Two cures for love

 

Two cures for love

My favourite poet is Wendy Cope. I enjoy her wry, humorous look at life and love. I was happy to attend a poetry workshop she gave at the Lichfield Festival some long time ago. She mentioned then that her early starting success had the cheeky title “Making cocoa for Kingsley Amis”. Amis was a well known literary figure from the 50’s until his death. He wrote acclaimed novels and was also a poet. Wendy Cope didn’t know him but his name in her title attracted attention.

More recently she has herself talked at the Festival about her book which is largely about her life and role as radio and TV critic. She bemoaned the fact that it is extremely hard to make a living from poetry. In fact almost all poets like herself have to support themselves doing other things. For example one of the greatest modern poets was Philip Larkin. His day job was as librarian at Hull University devoting his spare time to writing. As Wendy Cope points out not only do poetry books sell rather poorly but snippets of that poetry are freely quoted. In the latter case the author may receive an acknowledgement ( often not even that ) but never any payment.

As a consequence she is very conscious of her authorial rights. So much so that her partner jokes that her gravestone will be marked “all rights reserved”. I’m at least acknowledging in her advice to girls entitled “two cures for love”

Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter

The easy way- get to know him better

Following her example I compose- Two cures for love

Don’t call, make sure all communication ceased

The easy way- marry the beast

I heard on the radio

 

I heard it on the radio

When I was young up until 15 we did not have mains electricity. This was accompanied by no mains sewer as the price of living in the countryside. The source of entertainment and news was the radio which was immensely important. We had a cumbersome battery wireless as it was always called then. This necessitated a lead acid accumulator which had to be changed every five days or so and a large dry battery ( the size of two house bricks ) supplying the high voltage. This had be renewed every few months.. The accumulators were duplicated with one in use and one on charge in the nearest village. The result was exasperation when the accumulator ran out and mother had to cycle off to exchange it.

I say mother because with my father on afternoon shift not finishing until 10pm I perforce had mothers choice of programmes on weekday evenings. The news of course and then a gamut of programmes to keep us amused and informed. Of course it was at mothers knee that I listened to Children’s Hour with the closing line from Uncle Mac “Goodnight children, everywhere”. After this tea time listening I was soon hearing the programmes designed for adults.

I can just remember ITMA although it is Jack Train I remember more than Tommy Handley, the comedian around whom the show was built. A long running character was Jack Train playing a boozy Colonel who turned every comment into an invitation for a drink. His catch phrase was “I don’t mind if I do”.

A little later “Take it from here” and “Much binding in the Marsh” were favourite comedy shows. Perhaps the favourite from 1954 onwards was Hancock’s Half Hour. Starting with the tuba music and a breathy H...H…Hancock’s Half Hour. Hancock’s house had Bill Kerr and Sid James as regular companions enticing Hancock ( or rather ‘Ancock ) into some silly idea. There was a rather downplayed female part which never took off until Hattie Jacques appeared later in the series. Hancock plays a rather pathetic man with grandiose ideas which he never lives up to.

During the series Kenneth Williams played an increasing role both as a snide companion and many other voices also. I have been looking at a book on the series and I cannot find the programme on Stonehenge. Williams plays the caretaker who worries that the stones might be stolen so he takes them home at night. When Hancock bemusedly asks how he does this the reply is  “On my bike”

This kind of surrealism works on radio but when Hancock started on TV ( and I lost interest ) it is impossible.

I was always kind of bored by long running Friday night is music night. An awful lot of current affairs I learned from Any Questions. The format was alternating serious and light hearted questions answered by leading politicians with a leavening of non political panellists. Counrtymen Ralph Wightman and A G Street were often among the non politicians. A few political figures outside the leading ranks provided often light relief. Such was Gerald Nabarro who was always incensed when his name was mispronounced so he would give his preferred pronunciation loudly and emphatically ( naBARro).

I never hear the description of sports without hearing Wightman saying that football, cricket etc. were games, not sports. His definition of sport was always greeted with laughter applause as pronounced in an upper class way and defined as the pursuit of a quarry for the pleasure of the pursuer- huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, and courtin’. I can’t help but notice that the ultimate sporting contest is called the Olympic Games. However I guess that sports is now so embedded as a word that no change is likely.

