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Network Reception

Posted in Biographical with tags on October 22, 2008 by telescoper

Tonight the Park Plaza Hotel in Cardiff played host to a wine-and-canapes reception on behalf of the Wales and West region of the RSA, an organization of which I am a Fellow, after being elected about two years ago.

The RSA is actually called the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce although this is frequently shortened to the Royal Society of Arts, a name that doesn’t really convey its true interdisciplinary nature. It’s London base is a splendid Georgian building in John Adam Street, just off the Strand and not far from Charing Cross, where it has been situated since 1774. Fellows have free use of this building, including its library and wi-fi connections, which I find very handy when visiting London. They do nice lunches too.

THe RSA is a venerable institution, formed in 1754, but it has evolved considerably over the years. Early on it attempted to stimulate progress by laying down challenges and offering rewards (“premiums”) for their successful completion. Probably the most famous of these was the challenge to transport live breadfruit to the West Indies taken up by Captain William Bligh with his ship the Bounty. His first attempt ended in the famous mutiny, but he survived and, showing immense skill, managed to navigate an open boat across the ocean to safety. When he got back to England he repeated the attempt, this time successfully and he duly collected the reward (or premium).

The RSA also organized Britain’s first public exhibition of contemporary art and it was such a hit that two of its members – Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds – formed a spin-off organization in 1768 called the Royal Academy of Arts, which is now based in Burlington House Piccadilly, on the same site as the Royal Astronomical Society.

Originally the Society had a manifesto deriving from the high ideals of the 18th Century Enlightenment, chiefly to harness the energy and creativity of high achievers to improve society in general. Nowadays its aims have been altered to reflect the changes in society, but it is still involved in many and various campaigns and projects, chiefly on educational and environmental issues, and even runs its own academy, a type of school (concocted by New Labour )that is state-funded, but not controlled by a local education authority. The RSA also runs public lectures and activities from its London base as well as various regional campaigns.

Tonight’s reception was basically just to allow new Fellows to meet and to receive a few words of wisdom from the thrusting, dynamic Chief Executive Matthew Taylor. I’m afraid that part didn’t go too well. Mr Taylor went on at length about the importance of its academy to future RSA strategy without apparently realising that here in Wales there aren’t any academies at all. New Labour may have tinkered with English education, but devolution has protected the Welsh from a lot of the associated nonsense. I’m a relative newcomer to the Society, but I already have a feeling that it is a bit too London-centric for its own good (as, sadly, many things are in Britain).

Apparently when Matthew Taylor first took up his position as Chief Executive he decided to ditch the title Fellow on the grounds that it was sexist. He suggested changing the title to Member, until his staff pointed out that people probably wouldn’t want to have the letters MRSA after their name. I quite like having FRSA after mine, because I’m already FRAS. Maybe I’ll try to collect the whole set of permutations.

Anyway, after the speeches we got down to “networking”, i.e. drinking. I talked to various interesting people: a retired schoolteacher, a lady who works in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, and a strange man with long hair and white shoes, who I was told used to be a City Councillor in Cardiff and who was kicked out after some scandal. I thought he would probably be quite interesting to talk to, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. I think he might have thought I was a reporter, judging by the rate I was knocking back the wine.

Overall, it was quite an enjoyable evening. The wine was free and the nibbles were delicious, especially the little bread things with olive pate on them.

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Carbon Footprints

Posted in Biographical with tags , on October 20, 2008 by telescoper

I found out this morning about an altercation during the early hours of Sunday morning in Cardiff’s city centre that resulted in a welsh rugby player having to go to hospital with facial injuries. This all happened about four o’clock in morning somewhere in the Mill Lane area of the city. Any civilised person who knows Cardiff will realize that’s generally an area to be avoided on Saturday night because of the very high density of rather seedy late-night venues and their undesirable clientele. It looks like it might have been a closing-time row but anyway it seems no serious injury was done so it will probably all be alright in the end.

Most of Britain’s cities now seem to have their weekend no-go areas as the national obsession with binge drinking and picking fights for no reason seems to have become entrenched over the last few years. Although these places are loud and unpleasant you can usually avoid trouble quite easily by showing a bit of discretion and walking away from obvious disturbances or, better still, avoiding these places altogether. If drunks want to fight each other, why not have a designated area so they can be contained? Two drunks are unlikely to inflict serious injury on each other if they are too inebriated, and the only real worry is when two gangs decide to embark on a mass brawl. That’s why there’s always a heavy police presence in such places.

I doubt if this kind of crime will attract much attention nationally, but it does remind me of the problems that developed in Nottingham (where I used to live) after the enormous increase in the number bars and clubs in the city centre about ten years ago followed by the more recent relaxation of the laws on licensing hours. Nottingham’s central area, including the Lace Market, now has over three hundred and fifty drinking establishments and at weekends these draw an estimated 100,000 people into the city on Saturdays. The consequent pandemonium never really affected me personally as I didn’t go to the pubs and clubs in that area, and had anyway been been brought up in Newcastle which has a similar reputation, but it did cause a considerable strain on the local police force and may have contributed to their difficulty in controlling Nottingham’s soaring crime figures.

