An Exercise in Irrelevance

On Saturday, Newcastle was host to an Americana festival; anything with lots of music anywhere is always going to make me happy. In this case, we ended up a music boat; there’s a company that regularly cruises up and down the Tyne, and I’ve long thought it might be fun to give this a go; what better than to combine this with a bluegrass band (the midnight ramblers) and Devon Sproule, who is always good to see. It was a good fun; the cruise itself was entertaining, especially with the weather being so nice. Unfortunately, you couldn’t hear the band from the top deck, but as I’d forgotten my floppy hat, staying atop wasn’t an option anyway. The band were fun; very competant, professional and fluid. Poking around their website, they appear to be part-time, which belies their touring schedule; if it’s still true then their suggestion that they are gaining success as a result of their hard work is no lie. Devon Sproule was great as always, even though she looked rather irritable when she started; performing seems to make her happier. It was a pleasure to see her in a small (floating) venue again, as she is at her best in this sort of venue.

Sunday, was the Sunderland air show. The day was much cloudier, but this worked out well; you could look up into the sky without getting blinded. The aerobatics was exciting, although starting off with the Red Arrows robbed the occasion of it’s climax. Still watching machinery that was designed to kill people leaves me with a slight feeling of unease, particularly when some of it costs upward of 100 million per plane; it’s impressive, but for that price it should be. Still I guess the fundamental problem is that there are only a limited numbers of tricks that a plane can do; one barrel roll is fairly similar to another, even if the planes are different colours. In summary, a good day out, but not sure that I’d want to go every year.

And the trains? Well, took the metro to Sunderland. Pretty weak, but I thought it was a good title for a blog post.

Following my holiday, I’ve decided to create two new categories for my blog, one for all my professional pieces and one for my personal.

This blog fulfils two many purposes. Firstly, it serves as a memory aid for myself; I can look back at the things and the ideas that I’ve had in the past. Secondly, I use it to publish these ideas. I’m aware that the former is the more important than the latter; like most blogs, this site is not heavy traffic.

I do publish about my personal life here, but this is not a full disclosure blog; it’s called “an Exercise in Irrelevance” for exactly this reason. I put occasional reviews of things up; places I’ve visited or music that I’ve listened to. All about my reactions to public events. This blog isn’t meant to be a soap opera.

I also publish posts about my work here. I think, over time, these will become more important; recently, I’ve been the blog as lab book but I think it will also start to become a more formal publication route.

Given this, I think it makes sense to separate the two strands, to enable the few subscribers that I have to choose whether to read about my life outside science or not. Personal, Professional or Everything, the choice is yours.

I’ve just read on BBC news the distressing news that the authorities are going to try and clear the Seals from La Jolla beach. I’ve been there twice now, once last year on holiday and once about 5 years ago while working. I only went the second time because I wanted to see the seals again.

The reason seems, frankly, daft. The pool was gifted to the city if it became a “public area”. But, apparently, it isn’t public if kids shouldn’t swim in it because the seals don’t clean up after themselves.

Well, yes, okay, this is true. But just become some philanthropist in the 1930s made a statement doesn’t mean that we should live be this now; new knowledge has arisen. While a seal reserve might not be the original intent use, it’s still allows the obvious public use of watching the seals.

The real irony of the situation is the philanthropist in question was Ellen Browning Scripps, who also funded the Scripps oceanographic institute, familiar to many, and in San Diego, the Natural History museum, Zoological gardens and Research labs in Balboa park.

We need more public understanding of the life around us. The La Jolla seals are a rare and precious beacon that should be preserved; let’s face it, San Diego is not short of areas for kids to paddle in.

I’d never been to either Romania or Turkey before my holiday. A new country is always a new experience. In this case, the east Europe is much closer than many places I’ve been to, but I was still very unsure what to expect. Both countries were wonderful, confusing and full of contradictions.

Romania is a beautiful and bountiful country. On the way to the delta, there were miles and miles of fertile ground, a breadbasket of corn and sunflower. Passing through the villages where we crossed the Danube for the first time, men on the road sides made a strange sign, moving their hands apart like an prayer in reverse; actually, they were miming the fish they have caught and were selling. Despite the natural wealth, the poverty in Romania is obvious; horse-drawn carriages are common. Some of the towns in the Danube, like Mila 23 are built from wood, on a small island between the channels. From my experiences, though, the signs are good. It’s a bit chaotic, a bit strange and a bit ramshackle but, put together, it seems to work. It needs a lot of time, and much investment, but if they fix the infrastructure, it could become an amazing place to live.

