Rain in Spain

How does the saying go, the rain in Spain stays mostly in the plane. Well I think not. Today it has been raining very heavily in the costal town of Nerja. I couldn´t tell from CNN whether the wheather was worse in Glasgow (otherwise how else am I going to enjoy the remaining day of my holiday). The rain makes it difficult to read outside. I am also running out of books, so I am going to have to look at the bookshop up the road to see what English language offerings that they have.

creative tension (not)

I was hoping that this holiday would be more relaxing than previous ones. All I do is sit on benches read my book and then eat. So far it has not rained and has been fairly warm. Since I have not tried to do anything, nothing has gone wrong so far. I feel that I may be relaxing a little too much. A bit of stress helps progress. The only English language show on TV is CNN. This seems to repeat so much that it does my head in. They are still playing a segment about two brothers in Afghanistan who have drug problems. I saw the same segment last year in a hotel room in Germany. I am trying to cultivate an image as a gangster. I am reading a book on streaming video, just so that people think I am so kind of technical porn king. The technical stuff on streaming video looks fairly complicated, not like they show on the CSI TV program. At home I spend a lot of time trying to get realplayer to work with firefox under linux. It work, then I may some minor change to firefox and I lose access to the BBC radio shows. Perhaps I will have some adventures in the afternoon. But first a spot of lunch.

Holiday in Spain

My last two trips out of Glasgow seemed to involve a lot of rain. I don´t want to complain, but I do see a lot of rain in Glasgow, so sometimes it is nice to go somewhere where I can see the sun. (Actually it is nice to see the blue sky). I am taking a couple of days in Nerja in Spain. This is a small town near Malga. I really came here because it is cheap at this time of year. My mum pointed out (somewhat bitterly) that it is one of her favourite places. We had a family holiday here, over 20 years ago. After I worked how to use cheap airlines I have been to Madrin and Barcelona, but I have tried to stay away from the hard core tourist areas that the British invade to get drunk in the sunshine. I felt I needed a break. Nerja is a smaller town, so it is not one of the main tourist areas for British holiday makers. I have heard a lot of English in the sreets. It is an older crowd who are the tourists. So much less drunkardness, but a lot of stopping in doorways. I did laugh when I walked 5 yards outside my hotel and found places where I could get an English breakfast. A pub close by had the Tennants T sign. (I actully drink more San Miguel when I am in Glasgow so drinking tennents would be a bit of change). After spending the day lazing around in the sun and just looking at the sea, I now kmow why British gangsters come here. I have mostly just been reading all day.

Africa

Tesco has been selling Tusker beer from Kenya. Being an international kind of dude, I bought a couple of Tusker beers. Particularly after I noticed that the brewers of Tusker beer were running a promotion where you could win a trip to Kenya. I kept buying the Tusker beer to help win the competition, because sometimes you need a lot of product to enter the competition, but in fact you only needed one bottle of beer. So far so good. There is now major unrest in Kenya because of the problems with elections. I posted off my application, on Saturday, in some kind of hope that the trouble would be over, when I would get my trip. I was watching TV. The police fired live rounds on a demonstration. The people fled very quickly. I just can't imagine how scared I would be running from automatic weapons.

white bicycles

I have just finished a great book called "white bicycles" by Joe Boyd. Joe was a record producer in the 60s and ran the famous UFO club in London (early hippy hang out). He produced the first Pink Floyd single. He also discovered / produced Nick Drake. So this guy has been around. Boyd did the sound for Bob Dylan's famous performance at the Newport folk festival in 1966. It was at that performance than Dylan went electric. Poor old grumpy Pete Seeger got very angry and kept asking for the volume to be turned down. Dylan and his band only played 3 songs. Boyd started out helping to promote traditional blues and jazz bands, so although he was excited by what Dylan was doing, he also felt sad because the Newport folk festival was meant to preserve folk traditions, and Dylan helped destroy that a little bit. Although Boyd didn't like people to be too traditional, because in some sense it make the artists pander to audience expectations too much.

The stake holding society

I finally finished reading "the stake holding society" by Will Hutton. This was a collection of his essays, that were published up to the first year that the nasty new labour people came to power. Will Hutton is a famous journalist and the essays cover a lot of ground. Hutton is part of the new left in that he believe in higher taxation and wealth redistribution that were concepts that disappeared when the labour and conservative parties became just two different factions of the global tory party. It was slightly depressing to read about the early years of Blair's rule, because everyone was still optimistic about the future. Hutton is pretty smart, but sometimes I wondered whether a royal divorce could be linked to the economic problems in the UK.

tradition

What is this thing called tradition? Is all human behaviour relative, or are there universal rules? I don't know. After over a decade of dragging my mum to the pub on Christmas day for a beer, this year she described this pub outing as a "tradition". Result! My other tradition is to drink sake on new years eve. I am not sure how many years, I have been doing that. On reflection is has only been two years, so that is clearly not long enough to call that ritual a tradition. Particularly as this year my bottle of sake was actually from California. Next year, I will be more traditional with sake from Japan.

