by Laetitia Pilkington (1709-1750)
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I just discovered this morning that it’s fifteen years to the day since the launch of the orbiting X-ray Observatory XMM Newton. Here’s a nice slide-show with audio accompaniment featuring Drs Darren Baskill and Kathy Romer, both colleagues of mine in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Sussex, which was recorded for the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the launch of XMM-Newton, back on 10th December 2009.
Here’s a nice video about the science of XMM-Newton.
Anyway, I hope the birthday celebrations go well. I know I can barely contain my excitement…
XMM-Newton being prepared for launch…
Feeling the effects of advancing years, and ahead of another weekend out of circulation, I purchased a copy of the December edition of The Oldie last week to help pass the time. I heartily recommend this magazine to readers of a certain age for its eclectic mixture of articles, cartoons and, best of all from my point of view, a splendid crossword (set by Antico). In fact there are two crosswords, a tricky thematic cryptic puzzle called Genius, and a straightforward definition puzzle, namely, a little harshly, Moron. For the December edition there was a bumper-sized Genius puzzle which took me a good hour to solve, a distraction that I found most welcome. I’ve posted off my solution already in the hope that I can win another dictionary to add to my collection.
The Christmas OLdie also included a calendar which is already hanging on my office wall. Here is a cartoon from the calendar, which tickled me because of its topicality and operatic connection:
I’ve decided to take out a year’s subscription, so I hope they’ll forgive any copyright infringement involved in including that cartoon!
Follow @telescoperNow that I’m back in Brighton I thought I’d share this very nice picture of the University of Sussex Campus at Falmer, complete with Christmas tree and decorations. I got the picture from the University’s facebook page. That’s the Meeting House you can see behind the tree, by the way..
Another plug for the Beard of the Year poll, with added photographs of the contenders!
Beard Liberation Front
Press release 8th December
Contact keith Flett 07803 167266
Not Yet Peak Beard: Race for Beard of the Year enters final fortnight
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the race for the coveted annual Beard of the Year title is set to get hairy with a fortnight left until the close of the poll on December 22nd.
The winner will be revealed on December 29th
England cricketer Moeen Ali and author Philip Ardagh along with cosmologist Peter Coles are among the favourites to take the title, but much often changes in the final period of the on-line poll.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, It was reported earlier this year that we had reached Peak Beard but the interest in the Beard of the Year poll suggests we are some way off yet.
The criteria for the Shortlist…
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There can hardly be a tune ever written that some jazz musician somewhere hasn’t taken a fancy to and done their own original version, however unpromising the raw material. Louis Armstrong had a particularly amazing ability to turn base metal into solid gold, making glorious music out of tunes nobody else wanted to touch.
These thoughts came into my head when I was listening last night to this version of Over the Rainbow, by the great Bud Powell, which I think is brilliant, despite the mawkish sentimentality of the original song. Bud Powell had serious mental illness to deal with – he suffered numerous breakdowns and was heavily medicated in an attempt treat his schizophrenia – and also had a long-term problem with narcotic abuse; the two issues were no doubt related.
Although he moved to Paris in 1959 to make a fresh start, his self-destructive tendencies caught up with him. The quality of his playing deteriorated, his behaviour became erratic and he eventually died in 1966. Before leaving the States, however, Powell had made a number of recordings in which he demonstrated the virtuosity and musical imagination that established him as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, and certainly the leading stylist of the bebop era.
Bud Powell’s version of Over the Rainbow is one of my all-time favourite pieces of music. Although clearly inspired by Art Tatum, Powell’s treatment of the tune is startlingly original because he puts so much variation into the way he plays it, alternating a lush romantic style with jagged boppy lines and dark undertones introducing a strong element of parody juxtaposed with a more orthodox treatment of the melody. By any standards, this is a masterpiece, and a vivid portrayal of the battle between light and darkness that mirrored his own experiences of life.
Follow @telescoperThe sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley is so famous that it really needs no introduction here. What you may not know, however, is that Shelley’s poem was one of a pair with the same title on the same theme and submitted to the literary magazine The Examiner. Shelley’s poem was published on January 11th 1818; the other Ozymandias, composed by Shelley’s friend Horace Smith, appeared about three weeks later on February 1st. I can see why Shelley’s is the more famous of the two!
