A Mind Map summarising the main arguments in Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists

"On...Desert Island Discs and the Futility of Lists"

Since it became available as a podcast and as we don't have to listen to it when actually broadcast, my wife and I have become regular listeners to Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. In case you are not familiar with the format, a guest chooses eight records, a book and a luxury that they would like to have with then should they find themselves stranded alone on a desert island. Which got me thinking, what would I choose?  The luxury was fairly easy, or so I thought: lots of paper and pencils. I like to write and draw, but don't have enough time to practice the latter. It could be my chance to get really good. But what about a family album? Could I be happy without access to those pictures? Or a camera, I love photography. No, presenter Kirsty Young is strict, she wouldn't allow me to take a computer and a digital camera without a computer is not complete. OK, how about a book? Hmm, tricky, a favourite from my youth or something really thick that would keep me going for a bit while I awaited rescue? Will have to mull that one over, perhaps the records are the place to start, there are eight if them after all. 

And that is where the futility of the exercise started to hit me. What sort of Island is it? Dream-tropical with abundant food, water and shelter and no poisonous bugs? Or does it promise the threat of slow starvation, sunstroke and despair? That would certainly change your music choices, lighthearted, inspirational, uplifting, depressive, contemplative? Something to simply get you through the day? Desert Island Discs has never made the conditions on the island clear, at least in the time I have been listening to it. 

There are some rules that are explicit, you can't take whole albums, so it has to be singles (perhaps this is why a lot of people choose classical music, the tracks are longer). Right, how to start then? 

Are there any artists I would definitely want? Well there would probably have to be some Kate Bush in there so which one? Running up that Hill, maybe? But then what about Aerial, or Sat in Your Lap, or Suspended in Gaffa or Hounds of Love or Man with the Child in his Eyes or Oh England My Lionheart or Army Dreamers, Babooshka, Breathing, Deeper Understanding or 50 Words for Snow? More than eight there, each of them good enough to make the list and none of them head and shoulders above the others. Some chosen because they were for one reason or another important to me at some stage of my life, others simply because I like the music. And that is just one artist.

So I could pick eight, but they would not be my eight favourite songs, merely an arbitrary selection from maybe a thousand songs by maybe hundreds of artists that mean something to me and could justifiably be taken to the mythical desert island. Compiling such lists is indeed an exercise in futility, but hey, sometimes futile can be fun.

PS in the meantime, I will continue to occasionally post random candidates on Twitter with the hashtag #SongOfTheDay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs 

My collected Tweets on Blake's 7 series 2

Recently watched the second series of Blake's 7 with the kids, the first time I had seen it since original broadcast. Tweeted some thoughts as we went along, all hash-tagged #Blakes7. Didn't do episodes 1 to 3 for some reason...

Ep 2-04: Horizon. Is every Federation functionary homicidally duplicitous? The evidence so far suggests so.

2-05 Pressure Point. Gan dead! (Can you have a thirty-two year old spoiler?)

2-05 Pressure Point. Starting to think that Blake is a bit of a rubbish leader.

2-05 Pressure Point. And Servalan and Travis are equally incompetent at killing him.

2-05 Pressure Point: Shame Veron didn't join the team to replace Gan

2-06 Killer. Easily the best episode of series 2 so far.

2-06 Killer ...and although base commander shows usual Federation duplicity, the scientists are depicted fairly positively

2-07 Hostage. Blake kisses Inga, his attractive cousin! Thought that sort of thing went out of fashion in about 1850...

2-07 Hostage. Like the way the Liberator is steered with an angle-poise lamp with a bit of tubing attached where the bulb should be

2-08 Countdown. Series 2 is getting better and better. Tension, nuance, who would have thought it?

2-09 Countdown. So it seems cold fish Avon's lover was tortured and killed by the Federation. Could explain much about him.

2-09 Countdown #BadScience if pole was near absolute zero Avon's lack of hat and gloves might have made defusing bomb problematical

2-10 Voice From the Past. Blake really is unreliable as a leader

2-10 Voice From the Past. Cracking episode though.

2-11 Gambit. Think the production team were having a bit of fun with this one. The Villa and Avon double act worked well.

