Storm Lorenzo passed over Maynooth during the night bringing with it a lot of rain but at least the winds were not too fierce. At least I assume they were not too fierce because I slept through the whole thing. I tend to sleep well with a bottle of fine wine inside me.
This morning as I walked into work it was still raining but other than that fairly peaceful. Maynooth University Library Cat was on post despite the rain although he was looking a bit bedraggled and his food dishes were filled with water. He must have had a rough night, as I’m not sure his box provided must protection. Unfortunately this was one morning when I didn’t have any treats for him in my pocket so I hope some other nice person gives him something to eat!
Before I go home to shelter from Storm Lorenzo I thought I’d use the medium of this blog to advertise the Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowships which have just been announced by the Irish Research Council.
These positions are of one or two years’ duration starting from 1st October 2020. The research relating to the fellowship can be in any discipline (including Astrophysics and Cosmology, hint hint….) and can be held in any University in the Irish Republic (including Maynooth, hint hint..). These positions are intended for early career researchers; applicants are required to have a PhD by May 2020 but not have been awarded it before May 2015.
The deadline for completed applications is 20th November 2019.
It was calm and rather mild this morning as I walked into work, although the news on the radio this morning was filled with news about the rapidly approaching Storm Lorenzo. Lorenzo is a huge storm and was only downgraded from hurricane to tropical storm when it was about 500km from the Irish coast so it could be even more serious than Storm Ophelia, which caused chaos a couple of years ago.
This is how the storm looked in the early hours of this morning:
And this is the projection for later today. The prevailing wind right now is westerly, but this will veer to south-westerly as the storm moves along its (roughly) north-easterly path:
Here is an infra-red image taken this morning showing the outer belts of cloud already over Ireland.
Quite a few events have been called off in anticipation of the arrival of Storm Lorenzo this evening, with heavy rain and gale force winds forecast across the country. There are signs, however, that the low pressure region at the heart of the storm is filling more rapidly than expected, so it might not be as severe as feared, although there remains a significant risk of localized flooding and wind damage, especially in the West. I plan to sit it out at home this evening with a glass or two of wine for company…
As you may know, together with Fiona Morley of Maynooth University Library, last week I contributed to this `webinar’:
If you missed the event itself then you can follow the link here to access a full recording of the webinar. You can also find a quick summary of the goings-on here.
And if all this weren’t exciting enough, here are the slides I used for my bit.
I found out this morning that the wonderful Jessye Norman passed away yesterday at the age of 74. It’s impossible to post an adequate tribute in words to such a stellar artist so I’ll just post a clip of her, not in one of the big operatic number by Wagner or Strauss with which she was probably most strongly associated, but in a piece from a different era altogether: Dido’s Lament by Henry Purcell. It seems to be an apt choice at this sad time.
The arrival yesterday of this year’s Royal Astronomical Society diary reminded (for obvious reasons) that next year (2020) sees the bicentenary of the Society and that there will be a number of special events to mark the occasion.
The ‘Astronomical Society of London’ was conceived on 12 January 1820 when 14 gentlemen sat down to dinner at the Freemason’s Tavern, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. After an unusually short gestation the new Society was born on 10 March 1820 with the first meeting of the Council and the Society as a whole. An early setback, when Sir Joseph Banks induced the Duke of Somerset to withdraw his agreement to be the first President, was overcome when Sir William Herschel agreed to be the titular first President, though he never actually took the Chair at a meeting.
The Society became the `Royal Astronomical Society’ in 1831 when it was granted a Royal Charter by William IV, but this is no time to be quibbling about names.
It’s not only the Royal Astronomical Society that has survived and prospered for two hundred years. The group of `gentlemen’ who met for dinner in January 1820 has also carried on in the form of the RAS Club which is, of course, older than the RAS itself.
As well as being a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (and having twice served on its Council), I also have the honour of having been elected a Member of the RAS Club about 11 years ago. I blogged about this here.
The members of the RAS Club are all Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society. All you have to do to join the Royal Astronomical Society is to find two Felllows to support you, pay some money and sign your name in a book, but to get into the RAS Club you have to be elected by the existing membership. Nominations are solicited each November (via a process called `The Naming of Names’) and the elections held – usually with a great deal of confusion about the voting system – in January. Frankly, it’s all a bit dotty, but I like it. I don’t really carte much for the real world anyway. The club’s various little rituals are a bit bizarre, but quaintly amusing in their own way, and the proceedings are remarkably lacking in pomposity.
Nowadays, the RAS Club usually meets at the Athenaeum in Pall Mall, shortly after the end of the monthly `Ordinary Meetings’ of the RAS at Burlington House (always referred to at the Club as `another place’) which happen on the second friday of each month. That is except when the RAS meeting is the annual National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) which is held at a different location each year; on these occasions the club also meets, but at an appropriate alternative venue near the NAM location.
I think the RAS Club (and even the RAS itself) is sometimes viewed with suspicion and perhaps even hostility by some astronomers, who seem to think the club is a kind of sinister secret society whose existence is intrinsically detrimental to the health of astronomy in the UK. Actually it’s just an excuse for a good nosh-up and some daft jokes, although I was initially disappointed to find out that there wasn’t after all a covert plan for world domination. Or if there is, nobody told me about it.
The other common complaint is that the club’s membership is just a bunch of old male dinosaurs. Now it is true that your typical member of the RAS Club isn’t exactly in the first flush of youth, but that’s no excuse for ageism. And the club does try very hard to secure encourage nominations from female Fellows and the gender balance is improving steadily.
The diary reminded me also that the first meeting of the RAS of the new term, and hence the first Club dinner, will be on Friday October 11th. I hope to be there to find out more about the plans for the bicentennial dinner in January 2020…
Anyway, as a postscript, although many of my colleagues seem not to use them, I like old-fashioned diaries like the one above. I do run an electronic calendar for work-related events, meetings etc, but I use the paper one to scribble down extra-curricular activities such as concerts and cricket fixtures, as I find the smartphone version of my electronic calendar a bit fiddly. I’m interested to know the extent to which I am an old fogey so here’s a little poll on the subject of diaries:
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Storm Lorenzo passed over Maynooth during the night bringing with it a lot of rain but at least the winds were not too fierce. At least I assume they were not too fierce because I slept through the whole thing. I tend to sleep well with a bottle of fine wine inside me.
In the Dark 