On the other hand, when Nottingham acquired the nickname of the Gun Capital of Britain this definitely did have an impact close to home for me, as it clearly affected the number of student applications to the University of Nottingham. Although (as far as I know) no student was ever involved in a gun crime, there was also a rise in low-level crime including burglaries which did affect many students especially those living off-campus in the Lenton and Radcliffe areas. On most admissions days we had to contend with questions from both parents and students about crime and it was a constant struggle to counter the impression that Nottingham was a completely lawless place.

My own house was burgled a few years ago too, and several other members of staff I knew there had break-ins and other experiences with crime while I was living there. Ironically, in my case I’d just been involved in running an open day for prospective new students which had gone very well and I’d spent the evening having a few drinks in the Staff Club on the campus at University Park. I walked home to Beeston, which is near the campus, but when I got to my house I saw all the lights were on, which they weren’t when I left that morning. One of the ground floor windows had been forced open and the house was very cold, caused by the fact that the window and back door to the garden were open. Once I’d recovered from the shock I started to worry that something might have happened to Columbo, but he appeared very soon showing no signs of harm having probably slept through the whole thing.

I looked around the house and discovered that they had taken quite a lot of things, making good their escape through the garden at the back of my house thus avoiding drawing attention to themselves in the street at the front. They had taken a bit of foreign currency, a portable CD player, TV, a vacuum cleaner and various other inconsequential things. But they also took a lot of my CDs, some of which were quite obscure and difficult to replace. Although I was fully insured, so I didn’t actually lose anything much in a financial sense, I was definitely very annoyed about losing some of my favourite music. On the other hand, I wasn’t too bothered about the mess the burglars had made because my house is never very tidy anyway.

I called the police and they were at the house within a few minutes. After a cursory look around they left me a card, logged the incident and went away, telling me to try not to touch anything until the forensic officer came the next day. I called the insurers and the next morning a guy came to fix the window and door. By then I had calmed down and was just interested in getting things back to normal.

Then a SOCO (Scene-of-Crime-Officer) arrived to do some forensic tests. I had been an avid watcher of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for some time so I was quite interested to see what sort of tests they would do.

It wasn’t anything like the TV. The lady that came sprinkled powder here and there and then announced that the intruders must have worn gloves. Then she went into the back ground floor room that led into the garden. This room had a wood laminate floor which was covered in muddy footprints.

“Oh great,” she said “I can use this new stuff!”

She rummaged in her bag and brought out some kind of graphite powder and sheets of plastic stuff like clingfilm. She poured the powder all over the floor and lifted several footprints using the sticky plastic.

“I never tried this before. I’ll let you know when I get back to the lab whether I can identify the prints.”

And off she went, leaving the powder for me to clean up. That turned out to be impossible because it was stuck deep into the grain of the wood. It was a hell of a job to clean off the fingerprint stuff too. They never show you that in the movies.

Anyway, the next day I got an excited phone call from the conscientious SOCO. She had identified the footprint. It was a size 7 Reebok trainer. Gee, I thought, there must only be a few thousand of those in Nottingham. Obviously, this discovery didn’t help much and the crime remains unsolved.

I was thinking of sending a bill for the cleaning, but decided against.

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The Veggiana Monologues

Posted in Biographical, Cardiff, Maynooth with tags , on October 19, 2008 by telescoper

I’m not a vegetarian, but I do like vegetables.

A few years ago when I lived in Nottingham I decided on a plan to increase the quantity and quality of the vegetables I was eating by ordering a weekly box of from an organic supplier. The one I picked there was River Nene who provided very good stuff all year around. When I moved I had to cancel the arrangement, and I remained predominantly inorganic while I was renting a flat here. When I finally managed to buy a new house and move in, though, I looked to reestablish the regular deliveries. I was pleased to find a company called River Ford, which is kind of affiliated to River Nene, and which undertakes deliveries of organic produce in the Cardiff area. I’ve been getting a box from them regularly for a few months now, and I’m very happy with the quality.

There are several reasons why I get my vegetables this way.

First and foremost, organically grown vegetables definitely taste far nicer than the bland varieties carried by most mainstream suppliers, including both supermarkets and local greengrocers. Once you’ve tasted how carrotty a carrot should be you’ll never want to eat one of those supermarket ones that look too orange to be true and have no flavour at all.  This applies not just to carrots but to most vegetables; fresh organic ones are so much better. Although, strictly speaking, they are not vegetables, organic mushrooms are particularly good. I often get the huge flat portobello variety which are absolutely delicious and are very easy to include in all kinds of dishes.

Some supermarkets do carry organic ranges but the prices are astronomical, and they are often shipped in from all around the world. That brings me to the second point which is that all (or virtually all) the vegetables I get in my weekly box are grown locally. They’re correspondingly fresh and the environmental impact of bulk transportation is also lessened.

Third, the nature of the scheme is that all the vegetables are seasonal. I think it’s quite sad that people have largely forgotten about the passing of the seasons by virtue of the fact that you can get strawberries all year around in Sainsbury’s. I think it’s have a bit more respect for the passage of time and enjoy the correct food when it happens to be ready. You wouldn’t want to have Xmas dinner every day, so why not be prepared to wait until October to eat fresh sweetcorn?  To every thing there is a season. There’s always something yummy to eat if you’re prepared to be imaginative with your cooking.

