A trip across the pond

Posted on April 7, 2010 by jstreetley

Massachusetts State House, on my first day in Boston

Beautiful buildings and trees at Yale

So this last week I took a trip to the US, staying in Boston and New Haven. This whole America place is still quite new to me, having only been to New York and Orlando previously, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised by both places. Boston is particularly nice, having a great feel about it that takes the best bits from both New York and London compiled into the same place. I didn’t want to leave.

The weather was also fantastic, which combined with the scenery of almost everywhere we visited made for some great fun photography, which I’ve put in this Flickr set. I’d love to put them all in the post, but I think that’d get boring fast, so above is just a glimpse of all the beautiful places in that area of the world. I’ll definitely be going back: good job my host is on a 3-year course!

I also made it my mission to sample as many American things as I could, which I think amounts to the following:

Mountain Dew
Dunkin Donuts coffee/iced coffee/donuts
Nutter Butters
M&Ms (to be fair we have them in the UK too)
Chicago Uno Pizza

Not bad, I’d say.

Also, I couldn’t resist but buy a cheerleader uniform for my toy monkey Streetleyina, so here is me posing with her back in the UK when I dressed her up this morning!

Streetley with Streetleyina in her New England Patriot Cheerleader Squad get-up

Nailing my colours to the “rainbow” mast

Posted on March 28, 2010 by jstreetley

Just finished catching up with last night’s Over the Rainbow on BBC1 and thought I’d nail my colours to the mast early on regarding who I think is going to place where, as well as a few observations on the show.

Firstly I just loved how brilliant David Grindrod (casting director) was in the first programme on Friday. Even when he gives good news he doesn’t sound excited, just delivers it and bids farewell. I like that level of emotional detachment when judging something like this; just seems to give integrity.

Also, I wonder what happened to cause the addition of the 4 extra girls into the call-backs at ‘Dorothy Farm’. I have trouble believing it was always going to happen to unnerve the other auditionees, so wonder what the motive was. Equally, it seems unlike a TV programme (with the judges) to openly admit they’d made a mistake. I wonder who in the production company/production team for the theatre show wanted those girls in contention. Regardless, they seemed to be right given that 3 out of the 4 went on to make it to the studio (Jessica, Steph and Emma), and 2 of them made it straight to the live shows (Jessica and Steph).

Also, we get it, Graham Norton is gay. Last year we had Nancy jokes in I’d Do Anything and now we have “friend of Dorothy” jokes. Now it has been made, I hope we can move on, but I doubt it!

Anyway with out further ado, my predictions for the series. I should say that I like my musical theatre to be very typical musical theatre, so my choices are probably quite traditional, so I’m going to say who I’d like to win and how I think that will differ from who will actually win it. Also, I’m only going to take the 10 that went straight through to the live shows: will come on to the wild cards later, who are subject to a public vote for the 11th place.

1. Jessica
2. Stephanie
3. Dani

My top 3 all give off a sense of “musical theatre” I think. I can’t really put my finger on what marks someone out (to me) as theatrical rather than pop, especially when they were singing pop songs, but they stood out. Not sure the public will agree with my traditionalist casting but we shall see.

I’m not going to try and rank the rest, as it is probably too early to say, so I’ll split them into 2 groups based on when I think they’ll go out. I think I’m probably going to be hugely wrong (I wanted Jodie out from very early on last year and she ended up winning), but I’ll give it a go.

Amy
Danielle
Jenny
Lauren

This group is probably the most interesting as there isn’t much that separates them, they are all nice to watch, but just don’t stick out. With all the training that they are bound to have, this could all change and they will push into the top, or won’t take it on board and so fall to the bottom.

Sophie
Bronte
Steph

I really didn’t take to this group for mixture of reasons, but mostly for stage presence or dance. To coin the awkward American phrase; they don’t feel like a “triple threat”, and have something really lacking for my taste.

Back in reality, I think that the public vote might punish Amy for having been a glamour model and keep Sophie in for a lot longer than I would. I also think Jenny might do quite well, which is why she is in my second group.

