Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2005

  • The Time Machine

    Well, the hubby’s away tonight, so I thought I would again indulge in a film on the trusty DVD player. This time, my choice was The Time Machine. No, not the George Pal version from 1960, but the version from 2002, by Simon Wells – the grandson of H. G. Wells.

    Ooh, but I did enjoy it!

    Not that I wish to deprecate the George Pal version. I have very fond memories of it. For my 11th birthday, my parents treated me – and all the children who were invited to my 11th birthday party – to a showing of the film in the Regal Cinema in Douglas. Gosh, it was magical – the curtain gradually rising, before the blackout, to reveal worlds that we could never have imagined – that was so, so extraordinary! It honestly does still bring tears to my eyes. A slight pause, while I blow my nose and wipe away the tears for my parents to whom I owe so much. And I don’t mean that in any facetious sense. I truly do thank the universe for their presence in my life. They did their best, and I’m truly grateful for it.

    Anyway.

    Sorry – again a pause to wipe the tears.

    Simon Wells’ version of "The Time Machine". Well, actually, I enjoyed this as well. I confess that I have never read H. G. Wells’ original version, so perhaps it was not "true to the original". Having said that, I think that Simon Wells turned in a very credible rendering.

    The whole drive of the need to invent a time machine, being powered by the loss of the love of the hero’s life, Emma, was very good.  

    And, perhaps it was just me, but the realisation of the world of the Eloi in this version was as though the world of Riven had come to life. OK – shallow, I know, but that’s how it seemed to me.

    And I just adored Orlando Jones’ camp rendering of a know-it-all piece of database software. "Live long and prosper", indeed!

  • Conscious Torment

    Ophelia, over at the ButterfliesAndWheels blog, confesses that she doesn’t understand why people willingly sign up to elements contained in the statement of faith published by Patrick Henry College, a Christian university in the US. It’s probably because they don’t even think about what is being said.

    Actually, the web page of the university setting out its mission and values makes fairly scary reading as a whole. I love the flip-flop when it comes to studying biology at PHC:

    Creation. Any biology, Bible or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God’s creative work, as described in Genesis 1:1-31, was completed in six twenty-four hour days. All faculty for such courses will be chosen on the basis of their personal adherence to this view. PHC expects its faculty in these courses, as in all courses, to expose students to alternate theories and the data, if any, which support those theories. In this context, PHC in particular expects its biology faculty to provide a full exposition of the claims of the theory of Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and other major theories while, in the end, teach creation as both biblically true and as the best fit to observed data.

    And then there’s:

    Government systems such as communism and socialism, which give the government primary control over property, are a violation of God’s creation order.

    And finally, we have:

    Equality. We hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. All human beings are created in God’s image, and all are precious and equal in His sight. Bigotry is a sin against God and man.

    Perhaps the authors could ponder the extent of their own bigotry while reading Matthew 7:3. Clearly, some men are created more equal than others.

    Oh well, for light relief, perhaps we should attend the PHC’s drama club’s production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband.

  • “Backup Trauma” Wins Award

    Back in March, I mentioned "The Institute for Backup Trauma", a commercial starring John Cleese as Dr. Twain Weck. It’s apparently won a "Telly Award". Not surprising really, it’s a very well done spoof. 

  • A Bank with Ethics

    The Co-op Bank in the UK has asked an evangelical Christian group to close its account at the bank because of the group’s anti-homosexual views. The bank stated that the opinions of Christian Voice were incompatible with the bank’ stance on diversity and human rights.

    Good for them! Christian Voice is a very extreme organisation. Its director, Stephen Green, was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning.

    As Justin McKeating wrote on the Chicken Yoghurt blog today: "As cheering as it was to hear Stephen Green exposed as a whinnying fool yet again, I think it’s a little unfair that such a small unrepresentative group of yahoos are given all this airtime". True, but Green was given ample opportunity to show himself up as a bigot and an idiot, and he did not disappoint one iota. A link to the radio interview is on the Chicken Yoghurt blog. 

