DRAGGING MY ENTRAILS BEHIND ME

It was crazy really my being here in Brussels. Once, I had been a scientist but had no justification as masquerading as one now.   Twenty years of child rearing, part-time education stuff all did not serve to keep the physics I once knew fresh and updated. Escaping to a Greek island for almost a decade, now felt ridiculously arty and unforgivable.  The only reason I was here at all was due to legislation recently passed requiring all EU funding panels to have 40% women at least.  Scrambling to find enough female physicists my application had wound its way through because of mutual desperation. They were destitute of women physicists and I was eager to earn money. It was marriage of necessity not love.  Both parties were worldly wise and cynical about the whole seedy affair. My goal was to do the job. Sit on a science funding panel and make decisions as to which application got EU backing.  With luck I could return home unscarred and financially better off.  It is a little known fact that when you live on an island in the Mediterranean and get employed in northern times even a part-time salary is rich pickings compare to locals earnings.  I had managed to pull of my first session as an independent science adviser for the EU in Brussels two years previously and did what was expected despite my misgivings so that made the whole trip this time less crazy. Not wanting to fall victim to the rip-off prices of Brussels hotels I stayed not in the luxury hotel complexes but a dire section of Brussels in a real armpit of a hotel.  It felt tricky but with a bit of luck I felt I could do this once again.

Administrators Rule the world

EU funding in the science field is decided by panels of independent science advisers who come from all over Europe to consult together as to the worth of online applications for funding.  Having had a chance, at home, to mark these applications online against the grading criteria set up by the EU funding regulations this week in Brussels was about us reaching agreement in panels of three members face-to-face. We may have been using the same criterion but, human nature being diverse, scientists in the room can have endless takes on the benefits of proposals. At times I felt strangely heartened as many of my intuitive feelings about proposals seems spot-on.  For example, one excellent applicant seemed well-qualified had superb references, international experience in impressive labs, but I queried the fact that with all these periods in state of the art research establishments the applicant had never built on or maintained any relationships with the previous research groups. To me I smelt a rat.  He was either as odd as can be or quite deeply unpleasant neither of which characteristics is worthy of funding for yet another expensive research study abroad. The goal was to send good minds abroad to a 4 star research establishment so that they could bring their excellence back into the EU.  Sending a brilliant but socially handicapped one would be a waste of limited resources. If he hadn't got on with the group in CERN, Tokyo or Copenhagen odds were he would also fall out with the Americans. Given that I did use this all from an application written by the guy it pleased me no end when my colleagues on the panel who knew the applicant bore out my initial misgivings. I told myself that even if my physics was rusty my intuition had not atrophied and was surprisingly spot on. My confidence grew when on the third day I went through another application.  I spotted beneath the wording on computer simulation activities in the project that this person actually was going to China and intended running a nuclear power plant in critical mode to test the strength of the computer model he had designed.  I had a meeting with the French nuclear physicist a fellow panel member who was convinced the whole project was merely a software simulation. After two hours of poring over the proposed he started cursing in French as he realised this applicant actually wanted funding from the EU to deliberately run a real nuclear reactor into critical mode. He'd obviously already got permission from the Chinese authorities to use one of their plants. The two of us informed the ethical committee of our anxiety and moral issues with this plan which we both felt should and could never be EU funded. That evening as I made my way through the grubby hotel lobby I felt like Clint Eastwood when he’s saved the day.  Fool, fool!  Little did I know the humiliation that was only a day or two away.

