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This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Thursday 30th June 2011 at 3.45pm I always cry at endings Were it not for "The state I am in", this might be the definitive Belle and Sebastian song. Simple and quiet, a great melody, and words... sitting on a bus, reading a book... words that are almost embarassed to be said out loud. "I always cry at endings," admits Stuart. Then, "Oh, that isn't what I meant to say at all!" Posted Friday 24th June 2011 at 9.57am Two new articles I've put two preprints up on the arxiv. There should be another following very soon. Three reasons for the lack of posts on here recently! Posted Thursday 23rd June 2011 at 12.14am Tenth Avenue freeze-out Rest in peace, Clarence Clemons. Posted Friday 17th June 2011 at 10.54pm Incredible scenes! Orangutan rescues coot chick from water at zoo in Dublin Posted Monday 13th June 2011 at 5.20pm Sound is the colour I know After a weekend at the German maths postgrad football championships (congratulations to champions Erlangen, and thanks to organisers Eichstätt), listening to Lu-lu-lu-lukas Podolski and Cowboy und Indianer, I woke up this morning with the Posies' "Solar Sister" in my head. I'm not sure why, but I'm not complaining. Since I didn't do a song of the week last week, I will indulge myself this week with two. The second is a new song from Beirut - it really takes off after about 2 minutes 20. Beirut - East Harlem by Revolver USA Posted Friday 3rd June 2011 at 2.07pm KPP No, not Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piscounov. Kevin Peter Pietersen. The calls for KP to be dropped are growing. If the British love an underdog, they really don't like a big-headed freakishly talented turncoat for whom things have started going downhill. He hasn't done brilliantly recently, bar his double hundred at Adelaide, and his Test average has dropped to 47. But there are a number of reasons why he shouldn't be dropped. Firstly he's one of the best 6 batters in England. His average says he's third best in fact, despite his recent travails. Secondly our batting is doing very well at the moment, which means that we can afford to carry him while he finds form again. And thirdly he's a different player to most of the rest of the top order. Of course it looks bad sometimes when he tries to switch-hit and gets caught on the boundary, or if he charges down the wicket when well set and gets stumped. That's how he plays - if you want 6 Jonathan Trotts in the top order then very well, but if you want some entertainment in your cricket then KP's your man. It's a shame that he will never achieve his potential to become one of the all-time greats, but he's still an excellent Test match batter and well worth his place in the England team. Especially now that we have Cook and Trott to score the double hundreds that KP should have been rattling up. Song of the week: Bumper, by Cults (click the link then click "Next" till you get to the right song - or just listen to the whole album!). Posted Tuesday 31st May 2011 at 11.51pm Ah, Zaltzman "It is fair to say, in modern sporting parlance, that Sri Lanka had 'a bad day at the office'. As office days go, it was roughly equivalent to turning up to work to find that your swivel chair has been stolen and replaced with a stuffed porcupine, before your boss calls you in to give you a 90% pay cut, feed your packed lunch to his pet iguana, and put your trousers through his shredder, after which you return to your desk to find that your colleague has run off with your car keys, half-finished crossword and spouse, and your computer is frozen irretrievably on a YouTube video of Gary Kirsten’s unedited double-century at Old Trafford in 1998." "Yesterday’s win was facilitated by Tremlett, who surgically dismantled the high-class Sri Lankan top order in such a way that it would not have been entirely surprising if, at the post match presentation, Mike Atherton had marched up to the Surrey paceman, said, 'come on Scooby, let’s see who he really is', and ripped a latex face-mask off to reveal Curtly Ambrose underneath, before concluding: 'I thought I recognised the way you were bowling.' " I met my first officious German today. I had booked a visit to the Reichstag. On attempting to enter, the conversation went something like this: Him: Can I see your passport please? Me: I don't have my passport, I had to send it away to get a Canadian work permit. I have a driving license, will that do? Him: Where is your passport? Me: I had to send it away to get a Canadian work permit, because I'm moving to Canada in September. Him: Why? Me: So that I can work in Canada. I'm moving there in September. Him: It's European law. While you're in Europe, you have to carry your passport with you at all times. Me: (Thinks: Well, I've lived in Europe all my life, and rarely carry my passport with me, so I've been a criminal since birth. And if he's right then it's basically impossible to ever leave Europe, as generally to get a work permit anywhere you have to send your passport to an embassy.) Me: But I had to send my passport off to get a work permit for Canada, because I'm moving there in September. Him: (Looks at my driving license and scowls.) OK, go through there. I could have understood if he'd just said "Sorry, to get into the Reichstag you have to have your passport. I can't let you in." But to lie and say it's European law to carry your passport with you at all times - I'M EUROPEAN! - and then to let me in anyway - it's just stupid and inconsistent. It's a good job I have Zaltzman to cheer me up. Posted Thursday 26th May 2011 at 8.05pm Three good articles Saving the rainforests, eating less meat, and saving lives. Posted Wednesday 25th May 2011 at 4.15pm To understand and construct: splitting infinitives I like splitting infinitives. Why the hell should we not split them? Why are they splittable unless we're supposed to be able to split them? I'm currently correcting a draft of a paper, and wrote ... allow the reader to quickly understand and construct a ... Then I thought that maybe I should change it to ... allow the reader quickly to understand and construct a ... but this doesn't sound as good. Wikipedia has a fun set of examples in which it is more or less necessary to split the infinitive. This isn't one of them, as the alteration I proposed above is unambiguous. But the "construct" verb has already been separated from its "to" - why should the "understand" not be? Maybe you suggest ... allow the reader quickly to understand and to construct a ... but then it's not clear whether the quickly belongs to "understand" and "construct", or just to "understand". So perhaps I could use ... allow the reader quickly to understand and quickly to construct a ... but now things are becoming all kinds of clumsy. I propose that split infinitives should be allowed whenever they sound right. (No doubt someone will email me saying "oh but everyone already knows that", so again I should include some kind of disclaimer. I'm not claiming that I'm the first person to say this. Actually I'm just annoyed that my brain has recently started flagging split infinitives when I proof-read things, and perhaps this blog post will persuade it to shut the hell up.) Posted Tuesday 24th May 2011 at 9.37pm Indie pop Walked down to the corner store just before nightfall in my bare feet. Black tarry asphalt, soft and hot. And when I came back, I spread out my supplies on the counter by the sink, looked myself right in the