mangle with a clear conscience!

i'm currenty in cardiff, wales to give a talk at cardiff university. while exploring the city, guess what we found inside this cool building...

did you guess?

a penny smasher!!!

but not to worry... we can all mangle with a clear conscience :)

cardiff is a city where the buildings have hats.

and face boats. (?)

and it's by the sea! look, i think that's england!

dotAstronomy - Oxford, UK

the third dotAstronomy conference is well underway in oxford's new college! i'll have exciting results to reveal tomorrow from this year's hack day, but for now, here are a few photos of the harry-potter-like venue!

coonabarabran

just arrived at siding springs observatory for another round of observing with the anglo-australian telescope.

there isnt a whole lot of excitement during the seven hour drive through the bush to get here, regardless of whether you take the hunter valley route or the mudgee route. but i must say, i am highly amused by the place names around new south wales!

i remember driving around the UK and being utterly confused as to how anyone was supposed to know the proper way to pronounce place names. for example, Leicester is "Les-tah," Belvoir is "beaver" (i'm not joking, and made the mistake of using this pronunciation in australia. the horror!), Loughborough is "luff-buh-ruh." actually, anything with an "ough" in it is pointless to even try. just wait to hear someone say it. especially edinburgh.

apparently a common mispronunciation of Loughborough, especially among australians, is "looga-burooga." having done some driving around this part of australia, it's clear that a lot of place names maintain their aboriginal origin and are pronounced mostly phonetically. so if the word has a lot of letters, like coonabarabran, you just take your time, pronounce all the letters, and it sounds exactly as it looks. or, in true australian fashion, you just shorten the word. so instead of saying the 5 syllables of coon-a-bear-a-bran every time, you just say coona.

coona is the closest town to the observatory and also happens to have one of the best names i've encountered yet! but on the drive today we also passed by dunedoo, wallerawang, cullen bullen, and marrangaroo :)

great britain? united kingdom? england?

c. g. p. grey attempts to control the world's confusion over the difference between the united kingdom, great britain, and england in this fairly successful video. he speaks quite quickly, but you can get the transcript here.



this video certainly clears up many mysteries, but opens up many more. why do so many countries on the opposite side of the world from "the empire" still recognize the monarchy as their head of state? this video also doesnt show you the different flags of england, scotland, ireland, etc... so you might still be confused during world cups or olympic games.

sunday at shelly beach

the forecast called for rain, and how wonderfully wrong they were.

the morning looked a bit cloudy in my neighborhood, but i decided to grab a ferry for the coast anyway.

there was a volleyball tournament on the beach!

after a tasty brazilian feijoada for lunch, we decided to walk to that little beach off in the distance.

we spotted a big lizard along the way...

almost at shelly beach!

ahhh...

one thing i like about australia is that matters are not complicated by subtlety or suggestion. no, they are presented in an upfront and honest manner. for instance, when i first heard of shelly beach, my passing thought was that maybe it was named after a historic person named shelly who lived in the area and achieved something special.

and then i visited the beach today. as i walked into the water, i realized my feet were becoming quite sensitive because the sand went from very small granules to increasingly larger chunks of broken shells. i thought to myself "wow, there are a lot of shells here! oh right, shelly beach is... shelly!"

(shells photo credit: amanda gilligan)

when i lived in england, i felt like there was always some deeper, hidden, clever meaning to everything and i was constantly on the look out so as not to miss the subtle joke. the british take great pride in their humour, even moreso when people "dont get it." actually, i just found this quote about the english and their use of understatement from the "Humour Rules" chapter of Watching The English, by Kate Fox, which explains it all very well.

anyway, in australia, understatement is not commonplace. they call it like it is. shelly beach has a lot of shells. es ist wie es ist.

i like not feeling as though i'm always missing something!

the ashes

the ashes is a long series of cricket matches played between england and australia every 18 to 30 months (?). i dont understand cricket. i dont understand it so much that i have no idea why the ashes is actually a series of test cricket matches instead of just regular cricket.

i know the matches can last for days and i know that my friends in england, who care about cricket, are very excited that im in australia right now. apparently they feel i am somehow obliged to be happy (and brag?) about england's recent performance.

anyway, while i lived in england i was too excited by all the soccer games i could watch to bother paying any attention to learning the rules of cricket or rugby. notice how i called it soccer instead of football? thats because here in australia the word football could potentially mean like 3 different sports, so i've cut out all ambiguity and gone back to calling my favorite sport simply soccer!

i'm at a loss when it comes to popular sports in australia because there is rugby league, rugby union, cricket (and apparently test cricket), aussie rules football, and good old soccer. this SMBC cartoon summarizes my knowledge... just substitute any of the above for football except, of course, soccer.

space-themed christmas

according to the photos from the big picture, its beginning to look a lot like christmas.

has anyone strolled around london this year to take photos? apparently london's carnaby street has space-themed decorations this year!

cool! i'd like to see more pictures.

this is england

its such a shame that this made me laugh so much.

it's originally from the monty python sketch hell's grannies, but i saw the screen cap at this isnt happiness

so begins another adventure

today i leave england with a one way ticket to australia.

moving far far away is difficult and draining, despite the potential adventures that await in a new land....

