to perform well?"
And then I thought, "Don't be daft, Herringshaw. You've never been much cop at revising or practising or training in the past. Why break the habit of a lifetime?"
And then I thought, "Ah yes, but I've never been on Countdown before, and I would hate to look a fool."
So I searched online to see if there was a Countdown practice web site. And I found that there was, and it was mysteriously called Apterous.
I signed up, read a bit about how the online game worked, and tried my first game. It was hopeless. I am a pen and paper type of chap, and trying to do every letters, numbers and conundrum round using a keyboard instead was no good. I played one game, lost one game, and abandoned my brief training regime.
"That's what I like to see," said my negative sub-conscious. "Giving up whilst you're behind."

A female velvet ant is secondarily apterous

What I hadn't appreciated was that all the proper Countdown players are Apterous aficionados. Almost as soon as I met him, Ned Pendleton told me to sign up, and then, during the build up to the Series 64 finals, a girl I didn't know told me I should join, as did one or two other players or audience members.
I began to wonder if this was the 8+ Club, and couldn't quite bring myself to reveal that I knew of Apterous' existence, but had decided it wasn't for me.
Whether I would live to regret this, given that Countdown groupies are the most sexually voracious of all groupies, and the most beautiful, was unclear.

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So, at the end of my last Countdown piece, I'd just finished my fourth game, ending Series 64 as the unbeaten champion. This was considerably better than I'd expected I'd do, so I boarded a train to London feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Down in the Smoke, I met up with some palaeontological colleagues, one of whom tried to persuade me to get the PalAss logo tattooed across my face for when I went back on the show. I declined, but promised to take some fossils with me onto the next episode.

How my face would have appeared if this man had had his way.

That episode was being filmed at the start of the following week, so on the Sunday afternoon I made my way back to Manchester. Once there, I walked the wrong way out of Piccadilly station and found myself in a red light district, with a toothless woman and a Drug Abuse Centre and some ladies of the night (though it was the afternoon). I turned around and headed the other way.

Upon arriving finally at the Jury's Inn, the nice man on reception told me that one of my fellow competitors had already checked in, and had been playing Apterous on his laptop whilst he did so. I knew there and then that if I played this chap I would lose, so I took the only sensible course of preparation: I read Stewart Lee's wonderful How I Escaped My Certain Fate and watched TV.
Next morning, at the studio, I met David, Graeme and Steven, who would be the next three contestants. They all seemed like nice guys, but I was relieved that I would play David first, as I could tell immediately that Graeme was the hotel Countdown practicer.
I should state at this juncture that I didn't know Apterous gets someone to write a match report on every episode of Countdown. I therefore instruct you to read Ryan Taylor's account of my match with David. It's really rather funny, even if he does make disparaging comments about this blog.
The only things I have to add to the mix are these:
1. The fossils I managed to get shown on telly were a devil's toenail (the Early Jurassic oyster Gryphaea arcuata) and a piece of Carboniferous coral (probably Lithostrotion), both of which I picked up on the Yorkshire coast:

Carboniferous Countdown coral

Devil's toenail

2. In the first letters round after the break, I spotted a word that would have allowed me to declare 'a homophobic seven, Jeff,' but I lost my nerve.

I bottled it, Jeff played it, Susie loved it.

3. David was a lovely chap, and a bit overawed by having to speak to both Mr Stelling (a hero of his) and Ms Riley (whom he admitted he was a bit in love with).
So with a 92-45 victory, I became a five-time winner. But could I take it a step further, and become a sexachamp*? Only time would tell...

*This is not an official Countdown term, but one I feel obliged to try and use, if only for my personal childishness.

George Shaw - Turner Prize winner 2011

2011-10-24T17:54:00.000+01:00

I went to the Baltic Centre yesterday to see the four entries for the 2011 Turner Prize. Three of them were stultifying - not provocative, just dull - but one of them I liked very much indeed.

The Baltic Centre - no reflection on its contents

Perhaps I was innately predisposed towards him, with his name being 50% of mine, but I thought George Shaw's paintings were tremendous. So much of the history of art has been driven by the patronage of the wealthy and the depiction of beauty; to see normality is a refreshing change.

Having also spent my formative years in Midlands suburbia, Shaw's images of the Coventry housing estate where he grew up really struck a chord with me. They also reminded me of the dereliction of Stephenville in Newfoundland.

It is easy to find beauty in the beautiful; far harder to discover it in the mundane and ordinary. Yet Shaw has done just that, with great skill, extraordinary detail, and with humour too.

As an artist working in a familiar format, and one with an immediate talent that all can enjoy, Shaw won't win the 2011 Turner Prize. But not to worry: I was introduced to a fine painter whom I'd not previously been familiar with, so I win, and so does anyone else who pays his work the attention it deserves.

Buy George Shaw: The Sly And Unseen Day at the Baltic online shop.

Christ the Dog, and the True History of Whitby

2011-10-24T13:54:00.000+01:00

'And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green?' asked William Blake a few years back. Well, Mr Blake, I can confirm that they did, and they did so in the North Yorkshire port of Whitby.

Whitby Abbey

According to local legend, Jesus came ashore at Whitby one windswept night, disguised as a large black dog. He had used His canine cover to stow away on a jet-powered ship belonging to the famous Whitby explorer, Captain James T. Kirk, not wanting to be seen by non-immortal hand or eye, worried that they would frame his fearful symmetry*.

His reason for coming to this small north-eastern fishing town was to bring a gift of rare Middle Eastern animals to the lady in charge of Whitby Abbey. She was called Hilda Ogden and was known far and wide for being wise and just. She also welcomed all creatures, great and small, so Jesus was sure she would appreciate His new additions to her menagerie.

Unfortunately, it being a dark, filthy night, the wind howling round the hilltop and the waves battering the shore, when a big black dog arrived at the front door of the Abbey with a mouthful of writhing snakes, Hilda was not impressed. She shooed the dog away, calling it a stupid hound, and - for good measure - turned the snakes to stone and cast them over the cliffs.

Most chastized by His reception, and ashamed by His poor judgement, Jesus snuck off again with His tail between His legs, cadging a ride on the first Whitby whaling boat back to the Holy Land. He asked His friends never to mention the incident again.

St Hilda of Whitby and her famously ammonitic hairdo

When word got through of how Hilda had saved the monks of Whitby Abbey from a mad dog with a mouthful of snakes, God - who was oblivious to the true story, or else just overlooking His son's foolishness - immediately turned her into a saint, and also named the petrified snakes in her honour.

All of which is why visitors from across the world come to Whitby every year to collect Ogdenites, to learn of Captain Kirk, and to hear the tales of the slavering ship-borne hound that struck fear into the town's inhabitants, blissfully unaware of the role that Jesus Himself played in the story.

*this is covered more extensively in another of Blake's poetic works.

Sven-Goran Eriksson, the most over-rated manager in British football

2011-10-23T15:44:00.002+01:00

Leicester City lost 3-0 at home to Millwall yesterday, to leave them in mid-table in the Championship. This is despite the Thai owners of the club throwing their financial weight about and bringing in lots of 'big-name' players. They also threw their money around to attract a high-profile manager. It's just a pity that the manager was someone who really isn't much cop.

Sven-Goran Eriksson has now been in charge of Leicester for more than a year, and has had a negligible effect on their standing. His supporters say he needs at least 18 months to make a difference, that his new signings need time to gel. This is utter codswallop. If he was a genuinely talented manager, he would have made a difference already.

Compare Eriksson's tenure to that of Martin O'Neill. He joined Leicester when they were in the same predicament as present - playing in the second tier of English football - and within six months had secured promotion to the top flight. This was despite having pretty much no money to spend. He then kept the team in the Premier League for the next four seasons, each time finishing in the top half of the table, and won the League Cup in 1997 and 2000 for good measure.

I'm not calling for O'Neill to be recalled, as some rumours are suggesting, but I definitely think it is time for Eriksson to go, and someone with a genuinely impressive record in British football to take over.

The Revenge of the Hidden Shallows

2011-10-18T22:59:00.000+01:00

After giving a geology evening class in which I singularly failed to explain isotopes, radioactive decay, and the absolute dating of elements in rocks, I feel the need to republish the following text, originally published here on May 18th, 2009:

Hidden Shallows

Some people seem to be superficial, but turn out to have hidden depths. I am the reverse. People think I am clever, but my profundity is actually very limited. I possess numerous hidden shallows, upon which the galleons of intelligence and understanding regularly run aground. Luckily the organizations who fund my research have yet to conduct any detailed bathymetric studies.

Turbines and towers

2011-10-16T17:01:00.000+01:00

Will Self's BBC website article on the British countryside is thought-provoking, and bound to get a strong response from various people. I agree with him on most fronts.

The idea that the British countryside is natural is nonsense. Almost none of it is more than a few hundred years old. The idea that wind turbines and power stations are ugly is also nonsense.

Many rural parts of the UK are exceedingly boring: vast sprawls of tree-free pasture, very little topography, and very little drama. As Self points out, the giant cooling towers of Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge are extraordinary and wondrous structures, especially in the flat tedium of east Yorkshire. Argue about their purpose by all means, but don't dismiss the elegance of their engineering.

The same goes for wind turbines. They may need government subsidy to be built, and they may not be perfectly efficient, but they are feats of construction that often bring visual complexity to the regions they stand in. Railing against them as barbaric intrusions on an untouched, prehistoric landscape is to understand nothing of the country you live in.

The British countryside: as natural as apple pie.

Hammond: organ

2011-10-16T15:24:00.001+01:00

Interesting that Philip Hammond has been moved to the Ministry of Defence to replace Liam Fox, given his last gesture as Minister for Transport.

Announcing his desire to raise the motorway speed limit from 70 mph to 80 mph, Hammond was making a hollow offering to the Top Gear* demographic. Most worrying was that one of his primary arguments behind the move was the significant fall in motorway deaths in recent years.

Does this mean Mr Hammond wants motorway deaths to increase again? Is this a novel government policy for reducing over-population in Britain? And should the members of the armed forces be worried by his new appointment? After all, the number of British deaths in combat has dropped significantly over the last century.

Speed limit signs on British roads will now be replaced by targets for the number of deaths Philip Hammond would like to see on them each year.

That cars are now safer than they used to be is unarguable, but to use this as a justification for encouraging faster driving is certainly not. A transport minister with nerve, and genuine public interest at heart, would look to keep the number of road deaths falling, and clamp down on people who put their own urgency ahead of others' safety.

Instead, just to compound his twisted logic, Hammond said, "[w]hat we are doing here, is bringing a lot of drivers who currently, routinely break the speed limit, back on the right side of the law - and that has to be a good thing."

So the best way to deal with persistent offenders who disregard the law is to change those laws and decriminalize them, is it? This is what the ConDem government regards as 'a good thing'? Does this mean we can look forward to them doing the same to people who smoke naturally occurring substances recreationally, then?

No, I thought not.

*is he related to Richard, do you think?

Apples to apples, plums to chutney

2011-10-15T20:45:00.002+01:00

It was a gloriously sunny Saturday, and I had no plans at all. Then at short notice I was told it was Apple Day and we were going to attend it. I was rather non-plussed, not having the faintest idea what Apple Day was, but I did as I was told and carried a box of apples to the car.

We drove to our friend Dave's house, where more apples and apple-related products were loaded into the car, and with Dave joining us, off to St Nicholas' Fields we went. Dave is one of the driving forces behind Edible York, and he was the man in the know.

An Apple Day takes the doctor away

I'd never heard of St Nick's Fields either, but it turns out to be York's centre for sustainable living, and it was hosting Apple Day. As part of it, Dave was running a stall promoting Edible York's activities, in particular its Abundance project, which aims to collect surplus fruit from local trees and hand it out to charities and the public.

Apparently, cooking apples are harder to give away than eating apples, so in order to do this whilst telling people about Edible York, Dave had a plan. His stall would serve caramelized apples!

Get a hand-made stove called Bernie, stick some wood in it, light it, put a pan on the stove, put a load of butter and brown sugar in it, add some chopped cooking apples, let it simmer for a while, and hey presto! A large queue of people wanting to eat local cooking apples!

It was an enjoyable way to spend a sun-beamed autumnal afternoon, and - as long as we maintained a steady supply of mugs, spoons and hot, sugared fruit - we were kept fully occupied. At the same time, Dave got to tell people about Edible York, and sign up a few interested souls to the cause.

So having begun the day knowing nothing at all about the event, or the place it was held, I ended it having thoroughly enjoyed myself. And Dave won the apple-peeling contest for good measure!

