What Are Volcanoes?

Posted by Mark on Feb 11, 2012 | 1 Comment

Reproduced with permission from the neOnbubble Know You Some Science series of student learning guides.

What Are Volcanoes?

A volcano is a special type of mountain so to understand what a volcano is we must first determine what a mountain is.

What Is A Mountain?

Some scientists believe that these can be made out of molehills but those sandwiches in the fridge were clearly marked as mine and I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to scream about it in the cafeteria at lunch time; I was very hungry; I had been sciencing all morning without a break. However, mountains are really a special type of hill so to understand what a mountain is we must first determine what a hill is.

What Is A Hill?

A hill is a raised area of land on the ground. If you needed to be told this then you probably don’t know what the ground is either. On we go.

What Is Ground?

Coffee beans are ground. The aromas released during this process are to die for and sometimes this very process is more pleasurable than the consumption of the hot drink itself. I like a nice, full-flavoured coffee and find the lighter bean variants can be a little too bitter. I have similar tastes when it comes to wine and real ale too; dark, heavy, not bitter. Now you know what to buy me when you bump into me at the Sciencorium.

What Is The Sciencorium?

The Sciencorium is where we sciencercise all day long, sciencing up things for all of mankind. Just last week I scienced an invisible ray. I’ve no idea what to do with it yet so it’s sharing a shallow pool with the invisible flounder and the invisible dogfish (I think) but that’s not the point; sciencing is about whether you can do something, not about whether you should or what benefit it might possibly have. Anyone who tells you different is a hippy.

What Is A Hippy?

A hippy (short for hippopotalayabout, from the ancient Greek for “does nothing, eats like a horse”) is an inhabitant of San Diego, birthplace of the atomic bomb. Hippies don’t like working or sciencing but they do like marijuana and this evil drug tells its addictees to complain about everything using placards and body odour.

What Is Body Odour?

The human body is covered with a layer of skin that looks solid to the naked eye but under a microscope it can be seen that this layer is perforated much like a teabag. If you were to hold a teabag to your nose and sniff deeply you would smell the various odours associated with the tea leaves inside the bag; similarly, with human bodies, if you were to sniff deeply you would smell the tea leaves inside a human body but unlike teabags where the leaves remain mostly dry the leaves inside a human often get wet with perspiration and sex juices and this can cause an unpleasant smell to emanate. Scientists at the Sciencorium invented deodorant and after shave many years ago to mask the smell but this can sometimes clog the skinholes (doctors call these “pores” to justify their salaries) and this can lead to pimples.

What Are Pimples?

When the area over a skinhole becomes clogged with a layer of dried after shave, petrified deodorant vapour, or sweat worms it permits bacteria that would otherwise fall through the holes to set up a base. Bacteria are fans of vintage science fiction and will typically build their bases in the form of domes (although South Americans will often discover 1950s-era, brutalist design apartment blocks on their skin as the style is very popular in Argentinian microbe circles). While initially very pleasing to the eye these domes and skyscrapers (collectively known as “pimples”) inevitably cannot sustain the population within them and crime takes over; the acne buildings fall into disrepair and all it takes is a little pressure from within for them to explode.

What Has This Got To Do With Volcanoes?

Volcanoes are ground pimples.

America – Part 2 – Massachusetts

Posted by Mark on Jan 28, 2012 | 0 Comments

When we originally made plans to visit America it has to be admitted that no part of the Massachusetts area was on our radar at any point but then something rather nice happened. We discovered that my sister-in-law’s fiancé supported the New England Patriots and he discovered that I too supported that particular American Football team. It gets better. He – perhaps wanting to make a good impression on future family members, perhaps looking for a good excuse to go himself – tracked down tickets to a Monday night football game. He also arranged for internal flights, hotel, and car hire. This saved us having to do any of this ourselves. And so it was that I, my wife, and my wife’s future brother-in-law (my wife’s sister had to work so couldn’t come along) flew from Baltimore to Boston just two days after arriving in America.

Baltimore To Boston

I’ve already talked about travelling in America in the first part of this series of posts but just to give you a quick feel for this flight: awful internal security measures as per every American airport and then a quick flight with a cabin crew from Atlanta, Georgia whose intercom skill level rated at a Grade S (for screech!); I’m not exaggerating when I say that everyone jumped every time there was an announcement of some description. Anyway, it was mercifully short.

Some Booking Mishaps
Now, I’d like to make it very clear here that we – that’s my wife and I – did not arrange anything. I’d like to point out that all minor disasters were not of our doing. I’d like to add that we blame nobody and had a great time anyway.

From Boston airport we hopped on a shuttle bus (with a driver who overheard our accents and insisted we come sit up front with him) to the Budget car rental lot where our hire car was waiting.

Our hire car was not waiting for us.

Computer checks were made, names were spelt out, checks were made again, names were double-checked, and then – finally – the printout of the car hire confirmation was retrieved from a bag to show that, yes, we were in the wrong car hire place entirely. We hopped on another shuttle bus to take us back to the airport in order that we could then hop on a third shuttle bus to take us to the correct car rental location but the first driver heard our sorry story and let us off near where we needed to go (so big thumbs up to the car rental people at Budget in Boston) and we walked the short distance to Alamo…

…where our hire car was not waiting for us. However, this eventually turned out to be one of those confusing name situations: you know how some people have a first name that could be a last name and a last name that could also be a first name (e.g. Bernard James or James Bernard)? Well, that happened. So that was sorted. Sort of. Because the hirer of the car was out of state they hadn’t taken the hire fee and because he only transferred money to his account when needed that meant he had to phone up his bank to transfer the money he thought he’d already spent to his credit card in order to pay. But we were soon on our way to the lovely hotel…

…where our rooms hadn’t been paid for as expected because of the same out-of-state rule in place. So I paid instead. And I felt good doing it. Our arranger of all things American in the Massachusetts area was, however, a smidge irritated with things.

