culture

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A tale of three astronauts – and Soichi Noguchi’s photographs

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away…

Or something like that.

It was actually 1983 and Langdon Hills, Essex – and two friends, Bob and Ben, dreamed of becoming astronauts.

They used to sneak off to the school library in Lincewood Junior School  to look at space books. They wrote to NASA. They wrote space stories and they made space project books.

Then one day reality bit, as it tends to, and the dream died. One got embroiled in politics and the other joined the army (no prizes for guessing which I didn’t do!).

However, just at the time that Ben and Bob were dreaming space, Soichi Noguchi was in his penultimate year at Chigasaki-Hokuryo High School, about to study Aeronautical Engineering at Tokyo University.  In 1996, while Ben was stepping into Parliament for the first time, Noguchi was selected to train as an astronaut.

Noguchi was later lucky enough to travel to the International Space Station. His official NASA biography  is enough to make a Ben or a Bob green with envy:

SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIENCE: STS-114 Discovery (July 26-August 9, 2005) was the Return to Flight mission during which the Shuttle docked with the International Space Station and the crew tested and evaluated new procedures for flight safety and Shuttle inspection and repair techniques.  Noguchi served as MS-1 and EV-1 and performed 3 EVAs (spacewalks) totaling 20 hours and 5 minutes.  After a 2-week, 5.8 million mile journey in space, the orbiter and its crew of seven astronauts returned to land at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Noguchi next launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft on December 21, 2009, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, docking with the International Space Station two days later to join Expedition 22 crew.  He became the first Japanese to fly on Soyuz as left-seat Flight Engineer.  For the next 161 days, Noguchi lived and worked aboard the International Space Station as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 22/23, accomplishing Kibo full configuration assembly complete.  The Expedition 23 crew returned to a safe landing in central Kazakhstan on June 2, 2010.  In completing this long duration mission, Noguchi logged 163 days in space.

Whilst in space, Noguchi took a series of amazing pictures which he tweeted from the ISS. Below is a selection of some of my favourites.

In the mean time, neither Bob nor Ben have lost their interest in space. Bob assures Ben that he is delaying his visit to Jodrell Bank until Ben can get up there.

And both can take heart from the fact that Soichi Noguchi is at least seven years older than either of them and so there’s time yet for them to get their butts up to the ISS.

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Words we (I) hate

Marist Poll, the polling organisation that works out of Marist College, has released details of its survey of the most irritating words in the English language. Obviously, this has a US slant, though it’s surprising how they actually tick a box on this side of the Atlantic, too (perhaps because some are clearly American):

  1. Whatever
  2. Like
  3. You know
  4. Just sayin’
  5. Twitterverse
  6. Gotcha
  7. Unsure

I’d like to chuck in the following words/phrases:

  1. Aks (the word is “ask” – and no, you don’t sound “street”)
  2. Lulz (it’s not a word – it’s derived from the text speak acronym “lol” and you sound a prat)
  3. Fleg (don’t even go there)
  4. I personally (grrr)
  5. Shouldn’t of (have!)
  6. Absolutely (yes…)
  7. Sick (it does NOT mean good – it is what happens after you’ve been a dick and drunk too much – or caught the norovirus)

Please feel free to add your own pet hates.

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A mobile life

I’ve always been a techno-junky, at least as long as I can remember. It’s taken the rest of the world a long time to catch up, but thankfully Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Rajesh are showing the world just how cool us über-nerds are. (That’s The Big Bang Theory for anyone who spent 2012 living on Mars.)

It was Star Trek that did it, I think. Between the communicator, the tricorder and the universal translator there was never much chance for an inquisitive sort like me, who was convinced that aliens were waiting to land, if not here already. (I never bought the theory that the planet was being run by giant lizards. That seemed a little silly. Like David Icke – who I foggily remember for his sports commentary on Grandstand, not the Illuminati.) And for interest, How Stuff Works has a a fascinating article on the 100 Star Trek technologies that have come into being

I remember the first mobile phone I had.

It was Dad’s phone that he passed over to me when I started work. It was a Nokia, a 2140 on the Orange network – the only phone available on Orange when the network launched in 1994. Those of you who had one may remember the retractable antenna. I remember how cool it felt when several  people, a lot older than me, and a lot more important, needed to make phone calls whilst we were stuck in a meeting. Their surprise when I pulled out a cell phone (!) was very gratifying in a geeky, nerdy kind of way.

After that there was no stopping me. Mobile phones and mini-computing became technological areas of fascination and over the years I acquired a series of mobile phones, mini-computers and tablets.