The Olympians of Siluria

2011-10-13T18:15:00.000+01:00

(DISCLAIMER: this is an article I wrote for the latest issue of the newsletter of the Palaeontological Association. It has not been published yet, so if you are a member of the PalAss and don't want to spoil the surprise, I suggest you read no further. For those of you who are not a member of the PalAss, you may not want to read any further either, especially if you hate fossils and/or sport.)

The Olympians of Siluria

In Ludlow, in July, the Silurians came home. A combined meeting of two geological groups (the InternationalSubcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy and the new IGCP Project 591, in case you were wondering) broughttogether those with an interest in themid-Palaeozoic, in the Marches of Murchison.

At the same time, down the road in Wenlock, a differentgroup re-united, one which could lay claim to just as much longevity, historyand even, after a fashion, geology. Andthey too could boast they were coming home.

They weren't Silurians, however, but – by geography at least– a rather more incongruous-sounding group. They were the Olympians.

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Olympian medals, Silurian-style

With London 2012 looming large on the horizon, crowbarringsuch words into reports becomes increasingly common, and the plans for nextsummer become more complicated. Shouldone avoid the country like the plague, and head for palaeontological placeswell-away from hype and high jumps, or should one embrace the extravaganza oftop-level sport and culture?

It never crossed my mind that there was somewhere thatcombined it all, a spot where one could try a dry run, a year in advance. And I certainly never thought I'd discover arich geological seam within the Olympic movement. But then I'd never thought of attending theWenlock Olympian Games.

Having written a Ph.D. on fossils from the Much WenlockLimestone Formation, I'd no excuse for my ignorance of an event that began inthe Shropshire town 160 years ago. It'snot as if the place is exactly large. Yet I knew next to nothing of William Penny Brookes, and theextraordinary events he started in the mid-19^th century.

Brookes was one of those Victorian figures who achieved somuch you can't help wondering if he eschewed sleep entirely. Over a working life of more than 70 years, heserved as the town's doctor, Justice of the Peace, Commissioner for Roads,Railway Company Director, Gas Company Chairman, School Director, MuseumCurator, and manager of a new sewerage system. A dynamic, egalitarian figure, 'The King of Wenlock' turned his hometown from a rural backwater into a modern centre of innovation andenlightenment.

More than anything else, though, Brookes was a tirelesspromoter of education and health. In1841, he founded the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society, a library for theuse and benefit of all, particularly local farm-workers and quarrymen. A few years later, this developed into theWenlock Olympian Society, with Brookes promoting a revival of the Ancient Greekphilosophy of moral, physical and intellectual improvement.

Geology played its part in the Society's establishment, asBrookes wished to keep the workers from the local limestone quarries out of thepubs. According to Catherine Beale'sexcellent book on the topic, Born Out Of Wenlock, the town had “anunenviable reputation for drunkenness.”

By offering athletic competition, Brookes hoped to encouragetemperance. “The working man's onlypossession is his health,” he noted, and heavy drinking ensured that many ofhis fellow townsmen died young.

Late Wenlock

With this in mind, he organized the first Wenlock OlympianGames in 1850, and if you think commercialism is a modern phenomenon, thinkagain. Brookes got the mine companies tosponsor his games, and put on specially arranged events exclusively for theiremployees.

As a consequence, any quarrymen imagining the Games might bea doddle compared to a day's work were in for a surprise: Brookes'mine-endorsed version of the shot putt involved a 35 lb lump of Wenlocklimestone.

“The interesting thing,” WOS archivist Chris Cannon told me,“is that they threw it, measured it, and then threw it again with the otherhand, measuring that to give the total.” The winner was the man whose combined left- and right-handed throwsreached the greatest distance.

Limestone milestones and all, the Games were a success, andran again the next year, competitors coming from all over the country to takepart. By the 1860s, interest had bloomedso much that the National Olympian Association was formed, and a Games held inLondon's Crystal Palace.

They didn't run every year, but Brookes never stopped theWenlock Games, and nor did he cease his efforts to get physical educationincluded in the state schools' curriculum. Eventually, in the 1890s, as an old man, his petitions receivedparliamentary approval, and a French nobleman with similar interests came tospeak to the wise Wenlockian.

The visitor from across the Channel had no initial interestin the Olympian Games, only the promotion of physical education in schools, butwhen he saw what went on in Wenlock, a seed was sown. And shortly afterwards, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded what became the international Olympic movement.

The first Games, in Athens in 1896, came a year afterBrookes had died, aged 86, and enabled de Coubertin to take rather more creditfor the idea than he deserved.

Historians of sport and true Olympians, however, recognizethis Shropshire lad's true place. 2011was the 125^th Wenlock Olympian Games, with camera crews from acrossthe globe descending on the town to find out more about the father of themodern Olympiad. All of which is whyWenlock is now not only a district of Shropshire and a geological epoch, but a2012 Olympic mascot too.

Wenlock, Ludlow boundary.

Being an inveterate lover of Wenlock weirdos, I couldn'thelp but warm to this odd, grey, one-eyed creature. Without a mouth, its functional morphologywas problematical, but I'm sure stranger things have turned up in theHerefordshire Lagerstatte a few miles down the road. And buying a cuddly Wenlock from the onlineshop meant I could amuse myself with a series of Olympian-Silurianjuxtapositions:

Mascot on the edge of the conference town? Wenlock-Ludlowboundary.

Mascot in a Shropshire graveyard? Late Wenlock.

Mascot tripping over with an exclamation of “D'oh!”? Wenlock: Homerian stage.

Fellow delegates looked understandably bemused as I carriedmy new friend around the ISSS/IGCP conference, but forking out those few poundshad a tangible geological benefit. Aspart of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the Much Wenlock Museum is undergoinga major overhaul. What's more, not onlywill William Penny Brookes be lauded there for his Philhellenic philosophy, butalso for his love of natural history: his collections of local plants andfossils will take pride of place.

Wenlock: Homerian stage.

Palaeontology has made it into the cultural Olympiadelsewhere too. The 'Discovering Places'campaign of 2010 featured a couple of geological expeditions, whilst next Maywill see Lyme Regis launch the Jurassic Coast Earth Festival.

Tapping into the fact that the Olympic sailing events willbe in Weymouth and Portland, the Devon and Dorset World Heritage site willfeature numerous cultural activities. Our very own association will be involved, though I'm sad to say thatsupport for a Palaeo-lympics hasn't been forthcoming. This is despite a fossiliferous 'Faster,Higher, Stronger' being a sure-fire crowd pleaser*.

Talking of fire and crowds, keep an eye out for the Olympicflame, too. In 2010, the VancouverWinter Olympic torch relay took the burning stick fully trans-Canada, and I hadthe pleasure of watching it sweep past the university Earth Sciences buildingin St John's. I'm not sure of the 2012itinerary, but it must get within spitting distance of at least one geologydepartment.

If it doesn't, though, you can always become a geologicalOlympian yourself. Birmingham EarthScience alumnus Paul Manning took that very route, eschewing rocks and fossilsfor a bike, and pedalling to a series of Olympic medals. This culminated in gold in the team pursuitat the 2008 Beijing Games.

Cycling seems like a perfectly palaeontological pursuit, onethat might have seen Croll of Scotland or Milankovitch of Serbia take thelaurel wreath, but maybe Manning is unique. I certainly don't know of any podium-placed palaeontologists. Perhaps the definition needs broadening,then. Maybe we can erect our ownechinoderm pentathlon, or crustacean decathlon. And what are ammonoid and conodont biostratigraphy if not a form ofsynchronized swimming?

In the mean time, pay a visit to the Welsh Borderlands andimmerse yourself in these amazing tracts of 19^th century history, inthe annals of an era when anything was possible, even in tiny Shropshiretowns. And if you peer carefully intothe shadows along the Olympian Trail, who knows? Perhaps you'll spot the philanthropic King ofWenlock in conversation with the self-centred King of Siluria? I know whose team I'm on.

How higher education works

2011-10-13T15:02:00.000+01:00

I am sitting in the office of a colleague, when two students from privileged backgrounds wander in. They have been sent to speak to him by the secretary, as they want to take his 3rd year geology course, but don't have the prerequisites from the 2nd year. She tells them that they can only sign up for the course if they get permission from the lecturer.

The students try to persuade him that their experience in other subjects is sufficient for them to bypass the requirements, but he tells them it is non-negotiable. The university has prerequisites, and if you haven't done them, you can't take the course. The students mutter for a while, try a second time to persuade him of their suitability, but fail, and are told - firmly but politely - that they will not be able to take it. They leave the office.

They then walk straight downstairs to the secretary's office and tell her, yes, the lecturer has given them permission to take his course!

(In doing this, the dimwit students overlooked two crucial things. Firstly, that academic and administrative staff do talk to each other, and secondly, that there was a witness to them being told they would not be allowed to join the course: me. Needless to say, their plan failed abjectly.)

Sex Lives of the Potato Men

2011-10-12T19:11:00.000+01:00

Saw a photo of Wayne Rooney's father in the paper, arrested for allegedly being part of a football betting scam, and found myself wondering, "How is it that potatoes reproduce?"

A Vision of Bridgwater

2011-10-12T18:08:00.000+01:00

On the M5, on a coach heading to the south-west, I look out of the window.

In a field next to the motorway and the enormous Morrison's warehouse, an estate of new box-houses of no architectural merit is being spewed out.

"Investing in the Bridgwater Vision," says the developers' advertizing board.

I'm an Olympic volunteer!

2011-10-12T17:41:00.000+01:00

People of the McDonald's-sponsored, Cadbury-flavoured, London 2012 Olympic volunteer recruitment team, I apologize! My post a few months ago was a quick-fire response to a disappointing day, and I know now I was too hasty. The reason I know this? Because I've just been offered a position on the Olympics Accreditation team!

That would be great in itself, but there's delicious icing on this already tasty cake: I will be working at Lord's Cricket Ground!

As a cricket fanatic, the place I most wanted to volunteer at was the home of the sport, but I really held out no hope it would happen. I am therefore as excited as a Pointer Sister, and can't wait for the training to begin. Roll on 2012!

Leicester - not Posh, but full of Spice

2011-10-12T17:31:00.000+01:00

According to our good friends at the Daily Mail, David Beckham will not be joining the Foxes, as Mrs Goldenballs can't countenance a move to Leicester. This is hardly a surprise, and the Hate Mail takes the opportunity to make a snide comment or two about my home town.

Well, first of all, I refer Mrs Beckham to the advice I gave the Australian cricket team a couple of years ago. OK, that only covered what to do in a fortnight, but the principle still holds true.

And secondly, Victoria, Leicester doesn't want you anyway. It may not be the most exciting city on Earth, but it's not as boring as you are, with your track record of bland music and tedious clothes and nothing else. And ironically, given your previous life, we've got plenty of real spice.

Thomas Hardy in Aberdeen

2011-09-26T08:32:00.006+01:00

(from The Life of Thomas Hardy, Wordsworth Literary Lives, pp. 332-33)

In 1905, the writer Thomas Hardy was awarded an honorary LL.D. by the University of Aberdeen. In his (auto-)biography, The Life of Thomas Hardy, the April trip to north-east Scotland is remembered fondly:

"I have always observed with admiration the exceptional characteristics of this northern University, which in its fostering encouragement of mental effort seems to cast an eye over these islands that is unprejudiced, unbiased, and unsleeping."

Whilst there, Hardy stayed at Chanonry Lodge in Old Aberdeen, and enjoyed events at many of the city's grandest venues, including Marischal College. He dined one evening at the Grand Hotel, "crossing hands in 'Auld Lang Syne' with delightful people whom he had never seen before and, alas, never saw again.

"[T]he whole episode of Aberdeen, he said, was of a most pleasant and unexpected kind, and it remained with him like a romantic dream."

I wonder what the architecturally trained, honorary Doctor of Letters would make of the new library?

WCMB 2011

2011-09-26T08:32:00.002+01:00

Back in Aberdeen for the World Conference on Marine Biodiversity, for which I have organized (and am chairing) a thematic session entitled The Fossil Record of Marine Biodiversity.

I'm hoping it will be a good meeting, as the registration fee was a staggering £425 (becoming £485 if you signed up late) and doesn't even include the congress dinner or wi-fi access at the exhibition centre. As far as I can tell, all you get for your money is permission to come in, a PR-laden goodie bag, and all the coffee you can drink.

Fingers crossed the science will be value for money, then...

Scenes from a railway journey

2011-09-26T08:31:00.004+01:00

A Scotsman drinking vodka at 8.30am complains that he "cannae get a can of fucking lager" from the refreshments trolley.

There is a 9.52 service to Flamingoland.