Monday Night Football
We drove to Foxboro, home of Patriot Place, home of the New England Patriots. We actually had a stop at a bar en route where we observed the fine Boston art of “not being able to pour a pint to save your life” and we were suitably impressed by the frothy waste. We also witnessed several examples of the “pouring the wrong pint and having to give it away to strangers” spectacle that I’m sure you’re read about in the papers. Let’s just say that we don’t think Sam Malone would have approved. But we did. We got some free pints.

Patriot Place is its own little town; its own ecosystem in the wilds of Massachusetts; something difficult to compare to back home. So I won’t bother. The important thing is that it is also home to Gillette Stadium, a rather lovely venue that plays host to a rather splendid sport (American Football, if you remember from the opening paragraph (learn the rules of NFL here)) and a rather spiffing team (New England Patriots, again from the opening paragraph).

We drank outside the ground so that the alcohol would warm our inner innards. We then entered the stadium and continued drinking. For the warmth. I bought a red, throwback, hooded top for the warmth too. What I’m trying to get at here is that it was cold. Very cold. Turn your face blue cold. Make using your camera a risky business if you want to still have functioning fingers cold (that was me, by the way). Dress like George Clinton and wrap yourself up in a blanket in your seat cold (that was not me, by the way; that was the guy behind us with the strange fixation on shouting out phrases such as “throw it to Ocho!” (an instruction to the Patriots’ quarterback to throw the ball to a receiver not particularly renowned for catching any balls this year and quite often not even on the field at the time)).

The Patriots won. I may have taken some photos.

Boston
We had a morning to ourselves in Boston and so took a lovely walk along part of the waterfront, over a bridge, over another bridge, and down some roads. I may have taken some photos.

It being a Tuesday there wasn’t a great deal going on and the only thing of interest was the strange, young man who stood and preached to the water. He may have been practicing for his church. Or his congregation may all have been fish. Or he worshipped Poseidon. He came across as a bit of a loon. I generally like taking photos of loons but not in countries where they’re actively encouraged to carry weapons on their persons at all times.

Boston Women
We had to fly to New York’s LaGuardia airport from Boston (usual security crapfest) and from there take a connecting flight back to Baltimore (on a twin-prop heated to a level that allowed for in-flight kiln-firing of pottery if so desired); that initial flight had a Boston crew. The Boston crew had a Boston stewardess. She was not the first woman from Boston I’d seen over the preceding day as you can imagine, but she was familiar-looking.

Boston women have a look. How to describe it? Pointy? Cheekboney? Stern? Not quite stern. Haughty? Haughty’s not bad. Back-combing seemed to be popular too. If shoulder pads were readily available this looked like the area of the world in which they’d be hard-pressed to keep well-stocked. And our American Arranger had tales of Boston women having been brought up in the area and dated one or more of them. In summary: hard work. He described them as being people who expected everything regardless of cost. The description seemed to fit the appearance.

Don’t you just hate stereotypes?

But we really liked Boston; it had a great feel to the place, helped probably by some crisp, clear weather. Next time we’ll try to get up to that part of the world when it’s snowing.

Top Ten TV Sci-Fi Theme Tunes

Posted by Mark on Jan 5, 2012 | 1 Comment

Everyone loves a good top ten list. Or even a top ten list.

There was a thread on Google+ amongst my circles recently that asked people what their favourite TV theme music of all time was and while I pondered my ponderings on the subject I realised – not terribly surprisingly, as it happens – that a lot of TV shows that I liked were of the science fiction genre. There were some that weren’t – and they’ll be good fodder for another update at some point – but there were enough that caused me to consider picking just my top ten favourite sci-fi TV show theme tunes and showcasing them to you in the form of videos.

So here they are.

#10: Star Trek Enterprise

Now wait! I know, I know! There are a lot of people who don’t like this theme song. Actually, that needs some italicising: there are a lot of people who don’t like this theme song. I didn’t like it at first either. But it grew on me. It spoke to me. Think of it as a sentient fungus and what could be more science fiction than sentient fungus? Time-travelling sentient fungus, that’s what! But we’ll have to do without the temporal abilities for this music has none. Alternatively, if you want – if you really, really want – just consider this: I picked Dr Ruth Leavitt as my Hottest Sci-Fi Babe Ever; what were you expecting?

#9: Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K if you prefer) was a stranger to these British shores until the SyFy (then Sci-Fi) channel brought it across via the power of satellite broadcasting. Subsequently, it’s with Mike at the helm of the Satellite of Love and Pearl in control of choosing the awful movies that they would have to watch that I first became attached to this fantastic show and that’s why I’ve picked the intro music from season eight as one of my choices here. I’ve since gone on to watch nearly every episode from the early broadcasts on local American TV channel KTMA right through to its poignant conclusion; I grew to like Dr Forrester too, and TV’s Frank, but I could never associate with Joel. I just never really bought into the whole hippy janitor backstory. Hippy janitors!

