Today I made an Astonishing discovery. I can’t claim I’m the first as someone obviously got there before me. What is it?
Tomatoes have bones!
They must have. Because this morning I found this tin of Tomato Fillets in my local supermarket.
I mean if tomatoes don’t have bones, how can you fillet them?
Most curious.
I shall open the tin with curiosity … and some caution just in case they’re on springs as well.
Curtilage
1. A small court, yard, or piece of ground attached to a dwelling-house and forming one enclosure with it, or so regarded by the law. The area attached to and containing a dwelling-house and its out-buildings. (Now mostly used in legal or formal settings.)
2. (Obsolete) Tillage of a croft or kitchen-garden.
There was an interesting article by Ashutosh Jogalekar on Scientific American Blogs yesterday called Why I am a chemist.
Ash makes many good points, but especially that chemistry underlies all the biology and physics and engineering that we see about us. Without chemistry (the design, synthesis and understanding of materials) we would have none of that: nothing from the early smelting of iron and bronze, through the Romans’ skills with glass, right through to modern concrete and carbon fibre.
Yes, chemistry encompasses everything from the synthesis of smelly bubbling green liquids, through the power of detergents, to a deep understanding of molecular structure via spectroscopy (which is what I did) and quantum mechanics.
All of this is chemistry. And it all underpins our world, both artificial and natural. Without chemistry we wouldn’t have modern anti-cancer drugs, or modern anaesthetics; we wouldn’t understand the biochemistry underlying photosynthesis; we wouldn’t have air-bags in cars or rockets that can take us to the Moon and beyond.
That is why I trained as a chemist. I wanted to understand how these things worked. (Although I probably couldn’t have put it is so many words at the time.)
And I am still sad that I had to give it all up because the mid-1970s recession meant there were no sensible jobs for chemists. That’s what happens in a recession, we lose the skills we’ve invested in, because no-one can afford to invest for the future. I can understand why, and it is a fine line to walk, but it is short-sighted especially when the education system is so unattractive as a job option that those who are displaced are lost to the discipline and not even attracted to teach and enthuse a future generation.
Would I do things differently if I had my time over again? Probably yes, if I knew then what I know now. I would certainly have worked harder (not difficult) to stay in research. And I might have looked more favourably on teaching. I certainly would have liked to continue as a working scientist rather than “selling out” (as my father saw it) to commerce. Science is much more fun that selling things.
Could I go back to it? No, not now, after nearly 40 years out of the field — much as I might like to. But at least I have retained a broad interest in science, and not just chemistry, so with luck I can still enthuse a few others along their path.
And it is still the simple things in science that enthral me. How metals are smelted. Why snowflakes have six-fold symmetry. How compounds are light sensitive. How detergents work.
So the government is allegedly** going to spend £9.4bn to upgrade chunks of the railways infrastructure.
Now that’s more like it! That is the infrastructure investment the country needs. Forget HS2 and airport expansion. Let’s get the rail infrastructure we have modernised and working efficiently first. Then we can see if we really do need expensive, environmentally damaging, new lines. Much better to realign and widen existing rail routes and streamline operation than built completely new — at least in my book.
Sadly there is a lot more to be done to get the railways in shape. For instance there’s a major need for new freight routes around London; a whole swathe of infrastructure upgrades and modernisations; and the need for all the train companies and Network Rail to actually work together and cut out duplication of effort thereby finding some significant efficiency savings. And frankly that would be best done by running the railways as a single entity not a myriad of companies with their own vested interests. What’s more I feel it should be possible without further major fare increases.
But this is a start. We need a lot more of it, please!
** I say “allegedly” because (a) it hasn’t yet happened and (b) there is some doubt as to how much of this is actually new money.
Oh dear god! They just don’t get it do they.
After all the farrago a year or two back about London’s Heathrow Airport needing a third runway the idea was canned because (a) it was too expensive, (b) there was huge opposition and (c) frankly the business case was fragile.