Love the railway, hate the privatized railway system.

East Coast appear not to know which way their trains move. Twice I have reserved seats that say they face the direction of travel. Twice I voyage backwards.

Aberdeen: the sunniest city in Scotland. Like being the most honest man in prison.

The Legacy of Blair

2011-09-26T08:31:00.001+01:00

As the political conference season gets into full swing, something strikes me very forcibly. The British political landscape is now the flattest, blandest vista imaginable, and we have one man to thank for it.

For the first time in decades, Britain has a coalition government, yet it isn't failing, as many predicted it would. It isn't a roaring success, either, but it hasn't collapsed under the weight of its ideological baggage. Why is this? Because the three main parties are now almost indistinguishable.

Look at David Cameron and Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband and try to tell them apart. They look the same, they dress the same way, they behave the same way, they talk the same way, and their policies are so equally unimaginative that they might just as well form a three-way ruling party.

Cameron is a gentried twerp, Clegg a budget airline gentried twerp, and Ed Milliband is just a smile drawn onto a potato. They exude shiny nothingness, like a Vettriano painting. And why do they do this? Because it worked for Tony Blair.

In 1997, he seemed a breath of fresh air, a change from the greyness of Major and the long-term destructionism of Thatcher. It soon became clear that he was fresh air in the way that a chemical toilet masks the smell of excreta. But boy was he popular - three general elections, ten years in power, and New Labour pushing the Conservatives to the brink of oblivion.

His luck failed him eventually, but Blair's legacy was set in stone. No longer could you have a human being in charge of your party, like Charles Kennedy or John Smith or even our grey friend Mr Major. You had to have a blank-slate automoton, onto which the puppeteers could project whatever they thought would most appease the disengaged populace.

Nowhere was this demonstrated more clearly than with Gordon Brown. As hard as he tried to, he couldn't pretend to be Blair. As the Gillian Duffy case revealed, Brown was too human, with the same failings and prejudices as the rest of us.

So he lost power, and a new leader was selected. One who would offend no-one, but who therefore could not challenge anyone either.

As a consequence, there is no opposition. Milliband can't disagree with Clegg who can't disagree with Cameron because they don't have any strident views of their own. They just smile and make thoughtful-looking hand gestures and repeat the same vacuous soundbites over and over again.

And those of us who retain an ounce of radicalism are left clinging to a desperate hope that something will suddenly change. That Ken Clarke and Vince Cable and John Prescott can somehow wrest control of their parties' reins, and even if we hate two of them, or all of them, at least we'll have something to get passionate about again.

Nobody's Diary, Part 2 - 16.09.01

2011-09-19T10:35:00.000+01:00

16th September 2001, Birmingham

Yesterday's Telegraph 'Pub Talk' contained a fabulous article on what the ale house occupants of central Birmingham thought about Tuesday's events, and the mind-blowing stupidity on display just helps reinforce my nervousness about possible repercussions:

"Whoever's responsible and the country they are from should be wiped out because there's more there anyway. They are fanatics, these people."
(The non-fanatical views of builder John Reilly)

Tony Hartigan, also a builder, said "Castrate the bastards. Let them feel pain. Let them bleed to death."

A well-informed Irishman said, "I reckon this is Saddam, not the man with the beard," whilst Patrick Mulvey, a retired factory worker, really summed up the deeper issues involved by noting that, "the evilest man of all time was Oliver Cromwell. He set fire to churches. He massacred the whole town of Drogheda."

Finally, a token Muslim opinion: "My father, he's 82. He's very religious and he went to Mecca two years ago. He just condemned it."

It's Geo Pasquale!

2011-09-19T10:18:00.001+01:00

I don't normally post links to articles in the Daily Express, as it is quite simply the worst newspaper in the English language. I couldn't resist this one, however:

Joe Pasquale on Geology

Archaeology - there's lots of it about!

2011-09-18T17:50:00.000+01:00

A cursus is a long, straight, Neolithic structure, consisting of a bank surrounded by a ditch. It is so-called because when you walk the entire length of one to start surveying it, only to realize you have left your tape measure back at the car, you exclaim "Cursus!"

The Stonehenge Cursus

Till a fortnight ago, I had no idea what a cursus was, but then I signed up to the Lochbrow Time Team. Far more glamorous than the televisual version, the LTT consists of a Scottish cropmarks expert, an American GIS whiz, and an English landscape archaeologist, and they wanted to go up to the Southern Uplands and do some surveying. Voluntary assistance/slave labour was provide by a Welsh chemist, a Canadian anthropologist and me.

[For an alternative version, read the official account here]

Though my other half is the aforementioned landscape specialist, my archaeological skills are non-existent. The only experience I have is an afternoon of Signal Hill Archaeology, in 2010, where I sat in a small, hillside trench and hindered various Newfoundland archaeologists, scraping away slowly at soil with a small trowel, tipping buckets of rocky detritus through a giant sieve, and occasionally telling curious passers-by that no, I wasn't looking for dinosaurs (though I actually was).

It was quite different this time, as I was using magical divining sticks. Often termed 'geofizz' by Robinson et al., they are apparently known officially as magnetometers and electrical resistivity meters. Being inexperienced in their application, I decided to follow the approach of the great Chris Rabbit:

Hen(ry's Cat): What on Earth are you doing?
Me: I'm looking for treasure! I'm looking for treasure!

The weather was suitably Septembrial and Scottish. The sun shone occasionally, mostly to torment us, but wind and rain took centre stage. Wellies and waterproofs were a given (literally, in Hen's case, as she provided ponchos and boots for other members of the team).

There were three tasks for me to accomplish: use the GPS to mark out and map the site; use ropes and bamboo sticks to set up the grid for magnetometry; and make sure the cable for the resistivity meter didn't get tangled. I'm proud to say that I was just about up to them.

The others, meanwhile, learnt to actually use the resistivity meter and magnetometer. The end of day one brought out some interesting magnetometric results, so the most exciting-looking regions were targeted with the res-meter on day two.

And, just like on the telly, the results at the end of day two were a bit disappointing. A very distinct structure revealed by the magnetometric survey was completely non-existent on the resistivity map.

H: Oh, and have you found any treasure?
Me: No, but I've found this horseshoe!

Luckily, those results were for an area of the field outside the cursus, so day three focussed on getting as much magnetometry done for the cursus as possible. And, again in true television-style, that resulted in a distinctly positive outcome at the end of day three: the mag-marks not only matched up with the crop marks, but also provided a load more information. We really did have a 6,000 year-old timber cursus!

This gave us a spring in our step for the fourth and final day, but Hurricane Katia had other ideas. By early afternoon, we were cold, saturated and pretty miserable. Spitting out curses, we gave up on cursus and retired to the nearby service station for tea and cake. The evidence for Strawhenge could wait till next time...

Why bother?

2011-09-18T15:26:00.000+01:00

4th March 2011, after the Barnsley Central by-election

The British government and the US government and the EU and all the other western nations harp on endlessly about democracy, and how it must be introduced to countries that don't have it, whether by force or internal uprising. What they fail to point out to people is just how over-rated democracy is.

Here in Yorkshire, the party whose Member of Parliament was jailed for fraud retakes the seat he vacated with an increased majority, the xenophobic little Englanders finish second and the racists finish fourth. And only 36.5% of voters bother to turn up. Might as well just abandon the whole shebang and go back to the randomness of the monarchy.

A view from the Vale

2011-09-18T11:40:00.000+01:00

So another summer sidles to an end, and the cricket kit is packed away till the new year. It hardly feels like the season has gotten going, and suddenly it's all over. Time, then, to reflect on my first year playing in York's Vale Cricket League.

I joined Ovington CC for geographical reasons - their Little Knavesmire ground is a stone's throw from the street I live on - but it turned out to be pretty much the ideal club for me. A good standard, and a good bunch of lads.

Ovington CC pitch and clubhouse, Little Knavesmire.

The number of youngsters playing for the club was amazing, quite unlike anything I've ever experienced previously. It was a bit disconcerting to be the only player in the 30-45 age group, mind, not least in the last game of the season, when I opened the bowling with someone a terrifying 20 years younger than me!

Meteorologically, the season was pretty unmemorable. A very warm April fooled us, but, after two summers in Newfoundland and three frustrating seasons with Bon Accord*, it was just great to be cricketing properly again.

It was also great to perform well. I played mostly for the Seconds, where I averaged 16.50 with the bat and 18.18 with the ball, but I also did alright for the Firsts when called upon. Indeed, thanks to scoring 19 at Selby and 38 at Hirst Courtney, I ended up with a higher batting average for them!

Personally, though, my best moments came for the Seconds. Opening with five consecutive maidens when taking the new ball at home to Burn II (I had figures of 5-5-0-1 at that point, and finished with 12-5-20-3) was a completely new experience. Taking 5-34 away at Bishopthorpe II was my first Ovington Michelle, too.

My best of all, however, came with the bat at Copmanthorpe II. The platform had been laid by Ben Morrison and Joe Whale, enabling someone to come in and give it some welly at the end. It turned out to be me, to no-one's surprise more than mine, and I clubbed 45 runs in the last three-and-a-bit overs. The league report says I faced 19 balls; Steve, our scorer, said it was 17. Let's call it 18. It was still a strike rate Shahid Afridi would have been proud of.

We won that match fairly easily, but in the final reckoning, it wasn't enough: Cop pipped us to second place. Over the season we just weren't quite consistent enough to get promotion. The Firsts won Division Two at a canter, though, so all in all it was a pretty decent first year. Let's hope 2012 is even better. Who knows, we might even be allowed to play a whole season on our own ground too...

*The Bons were a great bunch of lads, and I enjoyed much of my time there, but I was never given many opportunities to actually contribute on the pitch.

The Flat

2011-09-15T22:44:00.000+01:00

I don't own one property, let alone two, but I do have a second home. That place is 34, Avenue Victoria, Scarborough, known more simply, to everyone in my family, as The Flat.

My maternal grandparents, great aunt and uncle bought it in the late 70s, not long after I was born, so it has always been part of my life. Easters, Summers, October half-terms, we came to Scarborough and we stayed in The Flat.

It was a quintessential part of my childhood: its look, its smells, its sounds. Even falling in a fishpond in the nearby Italian Gardens as a small boy didn't dampen my love of the place.

But of course I grew older and moved away and didn't have the inclination to go there any more. Post-18, my visits became scarcer and scarcer, although Mum kept coming up, and many other family members too.

And then both Grandma and Grandpa died, in fairly quick succession, and The Flat suddenly acquired a whole different meaning. Though having been in family ownership for more than two decades, almost nothing there had changed - the pink bathroom with its funny taps, the kitchen with its wonderful little oven.

The kitchen, The Flat.

It was the closest thing to time travel, the last tangible, structural link back to two people whom I loved very much. And though they may be gone, they are still here, where things are as I always remember them*, and must always be so.

Over the last few years, I've brought various friends and colleagues to The Flat. Almost all have remarked on its uniquely homely feel, how it is a throwback to the recent past, like one of those National Trust domestic houses. Even the decorator I met yesterday, coming in to re-paper the back bedroom after a leak from upstairs, remarked on how retro it was, and how nice.

As a palaeontologist, and working on the geology of the Yorkshire Coast, I also have a different retro reason to come here. This week, I stayed in The Flat alone for the first time ever, but the friendly ghosts were with me: the books, the games, the pictures, the people. I slept soundly.

Walking up the stairs to the front door, the place retains its own aroma, the one I smelt carrying a bucket and spade down to the beach, or a cricket bat to the park. It also retains the doorbell, which poignantly says "Riley / Stead" beneath it. Grandma and Grandpa may have been gone for more than a decade, but here they live on.

The pink bathroom with the funny taps.

*though the swishing, swooshing front door has just been removed; replaced thanks to fire safety regulations. I don't understand how a glass-and-wood door was more dangerous than what appears to just be a plank of featureless MDF, but what do I know?

Weeds and other natural highs

2011-09-06T23:14:00.000+01:00

For once, I have the Daily Mail to thank. A couple of years ago, they told the tale of Barry, a giant polychaete worm discovered to be wreaking havoc in the coral tanks at Newquay aquarium. Inevitably, Barry provoked some of their readers into offering us their lentil-sized intellect; Sarah from Bournemouth's "What possible use is its existence?" being swiftly countered by RM from the Wirral's "We are all God's creatures."

As differently foolish as Sarah and RM are, they did get me thinking about vermin and weeds. Are they automatically perceived this way by us human beans, or is it just conditioning?

