Not November already!!!!
I spent the day stitching press releases together. Try making taxanomic, wetland management, invertebrates and reedbed cutting sound exciting and sexy. It is really annoying because conservation is an exciting and even sexy thing, but i don't know why conservationists can't seem to understand this. Why do we as a human race feel the need to bury ourselves in jargon to validate our existence? If we have a big pseudo latin term to describe it, it means that it is more important. The figleaf to our insecurity about the work that we do.
And then perversely i also have to write it in small tiny words which only three year olds can understand. OK 11 year olds. It is thought that the average age of literacy of a tabloid reader is 12. Isn't that something shockin'? So here i am trying to translate idiotic large words into idiotic small words. And in between the meaning of life gets terribly lost...
OK, i'm complaining about my job... no i'm not really, just about having to do that translation bit. It is self evident that if we talk about work in an exciting, engaging non patronising way then we are able to interest other people. Instead these scientists mean to go on as they have always gone on, the nerd in the corner boring the pants off everyone. The Rick Moranis character in Ghostbusters.
Yes, if we throw more statistics at you, you will totally understand what we are doing and you will want to give us more money. Er, no, we will want to beat you with a very large stick and then runaway.
The depths of how much scientists do not understand the state of how dull they are is underlined by this talk i was recently invited to: Why it is exciting to be a scientist. Yes, that is what it was called. Could they not have called it something else.... something more appealing. Who would go to a talk like that? Closet scientists who have been hiding this fact from their parents for years? Parents who are thinking about a career path for their children...?
I'm really pisssssed off that October has evaporated just like that. What happened to bloody October. The next thing we knew we were celebrating Halloween. Halloween. There seems to be a Halloween backlash. Suddenly people are coming out and saying we don't like Halloween. People have been doing this to Christmas for years, and no wonder. Christmas has more or less started. I went to Tescos yesterday and was greeted by several inflatable snowmen threatening to mug me. Look mom, snowmen, screamed Ghin with wild excitement. It is friggin' November come ON!
You cannot possibly be serious...
Anyway, back to Halloween. On the radio, mysteriously, yesterday morning, they seem to have two presenters talking about Halloween as if it was Halloween night. The woman in the pair was saying she was like a dog and hated Halloween. Oisin told me that he didn't find Halloween as fun any longer. When i told this to people, they said, he's growing up. No, never!!! I never found our holidays not fun. Chinese New Year was always good - and not just because we got lots of money - although i do remember that one year i tried to wear black and was jerited by Ma. You are not wearing black, buat sway only. But Ah Hoon wore black last year. Yeah i was really surprised that Ah So allowed her to wear black...
Christmas was wonderful. We made food all day and then ate and sang all night, and made fun of each other for two days. Hari Raya and Deepavali saw us visiting friends who did celebrate these days. And of course all the streets were decorated for said festivities, although recently ethnic minorities were saying their decorations were the poor relations of the Chinese New Year light up.
I never tired of them. And they seemed to grow with us as well. How could anyone find a festival not fun? Argh!!!!
And here was my son telling me he didn't find Halloween as fun.
I would like Halloween much much more if it kept to its original intent. A new year celebration during which our ancestors were acknowledged and remembered. They whole day of the day thing has gotten a bit out of control and i wonder when did that start? People tell me that when they were growing up it was far more sedate and there was none of the teenage horror flick shit. No masks, no fake blood, no skeletons, no pumpkins. People had turnip lanterns. I grant that there is something rather less glamorous about a turnip lantern, but it is an indigenous veg and there is a lot to be said for indigenous veg these days.
It will soon be the solstice, i can't believe it. Last year i remember freezing my ass off at this time of the year. This November has been uncanny. A run through the forest today revealed several beeches with lots of green still on them. It felt like i was running in early autumn, not the start of winter. I ran past cowpats and surprised dozens of flies. Flies, in November!!! Dandelions were turning puffy over the holidays. Two days ago we were walking about in T-shirts.
In this part of the world, we are all running around chicken little like talking about the GHG in the skies (that's Greenhouse Gases, to the uninitiated), in the Middle East to Taiwan, people are continuing as if nothing has happened. China has grown by a paltry 8 per cent and my mom says credit crunch, what credit crunch? So i want to tell politicians who talk as if the whole world is going through a paroxysm of guilt and angst about development and how unethical it all has been to maybe spend more time in five-star airconditioned hotel suites in Dubai or Singapore. Because that is not how people are thinking or talking.
I know that it is how that tiny fraction of society live, but because they control the media and discourse, that is how things appear in that part of the world. When i complain about our food bill being higher, much higher than it was last year, i think of the 1 billion people that UNDP now estimate are starving. So much for the green revolution. If there is ever an example of how the technical fix does not work and cannot work, there it is. The failure of the Green Revolution writ large.