And that’s the final point. I have a standing order for a small box of vegetables every week costing about £10. The composition varies from week to week and with the time of year. The company does email and post on its website the contents of the following week’s boxes, but I generally don’t look at it. When the box arrives, it’s usually a mixture of staples (potatoes, carrots, onions, etc) plus things that are not so familiar, and that I’ve often never cooked before.  If it hadn’t been for the veggie box, I would probably never have found out about how to cook chard, romanesco, jerusalem artichokes and celeriac. I look forward to these surprises. Not knowing exactly what’s coming forces me to cook new things, and if I don’t know how to cook them there’s always google.

Of course, the summer salads and lighter things have now finished and, with winter coming on, there will be more root vegetables. I think the heavier vegetables tend to put some people off a bit, but there’s enough variety to keep it fun. Last week’s box contained a nice swede and leeks (of course, I’m in Wales) among other things, but I’m really looking forward to cauliflower and parsnips which should be ready soon.

Each box looks like a lot of food, but I always manage to eat most of it. I have to admit that not all my culinary experiments are successful, but more often than not I am pleasantly surprised. I tried curried beetroot a few weeks ago, with more than a little trepidation. It turned out to be absolutely delicious, even if I did have to ad-lib a bit with some of the ingredients. The only drawback was an unexpectedly colourful trip to the lavatory the next morning…

Anyway, if anyone is thinking of taking the plunge I’d thoroughly recommend them. You don’t have to buy vegetables the way I do it. You can do one-off orders or you can order specific things rather than set boxes.  They do meat and poultry too, but you have to buy a relatively large amount and I don’t eat enough meat to make it worthwhile. I also have a splendid butcher around the corner from me and tend to buy enough there to satisfy my carnivorous side.

I thought I’d break my own tradition and have a peep at what Tuesday’s box has in store. Here we go:cosmos potatoes, red onions, carrots, cauliflower, bunched beetroot, sweetcorn, butternut squash, cavolo nero

Hang on a minute. Cavolo Nero? For a moment I thought it was a black horse from Italy, but  a quick google and I learn that it is Black Kale. Sounds nice. The carrots are always tasty and as I’d hoped the cauliflower is coming through now. I thought the sweetcorn might be finished, but there’s more on the way apparently. Butternut squash is quite trendy these days.

And more beetroot. Ah well. At least this time I won’t think I’m suffering from internal bleeding.

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In the Club

Posted in Biographical with tags , on October 13, 2008 by telescoper

Earlier this year I was elected a member of the Royal Astronomical Society Club. This organization shouldn’t be confused with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) itself. I’ve been a Fellow of that for ages. The RAS Club is basically a dining club whose members are all Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society. All you have to do to join the Royal Astronomical Society is to pay some money and sign your name in a book. To get into the RAS Club you have to be elected by the existing membership. I was elected at the January meeting this year, but this was the first time I’ve been able to dine owing to the long drawn-out affair of my move from Nottingham to Cardiff.

Curiously the RAS Club is actually older than the RAS itself, as the first dinner was held in 1820, before the RAS was actually formed. 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 (referred to 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, usually in April. On these occasions the club also meets, but at an appropriate alternative venue near the NAM location.

Although I knew several people already in the club I didn’t really know what it would be like, but my first time there turned out to be very pleasant. The food and wine were good and the conversation was extremely enjoyable. At the end of the dinner my health was drunk – as indeed was I – and I had to reply, which I did by telling the story of my encounter with the Kansas police. It seemed to go down quite well. After other speeches the dinner was declared “informal” which is just as well because by then I was as informal as a newt.

The club’s various little rituals are a bit bizarre, such as calling Burlington House (“another place”), but quaintly amusing in their own way and the proceedings are remarkably lacking in pomposity. I’m now actually looking forward to the “Naming of Names” next month.

I think the RAS Club (and even the RAS itself) is 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 dinosaurs. Now it is true that your typical member of the RAS Club isn’t exactly in the first flush of youth, but age has its effect on all of us eventually and there is something very distasteful, if not offensive, about the widespread ageism with which some astronomers tend to regard the older generation. The recent Wakeham review of physics rightly pointed out that UK astronomy is in a very strong international position, second only to the United States. This strength hasn’t appeared overnight. It is founded just as much on the past achievements of older astronomers as it is sustained by the energy and creativity of the young.

So let’s have a bit more respect.

As for me, the age thing isn’t a great concern. I feel I’ve been on the fast track to fogeydom for some time anyway. I like to play Bridge and go to the Opera too. Although it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste, I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I actually felt quite at home at the RAS club.

While a private dining club can have whatever image its members feel comfortable with, fogeyish or not, the image of a professional organization is much more crucial and it is important that the former doesn’t impact negatively on the latter. The “real” Royal Astronomical Society definitely has to find a way forward that is a bit more up-to-date and relevant than it is now. If the stuffy air puts off younger astronomers from joining then that can have a very bad effect on the future. Although UK astronomy is very strong, it does need to have better representation in the corridors of power. The Institute of Physics is a professional organization which can deliver much more effective campaigning on behalf of mainstream physics than the RAS is able to do for astronomy, at least at present. Part of the reason is the poor take-up of RAS fellowship by younger astronomers, no doubt at least partly because of its fogeyish image, which in turns prevents it from modernizing. The RAS understands this and is trying to recruit more younger members, but with only limited success.

It’s a difficult balancing act to weigh up the considerable political value of established tradition against the critical need to encourage innovation and change. I know some astronomers think a new professional organization is needed for UK astronomy, and that the RAS should be left to turn into a kind of museum. I think that would be a shame and that it would be better for more astronomers to abandon their antipathy, join the Society and put some effort into making it fit to face the challenges of the 21st Century.

