All posts by Keith

I’m a controversialist and catalyst, quietly enabling others to develop by providing different ideas and views of the world. Born in London in the early 1950s and initially trained as a research chemist I retired as a senior project manager after 35 years in the IT industry. Retirement is about community give-back and finding some equilibrium. Founder and Honorary Secretary of the Anthony Powell Society. Chairman of my GP's patient group.
history, personal, ramblings

Ten Things

There’s an old curse which goes “may you live in interesting times”. But of course that can work both ways; we always do live in interesting times, but not necessarily for the negative reasons the curse implies. Sometimes the interestingness is goodness.
As a reflection of this, and because in the last month I’ve become a state-registered geriatric, I thought we’d have an historical “ten things” this month.
So here are 10 UK Historical Events in My Lifetime:

  1. Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female British Prime Minister (1979)
  2. Death of Winston Churchill (1965)
  3. Accession of Elizabeth II (1952)
  4. Britain joins the European Economic Community (as the EU then was) (1973)
  5. Falklands War (1982)
  6. Roger Bannister runs first sub-4 minute mile (1954)
  7. Profumo Affair (1963)
  8. Great Train Robbery (1963)
  9. Voting age lowered to 18 (1969)
  10. Decimalisation of coinage (1971)
amusements

Oddity of the Week

We all know that soldiers in the British Army are not allowed to wear beards on parade. But that isn’t quite true. There is one rank who is allowed a full beard: the Pioneer Sergeant.


Pioneer Sergeants have existed since the 18th century, beginning when every British infantry company had one ‘pioneer’ who would march in front of the regiment. He would wear a stout apron, which protected his uniform whilst he was performing his duties, and carry an axe to clear the path for anyone following behind. It was also the Pioneer Sergeant’s duty to kill horses that had been wounded in battle, do running repairs and be a blacksmith. Consequently they were traditionally the biggest, strongest, “do-not-fuck-with-me” member of the company.
In modern parades, Pioneer Sergeants still wear their ceremonial aprons and carry their traditional axes in place of a bayonet.
And of course there are other, less traditional, exceptions to the “no beards” rule such a Sikhs.
More over on Forces TV.

photography, pleasures

Weekly Photograph

A couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of one of my Phalaenopsis orchids, all of which are in flower. And now, this week, one of my Dendrobiums has come into flower on the study windowsill. Not prolifically, but nice nonetheless.

dend2
Dendrobium in Winter Sun
Greenford; February 2016
Click the image for a larger view

amusements, ramblings, science

Thinking Thursday #5 Answer

This week in Thinking Thursday I asked you to find the next number in the sequence:

3, 13, 1 113, 3 113, 132 113, 1 113 122 113, ?

Who discovered that it is 311 311 222 113?
If you did, then well done!
So how do you get there?
Well this is what’s known as a look-and-say sequence in which each term is constructed by describing the previous term.
So if we start with the number 3, the next term is “one 3” as the previous number contains just one of the number three. So now we have 3, 13.
And the third number describes the second number, hence it is “one 1, one 3” or 1113, which we wrote as 1 113 just to throw you off the scent a bit. We now have 3, 13, 1 113.
Similarly, number four is constructed from number three: “three 1s, one 3”; or 3 113, giving us the sequence 3, 13, 1 113, 3 113. And so on.
But do you notice something else about this sequence? Yes, that’s right, the last number is always 3. In fact that’s true for any look-and-say sequence which starts with an integer between 0 and 9 — the last digit of each term will always be the starting number.
What I didn’t know was that the look-and-say sequence was introduced and analysed by the British mathematician John Conway who is still alive, and who also invented the Game of Life.
Good fun!

current affairs, medical, ramblings

Get a Life

We all know the Chief Medical Officer, Sally Davies, is on the warpath against alcohol. And she is on record as saying to Parliamentary Committee this week:

I would like people to make their choice knowing the issues and do as I do when I reach for my glass of wine and think, “Do I want my glass of wine or do I want to raise my risk of breast cancer?” And I take a decision each time I have a glass.

Christopher Snowdon calls it well in the Spectator on Wednesday:

She insists that she weighs up this trade-off every time she takes a drink. Just think about that. This is how she lives her life …
There is a distinction between understanding risk and being so preoccupied with death that you can’t pour a glass of wine without thinking about tumours. Cross that line and you enter a dark realm inhabited by neuroticism, unhappiness and the Chief Medical Officer …
… whatever she throws at us in the years ahead, always remember that if you are able to crack open a bottle of booze without dwelling on thoughts of cancer, you have already beaten her at the game of life.

If she was as intellectually acute as she would like to have us believe she would know that the change in risk of breast cancer before age 75 is around 9.5%, rising to perhaps 10.6% with the consumption of alcohol. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this is about a 10% risk regardless. And while technically it may be statistically significant (though it doesn’t look it from here) it’s unlikely to be emotionally significant to the vast majority. After all there is something called “quality of life” — something the CMO seems not to have.


