Archive for April, 2010

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The Bute Park Horror

Posted in Bute Park, Uncategorized with tags , , , on April 5, 2010 by telescoper

What could be nicer on lovely spring day than to take a walk through the local park? Even better if you live in the city of Cardiff, home to one of the largest areas of mature parkland in any urban setting, so you can take a stroll among lovely old trees and fields (landscaped by Capability Brown) in the shadow of a picturesque and historic castle.

At least that’s what it should be like. Unfortunately, Cardiff City Council has other ideas. Bute Park is currently being redeveloped by the Council in order to make it more accessible to lorries and other heavy vehicles. This is intended to allow more large-scale “Events” to take place on Coopers Fields, the area just behind Cardiff Castle.  Further commercial exploitation of this area will no doubt ensue. Despite vigorous opposition to the plans by regular users of the Park, including myself, and widespread condemnation in the press (including the esteemed organ Private Eye) the Council last year granted itself planning permission (surprise, surprise) to construct a new road into the heart of this precious “green lung”.

I’m depressed to say that work on the new road has gathered pace during the early months of this year. Irreplaceable trees have been felled, and a hideous new bridge is being built over the Dock Feeder Canal. Needless to say, all this construction is accompanied by frequent movement of heavy vehicles in and out of the park. Large areas are now out of bounds for pedestrians, and those that do bravely venture along the footpaths elsewhere have to vie with the trucks. Many of the paths have been resurfaced to make them more suitable for motor vehicles and the signs denoting the speed limit, which used to be 5 mph throughout, have now all been removed. It’s no fun sharing a footpath with a juggernaut doing 30 mph, I can tell you. Still, I suppose we better get used to it. Bute Lorry Park it’s going to be from now on.

I’ve just got one of those new-fangled Blackberry things (which I don’t know how to work yet). However, a few days ago I did use the old one to take a few pictures of the devastation on view from my usual route into work. The first one shows the view looking North from just behind the castle.

The Dock Feeder canal is just to the right. There used to be a relatively narrow trackway  running along the route taken shown here, which the Council decided to replace to make it more suitable for heavy road vehicles. Coopers’ Fields lie to the left and this road is used to bring equipment, temporary buildings etc for use there. On the Council’s literature this work is described as “resurfacing”, but, as you can see from the picture, in addition to the new tarmac surface they have taken the opportunity to construct a sort of lay-by which more-or-less doubles the width of the path. Here’s another view, showing the new stretch of tarmac snaking its way along the side of the canal. You can see more clearly the area of grassland onto which lorries will be driving in ever-increasing numbers. It would be easier for them to tarmac over the whole thing and be done with it.

Two short but wide spurs to the left cut into the fields, presumably to allow vehicles easier access to the grass in order to churn it up into a quagmire. Here’s a view taken from a vantage point to the left of that in the first picture, showing the dire state of disprepair that Coopers Fields are in anyway, even before the new regime of rapacious commercial exploitation. The grass has been left in this damaged state since last September. No doubt it will be similarly neglected in those brief future periods in between being covered by temporary buildings and mobile entertainments of various sorts.

To the left of the above picture you can also see the cranes involved in construction work further North. I’ve stopped walking in that part of the park because it’s just too dangerous. A main road far worse than the one shown here, and complete with traffic lights, now enters from North Road and cuts deep into the park in order to reach the Council’s nursery facility – the type for plants, not children – which is right next to the River Taff (which lies to the East of the site shown in the pictures). At least the Council says its so lorries can reach the nursery. But how many lorries are going to need to get to the nursery every day such that they require a whole new road to be built? I know I’m not the only one who thinks this is just a cover. Phase 2 of the operation isn’t hard to guess: an extension of the road Eastwards across the River Taff via a new road bridge to Sophia Gardens, completely bisecting Bute Park and creating a major thoroughfare to relieve congestion to the West.

If you think the Council wouldn’t dare, and that they’d never get away with it, just look at what they have got away with already. And not just here. The idiotic Highways Department of Cardiff City Council has been responsible for monstrosity after monstrosity in this city. Only now are they turning their attention to beautiful Bute Park. They must be stopped.

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The Waste Land

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 4, 2010 by telescoper

The first line of this poem sprang suddenly into my mind this morning. I don’t really know why. It mentions the month of April, of course, but nothing especially cruel has happened so far, at least not to me. In fact, I’m in an unusually good mood, considering I have a bit of a hangover. Any excuse will do, though, for posting (the first part of) the definitive modernist poem, The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot.

The opening section of the wikipedia article I linked to above sums this poem up beautifully:

Despite what is seen by some as the poem’s obscurity – its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures – the poem has nonetheless become a familiar touchstone of modern literature.