This morning, in the cab on the way to church, a guy on Radio 5 was talking about wearable computers the size of a stud earring that he thinks will be the norm by 2040, which will contain more computing power than every device in the average home today. He was saying, quite straight-forwardly, than in 15-20 years we will have electronic circuitry printed directly onto our skin and that transaction by reading this circuitry will be quite normal. The stud earrings will create local networks to allow off-grid information exchange, ostensibly to protect privacy.

If that sounds insane, you should know that the EES (Electrical Epidermal System) is already here, designed two years ago by engineers John Rogers  and Todd Coleman to collect information on your vital organs and transmit it back wirelessly to a computer.

I wonder if the sense of incredulity I felt was anything like that of those who shook their heads and wondered why on earth I thought I needed a phone in my pocket? Perhaps such imprints and implants will indeed be the norm, even in my lifetime, and we will dispense with our mobiles and games consoles.

In the meantime, here is a gallery of the phones and associated gizmos that, over the years, have led to technology becoming hard-wired into my social and professional life.

Oh… And a small legacy of one of my favourite phones, the Nokia N70 – the picture of Portreath at the top of the blog was taken on it, a good few years ago now.

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Fun theory: or how to make boring “good” stuff fun to do

The Fun Theory is a very entertaining little site that looks at ways of encouraging healthier or more civic-minded behaviour by making things fun to do. Yeah, yeah, there’ll be a bunch of kill-joys who’ll mutter and moan about social engineering as they choose to throw their litter on the ground or break the speed limit (check out the site for that one), but it’s an intriguing idea that turns many ideas of functional municipal design on their head.

Here are two of my favourites.

In the first clip they ask if they can persuade more people to throw their rubbish in the bin if they make it fun to do. In the second, they ask if they can encourage more people to use the stairs than the escalator if, again, they make them fun to use.

I think this has something going for it.

The world’s deepest bin

Piano stairs

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Cold calling, Bockwurst and dying manners (mine)

It happens at least three times a day, according to my telephone’s log. Sometimes it can be three times an hour.

Someone I don’t know, in a place I have never been to, places a call through a robot dialler and attempts to convince me that, despite a suspiciously subcontinental accent, they are called Belinda – or jauntily assures me with a pleasant Scottish twang that I signed up to receive marketing calls from their clients (what sort of imbecile would knowingly do that?!).

Who are these people who make these calls – and how has it become socially acceptable to force yourself on someone’s time like some irresistible cyber-pedlar? When did it become okay to ignore the pitifully ineffective Telephone Preference Service system so that a student in Glasgow or a housewife in Bangalore can drag you out of the loo, only for you to hear the ghost in the machine click and the line fall dead, your tormentor waiting until you resume your thronely duties to try again?

Sometimes, in my more conspiratorial moments, I wonder if TPS sells lists of numbers just to piss us off.

It is yet another mark of the slow and painful death of manners in the modern age (see Kino rage: the death of cinema etiquette (or… Be quiet!)). It strikes me as quite ironic, really, that while political parties – generally not the most popular of organisations – go to great lengths and expense to ensure their phone lists are TPS-compliant, following the guidance of the Information Commissioner’s Office, it is companies, sales canvassers and charities – yes, even sodding charities – that regularly show a maverick disregard for the law.

So, in an act of defiance which makes me feel a little more like Han Solo (assisting rather than leading the Rebellion), I have taken to rarely answering my land-line unless I recognise the number – or I want a little sport.

Callers for my ex-wife, who left ten years ago, or my ex-partner, who left a year and a half ago, are met with a stunned silence and a stifled sob, before being angrily told they have just dredged up the most painful of memories that I have spent many years trying to bury. (Just to be clear, for anyone who might be concerned I am suffering relationship-related PTSD, this is not true.) In the wrong moment, callers for “Is that Mr Williams?” may simply encounter the version of me that has suspended all rules of civility and receive a stream of epithets worthy of the bluest sergeant major. More mischievously, I might assent to their request to speak to him if they provide the right password. That can be a source of some bafflement.

Or asking extremely technical and detailed questions, before declining.

Or simply answering “yes” to every question.

And finally, those concerned people from Windows (yeah, right) who are at pains to tell me that there is a problem with my computer and that I need their very expensive computer services are usually flummoxed if I request details of the IP address they logged for my computer. Or better still, if I deny the existence of the computer at all and express my concern that there is clearly one planted in the house and operating without my knowledge and request their assistance locating it.

I don’t buy this crap about them “just doing their job”. Of course they are – but their job is intrusive and bloody annoying. If I were being paid to walk around behind people in the street in a giant sausage suit and stick Bockwurst in their ears I would be rightly pilloried for being an annoying arse. “Just doing my job” is not a defence that would get me very far – particularly if those people had paid for a service in all good faith that expressly prohibited people from following them around in giant sausage suits and sticking Bockwurst in their ears. Therefore, when you interrupt the film I am watching, or the book I am reading in the bathroom (currently the rather brilliant collection of short stories by William Trevor), or the long-range sniper shot I am just about to take on the Operation Firestorm map, you’ll have to forgive me if my reaction abandons socially acceptable norms.