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Icelandic Sagas

Posted in Biographical, Finance with tags , on October 7, 2008 by telescoper

I read in the news today that the Icelandic government has taken over a second of its leading banks in an attempt to stop the total collapse of its economic infrastructure. Last week it took over the country’s third largest bank, Glitnir, to prevent it collapsing as a consequence of bad debts and this week it has nationalised Landsbanki, the second largest. This particular one brings Iceland’s imminent bankruptcy closer to home as hundreds of thousands of savers in the UK have cash tied up in either Icesave or Heritable, which are divisions of Landsbanki. The only private Icelandic remaining is Kaupthing, which also has a UK operation called Kaupthing Edge. This bank claims to have minimal exposure to toxic debt, but it remains to be seen whether it can avoid a run on its deposits that will surely lead it into oblivion too. I am an interested party in this case, as I recently bought some of its fixed rate high-interest bonds. This may turn out not to be the best decision I have ever made.

Iceland’s economy seems to be a microcosm of the current world situation. A decade of incredible growth built on speculative financial operations abroad led to growth beyond the wildest dreams of such a small country. With a population of only just over 300,000 – that of a small English city – most of whom live in the capital Reykjavik, this boom generated a huge increase in living standards for its own people and created a new generation of Icelandic billionaires. Now that bubble has well and truly burst. The country as a whole is on the verge of bankruptcy, its currency has fallen through the floor, and inflation is rampant.

Iceland may have a reputation as the one of the hottest destinations for a weekend of partying, but it seems to me that it’s about to suffer a sudden and very chill winter.

I had the opportunity to visit Iceland this May in order to participate in an event called the Experiment Marathon, which is one of those artists-meet-scientists events that are either excruciatingly terrible or intensely enjoyable. Held in the Hafnarhus – Reyjkavik Art Museum – the contributions included scientists talking about science or doing experiments live in front of the audience, alongside artists talking about or demonstrating their work.

I am really not sure why I was invited to take part, although I suspect it was some form of administrative error. Most of the really crap things that happen are caused by mistakes, so why shouldn’t the good things also happen that way?

Anyway, I gave a talk about the cosmic microwave background. My “experiment” was a television set that wasn’t tuned properly producing a screenful of static. I pointed out that some (actually not that much) of the buzz was coming from the beginning of the universe. Pretty lame as a gimmick, I know, but it seemed to go down quite well with the audience and I had some nice questions and comments at the end of my 20 minutes. But I also got to meet quite a few artists and other luminaries, including Brian Eno (who celebrated his 60th birthday at the festival) and Dr Ruth. I also had breakfast in the hotel with a noted performance artist called Marina Abramovic who I’m ashamed to say I’d never heard of. I didn’t actually know who she was until much later.

Even better than this I had a sort of VIP pass which meant that I got to go to a couple of wonderfully boozy receptions, including one at the President’s house, and hang out with the in-crowd at some of Reykjavik’s nightspots, although at one of them I had to listen to some experimental music that sounded like what I imagined to be played to prisoners at Guantanomo Bay. Being so far North the nights are very long which definitely added to the enjoyment, especially since the few days I was there were blessed with lovely sunny weather. Perhaps even more importantly, I don’t remember having to pay for anything at all, drinks included. They even paid me a fee! (However, they paid it in Icelandic Krona, which I never got around to cashing, so it’s probably not worth very much by now.)

It goes without saying that I formed a very positive opinion of Reykjavik as a city full of energetic and creative people who know how to have a good time: it has its own opera house, countless restaurants and bars and several excellent museums and art galleries. But at the back of my mind I was wondering how such a small country can find the money to sustain such a level of artistic and musical activity as well as lavish personal consumption. Now at last I have the answer.

It can’t.

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American Excess

Posted in Biographical, Uncategorized with tags , on October 4, 2008 by telescoper

I posted an item last week about my encounter with the Kansas Police Force, primarily because looking back it is pretty funny. A few people contacted me to apologize for what had happened, perhaps surprised about how over-zealous law enforcement officers can be. I guess it’s pretty boring being a cop in Kansas, so if something unusual happens they tend to get a bit excited.

But if anyone in the States is in a mood for apologizing about something, they should read this item. Three years on  it still makes me seethe whenever I think about it, unlike the Kansas City tale which I look back on with amusement rather than animus.

When I was working at the University of Nottingham, I was given a sabbatical for one semester for the Autumn of 2005. I had already received an informal invitation from George Smoot at the University of California at Berkeley to visit, specifically from 1st August to 10th December that year. I had visited him the previous year while I was on holiday in California and enjoyed it very much, especially the good food and stupid jokes.

All I had to do was to get my visa and travel arrangements sorted out. The period of the visit was longer than the 90 days for which visa-free travel was allowed, and also the restrictions brought in after 9/11 involved stricter monitoring of scientific visitors. It was therefore necessary to apply for a J-1 visa.

For a J-1 visa for the USA you need first of all a form called a DS-2109 which, in the case of visiting scholars like me, is a kind of formal invitation issued by the host institution. I applied for this using a special form on March 10th 2005. My first problem was that Berkeley did not send the papers back to me until 12th July 2005. However, once I had it I was in a position to get the visa.