The lost room

A couple of weeks ago I watched a DVD called "the lost room". This was a box set for a TV series. The lost room refers to a motel room that no longer exists. There were a series of objects in the room that have special powers, such as a key that could open any door, or a pair of scissors that could rotate things. There were groups of people, known as collectors, trying to get the objects. Some people thing the room and objects were part of God. Now that I look at the synopsis above it all looks a bit nerdy, ok it looks very nerdy. But I think I would enjoy life a lot more if I was searching for every day objects that had magical powers. If you see me wistfully clicking a new pen, then I am actually testing its magical properties, so I suggest you step back. There were very few episode (approx 6), so I was disappointed when it ended. I was talking to some people about DVDs in the pub. I noted that box sets were worse than cocaine, because they soak up so much time. (I would like to point out that I have never taken cocaine, just in case some nasty human resource person is reading this).

Can't stop Won't stop

I have just finished reading a book called "Can't stop. Won't stop" by Jeff Chang. This book is a history of hip-hop, mostly before 2000. It is one of the best music books I have ever read, because it also deals with racism and being creative in a corporate world. I now know who Afrika Bambaataa is and the importance of Grand master Flash. The book contains a lot of interesting material on political organization and compromises. When I read about the million man march in Washington, I kept thinking that I lived in the US then. My recollection of that event was through the prism of the media.

Christmas wishes (not)

I can't say I am A great fan of Christianity. The links my family have had with the church have never been a positive thing. I have always regarded Christmas as a holiday from the cold of winter. I usually send blank Christmas cards, where I write "happy holidays". (Ok sometimes I forget to write peoples names as well, because I am always in a rush). Thanks to Dawkins I now know that I should wish people "a happy Newton's day". Bah humbug!

Last year's resolutions

It is nearly the new year, so it is time to make some new years resolutions. I pulled myself from my lethargy on the couch, limped to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. My blood shot eyes, and beer destroyed body, shimmered with stress, and told me in the no uncertain terms that my dreams of a modelling career were finally over. But I thought what new years resolution could improve my elagantly wasted appearance. Last year my new years resolution was "going more mainstream". Instead of snorting when someone mentions that they like the killers or snow patrol, I was going to try smile and fake some interest in that person, even though they didn't deserve my attention. Anyway somehow hating the killers is hardwired into my brain, so that resolution lasted about 5 seconds. Also after reading Cope's last book on underground Japanese bands, I had to buy the CD Satori by the flower travellin band. When I heard the first track, I was disappointed because I thought it would make my head explode. After the second listen I think it is incredible. Even better, the CD cover for Satori claim that only 1000 copies were made. I have copy number 188. Fu*k mainstream music!

Vodka from Liverpool

Someone told me that there was a brand of vodka from Liverpool. Seemed unlikely, but it may have been true. I tried to order it in a Russian restaurant in Liverpool, much to the disgust of the waiter. Even the mighty google let me down, because I couldn't track vodka from Liverpool down. I found a bottle of Imperial Vodka, distilled in Liverpool, in an off license in Glasgow. The evidence is above. Now I need to search for something else. It passes the time.

TV

I have spent the last 5 days at my mum's house relaxing and doing the Christmas holiday thing. I was talking to my mum and brother about various technological things about TV. In particular the merits of digital TV recorders. I learnt how to use the joost internet TV while I was at home. Nice, but the interface needs more work. One of my other questions is what the f*ck is smileTV. It is one of the freeview channels, but is only on from 3am to 7am. As I get older I can't stay awake until 3am, but I am taunted by the TV page when I switch channels. Umm now I know.

