| Bonfire night & mulled wine |
[20091106|14:39] |
I knew it was coming, but it was still a slight shock last night when I had my first real pang of homesickness for life in London. Oh, I know I still work here, but commuting isn't the same thing.
The bloke and I decided to help a friend prepare for a lectureship interview today by running a mock interview last night and critiquing his presentation. I don't begrudge him this attention, as we'd all like to see him get this job. As I hurried home from the station, I saw some neighbourhood Bonfire Night fireworks above the roofs of the houses. I suddenly wished very much that I were in London, jammed into a pub with a dozen acquaintances, excitedly pouring mulled wine down my throat to insulate me against the cold before going to a park to watch the Guy burn.
I did get to have the mulled wine. I like the stuff I make best anyway. It goes like this. Start at least an hour before you want to drink it. Then, over the lowest possible heat - you don't want to boil the wine - mix the following:
- 1 bottle nice rich red wine (I favour chianti but merlot was fine last night. Thank you M&S.)
- 1 lemon, sliced into rough chunks
- 2 oranges, likewise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 cup sugar (Can be adjusted for taste. I like mine pretty sweet.)
- some cloves
- ground cinnamon
- freshly grated nutmeg
- allspice
- splash of brandy, sherry or other sweet strong liqueur (I used the last of our previous year's homemade sloe gin)
Stir periodically. The longer you can bear to let it sit and heat slowly, the better it'll taste. When you can stand it no longer, make 2 cups of peppermint tea and add it to the mulled wine. Spoon into wine glasses as if it were punch. Nom. |
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| Boffoonery for Bletchley Park |
[20091104|11:51] |
I have now seen Simon Singh speak twice in the space of two weeks. I didn't know he was going to be at last night's charity comedic nerditry event "Boffoonery", in aid of Bletchley Park, at the Bloomsbury Theatre beforehand, though. So I think that means I am definitely not a Loony Fangirl. Nope.
For those of you who don't know, Simon Singh is a particle physicist turned popular science writer who has written such fascinating epistles (no, I'm not being sarcastic) as Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book. He is also a dynamic and incredibly articulate speaker. Last Monday, the deliciously cerebral mathmo ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) happydork and I met upstairs at the Blue Posts pub in Piccadilly to hear him discuss his latest book Trick or Treatment, which is about alternative medicine, with the Science London book club. Much to our surprise, we found we were part of an audience of only 40-odd people, and thus nearly everyone who wanted to do so got to ask a question and engage him in dialogue.
Of course, we had to have the following discussion at the end.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nanila: "Oh, you've taken notes!"
happydork: "Yes. I wasn't going to so I didn't bring my notebook, but..." She holds up a heavily annotated bus ticket.
nanila: "That settles it. You're blogging this."
And she wrote up the evening beautifully. I recommend that you read about it here.
Last night, Dr Singh opened "Boffoonery" with fabulous demonstrations of the perils of believing in pseudocode by finding signs and portents of Princess Diana's death in Moby Dick, and of the Enigma encoding machine that was cracked at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing & friends during the WWII. This was by far the most geekcore moment of the entire evening, which was good because the two pints on an empty stomach had kicked in completely by the time Hugh Dennis (yes, the one from "Mock the Week"), Robin Ince and Robert Llewellyn (better known as Red Dwarf's Kryten) appeared to make bad puns about computing and cryptography. Additionally, Maggie Philbin, Richard Herring, Robin Ince and Johnny Ball competed in the first and last ever Bletchley Park-themed quiz show, scored in binary. Johnny Ball explaining the Königsberg bridge problem with flourishes of green marker pen while strands of white hair waved energetically about his head is a sight I shall not soon forget.
Next week, I plan to attend a symposium in memory of Harry Elliott, FRS, a debate on human spaceflight run by the astrophysics group, and the Jay Reatard show. If Simon Singh appears at any of those, I shall be quite surprised. |
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| It's good catch, that Catch-22 |
[20091102|11:20] |
There have been developments in the ongoing saga of my quest to renew my visa. No wait, don't scroll to the next entry on your friends page! This is worth reading, if only for the element of schadenfreude.
Due to various bits of administrative faffing, I had to delay submission of my renewal forms. This means that it is getting rather uncomfortably close to the date of my visa's expiry. So I sought to make an in-person application. It's more expensive, but you get the visa that day and so it is guaranteed to happen before your current visa expires.
That is, assuming you can get an appointment.
I tried every office (Croydon/London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff) through the online booking system, repeatedly. None of them have appointments available. Please note also that some of these places are a good five-hour journey from both my place of residence and my work. I phoned UKBA, who informed me that every appointment at every office is booked through 31 December.
The really beautiful thing about this is that you are not allowed to renew your visa until within 5 weeks of its expiry date. Hence, by the time you're ready to submit your application, it is impossible to get an appointment.
The icing on the cake was finding out that since I filled out my form, it's changed. So I have to print out the whole 75 page application and fill it out again. |
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| Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream (part 1 of 2) |
[20091031|18:41] |
On Thursday night, imyril, dizzykj and I went to watch Ben Haggerty tell seasonally appropriate tales at the Barbican pit theatre. I enjoyed it so much I wrote them up on the train home, and I want to share them with you this Halloween night.