  • Sappho Speaks

    Sappho had a great reputation as a poetess in the time of the ancient Greeks, yet only three complete poems, plus fragments of verse, have survived to our day. So there’s great excitement over the fact that another complete poem (of 12 lines) has now been identified and published. The full story, by Martin West, emeritus fellow of All Souls, Oford, is published in this week’s Times Literary Supplement.

    The poem itself is a tiny masterpiece, describing the poetess’ feeling of growing old, while being surrounded by young women. She accepts her fate:

    This state I oft bemoan; but what’s to do?
    Not to grow old, being human, there’s no way.

    I know what she means…

  • Phew, What a Scorcher!

    We’re having something of a heatwave in The Netherlands at the moment. I think it was something like 30 degrees Centigrade today. Instead of going to the gym, I decided to take the camera and go for a cycle ride in the country instead. You can see some of the results here in the photos called "Summer Day in Reeuwijk". If you want to see better quality versions of the photos, then go to my Flickr space and browse the Nature set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcoupe/sets/436835/ 

  • Happy Birthday, Alan!

    And I almost missed it…

    Today marks the birth of Alan Turing, mathematician, logician and one of the founders of computer science. He worked at Bletchley Park during World War II and was instrumental in cracking the Enigma code.

    He was homosexual, and, according to the laws at the time, was prosecuted for "gross indecency and sexual perversion". As a result it seems likely that he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

    His life became the subject of a play written by Hugh Whitemore: Breaking the Code. While a dramatisation, it still conveys something of the life and pressures that Turing must have been under. The title role was played by Derek Jacobi, who was perfect. As Jacobi himself has said, "the play really does put across the story of Alan Turing as a man who saved the State and who was then destroyed by the State".

    The play is available on video with Jacobi in the role. Try and track it down if you can. At all costs avoid Enigma – a crass film based on Robert Harris’ novel of the same name. The film overlays many of Turing’s thoughts and ideas onto its fictional heterosexual hero. Yet another example of the ways in which gays are edited out of history.

    Turing was born in a house that is now the Colonnade Hotel, in Maida Vale, London. The fact is marked by a blue plaque (see the photograph). I spent a number of happy years living just around the corner, in Bristol Gardens, and was pleased to discover the Turing connection. Another connection was that in the days of the Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s, I met with Andrew Hodges, who became Turing’s biographer, and who maintains a web site devoted to the life and work of Turing.

  • News From Iraq

    Steeph, over at his blog, has a truly disturbing entry: News about Iraq the mainstream media won’t give you. The third link in particular is simply mind-numbing. I want it not to be true, but it probably is. Either way, this is powerful propaganda – and one that pushes towards an even worse situation. A story in today’s Guardian about a CIA report seems only to confirm that.

  • The Pavement Art of Julian Beever

    I’ve always been fascinated by Trompe l’oeil.  Now, Julian Beever takes it to new pastures with his 3D pavement art.

    (hat tip to Mind Hacks)

  • Jack Kilby: 1923 – 2005

    Damn, there’s a run of obituaries in today’s Guardian that I feel the need to mention. The last one is of Jack Kilby, "the acknowledged inventor of the microchip, foundation of the modern electronics industry".

    He came up with the idea of the integrated circuit in 1958. The timing meant that while I spent a few years at University doing electronic engineering and circuit design based on discrete components, by the time I got into Industry, much of that was being swept aside by integrated circuits. It was amazing to watch the change that occurred in the electronics industry firsthand.

  • Charles Keeling: 1928 – 2005

    At also in today’s Guardian, the obituary of Charles Keeling, the scientist credited with being the first man to accurately measure the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One of his four sons is a leading climate scientist, carrying the torch of science on from the father.

