Meaningless, meaningless

Just been watching the news about the protestors at Drax power station with increasing irritation.  Partly because I was thinking of going to evening of it, but they never replied to my e-mail, and partly because the media couldn't stage a more stereotypical head-to-head if they tried.

 The protestors: I could almost hear Tom shouting "bloody crusties" at the screen.  Dirty, dreadlocked, poorly dressed and earnest, the lot of them.  And, of course, they were spinning poi.

 The police: "We've had a successful day, peaceful protests, law and order maintained, etc. etc..  Oh, and we just happen to have arrested 38 people in line with our policy of not letting the hippies get too cocky."

 Grr!

I'm probably just irritated from the shit week I've been having.  Have spent all week so far writing a social research paper for a conference in a field I previously knew nothing about, then lost most of today to a 4 and a half hour meeting.  All fun and games in the SBS!

My question for today: is it still possible to push-start a car, what with all the new-fangled gadgetry they have in them these days?  I think I remember someone telling me they don't have spark plugs any more, which would mean you can't jump start them, but what about giving them a good old fashioned shove? Earlier I saw a car stuck in the middle of the road with its hazard lights flashing and burly looking blokes standing around it and was wondering why it hadn't been pushed to safety, is all.  

Here's one for the grammar pedants:

Why, when you're imagining something, are you supposed to say, "If I were..." and, "I wish I were..." rather than, "I wish I was..."?  I know that's what you're supposed to do because my mum told me, but why?  Come to think of it, why don't we say, "I wish I am..."?

Bloody stupid language, English.

The other thing I've been pondering is why, if, as is generally acknowledged, women who work together start to "coincide", why isn't the whole world on some great universal cycle where we are all grumpy at the same time and there is a peak in the number of babies born every month?  Answer me that, huh. 

The Passing Bear, I mean -- not Clare Bear.  I've totally lost track.

Hurrah!  In a huffy Alan stylee I've had my letter published on the DTI intranet and quoted from in an article.  What follows is abridged, as I don't know how the copyright works on this... 

RESPONSE to news of CBI concerns for science education in the UK showed DTI is not just aware of the problem, it’s already working to solve it.

A number of DTI readers sent in their feedback on the story, highlighting some of the work the Government is already involved in and offering their own insights and opinions.

John Kirby, senior policy adviser at Research Base, noted that the story had “stirred up a lot of interest both in the Office of Science & Innovation and from colleagues at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES)”.

He highlighted some of the long-term actions being taken by Government to increase the take-up of science.
...
...
Rosie Telford, ‘astrophysicist-turned-assistant statistician’, had a warning about the possible pitfalls of the CBI’s call to re-brand science as “desirable and exciting”.

“The only result of this will be huge disappointment to young potential scientists embarking on their studies only to find that instead of glamour, what they're getting is very hard work,” argued Rosie.

She suggested that to recruit the best students to science, it should be marketed as “important purely for its own sake, because increasing our knowledge of the world is always good thing”.

Here's what I actually wrote:

It's all very well the CBI saying that science should be "rebranded" as "desirable and exciting; a gateway to some fantastic career opportunities".  The only result of this will be huge disappointment to young potential scientists embarking on their studies only to find that instead of glamour, what they're getting is very hard work.

 

I am someone who has always found scientific results exciting and interesting.  I embarked on a career as a physicist to find that results are few and far between, and that obtaining them usually involves a tedious slog.  So I left.

 

Let's get this straight: becoming a scientist will not make you well paid, is very unlikely to make you famous, will not endow you with much leisure time or opportunity for part time work, will generally involve a great deal of working on your own and, in many of the traditional sciences, will probably involve a lot of moving around before you finally land a permanent job (if you ever do).

 

However, there is and always will be a significant minority of people who find the sense of victory when they finally obtain results outweighs all of the drawbacks and makes the whole edifice worthwhile.  For these people, the adventure of working to increase the sum of human knowledge, however small their contribution, is reason enough to join in.

 

It's my opinion that any attempt to market science as "a gateway to a fantastic career" will be counterproductive.  Those who choose science as a springboard to a high-flying career rather than from a genuine interest in the subject are more likely to be put off by the hard graft, and standards will drop.  The truly interested and able will then be disappointed by the lack of challenge.

 

If anything will help in recruiting the best students to study science, it will be recognising and marketing science as important purely for its own sake, because increasing our knowledge of the world is always good thing.  (Although backing that up with better pay packets and more permanent jobs for scientists certainly wouldn't hurt.) 

Having just read today's main article in the Guardian's G2, I'd agree with them that it's a real challenge for teachers.  You need to attract the nerdy kids to science by showing it as it is -- difficult, challenging and interesting if you like that sort of thing -- but you also need to non-sciency kids to be basically scientifically literate, which requires kind of mass appeal that would put the nerds off.

Another reason for me to feel guilty about not becoming a physics teacher.

In the absence of anything interesting happening in my life, and with Dazza having removed me from his list of friends for failing to update my blog as frequently as he would like, The List has been updated.   My reasoning is thus:

1. Graham Coxon 

How could he possibly move from the top spot when he keeps releasing album after album of melodramatic lovestruck indie musical brilliance?  Tom worries that in our intimate moments I am thinking about Graham.  He has good reason to.

2. Ben Folds

OK, so his music has gone a bit shit now he's happily married and sprogged up, but he is here for sentimental value, as my chat-up line to Tom on our first meeting was, "You look a bit like a cross between Ben Folds and Beck."  (I'm not sure how many people that liine would actually work on.)

3. Steve Jones

I saw him speak at the Hay Festival and immediately went out and bought one of his books.  Intelligent, amiable, funny, Welsh, a good storyteller -- and says the Y chromosome is a parasite, so obviously has his head screwed on right.  May be old, but he's still got it.

4. Brandon from the Killers 

 I actually want to shag this man's voice.  Ohhhhhhhh....

 5.  Michael Palin

Can you believe I was struggling to fill this space?  But then I thought of Michael.  Another fine example of a man who, like a fine wine, has improved with age.  And you just would, wouldn't you?

I'd just like to state, for the record, that I invented this game.  I don't know if you ever played it -- it was a staple of the Leicestershire playground by the time I got to secondary school -- but it was me that started it.

I remember it well.  In the break at Saturday morning orchestra, a bunch of us girls were playiing bog standard tig-off-ground -- the basic principle, for the uninitiated, being that standing on an object renders you exempt from being tug.  There were several small fixed benches we were using as den, and someone else was "it".  In a moment of genius I shall never surpass, I jumped up onto the bench where Charlie Playle was standing, pushed her off and shouted, "Budge!".  

And thus a new game was born.   No longer were you safe in your off-ground den -- at any time you could be removed from it by someone jumping on and budge-ing you.  A whole new level of tig-off-ground.

It might not have been Charlie Playle, in all fairness.  But she seems a likely candidate being as she attended both Saturday morning orchestra and my secondary school.  On my first week there, when I was being asked repeatedly whether I was a boy or a girl, I told her I was a boy and that my name was Thomas.  Hilarity ensued as it turned out I was in her games group and she helpfully ried to stop me getting in the girls' changing room.   But that's another story.