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It’s raining…

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, Poetry with tags , , , , , , on January 19, 2021 by telescoper

Taking a short break from examination marking I had a look outside. I’m not sorry to be cooped up indoors given that it’s pouring with rain. In fact it rained all night and morning and is set to continue in the same vein until tomorrow.

While I was waiting for my coffee to brew I was thinking about some idiomatic expressions for heavy rain. The most familiar one in English is Raining Cats and Dogs which, it appears, originated in a poem by Jonathan Swift that ends with the lines:

Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats and turnip tops come tumbling down the flood.

My French teacher at school taught me the memorable if slightly indelicate Il pleut comme vache qui pisse, although there are other French expressions involving, among other things nails, frogs and halberds.

One of my favourites is the Welsh Mae hi’n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn which means, bizarrely, “It’s raining old ladies and sticks”. There is also Mae hi’n bwrw cyllyll a ffyrc – “It’s raining knives and forks”.

Related idiomatic expressions in Irish are constructed differently. There isn’t a transitive verb meaning “to rain” so there is no grammatical way to say “it rains something”. The way around this is to use a different verb to represent, e.g., throwing. For example Tá sé ag caitheamh sceana gréasaí which means “It’s throwing cobblers’ knives”.

Talking (of) cobblers, I note that in Danish there is Det regner skomagerdrenge – “It’s raining shoemakers’ apprentices” and in Germany Es regnet Schusterjungs – “It’s raining cobblers’ boys”.

Among the other strange expressions in other languages are Está chovendo a barba de sapo (Portuguese for “It’s raining toads’ beards”), Пада киша уби миша (Serbian for “It’s raining and killing mice”),  Det regner trollkjerringer (Norwegian for “It’s raining female trolls”) and Estan lloviendo hasta maridos (Spanish for “It is even raining husbands”).

No sign of any husbands outside right now so I’ll get back to correcting exams.

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For the Birds..

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , on January 17, 2021 by telescoper

The Giant Robin of Newgrange

I saw the above picture of a robin on Twitter the other day and it reminded me of the one that visits my garden. I’ve never been quick enough to take a picture of him, but he’s every bit as plump as the one in the picture. If he were taller he’d be spherical.

The robin situation in my garden has seen an important development: another robin has arrived. The new one is smaller than the first and the first time I saw it I only noticed it because it was having a squabble with the plump one. I assumed it was a younger rival, but on subsequent days I saw the two of them together quite peacefully. Since male and female robins are virtually indistinguishable I wonder if they might be a husband and wife team? The fact that I saw them having a row lends support to this theory.

Another interesting thing concerned niger seed. I bought some of this a while ago, together with a feeder that purported to be designed for dispensing it. Niger seed is a fine oily seed very good for the smaller birds. Unfortunately the mesh in the feeder is too coarse and the seed just poured out as I filled it. I put the bag of seed away and filled the feeder with other stuff. Last week I remembered the bag of niger seed and decided to try putting some loose in the bird table. In no time a group of four chaffinches were tucking in. These were definitely two males and two females – the females are notably different in colour. Anyway, they love it – as do a number of other birds, including the robin(s) – and I’ve had to replenish the supply twice.

I usually wait until there don’t seem to be any birds present before going out to check the food supply, but this is a waste of time. Even if the garden appears empty, as soon as I go out there’s a whooshing sound and lots of chirps as birds that had secreted themselves in various trees and hedges take to the air to escape the scary human.

The birds provide a welcome distraction when I take a break from exam marking, as does writing a blog, but I guess I should get back to it now.

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Happy Birthday Wikipedia!

Posted in Biographical, History with tags on January 15, 2021 by telescoper

Not a lot of people – well, probably quite a lot of people actually – know that it was twenty years ago today, on January 15th 2001, that Wikipedia first went online. I know this is true as I read it on Wikipedia:

Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Sanger coined its name as a portmanteau of “wiki” and “encyclopedia”.