2-11 Gambit. Story arc (finding mysterious Federation control centre Star One) slowly and subtly introduced. #DoctorWho take note!

2-11 Gambit. #BadScience Orac being able to shrink itself at will for a couple of hours was just silly and explanation twaddle

2-11 Gambit. Re shrinking Orac – communicator link to the casino would have been much more believable.

2-12 The Keeper. Blake meets Goths. Very medieval.

2-12 The Keeper. If Star One controls all computer communications for the Federation, how come Orac can't find it?

2-12 The Keeper. Servalan and The Council don't know where Star One is either. How is it supplied, staffed and maintained?

2-12 The Keeper. Showing its age a bit, some unconvincing special effects

2-12 The Keeper. Pretty good episode though.

2-13 Star One. So nobody in The Federation knows where Star One is. No wonder Servalan looks panicy.

2-13 Star One. Lot going on here, Servalan's coup d'état, alien invasion, Travis betraying all of humanity.

2-13 Star One. Blake shot! Travis dead!

2-13 Star One. Blake and Servalan teaming up to fend off the threat from Andromeda. Whatever next?

2-13 Star One. The Liberator alone to fend off the alien fleet. What a cliff-hanger!

2-13 Star One. The children immediately watched trailer for series three but I think we will do a bit more classic #DoctorWho next.

Doctor Who teaser trailer

Earlier this evening, the BBC showed a new teaser trailer for the upcoming series of Doctor Who. It starts with the Doctor and Amy lying on some grass at the top of a hill at night, looking up at the stars. Amy asks 'Who are you?' 'I'm The Doctor,' he replies. Amy just has time to ask 'Doctor Who?' when light erupts from the grass around them and they are first thrown up into the air and then fall back into a vortex of swirling blue light. They hear and see a Dalek (hard to tell if it was one of the retro-style ones seem in the New Year trailer although it does seem to have a swivelling centre section). 'Trust me,' he says, pushing her away as she shouts (not unreasonably given the circumstances) 'Why?' He grasps a weeping angel which explodes. Still falling, they grab hold of each other and suddenly, we are back with them lying on the grass as The Doctor says 'All of time an space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?' They look at each other. The face of a strange lizard-like creature then explodes through the grass between them and the new logo appears.

The trailer did not adopt the 'clips from the upcoming series' approach used in the one shown on New Year's Day, seeming instead to be trying to build anticipation and differentiate the Eleventh from the Tenth Doctor. As a trailer, it is less interesting than the New Year one as we get to see less, but it does perhaps hint that there will be some change of tone.

Science and Politics

It has been a bad week for the Government's relationship with scientists. Professor David Nutt, head of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said in a lecture that the scientific evidence was that cannabis is a less harmful drug than either nicotine or alcohol. Home Secretary Alan Johnson promptly sacked him.

Five members of the Advisory Council have since resigned in protest at the sacking. One of them, Dr Simon Campbell, was quoted on the BBC website as saying that home secretaries would listen to scientific advice but had usually already made their decisions. Perhaps not coincidentally the government recently decided to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug (with greater penalties for possession and supply) rather it's previous classification as Class C. The Science Minister (Lord Drayson) was in Japan at the time of the sacking and was not consulted by the Home Secretary but has subsequently acknowledged the disquiet felt by scientists over the matter.

An understanding of the nature and limits of science is not high on the list of qualifications needed to run the country, but probably should be. A politician needs to be able to understand - in broad terms at least - what he is being told by his advisers and also appreciate the limits of what science can say about a given problem. In this case it seemed that Alan Johnson was not able - or chose to ignore - the difference between a scientific opinion on the relative dangers of various drugs and an attack on government policy.

It is the scientific advisor's role to present the science in as clear and impartial a way as possible. It is the politician's job to make policy decisions which may be influenced by such advice although economic, social and political factors will probably be more important in most cases. Unfortunately it is often tempting for a politician to paint a layer of scientific justification over a policy arrived at for reasons of political expediency. Once the policy has been formed any scientific advice which casts doubt on the basis for that policy may be looked on by the politician as a potential political threat. In such cases it is easier to attack the scientist or the science than admit the real reasons for the policy, even if those reasons were - from a political point of view - sound.

