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.
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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.
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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.Leave a comment
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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.Ophelia spells out the reality: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.
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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)Leave a comment
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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.
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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.4 responses to “The End of Time”
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Yes I’d also go with that pun being the plot driving force. I need to rewatch that second episode, I was looking at my watch thinking what on earth are they going to do for the next 20 minutes but by the end I was almost reconciled to it. Bit like – to take a rather over the top simile – the end of Rosenkavalier – all the oomph goes out of the plot and the author is just left to do his own rather wonderful thing!
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Robert, thanks. Do you know, I’ve never actually seen Der Rosenkavalier – yet another thing to try and do before I die! The ending rather reminded me of the last 20 minutes of Jackson’s Return of the King – it had the same bittersweet quality…
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I entirely agree – this was such a disappointing finale given the excellent episodes that had come before, such as "Blink!". Being dropped out of a spacecraft and falling through a glass ceiling about 50 foot to a concrete floor without injury appears to be an as-yet undemonstrated gift of a Time Lord, amongst the many other plot holes. Like you, I think it is great that Russell Davies has revamped the franchise, but someone should have taken a trip back in time to when he penned this and had a word in his ear.
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Andy, it’s rather telling that Blink! was one of the Steven Moffat episodes. It’s giving me hope that the next series will raise the bar once again…
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Photos of the Year
Here are my photos from 2009 that I am most pleased with. They’re no great shakes from a professional point of view, but I am happy with them…
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Bertrand Russell on God
Funny how we are saying the same things 50 years later, and the message still hasn’t sunk in…Leave a comment
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There and Back Again
A trip from the Himalayas to the furthest known reaches of the universe and back again in six minutes. Wonderful.Leave a comment
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A Queen’s Christmas Message
Bette Bourne delivers her alternative Christmas message. Merry Christmas, Bette.Leave a comment
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Alma
One of the traditions of the BBC is to have a ghost story at Christmas. I don’t know whether there will be one this year, but here’s a short animation that seems to fit the bill. You just know from very early on that it’s not going to end well…Leave a comment
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Getting Colder…
We’re having a cold snap at the moment, and some of the visitors to the garden have noticed the bird feeder…
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The Unconsidered Life
A short video of the philosopher AC Grayling talking about the need for critical thinking, and being a well-informed citizen of the world.Leave a comment
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Storm
I’ve mentioned it before, but here’s another version of Tim Minchin’s wonderful poem "Storm"…Leave a comment
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Depressed? – Very!
Ben Goldacre has another excellent Bad Science column – this week looking at Climate Science – and the truly depressing vile mixture of denialism and conspiracy theories that’s swirling around it. As Ben says, "the same rhetorical themes [are] re-emerging in climate change foolishness that you see in aids denialism, homeopathy, and anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists". Add to that the fact that Zombie arguments are stalking the land of public discourse in droves:‘arguments which survive to be raised again, for eternity, no matter how many times they are shot down. “Homeopathy worked for me”, and the rest. Zombie arguments survive, they get up and live again, immortal and resistant to all refutation, because they do not live or die by the normal standards of mortal arguments. There’s a huge list of them at realclimate.org, with refutations. There are huge lists of them everywhere. It makes no difference’.I get very depressed when I read the comments of people who constantly reiterate these Zombie arguments. Rationality has seemingly gone out the window with them. Mind you, I have also little hope that Copenhagen will produce anything of value. At best, it will be a case of too little, too late. Not that this will affect me much – I’ll almost certainly be dead before the more drastic effects of climate change will impinge on me. But my great-nephew is almost twelve, and there seems little doubt that his life will be greatly affected by the changes. He and others of his generation will be quite justified in cursing us for being people who wilfully stuck their heads in the sand and partying like there was no tomorrow. Which, when you think about it, might well turn out to be the case, at least for civilisation as we know it.Leave a comment
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Pretentious? – Moi?
Olympus UK have launched their new PEN camera with a series of video adverts. You can see them here – click on the video tab to choose between them (once you’ve pressed play to activate it).I have to say that I’m in the camp that finds the Kevin Spacey adverts pretentious twaddle; more evidence that Marketing people should be first up against the wall, come the revolution. However, the ‘Stop Motion’ advert is a little gem. It also tells you absolutely nothing about the camera, but as a work of art, it shines.Leave a comment
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Foreign Influence At Work
Another report in The Observer today about the anti-gay bigotry that is growing in Uganda. The report also makes it clear that Uganda is not the only country in Africa where gay people are proscribed – there are a total of 37 countries where gay sex is illegal, in some cases punishable by death. In the meantime, ordinary Ugandans have to tread very carefully.Leave a comment
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