So there we go! The England team have been knocked out in the second round of the World Cup in a 4-1 thrashing by Germany. It was a very deserved win by the Germans too, although they didn't have to play much outside themselves to beat the team they were up against. We've been consistently poor this World Cup and there'll be a lot of blame to spread around - I'm sure the newspapers will have a field day tomorrow, and Capello's definitely going to be parting ways with his job (in his post-match interview he seemed to think we'd played well, which is taking trying to be diplomactic to a new level). The over exaggeration of our performance that followed our slight upturn in form from the Slovenia game hid what was clear to see from the earlier games - the team didn't seem to know how to play together. I have to mention it (although I'm not using it as an excuse), but the game did produce a howling error from the refereeing officials for not seeing Lampard's goal, which may or may not lead to a FIFA rethink on introducing goal line technology (I've argued against video ref decisions before, but in these situations I can see it probably should be introduced).
In the past in tournaments we have generally upped our game playing against the better teams, but that didn't happen at all this time round. It's very disappointing to see, but it actually lessens the blow of our failure quite a lot (for me at least) - it's far harder to take going out when we've played well and deserved to progress. The blow was also lessened by watching the game at home rather than in a pub in Glasgow, where in many places I'm sure there was much delight in our defensive failures and inability to make any sort of coherent attack. I think now I'm going put my support behind Germany - despite their young team they have some very good players (Özil and Schweinsteiger in particular) who could do well (although they may have to face Argentina in the next round). It's also a bit less humiliating(!?) to go out to the eventual winners.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
King of the mountains
Last weekend saw the third bike ride of my new cycle ownership regime. This time, as promised in my last post on the subject, we took a route that didn't just go along nice flat canals and did indeed have some hilly elements to it. The ride was up to Mugdock Country Park. Prior to the cycle we'd had a look on sustrans for the route and thought we had a good idea of where to go - basically follow the River Kelvin up to near Bardowie Loch and then along another bit of cycle route towards Milngavie. We did start by following the Kelvin before having to move onto a road-bound section of the route at the West of Scotland Science Park. We then never actually regained the Kelvin and just ended up cycling up the main road to Milngavie (home to the starting point of the West Highland Way). This is one of those places that are very close to Glasgow, but I'd still never been to, so it was nice to see. After wandering through the centre of Milngavie trying to work out the best way to the park, which we new should be just to the north, we happened upon a road called Mugdock Road, which we figured should take us in the right direction. Indeed it did, although it also meant going up the steepest climb we'd yet attempted - I started to have to properly learn to use my gears. We entered the park at a random point and tried heading towards the visitors centre. Unfortunately it turned out that to get there you had to traverse lots of steep uneven slopes (done via pushing rather than riding the bikes), only to get near the top (but still about a kilometre away from the castle and visitors centre) to find it impassable to bikes (and fat people) due to a very narrow and awkward stone stile-thing. This was probably done to stop mountain bikers using the route, but is was rather annoying. We headed back down and just randomly cycled round to bits of the park that were accessible, stopping for a packed lunch near a river.
We headed back to Milngavie, but wanted to try and find a different route home - maybe even the one we'd tried to travel up. We attempted to follow some signs to Allander Water, which also pointed to Glasgow, and involved a nice (flat) route along a river on which we saw a Kingfisher (or at least a bird that had a bright blue back and orange tummy and looked incredibly Kingfisher-esque). Unfortunately this just led us to a main road with no sign of a continuing cycle route - sustrans seemed to be lying (although the route it seemed to be showing us on Saturday seems to have disappeared from the websites today - suspicious!) We decided to just head back the way we came.
The cycle wasn't as long as our previous two, but the was some actual climbing of hills and offroad action, which provided a bit more of a test than before.
We headed back to Milngavie, but wanted to try and find a different route home - maybe even the one we'd tried to travel up. We attempted to follow some signs to Allander Water, which also pointed to Glasgow, and involved a nice (flat) route along a river on which we saw a Kingfisher (or at least a bird that had a bright blue back and orange tummy and looked incredibly Kingfisher-esque). Unfortunately this just led us to a main road with no sign of a continuing cycle route - sustrans seemed to be lying (although the route it seemed to be showing us on Saturday seems to have disappeared from the websites today - suspicious!) We decided to just head back the way we came.
The cycle wasn't as long as our previous two, but the was some actual climbing of hills and offroad action, which provided a bit more of a test than before.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
It starts (again)
The World Cup is back with us! It'll be a fun month. Fun, but also filled with intensely nerve wracking, heart in mouth, excited, nauseating tension when watching England play (hopefully I won't work myself up into this state again). So far I've seen at least bits of all the games except the South Korea vs Greece game - not too much spark in the tournament yet, but I'm sure it'll pick up.
Yesterday saw England's first match of the tournament with a game against the USA. Our group is, or at least should be, a relatively easy one to qualify from (unlike group D, who's teams are playing today, which may be this World Cup's group of death!), but as usual we want to make it hard for ourselves. Before the game started I managed to get myself into the normal pre-match bundle of nervous energy, which everyone knows is best tempered by beer. When the game kicked off it was hard not to fear the worst, but after a goal from Steven Gerrard in the fourth minute (which due to ITV HDs slight hiccup, we missed) things settled down a bit and I could relax slightly more. We generally seemed to dominate the game from then on, but up front weren't producing much to test the US keeper. The nightmare struck when a reasonably long range effort on our goal by Clint Demspsey was woefully mishandled by keeper Robert Green and carried on into the net just before half time. We made a good attempt on the break after the restart, but went in at half time 1-1. There were some good pieces of play by England in the second half, but still we lacked anyone able to finish - in fact the US were closest to getting a goal, only denied by the ball luckily rebounding off Green (or maybe he produced a save, but I don't know how much he knew about it) and onto the post rather than into the net. We pressed forward more towards the end and kept the ball in the US half (which was good as we could easily be outpaced at the back, especially if they took on the aged, and now rather slow, Jamie Carragher), but it ended 1-1. It's not a score that's the end of the world, but it would have been nice to start with a high. From the looks of the other two teams (Slovenia managed a 1-0 win over Algeria earlier today, but it was through another goalkeeping howler) they should pose too much threat, but then again who knows what might happen!
Yesterday saw England's first match of the tournament with a game against the USA. Our group is, or at least should be, a relatively easy one to qualify from (unlike group D, who's teams are playing today, which may be this World Cup's group of death!), but as usual we want to make it hard for ourselves. Before the game started I managed to get myself into the normal pre-match bundle of nervous energy, which everyone knows is best tempered by beer. When the game kicked off it was hard not to fear the worst, but after a goal from Steven Gerrard in the fourth minute (which due to ITV HDs slight hiccup, we missed) things settled down a bit and I could relax slightly more. We generally seemed to dominate the game from then on, but up front weren't producing much to test the US keeper. The nightmare struck when a reasonably long range effort on our goal by Clint Demspsey was woefully mishandled by keeper Robert Green and carried on into the net just before half time. We made a good attempt on the break after the restart, but went in at half time 1-1. There were some good pieces of play by England in the second half, but still we lacked anyone able to finish - in fact the US were closest to getting a goal, only denied by the ball luckily rebounding off Green (or maybe he produced a save, but I don't know how much he knew about it) and onto the post rather than into the net. We pressed forward more towards the end and kept the ball in the US half (which was good as we could easily be outpaced at the back, especially if they took on the aged, and now rather slow, Jamie Carragher), but it ended 1-1. It's not a score that's the end of the world, but it would have been nice to start with a high. From the looks of the other two teams (Slovenia managed a 1-0 win over Algeria earlier today, but it was through another goalkeeping howler) they should pose too much threat, but then again who knows what might happen!
Monday, June 07, 2010
Standard service
Yesterday I travelled out to Hannover for a collaboration meeting. As per usual I checked luggage in at the airport. I probably could have managed to get away with having hand luggage only (it would have required a slightly more conservative packing attitude than I normally have, but was easily possible), but despite certain previous problems I like to entrust my luggage with the airline and let my bags travel unaccompanied in the belly of the plane (I'm sure bags are more comfortable in this environment, travelling with their baggy brethren, rather than being stuffed into an overhead locker) - everyone else I was travelling with was less trusting/more sensible. My lack of luck with bags making it to meeting's with me has become legendary, although is probably now exaggerated beyond reality, so when we were waiting at the baggage carrousel my travelling companions were less than convinced I'd be reunited with my luggage. I was still optimistic to the last, but my bag did not appear. I knew the drill that I had to follow and left my details for forwarding my bag when it undoubtedly would arrive - the best case was that it would just be on the later flight from Amsterdam. And indeed it was - I was reunited with my clothes later that evening after returning from the pub. I am not cursed!
