goodbye MARCH

I've been up in York for the last couple of days, visiting colleagues, discussing projects, and, sadly, saying goodbye to MARCH, an EPSRC funded-project involving York and Sheffield, which has been running since February 2021.  It started during lockdown!  The amazing team has done some wonderful work, with some more publications still in the pipeline, and we'll be sad to see it finish.  But there are many follow-on irons in the fire, so it's not really the end.

On my way home this evening, my train passed through March station.  So this felt like an appropriate photo: March in the distance, with a ghostly me in the foreground!

sequestering carbon, several books at a time CXLIV

These are some books we bought in York on the way home from our Scottish holiday in August, some undatabased books I discovered when I packed up my office in October, plus a few maths books related to a potential retirement project I'm thinking about.

retired

As of yesterday, I am officially retired, and now Professor Emerita at York.  The "Emerita" status grants me facilities that will help me continue to do research more readily: I keep my IT account (email, cloud storage, Overleaf, PaperPile, ...), library access, and a form of affiliation with the University.  In exchange, they get to claim any publications of mine as associated with them.

So what did I do on my first day of official retirement? Well, I went for my daily walk, and got a bit of a fright.  But the rest of the day I spent on zoom, on an interview panel.  A colleague and I recently won an Aria "Nature Computes Better" project called LoCoMo (Lossy Computational Models).  This was submitted before I had decided to retire, and awarded after.  As Emerita, I can still work on the project ... for free!  Yesterday we were interviewing for the two PostDocs.

So, starting as I mean to go on!

travelling back south

We got up at 7am, and, after breakfast at our Edinburgh hotel, we went into the city centre, where we visited three bookshops in a typical book-buying spree: Blackwell's (9 books), Till's (6 books), and McNaughtan's (5 books).  Our tastes are quite eclectic, and so we were intrigued, but nevertheless not tempted, by these:

We then drove down to Bishop Auckland, to attend Kynren.  This historical re-enactment event must be the north of England's best kept secret. Neither of us had ever heard of it (before Googling for things to visit on our travels), yet it was huge: several thousand in the outdoor audience.  It was amazing (we were fortunate with the weather), with a large cast of actors, horses, sheep and geese, telling the history of England from a northern perspective.  

The Kynren staging makes full use of the path, lake, and surroundings.

Their website says "There are plenty of award-winning toilet facilities around the site" and they are not joking! I have never seen such plentiful and excellent facilities anywhere else.  We had a great time, and even managed to get out of the huge car park relatively quickly once it was over.

We then continued our drive south, arriving in York at about half past midnight.  A long day: I clocked up 55 "heart points" and nearly 20,000 steps.  I slept well!

view from an office window

I'm lucky to have a lovely view from my 2nd floor office at work. 

Although June has been unseasonably cool, and dull, today there was a (short!) spell of gorgeous evening sunlight, which I spent a few minutes admiring.  As always, it was brighter and more colourful in reality than in the photo.

8:30pm BST, looking south east

red sky in the morning

7:56 GMT today

 Such beauty, but at what later cost?

travel in the time of Storm Babet

Storm Babet hit the UK and other parts of northern Europe this week.  I was due to travel by train from York to Ely yesterday (Friday), a journey I've done many times, scheduled to take just over two and a half hours.  I wasn't optimistic, given the news, but my phone app said my 4pm train was "on time".  Hmm, maybe not as bad as being suggested?  I arrived at York rail station.  Nothing going south.  I enquired about the departure board, which was also saying "on time".  Apparently that's set somewhere else, and the station has no control over what it says, and those who do ... hadn't updated it.  The very helpful LNER rep suggested I try again tomorrow.  So I left the station.

This morning, I arrived at York rail station.  Nothing going south.  But I had a plan, and a whole day to execute it.  I got on a train to Manchester Victoria (which was packed), then walked from there to Manchester Piccadilly, where I got on a train to London Euston (also packed).  On that trip, at one point looking out the window, I thought: "It's not too bad; that river doesn't look very high. Oh.  It's a road."

From Euston I walked to Kings Cross, to find the station shut, with a huge crowd milling about inside.  A crowd started growing outside as we waited for the doors to open.  The doors did not open, even after the crowd inside had dwindled.  I was wondering if I should try going to Liverpool Street instead.  But then, someone discovered there was an open door around the side, so we all flowed round to that one.  I got into the concourse area just as the train to Ely departed.  

So I got on the next train to Cambridge (reasonably full), and there got a train to Ely (empty).  Finally. 

The train to Ely wants me to "text British"?  As opposed to texting foreign?  A bit peculiar!  Oh, the next screen starts "Transport Police..."

I had my ticket checked a few times along this route, on trains, and at gates.  I'm not sure what the point was, given I was not only on the wrong train going to the wrong station, I was travelling on the wrong day.  None of the people doing the checking batted an eye at this.  Maybe they were just checking I had a ticket?

Four trains, 7 stations, 7 hours start to finish.  But I made it.

box woes, northern edition

We had an infestation of box-tree moths in our garden near Cambridge.  But they have moved even further north.  When I arrived in York this evening, here's what I saw on (the outside of) my window:

has the recent warm weather let them move into the not-so-frozen north?

