I heard this, by the wonderful Ute Lemper, yesterday on Words and Music and thought it was a blast, so couldn’t resist sharing it here!
P.S. The song was written by Mischa Spoliansky.
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Posted in LGBTQ+, Music with tags Maskulinum-Femininum, Ute Lemper on July 3, 2017 by telescoperA Tale of Two Fields
Posted in Bute Park, Cardiff with tags Llandaff Fields, Pontcanna Fields, Tafwyl on July 2, 2017 by telescoperMy neighbourhood has been a tad busy this weekend, as Llandaff Fields (which lie just 100 yards or so from my house) are the venue for Tafwyl, a free festival of Welsh language music. It’s normally quite a quiet area at the weekends, but this event has attracted large crowds.
I took a stroll in the park yesterday. There seemed to be a few thousand or so enjoying the music and the sunshine behind the temporary barrier.
Although admission to Tafwyl is free, I didn’t go in as I was en route elsewhere and didn’t have time.
This event is usually held in the grounds of Cardiff Castle but that wasn’t possible this year because of the UEFA Champions League Final last month. The temporary buildings erected for that event have damaged the part of Bute Park near the Castle so badly that it will be out of bounds until September at the earliest.
On my way back home I passed the area adjacent to Llandaff Fields, Pontcanna Fields, where I saw a much more familiar sight:
The River Taff flows roughly where the trees are in this picture. There are several cricket pitches and they are quite heavily used in the summer.
Tafwyl will move back to its usual venue next year but hopefully the cricket will continue just as it is!
Follow @telescoperBiographical Note
Posted in Biographical, Cardiff, Crosswords with tags Cardiff, Nottingham, Pontcanna on July 1, 2017 by telescoperIt’s 1st July 2017, which means that it is ten years to the day since I officially started work at Cardiff University (for the first time). Can it really be so long ago?
Quite a lot has happened in the intervening decade, including spending three and a half years at the University of Sussex before returning to Cardiff last summer.
The first of July was actually a Sunday in 2007, so my last day at work in my previous position at the University of Nottingham was Friday 29th June. I remember they threw a nice leaving party that afternoon and also persuaded me to sign up to Facebook to keep in touch. Facebook reminded me of this on Thursday.
I was a bit slow in putting my house in Beeston on the market in 2007, and rented a flat in Cardiff while I sorted that out. Unfortunately the Credit Crunch and I didn’t actually manage to move permanently to a little house in Pontcanna for almost a year. In the meantime I had to travel regularly to and fro between Cardiff and Nottingham by train.
The main thing I remember about the summer of 2007 was the extensive flooding, much of which was located in South Wales and up the Severn towards Gloucester and beyond. That is precisely the route that the train takes from Cardiff to Nottingham so I had quite a few travel problems!
I didn’t actually start blogging until 2008 when I was firmly established in the house I bought here in Cardiff, and which I’m sitting now as I write this rambling post.
They say that ‘all good things come to an end’, which implies that this blog should carry on forever. Maybe I’ll keep it going until its tenth anniversary, after which…well, we’ll see. Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam.
Anyway, although pipped at the post for this year’s Beard of Summer award I did receive a bit of good news in today’s paper by way of compensation!
In fact the two books arrived in the post yesterday. I’ll be disposing of them at work in due course..
Workshop End
Posted in Uncategorized on June 30, 2017 by telescoperWell, our little workshop has come to an end. I would like to thank all the participants for making it such a success and wish you all a safe journey home!
We will be posting the slides for all the talks in due course, but in the meantime here are some random shots..
And, er…
here’s the obligatory workshop photo!
Beard of Summer 2017 poll concluding in close shave
Posted in Beards on June 30, 2017 by telescoperThe excitement is mounting as we go into the last day of voting for `Beard of Summer’…
And to anyone who accuses me of a blatant attempt to influence the outcome of this very serious poll, I say: “VOTE FOR ME!”
Beard Liberation Front
Media release
30th June
Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
BEARD OF SUMMER 2017 POLL CONCLUDING IN CLOSE SHAVE
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said the poll for the coveted Beard of Summer Award looks like concluding with a close shave at midnight on Friday June 30th.
On the final day of voting the poll had a Welsh flavour with the lead alternating between Cardiff based academic Peter Coles and Caerphilly Assembly Member Hefin David.
The result is revealed after votes have been checked as the conclusion to National Beard Week on Saturday July 1st
The poll is the third of four seasonal Awards that culminates in the Beard of the Year Award at the end of December.
The campaigners say that as ever it is not just the style of the beard but the impact it makes in public
BLF Organiser…
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Isotropic Random Fields in Astrophysics
Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags mathematics, Random Fields, statistics on June 29, 2017 by telescoperSo the little workshop on `Isotropic Random Fields in Astrophysics’ I announced some time ago, sponsored via a “seedcorn” grant by the Data Innovation Research Institute, has finally arrived, and having spent most of the day at it I’m now catching up with some other stuff in the office before adjourning for the conference dinner.