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Flight to the lakes
Several months ago I heard that Flight of the Conchords were playing in Glasgow at the SECC. I'm a big fan and thought it would be very nice to see them. Tickets went on sale at 9am on a Friday morning and I knew that they'd be popular, but still I stupidly didn't go online straight away to buy them. I went to the gym instead. It was about 10:30am before I made my attempt to purchase tickets, but alas every site I tried was sold out. My dream of seeing the Kiwi comedians was over...
But wait! My flatmate hadn't been quite so lax in his ticket buying and had been online at the right time. He bought ample tickets with a spare one that he kindly offered me. So it was the case that a few weeks ago I was able to go to see them in concert. It was a very good gig. I was very impressed by Bret and Jemaine's singing voices and the way in which they (seemingly) improvised around technical problems. They played the majority of their classics, bowing down (or so it seemed) to audience pressure for a couple of songs. There was a bit of playing around with some of the songs, which didn't work on all occasions, but mainly added to the show. It wasn't just a show of song after song (it kind of a comedy gig too) and inbetween songs there was a lot of banter with the crowd and even jokes designed to run through the show. The gig overran, but no-one minded and the finale was pretty awesome.
Now for a change of story...
I had to run away from the gig pretty quickly as I had to get to bed to be up early. My girlfriend and I were travelling down to the Lake District in the morning to stay at a holiday home owned by her parents. We were up at 6am for the drive and made it down to Ambleside just after 10am. We weren't due to enter the cottage until 4pm, so started the holiday with a walk up Loughrigg. This has great views down over the Langdale Pikes and Grasmere. It wasn't the most challenging of hill walks, but was certainly challenging enough for two people not used to getting up a 6am. However, we made it over Loughrigg and down the other side to have lunch at Chesters - a nice, if slightly pretentious, restaurant-cum-interior decoration store, with very nice cakes. Getting back to Ambleside we were able to get into the holiday home, which was very nicely done up. We had to have a brief snooze before heading out for dinner at Ambleside's (if not the UK's!) finest Vegetarian restaurant - again very nice.
The next day saw us take a walk up to Grasmere (I think I'd been before on a school trip back in 1994) - we were attempting to follow instructions from my girlfriend's dad to give us the route, but we failed to take the planned path and ended up walking mainly along the main road to Grasmere. Grasmere was very pretty, but (in a similar way to Ambleside) seems entirely based around tourism - it's all lovely cafe's, restaurant, outdoor gear stores, or quaint crafty shops. It's great to visit, but isn't necessarily a taste of the real Lake District. We were able to get a very nice lunch there though (I forget the name of the cafe) again with particular note of the cakes - this place was famous for it's lemon meringue pie, which I had. We took a more scenic route back via some caves and hilly bits - we didn't see much wildlife, but saw many sheep and lambs, including a lamb that was a bit too adventurous and got stuck behind a wall next to a river.
We only had the weekend away, but the start of our drive back to Glasgow saw us stop off at a really nice pub called The Queens Head near Troutbeck. I was able to get a proper Sunday roast after a weekend of mainly being vegetarian/cake-arian [Update: I have been corrected by my girlfriend who reminded me that I had actually had a sausage sandwich for lunch that day - and very nice it was too]. It set me up for the drive home.
But wait! My flatmate hadn't been quite so lax in his ticket buying and had been online at the right time. He bought ample tickets with a spare one that he kindly offered me. So it was the case that a few weeks ago I was able to go to see them in concert. It was a very good gig. I was very impressed by Bret and Jemaine's singing voices and the way in which they (seemingly) improvised around technical problems. They played the majority of their classics, bowing down (or so it seemed) to audience pressure for a couple of songs. There was a bit of playing around with some of the songs, which didn't work on all occasions, but mainly added to the show. It wasn't just a show of song after song (it kind of a comedy gig too) and inbetween songs there was a lot of banter with the crowd and even jokes designed to run through the show. The gig overran, but no-one minded and the finale was pretty awesome.
Now for a change of story...
I had to run away from the gig pretty quickly as I had to get to bed to be up early. My girlfriend and I were travelling down to the Lake District in the morning to stay at a holiday home owned by her parents. We were up at 6am for the drive and made it down to Ambleside just after 10am. We weren't due to enter the cottage until 4pm, so started the holiday with a walk up Loughrigg. This has great views down over the Langdale Pikes and Grasmere. It wasn't the most challenging of hill walks, but was certainly challenging enough for two people not used to getting up a 6am. However, we made it over Loughrigg and down the other side to have lunch at Chesters - a nice, if slightly pretentious, restaurant-cum-interior decoration store, with very nice cakes. Getting back to Ambleside we were able to get into the holiday home, which was very nicely done up. We had to have a brief snooze before heading out for dinner at Ambleside's (if not the UK's!) finest Vegetarian restaurant - again very nice.
The next day saw us take a walk up to Grasmere (I think I'd been before on a school trip back in 1994) - we were attempting to follow instructions from my girlfriend's dad to give us the route, but we failed to take the planned path and ended up walking mainly along the main road to Grasmere. Grasmere was very pretty, but (in a similar way to Ambleside) seems entirely based around tourism - it's all lovely cafe's, restaurant, outdoor gear stores, or quaint crafty shops. It's great to visit, but isn't necessarily a taste of the real Lake District. We were able to get a very nice lunch there though (I forget the name of the cafe) again with particular note of the cakes - this place was famous for it's lemon meringue pie, which I had. We took a more scenic route back via some caves and hilly bits - we didn't see much wildlife, but saw many sheep and lambs, including a lamb that was a bit too adventurous and got stuck behind a wall next to a river.
We only had the weekend away, but the start of our drive back to Glasgow saw us stop off at a really nice pub called The Queens Head near Troutbeck. I was able to get a proper Sunday roast after a weekend of mainly being vegetarian/cake-arian [Update: I have been corrected by my girlfriend who reminded me that I had actually had a sausage sandwich for lunch that day - and very nice it was too]. It set me up for the drive home.
Monday, May 31, 2010
I want to ride my bicycle
Last weekend my girlfriend and I used our new bikes to go on a trip to the Falkirk wheel.
First let me go back (for the record) to our first trip on the new bikes. Four weeks ago we started our new cycling life with ride up to Balloch in the sunshine, up part of National cycle route 7. The ride initially goes up the Forth & Clyde canal through some of the loveliest parts of north west Glasgow! Due to the nice weather the canal path was pretty busy, there were a few of the standard groups of semi-drunken neds standing around (although not too many and they were generally quite benign), but also plenty of other cyclists and walkers. Once we got to Bowling, and the River Clyde end of the canal, thing got prettier and slightly less busy. We had to leave the canal here and head towards the River Leven, which we could follow to then follow to Balloch (you also have to go through a couple of towns and we did manage to get a small bit waylaid at one put, before re-finding the cycle route. Balloch was pretty mobbed, but we only stayed briefly to sit by Loch Lomond and have our lunch. I'd been feeling pretty good, with no aches and pains, on the ride up, especially given that that last time I'd cycled that far must have been a long time ago (in fact I don't know if I'd ever done a longish cycle journey). However, having got off the bikes and rested my legs during lunch they weren't liking working again when we started heading home - my knees in particular were protesting a bit, and also more strangely my wrists. We made it home in good time without collapsing from exhaustion, but certainly felt the journey afterwards. Our bikes had also survived well, although I had had to re-attach my chain at one point. In fact as it had been so dry they looked pretty much unused.
For this more recent ride the weather was more inclement. The trip to Falkirk goes entirely along the Forth & Clyde canal starting pretty much from just outside my flat (basically we just went the opposite direction to our first trip). With only a few locks between here and the wheel the ride is pretty much entirely on the level, but the weather and our lack of regular cycling meant it was quite tough going. The ride goes through the lovely Possil marshes, up through Bishopsbriggs, Lenzie, Kirkintilloch, Kilsyth, Bonnybridge and then the wheel. We had rain showers of varying severity hitting every so often, and inbetween (especially on the outward ride) were inundated with flies and other bugs, which on a positive note meant there weren't too many people out on the path to get in our way. I'd never been to the wheel before so it was interesting to see it and it is a quite impressive piece of engineering. But unless you actually take a trip on it (they put on many sailings every day to take you up and down) there's actually very little to see or do - they have a visitor centre (looking like a mini Glasgow Science Centre), but it lacks any real information. I was expecting it to be more like a musuem, with displays about the history of the canals and the engineering of the wheel, but there was very little except for a shop and a cafe. We didn't go on a sailing and just ate our lunch and had some tea and a cake in the cafe, whilst waiting for the latest rain shower to abate. Contemplating the ride back to Glasgow wasn't fun as we both had felt like we had no energy and were considering the idea of just cycling to Falkirk station and getting he train back. But we didn't give up and once we started riding again, with our energy levels restored from our lunch, things picked up. I definitely wasn't aching as much as I had on the return journey of our first trip. We also made far better time on the way back, cutting about 20 minutes off our outward journey. After this trip our bikes definitely now look used - the puddles and mud have given them a nice spattering (as well as at the time giving us, despite mudguards, a similar look). There was no chain slip this time, but my front brake callipers do seem to have moved meaning that one of the brake rubbers is stuck against the wheel rim.
