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Acting and Clearing

Posted in Education, Finance, Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , on August 14, 2011 by telescoper

Now that I’m back from my trip to Copenhagen, it’s going to be back to work with a vengeance. To those of you who think academics have massively long summer breaks, I can tell you that mine ends on Monday when I will be doing a stint as Acting Head of School. That’s not usually a particularly onerous task during the summer months, but next week happens to be the week that A-level results come out and it promises to be a hectic and critical period. It’s obviously a sheer coincidence that all the other senior professors have decided to take their leave at this time…

There are several reasons for this being a particularly stressful time. First the  number of potential students applying to study Physics (and related subjects) this forthcoming academic year (2011/12) in the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University was up by a whopping 53% on last year. I blogged about this a few months ago when it became obvious that we were having a bumper year.

The second reason is that Cardiff’s  School of Physics & Astronomy has been given a big increase in funded student numbers  from HEFCW. In fact we’ve been given an extra 60 funded places (over two years), which is a significant uplift in our quota and a much-needed financial boost for the School. This has happened basically because of HECFW‘s desire to bolster STEM subjects as part of a range of measures related to the Welsh Assembly Government’s plans for the regions. Preparations have been made to accommodate the extra students in tutorial groups and we’re even modifying one of our larger lecture rooms to increase capacity.

Unfortunately the extra places were announced after the normal applications cycle was more-or-less completed, so the admissions team had been proceeding on the basis that demand would exceed supply for this year so has set our undergraduate offers rather high. In order to fill the extra places that have been given to us late in the day, even with our vastly increased application numbers, we will  almost certainly have to go into the clearing system to recruit some of the extra students.

In case you didn’t realise,  universities actually get a sneak preview of the A-level results a couple of days before the applicants receive them. This helps us plan our strategy, whether to accept “near-misses”, whether to go into clearing, etc.

On top of these local factors there is the sweeping change in tuition fees coming in next year (2012-13). Anxious to avoid the vastly increased cost of future university education many fewer students will be opting to defer entry than in previous years. Moreover, some English universities have had cuts in funded student places making entry highly competitive. As an article in today’s Observer makes clear, this all means that clearing is likely to be extremely frantic this year.

And once that’s out of the way I’ll be working more-or-less full time until late September on business connected with the STFC Astronomy Grants Panel, a task likely to be just as stressful as UCAS admissions for both panel members and applicants.

Ho hum.

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Heebie Jeebies

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on August 14, 2011 by telescoper

I was looking through Youtube this morning and found this, which I noticed was recorded exactly 60 years ago today, on 14th August 1951, which gave me an excuse to post it. Not that I needed an excuse. It’s a bit of contrast with my previous jazz post, but I’ve never had a problem with loving New Orleans traditional jazz as well as its more modern varieties.

Apart from the fact that this is a joy to listen to, it also gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to a much underrated figure in the history of British jazz. I don’t mean, “The Guv’nor”, Ken Colyer, who plays super lead cornet on this track (and who, incidentally, was one of John Peel’s favourite musicians), but the fabulous trombonist Keith Christie who led this band together with his brother Ian, who played clarinet.

Before forming the Christie Brother Stompers, Keith Christie was a mainstay of Humphrey Lyttelton band that made many wonderful recordings for the Parlophone label. Together with Humph on trumpet and Wally Fawkes on clarinet he was part of  the finest front line of any band of that era. His characteristically rumbustious trombone playing can be heard to particularly good effect on this track, a version of the classic  Heebie Jeebies, first recorded by Louis Armstrong and his famous Hot Five way back in 1926.

Clearly inspired by Kid Ory, Keith Christie’s always seemed to bring out the comic  aspects of the rorty old tailgate trombone style without ever mocking it. It’s interesting to reflect that although this kind of music is suffused with a robust humour, the musicians themselves were deadly serious. When he was with Humph’s band, Humph tried many times to persuade Keith Christie to tone down the humorous aspect, something that he admitted in later life was entirely the wrong thing to do.

Indeed, Humph’s band at one point in 1949 had the chance to do a recording session with the great Sidney Bechet, after which Bechet summoned Humph into his dressing room and gave him a kind of end-of-term report on the band, pointing out little criticisms of their playing. Humph recalled in radio programme many years later the unqualified admiration with which Bechet spoke of Keith Christie’s trombone playing then. I can’t think of  higher praise.

When Keith left to form a band with Ken Colyer it was a topic of great speculation how his playing would go down with the Guv’nor, a name Colyer acquired because of his strict adherence to New Orleans principles. I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but it is a fact that the band didn’t stay together very long.