This meeting is part of a series of activities aimed at bringing together world-leading experts in the analysis of big astrophysical data sets, specifically those arising from the (previous) Planck (shown above) and (future) Euclid space missions, with mathematical experts in the spectral theory of scalar vector or tensor valued isotropic random fields. Our aim is to promote collaboration between mathematicians interested in probability theory and statistical analysis and theoretical and observational astrophysicists both within Cardiff university and further afield.
It’s been a very interesting day of interleaving talks by cosmologists and mathematicians followed by an open-ended discussion session where we talked about unsolved problems and lines for future research. It’s clear that there are some language difficulties between the two communities but I hope this meeting helps to break down a few barriers and stimulate some new joint research projects.
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Please look after this bear…
Posted in Literature, Television with tags Michael Bond, Paddington Bear on June 28, 2017 by telescoperR.I.P. Michael Bond (13 January 1926 to 27 June 2017)
Follow @telescoperThe ‘Danish Paper’ and How Science Works
Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags Advanced LIGO, gravitational waves on June 27, 2017 by telescoperI’m off work today but couldn’t resist posting a very quick update on the controversial claims of inconsistencies in the recent detection of gravitational waves by LIGO.
If you’re following the story you will know that it started with a paper on the arXiv by Cresswell et al., a group mainly based in Denmark, which is why the paper is now frequently referred to as ‘The Danish Paper’ although its authors actually come from all round the world.
Well the same group have now written a rejoinder to the LIGO critique of their analysis. They’re clearly sticking to their guns, at least on their claim that the residuals left after removing the gravitational wave events from the two time series are correlated, which they should not be if they are simply noise.
Hopefully the public airing this controversy had received will lead to other independent groups downloading and analysing the data, which is all in the public domain, and we’ll eventually arrive at the truth.
Contrary to the opinion of one of my Cardiff colleagues I think this is how science works and, importantly, how it should be seen to work. Science is a process of investigation, and it doesn’t come to an end when results have been published in refereed journals.
The more the public see how science really works – warts and all – the better they will understand its strengths as well as its limitations.
Whatever the eventual outcome of this discussion I think we will find that the ‘Danish Paper’ has helped advance our understanding, and for that the authors deserve a great deal of credit.
Follow @telescoperBeard of Summer 2017 poll opens with Glastonbury focus
Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2017 by telescoperOh Blimey.
Owing (no doubt) to some form of administrative error I have been nominated for Beard of Summer 2017!
Please feel free to vote for me, or not, as your fancy takes you!
Beard Liberation Front
Media release
26th June
Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
BEARD OF SUMMER 2017 POLL OPENS WITH GLASTONBURY FOCUS
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said the poll for the coveted Beard of Summer Award is now open with the result revealed at the end of National Beard Week on Saturday July 1st
The poll is the third of four seasonal Awards that culminates in the Beard of the Year Award at the end of December.
The campaigners say that as ever it is not just the style of the beard but the impact it makes in public
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we’re looking for the summer beard that adds the most gravitas and the shortlist probably has the biggest range of beard styles ever
Beard of Summer shortlist
Bill Bailey, comedian
Peter Coles, cosmologist
Hefin David, politician
Michael Eavis, farmer
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A Day/Night County Match
Posted in Cricket on June 26, 2017 by telescoperAfter two very busy weeks I decided to take a couple of days off to watch the County Championship match between Glamorgan and Derbyshire at the SSE Swalec Stadium here in Cardiff.
It turns out that this match is something of a landmark in that it’s the first ever Day/Night County match to be held in Wales.
The format of this match is like a regular 4-day County game except that each day’s play starts at 2pm rather than the usual 11am. This means that the “lunch” interval is taken at 4pm instead of 1pm, and “tea” is taken at 6.40. Play is scheduled to continue, with the aid of floodlights, until 9pm.
Oh, and they’re using a rather lurid pink ball…
I can see why they are trying this out: to see if they can get more people coming after work or school than would come with the usual 6pm close. At the moment (3.45pm) the attendance is about average for a county game…
I don’t like this new format, however, got two reasons. One is that it wastes three hours of daylight. I like to watch my cricket sitting in the sunshine rather in the twilight. As it happens, it was a beautiful morning in Cardiff today. I had the day off and would have relished watching the morning session basking in the sun. I couldn’t because there wasn’t one.
The other reason I don’t like it is that it finishes too late to have dinner at a reasonable hour. The food and drink available at the Swalec – particularly the beer – is overpriced and not of high quality, so I shall probably leave at the start of the tea interval. Unless it gets very exciting..
At the moment, Derbyshire are 68 for 1 off 24 overs. Madsen and Godleman not looking entirely comfortable but digging in.
UPDATE: It’s 5pm, Derbyshire are 104 for 2, and the lights have come on:
Glamorgan were quite slow getting through their overs so the Tea interval wasn’t taken until 7.09pm, with the fall of the 7th Derbyshire wicket with the score on 157. A good bowling performance from Glamorgan, but I decided to go home and make some dinner rather than stay for the last session. Quite a few others left at the same time.
Play finished at about 10pm. Derbyshire rallied to finish on 288 all out, and Glamorgan batted two overs for 5 without loss. Appropriately enough, Glamorgan sent in a Night Watchman (Tim van den Gugten) to open the innings.
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In the Dark 