Mamma mia! It's the X-men!

My post title today is a cryptic crossword style clue to what I did this evening. No, it's not "albumen", I don't know where you got that idea from - egg white was not involved, but, wait, I can see where you were coming from - the guys from Abba (almost 'albu'!) wrote the hit west end musical Mamma mia! (along with the Abba song of the same name) and then the men bit obviously comes from X-men. And no, it's not "Paulo Di Canio" the facist footballer. He wasn't involved in my evening at all, but again I can see your line of thinking - he's Italian and a bit fiery, hence the Mamma mia!, and he was often known for getting red cards therefore leaving his team with 10 (X in Roman numerals - there's the Italian link again) men.

My title is in fact derived from having been to an Italian restaurant for dinner and then going to see X-men 3.

At the restaurant - Mimmo's on Ashton Lane in the heart of Glasgow's trendy west end - I had a lovely chicken risoto with peppers, roasted tomatoes and a lovely pesto suace. Highly recommeded. I would give a link to Mimmo's but I can't find one at the moment. I've been there a few times before and have generally found it to be rather good. It's a very small, but cosy little place, and has a nice atmosphere because of this. It's size can however leave you disappointed if you've not booked and find it full - which takes aproximately 5 and a quarter people.

After filling ourselves we went to the UGC to watch X-men: The Last Stand. I can't be arsed giving a proper film review, but I'd say it was a decent enough film, although not on a par with the previous ones. See it if you can spare the time and want a bit of fun, but I wouldn't go out my way if you're not that bothered.

Anyway, back to growing that beard. Hnnnnnnnnnnh, hhnnnnnnnnnnnh - those are the straining noises you have to make to get hair to grow. I've also been told by queennell that massaging the hair folicles works.

In the summertime...

Due to the lack of a summer so far in Glasgow we made the most of a fairly fair weather day to have a barbecue. There are quite a few green areas in and around the west end of Glasgow where you'd think a BBQ could be hosted, but we had the fear that we would incur the wrath of a park warden, so didn't make use of one of the major parks like the Botanic gardens or the Kelvingrove park. We did however find a nice area down by the River Kelvin, on the site of an old water mill. We seemed to spark off a bit of a trend as very soon after setting up the rather poorly performing disposable BBQ we had, at least three other groups of burnt sausage enthusiasts were copying us. After several rounds of sausages and burgers, and fending off the odd hungry dog or two, we were satiated and retired to mine for a bit of light reading (the Sunday Times) and TV (Top Gear). An overall satisfying day.

On a footballing note, well done to England in the game yesterday. Not the most exciting game despite the good score line. Just a note to Crouch, despite my previous post, stop with the robot now, you've overdone it. Keep up the scoring though, if not the celebrations. Bring on Friday.

I said I might say something about a beard growing competition, but have still neglected to write about it, so here is the email I sent giving the gist of things:

"Tomorrow is the start of the inaugural beard growing competition. As some of you may know it was decided in the RC last Friday that we would test our skills at facial hair growth by sparing our faces from the blade for the month of June. The outcome of this will be judged by Fiona and Morag who will arbitrarily decide on who has the best chin warmer. Unfortunately there is no prize for the winner except maybe some smug satisfaction at being good at sprouting hair, but I expect in reality we shall all be losers. People who pull out of the contest shall be branded weak and pitiful and shall be mocked unceasingly - although I expect I may fall into that category. Bob may well be at hand to take some time lapse photography so we can watch the hair appear in mere seconds when all is done.

Matt - I included you on this incase you felt like joining in the comp from Germany. If you do then send photos - we'll know if you've doctored them in any way though, so no finding pictures of beardy blokes and photoshopping their magnificent manes onto you own face. I also thought Ellie might want to have some say in this, particularly "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!".

Anyone how cares to take up this challenge, wield your razor to your skin for the last time tomorrow morning. Let the battle commence.

Your champion of the chinstrap,

Matt

ps you can't just grow a tash, it will not count."