In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows.
“I am great Ozymandias,” saith the stone,
“The King of kings: this mighty city shows
The wonders of my hand.” The city’s gone!
Naught but the leg remaining to disclose
The sight of that forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What wonderful, but unrecorded, race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
This lunchtime I put on a black tie and went to the funeral of Stuart Keir, who died suddenly a few weeks ago at the aged of 55. Stuart had only just retired, on grounds of ill health, having worked in IT services for over twenty years here at the University of Sussex. When I first started in 1985 the observational astronomers at Sussex were primarily based at the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO), which was at that time located in Herstmonceux and Stuart was one of the staff there supporting the computer systems. The RGO moved to Cambridge in 1990 (for reasons which still escape me) at which point some of the astronomers and support staff relocated permanently to the University of Sussex while others went to Cambridge; Stuart moved to Sussex when the Starlink node was consolidated here following the loss of the RGO.
Stuart Keir
I remember Stuart very well from my life here as a PhD student and then as a postdoc in the Astronomy Unit, both before and after he moved full-time to Falmer campus. He wasn’t always the easiest of characters to work with – he insisted on doing everything his own way, which sometimes conflicted with what the astronomers wanted – but it has to be said that he did usually know better than us about the important things. He also worked extremely hard at his job and was definitely a great help to me during my time at Sussex. I’m very sad that he didn’t have long to enjoy his well-earned retirement.
The news of Stuart’s death made me all nostalgic for my days as a PhD student, when life was definitely much simpler. It also made me look back affectionately at the Starlink system as it was in the 80s. I had been lucky enough to get a series of temporary jobs, between school and university and during summer vacations at university, that involved the use of VAX computers of exactly the same type as that used in Starlink so I was well prepared when I started my PhD. In fact, looking back, I still think the native Virtual Memory System (VMS) and Digital Command Language (DCL) were terrific to work with. Unfortunately it seems that DEC, the company that manufactured the VAX systems, made some unwise business decisions and they lost ground to SUN. During the 1990s there was a rapid phase transition within Starlink from VAX machines to a range of SUN workstations.
Much of the value of Starlink in the old days was the connectivity it provided in what was basically a pre-internet (enabled by DECNET) which allowed sharing of software across all UK astronomy groups. In this sense it was an important step towards Open Science. The growth of the internet however let to a reduced role for Starlink from the mid-1990s onwards. Stuart transferred from Starlink to general IT services at the University of Sussex when Starlink was winding down.
In its heyday, Starlink was a great resource that provided a superb environment for astronomical researchers. It would have been nothing, however, without the dedicated team of Starlink Managers like Stuart who managed the local nodes and worked so help the astronomers that worked there. Data-intensive subjects like astronomy depend as much now as they did then on the hard work of computer support staff, an effort that is in my view not given anything like sufficient recognition by universities and other research institutions.
Rest in Peace, Stuart Keir.
Follow @telescoperToo busy for a proper post today so here’s a bit of music. On Saturday I had the pleasure of listening on BBC Radio 3 to a live broadcast of the opera L’elisir d’amore from Covent Gardens, one of my all-time favourite works. I definitely have a thing for the kind of Italian Bel Canto exemplified by the work of Gaetano Donizetti and this is one of his greatest; certainly his most performed anyway. One the surface it’s a light romantic comedy with a very silly plot involving a quack doctor and a fake potion, but it’s beautifully characterized and has considerable dramatic depth and wonderful music. I don’t mind daft operas, as long as they’re sufficiently daft to be true to real life…
Anyway, listening on the radio made me realise how long it has been since I went to see an opera live. Looking at the Covent Garden website to see if there were any more performances due, I saw the prices of the remaining tickets, which brough tears to my eyes. All of which brings me to the highlight of L’elisir d’amore, the Act III aria Una Furtiva Lagrima, one of the most famous and beautiful tenor arias in the entire repertoire. Here it is, sung by the late great Pavarotti. Enjoy!
Oh, and while I am on the theme of opera I’ll just mention that Maria Callas was born on this day in 1923. Happy Birthday, La Divina!
In the Dark 