But the idea has now reared it’s head again, in spades! A group of MPs is promoting the idea that Heathrow needs not just a third but also a fourth runway. Moreover they are suggesting that the third runway should be built to the south and west of the airport over the villages of Bedfont and Stanwell thus destroying even more housing than the previously suggested site to the north. (GOK how this would be done as where there isn’t housing in the way there are a couple of humongous great reservoirs!)
When are these people going to wake up and realise that there is no necessity, and I suggest no good business case, for expanding London’s airports? Just as it has now emerged that there is no persuasive business case for the proposed HS2 rail link.
Yes Heathrow runs close to capacity in terms of flights. But I know from experience many of those flights are far from full. And Heathrow’s passenger numbers have been stable at around 66.5M a year (plus/minus 5%) for the last 12 years. (The Olympic blip in volumes excepted; but that is a one-off, hopefully never to be repeated.)
London does not need airport expansion — and that doesn’t just mean Heathrow, it means all of them. Indeed I suggest that few places really need airport expansion. There are a number of factors mitigating against the expansion of air travel:
1. Business doesn’t need air travel as much as it used to. In the last 10 years I worked I travelled very little despite running teams of geographically spread project managers and technicians on million dollar projects. Unless you need to physically have your hands on something, just about everything can be accomplished by telephone- or video-conferencing, instant messaging and email. Yes it may need some companies to invest in a small bubble of technology, but their savings in travel expense (and remember it isn’t just air fares, it’s hotels, taxis, car hire, meals, non-productive time …) will likely pay for that in the first year. By constraining travel my former employer saved many multi-millions of pounds a year just in the UK. This is money industry cannot afford to spend in a recession when there are acceptable alternatives available.
2. Air travel is an environmental cost the planet cannot afford. It is a major polluter which can, and to my mind should, be reduced. And that’s aside from the environmental damage which would be caused by any expansion of the huge areas of tarmac.
3. How many people in these constrained times really have the money for significant amounts of (especially long-haul) air travel? Few airlines are managing to make useful profits from air fares. And it is going to get worse as the recession bites harder.
Airport expansion is not the answer. Sound business and financial judgement and management is. Isn’t sound and honest judgement what we pay our leaders for?
Experiment, week 35. Another week in the continuing experiment and at long last it has been a bit different …
Well for a start it’ been weeing down with rain almost all week. Oh, there’s no change there then.
And secondly we had a quick night away in Somerset which has provided four of this week’s five pleasures: (1) Hilary Spurling’s lecture, (2) La Bisalta, (3) the Archangel; all of these you can read a bit more about in my earlier blog post.
La Bisalta
Then (4) people who enjoy and are interested in their job. I was especially struck by the pair who were serving breakfast in the hotel. The young man was a professional bar-tender and had made it his business to learn all he could, including about food, and was interested enough to be helping out on his day off. The young lady was a trained chef. Her boyfriend was obviously the hotel chef and they had agreed not to work in the kitchen together (very sensible!); so she was learning the front of house stuff (she even checked us out!) so she had the skills when they were able to start their own business. Unlike many chefs she was seriously interested in food. They weren’t busy so we had an interesting conversation. They, together with the staff at La Bisalta, were friendly and welcoming. It’s such a refreshing change!
So then to (5) Strawberries and Raspberries. We bought both on this week’s shopping trip because they looked good, were known to be good varieties — which is also a refreshing change — and were English. No need for cream, they were delightful enough all on their own for Saturday breakfast.
Just for a change I thought that for something different this time around we would have a few choice quotes (from among so many) from Terry Pratchett.
Granny grasped her broomstick purposefully. ‘Million-to-one chances,’ she said, ‘crop up nine times out of ten.’