Dragging my entrails behind me

Each group in Brussels has a team of administrators who have grown in influence and number, seeing to their needs, directing events, providing training etc  These bureaucrats are seriously worried that scientists will get them into trouble.  So having learned from past disasters think of new more complicated hoops to protect themselves from complaints/criticism or litigation. With each year the list of requirements grew ever more onerous.  This particular year they had decided that when submitting the final reports we should not mention any names of people involved.  Obviously, there was too much chance of someone saying “Charlie has not enough experience.”  When perhaps the applicants name was Charlene.  Such mistakes suggest to the applicant that a complete idiot has read their time consuming thirty page application form and make them question the EU’s ability to make coherent and fair decisions.  Equally unforgivable is not naming the research group correctly, either the one the applicant comes from or the place where they wish to travel to.  So all names of research venues had to be eliminated as well.  Given that previous reports had claimed that certain qualifications were not sufficient to justify funding no mention of qualifications, geographical or institutional should be included either.  Projects themselves should not be mentioned in final reports either because a report mentioning spin coupling is a worthy direction to fund could inadvertently show that the report writer had no notion of the actual project intent.  So there you have it the final report on each applicant had to consist of vague statements that stayed clear of science/activity/applicant/research purpose or place/qualifications/names of referees etc.  So bland and uniform did these final documents become that I could not even identify which original project there were detailing.  That may seem entirely reasonable to you but in the world of physics the landscape is sufficiently small that internationally and good physicist in the field will know by name the good research groups and what they specialize in.  Leaders in various fields will be known for their strengths and weaknesses much as football supporters will tell you the names of players on various teams.  I know no footballers names nor physicists.  I am blissfully ignorant of research teams and so when it came to the final plenary session I came to it ill prepared and virtually illiterate.  The previous plenary a couple of years before had only dwelt on the top twenty projects which would receive funding and since none of the projects I had been involved in had reached this stage it seemed I could relax.  We were instructed  to get rid of our papers and notes on the applications.  So I had shredded all my painstaking background research into the quality of publications, research groups etc  Because I knew nothing I had to do a lot more digging to find information.  Once all this was disposed off the only thing we were asked to keep was our final reports that would be sent to participants.  These vague stripped reports meant nothing to me and as I sat there with only these bland musings on my lap I felt the beginning of fear.  Last time only the top funded projects were picked out at random for the experts to speak to as to why they awarded funding to this project.  But the bureaucrats had the last laugh, they had changed the format and projects both passed and rejected were pulled at random from the mix and experts would have to defend/explain their decision.  I remember looking around in distress as one by one projects were called out and experts got their feet to eloquently explain what the project was about and its strengths and weaknesses.  Sweat broke out on my brow as I carefully examined the bland stripped moronic reports about my projects on my lap.  With no name whatsoever there was nothing to distinguish one from another.  I wanted to scream and sank lower in my chair as expert after expert got to their feet and elaborated on their projects.  Shit! shit! Shit!  I write these three times because three times my projects were picked at random and three times I rose to my feet among my peers and stood like an Irish version of Mr Bean describing that work of art as a large painting. 

The humiliation even as I write this comes back to haunt me and I blush in memory of that fateful afternoon.  I returned home humiliated beyond words and am reasonably sure my name is recorded and retold in physics circles and throughout Europe as the independent science adviser who could not remember one solitary fact about any of her projects for which she was responsible.  That might as I checked out of my dismal hotel it was with a deep inner conviction that I deserved such a zombie landscape.  In the words of Buzz Light Year, “One minute you are a superhero and the next you are supping down Darjeeling” and feeling an utter moron!

legacy of half nose and cups - lesson for the future?

Looking out from the saluting Battery in Valetta, Malta there is an amazing view and it is a lovely place to examine the oldest part of the city across the harbour.  I spent the day walking around the ramparts examining statues.  By definition they are there as a kind of legacy.  Erected in memory of an event/person/triumph.  However keeping one’s legacy is a tricky business.  Often history is reviewed and re-written the heroes turn out to be villains and vice versa.  Having a big ass statue you’d think would lend itself to a kind of immortality solid against the barrage of the passage of time.  But when revolutions happen statues are often the first to be hauled down.

So these structures embody more than we may at first sight think.  The public is a fickle beast bowing down to leaders and then in a flash hauling their images into the mud. 

There are degrees of course to such things.  Apart from political expressions/regime change etc there is also the sheer stupid vandalism of the ignorant.  I include, in that bracket, the destruction of The Buddhas of Bamiyan.  These were two monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in central Afghanistan at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built roughly 1500 years ago they were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban after the government declared that they were idols.  You have to just hold your head and groan at times!

In Malta the vandalism is small scale and vaguely amusing at times.  Note this impressive statue has a MacDonald’s cup carefully positioned.

Nearby the statue of another prone figure has been more abused with the statues nose half removed and his head marked with black pen graffiti.

I suspect we erect such things to claim a legacy and those who damage them are trying to make their own cheap mark in history.  A similar but more extreme mindset is found in those who assassinate the famous to earn their place in Wikipedia.  It has ever been so, small minds with aspirations of greatness.  In their ignorance they often leave behind a legacy of their own mindless destructive urges.  As if the world needs more visual reminders of those both high and low that have nothing to celebrate but the violation of person and place. 