Nowadays nobody is issued a US visa without an “interview” at a US Embassy consular division. You are not allowed to book an interview until you have your DS-2109. I called the Embassy visa line (cost £1.30 per minute) and made an appointment. Unbelievably, the first available appointment was a month later, on 11th August 2005, 10 days after my sabbatical visit was supposed to start. Worse still, the instructions I received indicated a minimum of a further 5 working days should be allowed after the interview for the return of the passport with the visa.

You also have to surrender your passport at the interview with no promise of when it will be returned. They don’t even guarantee 5 days. As a matter of fact they don’t guarantee anything at all, as we shall see.

The next thing you have to do is to pay a fee called a SEVIS fee. In my case that was $100. You can do this online, so it was no problem. I paid the fee by credit card and printed out the receipt as instructed. There are then several forms to be filled in. DS-156 is the basic application form. I also needed to fill in a DS-157 and DS-158, which contain detailed information about my work history, qualifications and family circumstances. I was also told I would need to take with me to the interview evidence of my employment, bank statements, mortgage statements, and so on, presumably to prove I was not planning to gain entry to the US to work there; obviously everyone in Britain, even a University professor, really wants to leave their home and work as a waiter in America.

Finally you have to go to a bank and pay the visa application fee (£60) and get a formal receipt. Oh, and you need a photograph. Armed with all this paperwork, and my passport, I went to the Embassy in London on the morning of 11th August 2005. My appointment was scheduled at 12.45, but it’s a two-hour train journey from Nottingham to London. Incidentally, that cost me £94. I got there in good time, and actually entered the Embassy through its extensive security checks around 12.15.

The Embassy operates a take-a-ticket-and-wait system like the deli counter at a supermarket. I took a number and waited. After about an hour, my number was called. I went to a window and a lady who could hardly speak English asked for my documents. I passed them through the window. I then had my fingerprints scanned. And that was that. Except it turns out that is only Stage 1. I returned to my seat and waited for Stage 2, the interview

Three hours later I was finally called for my interview. The consular official was quite polite. He asked me some questions about my job, and work. I thought it was all going fine. It took about 15 minutes. Then he picked up my passport. It was a perfectly valid passport that I had used for a trip to Belgium a few weeks previously without any problems and it still had about two years left to run before a new one was required. He turned to the back page where the photograph was. He picked up a paper knife and stuffed it into the edge of back cover of the passport, between the plastic covering the photograph and the actual back cover, and started to waggle the knife about. He did this so violently that the photograph came loose, which it was not when I entered the Embassy.

“Oh dear”, he said. “Looks like someone has tampered with your passport.” He showed me the damaged page through the glass.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Yes..you just did.”

“Oh, anyone could have done that”, was the response. “Someone could replace your photograph with theirs, so I can’t accept this.”

I was actually shaking with anger and confusion at this point. He continued to the effect that he couldn’t issue a visa until I got a new passport. He gave me a form for the re-application and instructions on how to send everything back to the Embassy by courier. He told me if I did re-apply it would take at least 5 working days to process, but I wouldn’t need to pay another fee or have another interview. Finally, as an added bonus he stamped my ruined passport to indicate a visa had been refused.

“Have a nice day”. He actually said that as I left.

Walking back from the Embassy to St Pancras station to get the train back to Nottingham my head was spinning. Had this really happened? Does the US Embassy actually think it has the right to destroy someone’s passport?

I came back to Nottingham that evening half-convinced I had dreamt the whole thing. Why would anyone do that? The passport was fairly old, but had another year or two to run. It was also a machine-readable passport, as is now required. It did not have a digital photograph printed directly on the information page, but the regulations did not actually require that to be the case. My passport was perfectly valid when I entered the Embassy, but it was now useless.

I can only guess that Consular staff had been issued with instructions not to accept passports with old-fashioned photographs in them, even if they were otherwise acceptable. However, rather than print updated guidelines the individual in charge of my application chose to mutilate my passport in order to give him an “official” reason for rejecting it.

Whatever the reason, my passport was ruined and if I was to go anywhere at all I would need a new one. I went to the Post Office the very next day, on Friday 12th August, and applied for a replacement passport. I received a shiny new one (with a digital photograph in it) the following week. As a bonus, the Passports office had noted the fact that my previous one had two years left to run so had given me a passport that wouldn’t expire until 2017.

Now I had to decide what to do. Partly because I had invested so much time and money already, and partly because I was worried about the fact that the immigration records for the US would contain information that I had been refused a visa, I decided to continue with the re-application. After all, if my record showed a refused visa it would be very unlikely I could travel to the USA without extreme difficulty at any time in the future. So I filled in all the forms again, got another photograph, got some more copies of bank statements and all the rest. I rang the Courier (SMS) and arranged for them to pick up the re-application (together with new passport) on 25th August. I paid for the return trip of my documents too. Total cost £19. The courier came and picked up the package to take to the Embassy as arranged.

Fine, I thought. Only 5 days and it will all be sorted. What a fool I was. By September 9th I still hadn’t received anything back. Without my passport I wasn’t able to travel abroad at all. I called the embassy to demand the immediate return of my passport whether it had a visa or not. I no longer cared about visiting the USA. I just wanted my papers back. The Embassy staff said that I would have to wait until it had been processed and, if I read the conditions of application, the five day processing time was never guaranteed.