I can just say that my own facial growth is progressing at it's rather poor rate - patchy at best. Bob has taken some initial photos, and Matt has taken up the challenge, as noted by a rather amusing picture sent earlier today. We'll just see how long I can last before shame sets in and I decide to shave. Updates may be given over the course of the month - whether the photo's get posted is another story.

Working late = psychotic episode

Arghhhh, I'm still in work and all is not well. I've been juggling trying to get code to work, writing a few slides for a talk, chatting to people via instant messenger and listening to early 90s dance music - on top of having had a couple of pint of Stella with my dinner. All this has made my brain a rather mushy consistency - rather like their mushy brethren, the mushy pea, only more pinky-grey than green. I think the time has come for me to get some sleep, preferably in my bed at home rather than at my desk in work. That requires some kind of walking motion, which I can hopefully remember how to do - it's right foot forward, left foot forward, then repeat, right? Or is that left foot and then right foot!? I just don't know anymore, it's too goddamn confusing. I need some sort of wheel type mechaism so I can just roll, that would make things all so much easier. Now if only I can figure out how to attach them. To the workshop...

Tomorrow I may say something about our beard growing competition. I bet that's got you intrigued.

More robotic stylings

The Crouch does robot news has been picked up by many bloggers including the BBCs World Cup blog. From this there is some more disturbing footage of Crouch dancing showing he doesn't only confine this sort of thing to the football pitch. A nice link to some proper robot dancing is here. Ignore the two kids on first and just see the contortions that the next guy manages to pull off. Needs some body popping to make the routine complete though ;)!

Do the robot

There was one unforgetable moment from the England v Hungary pre-World Cup friendly last night. It wasn't Sven's decision to give Gerrard more freedom playing in an open role behind Owen as a second strker. It wasn't Sven's decision to substitute on Hargreves instead of Carrick - why play Hargreves, why? It wasn't any of the precision balls that Beckham placed in the box - and damn(!?) him for playing so well as I do enjoy giving Beckham a good slagging. It wasn't even the very nice runs that Joe Cole made at the defenders. "What was it then?" you may ask. Well the one outstanding moment of the evening, in what was really a fairly average match (depsite the 3-1 scoreline) was Crouch's celebration after he scored. No one expected it, and after it happened people were left rather dumbfounded and confused, for Crouch didn't do a normal celebration slide or arm raise, or even the classic rock the baby (which had already been used for an earlier goal), he preceded to dig into his 80s dancing roots and perform the move which so many try but so few can pull off, and that is the robot! Yes, you heard it, the pasty white, gangly 6'7" Liverpool striker jerked his arms and upper torso around in the style of a pasty white, gangly 6'7" robot. I can picture it still, and what a picture it is.

I'll probably be posting a fair amount during the World Cup, so come back for more of my football related rambling. I may have some sort of rating of players celebrations, although they'll have to try bloody hard to top what we've just witnessed.

Worrall Thompson eat your heart out

Today after a morning watching food programs I decided that I should make an effort to produce some fancy food for myself. After racking my brain I decided that I would make a pork casserole - it being fairly easy. I checked out a few recipes online, but they were all rather shit so I just made up my own recipe, which I will reproduce below:

• 400 grams diced pork
  
• 1 onion
  
• 1 red pepper
  
• 1/4 clove of garlic
  
• 2 carrots
  
• 1 leek
  
• a few closed cup mushrooms
  
• 2 tomatoes
  
• 1 pork stock cube (knorr)
  
• 1 can of strongbow - preferebly left over from a house party, but make do with buying some if necessary
  
• salt and pepper
  

This is very easy to preper, just chop up all the veg, put everything in a casserole dish, add the cider and stock, cover and place in preheated oven at 175 C for 1 and a half hours. This dish is accompanied by a sweet potato/normal potato mash as follows:

• 2 medium sized potatoes
  
• 1 sweet potato
  
• some butter
  
• coarse ground pepper
  

Boil the potatoes, then mash up and add the butter and pepper, et voila! This casserole should serve two - or if your eating it on your own like I was :( - then will leave enough to keep for another day. The mash is especially nice even if I do say so myself. Now get to your kitchen's everybody - I want to hear those pots and pans rattling. Send me your comments and suggestions on what you think of this or alternates to this recipe.