eye. Pizza and a bottle of wine? Matt, you really have to stop basing your life on indie pop songs. This is quite cool. Posted Sunday 15th May 2011 at 10.51pm Schengen There's something about Sunday evenings that lends itself to pondering. I remember an assembly at Priory, my junior school, and the teacher taking the assembly explaining about the EU. She said that if you asked someone on the streets of England what nationality they were, they were likely to say British (as opposed to English). She claimed that some day things would go a step further, and that the standard answer to the question would become "I'm European". Several things have led me to think about that assembly recently. The breakdown of the Schengen agreement, the referendum on Scottish independence, and more generally the rising influence of right-wing minorities in governments around Europe. It feels like as I get more "European", Europe is slowly recoiling from itself. We're discovering some of the problems brought by a breakdown of borders and a common currency. I find myself typing "the left has yet to find a workable and consistent immigration policy" and then deleting it. I've read that, but I don't believe it really. I guess what I do believe is that immigration is often a difficult process for both parties (the immigrants and the receiving community) which can be worthwhile in the long run, and that therein lies the problem. It's harder to make a case for the long run than the here and now. Bah, that's not the whole story by any means, just a small part of it. But the Schengen agreement was beautiful, and I'm sad if the only way forward is to get rid of it entirely. Surely there must be a gentler, a more nuanced solution? Posted Sunday 15th May 2011 at 5.28pm Reflections This week's song of the week is a blast from the past. I haven't listened to Idlewild in years. And Roddy Woomble has possibly the best name in music. (I don't know of anyone called Sadding Roggydolls...) I've finished watching les Mysterieuses Cités d'Or. The animation is poor and it's overly long, but in the end I think the 3 year old me was right - it really is the best kids' TV series ever. I didn't remember all the war and greed - mostly I remembered the cool stuff like the golden condor, whereas grown-up me was more concerned with the nuclear weapons and a dictator clinging to power - it was something like a combination of World War II and Star Wars. It was very ambitious, and overall I think they pulled it off quite well! It's a stretch to call it quality entertainment - there are too many flaws - but it's definitely quality entertainment for kids, with morals and questions without easy answers, and all that kind of stuff that you want kids' TV to have. Lindsay Keith raises a good point here about the lack of science role models for girls on TV. I think the lack of science role models for girls in academia is also a problem, but perhaps that might improve if the TV ratios changed (and it's easier to change TV ratios). I like the quote at the end, too, from an 11 year old girl: "Please don't solve dark matter – I want to do that when I grow up." Posted Friday 6th May 2011 at 8.38pm What a beautiful refrain Quite a spate of posts! Lots of great news today. About 70% of the UK think that AV isn't as good as FPTP. Many seem to have the opinion that AV is too complicated, which suggests they hold the intelligence of the average Aussie or Papua New Guineaese in fairly high regard. Here is a fantastic article from the increasingly moderate Daily Telegraph. Only people who pay income tax can vote (plus pensioners and housewives, because they might read the Telegraph too). Why don't we take the vote away from immigrants and ethnic minorities while we're at it? They obviously don't know what's best for the country! (I would say "because... " here but apparently there is no need to justify such statements. Just tell a "joke" and then say you're actually serious.) And here is a post by the prolific John Rentoul. I tend to agree with maybe a little less than half of what he says, and he's probably as staunch a Blairite as many of the Telegraph writers are staunch Tories. But he has a good point here. Full disclosure: my dad is head of a new academy. But I wouldn't claim that academies are in general better or worse than plain comprehensives - I don't have evidence either way. If you pushed me for an opinion I would say that I don't see the point in calling them academies - for me they're big new comprehensives that have been given lots of money so that they can have great facilities, and giving them a fancy new name makes "comprehensive" sound tired and old (so that you end up having to give the old comprehensives fancy new names, like "Science and Technology College"). But I don't see how the "academy experiment" can have failed. What are you suggesting we do instead? Build new schools with crap facilities? You reckon they'll do better? What I would claim is that you shouldn't move the goalposts so suddenly, let alone stick the goalposts in the washing machine on 90C so that they shrink to a third of their previous size, and then judge. Lest ye look like you're just hoping people won't actually pay attention and will believe you when you say Labour didn't actually have a reasonably good record overall on secondary education. Finally, congratulations to Imms and Fatema who are expecting a baby, and happy 24th birthday to my little brother! Posted Friday 6th May 2011 at 12.06am I'm saying yes. Unfortunately I've only just seen this. It's a bit late now. But it's ace nonetheless. Posted Thursday 5th May 2011 at 11.12pm You can make them like you Enough of the bigoted waffling. Here is a nice article written by a Tory. "AV has flaws. It’s not perfect. But it’s better than our current system." My thoughts exactly. But all the polls point to a heavy defeat in the referendum. So this week's song is dedicated to AV. And Nick Clegg. The Hold Steady - You can make him like you (We7) Posted Tuesday 3rd May 2011 at 4.48pm Osama bin Laden Why was bin Laden killed? There may be a good reason, but I haven't heard it. I think we deserve to know that, at least. This article is a good one. Posted Monday 2nd May 2011 at 4.12pm An apology (kind of) I'm sorry if my post on Saturday wasn't well thought out. I was aware of that at the time, at least to some extent - hence the "the more I think about it the more complicated..." bit. But perhaps I wasn't fully aware of how ignorant I am of the situation. Hopefully you can forgive me my ignorance, as this is a blog written by a mathematician and not a political article in an important newspaper written by a hopeful MP. Of course that doesn't excuse me from being wrong, or saying things that might upset people - I try not to do either but no doubt manage both rather more frequently than I should. Firstly I didn't mean to belittle the huge amounts of work that do go into finding people work. I certainly am aware that many very talented people put a lot of effort into finding jobs for people that need jobs, and I should have made that clearer. What I wasn't aware of is that, apparently, some of "my ideas" (again, I should perhaps have pointed out that they're not my ideas - I guess I thought they were so obvious that it was clear I wasn't claiming credit for them) are actually used by the government already. So what was the point of my post, if it wasn't to claim that people aren't putting in effort to get people into jobs, and it wasn't to tell you all about my fabulous