Belfast - Never again

Recently I went to Belfast to visit with a good colleague and friend from graduate school. He is an accomplished political scientist on his second Fulbright studying ethnic conflict. His studies took him to Belfast.

The city looks as though it has and continues to be a 'conflict area'. There were dangerous places to go - even during the day - and suspicious glances and a generally gruff style of interaction with the locals. We surveyed the most active parts of Belfast, visiting Shankill and New Lodge. The murals depicting the costs of continued conflict between the Republicans and the Loyalists are not hard to miss.

Dr. Brent Never was an excellent guide, filling in the seemingly innocuous walks with terrifying information about the places we were. Of course, we also had a lot to catch up on which made the visit more than worth it.

Anyway, the 'edge' that this city had was easily dispelled by authentic Guinness and Bushmills.

The show

There is a fool born every minute. The one I am referring to is the one that gave Ryan and me a venue for what we call music. The Oxford music scene will, like the city itself after the floods, take some time to recover.

On a recent Thursday night, we played at the St. Aldates Tavern -acoustic rock covers with a few original ditties thrown in. We repeated this nuttiness on Saturday at the Kite. Both nights were (by some obscure metric) successes. We made our way through approximately 35 songs including the Eagles, van Morrison, U2, Coldplay, STP, Skynyrd, and some lesser known American and British artists.

Despite our best efforts, it was a good time for all. Hopefully we can pull off one more...

Guy Fawkes Night - November 5th

Guy Fawkes Night is the "celebration" of Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605 with most of England's and Europe's dignified inside. He was stopped at the last minute, tortured, and killed.

So, tonight there are more fireworks (to accompany this weekend's continuing explosions) and a bonfire at which traditional songs and food are sung are served, respectively.

This was the basis for the movie V for Vendetta.

Oxford: Latitude: 51°45'00"N

I will be reporting the results of a new experiment that I will be conducting as soon as the sun comes out again. Given that we are so far up the globe (relatively), the sun is at a strikingly low angle and I want to find out what that angle is.

So, taking a page from any secondary education geometry book (see page 143, exercise 12 a and b - be sure to show your work), I am going to stick a pole in the ground, measure its height and the length of the shadow it casts (at 9am, noon, and 3pm - the only times that I think the shadow will be dark enough). Then, using the tangent calculations (opposite over adjacent), figure the closest angle (and of course via several assumptions of perpendicularity).

Neato.

Second, it is the warmer trade winds that keep Britain from getting as cold as Canada.

For comparison:
Juneau (capital of Alaska): Latitude: 58º 18' N
Olympia (capital of Washington): Latitude: 47º 02' N
Nashville (capital of Tennessee): Latitude: 36.1589