Although it’s undoubtedly dense with cross-cultural references, and for many people it crosses over into sheer pretentiousness, it has always come across to me as an intensely humorous piece, somehow brilliant and dark at the same time. Its meaning is often cryptic, sometimes impenetrably so. Nevertheless, I keep returning to it, partly in the hope of understanding it better and partly just to enjoy the words on the page and the sounds they make when you read them out loud.

“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo.”

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

  April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,    
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

   What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,                                  
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.                              
        Frisch weht der Wind
        Der Heimat zu
        Mein Irisch Kind,
        Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
––Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,                                    
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.                                                
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

  Unreal City,                                                           
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!                           
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur! – mon semblable, – mon frere!”

As an added bonus, here is the poet himself reading it, in his characteristically clipped but very nuanced style.

The full text of The Waste Land can be found online here.

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This Sporting Life..

Posted in Football, Sport with tags , , , on April 3, 2010 by telescoper

Although it’s meant to be a holiday I’ve actually been in the department most of the day working on some research (or, rather, writing up some old research). Since I’ve been tapping away at the keys most of the day I haven’t got the energy to write much, and I’m looking forward to a drink and a spot of curry in a few minutes’ time followed by a crack at the jumbo-sized Guardian Easter crossword compiled  by my favourite setter, Araucaria.

However, for the purposes of my own record-keeping – this blog is, at least in part, some kind of a journal – I thought I’d make a quick note of the day’s sport. Usually as we near the end of the football season I get into a state of nervous anxiety wondering what sort of mess my own team, Newcastle United, are going to make of the run-in. However, today I’m pleased to say they followed up Monday’s win against Nottingham Forest with another victory, 3-2 away at Peterborough. Although their opponents are the bottom club of the division at the moment, I always thought this would be a tricky game and so it proved if the press reports are to be believed. Peterborough in fact took an early lead, and Newcastle didn’t equalise until stoppage time in the first half. They then went 3-1 up, only to have one goal pegged back by a determined home team.

That result might have sealed promotion to the Premiership for Newcastle, had Nottingham Forest done the decent thing and lost to Bristol City. They didn’t lose, but only managed a draw. The gap between Newcastle and Nottingham Forest is now 15 points with Forest having five games to play while Newcastle have six games left. It’s extremely improbable that Newcastle will lose all 6 of their games and Forest win all 5 of theirs, so I think we’re pretty much guaranteed to go up. We need just one point to turn that into mathematical certainty.

Today was a big game here in Cardiff too, between Cardiff City and fierce local rivals Swansea. Police helicopters were circling the town all day and there was a heavy presence of uniformed officers trying to ensure there wasn’t any trouble at the match. This too was a close-fought game. With the score at 1-1 until stoppage time at the end of the match, Michael Chopra popped up to score a winner for Cardiff. They’re now hard on the heels of Nottingham Forest in fourth place, with 68 points to Forest’s 71. Cardiff might still have to play Swansea in the playoffs. That could be interesting..

And finally, it’s worth noting that today was the day of the annual Oxford versus Cambridge Boat Race in London. I’m not going to pretend that I follow this sport particularly closely, but the occasions on which I’ve been to watch the spectacle have been very enjoyable (even though Oxford has beaten my own Alma Mater every time I’ve bothered to watch it). It’s usually more of an excuse to have a few drinks while watching other people busting a gut than a genuine interest in the sport. Still, I do have a residual loyalty to Cambridge University so I was delighted to find out that they won today. If I’d seen the pre-race odds, I might have had a bet as Oxford were clear favourites.

Not at all a bad day results-wise. I almost finished my paper too…

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You’ve Got To Give Me Some..

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on April 2, 2010 by telescoper

Another quick break from writing gives me an excuse to post another favourite tune…

If you thought that raunchy lyrics were bound to be banned from records made 80 years ago, then just get a load of this.
It was recorded in 1928 by the greatest female blues singer of them all, Bessie Smith (“The Empress of the Blues”), together with Clarence Williams on piano and Eddie Lang on guitar. Bessie Smith was a notoriously loud and sometimes violent woman, who had an insatiable appetite for booze and sex (with, it’s said, both men and women). She also had a voice like no-one else on earth before or since.

 This is one of several very naughty records she made in the late twenties, others including “Do your duty” and “Take me for a buggy ride” but this is probably the rudest of the lot. I like the video too. Enjoy!

Now, anyone for round steak?

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Othello Molineaux

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on April 2, 2010 by telescoper

Well, it’s a cold and rainy Good Friday holiday and I’ve got a stack of work to catch up on. Before I resume after my coffee break, however, I thought I’d share this little bit of Caribbean sunshine with you.