#8: Babylon 5

A good science fiction series with a well-defined story arc (the cycle of good versus evil in the universe set to the backdrop of security chief Michael Garibaldi’s receding hairline), good actors and actresses (and Mira Furlan), good cultures (especially the Centauri and their enormous appendages), occasionally ropey graphics rendering (thank you Commodore Amiga), and slightly different intros to each of its seasons. But which was the best? For me: season two. For you: I don’t know. Someone broke my telepathy hat. I’m looking at you Bester.

#7: Battle Of The Planets

I was almost obliged to include this particular sci-fi intro theme on account of me choosing to use one of the characters – Mark, strangely enough – as my avatar of choice on numerous social networks, but it’s good enough to warrant being included anyway. For a 1980s cartoon series with a lot of triumphant notes throughout (to instill unwavering loyalty and pride in the incredible G-Force team!) there is a rather odd part about two thirds through that sounds like it came off a Best of 1962′s Lounge Music collection. I say “odd” but I mean “incredible”, of course. Although I’d never admit that.

#6: Andromeda

Firefly had country ‘n’ western-style theme music and Lexx had folk-style theme music; these two shows stood apart from the otherwise generally orchestral, funky, or synthy intro tunes for science fiction shows with which I grew up. The third series that had some stand-out music – at least for the first season – was Andromeda. Did someone say… bagpipey? Did someone say… ooh, Laura Bertram’s quite nice, purple girls are so hot right now? I’m hearing voices again.

#5: Doctor Who

Did you think there wouldn’t be a Doctor Who TV theme intro here? You foolish fool. Now, there have been many intros because the Doctor does like to regenerate every so often – well, the BBC likes to regenerate him every so often – and the intro must alter to reflect that change. It’s generally accepted that the intro you most like will be the one that you grew up with, cowering behind cushions, or the one that featured the Doctor (or companion) you’d most like to bump uglies with. This latter reason explains why Sylvester McCoy is still the most loved incarnation of the Time Lord to this day in the world (phwoar! Bonnie Langford! Woof!) but it’s the former that explains why I’ve chosen the Tom Baker intro.

#4: Ulysses 31

A French-Japanese cartoon series reworking of the classic story of the Odyssey set in the thirty first century with a bearded hero, lifeless crewmembers, an annoying blue girl character, and an almost-as-annoying robot character, coupled with some really quite dark storylines sounds pretty cool on its own but when you add in a kicking intro tune you’ve got yourself a show that’s made it all the way to the number four spot in some strange person on the internet’s highly-subjective list.

#3: Blake’s 7

Blake’s 7 was set in a dystopian vision of the future where a brutal federation rules all and a band of outlaws fight for survival, and the theme music to this unsurpassable, late 1970s, sci-fi classic series captures the bleakness and hope perfectly. A pummelling, orchestral start describes the totalitarian universe in one swoop while the latter part of the music soars upwards hinting at revolution. Did that all sound arty-farty enough? I was going for pretentious there. I hope I got it.

#2: Space: 1999

If someone asked you to compose some moon music where would you go with it? To the police to report for drug misuse is one possible answer, but assuming you decided to actually sit down and whip up some sort of tune that just screamed “moon leaving Earth’s orbit and zooming off through the galaxy encountering weird old crap along the way” then chances are good that the theme to the Gerry Anderson-produced late 1970s TV series Space: 1999 wouldn’t be a million miles away. It’d be closer to a trillion miles away. But it’s got a disco/funk vibe to it so that makes it awesome.

#1: UFO

UFO was a British sci-fi series made by Gerry Anderson (of Space: 1999 fame, among many others) which was dreamed up in the late 1960s and aired in the early 1970s. That timing is enough to give you a clue to the music style of this particular theme song: 60s synths (and quite possibly: drugs) and 70s funk arrangements (and quite possibly: drugs) make this upbeat, retro, and futuristic all at the same time. That’s why it’s number one.

America – Part 1 – Travel

Posted by Mark on Dec 23, 2011 | 0 Comments

This is the first part in a series of posts regarding my recent trip to America. It’s been a long, long time since I really sat down and wrote anything for this site – you might possibly have noticed that there’s a lot of automated posting from Google+ and some filler video articles – and I felt that the time was right to address that in the form of something that will hopefully be a bit of a mix of travelogue, anecdotes, and trying to fool search engines into thinking this site is active and not some dumping ground for trash. Besides: it’ll be nice to have a diary of sorts of the trip – which was my first visit to the States – and it might even be of use to anybody thinking about travelling to the USA in the future. Unlikely, of course. I didn’t get hit on the head while overseas and suddenly develop the ability to be useful just like that.

Travelling To And In America

I’m going to start this series of American posts with one about travelling since it’s something that’s got to be done in order to get to America and once you’re there it’s something you’ll need to do too otherwise people start looking at you funny by the third day in the airport lounge. You’d have run out of money by the end of the second day. You’d be resorting to dancing for dimes. Dimes. That’s American money. Picked up the lingo!

Now, during our short holiday – vacation if you prefer (I don’t) – in those there United States of America we managed to take part in three froms of travel: flying (both to and inside America), driving by car (both as a passenger and as a driver), and being transported by bus (only as a passenger as they’re quite snippy when you try to slide into the driver’s seat on those things).

