Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2010

  • aPun

    Martin (the editor of the Lay Scientist) has a rant about the iPad. I thought that first photo was almost worthy of Marcel Duchamp.

  • If A Building Could Dream…

  • Art and Life

    Years ago, I sat in the cinema watching Hollywood’s take on Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. One of the bits that stuck in my mind was the crystal cave sequence. Impressive though it was to my young mind, it simply cannot compare to the real thing…
     
     

  • The Problem of Theodicy

    I see that, in the wake of the Haitian earthquake, the Rev. Giles Fraser has used the event to ponder on the problem of theodicy. And it is true that I find it astonishing that many of the survivors thanked God for their deliverance, rather than having a wake-up call and deciding that either (a) He doesn’t exist or (b) He is a really evil and twisted bastard. However, I can’t help but feel that this paraphrase of Fraser’s words also has a ring of truth about it.

  • The Wilders Trial

    The trial of Geert Wilders began yesterday. Personally, I can’t stand the man, and loathe his opinions, but I am far from convinced that this trial is necessarily a good idea. Russell Blackford also has his reservations. Wilders is clearly guilty of making inflammatory anti-Muslim statements, but the question before the court is whether they are illegal. The NRC published an overview of the situation just before the trial began. The key point is:

    Wilders is charged with slandering a group and sowing hate, and discrimination on the basis of race or religion. He has targeted Muslims on the basis of their religion, the prosecution will argue, and non-western migrants or Moroccans on the basis of their race.

    I suspect that with courtroom theatrics, such as attempting to call Mohammed  Bouyeri (the murderer of Theo van Gogh) as a witness, Wilders will get the oxygen of publicity that he desires.

  • Licentiousness Is To Blame…

    As far as I’m concerned, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has previous form. That is to say, she has been known to write kack before. Here’s her latest. Russell Blackford flenses it very efficiently. Nothing more needs to be said.

  • Farewell, Miep

  • Subtle, It’s Not…

    A friend recently went to see Avatar in 3D at an IMAX cinema, and reported that it was “quite flabbergastingly impressive”, and “if this is the future technology of film-making, then I like it”. The nearest IMAX cinema to me is over two hours away, so I couldn’t see myself making the effort to go to that. However, a quick search showed that there was a 3D cinema located in nearby Winterswijk, so last night I went to see Avatar for myself.

    I totally agree that the film is an extremely impressive technical achievement, and visually stunning, but this is James Cameron that we are talking about, so it’s about as subtle as being bashed over the head with a lead pipe.

    That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, I did, but it’s not a ‘great’ film, in the sense of being a Citizen Kane or a 2001; at least in my view. The baddies are bad and the goodies are good – there’s no place for any moral ambiguity in Cameron’s films. And the allegories are up there in neon; the parallels with the European conquest of the Native Americans, or the second Iraq war – one character even utters the phrase ‘shock and awe’ for heaven’s sake, just in case anyone missed the point.

    And it has a happy ending – it’s clearly not real life… Still, as good escapist entertainment, it’s a fine film, and will probably set the bar for films to come in the same way as the original Star Wars did.

    There was also a 3D trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice – and I’ll definitely be going to see that in 3D. I’ll also be seeing it in Winterswijk. The cinema is bijou, the 3D auditorium has only 150 seats and it looks ever so slightly tired. But the staff are friendly, the sound system is good, the screen is big enough, and the 3D effect is excellent…

  • Schadenfreude Lives!

    The opening days of 2010 have brought an outbreak of schadenfreude, centred around Northern Ireland. Yes, it’s the Iris Robinson affair – quite literally so, as the object of her affections, 19 year-old Kirk McCambley, has attested. My friends from Northern Ireland (both Protestant and Catholic) have been following the unfolding of events breathlessly, and with dangerously high levels of schadenfreude. We all agree that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple than Peter and Iris Robinson. After all, it was she who publicly stated that being gay was an abomination, and used Leviticus to justify her stance, whilst conveniently forgetting the equally stern strictures against adultery in the very same chapter. Add to that the shenanigans over money and politicians denying any wrongdoing, and we have a truly heady brew of scandal.

    The only person who seems to be coming out of this with any semblance of dignity is Kirk McCambley himself, whose apparent naivety seems to be protecting him. Inevitably, he now has an Appreciation Society on Facebook with nearly 6,000 members…

  • The Uniqueness of Humans

    Here’s another terrific presentation from the incomparable Robert Sapolsky, this time giving an address to a graduating class of students. Well worth watching.

  • Still Life

    There’s a terrific article, and moving interview, about the historian Tony Judt in today’s Guardian. Go and read the article and, in particular, watch the interview. Sometimes I think we take for granted the amazing state of simply being in good health.