In responding like this, I realise that the last laugh is probably on me. I am adopting behaviours that further erode the Blyton-esque values of trust and politeness and goodwill and friendliness that were the bedrock of my growing-up and which seem increasingly absent in many of today’s social transactions.

But they started it. They broke the rules first. Not me.

So. Game on.

Other tips for dealing with cold callers greatly appreciated.

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Kino rage: the death of cinema etiquette (or… Be quiet!)

What is it about cinema? I’ve always loved it and we are spoiled today with an array of multiplexes. With their smaller studio screens they have even recognised that there is a market for art house and foreign cinema, as well as the latest blockbuster, so even those of a more discerning taste can find something to watch.

However, today’s excursion to Skyfall, a second viewing, mid-week and starting at just about tea time, was an eye-opener as far as the behaviour of other cinemas-goers  went. Perhaps at 40 I am becoming a curmudgeonly old git. On the other hand, perhaps my twat toleration levels are severely depleted. Anyway, herewith some handy thoughts to make communal viewing a more pleasurable experience, inspired by unprecedented levels of cretinous behaviour at today’s screening.

Start time

It used to be that you had to buy a local newspaper to find out what was on at the local cinema. Now, though, with a little initiative, you can find the start time listed online. Ain’t technology great? Knowing when the film begins is Very Handy. It means you don’t have to walk in after the adverts, after the trailers and after the opening sequences. Yes, that goes for all TWELVE of you that did that today. You can actually enjoy the whole film (!) if you turn up on time.

Seats

Cinemas generally allocate seats. You can find your seat reference handily printed on your ticket. Don’t be a twat and pretend that you didn’t know you were sitting in the premium seats when you only paid for standard. It’s only embarrassing for you when you are asked to move.

Fidgeting

Sit still. I realise this is a challenge in our ADHD-addled 21st Century world, but honestly. The length of the film can be found online. If you can’t sit still, don’t bloody ruin it for the rest of us by fidgeting like an arse and making your chair squeak.

Food and drink

It’s a cinema. Not a restaurant. Of course have a snack or sweets. But EAT QUIETLY. And certainly with your mouth shut, unlike the munching fules that insisted on rustling their popcorn today before chomping away with their mouths open, so we could all share in the sonorous delights of their mastication.

The loo

Go before the film. Trust me. It’s the best plan. As above, you can tell how long the film lasts. You know how long you can usually go without going. So go before. And don’t order that bucket-sized Pepsi which is a diabetes bomb waiting to explode. You never know when you are going to rub up against the person who won’t move or stand up to let you out. Plan ahead.

Phones

Does this really need saying? Turn them off! You are not James Bond, even if you think you are. You are not going to be called into action. If you are awaiting an important call, or are concerned about the welfare of someone else, get your priorities right and get out of the cinema. It’s not like you have to wait years for it to come out on DVD. You are NOT more special than the rest of us and you really can survive without a text message for two hours. There was a time when people went their entire lives without sending or receiving texts. No, honestly. It is true.

Talking

Don’t! Again, does this really need saying? The odd whisper? Of course. A gasp of surprise? Definitely. Laughter? If appropriate. Talking? NEVER!

And finally?

Follow these simple rules and enjoy the film. Or else…

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V-Day – One Billion Rising: an essential revolution

1br-logo-web

Someone I am close to recently sent me the link to One Billion Rising. The statistics are absolutely shocking.

One in three women on our planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. Just think about that for a moment. Think of the number of people that means. It is a staggering and numbing statistic which should be a call to arms for right-minded people everywhere.

One Billion Rising is an Internet movement harnessing the power of global social networking to take a peaceful stand across the world against violence against women, using the power of dance.

Surely it must be the responsibility of those of us who think we are right-minded to consider the consequences of cultural norms and narratives that perpetuate the circumstances in which such violence is perpetrated? Rape culture is not a figment of the feminist imagination. Yes, it is a shocking term  that makes many of us feel uncomfortable. Yes, it switches many people off. But it is very real and silence is safety’s worst enemy.

And rape culture is not always overt. It is the rolled eyes of good people who embarrassedly dismiss the lecherous remarks and whistling of “mates” as offensive but harmless, effectively validating the objectification of women through inaction. It is the zealous liberalism that subordinates the fear felt by women on the street to the ‘right’ to say what we want, to whom we want, all in the name of ‘free speech’. It is the badly-lit subway or council estate built and not maintained without thought given to the safety of those who use them, providing instead havens for harassers and predators. It is the everyday language that excludes and belittles and generates a sense of inferiority.