Flying To America
The holiday started with a flight from London’s Heathrow to Washington’s Dulles airport. It concluded with another flight featuring those same two airports but in a slightly different order. We flew with Virgin Atlantic as their website seemed the easiest one in which to find important information such as:

• do you get fed on the plane? (YES)
• what are your luggage allowances? (PLENTY EVEN IN SCUM CLASS)
• is there a Scum Class of travel? (YES, BUT THEY DON’T CALL IT THAT)
• can you book in online? (YES)

We flew Scum Class because we’re not made of money. In terms of price the flight was comparable to everyone else we looked at. Before flying to the States you’ll need as ESTA (well, we did because we’re British) which is a simple-enough, five-minute job to do online; other than that, book in online the day before, don’t bother printing out your boarding pass if you’re dropping off luggage since they’ll just print you out another one anyway, remember to make sure you have a passport and take it, and you’re sorted.

Here’s the procedure on the London side of travelling: turn up at the airport with your luggage, go to the luggage drop-off desk for Virgin, hand over your passports and ticket numbers, get your bags weighed and whisked off, wander through to the security area, queue for a bit, put any carry-on bags through the scanner, walk through the detector, retrieve your bag, consider the duty free offers, then go grab a drink in the bar nearest your departure gate (they serve beer from 6 in the morning!) and wait until called to board the plane.

Here’s the procedure when you arrive at Washington: queue for an eternity, queue some more, queue a little bit, break up the monotony of queueing with a bit of a queue, then queue for a short period at the end before being ushered along to a desk with a surly-looking TSA operator. Answer questions about why you’re in America without trying to start a conversation. Explain how long you plan to be there but don’t worry about subtracting the length of time you’ve been queueing since they’ll do that for you. Finally: four fingers from your right hand, right thumb, four fingers from your left hand, and then left thumb are all electronically scanned and you’ll then need to look at a camera while it photographs you and scans your iris. You’ll then be welcomed to America and told to have a nice day. But you won’t believe it. Then you can go off to pick up your luggage from the carousel and get out of the airport as quickly as possible… after one more check by sniffer dogs. But don’t panic! If you’re not dark-skinned they pretty much ignore you! Racial profiling-tastic!

Virgin Atlantic
A quick word about flying with Virgin Atlantic. I like Virgin as a company; they seem honest, nice, good guys and gals. I like my Virgin Media broadband and cable at home (most of the time) too. I associate Virgin with good quality and entertainment. Therefore it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that the onboard entertainment was woeful on our transatlantic flights. VHS videos of films and TV programmes (complete with old school tracking problems) on loop are not great to watch. Also: on no account ever tune into one of the radio stations! Could I find a way to stop it? No I could not. There was a trivia game you could play though; that was deliciously difficult and very good fun. Still: VHS? Really?

Oh, and the food: flying to America it was okay. Flying back was something else entirely. They didn’t have the one thing I wanted so I had to wait. They forgot I was waiting so I had to draw their attention to this omission. They then served up a lump of something truly revolting that contained pasta-looking things in carpet underlay sauce. I think. And the breakfast at the end was frozen. The croissant was nearly impervious to the best that the plastic knife could supply and the carton of orange juice was actually solid. Well, obviously the carton was solid; gas cartons have handling flaws that need to be addressed. The actual orange juice was solid. It was a carton of fresh orange ice. Not impressed.

And my seat wouldn’t stay up properly. Very irritating. Probably for the person behind me too.

Flying In America

You’ll have seen that arriving in America is somewhat more of a chore than leaving Britain. Fortunately, once you’re actually in the United States you are deemed trustworthy enough to fly anywhere you like internally as simply as hopping on train.

Ha haha haha ha! I kill me sometimes!

No, I’m kidding. Flying on internal flights in America is every bit as painful as just getting into the country in the first place.

Expect to be searched and you won’t be disappointed. Our American friend who flew with us on our flights from Baltimore to Boston, from Boston to New York, and from New York to Baltimore had all his carry-on bags rummaged through and was patted down. Twice.

You will have to take your shoes off before passing through the detectors. The purpose of this is to slow down the number of people who could otherwise walk through them to a crawl as people try to redress on the other side. The purpose of that is one of those mysteries of security; apparently, having a lot of irritated people bunched up together in one place makes the world a safer place for everyone. Or maybe someone high up in the Department of Homeland Security has a fetish for queues and socks and has live feeds of all the airports showing wall-to-wall in his lair of naked comfort. Or maybe it’s both.

Pray to whichever of the hundreds of deities you’ve been brainwashed to believe in that you don’t get the Atlanta, Georgia crew we had going to Boston. I’m sure that there are Atlanta women with nice accents who don’t shriek into the microphone when addressing the passengers but we didn’t get any of them. People were jumping in their seats, spilling drinks, and sobbing into pillows every time airplane communication was attempted.

The Hispanic New Yorker stewardess on our twin-prop flight from New York to Baltimore was nearly as bad. You know how Rosie Perez sounds? Speed it up a bit and you’re close. Puzzled looks were the norm when she talked to us. Fortunately, we were all so busy trying to find a way to cool down from the plane’s internal temperature of Solar Corona that nobody paid her much attention anyway.