Radio at this time ( 40’s early 50’s ) was a BBC monopoly. Well actually not quite as Radio Luxembourg based outside the UK was broadcasting commercial radio in English with the trouble being it couldn’t be received in daytime except by superior sets. After dark as atmospheric conditions changed it could be rather poorly received even with our equipment. I certainly listened a bit particularly enjoying “Smash hits”. The premiss was that listeners wrote in to nominate songs and their reason for disliking them. The record was then played and ceremoniously smashed at the end. The era of breakable shellac records was just coming to an end as unbreakable vinyl was becoming more common. Thus it was quite plausible that records could be smashed and indeed the sound of destruction was impressive.

At the end of the fifties “pirate” radio began. Based aboard ships moored outside UK territorial waters these broadcast a continuous diet of pop music. They became increasingly popular through the early 60’s. Radio Caroline was easily received while Radio London was another competitor. For some reason the Labour party under Harold Wilson took great exception to these examples of enterprise albeit at a low cultural level and by making any form of support onshore illegal squeezed them out of existence.

So popular was the pop music format that the BBC was reorganised with Radio 1 effectively taking the place of the pirates although without ads. This replaced the 3 channel structure of Light , Home and Third channels.  Very roughly Radio 2 replaced the Light programme and Radio 4 the Home Service. The Third programme was very much a minority highbrow  service. I can’t recall listening to any more than a concert or two which was always of classical music ( often of less well known items ). Very roughly the Light programme broadcast entertainment while the Home service served news and talk programmes although with overlap between the two channels..

James Webb Space Telescope

 

 James Webb space telescope

This ambitious telescope is intended to replace the Hubble telescope which has worked well after it’s initial problems. The James Webb space telescope ( JWST ) is a rather different and much more complex telescope, It works mainly in the infra-red  ( IR ) region of light. Humans cannot see in this region although it can be felt as warming if it is absorbed. The electromagnetic spectrum consists of far more than the light we can see down through X rays and up ( in wavelength ) through radio waves.

The infra red region was chosen for the reason it is very difficult for earth bound telescopes to observe because of absorption in the atmosphere. Areas of dust which are opaque in visible light can be transparent in the infra red. A very important reason is that light from very distant objects are usually travelling away at very high speeds. Light emitted by them has its visible light “stretched” by the Doppler effect so that it falls into the infra red region. The Doppler effect is the change in frequency of radiation experienced by an observer of an object travelling towards or away. The common experience is the change in pitch of sound experienced on a platform as a train passes by. High at first as the waves are “compressed” as the train approaches then falling to a lower pitch as the train passes away.

Because light travels at a finite speed as objects are further away their light takes longer to reach us. Light from the nearest star takes about 4 years to reach earth .As we look deeper into the universe so we are looking back in time. It is thought that the JWST will enable the very early universe to be observed because it will look at objects so far distant. It is speculated that the JWST will enable the formation of stars after the big bang to be seen. The very early universe will probably be opaque but the JWST may reach back as far as it is possible to go.

Because it is mainly an IR telescope it has a slightly strange shape. Essentially the telescope sits on top of a large sunshade. This ensures that the side in shadow ( the telescope side ) is  cold. Very cold indeed which is needed for IR viewing. The very large telescope of some 6.5 metre diameter ( compares to Hubble about 2.5metre ) is made up of 18 hexagonal segments all of whom need to be very precisely aligned with each other so that effectively they become one whole. These mirror segments reflect onto one target held in front of the mirror The mirror segments are of gold deposited on a beryllium substrate.

The JWST is positioned in space orbiting the spot where the sun and earth’s gravity just balance out. This is known as the L2 Lagrange point. It should enable the telescope to remain in nearly one position while expending the minimum amount of energy.

The JWST is very expensive. It will have cost an estimated $10bn by the time it becomes fully operational which is expected in May. It was launched last year and has spent until now reaching its final position and aligning its mirrors.  Because the whole had to be packed into a rocket nosecone much had be folded up and then unfurled in space. Because of this elaborate design and overall complexity the cost has risen from the original budget of $0.5bn. Such a cost had to be shared between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency ( presumably the UK was then part of ESA ) An estimated 250 companies were involved in the project ( 21 from the UK ) and several thousands of scientists and engineers. Launch of such a complex and expensive payload was by ESA Ariane rocket from French Guiana. One imagines that there was a lot of anxiety during the launch and subsequent deployment. While it is still too early to state that everything is as designed all the evidence so far is that things are going to plan.