[Equal Rites]
Few religions are definite about the size of Heaven, but on the planet Earth the Book of Revelation (ch. XXI, v.16) gives it as a cube 12,000 furlongs on a side. This is somewhat less than 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. Even allowing that the Heavenly Host and other essential services take up at least two thirds of this space, this leaves about one million cubic feet of space for each human occupant- assuming that every creature that could be called ‘human’ is allowed in, and the human race eventually totals a thousand times the numbers of humans alive up until now. This is such a generous amount of space that it suggests that room has also been provided for some alien races or — a happy thought — that pets are allowed.
[The Last Hero]
[…] discredited gods and unlicensed thieves, ladies of the night and pedlars in exotic goods, alchemists of the mind and strolling mummers; in short, all the grease on civilization’s axle.
[Equal Rites]
‘Look at the bird.’
It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse, and nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw.
‘Must be an old nest they’re repairing,’ said Lu-Tze. ‘Can’t have got that advanced this early in the season.’
‘Looks like some kind of old box to me,’ said Lobsang. He squinted to see better. ‘Is it an old … clock?’ he added.
‘Look at what the bird is nibbling,’ suggested Lu-Tze.
‘Well, it looks like … a crude gearwheel? But why —’
‘Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo.’
[Thief of Time]
‘Maybe there are things worth putting up a fight for.’
‘And they are —?’ said Pestilence, looking round.
‘Salad-cream sandwiches. You just can’t beat them. That tang of permitted emulsifiers? Marvellous.’
[Thief of Time]
So a German court has found a legality upon which to effectively ban the circumcision of baby boys — but only because it leaves doctors open to prosecution on a fairly general charge of “mistreatment”. That at least is the way I read the BBC News report.
My immediate reaction is that this is about time. In my view, as regular readers will know (see here and here), circumcision of boys is as much an abuse as circumcision of girls. It is forcible removal/mutilation when the “victim” is not able (not of an age) to give consent. And at least some parts of the German media agree.
The judgement is right — all protests to the contrary. The circumcision of young boys just for religious reasons is a personal injury. Muslims and Jews should decide themselves — but not before the age of 14.
[Matthias Ruch, FT Deutschland]
The circumcision of Muslim boys is just as heinous as the archaic custom of the genital mutilation of little girls. It is an instrument of oppression and should be outlawed.
[Die Welt]
Unfortunately because of the niceties of the case the judgement is not open to being tested in a higher court. That’s shame because such a legal precedent should be tested. So German medics are left in limbo: unable to perform the operation (unless, one assumes, as a medical necessity, which is rare) for fear of prosecution but unable to test the validity of the precedent. Highly unsatisfactory.
Needless to say both the Jewish and Muslim communities are up in arms. At least the German Muslim leader who is quoted in the BBC report is being sensible: I do not want my people to (have to) go abroad and/or to backstreet surgeons to have this done; I would prefer it done under proper medical supervision. The Rabbis quoted seem to be able to say nothing except wail “we’ve always done it this way” and “it’s our right”. Hmmph.
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, appears to be of the opinion that circumcision is a part of freedom to practice religion. I disagree, and not because I am areligious. In my book no religion (no person) should be able to mutilate someone who is unable to freely give informed consent. If any religion chopped off the left hand, fingers or nose of every baby boy (or girl) this would soon be outlawed, as it would if the children were permanently tattooed at a few days old with a cross in the middle of their forehead. After all the Baptists were established (as antipaedobaptists) precisely because they were opposed to infant baptism when the child was unable to give consent.
But where does one draw the line? Should parents be prohibited from cutting a child’s fingernails or hair on the grounds that this is abuse? Probably not as these regrow; foreskins don’t, just as female genitals don’t regrow nor scarification scars heal fully. That seems, at least on the face of it, to be a sensible test and place to draw the line.
Medical necessity excepted, of course, which is legally testable if necessary.
While I don’t like the way this has been done, I think the German decision is the right one.
As regular readers will know I love words. Almost any words. But I’m always especially attracted to those words which English has acquired from Indian mostly during the British Raj.