And remember to check your tickets carefully. You may buy the ticket with one company but make certain that you’re not actually flying with someone else. You don’t want to be in the wrong terminal twenty minutes before the gate closes. You certainly don’t want to run to catch a shuttle bus to the correct terminal and discover you’re being driven by a man who believes in applying equal pressure to the accelerator and brake at the same time, and that being not much of either. You don’t want to be sitting with an American friend on that shuttle bus while he’s cursing the ticket providers loudly and swearing revenge while a Homeland Security man with a gun on his hip looks sternly on from the seat opposite. Check your tickets.

Flying From America
You’ll have read already – unless you skipped large swathes (and who could blame you?) – that flying from Heathrow is pretty simple, but arriving in America and subsequent internal flights are a pain in the rectum (figuratively speaking (but give them time and I may have to edit this out)). You might suspect that leaving America would be quite easy or you might suspect that leaving America would be about as bad as arriving or you might suspect that leaving America would be a combination of the trauma of arrival added to the arguably laughable security irritations of domestic flights.

Yeah, it’s that latter one. Of course.

Plus there’s the backscatter x-ray machine! Yes, I was pulled out of the line and made to go through this expensive piece of crapware. You stand with your legs apart and your hands up, palms forward for seven seconds. Then you’re made to wait again while they spin your 3D nearly-nude body on all the monitors across the airport (in your mind). Then you get to see the disappointment on the look of the agent who wanted an excuse to cup your testicles and run his hand down your thighs while sniffing your crotch because nothing obviously bomby turned up on the scan. I’ll make the effort to strap something harmless but bomby-looking to my buttocks the next time I travel. I figure somebody should have a good time in the airport at least once.

The American Bus Ride
We had visions of taking a famous Greyhound bus ride and/or an Amtrak train ride while we were out there but these didn’t manifest themselves owing to a lack of routes for where we wanted to go (Washington to New York (and back again)) and price. Instead, we took a pretty standard bus ride with the company Washington Deluxe.

Four hours takes you from Washington’s Union Station to just near New York’s Penn Station and during those four hours you get free Wi-Fi and power for your electronic devices. The Wi-Fi isn’t great but it’s free and far cheaper than switching on data roaming on your phone. The power is fine once you can actually get your travel adpater to fit in the stupid socket. Stupid socket.

Other than that: it’s a bus. It’s boring. At least you don’t get scanned, have to get undressed, or face the probe (soon American travellers, soon).

Driving In America
By far the most common way of getting around in America is by car. This is because everything is far away from everything else. Houses near shops? Hahahaha! No! Miles of travelling! Houses near your workplace? Hahahaha! Never! Dozens of freeways and ramps and toll booths! Workplace near shops? Hahahaha! Oh, yes, if you work in a shop. Otherwise, well, no. Don’t be stupid. America has a lot of space and, apparently, it’s the duty of American planners to try to keep as much of it as possible between things.

Americans – as with a large proportion of the world – drive on the wrong side of the road. Worse, they drive in the wrong seat of the car too. It’s all very confusing. The gearstick is to your right! Your right! Crazy! There is a small mercy in that the clutch, brake, and accelerator are all in the correct order. It’s a very small mercy.

Anyway, here are Things I Noticed As A Driver And Passenger In America:

• Unless otherwise indicated you can turn right on a red light if you’re in the right-hand lane and there’s nothing coming. This is actually quite useful once you get used to it and yet it’s still quite daunting for a person who knows that red means stop. It’s also worrying when you make a right turn on red because there’s nothing coming and then note that the person in the car behind you doesn’t. Tell yourself that it’s a foreigner in a car too. Tell yourself that while you look around for the police.
• Flashing amber lights mean you can go and you’ve got right of way but you need to be careful because other people may drive across the junction if you show any signs of weakness.
• Flashing red lights mean you can go too but you have to give way to people who might have flashing amber lights. In summary: green means go, flashing amber means go and if there’s a crash it’s the other guy’s fault, flashing red means go but if you crash it’s your fault, and solid red means go if you’re on the right and want to go right and you won’t cause a crash or drive over a pedestrian by doing so. In America they really want you to go.
• You must stop at the stop sign. Even if there’s nothing coming. Even if you can see for twenty miles in every direction and you’re the only thing around. If your four wheels don’t stop for a split second and a police officer spots you then you can be deported to Brazil. Handy if you need to go to Brazil next, but otherwise not worth the risk.
• Pedestrian crossing signs are better than in England. They have countdowns, which is nice. Also: cars must yield to pedestrians on walkways. Most of the time. Best to cross in groups for safety though. Especially in New York. We almost saw a Hasidic Jew get flattened by a taxi; he didn’t wait for the herd.
• Everyone uses a satellite navigation system of some description because road signs are stupidly confusing. Trying to travel any distance without a little voice constantly telling you “in point two miles keep right” right before it says “recalculating” because you foolishly listened to it when it meant “right… but only in the sense of not left rather than actually right like you just did silly human” involves memorising a list of road numbers and pre-calculating what colour and shape they might appear on the road sign. “Oh, that’s easy! You just take the 42 to the 71 then follow the I billion until the 15 becomes the 19 and stay left for 6 miles. Beware the Balrog on the 18 overpass!”
• Street lighting is not very good. Especially at junctions. Especially where there are multiple lanes and one of them is about to become a left turn or right turn only and they only paint this information on the road surface. I might have been forced down a few roads I wasn’t intending to travel while driving after dark. I’m just saying.
• Everyone sends and receives text messages and emails on their phone while driving. You might want to close your eyes if you’re a passenger and try to sleep through the impending crash.
• Everyone drinks a lot before driving. A lot. Ten pints, two glasses of wine, and six shots is not unusual. On the other hand it’s quite difficult to get drunk on American alcohol (not impossible, though; the scientist in me confirmed this) and I’m not sure why. Maybe they have puny yeast or sobering water. Strange. And scary. You might want to close your eyes if you’re a passenger and try to sleep through the impending crash here too. I slept quite a bit in the back of cars.
• Despite the texting and drinking there seemed to be a distinct lack of crashes. General driving seems a little more laid back than in England even where the speed limit is the same. Wider roads may play a part in this. Or it could be that we just got lucky.