That end todays cookery corner - I may change the supposed nature of this blog from astrophysics to cooking, but then again we all know that I've never really kept up on the astrophysics news side of things so we'll see how long this new fad lasts!

When will they ever learn...

Today I discovered that I have been given a lecture course to teach next year. I will be charged with filling the minds of first year undergraduates with knowledge of observational methods in astronomy - so telescopes and stuff basically. I think I'll be having to look through my old undergraduate notes - throughput anyone, how about some grazing incidence optics, or maybe a CCD or two - as these are all things I will be expected to talk about with confidence. I'm actually quite looking forward to it as it will be fun to actually learn this stuff for real, rather than the fake, take-it-in-for-a-few-minutes-before-the-exam-and-promptly-forget-it learning that I did as an undergrad. It will also be fun because I get to write Dr Pitkin on the black/white board at the start of the lecture. I am also going to practice my stern looks for those cheeky undergrads who sit up the back chatting away distracting the rest of the class - they know who they are!

On a more Mr T realated note (and as such it is a note which "pities the fool" and is afraid of flying) I got sent this link by a friend the other day - sage advice by the T there about respecting your mother. This was followed up by a link from Bob to the an entire 50 minutes of the T's lifestyle advice. If you've not seen Mr T with a pizza on his head before then I suggest you watch the first few minutes - it's a revelation.

Football news: Only two weeks till the world cup - hurray! The less said about England's defeat by Belarus last night though the better.

Up, up and away

The mighty hornets, aka Watford Footbal Club, have done it! We pounded Leeds 3-0 in the play-off final yesterday. After a short break in the Championship, for rest and relaxation purposes of course, we've returned to the top flight. We'll not just be there making up number you understand, not the way of Sunderland for us you see. For we have one thing that proved to be the key factor in Wigan and West Ham staying up this season. Do you see, do you see? We begin with the letter W, it surely must be what provided the extra impetuous (ruling out the midlands blip to this hypothesis that was West Brom). Due to the their alphabetical positioning these clubs always languished at the bottom of any table, therefore giving them extra drive to push upwards in tables where lexicographical sorting was not there to hold them back i.e. football league table, where it's points that matter.

Back to reality though, it's going to be a tough, tough fight to stay there. I can't find any odds on us going straight back down yet, but the odds given for Sheffield Utd and Reading to win the Premiership are currently 1501-1 and 1001-1 respectively and I don't see Watford getting any better odds.

On another footballing note: only three weeks till the World Cup. Oh yeah!

...in other news

Right, I know it's been a while. Well not just a while - it's been fucking ages! But I had things to do. Lots of important things. Places to go, people to see, worlds to save - that sort if thing. You don't believe me, huh! Ok, ok so I've just been neglecting you, I'm sorry. I'm going to make ammends I promise. I'll give you more posts than you can shake a whole tree at - unless it's one of those giant sequoias, as that is a truely large stick.

Well some of my busyness wasn't all made up. I did have that PhD I'd been mentioning to finish up. And you'll be proud to hear that it did get finished. All bound like a proper book and everything. Ain't I good, or what. So that means I'm a Doctor - yeah you heared right - Dr Matthew Pitkin MSci PhD FRAS to give me my full on, stick that up your pipe and smoke it style, dues.

Also I entered the world of the grown ups by having an actual job. Ok so post-docs not a proper job like you might think of it, but it's a start. Plus they give me money. What do I do with all this money, you may ask. Well I've only gone and bought myself a flat - well 45% of a flat, but it's the nicer 45%!

That's the start of the updates. I might fill in some more of how the past approximately one year has gone in subsequent posts, although as no bugger actually reads this blog it would just be some bizarre self-indulgent internal crazyness on my part!

