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One Day in London

Posted in Biographical, Books, Talks and Reviews with tags , , on June 15, 2017 by telescoper

As it happens, I was in London yesterday to give an Astrophysics seminar at South Kensington Technical Imperial College. In due course I’ll post the slides as I normally do on such occasions.

It was an enjoyable day, with a train journey from Cardiff nice lunch followed by a question-and-answer session with students followed by the talk followed by a cup of tea, followed by a train ride home – all (for a change) running exactly to schedule. It was also extremely hot which meant the walk between Paddington and Imperial (across Hyde Park) left me rather sweaty. Better than getting rained on I suppose.

My hosts gave me an espresso cup, with an interesting motto on the back.


Usually when I go to Imperial or thereabouts I have a minor quandary about whether to walk or take the tube, with such factors as time, weight of baggage and weather taken into consideration before making a decision. This time, however, there was no decision to make because there were problems on the Underground in the area because of the terrible fire at Grenfell Towers, which has claimed the lives of at least 17 people (and possibly many more). The fire itself was near Latimer Road station, which is not on the line I would have taken, but there were apparently fears that the building might collapse near the line (which is overground at that point) so trains were suspended all the way from Hammersmith to Edgware Road, which disrupted the running of the Circle Line.

The venue for my talk was two or three miles away from Grenfell Towers, but in mid-afternoon you could still see smoke in the distance. It was a grim sight. I think I’ll remember yesterday afternoon very well, not because I gave a seminar, but because of the terrible events that happened earlier the same day.

There are many questions that urgently require answers. How did the fire start? Why did it spread so rapidly? Did the smoke alarms work (and if not why not)? Did the cladding on the outside of the building play a role? Did the fact that there was only a single stairwell – astonishing to my mind for a 20-storey residential building – cost lives?

I hope we’ll find the answers to these questions through a proper public inquiry. In the meantime all I can do is express my deepest condolences to those bereaved by this disaster, and wish a speedy recovery for those injured. They will need to understand what happened, urgently.

On the train home yesterday I looked at Twitter and saw this picture, of grim-faced and exhausted firefighters taking a break. I found it almost unbearably moving. We take these people for granted so much of the time, but they’re heroes – every single one of them:

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A Tale of Two Cities 

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on June 5, 2017 by telescoper

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..”

As planned on Saturday evening I stayed at home,  cooked myself dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and watched an old film on DVD. Self-indulgent, I know, but a good way to  have a pleasant evening while avoiding  the crowds at the UEFA Champions League final.

Some time after 10pm  I checked Twitter to see what the score was (4-1 to Real Madrid), and just to check that nothing untoward had happened before or during the match.

It hadn’t, but that was exactly when news was coming in of another terrorist attack in London, this time on London Bridge and in the area of Borough Market. Stories were initially very confused, and I went to bed before a clear picture emerged.

I checked the news feeds again when I woke up and felt the saddest I’ve ever been on a birthday, but still determined to go to Der Rosenkavalier. The best way for us all to beat terrorism is to carry on regardless.

Likewise I didn’t think twice about coming to London today for the Euclid meeting this week. That said, I did arrive very late. Torrential rain overnight in Cardiff, combined with a blocked gutter, led to a flood in my kitchen. I had to call a useful person to fix it the problem, which delayed me by a few hours. Fortunately it was only rainwater in the leak, not nasty stuff backed up from the drain.

Now I’m in London where it is also tipping down, but at least I’m in a pleasant hotel and looking to get a good night’s sleep. The sound of rain can be restful, at least when it’s not flooding your kitchen.

I made my way to the hotel, which is in Bayswater, after a wine and nibbles reception at the workshop. I have never stayed here before and it took a while to find. I was a bit nervous too, as the place is remarkably cheap by London standards. Before correctly locating the hotel I wandered into another establishment on the same street with a similar name. It was quite obviously a brothel, and they politely directed me to the correct address. The hotel turned out to be fine, though obviously without any of the ‘extras’ that would have been available at the other place.

I can’t stay the whole week here as I have to get back to Cardiff to vote on Thursday, but it’s been nice to catch up with news of the Euclid mission and to meet some old friends. There are about 400 cosmologists here in London for this meeting, some of them familiar some of them less so. The mission won’t be launched until 2021 at the earliest, and it’s unlikely I’ll be involved very much, but it’s still exciting to see it all taking shape.

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In case you were wondering….

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , , on June 3, 2017 by telescoper

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Module Evaluation

Posted in Biographical, Education with tags , , on May 31, 2017 by telescoper

It’s always with a measure of trepidation that I look at the feedback that students give on a module that I’ve been teaching, and this nervousness is considerably enhanced when it’s the first time I’ve lectured that material. This morning I grasped the nettle and clicked on the link to take me to my questionnaire results for my module Physics of the Early Universe. I was relieved that it was all fairly positive.