I contacted the Member of Parliament for my constituency, Nick Palmer, who informed me that I should lodge a formal complaint to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office about the damage to my passport. Since UK passports remain Crown Property at all times, this is the appropriate channel for such matters. I even asked the Foreign Office to attempt the retrieval of my passport from the Embassy.

I was in such a rage I sent a few emails out to friends and colleagues who I thought might be interested in the story, some of whom forward them on. I got a number of nice replies from people all around the world with their own stories. I realized that although I was angry and frustrated, at least I wasn’t having my life torn apart, which is exactly what this kind of petty officialdom can do in different circumstances.

I don’t know which, if any, of these routes actually achieved anything but a few days later my passport arrived back by Courier. It even had a J-1 Visa in it.

Finally! Success!

But wait, there was a covering letter included with my documents. It said that although I had been given a J-1 visa , it wouldn’t be sufficient to achieve entry to the United States. I would have to take with me to the airport all the documents I had taken to the Embassy for my interview. Helpfully, they also pointed out that my DS-2109 had now expired because I should have entered the states on August 1st 2005 and it was now the middle of September. before I travelled I would therefore need to acquire a new DS-2109. Effectively I was back at square one.

Given how long it had taken to get this in the first place, I gave up. I abandoned all hope of ever taking my sabbatical in Berkeley or indeed anywhere in the USA. I had lost six weeks of my allotted time in any case.

I had to find a plan B. I contacted Dick Bond at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto and asked if I could go there instead. I didn’t expect him to agree because it was very short notice, but he said yes. Next day I received a formal letter of invitation by FedEx and I booked my ticket to Canada. No visa needed.

I arrived in Toronto at the end of September and spent about three months there. It was an extremely enjoyable time, during which I managed to finish my book From Cosmos to Chaos, as well as a few other things. Of course the climate was a bit different from what I would have experience at Berkeley. It got quite cold in Toronto towards Christmas, but I didn’t mind at all. My only regret is that I wasted so much time and money before deciding to go there when I could have had another six weeks in Toronto without the hassle.

Nothing ever came of any of the formal protests. I’m not surprised about that. The chap who wrecked my passport has diplomatic immunity so can’t be prosecuted. I doubt that the British Government ever even approached the US Ambassador with this matter. Given the collusion of the British in the illegal rendition and torture of prisoners by US agents, it seems unlikely that they give a toss about international law anyway.

I passed the details onto Berkeley who contacted the US Visa Department in Washington, but I never heard anything back from them either. Even less surprising.

So I now have a passport with a J-1 visa in it, but no US entry stamp. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I turned up in the States and showed it to an immigration officer, but then I doubt if I’ll be going to the USA in the foreseeable future. I’ve also been asked about this unusual state of affairs a few times on entering other countries, which gives me the chance to tell the story I’ve just posted or at leas the gyst of it. The best response was from a Canadian Immigration Officer, when I arrived in Toronto in Autumn 2005.

“That’s America for you. But you’re in a civilized country now.”

I am sorry I didn’t get the chance to visit George Smoot, though I did manage to meet up with him a year later in Sweden. But that’s another story…

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Cosmology Explained

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on September 29, 2008 by telescoper

I’ve always avoided describing myself as an astronomer, because most people seem to think that involves star signs and horoscopes. Anyone can tell I’m not an astrologer anyway, because I’m not rich. Astrophysicist sounds more impressive, but perhaps a bit too scary. That’s why I settled on “Cosmologist”. Grandiose, but at the same time somehow cuddly.

I had an inkling that this choice was going to be a mistake at the start of my first ever visit to the United States, which was to attend a conference in memory of the great physicist Yacov Borisovich Zel’dovich, who died in 1989. The meeting was held in Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas, in May 1990. This event was notable for many reasons, including the fact that the effective ban on Russian physicists visiting the USA had been lifted after the arrival of glasnost to the Soviet Union. Many prominent scientists from there were going to be attending. I had also been invited to give a talk, the only connection with Zel’dovich that I could figure out was that the very first paper I wrote was cited in the very last paper to be written by the great man.

I think I flew in to Detroit from London and had to clear customs there in order to transfer to an internal flight to Kansas. On arriving at the customs area in the airport, the guy at the desk peered at my passport and asked me what was the purpose of my visit. I said “I’m attending a Conference”. He eyed me suspiciously and asked me my line of work. “Cosmologist,” I proudly announced. He frowned and asked me to open my bags. He looked in my suitcase, and his frown deepened. He looked at me accusingly and said “Where are your samples?”

I thought about pointing out that there was indeed a sample of the Universe in my bag but that it was way too small to be regarded as representative. Fortunately, I thought better of it. Eventually I realised he thought cosmologist was something to do with cosmetics, and was expecting me to be carrying little bottles of shampoo or make-up to a sales conference or something like that. I explained that I was a scientist, and showed him the poster for the conference I was going to attend. He seemed satisfied. As I gathered up my possessions thinking the formalities were over, he carried on looking through my passport. As I moved off he suddenly spoke again. “Is this your first visit to the States, son?”. My passport had no other entry stamps to the USA in it. “Yes,” I said. He was incredulous. “And you’re going to Kansas?”