its a bittersweet feeling that the inexorable nina simone has managed to capture in her ballad, lonesome cities. see you on the flip side.

things i'll miss about england

tomorrow i move away from england, my home of the last 2 years and 3 months. i have to admit i'm emotionally exhausted from saying so many big goodbyes, but i'm completely over dealing with all the preparations for moving across the world.


things i will miss about england

the sound of the accent, in general, but also how geographically quickly the accents vary!

being called "love" or "duck"

the subtle and hilarious humo(u)r

riding on the upper floor of a double decker bus, in the front seat!

the variety of locally brewed, tasty, real ales. and ciders. and whisky...

satisfying late night cravings for chips!

premier league football

afternoon tea, and the arguments about the "proper" way to add milk to tea

pub quizzes (i only ever won one during my time in england, but not for lack of trying!)

running along the canals

my city center flat and walking to shops

come dine with me

rambling thru the unbelievably bright green countryside

sandwiches from homemade.

participating in sixty symbols

postdoc lunches (PDL), specifically at the vic!

unforgettable friendships.



things i will not miss about blighty

the weather

general moaning and the expectation things will inevitably go wrong: "typical!"

friday and saturday night debauchery by the locals (lack of clothes year round, incredible drunkenness, etc...)

invisible queues ("An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." - George Mikes)

the irrational excesses of english politeness

lack of eye contact

not speaking to strangers, or in most cases, not even acknowledging the existence of other people, unless, of course, one is trying to sell the big issue, or sharing the silent acknowledgment of the impudence of a queue jumper.

confusing one-way streets that are practically impossible to navigate, mostly because the street signs are purposely hidden!

riding my bike in the rain

the full english breakfast

brits asking me to imitate the british accent and then laughing at me when i cant

"i cant be bothered" to come up with anymore right now, but if youre curious about any of these aspects of the english culture, i can highly recommend the book watching the english: the hidden rules of english behaviour by kate fox. in her socialogical study, she hilariously captures the peculiarities of living with the english. reading this book completely changed my perspective and experience here.

cheers, england!

buckeyes or conkers?

i'm originally from the state of ohio, USA, which is known as the "buckeye state." buckeyes are the common local name of a type of tree that are more generally called horse chestnuts.

ohioans have been inspired to make make necklaces out of the seeds of the buckeye tree in support of the ohio state buckeyes:


the region is also known for sweet candy treats called "buckeyes" which are made from peanut butter balls dipped in melted chocolate and left to dry. mmmmmm... buckeyes!


the british, on the other hand, have developed quite a different tradition using the seeds from the horse chestnut trees, which they call conkers. the game of conkers is a moderately violent affair where you string up your conker and try to knock an opponent's conker off his or her string.


a couple years ago we held a conkers tournament among the astronomers and physicists in our building... the brits wanted to initiate all us foreigners to the tradition, you see. we were warned of a few of the rules, which mainly revolved around forbidden methods to potentially strengthen your conker: soaking in vinegar, drying in an oven, etc...


what surprised me is how painful this game can be when your shot is not accurate. if you miss your opponent's conker altogether, which i did quite often, the conker flings around on the end of the string and slams into your forearm. my unskilled conker flicks continued to hit the same spot on my arm and built up quite a painful bruise! ouch! of course i lost my conker during my first battle.


brady haran, who produces sixty symbols, has produced an interesting video about horse chestnut trees for his trees project, which explains a bit more about the game of conkers (but doesnt mention "buckeyes" at all :(

england's lake district

a couple weeks ago i drove to england's lake district with some friends. the drive was gorgeous, if a bit strenuous for the vehicle!


obviously, lakes are plentiful.




another strikingly abundant feature of much of the british countryside is stone walls. they seem to meander randomly around many areas i've explored and are even identified on ordinance survey maps indicating places where crossings have been constructed!


the presence of the walls has something to do with the enclosure acts that started in the mid 1700s requiring farmers to enclose their fields. over 5000 acts of parliament were passed which covered almost 7 million acres of land, enclosing about 21% of england!


the greenest grass ever?



amazingly, the weather was pleasant throughout the entire weekend, but i must admit that plentiful showers bring lovely flowers!


we ended the weekend with a bit of fun at the beach!


"nottn'm woz 'ere"

this is how you lock a gate

all across england and wales, there are public footpaths that are available for walking. i felt strange at first walking across someone's meadow where sheep are eating grass just meters away, but people have even built steps to help you over fences and walls that you might come across during your walk. these footpaths only apply to walkers (and "bridleways" that also allow cyclists and people on horseback), but i was still surprised to see this heavily-locked gate as we walked through the lake district in northwest england!

UK exploration continues

it seems i'm working my way from the southwest to the north of the UK. this weekend i'm off to see how the rain feels in the lake district!

whitby's dracula inspiration

the north yorkshire town of whitby, which sits in northeastern england, is known for its gothic style, jet black stones, fish and chips, and for being a place that inspired bram stoker's most famous novel, dracula. i visited whitby this weekend and walked along a bit of the dracula trail. here are a few scenes:




steep.




i'm not sure how old the dish of fish 'n chips actually is, but they were likely eaten in the late 1800s when dracula was written. here's the plaice version:


it just wouldn't be right if they didn't squeeze at least one curry on the menu...