I don’t remember the launch of Wikipedia itself but I do recall when students started using Wikipedia links in project reports and the like. Unfortunately at the beginning many of the articles on scientific topics were very poor – often laughably so – and I discouraged students from using them. Now, twenty years and the efforts of many volunteer editors later, they are generally very good. I now encourage students to use Wikipedia as a resource, but I still discourage them from including references to it in formal reports. The best way to use it is to get an overview but then dig down into the references which most articles lists.

I find Wikipedia an excellent resource for things outside science of course, especially music, and link to articles there very often from this blog.

Somewhere along the line somebody even set up a Wikipedia page about me. It began as “just a stub” but has been updated from time to time. I don’t know who set it up or who has updated it, but it’s now a bit out of date. It still says that I work part-time between Cardiff and Maynooth, for example. No doubt someone will fix this at some point.

I’ve edited a few articles there myself, actually, mostly on cosmology but also on Jazz. Some of my blog posts are linked from there too but it would seem inappropriate for me to edit my own Wikipedia page.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of Wikipedia then please consider making a donation.

Update: it seems that the elves have been at work already and my Wikipedia page has been partially updated. It still says I live in Cardiff, however…

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Abide with me

Posted in Biographical, Music with tags , , , on January 14, 2021 by telescoper

I’ve had a very busy day today so haven’t had time to write anything significant, but I just remembered this piece that I heard a few weeks ago and thought I’d take the opportunity to share it. The hymn Abide with Me sung to the tune Eventide by William Henry Monk is a piece that makes me quite nostalgic as I remember it coming up quite frequently during Evensong when I sang in the Church choir in Benwell when I was little. It’s also well known as the hymn that was always sung before the start of the FA Cup Final.

Anyway, I’m not really a huge fan of brass bands, but I think this arrangement of Eventide for brass instruments by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins is very beautiful. On this recording it’s played by the Cory Band.

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Cold Spell

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth on January 9, 2021 by telescoper

It’s bitterly cold in Maynooth today. We haven’t had much snow but it sure is freezing. As I write it’s 1pm and the temperature is only -4°C. I went to put some stuff in the wheelie bin just now but the lid was frozen shut.

At least I’ve now figured out how to switch this thing on, so I’m nice and cosy indoors.

Outside it’s a different story though at the moment the garden is full of birds tucking into the food I’ve put out for them. They need food to maintain their body temperature or they will freeze to death. I can tell you that these days they’re emptying the feeders at a considerable rate of nuts.

The birds seem to be getting a bit more adventurous. The other day I went out to out refill the bird feeders and the robin who seems to think he’s in charge of my garden bobbed into the kitchen through the open door. He looked around, seeming very unimpressed, did a little poop on the floor and left the way he came in.

The robin is pretty much constantly visible in the garden these days, patrolling his territory and occasionally picking fights with other birds. I saw him have a go at a jackdaw yesterday. You’ve got to admire his nerve.

I’ve seen the resident wren a few times too. Wrens only eat insects so I was curious as to how they survive the winter. I’m reliably informed however that there are still plenty of insects (and other arthropods) around at this time of year. Many hibernate in various crevices (under logs, stones etc., or in nests). Other insect species are still active as adults throughout winter, e.g. smaller flies and moths, and some true bugs.

Meanwhile the swans on the Royal Canal have been having to cope with the ice by learning to skate (not entirely successfully):

Anyway hopefully the extreme cold will keep people indoors to reduce the rate of Covid-19 transmission.

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Níl tuile dá mhéad nach dtránn

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19 on January 5, 2021 by telescoper

The title of this post is an old Irish saying that in English means “There’s no flood so high that it won’t recede”. The relentless increase in Covid-19 cases over the last few days is starting to make me wonder whether it is true.

Even with 7-day averaging and a logarithmic y-axis the rise looks very steep. On a linear y-axis the new cases look like this:

It’s even more dramatic without the 7-day smoothing:

The numbers for deaths on a linear scale look like this:

After doing extraordinarily well through the summer, things have gone very badly wrong. The standard measure using for comparing countries is the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 population. On that measure Ireland is now on 674.4, with some counties over 1000 (Limerick, Louth and Monaghan). That’s not quite as bad as the latest figures for London, but getting there.