  • The Unbroken Thread

    Another wonderful mashup in the Symphony of Science series; this time with Carl Sagan, David Attenborough and Jane Goodall…
     
     

  • Mirror, Mirror…

    A short, but sweet, presentation by VS Ramachandran on the role that mirror neurons play in our consciousness. I’m not entirely convinced, though, by his claim that mirror neurons were responsible for the ‘big bang’ in human consciousness and culture about 75,000 years ago. After all, other species are known to possess mirror neurons and we haven’t seen similar leaps forward. Still, fascinating stuff.
     
     

  • Carbideschieten

    Around these parts, the Dutch traditionally celebrate New Year’s Eve with the traditional practice of carbideschieten – carbide shooting. It involves getting a milkchurn with a small hole in the base. Pop some calcium carbide into water for a moment, then put it in the milkchurn and close the churn with the lid or a football. When calcium carbide comes into contact with water, acetylene gas is produced. This is highly inflammable, so wait a little while, then apply a naked flame to the hole in the base of the churn. A most satisfyingly loud bang results, and the milkchurn acts as a cannon, firing the lid or the football at high speed through the air. The Dutch take great delight in doing this. They use the excuse that traditionally it was done to scare away evil spirits at the New Year, but I think it’s solely because it makes a very loud noise and will annoy any passing Health and Safety personnel.

    On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the whole neighbourhood was echoing to a sustained cannonade as various parties tried to outdo each other in carbideschieten. Accompanied by mulled wine, oliebollen and snert, a great time was had by all.

    20091231-1442-04

  • And Again…

    My word, the recent attempted attack on Kurt Westergaard does seem to be generating some pretty unpleasant comment. Following hot on the heels of the "analysis" on the BBC’s web site comes a piece penned by Nancy Graham Holm in The Guardian.
     
    You know that it isn’t going to be pretty when the piece is headlined "Prejudiced Danes Provoke Fanaticism" and the sub is "Publishing Kurt Westergaard’s cartoons was an aggressive act born of Denmark’s reluctance to respect religious belief". After picking my jaw up from the floor, I read further. It is, as Ophelia rightly says, a disgusting piece of writing.

  • Here We Go Again…

    This idiocy passes for analysis on the BBC News website in 2010:
    "Some independent religious scholars argue the cartoonists were wrong to offend Muslims and say the drawings made dialogue impossible".
    Bollocks.
     

    Notice the failure to point out that some ‘independent religious scholars’ (whatever that is supposed to mean) and some other kinds of people argue that on the contrary the cartoonists were not wrong to draw cartoons about Mohammed; notice the ‘wrong to offend Muslims’ as if what the cartoonists did had been to ‘offend Muslims’ as opposed to drawing cartoons; notice that any satirical or political or otherwise substantive cartoon can always ‘offend’ someone; notice giving the stupid evasive anonymous smeary ‘the cartoonists were wrong to offend Muslims’ claim the last word; notice doing that in an article about the attempted ax-murder of a 75-year-old cartoonist in his own house. Notice, and be disgusted.

     
     

  • What If…

    Sorry that I’m coming late to this, but here’s a terrific mashup of Doctor Who and 2001: A Space Odyssey…
     
       
     
    (hat tip to Nicholas Whyte)

  • Thrown to the Lions

    I’ve only just caught up with Danah Boyd’s description of her experience when presenting at the Web2.0 Expo event. It was clearly very distressing for her, and understandably so. It would seem that the use of Twitter provided a backchannel for an audience to carry on a completely different conversation instead of taking the trouble to pay attention to the presenter. Mob behaviour resulted. In my day, I only had the rudeness of seeing some members of the audience doing emails on their laptops while I was attempting to give a presentation.

  • The End of Time

    So today I watched the second part of The End of Time, the Doctor Who story in which David Tennant bows out of playing the tenth Doctor, and Russell T. Davies bows out of being the main scriptwriter.
     
    I have to say that I have mixed feelings. Kudos to Davies for successfully rebooting the whole Doctor Who story universe, and Tennant for being a good choice for the Doctor. But having said that, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that, for the most part, this series finale showed up the weaknesses of Davies’ writing.
     
    The first part struck me as though Davies was doing an awful lot of gleeful vamping of plot elements in order to build up to that awful pun uttered by The Master near the end. It was almost as if he had started with that pun and worked backwards from there. 
     
    The second part left me largely unmoved in directly inverse proportion to the amount of mayhem that was being portrayed on the screen. Only the quieter moments, and the elegaic farewells to other characters of past storylines in the closing minutes seemed to be worthy of the event. Bernard Cribbins, in particular, was a joy to watch.
     
    Now we have the next Doctor to look forward to. I’ll reserve judgement on the actor, but I am hoping for a lot from the new writer, Steven Moffat, who on past performance has already provided us with the best Doctor Who stories I’ve yet seen.