When this particular record was made it was heavily influenced by the revivalist records coming over from the USA at the time of Bunk Johnson’s 1940s band and also the Kid Ory band, so the “recorded in garage” sound was sedulously acquired. It might be low-fi, but you can hear well enough to enjoy it, especially Keith Christie’s absolutely brilliant trombone, both in solo and in as part of the front line collective passages.

 

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Riot

Posted in Jazz with tags , on August 13, 2011 by telescoper

I thought I’d post this now because (a) the title is topical and (b) because playing a piece by a black musical  genius is the best way I can think of to refute David Starkey’s on Newsnight last night that there’s nothing more to “black culture” (whatever that means) than drugs and gang violence. This track, called Riot, is from the  album Nefertiti, by the superb Miles Davis Quintet of the late 60s, which included Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock (who wrote the tune), Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. It’s one of the most played albums on my iPod, but I very much doubt Dr Starkey has ever heard of it…

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Nicholas Robinson; Burglary; 6 months: An appropriate sentence? (via MTPT)

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , on August 13, 2011 by telescoper

I hope we all agree that all the looting and violence was wrong, but 6 months in prison for stealing something worth £3.50….really?

I personally think these “rioters” (most of whom seem to be simply opportunistic thieves) would be better punished by being made to clear up the mess they’ve made…i.e. by community service orders.

As the first cases make their way through to sentencing, one case has attracted much comment: 23 year old Nicholas Robinson, an Electrical Engineering student, who was sentenced to six months in prison for stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 from a branch of Lidl in Brixton. I’ve already made clear my views on prison sentences of this length for non-violent offenders involved in the riots, so I want to look instead at whether the sentence was a … Read More

via MTPT

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DEUS

Posted in Cosmic Anomalies, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on August 12, 2011 by telescoper

Well, I’m back home from Copenhagen after a very interesting and stimulating workshop called “DEUS” (subtitled “Current and Future Challenges of the Dark and Early Universes”). I just thought I’d post a brief message to thank the organizers for inviting me and for arranging such an interesting and varied programme, and especially for giving so many young researchers the chance to give talks (as well as some old farts like me).

Although I’d originally planned to talk about something else, I evenually decided to do a variation on the theme of cosmic anomalies, a topic I’ve blogged about at various times over the past couple of years. In a nutshell this was a quick overview of various features of the observed universe that seem to suggest departures from the standard “Lambda-CDM”  (or LCDM, for short) cosmological model, including the famous WMAP Cold Spot, the Axis of Evil, and various other statistical hints of anomalous behaviour in present-day observations.

To add a bit of audience participation I gave those attending my talk the chance to vote on what they thought about these – I was genuinely interested to see what this particular audience felt about whether the standard model is threatened or not.  I asked specifically about these in order to exclude other niggling worries people might have about LCDM from other astrophysical arguments, such as galaxy formation. Anyway, I thought it might be fun to repeat the poll here, so feel free to add your vote here:

As for the results of the vote during my presentation, I was somewhat surprised to see a roughly equal division between A and B, but there were even a few in C. I had assumed the vast majority would vote “A”….

Anyway, thanks again to the organizers of a fun meeting. That’s three trips to Copenhagen in as many months. I guess it will be a while before I go back again. :(

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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on August 12, 2011 by telescoper

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

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Riots: the only solution…

Posted in Politics with tags , , , , on August 11, 2011 by telescoper

Looking at the news feeds during my last evening in rainy Copenhagen, I see that the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Milliband, has weighed in with an armful of brand new platitudes he obviously acquired during the riots, including a dig at so-called “academic” studies into the causes of violent disorder.

I think this is a big mistake. A serious academic study would undoubtedly reveal a deep sociological  connection between mob violence of the type recently experienced in England and the soccer hooliganism of the 70s and 80s.  The pioneering research discussed in the following news clip offers a radical suggestion for solving the problem of youth violence.

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Astronomy Look-alikes, No. 61

Posted in Astronomy Lookalikes with tags , on August 10, 2011 by telescoper

I’m struck by the similarity between cosmologist Alessandro Melchiorri and former Happy Days actor Tom Bosley. I wonder if by any chance they might be related?

Bosley

 

Melchiorri

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Art in the Afternoon

Posted in Art, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , on August 10, 2011 by telescoper

Just a quick blogette to mention that yesterday the workshop participants here in Copenhagen went on an excursion to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, which is just north of Copenhagen.

This is an extremely interesting museum to visit at any time, not just for the temporary exhibitions which at present include the architecturally-themed Living and some wonderful drawings made by David Hockney using his iPad; the latter almost made me want to go out and buy one.