Quote me happy

Productivity is down this week, with my thesis writing slowing down to a virtual standstill today. Thankfully my thesis is in fairly good shape, so that this downturn in word production should not hold things up too much. In the grand schedule of the PhD I should in fact be entering my final week of studenthood and handing in an account of my three years of original work to the university, before beginning my job as a postdoc the weeks after. As with pretty much anyone who starts a PhD in the UK this three year timescale is generally completely ignored, and not wanting to buck such traditions I to will be handing in late. This does come with certain benefits in that to hand in my thesis I still have to be a registered student at the university, thus gaining a new student card and all the discounted goodness that it brings. Full price at the cinema, oh no, not for me. 10% off my clothes purcheses at Top Man, get in! Cheap drinks in the union, oh yeah! Regular gym membership? Why no, for I am a student and will not pay your extortionate normal rates. It also means I will gain a strange state of duality when I start my job as both a member of staff and a student. My collapse into one state will depend on who my observer is (sorry, it's a quantum mechanics reference - I went to a discussion about these things last night and am now taking the analogy too far).

Oh yes, I should explain the title of this posting - one the things we writing-up students (or at least all those I know) do to waste time is in thinking up suitable quotes for our thesis chapters. I have one so far and have for the last day mainly been trawling Blackadder scripts for another. I'm sure some inspired and relevent quotes are out there, but I ask you my loyal readers (ok, so I know it's only James who ever looks at this - I should link other people in or maybe write something interesting or even just post a bit more often, but all that places the burden of work on me and I'm just too damn lazy) to send me your favourite gravitational wave data analysis quote and i'll whittle them down to the best ten and then hold a public vote on the five that will grace my opus.

Wicky for Cricky

In a strange turn of events it seems that the Scottish are starting to grow fond of our most English of English sports - cricket. I think the excitment of this years Ashes has meant that Scots who would dare not show support for England under normal circumstances are ready to join the Barmy Army. Although there are still many who would rather see their family slaughtered than so much as think about wearing the three lions. This strange occurance was highlighted in a Sunday Times article this weekend, which probably wasn't reproduced down south so here it is. This Thursday Scotlands cricketers get to show their talents in a one day friendly against the Aussies, which I'm sure wont be a one sided affair.

My only other comment about the cricket at the moment is WWWhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyy! We had the chance to make it 2-1 god damn it! Bloody Ponting, hhrrruuummmpppphhh. Enough expert analysis of the third test. Roll on Trent Bridge.

Birthday blog

Today I celebrate turning 25! My first quater of a century has been okay, but I expect big things from the next quater. I have also decided that as it's my birthday it can also be my blogs official birthday and in a way similar to the Queen it will have two, with it's real birthday being October 25th. So everyone raise a glass and say happy birthday to me and cosmiczoo, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, for he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow...

In an update on the current state of my PhD thesis writing I'm happy to announce that I've got one (almost two) chapters finished. Although this still puts me a few weeks behind my supposed timetable I think it's pretty good.

In the last few days I recieved my first piece of blog spam or blam as I propose to call it in the hope that it catches on, as in "my comments page has has been blammed" or "i'm sick and tired of all this bloody blam, wont somebody do something about it" or some such. You can all view this in the comment section of my last post, but I wouldn't bother. I'm just wondering what sort of scarey program they've got trawling blogs, putting comments in. With the advent of this poorly contrived word i hope that my name will go down in internet history.

The longest journey

In the past week I've started the ordeal that is writing my PhD thesis. I can see this being quite a struggle and the start of some quite magnificent procrastination. It might mean that this blog gets updated more often as I look for any kind of distraction. I also have the problem of not having many actual results to put in my thesis, so much time will be eaten up getting them. Oh well, I'm sure I'll feel good when it's finished.

Any suggestions for good chapter quotes for my thesis will be appreciated. They don't have to be relavent - just amusing.