Former Tory minister Lord Tebbit has also waded in (Daily Mail; 21 January):

[He] ridiculed her latest ‘drink tea instead of wine’ edict, saying: ‘The Chief Medical Officer regards a quiet glass of sherry as too risky to contemplate. Poor creature. She must shudder in her shoes at the risks taken every Sunday morning by celebrants at Holy Communion sipping at the Communion wine. As I look forward to my 85th birthday in the spring, and my brother’s 89th in the autumn, she is unlikely to persuade me to desist from my nightly half-bottle, or he from his.’

Quite so. This very well connected and wealthy female appears to think we’re as stupid as she is a miserable control freak.
Besides, remember: Research causes cancer in rats.

amusements, ramblings, science

Thinking Thursday #5

1 Comment

We haven’t had a “Thinking Thursday” post since before Christmas so it’s time for a bit more fun.

Here is deceptively simple sequence:
3, 13, 1 113, 3 113, 132 113, 1 113 122 113, ?
What is the next number in the sequence?

As always there’s no prize except the fun of getting it right. But if you want to show off by putting your answer in the comments, then that’s fine with me!
Answer on Sunday evening, as usual.
Oh, and of course, there’s no cheating!

amusements, history, music

Oddity of the Week: Glass Armonica

We’ve all misbehaved in restaurants or at dinner parties by running our wet fingers round wine glasses to make sounds. In fact one of the first people to write about the phenomenon was Galileo — and the trick wasn’t new then! And sets of water-tuned glasses on which you can play tunes were popularized in England by Richard Pockridge and Gluck in the early 1700s.
But did you know that there is a real musical instrument based on just this principle: the Glass Armonica (often called the Glass Harmonica).
In 1761 Benjamin Franklin was in London (representing the Pennsylvania Legislature to Parliament) and as a capable amateur musician he regularly attended concerts. One such concert was given by a guy called Deleval, who performed on a set of water tuned wineglasses patterned after Pockridge’s instrument. Franklin was enchanted and set out to invent and build “a more convenient” arrangement.
What Franklin came up with in 1762 was the glass armonica.


The armonica is composed of between 20 and 54 blown crystal (or quartz) glass bowls (37 bowls is a standard size). These are fitted into one another, but not in contact, with a horizontal rod going through their centres; the rotation of the rod is controlled by a pedal. The diameter of the bowl determines the note. Once the bowls are rotating around the rod, the player rubs the edges with wet fingers, thus producing a note — and indeed usually complex chords.
Apparently the armonica was quite a hit, especially in Germany where Franz Mesmer used it to “mesmerise” his patients and who introduced the instrument to Mozart. Indeed Mozart wrote a couple of pieces for the armonica, as did Beethoven and a number of their contemporaries.
If you want to know what the glass armonica sounds like, then here it is, with some instrumental accompaniment.

And find out more about the instrument and its history at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_harmonica
http://glassarmonica.com/
http://www.thomasbloch.net/en_glassharmonica.html

personal, ramblings

Weirdness Alone

I’m spending this week home alone as Noreen is doing a week’s consultancy work in Derbyshire. I was originally going to go with her, just to get a week away, but it was decided — for all sorts of reasons — it would make more sense for me to stay here.
We are not impressed. We aren’t used to having to “do for ourselves” these days; we expect our slaves to be there on demand.
As a very minimum we need intravenous tea.
And I keep having to ask questions like “What’s a dishwasher?” and “How do I get into this tin?”.
Well, no, not really. But you get the point.
On the other hand it is sufficiently quiet that I’m also getting quite a bit done, which was part of the intention because, as always, I have mountains of work to do for both the Anthony Powell Society and the two Patient Participation Groups I chair. I managed to kill off lots of jobs yesterday, but there’s still a lot to do.
I’m not doing so well today, though. Firstly I got a phone call this morning summoning me to go to see my doctor as she wants to change my medication. And I also have our friend Tom here replacing some corkboard for us — he’s currently scraping away at the other side of the wall from where I’m sitting.
And while Noreen’s away I’m taking the opportunity to give her laptop the once over — no she decided she wasn’t going to need it so left it behind. (No, I don’t understand how you can survive for a week away without your laptop, either!) Said laptop needs a good clean — both physically and virtually — as well as it needs various updates and changes doing; so this is a good chance. Luckily much of what’s needed can be done between other jobs, otherwise you just end up watching the proverbial paint dry.
What has really surprised me, though, is how quiet the house is. It isn’t as if Noreen is noisy — if anything I’m the noisy one! But without a second person in the house it is just so quiet — I noticed it as soon as Noreen went out the front door before daybreak yesterday morning. You could almost hear a pin drop. Suddenly the house was quiet and different, even before I got out of bed, as if it knows it is alone.
Needless to say the cat is confused too. But then she’s not a creature of routine and often lays low for hours at a stretch — especially with Tom in the house as he’s the bringer of noise and pusser-eating machines.
It all just feels weird.
But, barring intervention by The Kindly Ones, it’s only until Friday evening.

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photograph is another from the archives, and something slightly different. This wonderful Victorian pillar box is in Eton High Street. It is one the earliest designs, dating from 1856, and is said to be one of only 10 remaining in the UK. Needless to say it is Grade II listed by English Heritage, and thus protected. My original photograph has been translated into 1960s colour.

Victorian Postbox
Victorian Postbox
Eton High Street; September 2011
Click the image for larger views on Flickr