Who know were our next trip will be - we might even venture off the canal paths and try a route with some sort of hills!
First let me go back (for the record) to our first trip on the new bikes. Four weeks ago we started our new cycling life with ride up to Balloch in the sunshine, up part of National cycle route 7. The ride initially goes up the Forth & Clyde canal through some of the loveliest parts of north west Glasgow! Due to the nice weather the canal path was pretty busy, there were a few of the standard groups of semi-drunken neds standing around (although not too many and they were generally quite benign), but also plenty of other cyclists and walkers. Once we got to Bowling, and the River Clyde end of the canal, thing got prettier and slightly less busy. We had to leave the canal here and head towards the River Leven, which we could follow to then follow to Balloch (you also have to go through a couple of towns and we did manage to get a small bit waylaid at one put, before re-finding the cycle route. Balloch was pretty mobbed, but we only stayed briefly to sit by Loch Lomond and have our lunch. I'd been feeling pretty good, with no aches and pains, on the ride up, especially given that that last time I'd cycled that far must have been a long time ago (in fact I don't know if I'd ever done a longish cycle journey). However, having got off the bikes and rested my legs during lunch they weren't liking working again when we started heading home - my knees in particular were protesting a bit, and also more strangely my wrists. We made it home in good time without collapsing from exhaustion, but certainly felt the journey afterwards. Our bikes had also survived well, although I had had to re-attach my chain at one point. In fact as it had been so dry they looked pretty much unused.
For this more recent ride the weather was more inclement. The trip to Falkirk goes entirely along the Forth & Clyde canal starting pretty much from just outside my flat (basically we just went the opposite direction to our first trip). With only a few locks between here and the wheel the ride is pretty much entirely on the level, but the weather and our lack of regular cycling meant it was quite tough going. The ride goes through the lovely Possil marshes, up through Bishopsbriggs, Lenzie, Kirkintilloch, Kilsyth, Bonnybridge and then the wheel. We had rain showers of varying severity hitting every so often, and inbetween (especially on the outward ride) were inundated with flies and other bugs, which on a positive note meant there weren't too many people out on the path to get in our way. I'd never been to the wheel before so it was interesting to see it and it is a quite impressive piece of engineering. But unless you actually take a trip on it (they put on many sailings every day to take you up and down) there's actually very little to see or do - they have a visitor centre (looking like a mini Glasgow Science Centre), but it lacks any real information. I was expecting it to be more like a musuem, with displays about the history of the canals and the engineering of the wheel, but there was very little except for a shop and a cafe. We didn't go on a sailing and just ate our lunch and had some tea and a cake in the cafe, whilst waiting for the latest rain shower to abate. Contemplating the ride back to Glasgow wasn't fun as we both had felt like we had no energy and were considering the idea of just cycling to Falkirk station and getting he train back. But we didn't give up and once we started riding again, with our energy levels restored from our lunch, things picked up. I definitely wasn't aching as much as I had on the return journey of our first trip. We also made far better time on the way back, cutting about 20 minutes off our outward journey. After this trip our bikes definitely now look used - the puddles and mud have given them a nice spattering (as well as at the time giving us, despite mudguards, a similar look). There was no chain slip this time, but my front brake callipers do seem to have moved meaning that one of the brake rubbers is stuck against the wheel rim.
Who know were our next trip will be - we might even venture off the canal paths and try a route with some sort of hills!
Etive again
Last weekend saw our annual canoe club camping weekend up to Glencoe to paddle the Etive. Two years ago saw glorious weather, but a very low river and an insane amount of midges. Last year we had rain and cold weather, which wasn't fun for camping, but gave a decent amount of water in the rivers and no midges. This years was another with good weather, and possibly an even lower river than two years ago, but fortunately no midges.
The weekend's boating got off to an inauspicious start on Saturday morning when we had a minor accident with one of our mini-buses (I wasn't driving), which mounted a rock and sprung a leak from it's hydraulics. This meant that we had to shuttle all our boats to the river (about 3 miles from the campsite a the Kings House) with our working, but smaller minibus, delaying the paddling by a couple of hours at least. Not that we were missing much, as getting to the river showed it to be little more than a stream. Still we persevered and all got kitted up at the standard get in of Triple Falls. The low river probably was good for encouraging Etive newbies as it's far less daunting when there's only a trickle going through. We spent the day going up and down Triple Falls, which including a lot of boatless activity of jumping into the deep splash pools from the rocks. We also had a few boat-a-cross (like motocross or ski cross) races down the falls (my involvement mainly bringing up the rear, which was probably for the best as I would most likely have caused some pile-ups). Despite not being able to paddle that far it was good to get back in a boat as this was my first time on a river this year (the cold weather and other commitments kept me away since last December). The evening saw the standard trip into the Kings House for dinner and drinks, and being old I retired quite early and fell asleep quickly.
I woke up to the rain. This was a blessing and a curse - it might mean more water in the river, but it also meant packing up a wet tent. Unfortunately the blessing wasn't very blessed as the rain had only marginally increased the water level, but I still had to pack up a wet tent. We then had a major amount of faff deciding on todays course of action. The busted minibus had to be loaded up with half our boats, so that it was ready to be towed back to Glasgow later that day, which meant not everyone would be able to get on the river. We also weren't sure whether to try something different than just redoing the Etive (with the tributary Allt a' Chaorainn as an option). The one bit of fortune was that another bus had been requisitioned from GUSA (although lacking a roof rack) meaning that people weren't having to hang around to travel back in the tow-truck with the other bus. It was eventually decided to just do as much of the Etive as we could, with as many people as possible.
On getting to the river it was looking a bit more promising. Some people got on to do a few runs of Triple Falls, whilst me and a couple of others decided we'd swim (and clamber) up and down (jumping) the falls. Then the group headed further down river - with mainly beginner's in boats to give them the experience. We didn't do the first drop after Triple, which is Letterbox, after hearing that someone from Dundee Canoe Club had broken their ankle going off it the day before (not enough water in the pool at the bottom), but carried on to Ski-jump, which saw no casualties, or swims. Crack of Doom was also successfully negotiated with no swims (I think), after which I was able to get in a boat. We did the standard seal launch to avoid trying to boat down Crack of Dawn, and at Rock Slide I manage to avoid the normal pitfall of heading straight into the wall after the drop. At Right Angle there was the usual umming-and-erring about whether to so it, but most people (including myself) who'd boated down there went over. For only my second time I didn't swim at the bottom - in fact I landed pretty well and didn't really even have to brace. I was actually quite a successful day despite the problems.
In other kayaking news last Thursday was the last pool session of the academic year. It was fairly empty, so I managed to get in a boat for about an hour. I was able practice rolling and bracing to my hearts content - and I seem to be pretty consistent and competent at it now! I even managed one (my second ever) hand roll. I'm going to attempt to get out on a river over the summer if there are others about, although due to work commitments I'm missing out on a trip to the Alps starting this week, and also won't be able to go on a trip to Wales later in the summer.
The weekend's boating got off to an inauspicious start on Saturday morning when we had a minor accident with one of our mini-buses (I wasn't driving), which mounted a rock and sprung a leak from it's hydraulics. This meant that we had to shuttle all our boats to the river (about 3 miles from the campsite a the Kings House) with our working, but smaller minibus, delaying the paddling by a couple of hours at least. Not that we were missing much, as getting to the river showed it to be little more than a stream. Still we persevered and all got kitted up at the standard get in of Triple Falls. The low river probably was good for encouraging Etive newbies as it's far less daunting when there's only a trickle going through. We spent the day going up and down Triple Falls, which including a lot of boatless activity of jumping into the deep splash pools from the rocks. We also had a few boat-a-cross (like motocross or ski cross) races down the falls (my involvement mainly bringing up the rear, which was probably for the best as I would most likely have caused some pile-ups). Despite not being able to paddle that far it was good to get back in a boat as this was my first time on a river this year (the cold weather and other commitments kept me away since last December). The evening saw the standard trip into the Kings House for dinner and drinks, and being old I retired quite early and fell asleep quickly.
I woke up to the rain. This was a blessing and a curse - it might mean more water in the river, but it also meant packing up a wet tent. Unfortunately the blessing wasn't very blessed as the rain had only marginally increased the water level, but I still had to pack up a wet tent. We then had a major amount of faff deciding on todays course of action. The busted minibus had to be loaded up with half our boats, so that it was ready to be towed back to Glasgow later that day, which meant not everyone would be able to get on the river. We also weren't sure whether to try something different than just redoing the Etive (with the tributary Allt a' Chaorainn as an option). The one bit of fortune was that another bus had been requisitioned from GUSA (although lacking a roof rack) meaning that people weren't having to hang around to travel back in the tow-truck with the other bus. It was eventually decided to just do as much of the Etive as we could, with as many people as possible.