Slime: a natural history

Susanne Wedlich.
Slime: a natural history.
Granta. 2021

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Slime is ubiquitous in living systems: as glue holding bacterial mats together, as lubricant allowing us to swallow our food, as both glue and lubricant excreted by slugs and snails to travel on, and much much more.

In this fascinating book, Wedlich explores all things slime (or mucus, or even biological aqueous hydrogel to sound more formal, if less attention-grabbing). She covers our human reaction to slime (the ick factor), and its role in art and culture; the physics of slime and how it can be both glue and lubricant; slime in organisms, particularly bacteria; the role of slime in the origin and evolution of life; and the place of slime in our ecosystems. This is all utterly fascinating, with new revelations on nearly every page. I had thought I knew at least something about the various major processes in biology: after reading this, I feel as if I have discovered a whole new kingdom.

I learned a lot, not just about organisms and evolution, but unexpected aspects like the role of slime in deserts and sea surfaces, and how climate change threatens the delicate balance of this almost unrecognised but crucial component of our biome. Highly recommended.

[Disclaimer: I was given my copy of this, in preparation for my hosting a discussion with the author during the York Festival of Ideas 2022.]

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For all my book reviews, see my main website.

Covid-19 diary: online workshops

We were due to run a small workshop in York on 25-26 March.  Lockdown started on 23 March, but we had anticipated this, and moved the conference into a virtual format.

Here's a short report on how it went, and what we could do better next time.

well, I wasn't expecting that!

When I arrived in York last night at about 10:30, it was (relatively) warm, and dry.

This morning, I got a bit of a shock looking out the window:

But it had all gone by lunchtime.

prices are weird

I had a trip up to Durham today, to visit a colleague.  I bought a coffee at York station to drink on the early train: £2.05.

On the way back, it was lunchtime, so I popped into a Sainsburys near Durham station, and bought a Ginsters Chicken and Mushroom slice, a banana, and a 500ml bottle of Highland Spring water: £1.80 in total.

Caffeine is really expensive, compared to food!

bouncing around Europe?

I’d left Durham on the 16:48 train to York, and about 20 minutes into my journey I thought I’d track progress using my phone GPS.  There was no 4G signal out in deepest Northern England, but the GPS usually plots its position on Google Maps nevertheless.

hmm.  I appear to be in Paris?!

Some glitch, presumably.  A couple of minutes later I seemed to have returned north.

that’s more like it!

But not much later than that, I appeared to be back in Paris.

And then two minutes later, north again:

After that, it sort of gave up the ghost until I got close to York, when it gave me a position in a huge blue circle of uncertainty.  Was the train interfering with the GPS signal?  It doesn’t usually; this is a game I often play on the train, and the first time I’ve seen this happen.

What’s weird about the Paris location is that, although I was in Paris a week ago, catching the Eurostar home, I was nowhere near the Paris location shown by the GPS.

If Google is logging my GPS position (like it does), then it should be getting mighty confused about my travels!

Isn’t technology wonderful?

It was 20 years ago today...

… that my first dated item appeared on my website: a review of Clannad’s 1996 tour at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, attended a week earlier.

Back in 1995 I was working for Logica UK, and they started allowing staff to have webspace.  I took up their offer, and decided to start a review site, to learn about the web (it was new in those days!), and to keep an online review journal.  I fiddled about with the pages for a while, adding a few reviews, then, on 23 May 1996, I started date-stamping them.

To date, I have 434 non-fiction book reviews, 844 science fiction reviews, and 75 other fiction reviews: an average of 5-6 a month for those twenty years.  I also have nearly 200 SF film reviews, and over 70 SF TV show reviews.

When I moved to the University of York in 2002, I took my website with me, and it continued to grow.  Being an academic, I also use it to keep a respository of my publications; there are about 240 of those now.

What does the past look like?  The oldest backup I can find is from October 1999 (on a CD: remember them?), when my front page looked like:

Today, it looks like:

In the intervening time, I have modified the site to use CSS.  But, actually, there hasn’t been a major change to the structure, just additional content.

So, check back in 2036 for the next 20 year update…

Open Access via a new University Press

White Rose University Press

I’m sure a lot of universities who haven’t traditionally had a University Press will be going this Open Access route, to save the enormous fees charged by commercial publishers.

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Castle Howard

We are running the European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL 2015) in York this week. It’s quite hectic, and great fun.  This afternoon was the conference trip, to Castle Howard.  I’ve been there before, and adore the grounds.

This time, there was a stately greeting.

The house is splendid.

But once again, it was the grounds I enjoyed best.  I concentrated on the walled garden.

The wall being put to good use

One of the delegates excitedly pointed me towards the blue: a whole sub-garden of delphiniums.  Believe it or not, these photographs do not capture the sheer intensity of the blue (and it wasn’t even sunny!)

Deep blue was not the only option.

There was a glorious pergola smothered in honeysuckle.  Some varieties had almost chocolate coloured flower buds.

The avenue to the walled garden allowed glimpses of the fountain.