I was sitting in the backyard of my house in Newfoundland one Saturday afternoon last summer, basking in the sunshine and admiring the luxuriant foliage that had leapt upwards from what had been a snow-smothered bog just a few weeks earlier. What a fine selection of green and leafy plants we had, yet all of them would be classified as weeds by the ardent gardener, anathema to their notions of order and beauty.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then beholden upon your eye this photograph I took with a Macro lens attached to my camera:

A dandelion clock is simply beautiful. Compare it with the presposterous gaudiness of a rose, and argue logically and coherently that one is an ugly weed and the other a lovely flower. It cannot be done.

I admire gardeners. I admire their desire to fight futility, to impose order and control on botany, but not their inability to praise fashion over function. I'd much rather wander a wild and weedy meadow than a meticulously planned garden.

As for the other type of weed, well, the idea that the authorities can make illegal something that grows naturally is just wrong. But that's a blog in itself. Instead, I shall move from weeds to vermin.

Literally, they are worms, the word coming from the Latin vermis, but we now use the term for any animal that humans find bothersome. And, as with weeds, the distinction between beauty and vermin is arbitrary and illogical.

Take the genus Columba. As a dove, it is a creature of beauty and grace. As a pigeon, it is a portly parasite. But a feral pigeon is a rock dove, and when you examine one closely, it is nothing short of glorious, pouting and strutting in a shimmering irridiscence of green and purple. Anyone arguing otherwise is an absolute Sarah-from-Bournemouth.

Talking of birds in seaside resorts, gulls get a bad press too. But what kind of numpty is unimpressed by the Aberdonian individual that steals tangy cheese Doritos? Gulls - and pigeons - might be rather too abundant in our towns and cities, but whose fault is that? The same goes for crows. Their familiarity breeds contempt, but as Esther Woolfson's wonderful book Corvus demonstrates, they are bright and brilliant creatures.

To prove all this once and for all, I'm going to set up my own zoo, supported by the as-yet-non-existent Society for the Promotion of Weeds and Vermin. On display, there will be Barry the giant polychaete, an aviary of pigeons, gulls and crows, and a car park full of weeds.

Post-election, pre-coalition blues

2011-09-06T22:17:00.000+01:00

[This is a piece I wrote in 2010, and then failed to publish to the blog. I was going to simply delete it, then thought, 'What the heck', so here it is]

Somehow, in seriousness, despite being a wealthy, upper-class, Eton- and Oxford-educated white male of royal lineage, David Cameron implored the British electorate to "Vote For Change". What he clearly meant was "Vote For A Change Back To The Old Days Of Being Governed By The Landed Gentry". The sheer audacity of his proposition made me wonder we weren't better off just returning to the whim of government by hereditary monarchy.

Of course, being nothing if not scaredy-sheep, the voters of Middle England and the Home Counties did just as he told them to, with one or two exceptions, returning most of England to the colour blue.

The surge in Liberal Democrat support predicted by countless opinion polls never happened. Indeed, the party lost two of its most best-known MPs: the media-friendly Lembit Opik and the rare voice of rational science in the Commons, Dr Evan Harris. Was this the media over-playing the significance of their own surveys, or a last-minute loss of nerve by many voters? Probably a bit of both, but whatever the story, the increase in the LibDem vote was paltry, and they ended up with five fewer seats.

What they did acquire, however, was the potential for a pivotal role in the new parliament.

To my mind, the best bet for the LibDems is to decline Cameron's offer of coalition, but offer to support his minority government wherever appropriate. This might turn out to be very rarely indeed, depending on how far the Tories revert to type, but that wouldn't be the LibDems fault, or responsibility. If Cameron's Conservatives were genuinely, broadly popular, they would have won more seats.

Thank God for bronze medals!

2011-09-05T19:27:00.000+01:00

I enjoyed the World Athletics Championships, even if Britain's performance was a bit patchy. Mo Farah's gold was great, and Dai Greene's too, whilst Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu were simply beaten into second place by better opponents, but there were a fair few disappointments too.

Not having a single athlete, male or female, in the finals of the 100, 200, 400 or 800 metres, and not getting a medal in any of the relays was pretty poor, and doesn't reflect especially well on Charles van Commenee's methods. The main positive I can think of is that at least it might lower expectations in the build up to next year's Olympics.

At least none of the British medallists I saw followed the example of American triple jumper Will Claye, though. He was understandably delighted after notching a personal best leap of 17.50 metres and claiming third place in the final, but when he knew he'd grabbed the bronze and knew television was watching him, he sprinted off to the edge of the track, where his kit bag lay.

As he rummaged around for a moment, I suddenly realized what he was going to do, and, yes, a second later Claye pulled out his copy of the Bible. Spinning round, he brandished it manically in front of the cameras, pushing it close to the screen and dancing about like a loon. Then he turned to the crowd and did the same, thrusting his beloved book at the cheering spectators.

I don't doubt for one moment that God loves triple jump bronze medallists more than any other of His children*, but why does some twerp always do this at a major championships, and why is it almost always an American?

Jonathan Edwards used to be a very Christian triple jumper indeed - and he was at least the Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth champion, as well as the first man ever to jump beyond 18 metres - but he never resorted to waving the Bible about when he won. Perhaps he knew it was a bit dubious: a few years after he retired, Edwards renounced his beliefs.

So, at next year's London Games, just for once, just for the novelty, I hope that a medal-winning athlete dashes over and pulls a genuinely interesting tome out from among their sweaty socks and pants. Ideally, it would be something like Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, or A. C. Grayling's The Good Book, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind if it was the Koran. At least it would make a change.

*I do, of course, based on the fact that it is impossible for a non-existent entity to have children, triple-jumping or otherwise.

Durum in Latin means 'hard'

2011-09-01T22:32:00.000+01:00

I've experienced life in a few interesting towns, from Aberdeen, where ostentatious oilmen do battle with granitic grannies, to Liverpool, where scally dockers jostle with Tate-bound artists. I've never felt as tense as I do in Durham, however, or as ambivalent about a place.

It is light-of-the-world and it is salt-of-the-earth. It is poor and northern, and rich and southern. It is shabby and it is spectacular. It is home-grown and far-flung. It is Hooligan Harry and it is Hooray Henry.

As a middle-class Midlander, I am none of these things, which is probably why it makes me feel the way I do. I feel like a complete interloper, and I am unnerved.

Travelling without reservation

2011-09-01T21:47:00.000+01:00

A six-carriage train arrives at York station, where it is due to split in two. Carriages A, B and C are going to Newcastle, and D, E and F to Scarborough. I look at my ticket, for the Newcastle part of the train, and then at my seat reservation, which is in carriage E, and find myself in a quandary. Have I made a mistake?

As is perhaps to be expected, no-one at the station tells the passengers what's going on, and confusion reigns. After a bit of deliberation, my cynicism over the ability of the privatized train companies to do their job properly wins, and I decide to board the train that says it is heading north-east, rather than the carriage where I have a reserved seat.

And thankfully, this is the right decision, though I only have it confirmed a few moments before departure, when a young couple, luggage-laden, stumble unimpressedly onto the Newcastle train. They had found their reserved seats correctly, but unfortunately the reservations were in the wrong train, and only a last-minute intervention saved them from taking those seats to the seaside.

The ooh-arr ninja

2011-08-30T19:39:00.000+01:00

It doesn't look as though it is a particularly crime-ridden place, but apparently the small Somerset town of Yeovil needs special protection. From a ninja:

BBC News | 'Ninja' patrols streets of Yeovil

I love the facts that a) the man thinks he is a ninja, and b) that he thinks Yeovil would benefit from ninja protection, even though he is only allowed to use a foam stick. Pure local news gold.

Conversation on a train

2011-08-30T19:15:00.000+01:00

On a quiet train from Doncaster to York, three girls are sitting at a table a short way up the carriage from me. Across the aisle, their mothers (one southern, one northern) sit at a separate table. They are most likely a family group, off to York for a holiday. The girls, probably cousins, I decide, are consulting a Heat-style magazine, with the two older girls - probably about 11 or 12 - analysing the images before them, presumably of female celebrities. Girl 1 seems to be the more forceful personality, with Girl 2 a bit more acquiescent. Ostensibly I'm reading the paper, but find myself unable to resist transcribing some of what I overhear.

GIRL 1: "I don't like what she's done with matching those clothes."
GIRL 2: "Yes. Too matchy."
GIRL 1: "No, they don't match at all."

[A moment later.]

GIRL 2: "I love that outfit!"
GIRL 1: "Yes, I hate the colour. It just doesn't suit her."

Just as I wonder whether the modern media is encouraging judgmentalism in a new generation, or whether it is simply a new form of an old hobby - talking about other people - the girls reveal a self-awareness that, unkindly, I hadn't credited them with.

GIRL 1 [with bemusement]: "On this page they tell you to lose weight and then on the next page there's a recipe for delicious chocolate cookies. Do they want us to lose weight or put it on?"
GIRL 2: "They want us to stay the same."
GIRL 1 [laughing, and putting on an advertizing jingle voice]: "Lose two pounds! Then put it straight back on!"

[They giggle among themselves for a while, and then one of the mothers realizes that the girls have eaten the entire box of chocolate brownies she'd given them, and they are told off. After a period of awkward silence, they return to the magazine.]

GIRL 2: "Ooh, puzzles. I love puzzles!"
[They begin the crossword.]
GIRL 1: "What would 'seats of learning' be, Mum?"
MOTHER: "Desk."
GIRL 1: "It's seven letters."
MOTHER: "Desktop."
[There is a pause whilst the two girls consider this.]
GIRL 2: "No, wouldn't it be 'schools'?"

Satisfied that all is well with the world, and that every generation is both the same as the previous one, and utterly different, I return to reading the paper.

Zaheer we (don't) go again

2011-08-07T12:59:00.000+01:00

Various commentators and writers have compared this summer's Test series between England and India with the 2005 Ashes. I don't buy that comparison at all, as the Australia team of 2005 was an order of magnitude greater than the current Indian team. Yes, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are fantastic batsmen, but so were Ponting, Gilchrist and Hayden, and the bowling departments are miles apart.

Australia had Warne, McGrath, Lee, Gillespie and Kasprowicz. India have Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar and Sreesanth.

As if to prove this dichotomy, India without Zaheer Khan have looked almost completely toothless, whereas Australia without Glenn McGrath were still almost unbeatable. The 2005 Ashes were famed for their intense battles in every match, and the series hung in the balance right to the last day of the Fifth Test.

Now that Zaheer has been ruled out of the two remaining Test matches, I predict that India will lose the series 4-0, and it won't even be close. Not much of a comparison at all.

At home with Bob Dylan

2011-08-05T22:02:00.000+01:00

Watching an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, this story about Bob Dylan upsetting his neighbours with an overly aromatic Portaloo came up. And it reminded me of our family's own domestic Dylan drama, in which my late Uncle Tony, whilst living in New York, was employed as workman on a renovating project at some wealthy bloke's house, and that bloke, whom Tony had never heard of, was one Robert Allen Zimmerman.

That is all.

Democracy + free press = state-sponsored murder

2011-08-04T22:10:00.000+01:00

It was a genuine delight to see the front page of today's Daily Hate Mail:

http://twitpic.com/60k9ag

Ignoring the facts that a) 100,000 twerps* have to sign the e-petition before anything happens in parliament and b) even then, MPs won't vote on the topic, only discuss it, this is one of the finest examples of why democracy can never work, and why the free press is a joke.

Only a bloodthirsty psychopath would argue that the meticulous planning of another person's death is a reasonable and good thing, which is why we can now determine that there are an awful lot of such psychopaths in the UK. In their hideous, bile-filled voices, they bellow that anyone committing major crimes (or even just activities that the Daily Hate Mail disapproves of) deserves to be put to death, preferably as painfully and nastily as possible, so they can satisfy their craving for blood and revenge.

If they were honest about their reasons, that capital punishment was purely about a primaeval pleasure in seeing other people suffer, that would be in some way acceptable. At least it would be clear why they wanted it to be reinstated. Instead, they like to hide behind a claim that the death penalty is a deterrent to serious crime.

It isn't. Or, more accurately, there is no reliable scientific evidence to support the idea that it is. A discussion of recent studies can be found here, showing that:

"There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that [shows that executions] can exert a deterrent effect"

or

estimates claiming that the death penalty saves numerous lives "are simply not credible."

or

"it is entirely unclear even whether the preponderance of evidence suggests that the death penalty causes more or less murder."

But what does (lack of) evidence matter, when you've got your reliable gut instinct to go on?

Thank goodness, then, for the Daily Mash, which so accurately notes that, "government-sponsored murder is a deterrent if you invent a completely different version of America to the one that actually exists."