On getting to the river it was looking a bit more promising. Some people got on to do a few runs of Triple Falls, whilst me and a couple of others decided we'd swim (and clamber) up and down (jumping) the falls. Then the group headed further down river - with mainly beginner's in boats to give them the experience. We didn't do the first drop after Triple, which is Letterbox, after hearing that someone from Dundee Canoe Club had broken their ankle going off it the day before (not enough water in the pool at the bottom), but carried on to Ski-jump, which saw no casualties, or swims. Crack of Doom was also successfully negotiated with no swims (I think), after which I was able to get in a boat. We did the standard seal launch to avoid trying to boat down Crack of Dawn, and at Rock Slide I manage to avoid the normal pitfall of heading straight into the wall after the drop. At Right Angle there was the usual umming-and-erring about whether to so it, but most people (including myself) who'd boated down there went over. For only my second time I didn't swim at the bottom - in fact I landed pretty well and didn't really even have to brace. I was actually quite a successful day despite the problems.
In other kayaking news last Thursday was the last pool session of the academic year. It was fairly empty, so I managed to get in a boat for about an hour. I was able practice rolling and bracing to my hearts content - and I seem to be pretty consistent and competent at it now! I even managed one (my second ever) hand roll. I'm going to attempt to get out on a river over the summer if there are others about, although due to work commitments I'm missing out on a trip to the Alps starting this week, and also won't be able to go on a trip to Wales later in the summer.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Happy Birthday Hubble
Today is the 20th birthday (of sorts) of the Hubble Space Telescope. It was launched on 24th April 1990 in the Discovery Space Shuttle, although it wasn't actually deployed until the 25th and it's first light image was released on 20th May 1990. It had some teething problems to start with (a flawed mirror that blurred images meaning that the telescope could not be used at it's maximum resolution), but was specifically designed so that it could be serviced by astronauts and fixes applied. Since the fix it has been one of the most iconic and most importantly scientifically productive instruments ever (a "top 10" of its major discoveries can be seen here, although there are many others). Several servicing missions have gone on to improve its scientific capabilities by adding new detectors, and also greatly extending its lifetime. It also takes a great picture or two (certainly prettier than anything we'll be able to produce by observing gravitational waves), which has helped endear it to the public and make it some famous.
These images have been released to celebrate it's birthday, and hopefully they'll be a lot more to come before it finally closes its eye.
Source: Hubblesite.org
These images have been released to celebrate it's birthday, and hopefully they'll be a lot more to come before it finally closes its eye.
Source: Hubblesite.org
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Academe
In all my time in academia I've never been to Oxbridge - no meetings, conferences, or work-related visits - so I've never had the opportunity to see the dreamy spires of Oxford, or punt down the Cam. This is even more surprising given that I've lived in the South East (reasonably close to both) for the majority of my life, and have had friends go to both universities, and never even went as a tourist (I think on a family holiday or two we may have driven past Oxford, but never stopped there). Well I decided I should rectify this during my current impromptu holiday and yesterday took a trip to Cambridge. From my parents house it's a very easy trip (again, why have I not done it before!) - just a quick drive across to Hatfield (using the parents as a free taxi service) and then on an hour-long train journey direct to Cambridge.
You go to some places and they are quite different from how you'd imagined them. Cambridge definitely isn't one of them - it's exactly as you, or at least I, imagined in. On arriving I wandered round the Fitzwilliam Museum grounds, before going into the first College I came across - Peterhouse. I was very impressed by the college buildings and especially the grounds and beautifully maintained and manicured gardens behind it, but later saw that it was actually rather small and understated compared to some of the others (in fact it's the "oldest and smallest" of the colleges). Soon after I found my way to the Cam, where I saw my first punts although no one was out on them at this time.
For lunch I met up with a friend who works at the Centre for Atmospheric Science and we went to a very nice vegetarian cafe called the Rainbow Cafe (recommended by none other than Gillian McKeith!). Unfortunately, given that it was a lovely day weather-wise, the cafe was in a basement and had no natural light. After lunch we went into the King's College Chapel - staff and their guests can get in free, but otherwise there's a charge. The Chapel is probably one of the most recognisable buildings in Cambridge and I think must have been used in many a TV or film based in Cambridge. It's not what you might think of as a chapel, i.e. a quite small church, as it's massive and probably as big as many cathedrals. Inside there's some great stained glass windows and masonry, in particular the many greyhound and dragons on the coat of arms above each arch.
After King's I decided to do what I normally do at any university and seek out the Astronomy group - in this case the Institute of Astronomy (IoA). This required about a half hour walk out to West Cambridge and unfortunately away from the nicest parts of the city. After about 25 mins of walking I hit the Cavendish Labs, where the Department of Physics and some astrophysics groups live, along with other labs. There were some quite nice new buildings, but in reality the whole place looked and felt like an out of town science park rather than part of a historic university. A short walk further and up across Madingley Road got me to the IoA, which again was a bit underwhelming, but still good to notch off on my list of astronomy department I've been to (last month when I was in LA I had a snoop around the new astrophysics building at Caltech, which I was very impressed by, but I decided against just wandering into the IoA - at least at Caltech I had the excuse that I knew people working in the building, but I no longer know anyone in the IoA).
From the IoA I wandered through the grounds of one of the newest colleges - Churchill - which contained sports pitches, grass and clay tennis courts, and a cricket oval! Heading back towards the centre of town I accidentally found myself going passed the quite funky new (opened in 2005) Maths buildings. I then walked round the outside of two of the largest and most impressive colleges, Trinity and St Johns (although pretty much from the being at the maths buildings I'd been walking past the massive area of Trinity and St John's property and ground). Both these colleges (like most) charge for the public to enter them, and although there were several points were I could probably have got into both unchallenged (if I couldn't pass myself off as an academic then I'd probably look enough like a student) I decided not to risk it. Out the back of these colleges there were some great bridges across the Cam and there were now quite a lot of people out on the punts.
After all this exertion I went for a pint in the Eagle Pub, which I thought I recognised the name of, and was later told by my friend that it's where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of the DNA double helix. I then saw a few more of the colleges (and the Corpus Clock, or Chronophage) and had a wander around the Fen area before meeting up with my friend again for another couple of drinks.
The visit did make me wonder what it would have been like if I'd applied (and got into) Cambridge for my undergraduate degree or PhD. It does look like it would be a fantastic place to study, but I'm not sure if I'd have felt that after three or four years there. It's got a rather unique, fairy-taleish, bygone era, feel to it (as I said before, it's kind of like you imagine it) that you just don't get at other universities. That makes it great to visit, but may become too much after a while. Maybe someday I'll get to spend a bit more time there and find out, or maybe I'll give Oxford a try.
You go to some places and they are quite different from how you'd imagined them. Cambridge definitely isn't one of them - it's exactly as you, or at least I, imagined in. On arriving I wandered round the Fitzwilliam Museum grounds, before going into the first College I came across - Peterhouse. I was very impressed by the college buildings and especially the grounds and beautifully maintained and manicured gardens behind it, but later saw that it was actually rather small and understated compared to some of the others (in fact it's the "oldest and smallest" of the colleges). Soon after I found my way to the Cam, where I saw my first punts although no one was out on them at this time.
For lunch I met up with a friend who works at the Centre for Atmospheric Science and we went to a very nice vegetarian cafe called the Rainbow Cafe (recommended by none other than Gillian McKeith!). Unfortunately, given that it was a lovely day weather-wise, the cafe was in a basement and had no natural light. After lunch we went into the King's College Chapel - staff and their guests can get in free, but otherwise there's a charge. The Chapel is probably one of the most recognisable buildings in Cambridge and I think must have been used in many a TV or film based in Cambridge. It's not what you might think of as a chapel, i.e. a quite small church, as it's massive and probably as big as many cathedrals. Inside there's some great stained glass windows and masonry, in particular the many greyhound and dragons on the coat of arms above each arch.
After King's I decided to do what I normally do at any university and seek out the Astronomy group - in this case the Institute of Astronomy (IoA). This required about a half hour walk out to West Cambridge and unfortunately away from the nicest parts of the city. After about 25 mins of walking I hit the Cavendish Labs, where the Department of Physics and some astrophysics groups live, along with other labs. There were some quite nice new buildings, but in reality the whole place looked and felt like an out of town science park rather than part of a historic university. A short walk further and up across Madingley Road got me to the IoA, which again was a bit underwhelming, but still good to notch off on my list of astronomy department I've been to (last month when I was in LA I had a snoop around the new astrophysics building at Caltech, which I was very impressed by, but I decided against just wandering into the IoA - at least at Caltech I had the excuse that I knew people working in the building, but I no longer know anyone in the IoA).