The statues that are worth building are the ones that remind us of the loss of life that war brings or those that highlight persecution and real injustice.  They remind us of just how diabolical we humans can be.  A valuable lesson from history that should fuel our desire for a better future.

Unusual sunbathers

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

I spotted the two on the rocks near the shore

Concerned because they were so still

Roasting in the mid day sun

Skin parboiled like red cabbage

Drunk tourists recovering from a heavy night

Spending the dark hours poisoning their major organs

Now intent on barbequing their largest organ too

Holidays the freedom and time to

Abuse yourself as you see fit,

Sheer fun for one and all

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

My happy cousin timed her meticulous suntan to the minute

Fifteen minutes on front and then back

Even her sides got their blasting

As she perched like soda bread on the griddle

Arms uplifted to let the sun get hidden crevices

“How can something that feels so good be bad for you?”

She’d grin and laugh. Freckled and happy from the sun.

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

Sunbathing, I reckon is the closest

Most people get to meditating

Trapped by the sun’s rays

Made limp by the heat

They close their eyes and are silent for once

Feeling nature work its magic on each pore

Exfoliated by sand, massaged by salty sea water

The fresh air pumps into lungs

Usually office bound

And for that second they are in the moment

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

When a child I would build sand cars

As the tide came in I’d reinforce my bonnet,

Flatten off my front seat

Place shells for speedometers

The feeling of ownership

And pride in construction

Then, I’d sit while the tide came in

Wearing down my sand defences

There was that delightful moment

When the tide encircled

My car became an exquisite boat

Followed by disaster and destruction

Never made any easier by repetition

My sorrow intense

As my creation washed away

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

These refugees risk everything

For a chance

Setting to sea

Paying a fortune

A shot at freedom

Fleeing war, poverty, pain or fear

They set out against the elements

And all sense

On tiny ships ill equipped

Children clasped

The fragrance of hope and salt on their lips

This Mediterranean has become a graveyard

For people who had no choice

But to take a chance

Their bodies washed up on sandy beaches

Weeks later

Bloated symbols of what has been lost

Unusual sunbathers

Prone on the sand

Searching an escape from their lives

Do you ever get sick of yourself?

Do you ever get sick of yourself?

I mean really weary and fed up.

When, if it were anyone else you’d just walk way?

But that’s it, isn’t it.

When it is yourself, there is no escape!

In ancient Greece a young girl committed suicide and suddenly there was an epidemic of copycat suicides among girls her age in the city.  It reached such a pitch that the senate needed to act.  So one elderly senator introduced a law, which stopped the loss of life immediately. 

What was the law?

They introduced a law that if a young woman committed suicide her naked body would be carried through the market place for all to see.  This stopped the dreadful avalanche of death.  Evidently, fear of shame was a fate worse than death. 

So, for dire situations we need effective strategies.  When life takes a deep plunge into despair I have my own technique.  You can tell I am a pessimist from the constant cheery refrain I am prone to reassure myself with, at such times

“However awful life appears, it can always get worse!”

In other words, whatever calamity we face usually there is another one possible that makes the present one seem like a picnic.  For some reason, that calms and soothes my spirit.  Things seem suddenly not so bad at all.

Another positive take is however awful I may be, whatever dreadful deed I may have done/omitted I have a few minutes, hours, months to alter and to make amends.  Making things right is not achieved by silent contemplation of my navel.  No, my worth is probably measured on what my contribution to this world has been, in real terms.

So, being heartily sick of oneself can be a really good thing.  It is the diagnosis of a skilled physician who sees the problem and then seeks the remedy.  Too often we get hung up on the first step.  That honest introspection needs to be followed by action and deeds.

The world is weary of words

We want to see our life mean something

That change we seek within ourselves

Will always be linked with the change

Our lives bring to others.

Perhaps that is why we are still here!

Meetings - the good ones and the rest!

So lovely to watch Charlie meeting my mum and my mum seeing her first great grandson.  He, a matter of months and she with eight decades under her belt.  I know it is because I love them both that I find it all magical on so many levels.  A meeting of souls that transverses age.  Eye to eye, blood of mine, the look that says hello and recognises the wonder of this moment.  In life we have so many meetings, some great, a few sour, occasionally gut wrenching we often lose count of faces and facts.  There are those, who in the words of a famous comedian, in hindsight one should have greeted with

“I spurn you as I would a rabid dog!”