John Stuart Mill’s ‘Harm principle‘ has been fundamental to my liberalism since I first stumbled across it: the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against  their will, is to prevent harm to others. It is not an academic exercise. It is a practical guide to organising our communities and society and we urgently need to develop an understanding of how damaging our failure to act on behaviour that can lead to such statistics as those highlighted by One Billion Rising.

Why do I care? Why do I “bang on about it” (as one friend put it)?

Because it matters. Simple as.

Everyone is entitled to live their lives peaceably and as they choose – and without fear, particularly of this most vile and humiliating crime.

So.

Join One Billion Rising. In their words:

RISE!

  • It is February 14, 2013. Leave your work, leave your school, interrupt the day, dance, and demand an end to the violence!

  • Make February 14, 2013 a “day of action” by organizing your friends or colleagues to volunteer at local women’s shelters or service centers – promote your plan on the OBR Facebook page and across your own social networks.

  • Consider the impact of your rising. What mark can you and those who rise with you leave behind in your community?  Organize to change a law, get more funding for women’s programs, or model new non-violent ways of being in your city, office, or college.

This is the message  I received on signing up:

Thank you for joining ONE BILLION RISING, V-Day’s most ambitious campaign yet.

When we started V-Day 14 years ago, we had the outrageous idea that we could end violence against women. Since then, hundreds of thousands of V-Day activists in audiences and on stages in over 140 countries have come together to demand an end to violence against women and girls. The funds we’ve raised together have kept organizations’ doors open, and the issue front and center in local media.

But still today, the United Nations states that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime that’s more than one billion women and girls alive today.

V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, showing them exactly what one billion looks like.

ONE BILLION RISING is a promise that on February 14th, 2013, we will ensure that millions of women and men rise up around the world to say, “ENOUGH. The violence ends NOW.”

Ben, there is so much more to come. But for right now, you can help us launch ONE BILLION RISING with a few simple actions:

ONE BILLION RISING will make the earth move by uniting us through dance across every country.

Ben, I look forward to dancing, striking and rising to end violence against women and girls together with you.

In solidarity,

Eve Ensler
Playwright, Founder of V-Day
One Billion Rising

Find your local Rising here.

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Music’s endless capacity to inspire

Wherever you are in the world, whatever you do, music seems to have an incredible capacity to lift the spirits and create a sense of purpose and community. Here are two very different examples of that inspirational power in action.

The first is a musical flashmob that was sponsored by Spain’s fifth largest bank, Som Sabadell, to celebrate its 130th year of operations. Flashmobs have a wonderful way of startling people with their incongruity whilst at the same time generating a sense of fun and bystander participation in something quite special.

The second is the amazing story of Paraguay’s Landfill Harmonic, where children and young adults have made their instruments exclusively from rubbish reclaimed from the tip in Catuera. Built on top of a landfill that is still active, receiving 1,500 tonnes of waste a day, and where the water is regularly polluted, the story of this little band is nothing short of miraculous. Director of the orchestra, Favo Chavez has created something very special, using music to help the local youngsters aspire to rise above the danger and misery of their lives.

A film is in production about their stunning achievements.

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Effervescent Theatre’s dark magic… And my future brother-in-law’s film-acting debut!

“Heed now the tale of Rapunzel and Thyme,

Tick tock tick tock,

Whose lives were bound by a pocketwatch,

Tick tock tick tock…”

Effervescent Theatre have a new production opening in Plymouth on 13th February. It’s called The Fish Hearted Bride and is a dark and twisted story that mixes in elements of well-known fairy tales to create a show for all the family.

As part of the promo, my ultra-cool future brother-in-law was asked to star in their promotional film trailer. Check it out below and tell me he shouldn’t be in the next Tolkien movie, swinging a bloody great sword!

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To infinity and beyond: Lego’s final frontier?

For those who missed it last month, this is one Romanian teenager’s astonishing and, in a strange way, deeply affecting tribute to the wonder of space exploration and the demise of the shuttle programme.

On 31st December, 2011, Oaida Raul, who has always been fascinated by space exploration (Bob and I know a thing or two about that), launched a Lego replica of the shuttle from a site near Lauda-Königshofen, in Germany. He had found support and backing on the Internet from a random businessman he had made contact with on Twitter and then Skype. They filmed the flight from a camera attached to the same helium balloon as the Lego craft and the HD film of it is simply awe-inspiring.

That combination of boyhood dreams, determination to celebrate the end of a space programme that saw both incredible discoveries and crushing tragedy, technology enabling two people whose world’s would ordinarily never collide to conspire in such a joyful endeavour is a reassuring testimony to humankind in what seem such cold, cruel times.

Read the story in his own words.

And click through to YouTube to watch the video in HD. It really is worth it.

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