In terms of the Wild Cards, I would have put through Emma, Tegan and Claire Harbourne over my group, but I did pick my top 7 out of the original 20, which I’m quite proud of! I’m surprised they didn’t keep in some of the slightly more “out there” contestants such as Tasheka or Claire Hillier, and wait for the public to oust them. While they aren’t my choice for Dorothy, I thought they were both good and would had made interesting characters for people to get behind (and maybe they still will). My prediction for wild card Dorothy is definitely Tegan. I both want her to be back in and think the public will too, so a strong contender!

To see if I am right, you’ll have to watch the programme next Saturday on BBC1 (I’ll be catching up on iPlayer in the week…), and then by the end of the series I’ll have to give myself points for how well my predictions faired. If you think I am massively wrong then leave a comment putting me straight!

Photosharing on Flickr

Posted on March 25, 2010 by jstreetley

Finally taken the jump and started to use my Flickr account to display my photos, after deciding that Facebook albums weren’t really the best way of doing it. You can find my Photostream here and I think it will be the future repository for all my photos, and I’ll try and backdate some old ones on to it as well.

So far I’ve put up the photos from this month’s events that I have already blogged about, so the dodgeball photos are in this set and the varsity ones are here, in addition to appearing on Facebook as per the previous posts.

I’m Burlington Bertie…

Posted on March 23, 2010 by jstreetley

UCL Mens 1st XV celebrating the Varsity win over the "Poly"

Yesterday was that highlight of the sporting year, the London varsity (well, the only one that counts), between King’s (Strand Poly) and the mighty UC. The rivalry between King’s and UCL is pretty well known and well established (it even has its own Wikipedia entry!) and supposedly stems from their differing establishing aims and objectives. The animosity has been strong ever since, especially during the first half of last century according to the Wikipedia article. It is even mentioned in UCL’s chant of Burlington Bertie:

I’m Burlington Bertie,
I’m short, fat and dirty,
My college portrays my high class. (high class!)
I walk down the Strand,
With my cock in my hand,
And I wave it at King’s as I pass.
Oh Bert, Bert,
I come in my shirt,
At least I go to UC . (UC!)
There’s one thing I’m sure of,
Strand Poly are wankers,
I’m Burlington Bert from UC.
That’s me! And him! And him! And her!

I’m glad to report (as if there was any doubt), that UCL won both matches; Women’s 22-0 and Men’s 15-0, so WELL DONE!

Aside from being a vocal supporter complete with facepaint and yelling Burlington

Wearing some war paint for UC!

Bertie at the top of my voice, I took the opportunity to do a little more sports photography. The results are in the following Facebook album.

Turns out the sports photography in the dark with very bright floodlights everywhere is quite challenging… Who knew!?..</sarcasm> But I did have a lot of fun, am quite happy with the results despite the lens flare and the winning didn’t hurt either!

Strike action at UCL

Posted on March 18, 2010 by jstreetley

I wasn’t going to blog about the fact the UCU have balloted members for strike action at UCL, but then I saw this Facebook group and couldn’t restrain the urge to comment and publicise the issue.

Normally I am staunchly against strike action, taking the capitalist viewpoint that companies exist to make money and should do whatever is permissible by law to make that happen with regards to staffing. This is definitely my thoughts on the current British Airways strike, especially as I am due to be inconvenienced by them. However, in an academic context, things are slightly different; the goal is not to make money but to educate. To me this significantly blurs the distinction between condemning and condoning strike action, for to me it seems only right for people to stand up and fight for a high quality of education; something that is not (and should not) be part of the free market.

The issue gets complicated further by the timing of the potential strikes. Calling action in the 3rd term at a university is grossly disruptive of exams and students. This is immensely worrying for those involved who may have future job offers, course offers and careers resting on the exam and more importantly the timely resolution of their grade.

I sincerely hope that UCU didn’t have a huge amount of choice of when to call the strike, given the obvious effects it would have for their students, but I am worried by one sentence on the UCL UCU website which says:

it could also include refusal to mark and submit examinations results

Now I know the point of the strike is to be as disruptive as possible, but there must be other ways that don’t effects students so strongly. Going out there with such a controversial statement sure undermines their message of “fighting for education”, especially when UCU really needs student support to continue the fight against cuts.

In short, I’m not really sure what I think of this potential strike action, which is massive departure from my normal politics. One thing is for sure, it will be a very interesting term ahead. Leave a comment and tell me your views, or even try and persuade me to one side or the other.