*this is my favourite word of the moment, and I shall continue using it for the foreseeable future.

A 5 year-old's views on extrusive igneous rocks

2011-08-02T12:56:00.000+01:00

The Eruption of Vesuvius, by Joseph Wright of Derby.

"A long long time ago volcanoes started erupting. The red stuff was called lava. It erupted from the crater becose the stones from the centure got so hot they blasted from the earth and went into the volcanoes and started erupting from the volcanoes."

(1982)

Challenge the Red Tape Challenge, say experts

2011-08-02T10:05:00.000+01:00

Not even red and white tape will be spared.

British manufacturers of coloured adhesives have reacted with anger to the government's announcement that it will slash the amount of red tape in its departments.

"British red tape is widely recognized as the finest in the world," said spokesman Lentin Quetts. "Its manufacture provides employment opportunities for many thousands of people across the country. To undermine such an important enterprise in times of economic and employment uncertainty is yet another short-sighted move by this Tory-led coalition."

"To set up a red tape challenge, as Mr Macaroon has done," continued Quetts, "is just another response to the desperate attempts of his PR men to come up with a good idea. Unfortunately, they can't, because every single one of them is a deluded numpty."

The production of red tape began in the UK in the reign of Henry VIII. Cardinal Wolsey tried to get the king's marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled by filling out vast numbers of divorce forms on a daily basis, tying the bundles up in rose-coloured ribbons, and posting them to the pope. When Rome was knee-deep in paperwork, Pope Inclement the Ninth ordered that the English court 'desist in inundating the Papacy with this infernal red tape,' and the phrase was born.

Over the subsequent centuries, Britain has prided itself in its ability to keep its red tape manufacturing sector busy, even during times of financial crisis. The current administration, however, has declared that it will no longer be supporting the industry, as it has found a cheaper supplier overseas.

"Using corks and bungs, and by removing staff canteens, we have already cut back on waste production in our departments," announced Chief Government Twerp, Thargaret Matcher, "but too much money was still being spent on red tape. We are pleased to announce, therefore, that we have now found a means of solving this issue, by giving British manufacturing jobs to cheaper suppliers in countries with dubious human rights records, and farming our democratic responsibilities out to the private sector."

"As we have seen so recently," Matcher rambled on, "what big business needs to succeed is to be freed from government regulation and be allowed to do what the heck it likes. Only then can Gideon, Dave and I finish our dream of completely shafting the country, and retiring to the Turks & Caicos on our family wealth."

Ten tips for giving a good conference presentation

2011-08-01T18:41:00.000+01:00


Fed up of boring your audience into non-existence? Then follow the simple Herringshaw Guide to Legendary Lecturing!

I have been to a lot of scientific conferences over the last decade or so, in the UK, Europe and North America, and have seen a lot of truly dreadful presentations. Often they are given by high-profile academics who have been lecturing in universities for years, so to guarantee that your conference talk is as good as theirs, I recommend you follow these ten simple steps:

1. Make sure you talk for the whole of the allocated time, if not longer. Your presentation is more important than anyone else's, and audience members must not be able to ask questions, as they are here to hear you, not interrogate you. Make sure you have at least twice as many slides as there are minutes allocated for your talk, and keep speaking till the chair of the session has to drag your from the stage.

2. Cram as much text onto your slides as possible, and ideally, then read the text out to the audience. If it's small enough and dense enough that they can't read it, they will appreciate your narration.

3. Make sure your pictures are small and intricate and difficult for the audience to comprehend. If you only have one image, make sure it is densely populated with acronyms, legends and abbreviations that only you can read and understand.

4. Make your background as plain and bright and white as possible, so that your audience is blinded by the contrast and can barely pick out the text. It will act as a free eye-test for them, and is therefore an act of kindness.

5. Sound as bored and monotone as possible, barely changing the pitch of your voice, especially when summarizing your new discoveries. It is the audience's job to be interested, not yours.

6. Don't just give the talk. Instead, at the start, explain the structure of the talk, perhaps saying something along the lines of, "I will now introduce the topic I shall be talking about today, starting with the introduction, in which I will introduce the talk." In doing so, you will be stepping into the exciting world of quantum presentations, when you are simultaneously giving the talk, but also trapped perpetually at the start. Your audience will be most impressed.

7. If you have the choice between a green and a red laser pointer, use the red one, as it is harder to see, and therefore challenges your audience to pay attention. To take this to another level, use a combined laser pointer and slide-advancing device, and then confuse the various buttons repeatedly, such that you leap backwards and forwards through the slides, interspersing these jumps with occasional bursts of laser beam.

8. Make sure you use serif fonts, as they are much more elegant as a typeface, and what you're searching for is to make your presentation as close to a published paper as possible. Ideally, it should just look like the page of a journal, transposed onto a screen.

9. Make sure that every slide has a minimum of ten 8-letter words, preferably at least twenty, and make sure you introduce some impenetrable new terminology, to educate your audience and broaden their vocabulary.

10. Last but not least, try to ensure that your presentation is in a format incompatible with the system the conference organizers are using, and then make sure you don't test it out till the instant your talk is due to begin.
Ideally, don't even bother using a computer at all, but demand to use some ancient, dusty and dark slides that work only in a carousel that you made yourself. That way, when your slides are vomited from the carousel at high speed and out across the auditorium, those well-prepared audience members who brought torches will be able to aim them at the slides as they fly past and get a fleeting personal glimpse of your subject matter.

And once you've learned to follow these ten straightforward guidelines, you can look forward to a long career of well-appreciated public presentations, and regular invitations to be a keynote speaker at international meetings.

Notes to self

2011-08-01T17:21:00.000+01:00

Sitting on a train going through Leeds, I saw a multi-storey car park offering special year-long deals. I thought to myself, Do Not Let Your Life Ever Degenerate To The Point That You Need A Season Ticket For A Car Park.

I don't practice the things I'm good at sufficiently to become really good at them. The main reason for this is that practising is a chore, and therefore those enjoyable things would become chores themselves, and I'd stop enjoying them.

I pride myself on a sense of navigation, which means I often end up navigating myself on a sense of pride, getting increasingly lost but refusing to ask someone local to put me right.

Being told to thinking outside the box is all well and good when it comes to getting funding for scientific research projects, but what if you've never been in the box in the first place? What if there isn't even a box?

If your school days were the best days of your life, then you've wasted your life.

Little Chef versus The Pheasant at Keyston

2011-07-31T15:40:00.000+01:00

I don't normally go in for restaurant reviews. Being a critic has never interested me, and I don't know much about food and drink. After a dichotomous pair of recent A-road culinary experiences, however, I feel the need to break that trend.

The two eateries in question are the Little Chef on the southbound A1 near Peterborough, and The Pheasant at Keyston, a gastropub in Cambridgeshire, not far off the A14. We visited the former on the way down to Stansted Airport, prior to flying to Asturias (about which I will blog in due course), and the latter on the way back.

Stopping at the Little Chef was primarily a response to being close to Cambridge, being hungry, and having run out of dining ideas. I'd heard that the menu had been upgraded by Heston Blumenthal, so was vaguely curious to find out what was in store, but it was mainly about convenience.

The place was nearly empty, so we didn't have to wait long to be seated and served. This was fine, as we weren't planning to stay too long, and we jumped straight into the mains. The offerings didn't look very Blumenthalian, but I went for the vague curiosity of a pesto and mozzarella burger, whilst H chose lasagne.

When they arrived, our meals certainly didn't taste Blumenthalian either: H's lasagne was unremarkable, and my burger was rather dry and lacking in flavour. But this was a Little Chef after all, and it would have been foolish to enter the place with a grand sense of expectation. We paid our bill and hit the road again.

Our expectations were slightly higher on the way back, having made the decision that we would find a good pub somewhere along the A14. Surprisingly, though, there weren't any to be seen as we exited Cambridge, and we'd almost left Cambridgeshire when we spotted the sign to the Pheasant at Keyston.

Having assumed it was close to the road, we were slightly confused when we had to drive for quite a while. It turned out to be at the end of a series of winding lanes at the far side of the village of Keyston. When we finally sighted the place, it looked rather nice, so we parked up and walked to the main door.

Being pretty much starving, we didn't spend long perusing the menu on the wall by the front door, and stepped inside. Even though the food clearly wasn't your standard pub grub, and the prices a bit higher than we'd subconsciously expected to pay, it was going to be a far cry from our outbound dinner.

Upon entering the premises, we were immediately asked if we wanted an aperitif in the bar, but dinner was all we were interested in, so we declined and were led through to the dining area. At this point, alarm bells had begun to ring in my brain, as I was clearly a) much too northern*, and b) much too scruffy to be dining in the establishment. The final ringing sound came when we were handed the menu by the far-from-jolly waitress.

I couldn't say exactly what I wanted to eat, but it wasn't what was on offer. I didn't desire anything fancy, but fancy was all there was. Having taken a table, though, and being nothing if not politely acquiescent, we couldn't easily get up and scarper again.

So H ordered some lamb, and I chose the poultry dish. This meant I had the pleasure of asking for a spatchcock of quail, possibly becoming the first person from Braunstone Frith ever to do so. We also requested some chips, which were listed as one of the side dishes, but, as this was a classy establishment, only under the name of 'hand-slivered oil-bathed pommes frites' (or some such).

It was the same with the mash, which was 'crushed baby new potatoes', even though, when it arrived, it was evidently just mash. The lamb that sat next to it on H's plate was tiny, and overwhelmed by an accompaniment of difficult-to-identify comestibles, one that was definitely a sausage, and one that looked a bit like a fish-finger, all served on a bed of samphire.

At the table next to us, a well-heeled, middle-aged couple conversed beautifully, making sure that 'darling' was used in every sentence, and to this backdrop, I did battle with my quail. I assume the verb 'to quail' comes from someone like me trying to eat something like this in a setting like that, as I had no idea what to do with such a small bird, and was sure that whatever I did would be wrong. In the end, I gave up faffing and used my evolutionary tools, employing hands and teeth.

When we'd picked our way through fussy, fiddly food as best we could, we declined the offer of anything further, paid our £50-odd quid bill, and shuffled out again.

It had been an odd experience. The food wasn't bad, but it was unnecessarily complicated. It felt as though the owners were trying their utmost to show off their foodiness, to appeal to a clientele more interested in style than content.

It was something of a shock, therefore, to learn afterwards that we had dined in the Best British Restaurant 2009, according to Gordon Ramsay's F Word. Indeed, searching online, most of the reviews of The Pheasant are glowing; the Telegraph's Zoe Williams loved the food, for example.

We just found it to be fussy, pretentious and a little bit offal. It wasn't bad, it was just trying much too hard to be clever.

Ironically, if we'd gone a few miles further on we'd have reached the Kettering West branch of Little Chef, which apparently does feature the new Heston Blumenthal menu. And given the choice again, I know which of the two I'd be going to.

*despite being from a town situated only about 40 miles to the north-west of Keyston.

Yes Loans? No, thank you.

2011-07-28T16:01:00.000+01:00

The phone rings. I answer it.

"Hello, is that Robert?" says a man's voice.

"Sorry?" I reply.

"Is that Robert?" he persists.

"No, I'm afraid you've got the wrong number," I tell him, and prepare to hang up.

"Oh, I'm very sorry about that sir. I do apologize. I'm calling from Yes Loans, and if you've got five minutes we can get your application filled in and get your loan set up."

I think about this for a nano-second, and then decide that a loans company which is prepared to give out money to a person who hasn't asked them to call him, and who isn't even the person they thought they were speaking to, is almost certainly run by a bunch of cheeky twerps. And probably not a very trustworthy bunch of twerps either.

"Er, no thank you," I tell him. And I put the phone down.

Stats, drugs and rock 'n' roll

2011-07-24T17:48:00.000+01:00

The death of Amy Winehouse is terribly sad, if not wholly shocking. She was a gifted, fascinating, and ultimately tragic talent, and the music world will miss her. One thing I do find slightly annoying, though, is the claim that her death is proof of 'the curse of 27', whereby pop stars die at that age.

The famous five generally included in the '27 Club' are Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, with Robert Johnson and Alan Wilson also mentioned. Now the unfortunate Ms Winehouse will be added to the list.

But is there really anything significant going on? A study by a group at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University showed that, on average, European and North American rock stars die at a younger age than an average member of the general populace of those regions. Of 1064 pop stars examined (in 2005), 100 had died, indicating a mortality 1.7 times higher than for non-rock-stars.

North American pop stars were about twice as likely to die young as European ones, but the median age of death was 42 for North American stars and 35 for Europeans.

