My little wordplay with Greek origins is prompted by the latest royal brouhaha, which was itself prompted by the Windsors’ proclivities for baring their privates. They make natural victims of the digitally-enhanced mass media. But both parties suffer from strains of photomania – albeit with somewhat different aims. Might I recommend the Windsors repair to Osborne for the hols and make use of the local facilities?
Voyager 1 was launched. About the size of a small car it carries some cameras and scientific instruments. It has been for some years the most distant man made object from the Earth (Currently it is more than eleven billion miles distant from the Sun and receding rapidly). It may already be the first man made object to leave the Solar System.
Before leaving it did the Grand Tour of the known planets and sent back pictures of Jupiter’s Red Spot, erupting volcanoes on Io, traces of water under the ice of Europa and methane rain on Titan, all unexpected discoveries.
It flies on, with sufficient fuel for instruments and communications until at least 2020, it is, of course, nuclear powered.
The trouble is, it’s falling down – I was wondering about a play on ‘house of cards’ but while the inmates get regularly shuffled, they are nothing to laff at. This is serious stuff; they’re even talking about moving Parliament and all its works out of town! Which got me thinking. What an opportunity to get something right – a first for them and a welcome successor to the Jubilee and London 2012!
I’ve noticed that the underside of cherished colleagues’ collars heats up at the mention of certain ‘degree’ courses, with particular reference to more practical subjects formerly confined to apprenticeships and polytechnic curricula.
Personally I don’t get offended by conferring on them the title of ‘degree’, any more than I mind a crowd of cardinals calling themselves a ‘college’. Nobody is fooled into believing they have suddenly acquired much-sought-after academic status – which is after all reserved for many subjects which are practically useless, like my own field of classical languages, literature and history. Continue reading “Degrees of usefulness”
Apologies for hogging the headlines this morning but I was struck by the similarities between the US Airforce’s latest, if flawed brainchild and the highly successful craft we all knew in the ‘fifties.
Not being of a scientific bent, may I be allowed to comment on the amazingly prophetic illustrations from 60 years ago?
Do we owe both to the pioneering efforts of experts in the infamous Peenemünde laboratories in the ‘forties? Or was Leonardo da Vinci the real originator of rocket science?
I’d like to offer OZ this incident for his much-anticipated Olympic rant: the failure (yet again) of a British relay squad to pass the baton. Now I know that as mere runners they are not used to communicating with others or controlling themselves in confined spaces – or even holding things in their hands – but p-lease! All the other teams practise and manage to do it without mishap – why not you? Btw, the girls are just as bad, in case you wonder.
You really have to see it in the flesh, so to speak, but Piper’s baptistry window in Coventry’s ‘new’ cathedral is a riot of colour and entirely in keeping with its environment.
Love us or hate us, you can’t ignore us! And Danny Boyle’s extravaganza confirmed all we have always believed about ourselves. We’re inventive, self-effacing, humorous – and bloody good value! How marvellous to celebrate the real milestones in our history – the human race! Like the industrial revolution, votes for women, mass immigration, the NHS, the WWW and our musical heritage. And M (for Monarch of course) behind the whole thing – with a bit of help from 007.
There’ll be the usual post mortem, yes. No creative enterprise ever gets through with a perfect 10. But it’s satisfying to think that every 50 years or so Britain can make such a proud statement to the watching world.
With the population climbing well above 60 million and planners eating away at the sacred green-belts, isn’t Britain slowly becoming one great urban sprawl? Will the English Lake District, the Welsh Hills and Scottish Highlands soon be the last great open spaces? Continue reading “No more green and pleasant?”
I have recently discovered the joys of TED. If you do not know the site, do yourself a favour and watch some of the articles.
Here is a video involving ‘flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams — for construction, surveying disasters and far more.’
Boadicea's Chariot 
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