Symbolic Forest

I was still thinking idly about teaching H how to drive, the other day, when Colleague K came down to Room 3B (The IT Office) and said: “Do you know algebra? Wee Dave said you would.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s just that my daughter’s got her GCSEs coming up, and she’s stuck on algebra, and I don’t know how to do it so I can’t help her.”

So, I took half an hour out to scribble down some basics about solving linear and simple quadratic equations, the sort of thing I assume everyone knows anyway. Ten pages later I had some rough notes on algebra done, making it as simple as I could, trying to explain why it all works instead of just giving the textbook answer. And she seemed to like it.

“Wow, this is really good! Even I can understand it! Did you really just do all this off the top of your head?”

“Erm, yes, it’s only what I remember from when I was at school myself.”

“You should go into teaching or something!”

Which I’m not going to do. You have to work with children, annoying children who don’t want to work with you and don’t want to listen to what you have to tell them. But it set me thinking: why don’t I put notes on that sort of thing up on here? How to solve GCSE maths problems, or how to drive a car, or program a computer; that sort of thing. I could call it The Symbolic Forest Lectures, or something like that. And they’d have all the obvious stuff that noone ever tells you, because, to people who know it already it’s as obvious as breathing, too obvious to be worth teaching.

The only problem, of course, is finding the energy to actually do it.

Keyword noise: algebra, GCSE, maths, quadratic equations, simultaneous equations, teaching.

Whilst we’re kind of on the subject, from yesterday: Doctor Who.

Who’s this Saxon chap, then? What’s he up to, and what’s he going to turn out to be? Some dirty politicking with an eye to mad-eyed global supremacy, is my guess to the first. The second: well, it could be anything really.

As to the episode itself: I’m sure Russell T Davies has a machine hidden in his basement somewhere which stamps out little, villainous old ladies. It’s not that he uses them a lot, just that when he does, they are instantly recognisable, always virtually the same as each other. The whole thing was: well, nothing special. What was going on with the Doctor temporarily dying from lack of blood, then being revived by CPR? How did that work? If people in the middle of the hospital were on the verge of death when it was returned to Earth, did any actually die? It would take a while, after all, for oxygen levels in the centre of the building to return to normal. What about people investigating the big crater the hospital left behind it – were they all squished when it returned? Answers on a postcard to Symbolic Towers, 4 Iambic Avenue… OK, maybe I’m being slightly too serious. It’s entertainment, after all. Doctor Who has always had plot holes, and it always will; I shouldn’t expect it to be harder-than-hard SF because it clearly never has been that. It did entertain me, and that’s all I should ask for.

Keyword noise: David Tennant, Doctor Who, John Simm, plot holes, Russell T Davies, science fiction, television.

The world’s largest supply of garlic butter is in the centre of the city of Kyiv, Ukraine.

Around 8% of hazel trees are carnivorous.

Jacques de Molay, last known Grand Master of the Knights Templar, invented a method for softening butter by adding hydrogenated vegetable fats. The global dairy industry now channels large amounts of money to the Priory of Sion, the Templars’ underground successor organisation.

The phrase “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” is never mentioned in the entire first series of TV show Mission: Impossible.

The modern standard housebrick’s size is derived from the length of the radius bone of Egyptian pharoah Tuthmoses IV, who had unusually short arms.

Doctor Who once featured a companion in the shape of a penguin.

The distances to destinations on British road signs are systematically under-estimated, in a (slightly futile) attempt to make the population in general more optimistic.

(but which of these factoids are indeed true?)

Keyword noise: April Fools Day, brick, carnivorous, distance, Doctor Who, Egypt, factoids, falsehoods, Kiev, Knights Templar, lies, Mission Impossible, pharoah, Priory of Sion, roadsign, silliness, television, trees, Tuthmoses.

I seem to be becoming a worse driver.

This isn’t by my own judgement, but by the judgement of other people. Specifically, more and more people seem to have started beeping me for doing what they think is The Wrong Thing. I’m not sure what the problems are. I always signal, I travel at a reasonable speed,^* I try to drive assertively and take up the appropriate space on the road. There’s nothing wrong with the car, so far as I can tell. So why have people decided to start beeping me all of a sudden?^**

H, incidentally, has suggested I should teach her how to drive. And I realised, thinking about it, that I have no idea at all any more how to drive, or rather, how to explain how to drive. The manuals I assume say something like: “press gently with your right foot and at the same time lift your left foot up until you start to feel the clutch engage, then increase power whilst raising your left foot smoothly and releasing the handbrake”. If you drive, though, you don’t consciously do all that; you just wiggle your feet a bit and you’re away. I have no idea how I would go about explaining all the various simultaneous processes to someone, in a car without dual controls.

* usually at the speed limit. Honest, officer. Ahem.

** or wave their fist and shout “Wanker!” like the cyclist the other day. OK, I pulled out in front of him. It was thick fog, he was wearing dull clothing, and didn’t have any lights on his bike, so when I started moving I had no idea at all he was there. Tosser.

Keyword noise: bad driving, cars, cycling, driving, fog, learning to drive, safety, speeding, teaching.

When I write posts on here, I normally write the title first, then ramble on about it.

Yesterday, I managed to write a title, then ramble on about something entirely unrelated to the post I was meaning to write when I started. Which was, you might be able to guess, going to have been about the weather.