This means that Elvis achieved the median age of death for his regional cohort, whilst John Lennon lived five years longer. Of course, neither of them died at 27, and neither did Sid Vicious or Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran or Marc Bolan or Keith Moon or Freddie Mercury or countless, countless others. Interestingly, though, the modal age of death was 27, with fourteen rock stars having met their maker at that age.

14 out of 100 is a fairly high value, though I'm not enough of a statistician to tell you if it is genuinely significant. Turning it on its head, 86% of dead rock stars didn't die at 27. In fact, if dying at 27 was such a curse, why did it happen to only 1.3% of the 1064 stars in question?

And furthermore, the theory all depends on whom you classify as a star, and whether their death was in any way unusual. The roster of deceased musicians on The27s.com includes all sorts of people you've never heard of, whilst another lists the '8 most infamous rock star deaths' and only one of them - Brian Jones - died at 27.

To me, the key problem is that once a 'pattern' has been spotted, people find data that fit it. It's rather like believing horoscopes, or finding Nostradamus' writings prophetic after the event. One particularly bizarre claim was made by an author of a book on the 'curse', who stated that, "I think it’s a continuing story. I’m still trying to process Jade Goody, the British reality star."

Jade Goody wasn't a pop star, she was an unfortunate, ordinary young woman who became a celebrity thanks to demonstrating high levels of ignorance on two versions of the same TV show. She died of cancer. The fact she was 27 has nothing to do with anything.

For a theory to be meaningful it has to be predictable and testable. At the moment, all we can say is that quite a few pop stars have died aged 27, that far more have died when they weren't, and far, far more haven't died at all. Rather than getting all mystically distracted by a spurious hypothesis, people should be looking at the real reasons Amy Winehouse passed away so far before her time, and how we might be able to stop it happening to other vulnerable or unstable young people.

A mysterious monastic missive

2011-07-20T12:00:00.000+01:00

I received this email today. I only have one spare room, and it is full of books and junk and cricket kit. Where will I find space for five Greek priests?

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

Hello,

I want to make a reservation in your facility for FIVE (5) newly ordained priest from Greece will be visiting your country for a seven (7) days religious program in the month of Oct. 2011.

Arrival Date: 10th Oct. 2011
Departure Date: 17th Oct. 2011
Number of guest: 5
Number of rooms: 5

Kindly confirm availability and get back to me with cost so we can pay a deposit so that the rooms will be reserved for them, am waiting for your swift response.

Regards
monk peter

Nobody's Diary, Part 1 - 17.11.08

2011-07-19T15:58:00.000+01:00

For no particular reason, and in no particular order, I've decided to publish excerpts of my diaries. They go back at least ten years, and the first page I happened open was this one:

17th November 2008, Aberdeen.

I was reading Leviathan on the train. The old chap next to me on the final segment, from Edinburgh, wondered if it had anything to do with Thomas Hobbes' book of the same name, but I explained it was about whales.

The old chap turned out to be a retired history teacher who was going to give a lecture to the Aberdeen Civic Society about Aberdonian street names. I should have spoken to him earlier, but I was engrossed in my book.

Of the book itself, I enjoyed it, but not without reservation. I learned many things about cetaceans and history and Herman Melville and whaling, but at times it became too emotional, too involved, too awe-full. Whales are extraordinary, fascinating mammals, but Philip Hoare elevates them to the status of deities.

One thing that did strike me as apposite was the description of how whaling went crazy in the 20th century, proving the inability of people to self-regulate. Without intervention, whales would have vanished completely, it seems, whereas now we have some species clinging on, and some recovering (and only a few gone forever).

In the last few months, the folly of financial self-regulation has been demonstrated, but the main purpose of history is to be ignored. The history-teaching gentleman told me of his difficulties in persuading pupils to stick with his subject. I have that same problem with palaeontology. "What's the point?" I am asked.

Everything is about natural philosophy or natural history, but too many people see humans as somehow separate from nature. Religion might be to blame, or it could just be the Industrial Revolution and the creation of too much artifice. Who needs to hear what people did in 'the old days'? This is the brave new world, of technology and progress. What can the past possibly tell us? And what is the natural world but a resource for us to exploit?

And we all end up baffled. Ringo Starr declared last month that he would not be signing any more autographs. "I'm warning you with peace and love," he told us, "I have too much to do."

The combination of aggression and 60s idealism is great. Being the only working class Beatle, Ringo never made a very convincing hippy. He was there in the midst of the movement without ever properly being part of it.

Forty years on, he's warning people with 'peace and love'. What next? "I'm threatening you with serenity and adoration?" "I'm punching you with calm and fondness?"

Poor, confused chap. Trying to fuse human nature with changing times is tricky.

Back at the flat, I moved onto reading Corvus: A Life With Birds. It's a biography of the birds that Esther Wolfson lives or lived with in Aberdeen, and she describes the city very well:

"Granite, in its singular density, creates a truly Protestant aspect, forbidding, grey, accepting of little ornamentation, a stone that in its greyness, its occasional glittering brilliance, has created a city that seems to mirror a gunmetal sea, a high, ashen sky. The houses...[are] all sufficiently plain as to avoid offending God with ostentation.

...[But] people in the business of North Sea oil have replaced the granite merchants, people who, to judge by the frank display of glossy, elephantine vehicles...squatting on their driveways, clearly feel no obligation to show such deference towards God's sensibilities.'

(p. 14)

Next time - back to 2001

Equestrianism at the Wenlock Olympian Games

2011-07-19T11:52:00.000+01:00

I had a wonderful time at the 125th Wenlock Olympian Games in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, and I will write plenty more about it in due course. However, I was most disappointed to see that the equestrian events took place in Broseley. It doesn't matter so much for the show-jumping or the cross-country, but just a few miles north-northwest of Much Wenlock is a village that is simply crying out to host the third discipline of the sport.

And why is that, exactly? Because then the Olympian Games would be able to boast that they hold the dressage in Cressage.

(At moments of excitement, the supporters would also be able to shout out the phrase "Christ's Oak!" with impunity.)

The Olympic lottery

2011-06-24T13:42:00.000+01:00

People don't half like to whinge. It seems like it is particularly prevalent at the moment, but I suspect it's really an artefact of the number of different forums where it can now be done. Blogs, websites, newspapers, radio stations, television shows: all cater for (indeed, clamour for) the most vociferous complaints from the most voluble of plaintiffs.

And right now, one of the top whinging topics seems to be the allocation of tickets for the 2012 Olympic Games.

I wanted tickets. I wanted to go and see some of the world's finest sportsmen and women competing in their chosen events in a sporting extravaganza being held in my home country. I also realized, however, that there would be other people wanting similar things.

So when it came to applying for tickets I decided to choose sports that might not be so popular (and therefore, to my mind, more interesting). Archery at the home of cricket sounded good, as did a bit of a ping-pong ding-dong, whilst I was very curious about handball and water polo, not knowing much about them. And then there was the prospect of some super-heavy-weightlifting:

1984 Olympics - Super heavyweight weightlifting

I fancied a bit of athletics too, though, so I applied for a couple of the morning sessions. All-in-all, I bid for about £350-worth of tickets. I knew I wouldn't get them all. I knew that there was a lottery system operating, and that if my name wasn't drawn out of the electronic hat, I wouldn't get those tickets. I went in with optimism, and only a little expectation.

When my allocation was announced this week, I was a bit disappointed to find that all I'd ended up with was a pair of tickets for the water polo. But such is the nature of a lottery. You buys your ticket, you takes your chance, and only some people will be successful. I was lucky to get any tickets at all.

The organizers have to generate interest, in order to sell as many tickets as possible. To do it the way they did may have been frustrating in some ways, but it was pretty fair. Rather than letting everyone jump onto the website in a mad rush, clamouring for everything they could grab in a first-come, first-served basis, they let people apply for a ticket lottery over a much longer, more-considered period.

A random system means that some people will get all their tickets, some will get some, and some will get none. It might not be fun, but it's fair. To complain about it is perfectly within your rights, but also rather tiresome, and also only really justifiable if you have a better idea to offer.

I don't like the corporate aspect of the Games, the freebies and beanos that come with having your brand added to the list of sponsors, but it is an inevitability of the way modern sport works. You want a big show, you get big business to bankroll it. It might not quite be what William Penny Brookes had in mind when he began the Olympian Games, but that's rather like expecting railway companies to still sell tickets at a price of one penny per mile.

And, hey, if you're really so bothered about fair play and the Olympic ethos, then why not come along to the original Olympian Games instead?

The storming of the pastille

2011-06-21T23:28:00.000+01:00

Never having played at Bournville during my time in Birmingham, it was quite exciting to get the chance to partake of a cricket match at Rowntree's ground on the Haxby Road. With Rowntree's CC competing in the York Senior League, and Ovington in the York Vale League, such opportunities are scarce, so thank goodness for the Charity Cup.

The home team won the toss and put us into bat on a chocolate pudding of a wicket. Inexplicably I was asked to open the batting with captain-for-the-evening, Chris Tune, and scratched around for a while, before being bowled, possibly by a Yorkie.

Luckily, Mr Tune was playing with plenty of panache, and in partnerships with Mike Noble and Steve Tremayne, got the scoreboard rattling along. The Rowntree's bowlers took a bit of a Walnut Whipping, and a fair few shots found the Aeroial route to the boundary. Chris's knock of 83 was pure Black Magic, and as a result, we finished on 191-8 off our 16 eight-ball overs.

We were, with a score of this Quality, Streets ahead of our expected total, and Rowntree's were always going to struggle in the gloaming, especially once it was After Eight. Mike Noble skittled* a couple of Rowntree's batsmen early on, whilst Paul Mizon wreaked havoc at the other end, and a series of good Kit-Katches ensured that we came off the field looking like Smarties, recording a thumping 158-run Rolover.

And having successfully stormed the Fruit Pastille, we left to the sweet smell of success. Or else it was just the aroma of minty Aeros drifting across the field from the factory over the road.

Ovington 191-8 (C. Tune 83)
Rowntree's 33 all out (P. Mizon 5-10, B. Busby 3-3)
Ovington won by 158 runs

*Skittles are not a Rowntree's product, and are not endorsed by this blog.

Cher and Cher alike

2011-06-08T12:24:00.000+01:00

On a bus journey from Newcastle to York last weekend I was forced to endure the driver's dubious taste in music. This included a Cher triple bill, which counts as at least three Cher songs too many.

Not being able to do anything about it, except perhaps stuff my socks in my ears, I endured this test by examining the lyrics of her song If I Could Turn Back Time. This includes the refrain:

"If I could reach the stars,
I'd give them all to you.
Then you'd love me, love me
Like you used to do."

Now, forgive me for my ignorance, as I've never lived a glamorous Hollywood lifestyle where perhaps such behaviour is entirely normal, but I find this a very strange sentiment to express. I mean, seriously, Ms Sarkisian, though it would undoubtedly be impressive if you could somehow extend your arms to a distance of at least four-and-a-quarter light years and grab hold of enormous fireballs and bring them down to Earth, what the heck would I then do with them? Really, Cher, where would I keep an infinity of massive, luminous, plasmatic spheres? And, more importantly, how exactly would they make me love you?

It's almost as puzzling as Katie Melua's comprehension of the universe.

ConDem nation

2011-06-07T18:28:00.000+01:00

Well what a success the Tory-led government has been. With one brilliant and widely lauded policy after another, David Cameron must be the greatest Prime Minister this country has ever had. Just look at this litany of successes:

1. Cameron's and Caroline Spelman's plans to sell off England's forests were met with nothing but approval, and have now gone full-steam ahead into the legislature.

2. Cameron's and George Osborne's economic strategy has been universally acclaimed, and the country is now in extraordinarily rude financial health.

3. Cameron's and Andrew Lansley's proposed reforms to the NHS have been recognized as visionary by everyone in the country, and doctors are lining up to back them. Lansley is one of the most popular people in Britain as a result.

4. Cameron's and David "Two Brains" Willetts' introduction of higher university tuition fees, reduced government funding for higher education, and increased competition, have been overwhelmingly supported by students and academics, most vociferously by the governing body of Cameron and Willetts' alma mater.

With all these accomplishments, and so many more to surely come, it is hard to foresee anything but joy and popularity for our glorious ConDem coalition.

Behind the scenes at Countdown, part 4

2011-06-06T13:57:00.000+01:00

My narrower-than-the-thinnest-snickelway win over Gary Kenwright took me to the lunch interval with three wins out of three. This ought to have made me more relaxed. However, the series quarter-finals were beginning once my next match had finished, so the lunch break brought all the champs and octochamps into the arena. It was a rather daunting experience knowing that they'd all be watching.