In the old days these things were done on paper, which meant quite a big job collecting and collating the results. Nowadays it’s all done online, which means not receiving any drawings or other artistic contributions that some students were wont to scribble on the questionnaires. Past experience has been that the response rate is lower for on-line surveys, but the response rate I got this time was pretty high – over 80%. Perhaps students are getting more accustomed to doing everything on line?

I never find the numerical scores particularly useful as one has no idea how to calibrate them, but the textual comments made by students are often interesting and helpful. They’re all anonymous, of course, to encourage students to be frank.

One thing that clearly went down very well was the use of Cardiff’s new lecture-capture system (called Panopto), which allows the lecturer to record everything – powerpoint, data visualizer, whiteboard and live action – for posterity. I recorded all my lectures and exercise classes in toto and put them up on our Virtual Learning Environment (called Learning Central) for the students to view at their leisure. It’s a significantly more sophisticated and flexible lecture capture system than the one we used when I was at Sussex, and the questionnaire responses showed that the students really appreciated the availability of the recordings; a representative comment can be found below.

Not all my colleagues are keen on the idea of lecture capture, but I like it a lot and am very happy to do it with my own lectures. It does seem that some university staff are wary of this innovation, but opinion may be changing. Please let me know what you think via the poll thatr I’ve been running on this for a few years:

It’s always difficult when you give a new set of lectures judging the pace appropriately. I spent more time on introductory material than I should perhaps have done, and also – as a number of students made clear in the module evaluation – should have done some more worked examples. I’ll try do better next time, and I am very grateful to those who took the time to complete the survey pointing out how I might improve. I always take constructive criticism very seriously.

It is of course the negative comments that are the most helpful in a practical sense, but it is always nice to find comments like these:

The lecturer is very passionate about the subject and that really helps as you can ask any question and he’ll be able to answer it. Furthermore, his enthusiasm helps to keep you engaged. I also found it helpful that the lectures were recorded, so I could look over them while working on coursework.

Before you accuse me of doing so, I admit that I have cherry-picked one of the good ones to show myself in a good light.

I’m less sure how to interpret this one:

The lectures were incredible.

Anyway, the students on this module have now finished the exam and will be waiting for the results which come out in a couple of weeks. If any happen to be reading this blog then thanks for your comments and

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Talked Out

Posted in Biographical with tags , , on May 16, 2017 by telescoper

It has been a busy day. Partly this was because I had to give a talk (of which more in due course) but mostly it was thanks to the kind hospitality of my hosts, particularly Lauro Moscardini, whom I have known for many years. I’m just back to the hotel after an extremely pleasant dinner with Lauro at Trattoria Serghei, which is just a few yards from my hotel. I had Tortelloni Burro e Salvia followed by Coniglio Arrosto, accompanied by a fine Sangiovese, in case you’re interested.

When I got up this morning I soon realised the weather was beautiful so instead of getting the bus to the Observatory I decided would just walk there. It turned out to be a good decision. Despite being rather further than the previous site, it only took me 45 minutes to get there, and that included a stop for a coffee. The building is brand new. So new that it’s not fully occupied, but I managed to find my way to the guest office easily. Impressively, despite the incomplete state of much of the interior, I found the WIFI working perfectly.

Anyway, it has been a busy but very enjoyable day. I’ll say more about what my talk was about when I get back home. I’m doing another one on Thursday on a completely different subject, and will no doubt have a completely different dinner too!

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Arrivato a Bologna

Posted in Biographical with tags , , on May 15, 2017 by telescoper

After after a journey consisting of train+bus+plane+bus I’ve made it to my destination. I’m here in Bologna for a few days, giving a couple of talks and hopefully having some useful discussions. They’ve booked me into the Hotel Paradise shown above. The title may be a little overstated but it’s a nice friendly little place right in the centre of the city.

Tomorrow I shall be visiting the Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, which is part of the Istituto Nazionale de Astrofisica. I’ve been to Bologna before, but the astronomers have moved to a new building which is further out of town than the old one, so it will be a bit of an adventure trying to find it. No doubt I’ll demonstrate yet again my ability to get on the wrong bus…

Anyway, that’s all for now. It is necessary for me to eat a pizza. I hope to have the chance to take a few pictures while I’m here, but that can wait!

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Spring Rain

Posted in Biographical, Poetry on May 12, 2017 by telescoper

This poem accurately describes what happened to me walking home yesterday evening…

The storm came up so very quick
It couldn’t have been quicker.
I should have brought my hat along,
I should have brought my slicker.

My hair is wet, my feet are wet,
I couldn’t be much wetter.
I fell into a river once
But this is even better!

by Marchette Chute (1909-1994)

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Local Election Issues

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , , , on May 4, 2017 by telescoper

Though very much overshadowed by the looming General Election, today sees important local elections in various locations across the United Kingdom including here in Cardiff where all seats on Cardiff City Council are up for grabs. This is an example of a unitary authority, unlike some areas where there are county and borough councils that operate on different levels.