There are others that should have had us on our knees pleading

“I am so grateful for the privilege of knowing you, of being influenced for the better by you”

And others who fall in between, that one could have truly said in that first meeting

“Hello, I’d like to thank you in advance for all the tests, pain and agro you will bring into my life.  Because of it, I grew to know how much sweeter life can be when we learn exactly how to cope with upnoxious, hurtful and disturbed individuals such as yourself!”

That said no one can really know when we first meet anyone what lies ahead.  We cannot guess how damaging or nourishing contact with them will bring us.  We can only recognise that a life of tranquil solitude will teach us little.  We will emerge from the drawer of life like a glove completely unused, brand spanking new.  It is in the wearing and use, the engagement with other souls we truly learn the lessons of life.  We will be stretched beyond our limits, pulled out of shape, moulded anew but we will be forced to adapt and grow in that process.

We are changed by each other every single day.  Those changes are even inherited by our children and grandchildren[1].  These alterations in us are either enjoyed or endured by all who meet us.  So make haste to transform and to be transformed.  Practice makes perfect.

---

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml

Christmas Blues

Was at school this week in the staff room and the discussion was centred on the preparations for Christmas.  Buying presents, decorating trees, Christmas parties, performances etc.  I mentioned that we did not and have never bought Christmas presents or trees for our children.  There was a horrified silence as if I had regaled them with tales of how I starved my children regularly.  My story had slipped out when I told them of shopping at a supermarket with my youngest, a mere toddler, in the trolley seat with groceries pilled up behind him.  As the shop assistant scanned the items she smiled brightly at my son and asked that usual pre Christmas question.

“And what is Santa bringing you?” 

in a happy confidant tone designed to lift customers spirits with festive joy.

Daniel answered instantly 

“He doesn’t give me anything and never has!”

A horrified uncomfortable silence reigned as she scanned in the remaining items.  The look she gave me was one of shocked surprise that said clearly she wondered what kind of parent was I.

My children were told from an early age that Santa was not real.  That other parents pretended he existed for lovely reasons.   To make their children excited about the Christmas period, to celebrate the birth of Christ, to create a spirit of giving and kindness in families and communities.  We kept stressing that it was a religious festival designed to remind people of the life of Christ and his teachings.  But they missed the whole presents and Santa thing.  The only present they got was one from my parents and boy did that one present mean a lot!

It was a little hard at times when they saw the abundance of gifts showered upon their cousins and neighbours.  But they were surprisingly stoical about it.  Children accept you for what you are, warts and all.  They see you as normal and judge the rest of the world from that baseline. That’s why it is so horrible when we really screw them up.  When we make our nightmare their baseline.

Thankfully our three children, now adults, seem to hold no grudges for all those missing gifts and non-existent Santas.  Which kind of shows how meaningless most of that crap really is.  Indeed, we were careful to tell them, even when toddlers, that on no account should they ruin the illusion of Santa for their friends and school mates. That it would be cruel to steal this illusion when their parents had so carefully cultivated the magic of it year after year.  So when Daniel aged three answered the shop assistant with

            “He doesn’t give me anything and never has!”

I was quite proud that he was careful not to shatter her conviction that Santa was real.  He knew not to announce that,

“Santa does not exist and therefore does not bring me anything.”

He responded with a statement of truth while allowing her to maintain her belief in Santa.  It always amazes me how thoughtful and kind small people can be.  It strikes me that they would not ruffle feathers in staffrooms over Christmas.  I obviously have much to learn!

my take on smoking - a gentle approach to encourage stopping

Trying to get across that smoking is bad for you to my middle school class - may have gone over the top slightly let me know what you think!

Have a look at a healthy lung and a smokers lung - sometimes images speak louder than words.

But what is in these cigarettes? Lets look at an experiment to find out.  It is slightly long so do feel free to fast forward to get the main point of it!  But hopefully those final few images will stay in your head!

Enough of the petty details worldwide how many people are actually being effected?

Somehow figures don't get across the loss of life do they?  We almost need more time to digest the information and set it in context.  After all, people die everyday from a range of causes.  So let's put it all to music and take some time out to digest the facts right now.

Enough said!