  • Disley Jones: 1926 – 2005

    The Guardian today carries the obituary of Disley Jones, who has died at the age of 79. The obituary is sub-headlined: Theatrical polymath, film production designer, restauranteur, bon vivant and handful. He certainly seems to have been that. A man who was not afraid to take life by the scruff of the neck and shake it. A bit of colour has ebbed out of the world.

  • Brain scans find the penis at last

    This week’s New Scientist reports that at last scientists have found the area of the brain that is responsible for the penis.

    The scientist reporting the discovery says: "The only depressing thing, is that the representation is very small." Who said the universe didn’t have a sense of humour?

  • Videoletters in The Balkans

    An entry over at the WorldChanging blog draws my attention to the work of two Dutch documentary makers: Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger. They have used the medium of videoletters to put people driven apart by the war in former Yugoslavia back in touch with each other. The results are heartrending to watch.

  • The Semiotics of Coathangers

    Something interesting happened today in my brain when I read a blog entry over at Feministe. The entry was about Poise Pro-choice Messenger bags. Now the first thing I saw was the photograph in the blog entry, with its arresting symbol – a coathanger framed in the universal "prohibited" symbol (a red circle bisected with a single red line – see below).

    When I saw that, I immediately thought it was a reference to Mommie Dearest – "No…wire…hangers!". Oops, wrong – slap wrist – stop being camp. It is in fact a symbol for the pro-choice movement. So then I had a moment of being deliciously confused over whether to laugh or be serious. That’s the trouble with semiotics – most of the time we bring our own cultural baggage that gets in the way of the pure reading of the word.

    By the way, this is a remarkable meeting. I think that that particular three-year old is going to turn out just fine.

  • I See The Moon…

    …the Moon Sees Me.

    I grew up hearing the recording of The Stargazers’ 1954 recording of this song being played on a shellac 78 – alas, I no longer have it. I was reminded of the old song today when I read about the fact that now is a good time to marvel in one of nature’s illusions – the moon is getting bigger!

     

  • RFC 1149

    Improbable Research today draws our attention to the inventor of the PING program – which tests connectivity between devices on a TCP/IP network.

    The computer standards behind all this are documented in Request For Comment papers (RFCs for short) that are held by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

    I think a better candidate for Improbable Research would have been RFC 1149 – a standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers…

  • The Ecological Footprint

    The Global Footprint Network and World Wildlife Foundation has published a report: "Europe 2005: The Ecological Footprint".

    The report shows that the European Union uses 20 per cent of what the world’s ecosystems provide in terms of fibres, food, energy, and waste absorption. Yet Europe is home to only 7 per cent of the world population. Europe’s demand on the planet has risen by almost 70 per cent since 1961.

    But of course, our American cousins do it so much bigger and better, so indubitably they will be proud of the fact that they are fucking up the planet so much faster than old Europe…

  • It’s a Miracle…

    A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent. According to the priest:

    "God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil"

    He also helpfully added:

    "I don’t understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests"

    Reminder to self: don’t visit any monasteries in Romania.

  • Don’t Pretend You Were Surprised…

    …about this story in today’s Observer? Really it’s not about the Bush administration against Blair’s administration, it’s about the Bush administration against the rest of the world… So, with a few removals of UK-feelgood spin, quotes from the story become that much starker:

    The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

    The documents show that Washington officials:

    • Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a ‘serious threat to human health and to ecosystems’;
    • Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
    • Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

    Among the sentences removed was the following: ‘Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.’

    Another section erased by the White House adds: ‘Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that … mankind’s activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.’

    Earlier this month, the senior science academies of the G8 nations, including the US National Academy of Science, issued a statement saying that evidence of climate change was clear enough to compel their leaders to take action. ‘There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring,’ they said.

    It is now clear that this advice has been completely ignored by Bush and his advisers. ‘Every year, it (local air pollution) causes millions of premature deaths, and suffering to millions more through respiratory disease,’ reads another statement removed by Washington.

    Bush = The Emperor Nero?