In the Dark

This image, courtesy of the Cardiff University Library, is of a pocket watch that belonged to the poet Edward Thomas.

It stopped at 24 minutes to eight on the morning of 9th April 1917, the precise moment when an artillery shell exploded, killing its owner. This happened in the first few hours of the Battle of Arras in the Pas-de-Calais area of Northern France.

In detective stories the stopped watch is a clumsy cliché often used to indicate the victim’s time of death, but in this case I find the image intensely powerful.

Despite heavy casualties the battle in which Edward Thomas fell went well at first for the British and Commonwealth Armies who made substantial territorial gains in the opening stages. Soon, however, the defending Germans regrouped and another bloody stalemate ensued that dragged on for another month, leaving about 300,000 casualties on both sides.

I was saddened today to hear from friends and colleagues of the death of Professor Gary Steigman (above).

Gary was a leading figure in the theory of cosmological nucleosynthesis, ie the formation of light elements by nuclear fusion reactions in the Big Bang. As well as being an eminent scientist he was also a warm, generous and extremely likeable human being. Our paths crossed only a few times, the last time being some years ago, but I remember him very well for his kindly and courteous manner. He’ll be greatly missed by a great many people.

Rest in peace, Gary Steigman.

This photograph has gone viral today, and I couldn’t resist sharing it here.

It was taken during a march by the fascist English Defence League in Birmingham yesterday. The young lady on the left is Saffiyah Khan, who was not part of the organised counter-demonstration but stepped forward when a group of EDL thugs surrounded another woman who was. The man on the right  threatened her with his fists and a policeman intervened in an attempt to defuse the situation.

 Ms Khan kept her hands in her pockets all the time, her smile conveying a sense of amused contempt that is truly an image for our times.

The man at the right in the picture is Ian Crossland, a leading figure in the EDL. He later wrote on Facebook that Ms Khan was “lucky she got any teeth left”.

By the way, here’s an excerpt from Mr Crossland’s Facebook page:

Saffiyah Khan is half Pakistani and half Bosnian, but I’d far rather live in a Britain made in her image than in his.

Well, I’m now officially on holiday for two weeks and probably won’t be blogging much during this break, especially about work-related things, but I couldn’t resist a quick announcement of something very exciting.

We received confirmation last week that the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC for short) to set up a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT for short) involving the Universities of Cardiff, Bristol and Swansea. This will be coordinated by the Data Innovation Institute at Cardiff University and it covers  a wide range of data-intensive research in astrophysics and cosmology carried on at the three member institutions. ‘Data-intensive’ here means involving very big data sets, very sophisticated analysis methods or high-performance computing,  or any combination of these.

The Centre for Doctoral Training will be coordinated by the Data Innovation Institute at Cardiff University. It will commence in September 2017 so we will be open for applications immediately, ie. next week.

For further information, please see the Data Innovation Institute webpage which will be updated as more details are available.

By the way, for  this special programme, STFC have relaxed the  rules relating to  nationality, so full funding is potentially available for  non-UK citizens under this scheme.

If you’re looking to do a PhD in data-intensive physics or astrophysics, get writing your application now and keep an eye on this page for further announcements.

To secure a PhD place at this STFC CDT administered by the DII you’d better apply PDQ! 

No time for a post today, I’m afraid, so here’s a photograph of a Spectacled Monkey.. 

No time for a post today so I thought I’d share this amazingly clever poem.

OK, so from a literary point of view it’s not the greatest poem ever written, but what’s “amazingly clever” about it is that each individual line is an anagram of the title…

I was looking in my drawers this afternoon and came across this, which is a memento of something that happened 20 years ago. I just missed the anniversary by ten days!

Believe it or not, that’s me at the bottom left sans beard..

I did an item on the Tomorrow’s World Live show – which was not broadcast but performed in front of an audience of a few hundred people in a temporary theatre. In fact there were four shows a day for the period of the event (19-23 March 1997). Each show was only about 30 minutes long, but it was quite hard work as there were many technical things to sort out in between performances.

My role was to do a little piece about the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope and then answer questions on astronomy and cosmology from the audience. I had no script for that bit, as it was impossible to know what would be asked. I answered with varying degrees of success.

Other items featured on the show were a clockwork radio, an  electric sports car, and a device for scrambling an egg without breaking its shell. I couldn’t see the point of the last invention, as one would have to break the shell to eat the egg anyway.

The best bit about being involved in Tomorrow’s World Live was meeting so many of the presenters, all of them proper professionals (unlike me) who were very friendly and helpful. Only two presenters were involved in each show,  and  each pair only did one or two shows, so over the five days I got to work with the whole set, including Craig Doyle, Philippa Forester, Howard Stableford, Vivienne Parry and Shahnaz Pakravan. I didn’t envy them as they had to work not only with amateurs like me, but also had to learn a detailed script and deal with the gadgets. I was relieved that I could basically just wing it.

My clearest memory of the whole event was the technical rehearsal early  in the morning before the very first show. Nothing worked properly, and I was convinced that it was all going to be a complete disaster. Somehow, however, it all came together and there weren’t any major problems in any of the real shows.

Well, as promised, I made it to today’s march in London, despite the best efforts of Late Western Railways.

Apparently the turnout (~100,000) was larger than anticipated so we were much delayed at the start. In fact I was still in Park Lane when the front of the demonstration reached Trafalgar Square.

It was a very pleasant, good-humoured occasion, attended by people of all ages and walks of life. It won’t change the Prime Minister’s decision to activate Article 50 next week, but at least it will remind her that the 48% of the electorate who voted Remain have not gone, and will not go, away.

Here are some pictures I took…

Parliament Square was packed when I arrived so I couldn’t really join the final rally. Instead I went to the spot on Westminster Bridge where a man lost his life on Wednesday and paid my respect. Then I came back to Cardiff.

It’s been a long day, but a very good one. 

I had just finished my biggest task of the day and stopped to make a cup of tea, when I caught the news of a serious incident on Westminster Bridge in London, at which it seems several lives have been lost.

My thoughts are with my friends and colleagues in London at this very scary time and, above all,  with those who have been affected directly by this terrible event.

I hope everyone will keep as calm as possible and avoid jumping to conclusions about who is responsible, and let the police and security services get on with doing their job.