That’s travelling in America sorted out. In later articles in this series I’ll cover the Washington area, the Boston area, and the New York area. Not in any great detail though. And not of much use. I’ve still not been hit on the head yet.

In The Pub With Jim Al-Khalili

Posted by Mark on Sep 25, 2011 | 1 Comment

On Thursday the 8th of September I had the pleasure of being in the pub to watch a talk given by science guru Professor Jim Al-Khalili. This was supposed to be a talk on his areas of expertise and my areas of interest – black holes, wormholes, and time travel – but the evening turned out to be odder than any of those who attended could have expected.

Well over one hundred people were crammed into the room at the Globe Inn, many of whom were drinking, and all of whom were perspiring. The heat and the humidity was fierce and hindsight says this may have contributed to the events that would unfurl. On the other hand, maybe Jim’s always a bit strange. Strange like a quark! That’s a physics joke there for you.

Jim sat at the front of the room wearing what he told us was his lucky brown jacket. There was an attempt to ask him what was so lucky about it by Ian, one of the organisers of the Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub cult, but this was met with disapproval by the professor and Ian’s eyes were glued shut as punishment.

This set an uneasy tone for the evening as you can imagine.

The talk began shortly thereafter and our expectation of some interesting physics was dashed immediately as Jim launched into the act that first shot him to fame in Yorkshire, the famous Ghost Vet sketch.

For those of you who never got to watch the Ghost Vet sketch before it was banned by the U.N. and removed from YouTube the gist of the story is that Jim, a vet to the spirit world, is asked to inseminate a dead cow. With hilarious consequences! And horrible, horrible, gratuitous racism.

The sketch received a polite and fearful ripple of applause from that half of the crowd who weren’t nauseous by the end of it.

Jim then promised to get on with the actual talk so long as the contractual sacrifice met with his approval. A drunkard was dragged in from the alley behind the pub and ritually shaved to resemble the professor as closely as possible.

The execution was swift and the bemused, swaying drunkard probably didn’t feel the sharpened spatula strike that took his life but the quantity of blood that gushed out over the pub floor was a little too much for a couple of elderly gentlemen who burst into tears and fled from the room. This, fortunately, freed up some space for a small group of Jim’s devoted female acolytes to enter and seat themselves in the hot, red liquid. We were told they would absorb the victim’s “Haemo-Essence” and give strength to the professor of physics.

The physics talk then really began and Jim explained why black holes and wormholes were impossible since the night sky was merely painted on the inside of the “CosmoShell” that surrounded the planet. Time travel, he said, was possible but only in a leftwards direction. He refrained from going into this any further but winked a lot. There were some knowing nods from members of the audience.

One of the evening’s other organisers, Trish, laughed a little too hard at this point. Pressed as to why she answered that she assumed the whole evening was just a big joke arranged by Professor Brian Cox to sully the name of his biggest rival.

Jim was less-than-pleased with this declaration by Trish and proceeded to give her two options: become an Absorbing Acolyte or undertake the Karaoke of Pain challenge. Trish chose the latter option for her punishment and the Tombola of Torture Tunes resulted in an M.C. Hammer medley.

We were all punished that evening.

Professor Al-Khalili then opened up the floor to questions, promising to remove an item of clothing any time he couldn’t provide an answer. We learnt that the CosmoShell was six inches thick and connected to the surface of the Earth at the Blackpool Tower, that he was busy at weekends writing a new sketch about a ghost toilet attendant, that his hobbies included going for long walks and doing crosswords, and that he was Bear Grylls’ mentor during the 1980s among many other fascinating facts. A query about neutrinos, though, lead to Jim removing his lucky brown jacket.

A hush fell over the crowd at this point as it became apparent that Jim – like all of us – had been sweating. Unlike the rest of us, however, the pattern of Jim’s sweat was unusual to say the least. The professor mistook our quiet concern for adoration and began a twenty minute routine of impressions of Britain’s favourite light entertainers; Larry Grayson, Lionel Blair, and Ted Rogers all surfaced. He was rather good.

Eventually, regular skeptic attendee Pam raised her hand and enquired as sweetly as she could as to the strange markings on Jim’s shirt.

We were all worried about Pam as she was frog-marched away by two of the professor’s heavies. After she was out of sight and the sound of the industrial blender had started, Jim seemed to sigh heavily and then told us all that his torso had required rebuilding following an aborted attempt to transform himself into a machine. The result of this was that he sweated in a different manner than “sub Jims”, his term for anyone not him. To demonstrate this he proceeded to perspire from his knee into a pint glass.

This took twenty minutes in near-complete silence (the industrial blender ushered up a constant drone as backdrop). We were “encouraged” (with some threatening sharpened spatula-waving) to give the professor a standing ovation at the conclusion of this demonstration and that almost brought the night to an end. It only remained for an Absorbing Acolyte to return with a novelty-sized test tube full of what she referred to as “Liqui-Pam”.