That is why i find scientists so unsexy. Because they use only their heads, or seem to at least. I am utterly surprised when they express emotion. I have discovered that scientists are really not very interested in having a good time. They are terrified of having a good time. And to show you how terrified they are, there is a course which they can go on called "How to make small talk". It has tips like, listen to the other person and make meaning responses, like i see, nodding your head. I kid you not. I shall paste it up if i can find it. Also, show the corresponding and appropriate emotion, like sympathy, excitement or interest. do not bore people with too many facts.
Really, it's all there.
I know i'm being so cruel. Maybe it's not that they're scientists. Maybe it's because they're English.
Ouch!!!
Funny the other day i met a friend who was feeling a bit shit, as we all do at this time of the year, and i knew she was feeling better when she started slagging off the English middle classes. Ah the English middle classes, where would we be without them. To get Northern Irish people agreeing with each other, all you have to say is, what about those English then? Then, to all intents and purposes, it would appear to be the formings of a United Ireland. For that brief moment in time.
It does run deep though. Much deeper than it does in Singapore. Proximity might have something to do with it. In Singapore people like my sister hold the white man in mild annoyance - actually Jac can get quite shouty about the WHITE IS RIGHT attitude she claims still grips our part of the world. When i say shouty i mean she will shout kaninabuchaucheebye, etc, etc at a white person from the safety of her car if they appear to have done something horeendous, like walking down a sidewalk and minding their own business. She really does NOT like them. However, apart from her, most people have a fairly good and tolerant attitude to the English.
I often find it ironic that if there was colonisation and if my language wasn't stolen from me, i wouldn't have been who i was today. So sometimes i find that when we rail against the English or the evils colonisation IN THE PAST, it is a bit like saying my mom and dad should have never gotten together in the first place. We are who we are, these are imponderables. The best thing that can be said for colonisation is that if we can stop it now, prevent it and learn from its mistakes, we should. Instead we seem to perpetrate the abuse - like the Israelis on the Palestinians and vice versa.
Isn't it something shocking what's taking place in Afghanistan? How did we get here? I know how we got here, but really, how did we get here? While the stupid diplomats and war mongers were trying to sort things out, dear old Harmid managed to maneuver himself into a position of power where he is now effectively the elected dictator. Good one that. This is a very good example of how you mustn't do things like attack countries which are half way across the world and imagine that you will have control of the situation.
OK, ranting is almost done for early November, I am absolutely determined that i will blog everyday again. I like blogging, it clears my mind. Any scientists must take whatever i've said with a pinch of salt. I love the buggers, but why do they have to be to bloody, worthy, ernest and dull? Finally the English must just accept that they are the whipping boys. If you go barging into people's countries and behaving like shites, you will be treated as such. It's called karma. Actually its not called karma, because Peter will castigate me and tell me that karma is something quite different. It's called fair deuce. And that's just cricket, isn't it old chap?
And then perversely i also have to write it in small tiny words which only three year olds can understand. OK 11 year olds. It is thought that the average age of literacy of a tabloid reader is 12. Isn't that something shockin'? So here i am trying to translate idiotic large words into idiotic small words. And in between the meaning of life gets terribly lost...
OK, i'm complaining about my job... no i'm not really, just about having to do that translation bit. It is self evident that if we talk about work in an exciting, engaging non patronising way then we are able to interest other people. Instead these scientists mean to go on as they have always gone on, the nerd in the corner boring the pants off everyone. The Rick Moranis character in Ghostbusters.
Yes, if we throw more statistics at you, you will totally understand what we are doing and you will want to give us more money. Er, no, we will want to beat you with a very large stick and then runaway.
The depths of how much scientists do not understand the state of how dull they are is underlined by this talk i was recently invited to: Why it is exciting to be a scientist. Yes, that is what it was called. Could they not have called it something else.... something more appealing. Who would go to a talk like that? Closet scientists who have been hiding this fact from their parents for years? Parents who are thinking about a career path for their children...?
I'm really pisssssed off that October has evaporated just like that. What happened to bloody October. The next thing we knew we were celebrating Halloween. Halloween. There seems to be a Halloween backlash. Suddenly people are coming out and saying we don't like Halloween. People have been doing this to Christmas for years, and no wonder. Christmas has more or less started. I went to Tescos yesterday and was greeted by several inflatable snowmen threatening to mug me. Look mom, snowmen, screamed Ghin with wild excitement. It is friggin' November come ON!
You cannot possibly be serious...
Anyway, back to Halloween. On the radio, mysteriously, yesterday morning, they seem to have two presenters talking about Halloween as if it was Halloween night. The woman in the pair was saying she was like a dog and hated Halloween. Oisin told me that he didn't find Halloween as fun any longer. When i told this to people, they said, he's growing up. No, never!!! I never found our holidays not fun. Chinese New Year was always good - and not just because we got lots of money - although i do remember that one year i tried to wear black and was jerited by Ma. You are not wearing black, buat sway only. But Ah Hoon wore black last year. Yeah i was really surprised that Ah So allowed her to wear black...