This little confrontation turned out to be a forerunner of a more dramatic incident involving the same lexicographical confusion. One evening during the Zel’dovich meeting there was a reception held by the University of Kansas, to which the conference participants, local celebrities (including the famous writer William Burroughs, who lived nearby) and various (small) TV companies were invited. Clearly this meeting was big news for Lawrence. It was all organized by the University of Kansas and there was a charming lady called Eunice largely running the show. I got talking to her near the end of the party. As we chatted, the proceedings were clearly winding down and she suggested we go into Kansas to go dancing. I’ve always been up for a boogie, Lawrence didn’t seem to be offering much in the way of nightlife, and my attempts to talk to William Burroughs were repelled by the bevy of handsome young men who formed his entourage, so off we went in her car.

It takes over an hour to drive into Kansas City from Lawrence but we got there safely enough. We went to several fun places and had a good time until well after midnight. We were about to drive back when Eunice suddenly remembered there was another nightclub she had heard of that had just opened. However, she didn’t really know where it was and we spent quite a while looking for it. We ended up on the State Line, a freeway that separates Kansas City Kansas from Kansas City Missouri, the main downtown area of Kansas City actually being for some reason in the state of Missouri. After only a few moments on the freeway a police car appeared behind us with its lights blazing and siren screeching, and ushered us off the road into a kind of parking lot.

Eunice stopped the car and we waited while a young cop got out of his car and approached us. I was surprised to see he was on his own. I always thought the police always went around in pairs, like low comedians. He asked for Eunice’s driver’s license, which she gave him. He then asked for mine. I don’t drive and don’t have a driver’s license, and explained this to the policeman. He found it difficult to comprehend. I then realised I hadn’t brought my passport along, so I had no ID at all.

I forgot to mention that Eunice was black and that her car had Alabama license plates.

I don’t know what particular thing caused this young cop to panic, but he dashed back to his car and got onto his radio to call for backup. Soon, another squad car arrived, drove part way into the entrance of the parking lot and stopped there, presumably so as to block any attempted escape. The doors of the second car opened and two policemen got out, kneeled down and and aimed pump-action shotguns at us as they hid behind the car doors which partly shielded them from view and presumably from gunfire. The rookie who had stopped us did the same thing from his car, but he only had a handgun.

“Put your hands on your heads. Get out of the car. Slowly. No sudden movements.” This was just like the movies.

We did as we were told. Eventually we both ended up with our hands on the roof of Eunice’s car being frisked by a large cop sporting an impressive walrus moustache. He reminded me of one of the Village People, although his uniform was not made of leather. I thought it unwise to point out the resemblance to him. Declaring us “clean”, he signalled to the other policemen to put their guns away. They had been covering him as he searched us.

I suddenly realised how terrified I was. It’s not nice having guns pointed at you.

Mr Walrus had found a packet of French cigarettes (Gauloises) in my coat pocket. I clearly looked scared so he handed them to me and suggested I have a smoke. I lit up, and offered him one (which he declined). Meanwhile the first cop was running the details of Eunice’s car through the vehicle check system, clearly thinking it must have been stolen. As he did this, the moustachioed policeman, who was by now very relaxed about the situation, started a conversation which I’ll never forget.

Policeman: “You’re not from around these parts, are you?” (Honestly, that’s exactly what he said.)

Me: “No, I’m from England.”

Policeman: “I see. What are you doing in Kansas?”

Me: “I’m attending a conference, in Lawrence..”

Policeman: “Oh yes? What kind of Conference?”

Me: “It’s about cosmology”

At this point, Mr Walrus nodded and walked slowly to the first car where the much younger cop was still fiddling with the computer.

“Son,” he said, “there’s no need to call for backup when all you got to deal with is a limey hairdresser.”

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Postscript

Posted in Biographical, Literature with tags on September 28, 2008 by telescoper

I’ve only got time for a quick post today. Earlier today, I paid a visit to the Great British Cheese Festival in the grounds of Cardiff Castle. The supply of cheese was impressive enough, but there was also quite a lot of beer and wine available, with the result that the rest of my carefully planned Sunday afternoon soon descended into chaos. When I eventually got home and attempted to get on with some gardening, I managed to cut my finger on my rusty shears and, at roughly the same time, set the neighbour’s small yappy-type dog barking. Experience told me that once it starts this little dog tends to go on for hours. Retreating to my house to lick my wounds, apply elastoplast and insert earplugs I picked up the little book I wrote about yesterday and found the following little poem which I wasn’t really familiar with before, and in which Wordsworth manages to find phrases that explain, perhaps, why such attacks of nostalgia happen. It also conjures a typically (for Wordsworth) romantic view of astronomy, of which I don’t entirely disapprove. Or at least that’s what it seems to do if you’re drunk, full of cheese, have a sore finger and are deafened by a mongrel terrier with no sense of humour.

GLAD sight wherever new with old
Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;
The life of all that we behold
Depends upon that mystery.
Vain is the glory of the sky,
The beauty vain of field and grove,
Unless, while with admiring eye
We gaze, we also learn to love.

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Equinox

Posted in Biographical with tags , on September 22, 2008 by telescoper

Yesterday I sat in the garden doing the crosswords in the weekend papers. This was the first Sunday in my new home that I’ve been able to do that without getting drenched by the continuously pouring rain. Now the summer is officially over and the weather takes a perverse turn for the better. Although my house is quite close to a big road, it was very quiet all afternoon.