Turkey was very different; or Istanbul, I should say, as it is probably as unrepresentative of Turkey as I find London is of the UK. It feels much more European than Romania, in terms of way of life; I’m aware comparing the rural delta to a metropolis is unfair. It’s resources are less natural more human created, over history. But laid over this, is a sense of strangeness; much of this comes from Islam; from muezzin’s calls which echo discordantly across town; to the scrum around the cabinet which contains the belongings of the prophet. This leaves me with a sense of disquiet that I felt, for example, in the Vatican, that I always feel in the presence of religion. In a strange way, Turkey feels more like America: the sharp practice — trying to avoid extras at the dinner table in US, requires the same sense of purpose of leaving Sultanahmet without a carpet; the large military — signs about honoured citizens in the US, and the forbidden zones of Turkey; to the ever present, familiar but deeply incomprehensible religion. Maybe these ingredients will make Turkey as powerful as the US is now and it will be the seat of another empire. Stranger things have happened.

The hassles and bustles of Istanbul came to their completion with a scrum for the one of the regular ferries to the Islands. It turned out to be unnecessary, though because it wasn’t that full and there were plenty of seats. The journey was calm and pleasant except for the occasional waft of diesel fumes and a fractious child behind me.

First impressions of Buyukada were not great; but this just turned out to be the feeding frenzy of merchants surrounding the arriving boat. The island itself is small, calm and relatively peaceful. They have no cars except for essential services; this means lots of bikes and the ever present smell of horse dung which, thankfully, I have become used to now.

The place is lovely (with a few cheesy bits — the noises upstairs sound distinctly like people dancing to a Hammond organ). Most of shops and resturants are focused around the ferry terminal; the most utilitarian shops like the supermarkets, fruit stores and emergency horse carriage shops are a couple of hundred metres away. Further out, it’s residential. After that most (about 2/3s) of the island is still covered with pine woodland, with a couple of roads that you can hire a bike and cycle around. At the very top, there’s a Greek orthodox monastry to which there is a steep, windy and cobbled road; murder in the warm local weather.

It’s not an island for beach lovers; there don’t appear to be many. Near the hotel most of the access to water has been turned in concrete piers often tied to private housing. There are a few places you can get into the water, though, which is murky but clean. In short, there’s not that much to do here except to chill out, walk around and eat. Perhaps the place is the better for this.

We’ve lucked out this time on hotels. The Marine House hotel feels relatively new, making it well furnished inside. The staff have been friendly and efficient, including welcome juice cocktails when we arrived, followed by wine, fruit and dipping chocolate room service, soon after. It’s also central and cheap. My general feeling of this place is that the vast majority of the visitors are Turkish; I guess that they the hotel is starting out and actually cares about repeat custom.

Home tomorrow (if the flights work). Looking forward to it.

Written on 17/07/2009

Have been in Istanbul now for several days. Been down the Bosphoros, up a castle and in a mosque. It’s an impressive place. The central tourist trap, Sultanahmet, is also overloaded with places to go and see, from many different ages. From an Egyptian needle (1500BC according to the guidebook, 400BC according to the plaque), through to the Byzantine hippodrome which used to house a huge swimming pool where they raced the beasts after which it was named, to the Palace which housed the Ottomans, through to the Blue and Aya Sofia Mosques. This city, perched across the straits, gateway to two continents has been the centre of several huge empires for many centuries, robbed only of it’s crown when Ataturk decided that Ankara was the place for his capital, on the basis that finding somewhere to erect state buildings in Istanbul was going involve knocking down several UNESCO world heritage sites.

All of these classic tourist traps make the place well worth a visit: the Aya Sofia is stunning inside, with a magnificent domed space and fabulous mosaics. The Blue Mosque has more going for it on the outside; it’s an active mosque (which the Aya Sofia is not), and it’s been well light, but the blizzard of lighting cables dangling from the room make the inside disjointed in a way that even the restoration scaffold of the Aya Sofia fails to. Still, it’s free to enter, so no complaints. Topkapi palace is huge and full of beauty, organized as multiple rooms and buildings around four courtyards, rather than a single big palace western-style.

What about the rest; well, it’s very easy to get a hotel here in the heritage centre of Sultanahmet. We’re in the curiously named “And Hotel” (yes, it’s a pun); it’s not great. The shared facilities are old and worn; the bedroom is badly decorated and small; there’s been a power-cut and a curious smell of solvent one afternoon. Breakfast is okay, though, and the view from the top is fun. Food has been, well, disappointing I think is the only real way of saying it; I don’t think that I have had two meals that I would class as good; ironic that I can get better, cheaper food of much the same style in Newcastle. The only other problem is that, especially in Sultanahmet, everyone is after your custom and they can be very pushy. This can be tiresome after a while; I’m fed up of answering how I am, and where I am from.