We formed an orderly line, sipped of the Liqui-Pam (a little chewy, but sweeter than expected), bowed to the professor, and were allowed to leave alive. The two elderly gentlemen who had fled earlier in the evening were impaled on spikes outside the pub.

Overall, I would say that if you get a chance to see Jim Al-Khalili give a talk then it’s well worth it and highly recommended.

Justifiable Homicide

Posted by Mark on Aug 31, 2011 | 0 Comments

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No.”

“Okay, well then… why don’t you start? Take us back to that morning.”

“We went for a walk.”

“Your wife and you?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yes.”

“Carry on.”

“I picked up my camera bag and we left the house. We went for a walk. I photographed a few things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Anything. I photograph anything interesting. Buildings, people, views, rubbish, anything.”

“Carry on.”

“We got near the pub – the Rose – and she told me to put the camera away.”

“This camera?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t know much about them.”

“Digital SLR. Canon. Telephoto lens. I’m not sure what you want to know.”

“That’s fine. So, you got to the pub and put your camera away?”

“No. I don’t put my camera away. I might see something interesting.”

“So you argued?”

“No. Not really. We went in a had a drink and I didn’t put the camera away. I didn’t spill anything on the camera. I don’t know what her problem was.”

“Indeed. Did anything else happen there?”

“No. We left after the drink and carried on with the walk. Then we noticed the clouds coming in and we decided we should probably make for another pub.”

“People after my own heart. Did anything happen here?”

“She told me to put the camera away when the first spots of rain came down.”

“Sensible.”

“No, the camera is water-resistant. A few spots won’t hurt it.”

“So you didn’t put the camera away?”

“No. Rain can be good to photograph.”

“And when you got to the second pub?”

“I kept the camera out there too. We were indoors then. And there were some interesting people in the pub.”

“Did you photograph them?”

“No, but I could have.”

“And how did your wife feel about this?”

“She was irritated, but she always is.”

“Irritated enough to fight?”

“No, we didn’t fight. We left the pub and saw an old woman fall over in the street so I photographed her. My wife was not pleased. She said we should have helped but it was on the other side of the road and there were other people nearer. Here, here’s the photo I took.”

“Ouch! Face in the turd!”

“I know. Classic. Anyway, it would have been difficult to get across the road as there was a funeral procession driving slowly through just about then.”

“And you… photographed it?”

“Yes. The reflections in the rain puddles of the cars and their flowers was too good to miss.”

“I’ll bet your wife didn’t think the same thing.”

“She thought it was disrespectful; said I should have kept the camera down at the very least. I pointed out that what takes place in public is fair game but she has this bee in her bonnet about people’s privacy and all that crap. She just hates my hobby.”

“Did you fight then?”

“No. I wouldn’t fight about that. Why would I?”

“Perhaps you should move the story forward to when you fought.”

“It was later. Quite a bit later. We had been to a few places. She had asked me to put the camera away on a number of occasions.”

“And you hadn’t?”

“No, but eventually I decided to humour her. You know, for a bit of peace since she looked so grumpy.”

“Go on.”

“I put the camera away.”

“And?”

“Then we saw a crocodile.”

“That’s unusual for an English city.”

“I know.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to get my camera back out of the camera bag.”

“Tried?”

“I got distracted by the eagle. It flew right over our heads and grabbed the crocodile from the ground.”

“Right.”

“I got my camera out as it took off with the crocodile writhing in its talons.”

“Did you take a shot?”

“The lens cap was still on and we were knocked back just then by the electrical vortex that sparked into existence just in front of us.”

“A vortex?”

“I can’t describe it any other way. An astronaut stepped from it and pointed some brick-shaped device at the crocodile and eagle. They froze and faded and just disappeared.”

“What were you doing at this time?”

“Trying to set aperture priority on the camera.”

“Did you succeed?”

“Just after the vortex took the astronaut away from us; he waved, by the way.”

“That’s pretty strange.”

“Yes.”

“And the fight?”

“My wife asked me if I’d caught any of it on camera so I cleaved her skull in with it.”

Doctor Maniac’s Meeting

Posted by Mark on Aug 7, 2011 | 0 Comments

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. Such a prestigious group of the world’s greatest criminal masterminds the world has truly never seen, nor shall it ever with our skill at evading the law. Most of you are probably wondering why I’ve asked you all to this meeting and why I’ve insisted on such secrecy and I… the chair recognises Wan Tring of the Hong Kong triads.”

“Thank you Doctor Maniac. I am Wan Tring. Most here are not Wan Tring.”

“Right. Wondering. Won-der-ing. Not Wan Tring. Can I continue? Thank you. I have asked you to this… the chair recognises El Diablo.”

“Is this one of those meetings where you kill anyone who dissents with you?”

“No! No! Where do you get these ideas?”

“I steal movies. I watch movies. Do these chairs slide down into a pit of spikes and fire?”

“What pit? This is clearly a laminated floor and we’re on the third storey of this building. You came past the floor below on the way here. You had the tour. Do you remember the office staff? The pretty secretary with the big you-know-whats? People, please! Can I get to the point of this meeting? Oh, for fu… the chair recognises Minister Montezuma.”

“I have a dentist’s appointment at three. Will this meeting take long?”

“Let’s… start again. And please: no interruptions. Oh… Minister Montezuma, again?”