From the IoA I wandered through the grounds of one of the newest colleges - Churchill - which contained sports pitches, grass and clay tennis courts, and a cricket oval! Heading back towards the centre of town I accidentally found myself going passed the quite funky new (opened in 2005) Maths buildings. I then walked round the outside of two of the largest and most impressive colleges, Trinity and St Johns (although pretty much from the being at the maths buildings I'd been walking past the massive area of Trinity and St John's property and ground). Both these colleges (like most) charge for the public to enter them, and although there were several points were I could probably have got into both unchallenged (if I couldn't pass myself off as an academic then I'd probably look enough like a student) I decided not to risk it. Out the back of these colleges there were some great bridges across the Cam and there were now quite a lot of people out on the punts.
After all this exertion I went for a pint in the Eagle Pub, which I thought I recognised the name of, and was later told by my friend that it's where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of the DNA double helix. I then saw a few more of the colleges (and the Corpus Clock, or Chronophage) and had a wander around the Fen area before meeting up with my friend again for another couple of drinks.
The visit did make me wonder what it would have been like if I'd applied (and got into) Cambridge for my undergraduate degree or PhD. It does look like it would be a fantastic place to study, but I'm not sure if I'd have felt that after three or four years there. It's got a rather unique, fairy-taleish, bygone era, feel to it (as I said before, it's kind of like you imagine it) that you just don't get at other universities. That makes it great to visit, but may become too much after a while. Maybe someday I'll get to spend a bit more time there and find out, or maybe I'll give Oxford a try.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Science case
On Saturday night I got involved in a drunken discussion/argument with another astrophysicist over facilities for future astronomy. As I said it was a drunken argument (from my side at least - the other guy could have been completely sober) and I was probably not too coherent, got slightly tetchy and aggressive (sorry) and took it a bit more seriously than I should have, but I thought I'd go over the main thrust of the disagreement as I vaguely remember it.
In general I thought that funding the two major planned astronomical mega-observatories, the optical/infrared European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and the radio observatory the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), was a very good thing for advancing science. Whereas the other guy (TOG) thought that funding these two projects would drain too much money from smaller current telescope facilities, and they would be produce insufficient new science to be able to justify us losing access to these smaller class of telescopes. This is particularly prevalent in light of the recent funding crisis in which the UK astronomy funding agency (STFC) has been squeezing funding for various projects, in particular saying it maybe withdrawing UK membership/funding from things like UKIRT and Gemini. TOG was also worried (I think) that all ESO resources would be put into the E-ELT at the expense of their other facilities.
Science-wise I think TOG was being overly pessimistic. His basic premise was that these new telescopes wouldn't really be opening up any major new discovery space and they'd just allow us to confirm what we already know, but maybe with a bit more precision. A summary of the science case laid out for the E-ELT can be found here, and that for the SKA can be found here (with each chapter available for free on arXiv, e.g. here). These cases do obviously say a lot about what we can do to expand upon current knowledge (it's far easier to write a case based on what we currently know), and in fact I think their ability to do this gives a sufficient jump in sensitivity that the increase in science in these areas is very worthwhile [I'm going to cop out here and not give any specific examples, but see the above links]. However, I also think that there is a major new discovery space that will be opened up and lots of unknown stuff to find out.
The science case wasn't really the main thrust of TOGs argument thought - it was the funding side of things that was the main concern (you might be interested in telescoper's post about different people's ideas about what should be funded, and I think in this comment he show's similar concerns that TOG has). He said (if I remember correctly) he'd love to have access to an E-ELT/SKA for his research, but not necessarily at the cost of not having access to other facilities. No astronomer is going to have access to unlimited time on the E-ELT/SKA, so they'd obviously like to have access to other telescopes and be able to carry on doing productive science and there's a worry that this may not be possible in the future. I again thought that this was a bit too pessimistic, and maybe I'm being a bit naive, but I can't see how such a decimation of smaller facilities would be allowed - smaller class telescopes may have to find more novel ways of funding though (e.g. the LSST and ATA), or by partnership with smaller countries, or groups of universities. Importantly, I think that developing the E-ELT/SKA (via its pathfinders and precursors) is very important for providing technical innovations and pushing boundaries of observational techniques, which will feed back into making smaller class telescopes cheaper [maybe I have this the wrong way round, so someone can correct me] and able to do better science themselves.
I do have a skewed view of this kind of issue though. As a person working on gravitational wave observations we have a few (relatively expensive) detectors that create one data set for use by everyone (or for the moment at least those inside the collaborations that built and maintain the detectors), and don't have to compete for observing time on individual telescopes. I'm mainly making my decision based on my view that these new mega-observatories will produce far more novel science than the current technology is able to (and in small part that they look so cool). I might have different ideas if I felt I'd be unable to get new data myself due to limited observational chances on fewer telescopes, and consequently produce fewer papers and probably therefore have a diminished competitive edge in the academic jobs market. We do have some vested interest in having smaller class telescopes though in that when we see gravitational waves it's important to do optical follow-ups to get the most information about the sources. We're unlikely to be able to get the E-ELT and SKA to go quickly into a follow-up mode, but the smaller class telescopes will be vital.
Anyway, maybe I'm talking rubbish, what are your views?
[Update - on a related note this paper briefly reviews big versus small science/instrumentation in physics and astronomy.]
In general I thought that funding the two major planned astronomical mega-observatories, the optical/infrared European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and the radio observatory the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), was a very good thing for advancing science. Whereas the other guy (TOG) thought that funding these two projects would drain too much money from smaller current telescope facilities, and they would be produce insufficient new science to be able to justify us losing access to these smaller class of telescopes. This is particularly prevalent in light of the recent funding crisis in which the UK astronomy funding agency (STFC) has been squeezing funding for various projects, in particular saying it maybe withdrawing UK membership/funding from things like UKIRT and Gemini. TOG was also worried (I think) that all ESO resources would be put into the E-ELT at the expense of their other facilities.
Science-wise I think TOG was being overly pessimistic. His basic premise was that these new telescopes wouldn't really be opening up any major new discovery space and they'd just allow us to confirm what we already know, but maybe with a bit more precision. A summary of the science case laid out for the E-ELT can be found here, and that for the SKA can be found here (with each chapter available for free on arXiv, e.g. here). These cases do obviously say a lot about what we can do to expand upon current knowledge (it's far easier to write a case based on what we currently know), and in fact I think their ability to do this gives a sufficient jump in sensitivity that the increase in science in these areas is very worthwhile [I'm going to cop out here and not give any specific examples, but see the above links]. However, I also think that there is a major new discovery space that will be opened up and lots of unknown stuff to find out.
The science case wasn't really the main thrust of TOGs argument thought - it was the funding side of things that was the main concern (you might be interested in telescoper's post about different people's ideas about what should be funded, and I think in this comment he show's similar concerns that TOG has). He said (if I remember correctly) he'd love to have access to an E-ELT/SKA for his research, but not necessarily at the cost of not having access to other facilities. No astronomer is going to have access to unlimited time on the E-ELT/SKA, so they'd obviously like to have access to other telescopes and be able to carry on doing productive science and there's a worry that this may not be possible in the future. I again thought that this was a bit too pessimistic, and maybe I'm being a bit naive, but I can't see how such a decimation of smaller facilities would be allowed - smaller class telescopes may have to find more novel ways of funding though (e.g. the LSST and ATA), or by partnership with smaller countries, or groups of universities. Importantly, I think that developing the E-ELT/SKA (via its pathfinders and precursors) is very important for providing technical innovations and pushing boundaries of observational techniques, which will feed back into making smaller class telescopes cheaper [maybe I have this the wrong way round, so someone can correct me] and able to do better science themselves.
I do have a skewed view of this kind of issue though. As a person working on gravitational wave observations we have a few (relatively expensive) detectors that create one data set for use by everyone (or for the moment at least those inside the collaborations that built and maintain the detectors), and don't have to compete for observing time on individual telescopes. I'm mainly making my decision based on my view that these new mega-observatories will produce far more novel science than the current technology is able to (and in small part that they look so cool). I might have different ideas if I felt I'd be unable to get new data myself due to limited observational chances on fewer telescopes, and consequently produce fewer papers and probably therefore have a diminished competitive edge in the academic jobs market. We do have some vested interest in having smaller class telescopes though in that when we see gravitational waves it's important to do optical follow-ups to get the most information about the sources. We're unlikely to be able to get the E-ELT and SKA to go quickly into a follow-up mode, but the smaller class telescopes will be vital.
Anyway, maybe I'm talking rubbish, what are your views?
[Update - on a related note this paper briefly reviews big versus small science/instrumentation in physics and astronomy.]
CANCELLED
I taken an executive decision to cancel my trip to Germany. My initial flight, which was scheduled for 11:45 today flying from Heathrow to Amsterdam, was obviously cancelled and the KLM website was having issues when I attempted to re-book another later flight. So I decided the best option was to cut my losses and not travel at all. My trip's not essential, so I think it's best to leave any seats on flights that do make it to people who are in more desperate need than me (see it's a selfless act that I'm doing), which leaves me in the horrible position of having to have a few days of unexpected holiday! Even if I had been able to fly out to Germany I don't think there would have been any guarantee of being able to return on Friday evening, and spending time stuck in a foreign airport is not high on my priorities, so my decision is highly sensible.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Extended stay
Following the hectic activities of last weeks' NAM2010 (actual news from which can be found elsewhere, especially twitter, as I didn't really have the time to blog about it) I have taken a short break. It looks like my break may become a little longer than originally planned though.