Ben began on a plane to Jonesborough, Tennessee, heading for a storytelling convention. A dashing devil in a cowboy hat tricked him into stretching out across Row 13, reserved for the absent Mississippi Moondoggies. The weather turned bad, forcing the plane to divert to a city in Georgia. Ben noticed a funfair during the bus trip to his hotel and walked to it after checking in, much to the consternation of the receptionist. He played a shooting gallery game, hitting an unprecedented nine out of 10 targets and winning a lucky silver-plated left hind rabbit paw (shot by a cross-eyed man on a moonlight night). He slipped the paw into his pocket and wandered on.
He felt drawn, guilt-ridden, to the sideshow, outlawed in his country. For a mere $5, he could purchase the privilege of viewing ten exhibits through ten doors. The first, he was told by the carnie barker, was something English for an Englishman. A lord found himself a lady at an American beauty pageant while playing away from home. He took her to the sideshow, where he was hypnotised by the expert sideshow performer Marcello. Since the lord had a laugh like a donkey, the lady told Marcello to turn him into one. The lord's braying amused her briefly, but she wanted something else. She told Marcello to turn him into a rabbit, as he'd been after her like one. He did. As the lord hopped about the stage, Marcello dropped dead of a heart attack. No one could snap the Englishman out of his trance.
Having viewed the unfortunate man, Ben remarked dubiously that it could be any old bloke pretending to be a rabbit. Ah, said the carnie man. ( Consider Door 2! ) |
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| Dr Bones, ? - 28 October 2009 |
[20091028|20:49] |
Many moons ago, Marco and I went to get a coffee after a rock-climbing trip. On the way out of Peet's, he was adopted on the pavement by a large grey cat of indeterminate age. Said cat spent a number of happy years with us in San Diego and Los Angeles. When it came time to move to London, he had to stay behind with my parents and my own cat, Molly.
Two years ago, he was diagnosed with 25% kidney function and given two months to live. Typically, the irascible grey cat was having none of that and continued to dominate my parents shamelessly.
Four days ago, he stopped eating and drinking. Today, my parents made the difficult decision to take him to the vet.
Good night, Dr Bones
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| Overheard in England |
[20091026|14:38] |
To Christina, the young lady on the train who volubly discussed a recent "infidelity" with a seatmate for the entire 50 minute journey from Cambridge to London Kings Cross,
First of all, if you are agonizing about whether or not to tell your boyfriend, perhaps it is not wise to do so on an otherwise silent - and packed - train carriage. Secondly, if you are agonizing about whether or not to tell your boyfriend, perhaps it is not wise to phone up your entire circle of acquaintances and tell them about it so that everyone knows about it except him. It will not stay that way for long. Thirdly, from what I gather, having been seated in the privileged position directly in front of you, you got drunk with a male friend, who also has a girlfriend. You let him sleep at yours, during the course of which he made a pass at you. You didn't shag him. You didn't even kiss him. Even if you are currently lying to your friends and yourself, this is not the end of the goddamn world. Why don't you face up to the fact that what you're really after is the pleasure of making a tearful, heartrending confession? And the romantic, painful reconciliation scene? I can almost guarantee, however, that the way you're going about it ensures that should you eventually decide to tell him, this is not what you'll get.
xo xo
nanila
PS Explain to me how it is that you did not spontaneously combust from all the hatred being directed at you by my fellow commuters.
To Christina's boyfriend,
Maybe she's not a cheater, but she definitely is a drama queen. This will happen again. So unless you happen to be equally fond of public scenes of remonstrance and floods of tears, I'd suggest a quiet exit at your earliest convenience. HA! Ahem, excuse me, something in my throat.
Good luck with that,
nanila |
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| File Under: Getting Old & Boring |
[20091025|20:18] |
I've spent the last three weekends being a happy housewife. Okay, we've done other stuff, like having people round and getting drunk, or going to the pub and getting drunk. But the bits that give me a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment have been the housework and the baking. For instance, on Saturday I cleaned the whole house and made zucchini bread, which I refuse to rename "courgette bread" for the Brits. Today, I did all the laundry and hung it outside so it smells nice and fresh. I trimmed back the brambles encroaching from the jungle that masquerades as next door's garden. I dug up a large section of the garden near the house, separated out and replanted all the crocus bulbs I found, and planted a batch of tulips.
After dark, we popped over to the Botanic Gardens for a bizarre event called the "Plant Orchestra". The gardens allowed a Bristolian artist to spend several nights wiring up 60 plants in the Palm House to record the sounds they made. He chose the best 15 for the Orchestra. Visitors walk through the Palm House at night and listen to the recordings. The members of the Orchestra have green flashing LEDs nestled amongst their foliage. The banana palm gurgles. The capsicum crackles. The bamboo sounds like the lurching of a distant train. It is a most peculiar experience, and rather magical, especially when you look up and see the constellations of the northern hemisphere through the roof of the hot tropical glass house.
I fear I'm in great danger of settling down.
If you read this far without falling asleep, congratulations! Have some kitten pictures. And a disheveled Catmother.
Catmother, just awoken & in her oversized dressing gown
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| Life, the Universe and...Physics |
[20091019|14:52] |
Er, this is totally last minute as my colleague who was supposed to be on the panel has fallen ill. But if any Londoners are interested, you can find me tonight at 93 Feet East, E1 6QL. I will have the mini-magnetometers with me & believe I am expected to be geeky about space, Cassini, Saturn, etc. in a relaxed & friendly atmosphere, i.e. a bar.
Event blurb
Flyer
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