Ballochs to REM

This weekend I visited the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond to see the acclaimed rock threesome that is REM. They were playing in the grounds of Balloch castle and as venues go it's quite a nice setting for a concert. The gig was a whole afternoon/evening event with 5 bands on the bill, and luckily the weather held out throughout despite the ever looming presence of some nasty looking clouds. The first band up were some group from Edinburgh called Aber-something or other. They were a bit shit really, but passed the time for a bit. Next up were an American group called Ambulance Ltd, who again I'd never heard of. They were ok and there set picked up over the 45 mins or so that they were on, but there was nothing outstanding that made me want to buy (or even just download) any of their music. Things got better when the very Scouse the Zutons came on. It was a band I'd heard of and I knew a few of their songs (not that that's neccesarily needed to make a gig good). They were very good and got the crowd going and generally livened things up a bit, plus their female saxophonist was rather attractive and kept appearing on the big screens (the cameramen had the right idea).

Before I go on to the final two bands I should mention the state of the male toilets at this venue. For the men there was a fenced off area claiming to hold urinal, but upon entering it you found yourself wading through a muddy quagmire mainly composed of piss. This was not a nice thing. There were a few actual urinals, but the general idea was to just piss against the walls, with no real drainage. As the ground was fairly saturated from rain during the week the piss just sat on top mixing with the mud to make a nasty concoction. That said I have seen worse at festivals.

Another strange thing about this concert was the mix of people there. Well not really the mix, but just the large number of neds (read chavs if from the south). There were loads of them getting totally wasted over the course of the afternoon and being twats in general.

Back to the bands. After the Zutons we had Feeder, who were average really. Nothing special there. Then came REM. They were very good, with Stipes prancing round the stage with a blue striped face (why?). I was singing along for the majority, although have yet to get into the songs from Around the Sun yet. They probably played a bit too much from Around the Sun, and I would have prefered to hear more from Reveal. Very annoyingly I didn't get to see the end of the set, because of the bloody trains. The last train back to Glasgow left Balloch far too early, so if you wanted to catch it you had to leave the concert just after the encore started. This meant we probably missed a good 20-25 minutes of music. Boo.

Best game ever!?

I've not made a post for a while, but have been spurred into action. What a game! Really, what a fucking game. I'm sure you know i mean the European Champions League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan. A game of two halves indeed. What were they playing at in the first half, but what did Rafa say to them for the second half? It was quite, quite amazing!

Gambling. Aren't we all losers in the end!

It's been a week since I lost a vast sum, well £20, in a foolish bet in the Cheltenham Gold Cup last Friday. My good friend James, who is very knowledgable in the ways of horse racing, gave four tips for the races. And very good they were. But I was greedy. Not content with betting on individual races or other such prudent courses of action, I put all my money on an accumulator. This meant I was banking all my money on all the horses placing in their races. There was big money up for grabs and I just saw the pound signs. All was going well for the first three races. Brewster came in third in the first race, my bet was still good. Then the excitment of the Gold Cup itself, when Kicking King produced an awesome victory for such a young horse. People were saying his time had come a year early. So two down and all's looking good, with Sleeping Night up next. Another victory for my horse. It's brilliant, there's just the one race left and I can practically smell the money - which is quite impressive since I was betting online and all the transactions were electronic. There's over an hour or so to wait for the next race, so I busy myself with work trying not to think of the extravagences I'll be spending my winnings on or the rounds I'll be able to buy everyone that evening. I'd been listening the to the previous races online, but for the final race I couldn't get any webcasts. On the BBC website I just had to keep clicking reload and hoping the results would be forthcoming. I was still confident though, my luck had been good so far, and surely Bongo Fury couldn't fail. Fifteen minutes after the race supposedly finished and the BBC still haven't updated the results, I'm getting quite anxious now. Then finally the page reloads and there they are - the results. I scan franitcally for Bongo Fury - not first (oh well I only need a place), not second (it's still good), not third (only one more chance now), not even fucking fourth! That's it, the money's gone, the bastard didn't even place. I was in shock, remorse filled me thinking of what I could have done with that £20 if invested wisely - that's eight pints that is. Oh well, I've learnt not to be quite so brash when making gambling decisions and am safe in the knowledge that I'll be more wise next year.

That was a week ago, but not much else has happened this week. Happy Easter one and all. Lets all remember Christ being nailed to a cross. Ah what a lovely image to have on so called Good Friday.