“It’s just that it’s about an hour’s drive and I need to get there early to fill in some paperwork. I would really like to leave by one thirty.”

“You can leave at one thirty. That’s not a problem. Gentlemen, I’ve…”

“I will leave at the same time as the Minister. Unless the Minister doesn’t want that!”

“El Diablo, why would the…”

“My friend El Diablo, you may do whatever you please.”

“What’s going on with you two?”

“There’s nothing going on but let’s just say that I think we should all leave together or not at all.”

“Is this something from one of your movies again?”

“We have seen this movie in Hong Kong too. Wan Tring Enterprises has imported many copies. Good film. Robert Vaughn.”

“I wish you would take this meeting seriously.”

“You’re thinking of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

“Can we please stop talking about films?”

“Many apologies. Perhaps it is a common theme.”

“Really, please, please can we get back on track here? I’ve only booked the Death Room until four.”

“Aha! You are trying to kill us Maniac!”

“I am not! It’s named after the architect, Francis Death. He’s responsible for the unique lintels you see over there and the rosewood panelling designs. You people are… what now?”

“You haven’t forgotten that I want to leave at one thirty.”

“How the hell could I have forgotten? You’ve only barely finished… that’s not even for another two and a quarter hours anyway!”

“It’s just we don’t even know what this meeting’s about or how long it will go on for.”

“What!? I have been trying to tell you since you all got here. At least Lord Chaoticon has been quiet; the rest of you…”

“I think Lord Chaoticon is asleep.”

“He’s what?”

“To be fair, he’s probably jetlagged. And he did just mastermind stealing a nuclear sub from the Iranians. I think he was up until the early hours of the morning on Thursday and then flew straight here. It’s a nine hour flight.”

“You people are unbelievable.”

“Oh! He stole the submarine? I thought it was Papa Odessa and the Fingernail Gang.”

“No, they’ve been retired for over a year now. Papa has opened a bike repair shop on the Windward Islands. It’s what he always wanted.”

“Retired! Retired? That sounds like a great idea right now. That’s it, you lot have driven me to distraction. I’m out of this business for good. Let yourselves out. You can leave now or at one thirty or whenever the hell you like and you can all go separately or together. I. Don’t. Care. Goodbye.”

“What’s all the shouting about?”

“Lord Chaoticon’s awake!”

“Come back Doctor Maniac! Lord Chaoticon’s awake.”

“I was just resting my eyes.”

“Your meeting has finished early Doctor Maniac.”

“Yes it has Julie. Can you call down to the canteen and get them to send up some coffee? And can you hunt down some headache tablets too?”

“Right away Doctor Maniac. Did you manage to arrange anything for your wife’s surprise birthday?”

“No, no I didn’t. Can you also switch on the electric seals to the Death Room and release the poison gas while you’re at it too?”

“Right away Doctor Maniac. Will there be anything else?”

“I think we should just give the Science Team the go-ahead for Operation Lunar Volcano – liaise with Sharon on that – and can you draw me up a shortlist of party organisers? I think that’ll be all. Thank you.”

“Right away Doctor Maniac.”

Another Total TV Guide Letter

Posted by Mark on Jul 30, 2011 | 1 Comment

You may (or may not) remember that I’ve explored the letters page of Total TV Guide magazine (my preferred weekly guide to the days where I can complain that there’s nothing on television) before on this hallowed ground (disclaimer: neonbubble.com has never been consecrated) here: Total TV Guide Letters.

Since that time the letters to the editor have been rather disappointingly normal and my reputation for shouting in checkout queues has diminished to the point of legend. Nevertheless, there was one letter this week that I felt I ought to address.

Dear Martin Blackburn of West Yorkshire,

Everyone likes Professor Brian Cox. Everyone. Even, I suspect, your wife, which is probably the catalyst for your decision to write in to a television listings magazine. Is he on her Five Famous People list? Don’t pretend you don’t know what the list is; you know. It’s okay Martin, you can tell us. Brian’s on everyone‘s Five Famous People lists. Your wife, his wife, my wife, me, you, everyone. You’re thinking: how can he be on everyone’s Five Famous People lists at the same time? It’s called “spooky action at a distance” and if it’s too difficult to understand then try writing into the BBC and we’ll see if they can’t conjure up a one-off programme on BBC2 to explain it for you hosted by, oooh, I don’t know, maybe, oooh, a charming northern professor of physics perhaps.

Now, you don’t seem to like that he’s on TV on a lot of seemingly disparate programmes with no connection. But Martin… you like all these programmes too. There is a connection. Don’t you see that you and Brian share a bond of interests? You’re seeing him as a rival but you should be seeing him as a kindred spirit. You like music, he likes music. You like baked trout, he likes baked trout. That’s two of you that like baked trout. And if you let your wife have her way then your connection is strengthened that much more again.

You say you don’t like his floppy hair and soppy voice. Well Martin, you’re from West Yorkshire and I know you’ve added that line in to sound manly like a man’s man from Yorkshire should sound. But you’re also writing letters to Total TV Guide. Your reputation is shredded. Give it up Martin. Release.

Don’t hate Professor Brian Cox Martin, and don’t hate your wife for picking someone she gets to watch on TV a lot. You had your chance too. It’s nobody’s fault that Thora Hird died. Get over it.

P.S. His teeth aren’t polished; years of working near a particle accelerator have given them a natural radiance.