After eating, I was sent in to make-up, and Debra the lovely make-up lady told me she did John Humphrys' make-up when he's presenting Mastermind, and that I should give the show a try. I assured her that I knew everything about nothing and not too much about that, so Debra suggested getting audience tickets instead. It's filmed in the new BBC Centre in Salford, apparently.

Back under lights, my final game of the series was against Tom Beaumont, who was still pretty nervous, but happy enough to chat about his love of football - particularly Chesterfield goalkeepers - and 70s rock music.

This proved to be apposite, as, in the first round, between us, Tom and I submitted SILVER PELVIS, who I'm sure supported Led Zep on one of their early tours. From that, rather like an IPL match with Chris Gayle, it was sixes all the way, till I spotted BOSSIER, and it was 32-25 at the break.

In readiness for part two, I then took a new piece of paper from the stack provided, and found a curious, cryptic message:

I was puzzled for a moment, wondering who would try to give me such information. Was it secret? Was it even useful? Would I be accused of cheating? I'd already discussed the possibility of Countdown match-fixing with a fellow contestant, wondering if coughing a la Tecwen Whittock would work, or if you could plant nine of your friends on the front row of the audience, getting them to spell out words in a YMCA-dance fashion. Had someone overheard me, and planted the message in order to entrap me?

And then I realized its source. After we'd returned from lunch, before my match with Tom started, a special episode of Countdown was filmed for Sky Sports' Soccer AM, with Chris Kamara taking on Alistair McGowan in a mutant form of the show. It looked like this:

Soccer AM - "Kammy Do It" on Countdown

I DIDN'T SEE IT

The paper was evidently a leftover from that, so I have kept it, as I am sure it will become a valuable artefact, and I will eventually be able to sell it on a niche northern online auction site, E-Bay-gum.

Back in the game, it was still very tight till round 7, but then I think nerves got the better of Tom, and he began to struggle. MONTAGE and ELATION got me into a 21-point lead, and although I then took a ridiculously complicated route to turning 75, 50, 3, 5, 6, and 10 into 151, I managed it. I missed a geological eight - TACONITE - but another straightforward numbers round ensured it was 97-64 when the conundrum arrived. I rather hoped I'd score my first century, but couldn't turn GIRLAMORE into RIGMAROLE, so had to make do with falling three short.

Despite this failure, Alistair McGowan still thought I'd done well enough for him to put on the voice of David Schwimmer/Ross from Friends and declare me the most famous palaeontologist, which was very kind, if wildly inaccurate. And then Dudley Doolittle - the warm-up man - made a different comparison, as he claimed I bore a close resemblance to the man who sang Matchstalk Men & Matchstalk Cats & Dogs. To make a lucrative career as a tribute act, apparently all I needed was a flat cap. And a glass eye. And the ability to sing:

Brian and Michael on Top of the Pops

And then I had to spurn all the adulation and dash off, as I had to catch a train to London for a Palaeontological Association council meeting where I was continuing the role of newsletter reporter, which I'd taken over at Christmas from...

...Alistair McGowan!

Behind the scenes at Countdown, part 3

2011-06-06T12:54:00.000+01:00

I suspect that if Countdown didn't already exist on British television, and was pitched as a new show, it wouldn't get commissioned. I mean, can you seriously imagine any TV executive today having the nerve to produce a show that is, in essence, a spelling and mental arithmetic test between two people, much of it spent without anyone saying a word, stretched out over 45 minutes, fronted by a northern chap with a penchant for low quality gags?

But therein lies its charm. For although I am obviously biased, Countdown is a show to be lauded, and its status as a national treasure is wholly justified. Unlike almost anything else on the box, it praises intelligence and mental agility, it encourages an interest in words and numbers, it is played in a sportsmanlike way, and its atmosphere is one of friendliness and enjoyment. Watching Adam Gillard and Edward McCullagh battle it out in the final of Series 64 on Friday - both wanting to win, both showing incredible wordplay and mathematical skills, and both wholly respectful of their opponent - made me feel quite proud.

And now that the final has been played, it's time for Series 65, and time for me to reappear on your screens, lowering the quality of the show immeasurably.

I can't say how I get on, though, or else David Abraham's henchmen will come round to my house and give me a kicking, so I will go back instead to where I left off last time, and my second day in the studio.

It began at 9.30 a.m., in the Granada studios waiting room, where I met the other contestants: Jamie, Gary and Tom. Jamie had come up from Turves, near Peterborough, where he works as a bookmaker and also runs a business helping people who've just left the armed forces to find new careers. Gary was from Macclesfield, and Tom (who was very nervous indeed) from Chesterfield.

It was me versus Jamie first, and when Jeff introduced him as a bookie, he asked what odds Jamie gave himself on winning. 6-1, he said, because he was up against a palaeontologist, but Jeff was mildly incredulous that Jamie was giving such poor odds in a two-horse race.

Replacing Delia Smith in Dictionary Corner it was Alistair McGowan, who was a lovely chap, very friendly and very funny. A few laughs certainly helped break down any residual nervousness, and then we were away.

Thanks to MOLESTED and POTIONS, I made a 'flying start' (Jeff's words, not mine) and an IMPALA meant I was 26-5 ahead at the first numbers game. Jamie solved it whilst I didn't, but it wasn't enough for him to tell Jeff he was now drifting slightly to 8-1.

In part two, I struggled to turn CGASOELRI into anything more than seven, but when Jamie said he had an eight, I gambled on GIRASOLE, which I thought was a plant, but also thought I might be making up. For once, I wasn't, and that kept me ahead. It was all fairly even after that, but spotting RIGOURS pretty much sealed it for me, especially as I'd had DRUIDS, which Jamie played and which turned out to be capitalized.

Again I failed to spot the conundrum, so it finished 82-57, and Jamie said that 6-1 had probably been about right. And after Mr McGowan had finished up speculating that William Blake was a Brummie (the only way 'immortal hand or eye' could rhyme with 'symmetry') it was time for a short break before my next game.

Maybe the shock of winning two matches had gotten to me, or maybe it was just that Gary was a tougher opponent, but when the game began, I was pretty hopeless.

I started off ok, as UNTOLD ENGINES ensured it was 13-13. But then TBREINSOA came up, and I knew there was at least an eight, but couldn't see it. Then I spotted BERATION, which made me chuckle, as I'd used it in a word game recently, and my friend Aleks had challenged it, but we'd had no dictionary to consult, and eventually, after a very narrow-band internet search found a couple of examples of usage, she'd reluctantly accepted it.

So I simply had to play BERATION, if for nothing more than to find out what Susie made of it. I even thought about pluralizing it, but then decided against. And of course when Susie checked the word it wasn't in the dictionary, so Aleks was correct, and I scored nothing, whilst Gary got seven, and Susie and Alistair told us that BARITONES and OBTAINERS were the two nines available.

It was 27-all at the first break, and then Gary submitted FALLEN when there was no N, only an M, and I got a streaky six-point advantage. My good luck didn't last long, though, as the next round's BUTANES were rejected by Susie, despite Alistair saying that's what he'd got too, and thanks to RESISTER, Gary was 57-49 up at the next interval.

I closed the gap with ADDLED, and then I had an extraordinary second slice of fortune, as Gary mixed up Ns and Ms again, submitting an impossible DEACON. With a three-point lead, I then failed to get beyond GRANITE in the next round, whilst Gary got TAPERING, and if he'd spotted OPERATING the match would probably have been all over. For the numbers round was a mess - he didn't get 456, and then I misread my own handwriting in submitting 461, and talked myself (incorrectly) out of seven points.

So it was now 60-65 and just the conundrum to come and I hadn't got one yet. But perhaps my cricketing expertise saved me, for when EDGEDLATE popped up, I quickly saw that it was DELEGATED, and grabbed ten points for a bum-squeaky win.

It turned out I was even luckier than I thought, as Gary had actually forgotten to bring his reading glasses with him, so couldn't read the letters on his desk monitor. Having to look up at Rachel's letters board, which is slightly at an angle if you're sitting in the challenger's seat, Gary couldn't see the end of the last letter, so on both occasions thought an M was an N.

It was little consolation, but the producers gave Gary the first N from the COUNTDOWN board by way of special memento, turning the game show into COUTDOWN. I thought it was lucky that it wasn't the letter O he had had problems with.

Salmon swallowed by mighty Whale

2011-06-06T11:29:00.000+01:00

Sat. June 4th 2011, Little Knavesmire.

Burton Salmon 169-6 (40 overs)

Ovington II 173-9 (J. Whale 57*)

Ovington won by one wicket.

In an excitingly tense finish to a game that had, to be honest, rather meandered along for most of the afternoon, Ovington 2nds defeated Burton Salmon by one wicket. Number eleven Dave Adie, who'd come in to face a hat-trick ball with two runs still needed for victory, hit the winning boundary, but it was opener Joe Whale who deserves the plaudits, carrying his bat for an excellent (and critical) half-century.

The sun was shining as the game got underway, but the cloud soon rolled in and the wind picked up. This rather matched our performance - briefly enthusiastic before turning drab and uninspired, with a fair bit of whining. Ironically, perhaps, we failed to catch a Salmon all afternoon, despite numerous straightforward opportunities, and the visitors didn't need to bat especially well to rack up 169-6.

The pitch was playing fine, though, so there was no reason we couldn't overhaul that total, and Joe started nicely. The wickets of Sam Prangnell and Craig Theaker fell early, but a good partnership with Andy Cole (21) steadied the ship. It also helped that the Salmons were giving away extras by the bucketload, mostly beamer no-balls and byes, and we were way ahead of the required run rate.

When Andy was dismissed, Bobby Clapham didn't stick around for long, but I managed to hit a few boundaries and we were on our way again. I was bowled for 26, but Benjy Busby came in and carried on, and Joe was still motoring along nicely, reaching his fifty with a quick single. With the winning post in sight, however, Benj was bowled, and then Alistair Souch suffered the same fate, and we were now seven wickets down.

The next over seemed to have turned it back in our favour once and for all, with a load more extras and another boundary for Joe. We were now 168-7. Almost there.

Except, unfortunately, Joe was at the non-striker's end for the start of a new spell by the opening bowler, and when he had Matty Dalton plumb lbw to the first ball, and James Pratt clean-bowled by the next, there was a fair probability Joe would have the disappointment of carrying his bat in a one-run defeat. Thankfully, Dave survived the hat-trick ball, and a couple more, and then swung lustily to top-edge a single over the infield.

With the scores level, and Joe still off-strike, Burton Salmon brought on a slow bowler at the other end, hoping to at least tie the game. Dave responded by clubbing him back over his head for four. Game over. But it was only thanks to Joe that we got that far.

2.8 Hours Later - Bristoling With Fear

2011-06-03T13:22:00.000+01:00

Visited a city briefly but don't know it well? Want to acquire a detailed geography of the place in an exciting and novel manner? Don't mind running away from people in strange make-up and hospital scrubs in the process? Then what you need is a city-wide zombie chase game!

The city in question here is Bristol, and the event I am referring to is called 2.8 Hours Later. I was lucky enough to participate in it this Friday, May 27th, and it was fantastic. You simply must try it if you can, but if you're not sure what it's all about, read on...

2.8 Hours Later from SlingShot on Vimeo.

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Having my finger on fewer pulses than someone with an allergic reaction to lentils, I was blissfully unaware of 2.8HL's existence. Lucky, therefore, that my better half's brother happens to live in Bristol and is most definitely up-to-speed with interesting events. So he signed us up for the Friday night.

Trying to drive from York to Bristol on a Friday afternoon of a Bank Holiday weekend was a rather foolish endeavour, but we made it eventually, parked in the centre of Bristol and met up with our local team-mates.

After joining a queue, signing away our lives, being given an Igfest wristband, a 2.8HL armband and a grid-squared map of the city centre, and then being briefed on the rules of the game (the main one being: You are not invincible. Do not run in front of a bus), we were ready to go.

I wasn't very nervous, even though I didn't know what to expect. Two of our team had done it last year, and I knew I wasn't the slowest runner in the group, so I figured that if the zombies suddenly appeared, I'd be ok if I kept my wits about me.

An organizer told us that our first task was to turn left and head for grid square N37. As I've not got a digital copy of the map, these references will be essentially meaningless, so instead I have created a Google Map showing all the different locations on it. The link to it is below, but should you wish to retain an element of surprise, you may want to peruse it only once you've finished reading.