By staying in and reducing the number of contacts now we can influence what happens in a few weeks, but we know the results of Christmas and New Year infections haven’t fully filtered through into cases numbers yet, let alone deaths. It’s like standing on a beach watching an enormous wave coming at you and knowing you can’t do anything to get out of the way.

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R.I.P. Sir Arnold Wolfendale (1927-2020)

Posted in Biographical, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on January 4, 2021 by telescoper

I’ve just heard the sad news that former Astronomer Royal Sir Arnold Wolfendale passed away on December 21st 2020 at the age of 93. There’s a full tribute to him here from Durham University, where he spent most of his very distinguished career as a cosmic ray physicist and played such an important role in developing a worldwide centre of excellence in Astronomy.

I remember Arnold Wolfendale very well from many trips to Durham over the years, starting with the SERC School for new postgraduate students in Astronomy I attended in 1985. He was an avuncular and extremely friendly presence there who went to a lot of trouble to talk to studdents; you can see him in the front row of the now (in)famous group photograph taken there:

 

Rest in peace, Sir Arnold Wolfendale (1927-2020)

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Last Day Off

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth on January 3, 2021 by telescoper

Tomorrow is officially my first day back at work after the Christmas break. Not that I’ll be going back to my office on campus in the morning. Thanks to the state of the Covid-19 pandemic I will be working from home for the foreseeable future. It’s looking pretty grim at the moment, and I think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better:

 

I know I’m not alone in thinking that it was a big mistake to relax the Covid-19 restrictions so soon before Christmas with cases at such a high level. What has happened since then in terms of new cases and hospitalizations is even worse than the experts predicted; today almost 5000 cases were reported, taking the total past 100,000. I hope the current Government is properly held to account for the way it bowed to pressure from vested interests (especially the so-called “hospitality industry”) the way it did.

I haven’t read my work emails since the end of last term (December 18th 2020). I do hope I don’t have to work through a mountain of them when I finally open my inbox tomorrow morning. No doubt as  we get back to work there will be detailed instructions on what we can and can’t do. Semester Two of teaching in Maynooth doesn’t start until February 1st so we have a bit of time to see how things progress, but I honestly can’t see any prospect of a return to on-campus classes for the rest of the academic year. I do hope we’re not going to be required to make yet another set of elaborate plans that will never be put into practice…

At least this term I will be “working from home” in better conditions than previously, in my own house with a good internet connection and a proper study that I can close the door on when I need a break. I’ll be teaching three modules next Semester, including one (Advanced Electromagnetism) that I’ve never taught before. Teaching isn’t the only thing, but the other important matters to be dealt with this month are not things I can really write anything about at this stage.

The January examination period starts on Friday (8th) and ends two weeks later (Friday 22nd) so getting through that and getting the examinations marked is going to be the first priority. As in May all these examinations will be in the form of online assessments. We have done this sort of examination before, which makes it a bit easier than last year, but they still cause a lot of stress for staff and students alike. I will have about 100 scripts to mark and will have to do all of them on screen. I’m not looking forward to that at all, but it has to be done. In between those we will be running our first Astrophysics & Cosmology Master Class, which I am looking forward to enormously. It seems to have generated a lot of interest, but we won’t know precisely how many will tune in until the day arrives. It might be a lot if the Schools are closed, which they may be.

I was tempted at this point to make a list of all the things I have to do tomorrow, but that would be breaking my resolution to take a complete break so I will leave that until the morning and instead go and have a nap.

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The New Year’s Old Year Blog Statistics

Posted in Biographical on January 1, 2021 by telescoper

Here we are then, in 2021. Good riddance to 2020. I thought I’d see in the New Year by following the tradition of doing a quick blog about this blog.