Christmas was wonderful. We made food all day and then ate and sang all night, and made fun of each other for two days. Hari Raya and Deepavali saw us visiting friends who did celebrate these days. And of course all the streets were decorated for said festivities, although recently ethnic minorities were saying their decorations were the poor relations of the Chinese New Year light up.
I never tired of them. And they seemed to grow with us as well. How could anyone find a festival not fun? Argh!!!!
And here was my son telling me he didn't find Halloween as fun.
I would like Halloween much much more if it kept to its original intent. A new year celebration during which our ancestors were acknowledged and remembered. They whole day of the day thing has gotten a bit out of control and i wonder when did that start? People tell me that when they were growing up it was far more sedate and there was none of the teenage horror flick shit. No masks, no fake blood, no skeletons, no pumpkins. People had turnip lanterns. I grant that there is something rather less glamorous about a turnip lantern, but it is an indigenous veg and there is a lot to be said for indigenous veg these days.
It will soon be the solstice, i can't believe it. Last year i remember freezing my ass off at this time of the year. This November has been uncanny. A run through the forest today revealed several beeches with lots of green still on them. It felt like i was running in early autumn, not the start of winter. I ran past cowpats and surprised dozens of flies. Flies, in November!!! Dandelions were turning puffy over the holidays. Two days ago we were walking about in T-shirts.
In this part of the world, we are all running around chicken little like talking about the GHG in the skies (that's Greenhouse Gases, to the uninitiated), in the Middle East to Taiwan, people are continuing as if nothing has happened. China has grown by a paltry 8 per cent and my mom says credit crunch, what credit crunch? So i want to tell politicians who talk as if the whole world is going through a paroxysm of guilt and angst about development and how unethical it all has been to maybe spend more time in five-star airconditioned hotel suites in Dubai or Singapore. Because that is not how people are thinking or talking.
I know that it is how that tiny fraction of society live, but because they control the media and discourse, that is how things appear in that part of the world. When i complain about our food bill being higher, much higher than it was last year, i think of the 1 billion people that UNDP now estimate are starving. So much for the green revolution. If there is ever an example of how the technical fix does not work and cannot work, there it is. The failure of the Green Revolution writ large.
That is why i find scientists so unsexy. Because they use only their heads, or seem to at least. I am utterly surprised when they express emotion. I have discovered that scientists are really not very interested in having a good time. They are terrified of having a good time. And to show you how terrified they are, there is a course which they can go on called "How to make small talk". It has tips like, listen to the other person and make meaning responses, like i see, nodding your head. I kid you not. I shall paste it up if i can find it. Also, show the corresponding and appropriate emotion, like sympathy, excitement or interest. do not bore people with too many facts.
Really, it's all there.
I know i'm being so cruel. Maybe it's not that they're scientists. Maybe it's because they're English.
Ouch!!!
Funny the other day i met a friend who was feeling a bit shit, as we all do at this time of the year, and i knew she was feeling better when she started slagging off the English middle classes. Ah the English middle classes, where would we be without them. To get Northern Irish people agreeing with each other, all you have to say is, what about those English then? Then, to all intents and purposes, it would appear to be the formings of a United Ireland. For that brief moment in time.
It does run deep though. Much deeper than it does in Singapore. Proximity might have something to do with it. In Singapore people like my sister hold the white man in mild annoyance - actually Jac can get quite shouty about the WHITE IS RIGHT attitude she claims still grips our part of the world. When i say shouty i mean she will shout kaninabuchaucheebye, etc, etc at a white person from the safety of her car if they appear to have done something horeendous, like walking down a sidewalk and minding their own business. She really does NOT like them. However, apart from her, most people have a fairly good and tolerant attitude to the English.
I often find it ironic that if there was colonisation and if my language wasn't stolen from me, i wouldn't have been who i was today. So sometimes i find that when we rail against the English or the evils colonisation IN THE PAST, it is a bit like saying my mom and dad should have never gotten together in the first place. We are who we are, these are imponderables. The best thing that can be said for colonisation is that if we can stop it now, prevent it and learn from its mistakes, we should. Instead we seem to perpetrate the abuse - like the Israelis on the Palestinians and vice versa.
Isn't it something shocking what's taking place in Afghanistan? How did we get here? I know how we got here, but really, how did we get here? While the stupid diplomats and war mongers were trying to sort things out, dear old Harmid managed to maneuver himself into a position of power where he is now effectively the elected dictator. Good one that. This is a very good example of how you mustn't do things like attack countries which are half way across the world and imagine that you will have control of the situation.
OK, ranting is almost done for early November, I am absolutely determined that i will blog everyday again. I like blogging, it clears my mind. Any scientists must take whatever i've said with a pinch of salt. I love the buggers, but why do they have to be to bloody, worthy, ernest and dull? Finally the English must just accept that they are the whipping boys. If you go barging into people's countries and behaving like shites, you will be treated as such. It's called karma. Actually its not called karma, because Peter will castigate me and tell me that karma is something quite different. It's called fair deuce. And that's just cricket, isn't it old chap?
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