We’ve only just changed the clocks, shifted an hour, and already the character of the day seems to have entirely changed. Already, whatever the temperature is outside, it seems like balmy summer days are here again. Already that lazy, depressing summer evening feeling is back. It doesn’t last very long, because it’s getting dark again by half-seven still, but it’s there already.

The morning hasn’t sorted itself out yet. Every morning so far this week I’ve driven to work through thick fog, as if the weather is still trying to work out what to do, and is trying to hide its ignorance. Thick fog all the way, except when crossing the Big Expensive Bridge. Each end of the Big Bridge is befogged, but the middle, as the deck peaks, breaks out through the fog into bright yellow morning daylight.

Keyword noise: driving, British Summer Time, daylight savings time, fog, Hull, Humber Bridge, seasons, summer, weather, Yorkshire.

Still recovering from my awful, hacking-cough cold. For The Mother, who thinks I have had bronchitis continuously since August, this is more evidence that I am leading a terribly dissolute lifestyle and need to stop having sex, stay indoors watching TV, and go to bed at 9pm every night just like she does.

In lieu of a proper entry, it’s time for One-Line Album Reviews. Hurrah! In which, I try to come up with pithy lines about some of the albums he’s bought recently.^*

The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club, The Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club: you can’t hum it, the same as you can’t pronounce the name after a few gin and tonics very easily; but it’s some good, chunky angular music to listen to in the car.

The Aliens, Astronomy For Dogs: Like The Beta Band doing rock, which isn’t too surprising really. Rather good.

Gossip, Standing In The Way Of Control: A bit much hype involved, which (also) isn’t surprising really. It’s not a bad album, but they’re not as good as, say, The Kills.

Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, The Chronicles Of A Bohemian Teenager: Note to self: unlike TVEGC (see above), do not put this on in the car. You will fall asleep, probably at a busy motorway intersection, and kill hundreds of innocent pensioners on a coach en route to Southend.

And that’s most definitely enough of that.

* thus ruling out all the dronerock the Dronerock Fairy has been sending this way. Although the forthcoming Blonde Redhead album is rather good. Erm, so I hear.

Keyword noise: album, Astronomy For Dogs, bronchitis, Chronicles Of A Bohemian Teenager, cold, coughing, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, gossip, indie, music, review, sickness, Standing In The Way Of Control, The Aliens, The Beta Band, Victorian English Gentlemen's Club.

Moments you wish you’d had your camera:

Driving, last night, in the dark, past a small cottage in the middle of the countryside. Torchlit, in the driveway, someone was shovelling sand. And in the torchlight it was beautiful, almost like a Joseph Wright painting.

Keyword noise: ink polaroids, Joseph Wright, painting, photography, scene.

Last year I realised the Budget Speech was coming, and tried to guess what would be in it. Because, all in all, it’s usually fairly obvious. More taxes on things the government would rather you didn’t do, like drive around (all those roads need mending, you know) and smoke (those hospital beds don’t empty themselves). Lower taxes on whatever is the political fashion of the moment, or whatever will pull in the currently-targeted voting sector (the well-off but not hugely rich middle classes, at the moment).

This year, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to guess at. It’s random, little bits picked from here and there, without much of a cohesive feel to the thing.

The BBC has a cunning device which tells you how much better or worse off you’ll allegedly be, with all the various budget changes. I’m going to be a whole £25 per year richer, apparently. Which is fine – except that the calculator behaves as if all the changes were happening immediately. They’re not. All the things which will cost me money are happening straight away; all the things which will cost me less don’t happen for another year. Bugger.

The main purpose of the budget, I think, isn’t to keep Britain running smoothly or anything like that. It’s to make sure that Gordon Brown’s successor toes the line and does What Gordon Wants. A year from now the next budget will come along, with a different chancellor, but that promised tax cut still isn’t going to have come into effect. What chancellor, under Gordon (he assumes), is going to dare revoke it?

Keyword noise: budget, Gordon Brown, middle class, taxation.

It was Scarborough that did it.

We had a lovely day, walking up and down the prom, eating candy floss in the car,* going up and down the cliff lift, avoiding the waves that were splashing up over the edge of the prom and over the road: the sea looked like an over-full bathtub. But it was the cold, biting wind, that left me feeling half-asleep and jammed up for the past couple of days, left me wishing I could stay tucked up in bed asleep for a week.

* so it didn’t blow away. The candy floss, not the car.

Keyword noise: cold, illness, resort, Scarborough, seaside, weather, wind, Yorkshire.

The political news story of the week is all about money. Specifically, how should politicians be allowed to get theirs? Sir Hayden Phillips, who has been looking carefully, thinks political parties should receive more state funding. Which, really, means all of us paying for them.

That might seem like a bad idea. I, for one, don’t like politicians very much, and political parties even less – although I’m not sure how you can ever stop them forming, or if that would truly be a Good Thing. So you can understand why I wouldn’t want my money to be given to them, regardless of whether I believe in their dogmas or not.

On the other hand, though, what’s the alternative? If political parties are funded solely by their supporters, the richest party is the party of the rich. A huge, overbalanced proportion of this country’s wealth is in the hands of a tiny fraction of the people, and it’s only getting worse. That gives those people an enormous advantage when it comes to seeking political power; restricting how much money they can raise is vital to reduce that. You can argue endlessly about how state funding should be distributed, what way is fairest, but you’re unlikely to come up with any system less representative than “give it to the people already with the most”.

Keyword noise: donations, party politics, political parties, Sir Hayden Phillips, state funding.