The early months of the JWST operation already have science programs planned. Subsequent operations during the planned 10 year life remain somewhat flexible but certainly include observation of exoplanets as well as a variety of astrophysics .Some of the early experiments will assess the usefulness of JWST for things like study of the solar system after a specific study of Jupiter. However at this stage much is unknown and part of the hope is that JWST discover new things. At present astrophysics is confounded by the knowledge that dark matter and dark energy make up a large portion of the universe ( 90% + )  but other than giving them a name no more is known.

The massive cost over-run of JWST bodes ill for big science projects. The difficulty is that the study of complex physics tends to require large and expensive equipment. Examples are the gravitational wave detection ( LIGO ) and the large hadron collider at CERN. To some extent the gigantic costs are offset by international co-operation. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine it looks as through Russian participation is doubtful. They are already withdrawing from the international space station. Although these large international projects are very expensive they are also very productive with entirely new areas explored and involving many hundreds of scientists.

Perhaps the most expensive and complex international endeavour under construction at present is ITER which attempts to be a major step towards making fusion energy practical.James Webb space telescope

This ambitious telescope is intended to replace the Hubble telescope which has worked well after it’s initial problems. The James Webb space telescope ( JWST ) is a rather different and much more complex telescope, It works mainly in the infra-red  ( IR ) region of light. Humans cannot see in this region although it can be felt as warming if it is absorbed. The electromagnetic spectrum consists of far more than the light we can see down through X rays and up ( in wavelength ) through radio waves.

The infra red region was chosen for the reason it is very difficult for earth bound telescopes to observe because of absorption in the atmosphere. Areas of dust which are opaque in visible light can be transparent in the infra red. A very important reason is that light from very distant objects are usually travelling away at very high speeds. Light emitted by them has its visible light “stretched” by the Doppler effect so that it falls into the infra red region. The Doppler effect is the change in frequency of radiation experienced by an observer of an object travelling towards or away. The common experience is the change in pitch of sound experienced on a platform as a train passes by. High at first as the waves are “compressed” as the train approaches then falling to a lower pitch as the train passes away.

Because light travels at a finite speed as objects are further away their light takes longer to reach us. Light from the nearest star takes about 4 years to reach earth .As we look deeper into the universe so we are looking back in time. It is thought that the JWST will enable the very early universe to be observed because it will look at objects so far distant. It is speculated that the JWST will enable the formation of stars after the big bang to be seen. The very early universe will probably be opaque but the JWST may reach back as far as it is possible to go.

Because it is mainly an IR telescope it has a slightly strange shape. Essentially the telescope sits on top of a large sunshade. This ensures that the side in shadow ( the telescope side ) is  cold. Very cold indeed which is needed for IR viewing. The very large telescope of some 6.5 metre diameter ( compares to Hubble about 2.5metre ) is made up of 18 hexagonal segments all of whom need to be very precisely aligned with each other so that effectively they become one whole. These mirror segments reflect onto one target held in front of the mirror The mirror segments are of gold deposited on a beryllium substrate.

The JWST is positioned in space orbiting the spot where the sun and earth’s gravity just balance out. This is known as the L2 Lagrange point. It should enable the telescope to remain in nearly one position while expending the minimum amount of energy.

The JWST is very expensive. It will have cost an estimated $10bn by the time it becomes fully operational which is expected in May. It was launched last year and has spent until now reaching its final position and aligning its mirrors.  Because the whole had to be packed into a rocket nosecone much had be folded up and then unfurled in space. Because of this elaborate design and overall complexity the cost has risen from the original budget of $0.5bn. Such a cost had to be shared between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency ( presumably the UK was then part of ESA ) An estimated 250 companies were involved in the project ( 21 from the UK ) and several thousands of scientists and engineers. Launch of such a complex and expensive payload was by ESA Ariane rocket from French Guiana. One imagines that there was a lot of anxiety during the launch and subsequent deployment. While it is still too early to state that everything is as designed all the evidence so far is that things are going to plan.

The early months of the JWST operation already have science programs planned. Subsequent operations during the planned 10 year life remain somewhat flexible but certainly include observation of exoplanets as well as a variety of astrophysics .Some of the early experiments will assess the usefulness of JWST for things like study of the solar system after a specific study of Jupiter. However at this stage much is unknown and part of the hope is that JWST discover new things. At present astrophysics is confounded by the knowledge that dark matter and dark energy make up a large portion of the universe ( 90% + )  but other than giving them a name no more is known.