There are also several scams on the go: the one taxi that we took went the wrong way (a spiral is not a good way to get anywhere), and also flipped the meter over to the night rate (50% higher) after distracting our attention — arguments ensued while he tried to convince me that the meter was broken. The second scam is a shoe-shin scam. Guy walks past with shoe shine box, accidentally knocking off his brush on the way. You call after him. He looks surprised, turns away, then turns back offers you a shoe shine, apparently out of gratitude, but then demands a stupid amount with menace. It’s difficult; I realise someone shining shoes probably ain’t rich; it’s pathetic act rather than a callous one. But it’s tiresome and irritating; as with my car hire experience last year, it saps energy and means that you have to always operate with suspicion and distrust.

Next, the plan is to move down to one of the Islands which should be a bit quieter, although I am sure someone will still be trying to sell stuff.

Written on 15/07/2009

Now in the grandly titled Delta Nature Resort which is about 20km upstream of Tulcea. We were bought here by a bloke called Vlad; fortunately, he had none of the xenophobic nature of his namesake; rather, he was a jovial, engaging man with a slightly old car. He drove us here carefully, except for a perilous moment when he tried for the dubious extra security of his seat belt while travelling at 50kph.

The Nature resort. Well, it’s a big wetland lake like so many of the others that we have seen over the last few days, reed beds, hanging trees and, of course, birds. The resort has been embedded on the side of the hill, not really adding to the place, but not detracting too much from it either. It’s has pretentions to being five star; we were given a fruity cocktail when we walked through the door, the receptionist knew who we were without look it up, and took five minutes to describe the many features of our chalet (“this is the wardrobe” — good to know). Any attempt at having an “environmental feel” as my Rough Guide tells me, is destroyed by the double aircon units, and general feeling of excess here.

It’s got a slightly tatty feel for swanky place. A guy had to climb down a manhole to switch on the jacuzzi; he left the cover off, the hole left waiting to catch a small child. The pool is small and the underwater light fittings slightly wobbly. But it all worked, so I am now swum, showered, jacuzzied and sauna-ed. Best of all was a wobbly, imcompetent hour rowing on the lake. Got to see two snakes this time, the occasional fish, and the birds up close, as well as many water lillies and reed beds, generally while crashing into them.

Back to the inevitable chocolates on the bed, with covers carefully turned down. Always an effort to do it yourself, I find. Not sure what the food is going to be like, but pretentious and not that friendly for the veggie I suspect, as well as being pointlessly expensive.

Quite enjoying it, in spite of myself, but am glad we are here for only a day; without a car, we would be have been stuck with expensive taxi rides everywhere, and the polite staff would drive me mad after more.

Written on 09/07/2009

Am in Crisan, a small village on the delta of the Danube in Romania. It’s a strange village because it is two dimensional; spread out across up and down the shore of a narrow spit of land, trapped betweeen one of the two main branches of the Danube in front and a reed bed behind.

All around the river branches and reforms. It’s just a short boat ride till you are on a stream with banks lined with reeds, travelling through large ponds choked with water ferns and lily pads. As the boat travels through, frogs leap for safety, out of the path. And there are birds everywhere; I’m not one of lifes twitchers, but here you can see the motivation. Pelicans, herons and ibis are common. Occasionally in the distance, a flash of blue is the most you are likely to see of the kingfisher, elusive, but at least you see it often.

The village is quiet and peaceful. I’ve not seen a car move, just a JCB, but boats everywhere. It has little tourist stuff going on; there are a couple of pensione, including the one we are in, one canoe hire place, and two bars. Most of the people who visit are fishing or birdwatching. I wonder how it will be 20 years time. Will the Danube rise; will it turn into an hippie outpost; will it become a tourist spot with bars and souvenir shops selling ethinic tat by the yard?

Tomorrow, we travel to the north of the main stream; not sure whether the environment will be much the same, or whether we will see many other kinds of bird. I don’t really care; it’s enough to relax regardless.

Written on 07/07/2009

I think I now have my blogging environment as I want it. I’ve been using blogpost.py to do my posting. I couldn’t let go of my text only environment. I don’t care if it’s old fashioned, but I like the separation of editing and viewing. In this case, I’ve even had to learn asciidoc, but it was worth the effort.

Today, I think I have fiddled with blogpost.py for the last time. I can now set both categories and status (published or unpublished) from within the blogfile. I’d added a post command previously; originally, blogpost used to have a create and update command.

The big advantage with this is that all the information about the blog is apparent from the file; this means I can use a single make file to compile the lot. Any changes that I make while on the road will automatically publish to the web when I get online again. I can even put a catch-up in my backfile to make sure everything is up-to-date.

Okay, so I am sad; so sue me.