new ideas that no-one's thought of before? I'm not entirely sure. It was written off the top of my head, and sometimes (often?) the stuff on the top of my head is stupid. But let's see if we can't extract something from the wreckage. I suppose I was imagining a country where there is almost no unemployment. Like North Korea, where people go around cutting lawns with scissors, maybe. (Of course, again, this is all hyper-idealised and would never be possible in practice. But bear with me.) So if you don't have a job, and you want to claim unemployment benefit, you walk into a job centre... and they immediately give you something to do, starting the next week or something. This might be delivering leaflets or mowing lawns or cleaning the council house toilets. Yeah, it might be demeaning. If you're a skilled worker you might hope that something more suited to your talents is available. But it might not be. You always have the chance to say no, you don't want to do that job, you would rather not get any money for that week (or 2 weeks or whatever). As usual I've gone off into some ridiculous example that doesn't really help my argument. Let's try a different simplification. Let's say there are three kinds of unemployed people. We've got type A, who are trying their hardest to get a job but there just aren't enough jobs out there. There's also type B, who are trying their hardest to get a job but they're not very employable - maybe they've been unemployed for too long, or they've committed a crime, or ... there are many possible reasons. Finally we have type C, who aren't trying their hardest to get a job - maybe they've only recently lost their job or finished school or university, and have enough money (or their parents / spouse have enough money) that they can afford to wait for a good job that they actually want. For type A, I'm pretty sure we're doing everything we can already. For type B it's also possible we're doing everything we can - I'm not an expert on what options there are exactly for people in this situation but I'm sure we don't just shrug and tell them to get on with it. It's really type C that I want to discourage from claiming unemployment benefit. I don't want to make out that they're evil drains on society - probably a large proportion of the country is a type C person at some point, and the rules say we're entitled to some money each week as long as we're looking for work. But many type C people don't need the money. Then you have the problem of deciding who does and doesn't need the money - where do you draw the line? Well, if we could immediately make them do something vaguely useful (or even not useful - make them sew cross-stitch tapestries to hang in abandoned air-raid shelters) they might suddenly decide for themselves whether they need the money or not. And if forcing them to do something stops them falling into a rut, and motivates them to start looking a bit harder for a job that they actually want, then it's a bonus. Once more: I'm simplifying. There aren't easy lines to draw between A, B and C, and there are other types of people. Everyone's situation is different. Even assuming there is a clearly-defined "type C", I don't know how many people are in it and for how long, and how much it costs the country. Perhaps the government is well aware that this would be ace but it's just impossible to do in reality, or maybe it would cost more money than it would save. Perhaps there are already crack teams of recent graduates sewing cross-stitch tapestries. Maybe the abandoned air-raid shelters are already full to bursting. If so then my time has been entirely wasted. Sorry. I was just talking. Finally, a further apology for the fact that you only get to read my point of view here. This is the kind of situation in which a comments thingy would be useful. EDIT: Having reread this I realise that I'm now being glib. Basically what I want to say is that I think, perhaps incorrectly, that we could get people into some kind of community work much quicker than we currently do. In fact I didn't know that people are given community work at all, but now I do! I also didn't mean to even touch on other benefits claimants, like those who are ill, or injured, or disabled, or carers. Next time I should do more research before spouting off. Also, I've changed some of the youtube videos to links, as the page was getting a bit messy. Posted Sunday 1st May 2011 at 5.55pm Song of the week: Into Eternity I have a love I have a love for this world A kind of love That will break my heart A kind of love that reconstructs and remodels the past That adds the dryness to the dry autumn grass, That adds the sunshine to the magnifying glass And makes me fight For something that just can't last... It's Jens Lekman in a nutshell. Romantic, corny, brilliant. This isn't my favourite song of his, but it's still great. I don't know how he always manages to tread the line between sweet and cringeworthy. His fantastic voice and Swedish accent (I'm a prisoner of this moment widchoo in my arms) probably help. Posted Saturday 30th April 2011 at 4.59pm Why don't we require people to work? I'm not sure whether things work the same in other countries, but in the UK if you don't have a job, and can convince the government that you're actively looking for a job, then you get given some money every week. So there are a load of people, especially at the moment when unemployment is relatively high, sitting around with nothing to do for most of the week. Surely we must be able to find something for them to do? You can call it "guaranteeing them a job" or "requiring them to work" depending on how you want to spin it, but there must be tasks around the country that we could get people to do. To be fair, the more I think about it the more complicated I realise it would be. But nevertheless there are several things that could be tried. There must be companies who could use extra workers (whether skilled or unskilled) but can't afford to pay them. They could volunteer to take on suitably qualified unemployed people, subject to interview, who would be paid their usual unemployment allowance by the government. Unskilled government-funded employment (I don't know what exactly - rubbish collection, street cleaning, park mowing, ...?) could be offered to others, although obviously there would have to be permanent staff to oversee these tasks. The pay would be low and people would only work three or four days a week so that they have time to look for permanent employment. Anyone who caused problems at their temporary workplace would be "sacked", have their allowance slashed for perhaps three months, and then offered a new task to do after the three months is over. At the moment there is apparently far too much long-term unemployment, and two major reasons are always cited: either the unemployed person's morale is so low from having no job, or they see no reason to actually put much effort into finding work as it will be only marginally more money than their unemployment allowance. Forcing them to do something worthwhile seems to offer a solution to both these problems. There are clearly lots of obstacles to overcome in setting up something like this but the government would presumably save a bit of money in the long term (through the reduced number of claims from recent graduates and the like who sign on because they haven't found their ideal job yet even though they could happily survive without the government's help), and hopefully it would benefit the genuinely unemployed (through the opportunity to increase their employability and morale) as well as their communities. Posted Sunday 24th April 2011 at 9.55am Les Mystérieuses Cités D'Or Much to my parents' chagrin, I was never very good at sleeping in in the mornings when I was a child. On Saturdays I would sneak downstairs at about 6.30am and sit there watching the test card until the programs started. (In the summer I would instead sometimes stand on my windowsill looking out on the empty street and listening to an owl that lived up the street hooting.) Weirdo. But I didn't have an alarm and I had to make sure I wouldn't miss my favourite cartoons - David the Gnome (which was always first on - no wonder I've never met anyone else who watched it), Thundercats, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and - best of all - The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Mysterious Cities of Gold - English theme (Youtube) Recently I've been trying to get back into improving my French. I watched a film called La Cité des Enfants Perdus, which was pretty hard to understand - firstly the storyline was pretty warped, secondly everyone spoke very quickly, and thirdly the main character was mentally handicapped and didn't speak the kind of French that one ought to copy. That got me thinking - how do children learn to process their native language so well and so quickly? Well, there are no doubt several reasons but one of them is that they're surrounded by the language. So then I was thinking that maybe I should watch French programs for kids. And then it struck me. The Mysterious Cities of Gold was originally a Japanese/French production. Mysterious Cities of Gold - French theme (Youtube) Ah, I have so many great memories of that show. And I missed the finale when I was a kid. I remember being absolutely gutted at the time. Little did the 3-year-old me know that 24 years later I'd be sat in a flat in Germany watching the series again in French. I'm already looking forward to finally finding out what happens! Now for some slightly more grown-up news. Cricket! Notts beat Yorkshire this week in one of the greatest comebacks I can ever remember seeing in the County Championship. Notts won the toss and batted first, only to collapse to Ryan Sidebottom (who won the title with Notts last year before moving back to his home county) and Rich Pyrah. Their bowlers put up a good effort and looked like restricting the Yorkies to a reasonable advantage until their captain Andrew Gale played a stupendous knock, putting Notts about 200 behind on the first innings. Then another top-order collapse let to Notts ending day two still 20 behind with just 4 wickets in hand. Apparently some of the Yorkshire fans were chuntering on the morning of day three that if Notts didn't pull their socks up the match might not last long enough for them to get value for money on their tickets. Well, pull their socks up they did - a partnership of 150 from Chris Read and Steven Mullaney meant that at least they would have something to bowl at, and then Yorkshire subsided (Jonny Bairstow apart - watch out for him) in dramatic fashion to a Notts bowling attack shorn of its best player by a groin injury. Fantastic stuff. I actually had Yorkshire down as my favourites for the title before the season started. Pretty much everyone else in the world had Somerset, who have lost both their matches so far by an innings, so at least my prediction could have been worse! Of course this is only the start of the season, and the points system used in the Championship means that teams can make up ground very quickly. Either way the competition has been more exciting over the last year and a bit than probably ever before. Someone drew my attention to The Drums this week. Here's "Book of Stories". Posted Thursday 21st April 2011 at 8.39pm WTF IS THE POST??? From one Fields medallist to another. I noticed yesterday that Tim Gowers had blogged about the rumour that the British Arts Council had been forced to spend some of its funding on work bigging up Dave Cameron's "Big Society". It seemed a little bit loose for Gowers, who - like many mathematicians - usually thinks long and hard before he speaks (or blogs). Then later a friend pointed out a new post on Gowers' blog, and again it's rather surprising, as well as very long. It's also funny and almost entirely relevant. I never thought I'd hear Gowers say "WTF" or "duh"! Posted Sunday 17th April 2011 at 4.57pm 1 2 3 4 "His father told the press that at the age of two, during a family gathering, Tao attempted to teach a 5-year-old child mathematics and English. When asked by his father how he knew numbers and letters, he said he learned them from Sesame Street." Cool! Posted Sunday 17th April 2011 at 11.46am Chocolate black My parents have an ancient brown recipe book that's falling apart. Just inside the back cover of the ancient brown recipe book is an even more ancient piece of paper that's also gone brown and faded and started to crumble. On one side of that piece of paper it says "To Daddy, We have gone to the park. Lots of love, Mummy and Matthew." It's dated 1986, when I was 2. On the other side is a typewritten(!) recipe for something that we always called "Chocolate black". I don't know where it came from - my mum doesn't cook much really - but I vividly remember crushing biscuits with a rolling pin, then the smell of the melting butter and sugar, then the excitement of getting to lick the spoon clean of golden syrup. On Friday I rang my mum and got her to read out the recipe to me. It's about time it was digitized before the piece of paper completely gives up the ghost! One thing that I obviously didn't notice when I was 2 is quite how bad for you it is - so much butter it could be a Delia recipe. For half a tin: 100g butter/marg 2tbsp golden syrup 1 dessertspoon sugar 50g sultanas 50g chopped glace cherries 50g chopped nuts (optional) 2 dessertspoons drinking chocolate 200g crumbled digestive biscuits 200g milk chocolate covering Method: Melt together golden syrup, sugar, butter, drinking chocolate in a saucepan. Add the sultanas, cherries and nuts followed by the biscuits. Mix well. Flatten down in a large tin. Cover with melted chocolate. Leave to set in the fridge then cut into squares. Song of the week: Anytime by My Morning Jacket. Posted Monday 11th April 2011 at 10.25pm Paris encore une fois   Also: the arxiv should introduce a "Like" button. Posted Thursday 7th April 2011 at 1.44pm The Flying Club Cup I moved flat on Monday. I've now lived in 13 different flats/houses in 9 years (14 if you include the month I spent in Brazil)! The guy who normally lives in my new flat is away on holiday for 3 months, and it's a bit odd living in his place. One advantage is that he has a giant TV and speakers. It took me a while to figure out how to fit everything together in the right way but I've managed to arrange things so that I can hook my laptop up to the TV via HDMI and use both the screens and the speakers. I'm visiting some friends in Paris this weekend. Should be ace. This week's song of the week is Beirut's "The Flying Club Cup", which is based in Paris. (The album The Flying Club Cup had songs based in various different French cities, and it's great. There's a series of videos by La Blogotheque with Beirut and friends performing the songs in odd places, and some of those are good too - e.g. Nantes featuring Will Sheff of Okkervil River.) Posted Sunday 3rd April 2011 at 5.22pm MSD In 2008 a new cricket competition began in India, called