Alan Johnson had many valid reasons to want to classify cannabis as a Class B drug, but scientific evidence was not one of them. By sacking a scientific advisor for expressing a scientific opinion the Home Secretary has caused a great deal of damage to the government's relationship with scientists, who must now be wondering what areas of scientific and academic independence will be next to come under attack. The damage done to the integrity and independence of American science under George W. Bush's presidency is a warning of what can happen if scientists feel compelled to make the 'facts' fit into a predetermined political line.

Independent scientific advice ultimately leads to better informed policy making. Even if there are good reasons to ignore the scientific advice, rubbishing it is counterproductive. The government has some bridge-building to do here.

Update: since I drafted this yesterday, Alan Johnson has agreed to write to members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to explain any decisions that go against their advice, and to refrain from pre-judging decisions on drug classification before the Advisory Council issues its advice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8355898.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8353685.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8347828.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8337185.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8334774.stm

On... The Mighty Mouse: trackball problem solved and then made irrelevant in less than a week

Over the years I have used many types of mouse. From old-style ones with the big rubber ball inside which collected fluff and wouldn't track properly, to optical mice with a scroll wheel which tracked well but tended to scratch your desk. But my all-time favourite has been the Apple Mighty Mouse with its tiny trackball replacing the scroll wheel. It might not be the most ergonomic mouse ever, but the little trackball with it's multiple-directional scrolling is a joy to use. Right up until it gets some fluff in it, when it sticks horribly. As the trackball is so small, it only takes a tiny crumb, hair or other bit of detritus to clog the mechanism up, and this is where your problems really start as there is no easy way to get the ball out to clean it. Searching the Internet produced two main suggestions, major mouse surgery or flipping it over and rubbing the ball vigorously with a damp cloth. As the former looked rather too likely to end in a dead mouse, I had been using the latter technique. The cloth is dampened so that the dirt (slightly) adheres to it, but it is not particularly effective. Using a more adhesive cleaner would therefore seem to be a good idea however sticky tape, for example, is likely to leave a slightly tacky layer on the trackball and actually make it more likely to attract and then clog up with dirt.

The solution came from the observation that a ball a Blu-Tack left on a desk top for a few days develops a patina of dust and hair of similar size to that which I wanted to remove from the mechanism. Rubbing the trackball firmly with a clean bit of Blu-Tack did indeed quickly solve the problem. It was sticky enough to remove the dirt but not so sticky as to leave any adhesive residue. Problem solved.

And then two days later Apple announced the Magic Mouse, ditching the trackball altogether for touch sensitive scrolling. Mind you, with the Magic Mouse costing an eye-watering £55, I think that I will be sticking to the Mighty Mouse and a fresh slab of Blu-Tack for the time being.

iPod Touch 3.0 software and the Psion Series 5

Well, gritted my teeth and stumped up the £5.99 to download the iPhone 3.0 software for my iPod Touch. I really feel that I should not have to pay for cut-and-paste and a landscape 'keyboard' (the only things I really want from it over version 2). So how does it perform? Cut-and-paste does what it says on the tin, and does it well, but then it should or course. The landscape keyboard is more interesting. Previously, I held the device in my left hand and stabbed at the software keys with the index or middle finger of my right hand. Now I can hold the Touch in both hands and use both thumbs. Not quite ideal as my thumbs are a little too big, but I can enter text much faster than previously. It puts me in mind of my old Psion series 5, my favourite 

PDA of all time. I have also owned an Acorn Pocketbook II (a badged Psion series 3, very good) a Sony Clie (not great) and a Palm Tungsten T3 (not bad). The series 5 was an ideal size, small enough to fit in a jacket pocket but big enough to have a usable keyboard (and I used it, two thumbed, to write many Open University assignments). There is nothing really like it today; modern PDA's, phones etc. are too small for serious text entry and netbooks are too big to stuff in your pocket. As an all round device that can be taken everywhere, the iPod Touch is probably the best option available.