What I had never realised is that in the 1870s two men, Arthur Burnell and Colonel Henry Yule, documented all those words of Asian origin which English had acquired. Sadly Burnell died before the 14 years project was completed, but since its publication Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms etymological, historical, geographical and discursive has never been out of print.
And now there’s to be a new edition of the 1000 page work; it is being prepared for the OUP by Dr Kate Teltscher of Roehampton University.
The BBC News item about this lists over 50 well known words we acquired from India and includes these wonderful lines from Tom Stoppard’s play Indian Ink:
Flora: While having tiffin on the veranda of my bungalow I spilled kedgeree on my dungarees and had to go to the gymkhana in my pyjamas looking like a coolie.
Nirad: I was buying chutney in the bazaar when a thug who had escaped from the chokey ran amok and killed a box-wallah for his loot, creating a hullabaloo and landing himself in the mulligatawny.
[And even then amok is Mandalay!]
OK, the lines are a bit contrived but they do go to show just how big an influence the Raj had on our culture. And it’s not just words and foods (like chilli, curry, piccalilli, mulligatawny and IPA) but as this list of words used in the BBC News item shows it pervades our whole culture.
| atoll avatar bandanna bangle bazaar Blighty bungalow cashmere catamaran char cheroot cheetah chintz chit chokey chutney cot cummerbund curry pyjamas |
dinghy doolally dungarees guru gymkhana hullabaloo jodhpur jungle juggernaut jute khaki kedgeree loot nirvana pariah pashmina polo pukka pundit purdah |
sari shampoo shawl swastika teak thug toddy typhoon veranda yoga calico chilli coolie dam gingham mulligatawny tiffin wallah |
Sure there were many things wrong with the British Raj, but isn’t that just the most superb set of words?! To whet your appetite even further here are a handful of the original Hobson-Jobson definitions:
Kedgeree: A dish of seasoned rice. “A mess of rice, cooked with butter and dal and flavoured with a little spice and shred onion”.
Shampoo: To “knead and press the muscles with the view of relieving fatigue”.
Pyjamas: A “pair of loose drawers or trousers, tied round the waist”.
Gymkhana: “It is applied to a place of public resort at a station, where the needful facilities for athletics and games of sorts are provided”.
Veranda: “An open pillared gallery round a house”.
Isn’t it also interesting how the meanings have changed over the years. Notice that there is no mention of fish or eggs in kedgeree, and shampoo has nothing specific to to with hair!
I feel some book-buying coming on.
OK, so here’s my answer to the second of the five questions I promised I would answer.
Yet again it isn’t going to be an easy or comfortable answer. Not an easy answer for me to formulate. And as you’ll see it’s not a comfortable answer for any of us; I’m as guilty as anyone. So …
Question 2. If you had the opportunity to get one message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?
Just one message? How big can that message be? Well anyway here’s something like what I think I would say.
Stop fucking up the planet. Rebalance and restructure everything (see my previous thoughts). Treat the planet and it’s inhabitants, collectively and individually, as you would wish it to treat you — gently, with kindness, respect and consideration.
In a way it is what the Dalai Lama would call compassion. Compassion: the sensitive and sustainable treatment of the planet and all its inhabitants, from the human species, through animals and plants to the oceans, the air we breathe and the rocks beneath our feet.
It doesn’t say you can’t dig coal, but to do it sensitively without despoiling the whole landscape.
It doesn’t say you can’t chop down a tree, but to do it sustainably: plant a replacement tree.
It doesn’t mean you can never eat meat again, just eat less of it and grow food sustainably with grazing animals on more marginal land and arable using the best land.
It doesn’t say you can’t catch fish, but again do it so that you don’t rape the seas until there are no viable fish remaining.
And it doesn’t say you can’t smelt iron, but you should do as much as you can to reduce the concomitant pollution.
Just think about what you’re doing and the long-term implications.
Do as you would be done by.
That’s all. But it is so hard!