the IPL. I was slightly cynical, but my friend Geoff was placing a bet on one team to win and wanted to know my opinion on the strength of the various expensively-constructed squads. I told him that I thought the Chennai Super Kings had done a good job in the auction: they'd bought a few players (Makhaya Ntini, Muttiah Muralitharan, Matty Hayden) for rather less than some other teams had paid for inferior talents (Sreesanth, Harbhajan, Brendan McCullum). And they had MS Dhoni. MS is India's captain and wicketkeeper, and one of the most remarkable cricketers I've ever seen. He doesn't have the grace of Tendulkar, the flair of Lara, the ball-meltingly soft hands of Healy or the analytic brain of Fleming. But he's a winner. People in sport (and life in general to some extent) often talk about winners and losers, and most of the time they're talking rubbish - most of the time whoever won did so because they were better than their opponents: either they had more natural talent, or they worked harder and longer at their game, or both. Dhoni is massively talented and clearly works very hard at his game; his hands are unbelievably fast, and his incredible balance and perfectly-timed transferral of weight allow him to get so much more power into his shots than looks possible from his stature. He knows that, and without that he'd be a fairly ordinary (on the international scale) cricketer. But there's something else about him that I don't think I've seen in anyone else. It's reflected in his big game mentality, in his unwillingness to accept defeat, in his ability to get the best out of others, in his understanding of his limitations, in his intuitive appreciation of the game situation, and in a million other little things. It's all of these things and it's none of these things; it's something bigger that I can't describe. Chennai didn't win the IPL in 2008, losing the final to the Rajasthan Royals from the final ball. They didn't win in 2009 either, losing in the semi-final. 2010 was their last chance, as the squads were to be re-auctioned for 2011, and Chennai went into the final game of the group stage needing to win to qualify for the semis. Chasing 193, they needed 29 from the last two overs (that's a lot). Dhoni single-handedly hit 30 from 9 balls. He was so pumped up that he then punched himself in the chin in delight. Chennai were through - the only team to make the knockout rounds in all three IPLs - and they (inevitably, it seems in hindsight) went on to win the competition. India won the cricket world cup yesterday, and of course Dhoni promoted himself up the batting order and hit a match-winning knock including a gigantic six to finish the match. Tendulkar and Yuvraj scored most of India's runs in the tournament, and Zaheer took most of the wickets. But would India have won the world cup without MSD? I don't think they would. You could write a story about the life of Brian Charles Lara, and an epic poem about Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (and someone probably will). But you could write a PhD thesis about Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Posted Friday 1st April 2011 at 3.57pm I pity the fool This story was apparently published on Sunday, which means it can't be an April fool. Odd, because it certainly seems like one. I'm moving to Canada in September (work permit permitting), so my friend Gemma made me a playlist of Canadian music. There are some songs of... er... questionable quality (by Nickelback and the Beiber for example). But there are also some good ones. There's one by the New Pornographers that reminded me of this song by A.C. Newman. AC Newman - Miracle Drug (Youtube) SO WHY ALL THE HISTORY NOW? Posted Thursday 31st March 2011 at 11.00pm Cricket At lunch today I was able to discuss the change in the strength of the Australian dollar relative to European currencies over the last 4 years, and the difference in total rainfall between the two sides of the Pennines. How do I know about these things? Cricket. The Barmy Army chanted about getting 4 dollars to the pound in the last Ashes series four years ago; and Yorkshire's vastly superior County Championship record compared to Lancashire's has often been blamed (mostly by Lancastrians) on the weather in Manchester depriving the red rose county of so many wins. It made me wonder how much of my rather small supply of trivia has roots in a sometimes obsessive following of cricket... and I'm not sure I want to know the answer! Watch out for Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international 100 in the world cup final in his hometown of Mumbai on Saturday. It's the kind of situation the words "tailor-made" were tailor-made for. Further to my rant a couple of weeks ago about admin in France, the secretary has finally replied again and said that, magically, she can now refund the money. It seems the only way to get people in France to give you what they owe you is to complain lots. All's well that ends well, I suppose. Posted Thursday 24th March 2011 at 10.30pm Grey-haired manky codger Deux grands et gros messieurs en blouse blanche arrivèrent avec une chaise roulante pour emmener Djamila, et Hector voulut leur expliquer ce qu'elle avait. Mais ils ne l'écoutèrent pas, ils demandèrent d'abord à Djamila si elle avait des assurances. If you only ever listen to one song of the week, make it this week's. Posted Sunday 20th March 2011 at 10.59am Atom I'll be the first to admit this is a bright but haunted age... There have been some interesting articles recently on whether or not the problems at Fukushima are actually problems. The one sure thing is that we are spending far too much time concentrating on the nuclear issue, rather than the wider earthquake/tsunami disaster and its aftereffects. An article in the Independent made this point and suggested that this might be partly the fault of nuclear power companies who are afraid (or perhaps not allowed) to defend their position. Instead we are forced to try to hear the voice of reliable science from behind the wall of sensationalist journalism and opportunistic politics. XKCD has an interesting graphic. I didn't know bananas were so strongly irradiating! Click the image to go to xkcd and see it properly.  This week's song of the week is "Atom" by British Sea Power, perhaps the best ever rock song about Niels Bohr. British Sea Power - Atom (Youtube) As an added bonus check out Balotelli vs the bib. A true modern classic. I wonder what Bohr would have made of it. Posted Thursday 17th March 2011 at 8.36pm Unglaublich Despite some bizarre selections, England won today. They've had 6 games in this world cup, and they've all been tight. Wins against South Africa, the West Indies, and the Netherlands, a tie against India, and yet losses to Ireland and Bangladesh. Unbelievable.  