UCLU Dodgeball 2010

Posted on March 18, 2010 by jstreetley

Today was the annual inter-society dodgeball tournament at UCL. This is one of my favourite events of the UCLU calendar (others being the MODO Fashion Show and the Summer Ball) because the atmosphere is great, the weather is always great for it and I love what it says about UCL and UCLU. It is so much fun to watch and play such a fast-paced and rebellious game in such fantastic surroundings and the fact that UCL tolerate is to their credit. This juxtaposition of fun and frivolity with ostentatiousness and occasional pretensiousness is captured neatly in the tournament and sums up what I like about UCL; it is both progressive and world-leading, but with the right amount of tradition and ceremony as well.

Aside from my waxing lyrical about my alma mater (and soon to be my current institution as I begin a new course in September), the real reason for this post is that I went down there to photograph the event. I haven’t had a proper outing with the camera for ages, so it was good to get out and take some photos, which you can find on my Facebook, as well as my obligatory establishing shot at the beginning.

For those wishing to find out more about the tournament; I gather around 50 teams entered and the almighty winners were the UCLU Snowsports Society. More photos, information and results are on the UCLU website. From what I could see, it was definitely the most successful Dodgeball to date.

Prof. Brian Cox, Science Policy and the General Election

Posted on March 15, 2010 by jstreetley

This is just a few highlights of tonight’s Westminster Skeptics as: 1) I’m not a journalist (infact barely a blogger) and 2) it being in a pub, I’ve had a few pints!

Prof. Brian Cox kicked off the night with an excellent presentation on science funding and how it is so small that to cut it would be insignificant; except for the huge advances and increase in GDP that it brings. To see for yourself how small government science funding is, check out this graphic from the Guardian and see if you can spot it! A good illustration of the point is that the Apollo program paid for itself 14 times over its cost in terms of GDP generated for the American economy.

After this we heard from Nick Dusic of CASE (Campaign for Science & Engineering in the UK). His basic message was that there is a science vote out there to be won, and we as voters need to be stronger, more vocal and show our presence. This is a point I totally agree with.

Dr Evan Harris MP (Lib Dem Science Spokesman) was also there, but he basically re-iterated Brian Cox, so I shan’t bother re-writing. He did come out with one beautiful quote during the Q&A session, but I promptly forgot it so will have to paraphrase. He was discussing the Government funding of humane animal research and said he advocated writing on the pill bottle “Only made possible by the public spending on humane animal research and testing”, and went even further to suggest we should disclose how many animals went into a treatment in the original (he suggested MRC) press release for the treatment, making very sure the public spending is acknowledged. I like this point very much: scientific triumphs need more proper celebration rather than derision or ridiculous hyperbole.

The rest of the session was unremarkable (as far as I have noted anyhow), but enjoyable as ever. And we only managed to slip into homeopathy once, which I presume is some kind of record for the skeptics!

More on homeopathy at Birkbeck

Posted on March 15, 2010 by jstreetley

A little while ago I wrote about the set-up of a homeopathic society at Birkbeck and my concerns about it. This prompted me to write to our Student Union to try and understand exactly what was going on, what the size of the operation was and if we were financing this (in my opinion) ethically dubious behaviour by students of another university on our campus. I never heard back, despite chasing.

However my point did appear to have struck home, at least for a brief while: posters were removed from the lifts and corridors and their original website was torn down and replaced with this one. I’d like to class this as a small victory as it appears I have at least cleared the name of my College from their website and so we are no longer associated with such drivel.

I suppose the next stop is to drive them out of using College rooms by showing the College what nonsense is being harboured within our building. I think that shall be my next port of call.

The Big Libel Reform Gig (or what I learned today)

Posted on March 14, 2010 by jstreetley

Just got in from The Big Libel Reform Gig at London’s Palace Theatre and thought I’d jot down a few things I didn’t know this time yesterday.