Councillors are paid an `allowance’ which varies across the country but in Cardiff corresponds to a basic amount of £13,300k per annum. Not exactly a luxurious income, but it is essentially a part-time job. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy though, as many difficult choices have to be made when budgets are tight.

Since my current job at Cardiff University is part-time I did toy with the idea of putting myself forward as a Labour Party candidate, but in the end didn’t pursue it – largely because I’ve not had as much free time as I thought I would. In any case we have three very good prospective candidates in Iona Gordon, Kanaya Singh, and Caro Wild. I wish them all good luck!

When I first moved to Cardiff, in 2007, the Liberal Democrats were the largest party in the Council, a position they consolidated in the 2008 elections, where the administration that was formed consisted of a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party. At the 2012 elections the Liberal Democrats crashed and burned and Labour regained the position as majority party it had lost to the LibDems in 2004. These local elections normally take place every four years, but were deferred by one year by the Welsh Government, which is why they are taking place now rather than in 2016.

Local elections return councillors for each of a number of wards within each area. Some wards return only one representative while others can have a number of councillors. My own ward, Riverside, for example, has three councillors. When I moved to my house in Pontcanna in 2008 all three councillors belonged to Plaid Cymru; at the 2012 elections all three were Labour. I think the past success of Plaid Cymru in Riverside may relate to the presence of Welsh language media organizations in the area. It’s a very mixed ward, actually, with some very posh areas in the North (towards Llandaff) and some very working-class areas to the South.

What will happen this time? I honestly have no idea. It is very difficult to predict local elections on the basis of national politics for a number of reasons. One is that turnout is very low – 30% is very high for this kind of poll. Seats in the council can be gained and lost by just a few hundred votes. There’s also the fact that those people who do vote tend to do so on the basis of very local matters, e.g. the efficiency of the refuse collection service, rather than the national and international issues that will dominate the General Election. Not that this will stop the pundits prattling on about the results.

I can see Plaid Cymru doing reasonably well, but would be surprised if either the Liberal Democrats made a substantial comeback or the Conservatives made big gains. We’ll just have to wait and see, though, as I’ve been massively wrong about such things before!

Anyway, I’m going to a concert tonight to take my mind of things and have no intention of waiting up until the early hours of the morning to hear the results come in, so I’ll update this with the results tomorrow morning.
UPDATE 8.30am, 5/5/2017: Riverside ward returned three labour councillors and Labour retained control of Cardiff City Council.

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 When Things Could Only Get Better..

Posted in Biographical on May 1, 2017 by telescoper

Twitter reminded me this morning that it’s twenty years to the day since the Labour Party under Tony Blair swept to a landslide victory in a General Election. ‘Things can only get better’ was the anthem of the times.

How things have changed.

Twenty years on Labour is in disarray, the United Kingdom is more divided than ever, and we’re about to crash out of the European Union. From where I’m standing things can only get worse. And a lot worse, at that.

Anyway, going back to 1997, I remember that the election happened while I was in America; I had cast  postal vote before going on the trip. On the day, I went to a party at the house of a British colleague. Because of the time difference the results came in during the evening there, rather than the early hours of the morning as they would have done at home.

When it became clear that Labour had won, I was already a bit tipsy and decided to celebrate by going to a tattoo parlour to be commemoratively inked. I left with this.

The ‘New Labour’ symbol was a red rose..

The photograph was taken some years after the event, at a conference in Italy. I still have the tattoo, of course, although it has faded a bit (like the rest of me). Among other things,  it reminds me of a time – not too far in the past – when there seemed to be a future.

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The Irish Question 

Posted in Biographical with tags , , on April 7, 2017 by telescoper

Not surprisingly, given the imminent likelihood of big cuts to UK Astronomy funding as a result of our withdrawal from the European Union, quite a lot of the conversation at this evening’s RAS Club dinner revolved around ways of keeping EU citizenship in the post-BrExit era.

Through a bit of independent investigation I discovered a few weeks ago that, at least in principle, I qualify for Irish citizenship. This is because one of my grandparents (my grandfather on my mother’s side) was born in Northern Ireland. That is sufficient for me to claim Irish nationality, if I can prove it.

The problem is that the grandfather concerned died quite a long  time ago, when I was a kid. In fact, all my grandparents are deceased. To make matters worse I don’t know exactly when he was born or where or when he married my grandmother. This is a problem because I need to produce both his birth certificate and their marriage certificate, along with my mother’s birth certificate (and mine) to establish my case.

It is almost certain my grandfather was born before Ireland was partitioned in 1921, so his birth records may not even be in Northern Ireland but could be held in Dublin.

It looks like I have some interesting research to be getting on with!

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