Moving on swiftly, what's also unbelievable is that private schools in the UK are keeping their charitable status even as the Education Maintenance Allowance - which provided less-well-off 16 to 19-year-olds with a small amount of money to enable them to stay in education or training - is being completely scrapped. Finally, a little moan. I taught a course on Markov Chains in Paris last October. After the next four months and various emails, someone finally realised that they should probably pay me for that. I had to send them a copy of my passport, a payslip, an official copy of my bank details (which had to be for a French bank of course), and two separate forms that had to be signed by several people at another university (one proving that I did have a regular job, and one giving me permission to take time out from that job to do the lecturing). And then I got an email saying that this wasn't enough, and that I had to have a medical insurance card. Since this was more than two months after I left France, I didn't have a medical insurance card. I told them this. They told me that it was absolutely necessary, and that they couldn't pay me without it. So I emailed some more people, and magically they decided that I could be paid. I still haven't received the money, but apparently I will. Then my French bank froze my account. There was quite a bit of money in the account. I wrote to them to complain, and they told me that they didn't know where I lived now, and that they had tried to contact me. Well, before I left France I tried to tell them that I was moving but I wasn't allowed to because I couldn't prove that I was moving. And the only other way they have of contacting me is via the internet, and they didn't try that, so they clearly didn't try very hard to contact me, did they? Anyway after some more annoyed emails they unfroze my account. Then I remembered that I still hadn't been reimbursed by my University in Paris for two conferences that I went to last year, one in July and one in September. So I emailed the secretary responsible to ask what was going on. She didn't reply. So I emailed again. No reply. So I emailed another secretary, and magically the first secretary then replied. She said she couldn't refund the July conference, because the claim was made after the conference, and she had had problems getting information about me. Never mind that I gave her the claim form two months before the conference, that Julien Berestycki specifically asked whether they would be able to reimburse me and they said yes, and that my office was 2 doors away from hers so if she wanted information about me she could just have asked. I've sent her another annoyed email and we'll see what happens. What really grates is not the rather large amounts of my money that various French institutions seem very reluctant to let me have, but that every time one of these admin people emails me, I respond almost instantly; yet they take weeks, or often months, to reply to me. Anyone would think I have nothing but admin to do, and they're busy with research. Well, that turned into more than a little moan. Sorry. I feel like I'm being self-indulgent - not just because that was so long, but also because I'm moaning about such insignificant things given what's going on in northern Africa and the Gulf and in Japan. But I don't know what I can say about those problems. They're too big. Posted Monday 7th March 2011 at 9.56pm Collapsing On the scale of human accomplishments, turning out a classic album ought to rank up there with climbing Mount Everest. Stoned. With one leg. And no oxygen. Given the infinite potential for obnoxious excess within the rock genre, it's no small feat to assemble an album that's so well phrased, so deftly stated, that its impact extends far beyond the realm of the audible. Turn out two or more such albums and you're headed for legendary status. Turn out five or six and you're REM. Matt LeMay, Pitchfork Media REM's new album is out today/tomorrow. I've listened to it a few times now (it's been streaming on NPR, and it's on Spotify as of today) and it's actually quite good. It flows quite well, and most of the songs are at least decent. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, REM have another classic in them wanting to get out. This isn't it - there are a few over-simplistic or failed melodies, and Michael's lyrics are still trite and obvious too often - but I'm more hopeful than I was. It reminds me of New Adventures in Hifi in some ways, which is definitely a good thing. Michael needs an editor or a collaborator or something to get him back on track. He's still capable of churning out the good stuff - "You pulled me up and out of cartoon quicksand" and "I feel like a contradiction / I'm a walking science fiction" rival "You stumble on glass-top table" from Accelerate's Horse to Water for the prize of Stipe's best one-liner in the last 14 years - but too often he settles for either obvious lines like "I'll show the kids how to do it fine," or the kind of crap a 12-year-old would be embarassed to serve up ("I cannot tell a lie / It's not all cherry pie / But it's all there waiting for you / Yeah you"). The production is still a bit OTT in places (on first listen the "live in studio" version of Oh My Heart is better than the album version for exactly that reason) but that's easily fixed. And Mike and Peter seem to be gradually working their way back into form. If Michael rediscovers his inner editor, they could yet make another great album. Probably wishful thinking on my part, but at least this album - despite its faults - is worth listening to. REM - That someone is you (Youtube) Posted Saturday 5th March 2011 at 3.00pm Un mélange - Qu'est-ce que vous faites? Hector leva les yeux et vit la plus jolie Chinoise de sa vie, qui la regardait en souriant. (En fait, elle avait dit: ‹‹What are you doing?››, mais comme ce livre, ce n'est pas des devoirs de vacances, on va tout vous traduire.) I've been reading "Le Voyage d'Hector (ou la recherche du bonheur)" by François Lelord. Apparently he's sold a shedload of copies of this and other Hector books in France and Germany, but they haven't conquered the English-speaking world. I can see why - Lelord employs a simplicity of language that might sound unnatural in English, but is well-suited to French. It brings to mind something between Life of Pi, with its deliberately sparse imagery except for a few scenes of fuller description - and No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, again with the simple language reflecting the clarity of the characters' minds and feelings, and adding weight to what would otherwise seem to be rather straightforward conclusions. But anyway it's good and I recommend it, especially if you're looking for an easy book to learn French with. I'm currently working on a project with Marcel Ortgiese, with whom I shared an office in Bath at the start of my PhD. It's based around the parabolic Anderson model. There's a pretty - if not spectacularly useful - simulation here. So, reading, working... what about listening? I've been listening quite a lot to Okkervil River's latest album The Stand-Ins. It came out quite a long time ago and I didn't listen to it much at first, but I've been really enjoying it the past week or two. Like its predecessor The Stage Names it's not a perfect album, and after Black Sheep Boy it feels like there's something missing. Black Sheep Boy is an absolute classic, hugely melodramatic and full of raw emotion. It seems that Will Sheff, the main songwriter, is just a really melodramatic guy. Unfortunately when that goes even slightly wrong it sounds awkward and forced, and there are a few of those moments on their most recent albums. But despite that they're still stacked with really good songs - and as Hector says, "un bon moyen de gâcher son bonheur, c'est de faire des comparaisons." So this week's song of the week is "Calling and not calling my ex". But wait! I can't find the song anywhere online... there are two youtube videos but they've both been removed... it seems Okkervil River's label don't want you to get to know them. So I'll have to put one of their other great songs up instead... here's "Black" from Black Sheep Boy. Okkervil