So, after a lovely walk around the grounds, and some loitering to check all the delegates had got back on the coaches, it was goodbye to Castle Howard.

sunrise

The view walking down from the car park this morning: tree in sunbeam.

8:02 GMT, Heslington East Campus, York

day moon

As I was walking from the car park into work this morning, I saw a beautiful (nearly) full moon.

moon over Goodricke: taken at 07:53 BST, in York, UK

As I was looking up at the moon, admiring its beauty in the clear blue, there were a load of resonances bouncing around in my brain: that there had been a total lunar eclipse a few nights ago (not visible from the UK, unfortunately); that although the moon looked full it couldn’t be because (a) the total lunar eclipse was a few days ago, and (b) the sun was also in the sky (see my shadow in the photo); that the moon looked blue because of the blue sky; the blue is from Rayleigh scattering; that people had been to the moon, but a long time ago now; that the moon is far away and actually rather big, but not as big as the solar system; and the solar system is in the galaxy, and we can see the galaxy at night; and...

And then I became consciously aware of the resonances, and revelled in the feeling.  And realised that part of my admiration was due to those resonances.

And then I remembered a piece I had written a few years ago.  Okay, 25 years ago.  It was a rant brought on by some event I now can’t even remember, but the sentiment remains.

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Starry Starry Night

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. 

— Walt Whitman

When I see that quotation used to justify ignorance, to justify pride in ignorance, I get angry. Angry because knowledge, including scientific knowledge, does not diminish beauty.

I enjoy music. I listen with great pleasure to a Bach concerto, to a Tchaikovsky symphony. I recognise that they are beautiful. But I am untrained in music, and I know that I am missing something, not appreciating the full beauty. I know this because my more knowledgeable friends have told me so. They have told me that their appreciation of music is enhanced by their deeper knowledge of it; that music is more beautiful to those who know and understand its internal structure, its history, how it builds on and extends previous works. I believe them when they tell me this. They do not hear the music the way I do; they have a richer experience.

So why do many artists feel hostile to scientific beauty? So hostile that they deny its very existence? Why do they insist, untrained in science as many of them are, that their appreciation of the beauty of a starry night, or of a clear blue sky, is better than mine, more real than mine, simply because I know the physics, too? How can ignorance enhance beauty? I would be wrong to claim to appreciate music more than a trained musician. And these people are wrong to pretend they find a starry night more beautiful than I do. Ignorance is not bliss, it is emptiness. I do not see the stars the way they do; I have a richer experience.

1989

goldfish brain

For the last eleven years and more, I’ve been driving between home near Cambridge, and work in York, nearly every week. I know the 350 mile round trip rather well by now. Despite this, I’ve taken to having the SatNav on during the journey. That’s because there can often be delays due to accidents, or road closures due to roadworks, and a little advance warning can let me choose a route more useful than the suggested diversion.

Last week, the inevitable happened. I was tootling up the A1 to York, when the SatNav advised me: “Road closed at J36 due to roadworks. Calculate alternative route?” Yes.

Whirr, whirr, whirr. “Confirm new route?” The map is very small, but I could see this new route at least approximated the M18 diversion I had already intended to take. So, yes, let’s take that one.

Pause. “Road closed at <somewhere I’d never heard of> due to roadworks. Calculate alternative route?” Okay, that’s a nuisance, so yes, calculate new route.

Whirr, whirr, whirr. “Confirm new route?” The map is very small, but I could see this new route looked close to the original A1 route.  But, hey.  Yes, confirm new route.

Pause. “Road closed at J36 due to roadworks. Calculate alternative route?”  Aargh! it had put me back on the original closed route.  I could guess what would happen next, but I tried it anyhow.  Yes, calculate alternative route.

Whirr, whirr, whirr. “Confirm new route?” Back on the M18 diversion. Yes, confirm. Pause. “Road closed at <somewhere I’d never heard of until a few minutes ago> due to roadworks. Calculate alternative route?”

Clearly the system has a diversion buffer of size one.  I decided to take the M18 diversion. Once I was on that bit of road, the system the quite happily found me a diversion around the diversion.

(left) intended route, but the A1 was closed around Doncaster; (mid) SatNav suggested alternative, but then found to be closed somewhere south of Selby; (right) final SatNav suggested route, once commited to the M18 east of Doncaster

very #FirstWorldProblems

calling at...

Just as a train leaves a station, there is an announcement of where it is calling.  I suppose the announcement occurs at this point, rather than the more helpful just before the train leaves, to stop all the people who are on the wrong train piling off, and delaying it.

I was recently at a meeting in Bristol.  Returning to York, I boarded the Dundee service at Bristol Parkway.  As we left the station, there was a slight variation on the standard announcement

This service is the departure for Dundee, calling at ... just about everywhere you can think of.

causing much hilarity amongst the passengers.

I sympathise with the announcer.  The service was calling at: Cheltenham Spa, Birmingham New Street, Burton-on-Trent, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Wakefield Westgate, Leeds, York (yay!), Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Dunbar, Edinburgh, Haymarket, Inverkeithing, Markinch, Ladybank, Cupar, Leuchars, and Dundee. Phew! We would have been nearly at the next stop before the announcement was over!