Once upon a time, in the good old days, in the dim and distant past, WordPress used to publish an annual statistical summary page for its bloggers, but it has discontinued that practice so now I’ll just write my own brief summary based on the data available via the usual dashboard.

For those interested this blog got 350,765 hits last year, an average of just under a 960 a day. That’s up by 10,732 (or about 3.2%) on last year. Interest in this blog is way down from the dizzy heights of 2012 when I got 464,221 page views. Interestingly, 2020 was the first year ever in which there were more hits on this blog from the USA (113,596) than the UK (101,981). Germany and Ireland take third and fourth place in the blog hits table.

Incidentally, there are 1659 current followers of In The Dark on WordPress itself. These are fellow bloggers who use the built-in reader to access posts. I don’t know whether or not these are counted in the above web traffic statistics.

In 2020 there were 2487 comments, also up on last year and in the same era posts received 1898 ‘likes’; that’s a big increase on last year’s figure. The most liked category, incidentally, was Poetry. In case you’re interested the most popular post published in 2020 was this one, on Clifford’s Space-Theory of Matter.

Altogether, since this blog started in 2008 to the end of 2020, it has been viewed about 4,486,045 times by about 1.65 million unique visitors (though, obviously, all my visitors are unique).

P. S. As of today, January 1st 2021, readers in the United Kingdom wishing to view this blog are required to use Netscape.

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End of Year Thoughts

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Maynooth, Poetry on December 31, 2020 by telescoper

The Royal Canal, Maynooth, looking towards the Railway Station; the harbour is on the right.

The last morning of 2020 found Maynooth covered in a light dusting of snow. Since then the snow has turned to sleet and rain and the town looks a bit less picturesque as a consequence, not least because we haven’t really seen any proper daylight. My trip out this morning was a rare excursion from my house, but I’m glad I was able to get a bit of fresh (though freezing) air without there being lots of people around. I’ll be sitting cosily at home for the rest of the day (and, probability, tomorrow).

It’s extraordinary to think that this time last year there wasn’t an inkling of what was to come in terms of the Coronavirus pandemic. The first cases had been detected in China in December 2019 but I don’t think anyone seriously thought it would go global in the way it did. A year on and we’re still not out of it. Not by a long way. I think this are going to get a lot worse before they get better, but at least there are vaccines on the way.

Looking back over some of my posts from early in the year I’m reminded of two  events in particular- the 200th Anniversary Dinner of the RAS Club in January and the Irish General Election in February, both of which seem now to have happened at least a decade ago. I went to London again in mid-February, but had to cancel my planned trip back to the UK in March because FlyBe went bust. After that I made a couple of trips to Dublin (including a performance of Fidelio)  but since then I haven’t left Maynooth. It’s extremely likely that by March 2021 I will have spent an entire year without leaving the boundaries of Maynooth.

It’s almost a whole year since I posted a list of things I wanted to do in 2020. The first three were:

    1. Go to more live concerts.
    2. See more of Ireland.
    3. No more working weekends…

That went well then! I don’t think I’ll bother making a list for next year, or perhaps I’ll just carry over this year’s. Obviously the Covid-19 restrictions and vastly increased workload involved in switching teaching to online put paid to most of my plans for 2020. Although I did manage to buy a house in Maynooth, I will have to wait until the Third Wave is over before I can retrieve the rest of my belongings from Wales and relocate fully.

Although I didn’t make an impact in this year’s Beard of the Year (finishing in last place in the final poll), at least I have the honour of being St Patrick’s Day Beard of Ireland for 2020.

You have to take what positives you can but I’m sure I’m not the only person to think, on balance, this has been a spectacularly awful year. I haven’t myself had Covid-19 but I know people who have and some of them are still struggling with the after-effects. I know many have also lost loved ones to the Coronavirus; condolences to everyone so affected. Although nothing to do with Covid-19, I still feel a very deep sadness that my former thesis supervisor John Barrow is no more. I hope after the pandemic there can be some form of proper tribute to him.

Anyway, to end with, here are a few verses from In Memoriam, by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

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