River - Black (Youtube) Posted Tuesday 1st March 2011 at 10.55pm Are we being radical enough? A talk at my old college made the front page of the BBC website today. I haven't listened to or read it all - and I'm far from being an economist at any rate - but I had a glance and there's some interesting stuff in there. The transcript and (largely stat-filled) slides are available here and the much shorter BBC take is here. I'm also able to watch the speech (and an introduction from the Badge) here but I don't know if that works for non-Clare people. Posted Sunday 27th February 2011 at 9.00pm How things turned out to be I heard of Billie the Vision and the Dancers just yesterday. They're from Sweden, and like so many Swedes they play twee indie pop. Because I like twee indie pop, and because it's kind of relevant to my last post, this week's song of the week is "How things turned out to be". Enjoy! Billie the Vision and the Dancers - How things turned out to be (Youtube) PS England and India played a cricket match today. It was a tie. And now I'm seriously tempted not to pay any attention to the rest of the World Cup and assume that today's game was the final, and that England and India are joint champions. Because from here it's not going to be downhill so much as off a cliff. And that's not even a criticism of the rest of the tournament. Just an acceptance that one-day games don't get much better than that! Posted Friday 25th February 2011 at 8.41pm Science There are some great images in the Wellcome image awards. And there's a nice slideshow of them at the BBC - I listened with the sound off so that I could concentrate on the pictures, so I don't know what the commentary's like.  This one is my favourite. (Actually this is a close-up of a part of one of the winners - I can only get a very low-res version of the whole thing.) Staying with the science theme, a friend pointed out this blog post to me - which links to this article. They both highlight some of the downsides, or potential downsides, of doing a PhD and working in academia. The first one is pretty raw and the second focusses a lot on specific problems with the system in the US; not all of the points are valid or even relevant, especially in the blog post. But both hit on some points that I guess most young people in academia would say feel slightly worryingly close to home! However, it's easy to look at all these bad things - no job security, relatively low pay, long hours, blah blah blah, and forget that other people's jobs have bad points too. There are young people, I guess, who get a reasonable level of satisfaction from their (secure, well-paid) job, and then can forget about it when they leave the office at 5pm and go home to their loving family in their nice comfortable house. And ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit here to make a point - what I mean to say is that I know there really are people that have a more relaxing and comfortable life than me, who perhaps aren't as clever or hard-working or disarmingly handsome as I am... well maybe not that last one. But I chose to give it a go in academia, to see how good I am, and really I love it. I don't get to see my family or friends as much as I would like; I have no idea where I'm going to be from one year to the next; my job security is virtually nil; I meet people for a few months or even weeks, become friends, and then don't see them for years; I often work late, or think about my work when I might otherwise be relaxing; I live like a nomadic student, with a total of 30 kilos of possessions and no home; I get spam emails in Franglais (if you thought Nigerian spam-writers' English was bad, you should see their French). But I've lived in some great cities; I've met some incredibly clever people; I have friends all over the world; I get up when I want, even on Wednesdays; I can work on sort of whatever I like; I don't have to wear a tie or iron my socks; if I'm bored with what I'm working on then I can draw pictures instead (never managed anything quite as good as the one above, but maybe one day!); I get to go to conferences in beautiful and far-flung places; sometimes I just love maths. I play sport, I listen to music, I cook, I go out with friends, I have fun. Maybe some people have more fun more often than me. I wish I had a house with a piano, and a secure job, and a fantastic intelligent beautiful girlfriend. I wish I could play cricket regularly and buy salt and vinegar crisps and baked beans. But I also wish I had a unicorn and a rainbow*. Maybe one day I'll get those things, or maybe one day I'll look back and think that I should have made different choices. But for now, I'm happy, I try to enjoy my life, despite the severe lack of pianos, girlfriends, unicorns and rainbows... there are a hell of a lot of people who would love to be in my position, and I'm grateful for what I've got. And that's not meant to be a criticism of the bloke who wrote the blog post. As I've said, and as he says, there are some quite dramatic downsides to this life, and you have to be a certain kind of person to enjoy it. I just wanted to point out that there are some upsides too. 
I haven't experienced many of those upsides though! *Not to suggest that fantastic intelligent beautiful girls (or salt and vinegar crisps) don't exist. I know they do :) Posted Sunday 20th February 2011 at 12.59pm Mangum's opus The only girl I've ever loved Was born with roses in her eyes And then they buried her alive One evening, nineteen forty-five With just her sister at her side And only weeks before the guns All came and rained on everyone Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945 (Youtube) I think Jeff Mangum might hate me. After years of nothing, he finally plays some shows in Canada and the US - about 2 weeks before I get there. Then he curates and plays ATP in the UK - a couple of months after I leave. A few seconds of gentle strumming, and he counts us in. 2 and 1, 2, 3, 4. And then. There are guitars, and there are drums, and there are horns, and there's Jeff's voice, and there's Anne Frank, and there's Jeff, and there's Adolf Hitler, and there's Anne's family and there are all the other Jews and there's death and victory and defeat. Posted Saturday 12th February 2011 at 9.45pm Education, education... Two articles: one about the lack of UK-born students going abroad to study, and one about superheads. It seems to me the arguments made against superheads can also be applied to a certain extent about some investment bankers. In fact, probably they're more extreme - just that the state doesn't directly pay bankers. Posted Thursday 10th February 2011 at 10.21pm Downtime, cricket, and song of the week My website disappeared for a while. Sorry about that, Bath computing services deleted my account with no warning. I have a reprieve but will have to move to cyberpastures new as soon as possible to avoid a repeat. This is an interesting story about a cricket team in LA. I wondered whether it was April fools' day for a while. And finally, the news you've all been waiting for... it's this week's song of the week! Supergrass - Sitting up straight (Youtube) Hey hey... hey hey! It's Supergrass! There was a review that I liked - written by Brent DiCrescenzo - of Supergrass' third album. I can't find it online anywhere now. I didn't really agree with the score - which was somewhere around the 9/10 mark I think - as the album it's talking about isn't actually that great, nowhere near as good as their first two. But I liked