Columbo has really taken to the decking that occupies the far corner of the little garden. He lies on his back with his eyes closed, his big belly as white as my freshly pegged out laundry. Closing his eyes, he waves his paws around as he tries to catch butterflies or birds or whatever other imaginary creatures flutter through the dreamscape of a cat’s mind.

The weather is unsettling. It’s warm, but somehow the warmth doesn’t quite fill the air; somewhere inside it there’s a chill that reminds you that autumn is not far away.

I find this kind of weather a bit spooky because it always takes me back to the time when I left home to go to University, as thousands of fledgling students are about to do this year in their turn. I did it 26 years ago, getting on a train at Newcastle Central station with my bags of books and clothes. I said goodbye to my parents there. There was never any question of them taking me in the car all the way to Cambridge. It wasn’t practical and I wouldn’t have wanted them to do it. After changing from the Inter City at Peterborough onto a local train, we trundled through the flatness of East Anglia until it reached Cambridge. The weather, at least in my memory, was exactly like today.

I don’t remember much about the actual journey, but I must have felt a mixture of fear and excitement. Nobody in my family had ever been to University before, let alone to Cambridge. Come to think of it, nobody from my family has done so since either. I was a bit worried about whether the course I would take in Natural Sciences would turn out to be difficult, but I think my main concern was how I would fit in generally.

I had been working between leaving school and starting my undergraduate course, so I had some money in the bank and I was also to receive a full grant. I wasn’t really worried about cash. But I hadn’t come from a posh family and didn’t really know the form. I didn’t have much experience of life outside the North East either. I’d been to London only once before going to Cambridge, and had never been abroad.

I didn’t have any posh clothes, a deficiency I thought would mark me as an outsider. I had always been grateful for having to wear a school uniform (which was bought with vouchers from the Council) because it meant that I dressed the same as the other kids at School, most of whom came from much wealthier families. But this turned out not to matter at all. Regardless of their family background, students were generally a mixture of shabby and fashionable, like they are today. Physics students in particular didn’t even bother with the fashionable bit. Although I didn’t have a proper dinner jacket for the Matriculation Dinner, held for all the new undergraduates, nobody said anything about my dark suit which I was told would be acceptable as long as it was a “lounge suit”. Whatever that is.

Taking a taxi from the station, I finally arrived at Magdalene College. I waited outside, a bundle of nerves, before entering the Porter’s Lodge and starting my life as a student. My name was found and ticked off and a key issued for my room in the Lutyen’s building. It turned out to be a large room, with a kind of screen that could be pulled across to divide the room into two, although I never actually used this contraption. There was a single bed and a kind of cupboard containing a sink and a mirror in the bit that could be hidden by the screen. The rest of the room contained a sofa, a table, a desk, and various chairs, all of them quite old but solidly made. Outside my  room, on the landing, was the gyp room, a kind of small kitchen, where I was to make countless cups of tea over the following months, although I never actually cooked anything there.

I struggled in with my bags and sat on the bed. It wasn’t at all like I had imagined. I realised that no amount of imagining would ever really have prepared me for what was going to happen at University.

I  stared at my luggage. I suddenly felt like I had landed on a strange island where I didn’t know anyone, and couldn’t remember why I had gone there or what I was supposed to be doing.

After 26 years you get used to that feeling.

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Gambling for Losers

Posted in Biographical, Finance with tags , on September 16, 2008 by telescoper

In order to encourage fresh-faced school students to pick a Physics degree out of all the possible courses they could University, one of the most persuasive arguments admissions tutors have always trotted out is that it would qualify them for highly paid jobs in the financial services sector. This argument is backed up by surveys of graduate destinations, and is explained by the fact that banking and insurance companies are crying out for numerate people with the ability to analyse complex and often chaotic systems with quantitative rigour.

The most recent episode of the so-called “Credit Crunch” is the fall-out from the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank which caused heavy falls on Wall Street yesterday and corresponding panic overnight on Asian markets. Apparently far-eastern stocks were affected by the sudden realization that many companies had liabilities arising from the Lehman crisis. It’s interesting that this was all hidden until the bank actually folded…

Anyway, with inflation rising, shares falling and the economy stuttering into recession I wonder how many recent physics graduates may be regretting their choice of career. The rewards may be high, but the risks are high too. I’m glad I remained a physicist, even if my own portfolio appears to be flying south for the winter.

Not that I’m sanctimonious about gambling, as long as (a) it’s with your own money and (b) you don’t bet more than you can afford to lose. I like to bet on various things, and I have a fool-proof system. I usually only bet on events where there are only two outcomes (e.g. football matches) and where I actually support one of the two teams. I bet on the opposition to win, on the grounds that if my team wins I lose the bet but am happy anyway. If the opposition wins then I am financially compensated for my loss.

Being a supporter of Newcastle United, this strategy has stood me in good financial stead because a bet on the opposition is more often than not a good one. Last Saturday’s embarrassing home defeat to lowly Hull City resulted in an especially handsome dividend.

On the other hand the strategy doesn’t always work. A few day’s previously I made a substantial investment on Croatia to beat England in their World Cup qualifying match (in Zagreb). The odds weren’t great and I was sure that Croatia would win. Surprisingly, England won 4-1 and I lost £100.

You can criticise my interest in gambling if you like, but I think this form of betting is more more reputable than the murky dealings taking place on today’s stock markets. And if I happen to lose a bet, it’s not going to make a big hole in anybody’s pension.

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