Physics under attack

Although this is not a science blog, I feel moved to comment on the attack by the funding agency (STFC) on fundamental research into particle physics in the UK. Apart from the cuts in funding, what is also particularly annoying is that STFC have a number of "big questions" that are meant to focus research on important areas. The older funding agency called PPARC had questions such as "what are the basic properties of the fundamental particles and forces?", that can be potentially answered. With a new funding agency comes new big questions, the only one that is potentially relevant to particle physics is "why is there a Universe?" What sort of question is that? If you are nine years old then this is perhaps a reasonable question, but it is hard to even know how to start answering such a question. Who wrote that crappy STFC delivery document? If you put "why is there a Universe" into google scholar (that searches books and journals), then you only find that phrase in books on theology, philosophy of science, and one entry in "Nursing Administration Quarterly, 2000". If you search for the phrase "why is there a Universe" using google you find hits from Hawking and string theory people. So this question has nothing to do with physics, reality or experiment. Things would be much simpler in the US, where I would sue STFC because they broke the separation between church and state. In the UK I can only complain to that nice Richard Dawkins bloke, and let him spew some polemic at STFC. Things don't seem and better in the US, where the accelerator I have been focussing most of my phenomenological studies on has just been cancelled. However the funding for a new machine has almost been approved.

blood music

I know I keep promising to read at least one book by Doris Lessing (from the two I already own). As a warm up, I read "blood music" by Greg Bear. This is a great science fiction novel about a scientist creating intelligent cells. He injected the cells into himself, which frankly was a bit stupid. The novel works on many levels and is full of ideas. If you are wondering why reading "blood music" is a warm up to reading Doris Lessing, I would like to point out that Lessing is quoted on the wikipedia page about her as mentioning "blood music" as evidence that science fiction is an important literary form.

six the mark unleashed

I watched a fairly strange DVD called "six the mark unleashed". I thought that this was an action movie. There was a resistance movement who were fighting a supreme leader (by stealing cars). Normally action movies such as this one, end with the leader being overthrown, and everyone going off into the sunset. This film was different. It seemed to involve a lot of Christians, who were rebelling against the system by happily geting their heads chopped off. Looking at the reviews I think I would have got more out of the film, if I knew more about the bible, than that Jesus turned water into wine. Anyway this is what happens when you rent DVDs from the local library at Hillhead. There was an offer on, that if you checked out 6 books, you could rent a DVD for free. Given that I hardly read at the moment, this didn't seem like a good idea. (The cute librarian didn't look pleased).

Mountain Goats

When I lived in Lexington Kentucky during the early part of the 90s, I used to buy a lot of tapes from the Shrimper Record label. The tapes were mostly by lo fi folk bands. One of the bands I really liked were called the Mountain Goats. Tonight, I am going to see the Mountain Goats play at he Oran Mor venue that is just down the road from me! I am so excited. Emmy the great is playing support as well, so that will be cool. When I was in Lexington I think I was hoping that I could put one over John Peel by listening to stuff he had never heard of. When I came back to the UK, I heard that he played the mountain goats and Simon Joyner, so there was really no way to beat the man. Of the bands signed to Shrimper, I really liked "paste". Paste were some intense singer and complaining guitar. I was happy to see that the Shrimper Record label lives on (in a sense).

Fool moon

I keep meaning to read something by Doris Lessing, mostly because I bought some of her books, so I should make an attempt to read them now that she is a Nobel prize winner. However instead I spent part of the weekend reading Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. The book was part of the Dresden files series. The story is about wizard versus werewolves in modern Chicago. The book is not great literature, but is well written with a lot of hooks that occur at the end of chapters. It is good to be reading fiction again. I will get around to reading some books by Lessing soon.

Janis Joplin

A couple of nights ago I had a dream where Janis Joplin was not dead. In the dream I was reading a WIKIPEDIA article about Joplin. She made some records with Led Zeppelin during the 70s. I used to listen to a tape by Janis when I was 17 or 18. We also taped a documentary about Janis and used to watch that in rotation with a documentary about Phil Ochs. Anyway I was pretty sure that Janis Joplin overdosed, but I used to be fairly drunk when I watchd the film about Joplin, so perhaps I missed something. The last time I thought about Janis Joplin was when I heard Cohen say that his Chelsea hotel song was about Janis Joplin. In fact, it looks like all my information about Janis Joplin comes from the TV. This is what used to happen in the days before the internet. I can feel a quest coming on to find Janis Joplin.

Are you ready for the LHC?

Are you ready for the LHC? Hey, forget about tuning your Monte Carlo, what you should be reading is the book "keeping it real" by Justina Robson. In 2015 the quantum bomb opened up the world to the realm of Elves, demons and some other things. The quantum bomb was caused by the explosion of the superconducting supercollider in Texas. Umm, yes, perhaps if she had done a little more web surfing she would have found that that accelerator had been cancelled in the early 90s. I don't see any acknowledgements, but perhaps Brian Cox was involved as a consultant, and he was able to help with his legendary grasp of particle physics. The book was a mixture of fantasy and cyberpunk. The heroine is a cyborg. Science fiction is very different to fantasy (please don't get the two confused). This cross-genre was good, because it mixed scifi with fantasy elements such as magic and elves.