The massive cost over-run of JWST bodes ill for big science projects. The difficulty is that the study of complex physics tends to require large and expensive equipment. Examples are the gravitational wave detection ( LIGO ) and the large hadron collider at CERN. To some extent the gigantic costs are offset by international co-operation. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine it looks as through Russian participation is doubtful. They are already withdrawing from the international space station. Although these large international projects are very expensive they are also very productive with entirely new areas explored and involving many hundreds of scientists.

Perhaps the most expensive and complex international endeavour under construction at present is ITER which attempts to be a major step towards making fusion energy practical.

This ambitious telescope is intended to replace the Hubble telescope which has worked well after it’s initial problems. The James Webb space telescope ( JWST ) is a rather different and much more complex telescope, It works mainly in the infra-red  ( IR ) region of light. Humans cannot see in this region although it can be felt as warming if it is absorbed. The electromagnetic spectrum consists of far more than the light we can see down through X rays and up ( in wavelength ) through radio waves.

The infra red region was chosen for the reason it is very difficult for earth bound telescopes to observe because of absorption in the atmosphere. Areas of dust which are opaque in visible light can be transparent in the infra red. A very important reason is that light from very distant objects are usually travelling away at very high speeds. Light emitted by them has its visible light “stretched” by the Doppler effect so that it falls into the infra red region. The Doppler effect is the change in frequency of radiation experienced by an observer of an object travelling towards or away. The common experience is the change in pitch of sound experienced on a platform as a train passes by. High at first as the waves are “compressed” as the train approaches then falling to a lower pitch as the train passes away.

Because light travels at a finite speed as objects are further away their light takes longer to reach us. Light from the nearest star takes about 4 years to reach earth .As we look deeper into the universe so we are looking back in time. It is thought that the JWST will enable the very early universe to be observed because it will look at objects so far distant. It is speculated that the JWST will enable the formation of stars after the big bang to be seen. The very early universe will probably be opaque but the JWST may reach back as far as it is possible to go.

Because it is mainly an IR telescope it has a slightly strange shape. Essentially the telescope sits on top of a large sunshade. This ensures that the side in shadow ( the telescope side ) is  cold. Very cold indeed which is needed for IR viewing. The very large telescope of some 6.5 metre diameter ( compares to Hubble about 2.5metre ) is made up of 18 hexagonal segments all of whom need to be very precisely aligned with each other so that effectively they become one whole. These mirror segments reflect onto one target held in front of the mirror The mirror segments are of gold deposited on a beryllium substrate.

The JWST is positioned in space orbiting the spot where the sun and earth’s gravity just balance out. This is known as the L2 Lagrange point. It should enable the telescope to remain in nearly one position while expending the minimum amount of energy.

The JWST is very expensive. It will have cost an estimated $10bn by the time it becomes fully operational which is expected in May. It was launched last year and has spent until now reaching its final position and aligning its mirrors.  Because the whole had to be packed into a rocket nosecone much had be folded up and then unfurled in space. Because of this elaborate design and overall complexity the cost has risen from the original budget of $0.5bn. Such a cost had to be shared between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency ( presumably the UK was then part of ESA ) An estimated 250 companies were involved in the project ( 21 from the UK ) and several thousands of scientists and engineers. Launch of such a complex and expensive payload was by ESA Ariane rocket from French Guiana. One imagines that there was a lot of anxiety during the launch and subsequent deployment. While it is still too early to state that everything is as designed all the evidence so far is that things are going to plan.

The early months of the JWST operation already have science programs planned. Subsequent operations during the planned 10 year life remain somewhat flexible but certainly include observation of exoplanets as well as a variety of astrophysics .Some of the early experiments will assess the usefulness of JWST for things like study of the solar system after a specific study of Jupiter. However at this stage much is unknown and part of the hope is that JWST discover new things. At present astrophysics is confounded by the knowledge that dark matter and dark energy make up a large portion of the universe ( 90% + )  but other than giving them a name no more is known.

The massive cost over-run of JWST bodes ill for big science projects. The difficulty is that the study of complex physics tends to require large and expensive equipment. Examples are the gravitational wave detection ( LIGO ) and the large hadron collider at CERN. To some extent the gigantic costs are offset by international co-operation. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine it looks as through Russian participation is doubtful. They are already withdrawing from the international space station. Although these large international projects are very expensive they are also very productive with entirely new areas explored and involving many hundreds of scientists.

Perhaps the most expensive and complex international endeavour under construction at present is ITER which attempts to be a major step towards making fusion energy practical.