 I first came across the name of Othello Molineaux about 30 years ago on a record he made with Monty Alexander, and was completely blown away by his virtuosity on the steel drum,  an instrument I thought was very limited until I heard him play it! Here he is demonstrating his astonishing skill and musical imagination at a live concert recorded only last year. It’s great to see he’s still going strong 30 years after I first heard his music!

About a month ago, a typically rambling blog post of mine led to a discussion of the use of unusual instruments in jazz. This would have fit nicely into that thread if I’d remembered it at the time! Better late than never. Remember that if you enjoy this half as much as I do, then I enjoyed it twice as much as you..

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The Stitch-up Continues…

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , , , on April 1, 2010 by telescoper

Interesting news from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Following the retirement of Professor Mike Edmonds from his post of Professor of Astronomy at Cardiff University – enabling yours truly to take his office! – he decided to resign his position on STFC Council. Yesterday, STFC announced that he would be replaced on its highest-level governing body, not with one person but with three, taking the membership of the Council to 12.

The new trio consists of  Mr Will Whitehorn (President of Virgin Galactic), Dr Michael Healy (President of the navigation business division of Astrium), and Mrs Gill Ball (Finance Director at the University of Birmingham). Given the catastrophic shambles of STFC’s current financial situation, the last appointment seems to make good sense. On the other hand, what on Earth is going on with the first two?

The new UK Space Agency came into existence today, 1st April 2010 – no joke. This is supposed to take overall control of all our national space activity, including commercial ventures as well as those parts (such as the subscription to the European Space Agency and funding for space instrumentation) previously under the control of STFC. Since space has now been hived off into another organisation altogether, why does  STFC now have  two commercial space gurus added to its Council?  The only explanation I can think of is that the STFC Executive is going to focus even further on space exploration rather than on basic research. These appointments were made by the Science Minister, Lord Drayson, who was the driving force behind the creation of the new UK Space Agency and they strongly suggest that he wants the emphasis within STFC to move in the direction of space exploration, to the likely detriment of the rest of science.  The implications for the future of observational astronomy and particle physics are deeply worrying.

Even more worryingly for those of us involved in basic research, note that one of the few scientists on Council has been replaced by three people whose interests lie elsewhere. In fact the number of independent scientists on Council has thus been reduced from 5 to 4. You can draw your own conclusions about what this means for the future of pure science in the rump of STFC…

Other interesting news this week is that the government has conjured up £100 million for the Diamond Light Source. I don’t want for one moment to give the impression that in the slightest bit negative about this facility or the new investment in it. It is immensely valuable for research across a  wide spectrum of scientific disciplines, and I was very glad to hear of the new investment. The extra funds will enable it to increase the number of beamlines from 10 to 32 which will represent a huge increase in its productivity.

But, while the cash injection for the Diamond Light Source is clearly to be applauded, it does provide a contrast with other areas within STFC’s remit  whose research budgets have been pared to the bone. In the last grant round, for example, one-third of all the astronomy rolling grants (6 out of 18)  up for renewal this year have been axed, and the others cut back severely. All the evidence suggests that there is no interest in reversing  the cuts in the STFC management, and that they will actually get very much worse over the next few years.

Since STFC blundered into financial meltdown in 2007, there have been two main theories as to what happened; remember that this was before the Credit Crunch took hold, so the black hole in STFC’s initial budget was nothing to do with the subsequent recession. One was that the STFC Management made a mess of their submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review and that it was all down to ineptitude. The other theory is that there was a definite plan at a high political level – probably in the Treasury – to rein back expenditure on fundamental research in favour of more “applied” disciplines. The shortfall in STFC’s finances was thus manufactured to achieve precisely what it has achieved. Depending on which of these theories you believe (if either), then the STFC Chief Executive is cast either as a bumbling incompetent or as a willing stooge of the Whitehall mandarins (although to be fair the two are not mutually exclusive).  The more the sorry saga of STFC pans out, the more I believe it was all a deliberate stitch-up. I think the most recent developments corroborate my view in depressingly convincing fashion.

STFC came into the world in 2007 with an estimated budget shortfall of £80 million. Had the £100 million I mentioned above appeared sooner, and had it gone into STFC’s general budget rather than being, as it is, ring-fenced for the Diamond Light Source then the carnage inflicted on science research could have been avoided. Instead, STFC squeezed its research grant line until the pips squeaked. Now that they’ve done this job, and got away with relatively little organized opposition from the scientific community, suddenly the money appears. It looks to me like the budget deficit was engineered to achieve precisely the outcome that has occurred.

I predict that after the election, the STFC budget will be slashed once more and that astronomy and particle physics research will again bear the brunt as STFC increasingly focusses on space exploration. The exodus of talented scientists from Britain that has already started and is sure to accelerate over the next year or two will take decades to reverse. It’s time for those responsible to come clean.

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