the way it pointed out how ruddy miraculous recorded sound is. I often reflect on how amazing the internet is, probably because it didn't exist when I was young. But I rarely think the same about ipods or laptops or even clunky old tape players. It's an invisible orchestra in a little box that you can switch on and off as much as you like! Witchcraft! SIT UP STRAIGHT! Posted Wednesday 9th February 2011 at 11.59am The dirty war There's an interesting article here. Apparently QI had Tsutomu Yamaguchi - survivor of both nuclear bombs - as a guest, and someone made a joke about his glass of water being radioactive. I don't agree that that was out of order - it wasn't belittling either Yamaguchi or the act of dropping a nuclear bomb. Are we expecting 4 comedians to go 45 minutes in a room with Yamaguchi without making any jokes that make any reference to the bombs? But the article still raises a good point about attitudes to the war in the UK and elsewhere. We like to think of ourselves - the Allies - as the "good guys", just because we weren't as bad as the Nazis. But that doesn't make us good. Of course it's extremely difficult for anyone to take an objective view of the war, and perhaps the Japanese perspective is distorted too. But we should at least recognise that, as the article says, this was not the "good war". Posted Tuesday 1st February 2011 at 5.57pm Song of the week: Buy Nothing Day The new Go Team album is out, and I love it. Here's one of their best: Go Team - Buy Nothing Day (Youtube) (Here's a lower quality unofficial version for if you're not in the UK.) Reviews of the new album have been lukewarm. The main criticism (as with the last one) has been that it's not sufficiently different from their previous efforts. But I don't buy that. Take Iron and Wine, for example - they've got very good reviews right through their 9-year, six record career. Yet they're still churning out softly-spoken vocals and delicately plucked guitars in every song. Don't get me wrong, I like Iron and Wine - I think they write good songs, and reviews of their records have picked up on that, as well as the fact that they've slowly introduced better production values and a few new instrumental flourishes here and there. That's enough evolution to keep the critics happy. Well you can't really expect the Go Team to put more instrumental flourishes in - they've already got about 93 instruments in every song. What they have done is go from no singing to lots of singing, and no live instruments (just samples) to lots of live instruments. And they keep churning out massively fun songs. Oh dear, this third album is still massively fun, just like their first one! Let's give them 6/10! Posted Saturday 29th January 2011 at 3.02pm Song of the week: The City I was going to write about another classic song, but then someone pointed out this new song from Patrick Wolf. It's nice. It seems Patrick's in a good mood again. Patrick Wolf -The City (Youtube) Here's a story... it's from a while back so some of the details may be wrong. When I was an undergrad in Cambridge, my friend Matthew Rudy Jacobs invited Patrick Wolf to play at our college. He came with his band and his mum, and they stayed in Rudy's house. Late at night - long after the gig - Patrick wanted some cheese, but there wasn't any in the house, so they went out. They somehow found some cheese despite it being about 3am. Patrick ate it, and then threw up. Good story, no? Regardless, Wind in the Wires and The Magic Position are very good - and very different - albums. Hopefully his new one will be too! In other news, the Moose is on fire.  Posted Thursday 20th January 2011 at 10.22pm Song of the week: I am trying to break your heart I am an American aquarium drinker I assassin down the avenue Wilco - I am trying to break your heart (Youtube) I went to see a jazz gig yesterday - a band called Cyminology. Their pianist is a former diploma student of some people I know from the TU, so we went to watch them, and they were brilliant. I'm not a jazz expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I saw a fair bit when I was in Cambridge (my college had fortnightly jazz evenings) and these guys were, I reckon, the second best jazz band I've seen - the best being Acoustic Ladyland, and you might not count their jazz-punk stuff as real jazz anyway - an impromtu and extremely sweaty dance floor started up about halfway through their set, and I'm not sure that's allowed at real jazz gigs. Anyway. Back to the point: Cyminology were tight. And their drummer / percussionist was fantastic. Not that the rest of them weren't, but I love drummers, and he reminded me of something Jeff Tweedy said once, about how the drummer is the most important part of a band. At the time Wilco (Tweedy's band) had just made Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I think is one of the most incredible albums ever. (It's been downhill from there.) But I think he got it wrong - it's the drumming that's the important bit, not the drummer. A technically brilliant drummer - and Wilco have, by all accounts, a much more technically brilliant drummer now than they did circa YHF - is nothing without great parts to play. "I am trying to break your heart", the first track from YHF, has a great drum - well, percussion - part. Seeing it performed live at Glastonbury, several years ago now, was amazing (and apart from that Wilco's set was distinctly underwhelming). I'm going to try to post a song a week on here and sometimes say a bit about it. Generally I don't talk about music very much because I'm kind of happy with the fairly small obscure selection I listen to and don't know many other people who share my views. But the beauty of a blog without a comments thingy is that I don't have to hear about other people's views. Ha. Youtube can't really do justice to this one - but maybe it might whet your appetite. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, people - get out there and buy it. It's very very good. Loves you - I am the man who loves you. Posted Thursday 6th January 2011 at 10.40pm The Scream, and spicy sweet potato soup The Ashes. Wow. Michael Clarke's scream after he got out summed it up for me... it said "you're better than me and I don't like it!" It's amazing how everything has clicked for England. Long may it continue! Chris Tremlett is a fricking MONSTER. When he smiles it's like Everest melting. I might start a campaign to get him to roar at Osborne. I can see those jowls fluttering now. He'd never be the same again. Here's another recipe before I forget it... fry half a leek in some olive oil, chop a big sweet potato into small cubes (<1cm), and add to the leeks with half a litre of vegetable stock, a pinch of chilli flakes and another of marjoram, and boil with the lid on for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally and crushing some of the sweet potato chunks against the side of the pan once they have softened. Posted Tuesday 4th January 2011 at 11.35pm Berlin I'm now in Berlin! Busy too... I know no German so having to try to learn some as well as do maths and all the odd jobs you have to do on moving to a new country. The Germans are great at speaking English, but still you need some basic level of language to get by in a country without total embarassment. I need to know what's on the menu at lunchtime for example. Oh and... I'm sick of snow. Berlin is -6C and there's still masses of the white stuff everywhere. Nightmare! Day mare. 
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