On Saturday my plan was to fly from Glasgow to Heathrow for a trip to St Albans to see friends and family for a few days. The flight was obviously a no-go, but I was rather surprised to be able to get a last minute train ticket, and in fact made it down without any bother - I even got a seat on the train after having expected to be squeezed into a space between carriages with tens of other desperate travellers. However, tomorrow I am meant to be flying out to Hannover for a few days of intensive code review at the Albert Einstein Institute. This is looking increasingly unlikely given the current ash cloud status. Up to about an hour ago there had been some optimism with some flights expected to resume tomorrow, but just a few minutes ago there was a new update saying that the Icelandic volcano has started to up its output again. If I can't fly out by Wednesday morning the trip will be pretty pointless, so will just have to be rescheduled for a less volcano-stricken time. I put my current chances of getting to Germany at probably about 5% - I've not done a proper Bayesian analysis on this and have plucked the figure out of thin (ash-free) air, but it feels about right. For me this isn't a major disaster as it means I have a few more days of holiday before going back up to Glasgow, but I do have friends trying to make it back from Europe, and one who's trying to move out to the US, who are quite a bit more inconvenienced than me. Here's hoping they make it to their destinations.
On Saturday my plan was to fly from Glasgow to Heathrow for a trip to St Albans to see friends and family for a few days. The flight was obviously a no-go, but I was rather surprised to be able to get a last minute train ticket, and in fact made it down without any bother - I even got a seat on the train after having expected to be squeezed into a space between carriages with tens of other desperate travellers. However, tomorrow I am meant to be flying out to Hannover for a few days of intensive code review at the Albert Einstein Institute. This is looking increasingly unlikely given the current ash cloud status. Up to about an hour ago there had been some optimism with some flights expected to resume tomorrow, but just a few minutes ago there was a new update saying that the Icelandic volcano has started to up its output again. If I can't fly out by Wednesday morning the trip will be pretty pointless, so will just have to be rescheduled for a less volcano-stricken time. I put my current chances of getting to Germany at probably about 5% - I've not done a proper Bayesian analysis on this and have plucked the figure out of thin (ash-free) air, but it feels about right. For me this isn't a major disaster as it means I have a few more days of holiday before going back up to Glasgow, but I do have friends trying to make it back from Europe, and one who's trying to move out to the US, who are quite a bit more inconvenienced than me. Here's hoping they make it to their destinations.
Monday, April 05, 2010
NAM2010 - the countdown
As I briefly mentioned last year we're hosting the National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow this year. It's now only a week away, so the coming 7 days may be a bit frenetic getting the final things organised. It's looking like it should be a great meeting though.
I've been charged (along with Iain) with organising Posters, Visuals and Banners (you can see a slightly altered version of some of my handy-work here), which has had its moments, but generally hasn't been too arduous a task. One thing I need to do though is produce the research poster that I'm presenting - better get on to that now really.
You can follow the NAM2010 meeting on twitter at @nam2010. I'll probably tweet and maybe post a few (astronomy-based!) blog entries during the week if I'm not too busy.
I've been charged (along with Iain) with organising Posters, Visuals and Banners (you can see a slightly altered version of some of my handy-work here), which has had its moments, but generally hasn't been too arduous a task. One thing I need to do though is produce the research poster that I'm presenting - better get on to that now really.
You can follow the NAM2010 meeting on twitter at @nam2010. I'll probably tweet and maybe post a few (astronomy-based!) blog entries during the week if I'm not too busy.
New spring collection
Over the long Easter weekend I've managed to chalk up doing a few new things (although I'm currently sitting at work, and was also in the office last Friday, so today probably won't involve anything novel).
On Friday night, after almost two years of planning (yes, really, Hazel and me have been discussing going clubbing for that long without actually ever getting round to going out), a few of us went out clubbing. Our impetus was due my friend Hazel having successfully passed her viva the day before and that fact that she'll be moving to San Francisco in a couple of weeks - if we were going to go to a club it was basically now or never. Going out to a club wasn't the new thing, but we did go to a place, the Sub Club, that I'd not been to before in all my 8 years in Glasgow. It wasn't a particularly happening club night and the place was quite quiet, but it was good to get out, have a dance and see somewhere new.
The next day my girlfriend and I both went out and bought bikes. I've not owned my own bike since I got a Red Raleigh Racer (from Halfords obviously!) for my birthday when I was about 8 (therefore it's a tad small for me now), so getting myself one was very exciting. In the intervening time since my RRR, whenever I've cycled I've had to borrow either a parent or siblings bike. This is the bike I got - "...the only true hybrid bike on the market, our Crosstrail™ owns the title of "singletrack-capable commuter bike." For riders who want one bike for all terrain, with the versatility to handle road, mountain and everything in between". I also had to buy all the accessories that go along with bike ownership - helmet, lights, lock, gloves, bike clips. I say we bought bikes, but really we don't actually own or have them yet. We've gone though the Cycle to Work which get us the bikes and equipment tax free, although frustratingly means we have to wait a while until the whole thing gets processed - hopefully this won't take too long.
The final new thing I did was again kind of club related. On Thursday we spotted a poster for the Hinterland Festival - a multi-venue music festival happening in Glasgow on Saturday. We decided to give it a go. Most of the festival was taking place in the Arches, which is another Glasgow venue I'd never been in before, so I was interested to see what it was like. There were bands playing from 6pm, but we were running a bit late and were mainly only interested in seeing the two main bands, British Sea Power and The Mystery Jets, who didn't start until 8.30pm. I was a fun night and I was impressed by the venue. Both bands took a bit of time to really get going in their sets, but picked up a lot towards the end and were a lot of fun - British Sea Power even had a monster turn up to dance. I knew quite a lot of the British Sea Power songs as I have one of their albums, but I'd assumed I must heard more songs by The Mystery Jets when in fact only knew one of them. There were several DJ sets happening after the bands played, which would have been fun to go to, but old age and the effects of several night of my heavy drinking got to us and we had to leave.
I should try and do some new things more often - many of them in the future will probably now involve bike rides to places.
On Friday night, after almost two years of planning (yes, really, Hazel and me have been discussing going clubbing for that long without actually ever getting round to going out), a few of us went out clubbing. Our impetus was due my friend Hazel having successfully passed her viva the day before and that fact that she'll be moving to San Francisco in a couple of weeks - if we were going to go to a club it was basically now or never. Going out to a club wasn't the new thing, but we did go to a place, the Sub Club, that I'd not been to before in all my 8 years in Glasgow. It wasn't a particularly happening club night and the place was quite quiet, but it was good to get out, have a dance and see somewhere new.
The next day my girlfriend and I both went out and bought bikes. I've not owned my own bike since I got a Red Raleigh Racer (from Halfords obviously!) for my birthday when I was about 8 (therefore it's a tad small for me now), so getting myself one was very exciting. In the intervening time since my RRR, whenever I've cycled I've had to borrow either a parent or siblings bike. This is the bike I got - "...the only true hybrid bike on the market, our Crosstrail™ owns the title of "singletrack-capable commuter bike." For riders who want one bike for all terrain, with the versatility to handle road, mountain and everything in between". I also had to buy all the accessories that go along with bike ownership - helmet, lights, lock, gloves, bike clips. I say we bought bikes, but really we don't actually own or have them yet. We've gone though the Cycle to Work which get us the bikes and equipment tax free, although frustratingly means we have to wait a while until the whole thing gets processed - hopefully this won't take too long.
The final new thing I did was again kind of club related. On Thursday we spotted a poster for the Hinterland Festival - a multi-venue music festival happening in Glasgow on Saturday. We decided to give it a go. Most of the festival was taking place in the Arches, which is another Glasgow venue I'd never been in before, so I was interested to see what it was like. There were bands playing from 6pm, but we were running a bit late and were mainly only interested in seeing the two main bands, British Sea Power and The Mystery Jets, who didn't start until 8.30pm. I was a fun night and I was impressed by the venue. Both bands took a bit of time to really get going in their sets, but picked up a lot towards the end and were a lot of fun - British Sea Power even had a monster turn up to dance. I knew quite a lot of the British Sea Power songs as I have one of their albums, but I'd assumed I must heard more songs by The Mystery Jets when in fact only knew one of them. There were several DJ sets happening after the bands played, which would have been fun to go to, but old age and the effects of several night of my heavy drinking got to us and we had to leave.