There’s also a fine permanent collection, including many wonderful  sculptures by Alberto Giacometti :
and several by Henry Moore standing (or rather reclining) in the grounds:

What’s really great about Louisiana though is its relaxed informal atmosphere; kids are encouraged to play around (and sometimes in) the scupltures, there is lots of green space to relax in, and you are welcome even to swim in the sea, although I didn’t because I didn’t have my bathing costume with me. Many consider modern art and its galleries to be a bit pretentious, but that couldn’t be further than the truth for this place. I’ll also add that it was very busy indeed so is obviously extremely popular.

For those of you not so interested in Modern Art (which actually seemed to the case for many of my dining companions last night), there is a strong astronomical connection with this place because it offers a view of the Island of Hven on which Tycho Brahe established a famous observatory Uraniborg.

I’ve been to Louisiana many times but have never taken the short boat trip out to Hven, largely because there’s nothing much of the observatory left. Apparently the locals were squeezed mercilessly for taxes to pay for the running costs of Tycho’s observatory, with the result that by the time Brahe left in 1597 the residents of Hven were thoroughly fed up with him and tore the whole thing down.

The moral is clear of that little story is clear: astronomers need to keep the public on their side!

Now it’s time to start the workshop for today so I’d best be off…

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Keep the home fires burning

Posted in Biographical, Finance, Politics with tags , , , , on August 9, 2011 by telescoper

I’m in Copenhagen, yet again, for the third time in as many months, this time for a  workshop arranged by the Dark Cosmology Centre at the Niels Bohr Institute. It’s my talk this morning, in fact, so although I’m up early I haven’t got much time to post. I have to work on my talk to see if there’s a way I can make it all fit in 30 minutes!

Copenhagen is a pretty familiar place to me, but this has to be the most unsettling trip I’ve ever made here. I’m not talking about the long delay at Heathrow airport before we took off; I’ve come to expect that. The airport clearly can’t cope with the level of traffic it is supposed to handle during the summer months, so you have to reckon on at least an hour delay inbound and outbound. Sitting on the tarmac for an hour while being told over and over again that it will be “just a few minutes” really does bring out the grumpy old man in me. Still,  at least I didn’t lose any luggage.

No, the reason this is such an unsettling trip is that back home in Blighty all hell seems to have broken lose, with riots in the streets of, first, London and now apparently Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. I was also on the march in 1990 that turned into the Poll Tax riot. I was appalled by the violence that day and got myself and my friends away from trouble as soon as it flared, but it has to be said that it did lead to a change in the law, something Parliament had failed to achieve.

Back to the present, I note that the Tesco at Bethnal Green, where I used to live, has apparently been looted. I hope all my friends in London are keeping themselves safe.

I don’t think there’s anything I can say about these riots that wouldn’t be ill-informed, unhelpful, or even downright stupid. I am however old enough to remember that such things have happened before, in deprived inner-city areas, including Liverpool and Bristol. The circumstances were similar too.  Given the public spending cuts that have hit community programmes extremely hard,  it doesn’t surprise me that some have decided to lash out, especially at the Police,  whose criminal collusion with the media over phone-tapping and draconian tactics in dealing with lawful protests has turned many others against them .

I find it hard to separate these signs of social disintegration from the large-scale economic landscape. The huge level of debt accumulated by banks during the Credit Crunch of 2008 has now been absorbed by governments across the globe, who are attempting to deal with it by cutting public spending rather than raising taxes. Meanwhile the bankers have accepted their bailouts with glee, paying themselves bonuses by the bucketful and no doubt squirreling away the dosh in the Cayman Islands. If the state sanctions greed on that scale, is it surprising that people at the bottom of the heap decide to join in by looting the local supermarket?

The young  have the right to feel particularly disillusioned. The current generation has lived beyond its means for too long and, realising it too late, is trying to pay for it by mortgaging the future. The opportunities our young people, especially those from less affluent  backgrounds, can look forward to, in terms of education and jobs, will be much poorer than my generation.

I’m not usually one to endorse the view of the Daily Telegraph, but I think this piece hits the nail pretty much on the head. As Karl Marx would have said, it’s all about alienation, and I can tell you it’s not just the “underclass” that’s feeling it at the moment.

None of which is to condone the violence: you can be angry with the looters and the arsonists and those engaged in wanton destruction, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to understand why it’s happening.

But I’m very afraid that there’s going to be a lot more of this. The sovereign debt crisis is far from over. In many ways it has only just begun. There will be deeper cuts in public spending, greater inequality, greater social divisions and more upheavals like this. I think we’re in for a rough ride. I’m just glad I’m no longer young.

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