Yes, friends, have YOU got a scientist or mathematician in YOUR family? And if so, do you need a phrase book to talk to them? Because misunderstandings with scientists can be a daily occurrence - they're almost "legion", to put it mildly !!!!!
It's become a bit of a truism, I think, or at the very least an almost-true-to-truism, that scientists and mathematicians have a language all of their own. I read it on somebody called Rikki's blog today from way back in August 2012, so it must be true, do you think?
Rikki writes, "The comic-song writer Michael Flanders summed it up beautifully when he said that he cannot understand scientists and they cannot understand anyone else. Scientists must be spoken to in their own language: recommended "ice-breakers" were "H2S04 Professor!", "Don't synthesize anything I wouldn't synthesize!" "And the reciprocal of [pi] to your good wife!"" and other choice phrases (!).
Stephen Howe's popular phrase book is a "must buy"
for anybody with a mathematician in the family (!)
Well, East Hampshire, where I live with my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, isn't exactly ahead of the curve when it comes to science, maths and suchlike, to put it mildly! But wait for it! Yes, scientists and mathematicians have finally fought their way into East Hampshire through the bracken around the rim of the Devil's Punchbowl, from the neighbouring county of Surrey, where they're already "endemic", experts say.
(left) flashback to yesterday, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois
and me surveying the possible invasion route being taken by Surrey scientists
now "colonising" Hampshire, and mathematicians, and (right)
Lois looking at suspicious footprints in Liphook's Radford Park
Biologists are saying it's just another sign of global warming, and that Hampshire is no longer too cold for the scientists, and that county border controls are notoriously lax.
There are now several scientists and mathematicians already in the Winchester area, living and probably breeding (!) there, would you believe - at least according to those hard-working local "journos" at Onion News.
And true to form, those invasive mathematicians and scientists are making things difficult for our native Hampshire "liberal arts" academics, and starting to make headlines with their crazy antics, so spoiler alert, watch out tomorrow morning for this "doozy" (!).
This Hampshire-Surrey "culture clash" has even invaded mine and Lois's own family, I'm having to report - oh dear! Our daughter Alison and her family - husband Ed and teenage kids Josie (18), Rosalind (16) and Isaac (14), have spent a lot of time in Surrey, with predictable results (!).
And when we visit the family today, for Easter Sunday lunch, in their temporary home just outside Churt, Surrey, Josie (18) shows us her new bedroom, where Lois and I immediately spot the absence of pictures of Taylor Swift or of "happening" heart-throbs and boy-bands (!).
flashback to August 2024: Josie, seen here in happier times,
about to go to a Taylor Swift concert with her father Ed, and sister Rosalind
Oh dear no! There isn't a Taylor Swift in sight now!
And the alarming posters on Josie's bedroom walls today, are, instead, a bit of a giveaway that Lois and I have helped to "spawn" a grandchild who not only understands equations and chemical formula, but even spouts them during a lunchtime family get-together, given half a chance (!).
our granddaughter Josie (18) shows us her new bedroom with her
old Taylor Swift posters replaced by frightening
displays of mathematical and chemical equations and flow charts etc - yikes!
(left) a frightening detail from one of Josie's chemical flow-charts,
and (right) all talk of chemistry is banned, and rightly so (!), as Lois and I enjoy
a delicious roast pork lunch with our daughter Alison (3rd from right), husband Ed,
and their three teenage kids: (left to right) Rosalind, Isaac and Josie
And, in case you're wondering (!), so far, no, Lois and I haven't yet identified the route that these invasive Surrey scientists and mathematicians are taking through the bracken and into Hampshire, wiping out with their faster breeding cycle, our own home-grown Hampshire 'liberal arts' academics, but we haven't given up the hunt yet, so watch this space !!!
20:00 This evening, by coincidence, when Lois and I settle down for a bit of "telly" before bedtime, who should be on but intrepid Steve Backshall, fighting his way through the jungles of Borneo, much as those plucky Surrey scientists must have fought their way through the bracken on Luddshott Common, to get into Hampshire, maybe?
I wonder.....!
Steve, who speaks fluent Indonesian, is travelling across Borneo with native guides and naturalists, looking for some ancient cave-art, possibly the world's oldest, that one of the Indonesian naturalists saw in a cave 20 years ago, but he isn't sure how to get back to it.
And much as I deplore the invasion of our own local Surrey scientists into Hampshire, I hope against hope that they didn't have to suffer the same kind of insect attacks that Steve and his crew have to guard against in tonight's programme, to put it mildly!
Yikes!!!! Eventually Steve's team find the cave and discover, not just hand-art made by painting round hands - the "stencil method", but also prints made by the 40,000 year old hands themselves, and even carvings - of a female deer - thought to be the oldest ever found in the world.
How did these cave-artists get to Borneo? Well, when these paintings were being created, 40,000 years ago, Borneo wasn't even an island, explains Backshall. The world was in the middle of an Ice Age. There was so much sea "tied up" in ice, that the sea-levels were 400 feet lower (120m),
Fascinating stuff!
21:05 Fascinating, yes, but Lois and I are in the mood for something lighter to go to bed on, and luckily it's Sunday, which means another re-run from what seems like 40,000 years ago, but which is actually more recent (!) - the 1970's series "Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club".
This particular episode is a bit of history, however, albeit not from 40,000 years ago (!)
[All right, we get the message! - Ed].
Do you remember when Labour Party leader Harold Wilson was our Prime Minister and Maggie Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party, back in 1975?
And in tonight's episode of "Wheeltappers", Maggie's ousting of former leader Ted Heath must have just happened, because Colin Crompton, the social club's grim-faced chairman and "turn-manager", speaking from his usual stage-side table, actually rung Ted Heath, live, with a proposition for him. He wondered if the famously musical Heath would like to come and play the organ at the club, now that he was officially "redundant" as Tory leader.
Fascinating stuff again, isn't it, throwing some new and unexpected light on a pivotal moment in recent British political history, just as Maggie Thatcher was starting her long journey to Downing Street, and her premiership, which began in 1979, and the whole era of "Thatcherism".
And a poignant moment for Ted Heath, who missed this opportunity just for the sake of maybe a piffling £100 or so fee, maybe? It's probably already becoming one of the great "What Ifs" of history, and I bet there's already some pompous post-grade planning to pontificate on it in a paper - if you'll excuse the alliteration (!).
Perhaps this is a topic for one of the budding scientists or mathematicians currently invading Hampshire (!), if they can bear to leave their equations for 5 minutes and write about something a bit more of general interest, if that isn't asking too much!!!!
Just saying !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz !!!!!
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