I should try and do some new things more often - many of them in the future will probably now involve bike rides to places.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
YACM
Rather than waiting 5 months before writing about it, I may as well mention I was out in Los Angeles (Arcadia again) just over a week ago for Yet Another Collaboration Meeting. Nothing major of note about it (spending all day in windowless rooms listening to talks, networking, discussing science, and then drinking at the complementary bar in the evenings), but I will just say that if you're flying to LA from London (or Aukland) I would recommend flying with AIr New Zealand. They gave me one of my most pleasant flights out to the US, they didn't lose my bags, and they were actually the cheapest flight on offer!
During the trip I got to see my LA-based friends Ben and Erin, who treated me to a screening of the classic film Birdemic - it's a masterpiece - and some very good pizza. Unfortunately as I was struggling with jetlag I don't think I appreciated the true brilliance of the film.
Like last year I had another celebrity spot in Heathrow on this trip - another footballer to. I struggled to recognise who the guy was at first (in fact it took me about a week until I figured it out) and initially thought it was someone like Ray Winstone, but knew it wasn't him. It was in fact none other than Neil "Razor" Ruddock.
During the trip I got to see my LA-based friends Ben and Erin, who treated me to a screening of the classic film Birdemic - it's a masterpiece - and some very good pizza. Unfortunately as I was struggling with jetlag I don't think I appreciated the true brilliance of the film.
Like last year I had another celebrity spot in Heathrow on this trip - another footballer to. I struggled to recognise who the guy was at first (in fact it took me about a week until I figured it out) and initially thought it was someone like Ray Winstone, but knew it wasn't him. It was in fact none other than Neil "Razor" Ruddock.
The late, late travel show
My reason for having to pay $5 per year is that I've finally got round to uploading my photos from Vancouver and I needed the extra space. My trip to Vancouver was in October last year! I'm not too quick.
At the time I didn't write up anything about the trip other than mentioning I was going, so I'll write a brief (excessively late) report now. The trip was just after my time SciMon-ing at the LIGO Hanford site in Washington state. As I was up in the Pacific North West, and had never been to Canada before, I thought I do a quick weekend road trip across the border before driving back down to Seattle for my flight home. On finishing my final SciMon shift at 4pm on Saturday 24th October I drove to Pasco Airport to exchange one hire car (paid for by work) with another (paid for by me) for the drive. Then followed an uneventful 6 hour drive up to Vancouver, which surprised me only for the fact that I actually didn't feel too tired during it.
I only had two whole days there, so on the first I decided to just explore the city via a standard bus tour and get my bearings. Unfortunately it pissed down the whole day and I had a stinking cold, but I forced myself to stay out wandering the city and not just retreat back into bed at the hostel I was staying (I'd booked a private room, so that I wouldn't have to share with the more scummy backpackers). Despite the rain the city did seem to have a lot to offer and I tried to walk round as much of the centre as I could. It was a real shame that I was feeling so shit as I think I could have seen and done a lot more.
The next day I decided to head out to Vancouver Island. I was feeling marginally better and the weather had improved a lot. I managed to miss the ferry I was originally intending to get and had to hang around at the ferry port for an extra 2 hours before the next sail. This left me with very little time to see anything. On arriving on the island I got a bus straight to the state capitol Victoria. In the approximately 2 hours I had there I was able to walk round the state government building and see a small bit of the city - many totem poles and Orcas. I also went in a Scottish pub for a drink. I also got to bask in the sun a bit, which was a great treat following the previous days weather.
That was about it for my trip (there was a bit more to the trip, but seeing as this account is so late it's probably not worth recounting in detail). I wish I'd been able to see more of the area and Vancouver's nightlife, especially if I'd had some company there and wasn't ill.
At the time I didn't write up anything about the trip other than mentioning I was going, so I'll write a brief (excessively late) report now. The trip was just after my time SciMon-ing at the LIGO Hanford site in Washington state. As I was up in the Pacific North West, and had never been to Canada before, I thought I do a quick weekend road trip across the border before driving back down to Seattle for my flight home. On finishing my final SciMon shift at 4pm on Saturday 24th October I drove to Pasco Airport to exchange one hire car (paid for by work) with another (paid for by me) for the drive. Then followed an uneventful 6 hour drive up to Vancouver, which surprised me only for the fact that I actually didn't feel too tired during it.
I only had two whole days there, so on the first I decided to just explore the city via a standard bus tour and get my bearings. Unfortunately it pissed down the whole day and I had a stinking cold, but I forced myself to stay out wandering the city and not just retreat back into bed at the hostel I was staying (I'd booked a private room, so that I wouldn't have to share with the more scummy backpackers). Despite the rain the city did seem to have a lot to offer and I tried to walk round as much of the centre as I could. It was a real shame that I was feeling so shit as I think I could have seen and done a lot more.
The next day I decided to head out to Vancouver Island. I was feeling marginally better and the weather had improved a lot. I managed to miss the ferry I was originally intending to get and had to hang around at the ferry port for an extra 2 hours before the next sail. This left me with very little time to see anything. On arriving on the island I got a bus straight to the state capitol Victoria. In the approximately 2 hours I had there I was able to walk round the state government building and see a small bit of the city - many totem poles and Orcas. I also went in a Scottish pub for a drink. I also got to bask in the sun a bit, which was a great treat following the previous days weather.
That was about it for my trip (there was a bit more to the trip, but seeing as this account is so late it's probably not worth recounting in detail). I wish I'd been able to see more of the area and Vancouver's nightlife, especially if I'd had some company there and wasn't ill.
Paying the man
After several years of using a variety of google products (Gmail, google calendar, picasa, blogger and of course their search engine) I finally started giving them money directly. Despite my Gmail account having an ever increasing storage capacity (nearing 8Gb now) the picasa account only has fixed 1Gb of space. I filled that up a while ago and finally decided that I needed more space. Frustrating you can't share all the free space you have in Gmail amongst other google sites, so my only option if I wanted to continue uploading to picasa was to pay up for more space (I also have a flikr account, which I could just upload to, but I like having all the photos in one place). I now give a massive $5 per year for 20Gb of space. Now to upload some more photos...
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Boarding In Glencoe: the Return
What a difference a year, and a decent level of snowfall, makes. After a rather cold and damp trip up to Glencoe to go snowboarding last year I (and a few other Glasgow astronomy folk, and one sibling of astronomy folk) returned there yesterday. This winter's seen Scotland getting it's best snowfall in probably at least a couple of decades and the ski centres have been doing very well from it. This combined with the rather nice weather over the last few days meant taking a trip up to the slopes seemed like a very good idea - and so it proved to be. The one downside to this trip was the early start, but we got over this quite quickly. On the way to Glencoe there was slight confusion between our convoy of two cars over a stop at the Green Welly - the car I was in ended up stopping there for about 25 mins waiting for the others, when in fact they'd already reach the ski centre - but this didn't hold us up for too long, and we were probably up the chair lift and on the slopes by just after 10am.
The contrast with the previous year was pretty staggering - it was dry, there was barely any wind, you could (kind of) see the Sun, and most importantly there was a lot of proper snow rather than mounds of slush, with patches of mud poking through. My ability to use the Poma tow was also greatly improved, and I got up the slope first time (and only fell off once thereafter)! We all started off with a few runs down the main beginner slope to reacquaint ourselves with boarding (and skiing), although the two Swiss in our group were quick to head off to the more challenging slopes up the top of the mountain. We soon moved on to a slightly more difficult run, up the top of a small chair lift, and stayed on this until lunch. I think it was just prior to lunch that I peaked in my ability, and was being pretty competent at heading downhill, turning and reaching reasonable speeds, all whilst not falling over!
After a lunch of roll and sausage and chips (following on from my pig in bread-based breakfast of a bacon roll at the Green Welly), and a needed rest, we headed back up to the slopes for about three hours more. Our Swiss contingent, who'd been on all the blue, red, and even (accidentally) black runs, up the top of the hill, suggested we be more adventurous and head up there too. This required negotiating the first tow, the chair lift, and a rather painful T-bar lift (these really aren't recommended if you're on a snowboard). It was worth it for the view that you got of the surrounding Glens from the top, and I managed to cheat my way to bagging a Munro (some might say it doesn't count though) by walking to the peak. After taking in the view we had to make it down the mountain though. We took what looked like the easiest of the blue runs and tentatively made it down. In the end it turned out to not be a particularly tricky run, but being as it was the first time the non-Swiss of us had run it (and given that we'd tired ourselves out in the morning) it proved a bit troublesome and more intimidating than it should be. If we'd gone up earlier in the day and tackled it a few times I think the knowledge of the route (and that we wouldn't die by falling off the edge of the mountain) would have made it more fun. We also didn't help ourselves by discussing the recent avalanches that there had been on the slopes right by where we were.