King Kitson

Just writing with some more comedy info. I did indeed go to see the comdedian Daniel Kitson last night and he was hilarious. It was quite a marathon of a gig as it went on for almost 3 hours, not that anyone really minded as it was quality stuff and meant you definitely got your moneys worth. I almost didn't get to go as when I got to the venue the tickets were sold out. Luckily some foolish people didn't turn up so I got in in their place. Ha ha, the fools. Daniel Kitson is apparently a notoriously slow starter when you go to see him and he kept apologising to those in the audience who hadn't seen him before that there would be some jokes soon, honest. Even his slow build up was pretty damn good and many other comedians would be proud if their quality stuff was that good. When he did get into the main material it was non-stop laughter. I had seen him before at a comedy night at UCL, but that was about 6 years ago and only a shortish set. He's honestly gone from strength to strength and is now a comedy circuit must see.

That's enough eulogising about Daniel Kitson. I think it's time to go and drink some Guiness to keep St. Paddy happy.

Half a fist of fun

Last week saw the start of the Glasgow Comedy Festival. This is providing many comedy delieghts to see over the next couple of weeks and I plan to make the most of it - or at least as much as my bank balance will allow. On the first day of the festival (10th March) I went to see Stewart Lee (hopefully explaining to people the title of this blog entry). I'm pretty bad at writing reviews of stuff, but I can say that he was very funny. You to can witness just how funny when the DVD of the gig comes out as that was being filmed on the night, so you might even see my face popping up in the crowd. Quite a lot of the show revolved around 9/11 related stuff, so it wasn't entirely topical, but still funny. He also struck a good vein of comedy by ripping the piss out of the Scottish (or Scotch as he called them), which is quite brave in a room full of Glaswegians. We even got a special guest appearence from Kevin Eldon (if you don't recognise the name then you'd recognise the face as he's in just about every comedy sketch show/satire around) doing some poetry.

I will also be seeing the other half of the Lee and Herring comedy pairing when I go to see Richard Herring in a couple of weeks time. His show has recieved very good reviews so far. Other comedy I might go and see this week is Daniel Kitson. The last time I saw him he was very funny and has since been seen on the likes of Pheonix Nights. Bring on the laughs.

Your scientists need you

I should just mention that you can all do your bit to help me with my job of finding gravitational waves. Einstein@home is a program you can run on your own computer in the background or as a screensaver that will search for gravitational waves from neutron stars using real data, when it would otherwise be idleing. People may have heard about SETI@home which uses home PCs to search for extraterrestrial radio signals, well Einstein@home is better so there!

So go on do your bit and help the search.

Back to the blog

After a long time not posting anything throughout December I tried to see if I could go even longer without writing anything. And guess what, I managed it. I'll try to be more regular from now on, but I'm sure apathy will set in fairly soon if I don't have anything pressing to write about.

You must all be wanting to know what I've been up to in my sabbatical from blogging. You might expect that it was taken up working hard on the current big astrophysical problems and you'd be partly right except with the hard bit. A slight (well large) malaise has set in over the last few weeks where work is concerned due to affairs of the heart completely outweighing affairs of the head, leading to excess drinking. This has happened at a rather unlucky time in that I'll be having to think about writing up a thesis rather soon.

On the interesting astronomy front there's been quite a lot to talk happening recently. One of the things that has interested me was the observation of an extremely powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) on 27th Dec 2004. This event originated from a magnetar (an extremely magnetic neutron star) in our galaxy and managed to saturate many spacecraft instruments and even slightly ionise the Earth's atmosphere. One interesting quote was that if this burst had happened within 10 light years of the Earth, it could have destroyed the ozone layer and caused a mass extinction - luckily it was about 50000 light years away on the oposite side of the galaxy. There's also been a fair bit in the news about methane on Mars being possibly the result of life, but I can't be arsed adding anything on that (maybe if someone wants to know I can put a link up).

That's it for now, i'll try not to have another competition with myself to see if I can outdo my last downtime.