1. People on the internet can be nice

When I woke up this morning I didn’t know I’d be going to the gig. I’d thought about it, but apathy mixed with having no-one to go with meant I decided to give it a miss. Until this tweet came along morning and I decided to go with it, thanks to Marianne (@noodlemaz). Turned out that for £20 we had pretty much the best seats, very front of the second circle, so could see everything beautifully. I was slightly hesitant about meeting people from the internet, but what can be more public than a 1,000+ auditorium. In fact, Marianne was lovely and it turns out we are both off to tomorrow’s Westminster Skeptics in the Pub to see Prof. Brian Cox, so I think that is a success.

2. Dara O’Briain’s wife is a surgeon

Who knew?

3. The techies at the Palace Theatre are shocking

The Palace Theatre, owned by Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber is a pretty large West End theatre that currently houses “Priscilla”, and was the venue for tonight’s event. Clearly, the (in-house?) techies either couldn’t be arsed, are incapable or have some other reason for the shoddy production values of the event.

I can’t think to imagine how much it costs to hire the theatre for a Sunday, but it can’t be small given my experience of other venues, and yet the stage-cloth was terribly laid such that it had ripples all over it, the lighting mostly awful with live changes in the most awkward of times (and not when Brian Cox repeatedly asked for dimmed lights), inappropriate use of pink everywhere (fine for “Priscilla” maybe) and repeatedly poor followspotting; moving when the performer was still and vice versa. The host even commented on it! The use of colour was particularly lazy given the lanterns had scrollers mounted!

In fairness to the Libel Reform Campaign, as a charity I would rather they kept the money to spend on their aims rather than paying for nicer tech/more time, but some of these things would have cost nothing to change and, to my mind, are deplorable on the part of the venue.

4. Drinks prices in theatres border on some kind of robbery

Ok, so this one I did know, but still; 275ml of Magners and a bottle of Pepsi shouldn’t be >£5.

There are plenty more things I also learned, given that the show was SO GOOD and had a brilliant mix of science/seriousness and stand-up comedy. I really wanted more!

If you’ve not done so already, please, please make sure you have signed the petition. Many good reasons for doing so are on the same website or in my previous post.

The libel aspect of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee Report

Posted on February 24, 2010 by jstreetley

Continuing the epic week for skepticism, libel reform and science (see previous posts), today the Culture,Media and Sport Committee published a report entitled “Press standards, privacy and libel”. Reporting of this has mainly (but not solely) focused on the privacy and press standards parts which have several high profile facets to them, not the least the “phone-hacking” scandal from News International.

In terms of there recommendations for libel reform, coverage has been thin on the ground, so here are their salient points:

Paragraph 129 calls for investigation into into preliminary hearings on meaning (familiar to those following Simon Singh’s case) and how they could cut costs by deciding cases earlier, although with the caveat that this doesn’t always work.

We urge the Government, therefore, to look closely at this aspect[hearings on meaning] of procedure in its present review of the costs and operation of UK libel laws.

They also talk about the burden of proof and how it should lie. They basically conclude that it is more or less right for defendants to prove their allegations, but also noting that

We are concerned, however, to see cases where that burden becomes overly onerous

and that there should be an exception for big corporations as claimants, when the burden of proof should be reversed.

address the mismatch in resources between wealthy corporations and impecunious defendants … We also consider that it would be fairer to reverse the general burden of proof in such cases

The report goes on to talk about strengthening a ‘responsible journalism’ defence, where by if the story has been properly researched and in the public interest then the statements made in it are protected. It also comes up with a lot of welcome and needed thoughts on “libel tourism” and the place of libel on the internet and the much needed and relatively obvious updating of libel law that is required regarding the internet, the blogosphere and the availability of information internationally and how different jurisdictions should deal with it.

Finally, and of most weight for those campaigning for libel reform from the scientific perspective is Paragraph 142.

We look forward, clearly, to the outcome of the important Simon Singh case. Even from the limited evidence we have received, we believe that the fears of the medical and science community are well-founded, particularly in the internet age and with the growth of ‘libel tourism’. We urge the Government, therefore, to take account of these concerns in a review of the country’s libel laws, in particular the issue of fair comment in academic peer-reviewed publications.

I think that is probably the best two sentences that people campaigning for libel reform could have hoped for. Let’s hope the report’s recommendations are taken on board.

edit @ 15:12. Realised I’d blockquoted one of my own paragraphs and not a quote from the report. Now fixed.

James Streetley

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