View 2.8 hours later in a larger map

Well, we did as we were told, started walking, and quickly spotted a zombie on the other side of the road. We scuttled past, and it merely snarled at us. This of course was a set-up, and our jog took us more swiftly to the first crossroads, at which juncture a zombie man came hurtling out from the road on the right, scattering us. Two of our team of six went left, pursued closely by the zombie, and the other four of us went straight on.

We, the unchased quartet, turned left at the bottom of the road, unsure if our team was now 33% smaller. Happily, it wasn't, as a short way further along, we found our two errant team-mates, unzombified, if a little shaken. The adrenaline was certainly pumping, not to mention the heart, and everywhere seemed a potential hiding place of the undead.

We went down a Welsh back street to avoid another encounter, but soon found another zombette lurking at the end of the road. She was distracted by another group of game players, so a well-timed dash got us onto the Redcliffe bridge unmolested, and we made it to our first location without further trouble (although one of our team was still very jumpy, and would run at the slightest provocation).

Grid square N37 turned out to be an empty shop containing a blood-spitting girl and her grandfather. Whilst she frothed at the window, he told us we had to get to the church in square P24. I was expecting to leave navigation to the Bristol residents in the team, but one thing I'm good with is maps, and reading them at speed, so it quickly became clear that I was going to have a job to do.

This became especially exciting when the obvious route to the church turned out to be patrolled, and we had to take a circuitous route to St Thomas' Church. Even then, non game-playing locals tried to confuse us - one business-suited woman snarled at one of our team as we passed by, freaking her out, and the people outside the Seven Stars pub relished it too.

We got into the church ok though, and persuaded the tied-up vicar to tell us where to move to next. I thought he said B16, which would have been either a square on the very western edge of the map, or else a suburb of Birmingham. Thankfully, I was corrected, and we searched for V16, in the eastern part of Castle Park.

Castle Park was dark, and shady characters seemed to be everywhere. I still hadn't appreciated that all the zombies would be in green hospital scrubs, so when a man I didn't like the look of came purposefully towards us, I scarpered. It turned out he just wanted a cigarette.

Down the east end of the park, where the castle used to be I suppose, we found a small building that was extensively zombied. After various creeping circumnavigations of the area, and various mad escapes from zombie attacks, it became apparent that the only way we'd get in would be for one person to dash to the door whilst the rest of us created a distraction.

Commando Pete was chosen, or perhaps chose himself, and made it inside successfully. When he came out again he was still alive, and told us that the doctor-cum-zombie-butcher he'd spoken to had orders for us to cross the bridge to the Galleries.

The Galleries is a generic shopping mall just north of the park, and its presence stultifies normal brain activity on a daily basis. It was therefore the perfect location for 2.8HL.

After a circuitous escape from the park, we took it to the bridge in the company of two police officers who were in no way involved with the game. There we were stopped at the door and told what we had to do: get medicine, get to a shop on the middle floor, get in, get the medicine to Lisa, get the information from her, and get out again.

I have to say this was the best part of the night for me. A deserted shopping centre, a scattering of zombies, and clusters of men and women running around screaming, trying to find the pills, the shop, the info, or the exit. We went in slowly, tentatively, but I couldn't wait and ran off. This wasn't a brilliant move, as I got trapped in a cafe area, but I was able to elude capture. I then spent a few minutes running away from zombies, going down escalators, running away from zombies some more, running back up escalators, and finally finding the shop where Lisa was (and my team-mates too, who were clearly better at following instructions than me).

However, it wasn't all good, as only 2 of the 6 of us had medicine, and we all needed it. Back out into the mall went four of us, and luckily I spotted four bags of pills (actually Tic-Tacs, which meant we considered eating them) almost immediately. Back in the base, we went to give them to Lisa, who told us we had to find the Gatekeeper in Callowhill Court, grid square S11.

Of course, we had to get out of the mall first, and this almost proved a problem. Getting downstairs was fine, but then a zombie spotted us as we neared the exit, and hurtled after us. I wasn't too worried, as there were lots of people behind me who were going to get caught first, but I didn't think all 6 of our team would make it out.

Adrenaline does funny things to you, though, and everyone sped down the corridor, through the doors and out onto Broadmead. None of us were captured.

Outside, some lads sitting on benches advised us that there were some zombies to the left, so we went right. Across the square, outside BHS we spotted another one, so we turned down Merchant Street and then cut through Quaker's Friars. The area was unpeopled, so two of our team took the opportunity to go to a brasserie and use the facilities. One of them took so long that we thought they'd decided to abandon us, but eventually our sextet was reunited, and we edged our way round to S11.

There, round the back of the shops, hanging round the bins, guarding his trolley, swigging his rum, we found The Gatekeeper, and what he told us was terrifying. We had to go up the steps past Primark. He was adamant we do this quickly, as the steps were apparently patrolled by a zombie hen party, and if we got past them intact, we should go on to the Bear Pit.

The zombie hens of Primark - (C) SlingShot Effect

I started jogging off, till I realised that no-one was coming with me. Urgency on my own was clearly not wise, so I slowed down again. We came to the steps en masse, and tried to walk confidently past the hens, as if we did so, they would apparently leave us alone. It worked partially, till we thought we were past them, at which point one of them charged after us, screaming.

Out on the Haymarket, we needed to go right, but zombie panic ensured that not everyone did, and the hen-zombie stopped those who'd turned left from correcting themselves. It was tense, and exciting, with a group of us on the edge of the subway to the Bear Pit trying to distract her and get the rest of the people past.

We eventually managed this, only for a couple of zombies to appear in the subway. They didn't harass us, though, and wandered through the tunnel. We crept after them and out into the pit, expecting more zombies to appear at any moment.

Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't. We found a woman tending an ill man, curled up in a corner, and she told us we were near the Resistance HQ and should get help. Q4 was the grid square we needed.

This was on the edge of Stokes Croft, home of this year's Tesco Riot, but I didn't know this at the time, and was solely interested in how we could get to the base. We turned right down Moon Street and immediately saw a couple of telltale characters in green scrubs. We backed off, and tried Wilder Street, but that was the same. So we returned to the main road and headed up Stokes Croft to see if coming in from York Street was better.

It wasn't. There were zombies all over the place, and seeing a factory called H. H. Brain Ltd, we had a suspicion that we might be close to where we needed to be.

So we went up City Road and then down Brunswick Street to try and come in from a different angle. One zombie chased us for a bit, but a second sortie enabled us to get back round on to Wilder Street, where we seemed to be alone. Lots of other contestants were now in the area, often in quite large clusters, so we inevitably attracted attention before too long.

I can't quite remember what happened next, but my better half and I made a successful breakaway, only to find ourselves at the back door of the HQ, where they wouldn't let us in. Had we realised were we'd needed to go, we'd have made it safely, but now it was too late, and we had to dash back towards Stokes Croft again. And Hen didn't have the energy to do any more dashing, and another zombie appeared and she was captured, and she ended up looking like this:

Made up for a night on the town.

Having lost the other four too, I was now alone, at least in terms of team-mates. As more contestants arrived, so did more zombies, and getting to the base was becoming harder and harder. I circumnavigated the area again, tried to repeat my first (semi-)successful foray, and failed. And now it seemed to be just me and the zombies. Occasional stragglers came and went, but I was a bit isolated.

Eventually I texted my team-mates to discover their whereabouts, and the response was "We're all in the HQ. You'd best just run for it."

Not having much in the way of a plan B, I came round the corner onto York Street, used some parked cars to get close to the junction with Backfields, up which I knew I had to run, and saw that there were about half-a-dozen zombies. There were also lots of people inside the compound, peering over the wall and cheering, and when I was spotted by a zombie, I just ran for it.

I was quick enough to get past the first two easily, then I just about dodged the third, but the fourth was much too close. I tried a ridiculous Steve McManaman drop shoulder dummy and moved to my left, but the zombie reached out and grabbed at me, clutching briefly at my arm. But my momentum took me past him, and now I could see the other five standing in the doorway of the building, screaming at me to come in, and though I wasn't sure if a brief arm grab counted as capture, I came in.

And inside the HQ I was deemed to be clean, along with three of my team. Only Hen and Pete had been caught, and a 4/6 success rate seemed pretty good. We could breathe again, and get ourselves a drink, although not till we'd posed for the obligatory group photo:

2.8 Hours Later - two zombies, four survivors

What an amazing night out. And what an amazing way to see a city. Anyone fancy setting up a Jorvik Zombie Viking Hunt?

Usain Baltic and the London Jam Festival

2011-06-02T17:50:00.000+01:00

I went to Gateshead yesterday for an interview about becoming an Olympics volunteer. I love the Olympics, and would love to be involved with London 2012, but I came away from the process feeling rather disheartened.

This was hardly surprising, since the entire volunteer recruitment process is run by McDonald's, an organization for whom 'come away feeling disheartened' is a raison d'être. Everyone was very nice, but it was niceness that had a hollow, corporate ring to it.

The interviews were held in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, formerly the Baltic Flour Mills of Joseph Rank Limited. The building was chosen because of the secret message hidden in the sign displaying the name of the original company:

jOSePh ranK LIMited

Having never been to Gateshead before, I was eager to see the Centre. Unfortunately, despite arriving a couple of hours early, I discovered there were almost no exhibitions on, so had to make do with wandering around the area outside instead.

It was whilst doing this that I had the idea that turned out to be the best thing I did all day. When the Cultural Olympiad comes to the north-east, and they need a mascot to promote it, I have the solution. Comprising the extraordinary athletic abilities of the current Olympic men's 100m champion with the industrial heritage and culture for which the region is famous, I propose...

...Usain Baltic!

If that's not a great idea, then I really don't know what is.

Buoyed by my brainwave, I was ready to venture in for my interview, so I did. There were a cluster of us waiting, and we were eventually ushered into a lift and taken to the first floor for registration and suchlike. The lady who briefed us told us to enjoy ourselves, not least by making sure we tucked into the boxes filled with small chocolates.

These, according to the leaflet she gave me, were provided by Kraftbury, the "Official Treat Provider for the London 2012 Games Maker programme." The sentence alone made me die a little inside, and I found myself wondering how intense the corporate bidding was for that role? I was also disappointed to find that there were none of these on offer.

After being registered, and then milling around the small display area for a bit, it was time for a pre-interview video, in which Eddie Izzard ordered us all to make sure we mentioned everything that might be of relevance, such as the rocket ship we'd just built.

And with that, it was time to be grilled, bapped, and placed in a polystyrene box. I was interviewed by Boris (no, not that one, sadly), and though he was a perfectly decent chap, all the questions he asked were from a form, and all were classic burger company management recruitment drivel. Also, contrary to Mr Izzard's earlier instruction, I was instructed to keep my answers short.

Not only was this confusing, it was also ironic, as all the questions were full of waffle. (Which was also ironic, as waffles are one of the few things McDonald's don't sell in their emporia of grease.)

One query began something like, "The Olympic Games has an amazing history and we want our ambassadors to know this and convey it to everyone they meet...," and I thought "excellent, I know all about Baron de Coubertin, and William Penny Brookes, and Ancient Greece, and why the mascots are called Wenlock and Mandeville, and who won a gold medal for GBR in the men's 100m breaststroke in Seoul in 1988..."

And then I awoke from my daydream and realized the question was still going on, and it was ending with something like, "...so please give an example of where you have worked in a team to achieve a goal," and my heart just sank.

Every question was like this, and every response I gave felt like the wrong one. What is your favourite Olympic event, and why? Erm, all of it, because I love the Olympics, and have done since I was 7, and got up early to sit in front of the BBC coverage with my Ladybird book*, filling in all the results in all the sports.

It just sounded rubbish, as though I didn't really like the Games and hadn't really thought about it.

When have you done a thing with a team, and what were the outcomes? Well, I, erm, I set up a, I once did a, I was once captain of, erm, I once saw a game of football on television and it was a draw? Thank you, now give an example of a thing you've done with things to get a positive thing? Sorry, my brain has melted.

Thank you, have a nice day. We won't contact you in October to let you know how you've done.

I left, and got into a lift with another unimpressed candidate. "Might get a position in a car park in Walsall if I'm lucky," he joked, and as we wandered off home, I couldn't help but agree (though he probably meant Coventry).

Still, I had a nice time strolling around the banks of the Tyne, enjoying all the architecture, modern and Victorian. Even though all Millennium versions are essentially the same, I love the bridges, particularly the Tyne Bridge towers and their nesting kittiwakes, looking like gargoyles that have come to life. The Sage Theatre seems to complement them all, too.

Sage Theatre, Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Tyne Bridge

And I still love the Olympics too, even if I am now going to have to watch most of it on the TV.

*photos by G. P. Herringshaw, naturally.