We finished the day by taking a few more runs down the easy slopes, although by this time people were aching and levels of boarding/skiing ability were diminishing rapidly. Still Marina, Hugh and myself decided that rather than take the chair lift back down to the car park we would board our way down to the bottom (Marina and Hugh had done this prior to lunch too, but we decided to take a different, less scary, route this time). There were a couple of runs down to the bottom marked on the map, but these weren't very easy to spot when you tried to go down them. There were a few other people doing the same thing, so we tried following them, but soon had to make our own route. The initial part of the run was very nice, and there were some areas of untouched powder that were great fun to board through, but nearer the bottom things got a lot bumpier and icier. For the second half of the run Hugh and I were generally traveling about 10 metres maximum before falling on our arses. Needless to say that part took a bit longer than planned and I, at least, was completely knackered and drenched in sweat.
In all it was a great day and a proper treat to see such good snow conditions in Scotland. Hopefully we can have some more seasons like that in the years to come (although I've not been a freezing weather that has lead to these good conditions).
[I forgot to mention that on the way back we saw some runners with a torch. We thought this might be the Olympic torch (a bit early I know, but who else runs with a torch?), but going passed them we saw it was the World Harmony Run. This is apparently an organisation that runs in an attempt to promote world harmony - they aren't trying to raise money, just be more harmonious. A bold and noble aim, but I'm not sure how much more at harmony with the world I was after seeing them. Maybe you have to run and hold the torch to feel the harmony.]
The contrast with the previous year was pretty staggering - it was dry, there was barely any wind, you could (kind of) see the Sun, and most importantly there was a lot of proper snow rather than mounds of slush, with patches of mud poking through. My ability to use the Poma tow was also greatly improved, and I got up the slope first time (and only fell off once thereafter)! We all started off with a few runs down the main beginner slope to reacquaint ourselves with boarding (and skiing), although the two Swiss in our group were quick to head off to the more challenging slopes up the top of the mountain. We soon moved on to a slightly more difficult run, up the top of a small chair lift, and stayed on this until lunch. I think it was just prior to lunch that I peaked in my ability, and was being pretty competent at heading downhill, turning and reaching reasonable speeds, all whilst not falling over!
After a lunch of roll and sausage and chips (following on from my pig in bread-based breakfast of a bacon roll at the Green Welly), and a needed rest, we headed back up to the slopes for about three hours more. Our Swiss contingent, who'd been on all the blue, red, and even (accidentally) black runs, up the top of the hill, suggested we be more adventurous and head up there too. This required negotiating the first tow, the chair lift, and a rather painful T-bar lift (these really aren't recommended if you're on a snowboard). It was worth it for the view that you got of the surrounding Glens from the top, and I managed to cheat my way to bagging a Munro (some might say it doesn't count though) by walking to the peak. After taking in the view we had to make it down the mountain though. We took what looked like the easiest of the blue runs and tentatively made it down. In the end it turned out to not be a particularly tricky run, but being as it was the first time the non-Swiss of us had run it (and given that we'd tired ourselves out in the morning) it proved a bit troublesome and more intimidating than it should be. If we'd gone up earlier in the day and tackled it a few times I think the knowledge of the route (and that we wouldn't die by falling off the edge of the mountain) would have made it more fun. We also didn't help ourselves by discussing the recent avalanches that there had been on the slopes right by where we were.
We finished the day by taking a few more runs down the easy slopes, although by this time people were aching and levels of boarding/skiing ability were diminishing rapidly. Still Marina, Hugh and myself decided that rather than take the chair lift back down to the car park we would board our way down to the bottom (Marina and Hugh had done this prior to lunch too, but we decided to take a different, less scary, route this time). There were a couple of runs down to the bottom marked on the map, but these weren't very easy to spot when you tried to go down them. There were a few other people doing the same thing, so we tried following them, but soon had to make our own route. The initial part of the run was very nice, and there were some areas of untouched powder that were great fun to board through, but nearer the bottom things got a lot bumpier and icier. For the second half of the run Hugh and I were generally traveling about 10 metres maximum before falling on our arses. Needless to say that part took a bit longer than planned and I, at least, was completely knackered and drenched in sweat.
In all it was a great day and a proper treat to see such good snow conditions in Scotland. Hopefully we can have some more seasons like that in the years to come (although I've not been a freezing weather that has lead to these good conditions).
[I forgot to mention that on the way back we saw some runners with a torch. We thought this might be the Olympic torch (a bit early I know, but who else runs with a torch?), but going passed them we saw it was the World Harmony Run. This is apparently an organisation that runs in an attempt to promote world harmony - they aren't trying to raise money, just be more harmonious. A bold and noble aim, but I'm not sure how much more at harmony with the world I was after seeing them. Maybe you have to run and hold the torch to feel the harmony.]
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Planes, coaches and automobiles
I'm becoming quite the regular seminar giver now, as last Friday I went down to the University of Southampton to give a talk to the General Relativity group in the School of Mathematics (this time I was invited to talk myself, rather than standing in for my boss, which was the case for the last talk). It was nice to go down there and giving the talk was enjoyable - I think it was quite novel for the group there to have a non-theoretical maths-y talk, which I certainly was never going to be in danger of giving. I also got to have a useful chat with Ian about his paper, which gives a mechanism for getting gravitational waves from a neutron star at the spin frequency (rather than twice the spin frequency, which is where we normally look).
However, getting there proved to be a bit more hassle than planned. I had the ambitious plan of getting there and back in one day, which isn't too difficult a task normally, but I was doing it in the current weather conditions. I was booked on the early morning flybe flight direct from Glasgow to Southampton, and due to arrive at 8:15. The plane left on time, however at about 8pm, probably as we were approaching the south coast, it was announced that snow in Southampton was going to prevent us from landing, so we did an about turn and diverted to Birmingham. Due to the fact that flybe don't do flights between Brum and Soton they put on a coach for us, which took about an hour to arrive (not too bad a turn around really). The main problem was that it was 10am when the coach left Birmingham Airport and my talk was scheduled for midday - luckily I had the seminar organisers number and we were able to reschedule the talk for 3pm. There's not really a motorway link directky from the West Midlands down to Southampton, so the coach trip took us towards London, round the M25, and then down south - all the roads were completely clear of snow and the traffic flowed freely, but it was still a 3 hour ride, getting me into Southampton Airport for 1pm. The coach trip was useful in that it gave me a chance to read a very nice review article (which I should have read ages ago) on constraints to neutron star equations of state, but hadn't been my ideal journey.
The trip back was less eventful and my flight returned me to Glasgow directly, although about 50 mins late (but I can't really complain too much about that).
However, getting there proved to be a bit more hassle than planned. I had the ambitious plan of getting there and back in one day, which isn't too difficult a task normally, but I was doing it in the current weather conditions. I was booked on the early morning flybe flight direct from Glasgow to Southampton, and due to arrive at 8:15. The plane left on time, however at about 8pm, probably as we were approaching the south coast, it was announced that snow in Southampton was going to prevent us from landing, so we did an about turn and diverted to Birmingham. Due to the fact that flybe don't do flights between Brum and Soton they put on a coach for us, which took about an hour to arrive (not too bad a turn around really). The main problem was that it was 10am when the coach left Birmingham Airport and my talk was scheduled for midday - luckily I had the seminar organisers number and we were able to reschedule the talk for 3pm. There's not really a motorway link directky from the West Midlands down to Southampton, so the coach trip took us towards London, round the M25, and then down south - all the roads were completely clear of snow and the traffic flowed freely, but it was still a 3 hour ride, getting me into Southampton Airport for 1pm. The coach trip was useful in that it gave me a chance to read a very nice review article (which I should have read ages ago) on constraints to neutron star equations of state, but hadn't been my ideal journey.
The trip back was less eventful and my flight returned me to Glasgow directly, although about 50 mins late (but I can't really complain too much about that).
Monday, January 11, 2010
New year email
Hello 2010.
My first (belated - as is standard now with this blog) blog post of the New Year comes via email. I just decided that I should set up the ability to email and text posts in to blogger, and this is my first test (other than my previous post from about a year ago via Posterous). My ability to text things in (via MMS rather than SMS, as that's not set for non-US numbers yet) appears to not be working successfully, which I've also found when trying to set up texting into my twitter account - this may be an O2 thing rather than blogger or twitter's fault, but it's a bit annoying.
[Update: Again, as with the posterous post, I've had to go in and edit this as the email didn't like maintaining the html I added. Booo.]
[Update 2: This small, and largely unanswered, thread seems to suggest that the mobile blogging will not work with O2. Booo again.]
My first (belated - as is standard now with this blog) blog post of the New Year comes via email. I just decided that I should set up the ability to email and text posts in to blogger, and this is my first test (other than my previous post from about a year ago via Posterous). My ability to text things in (via MMS rather than SMS, as that's not set for non-US numbers yet) appears to not be working successfully, which I've also found when trying to set up texting into my twitter account - this may be an O2 thing rather than blogger or twitter's fault, but it's a bit annoying.
[Update: Again, as with the posterous post, I've had to go in and edit this as the email didn't like maintaining the html I added. Booo.]
[Update 2: This small, and largely unanswered, thread seems to suggest that the mobile blogging will not work with O2. Booo again.]
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