A Visit to Cambridge Steampunk

“Cambridge Steampunk” said Facebook event page. I was curiously attracted, registered for the event, and found myself looking forward to its due date.

Armed with my trusty camera and accompanied by my chaperone, I made my way to the Cambridge Union Society, on Saturday, 14 June.

Close to the old round church, we slipped into an alley I’ve never traversed before and entered a very different world. Ladies in corsets and bussles, men in top hats or Victorian gentlemen adventurers outfits were already lounging outside at the tables in the early summer sun.

Inside the building was a veritable panopticon of tables and displays, where the well-dressed and piratical alternative Victorians intermingled. I felt singularly underdressed.

What is steampunk? For me it is conjured up in books such as the early science fiction by HG Wells and Jules Verne. But if you’ve watched the film “Stardust”, or read Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy; or perhaps even laughed at the troglodytes in the French film “Delicatessen”, then you begin to get a glimpse of the subject matter.
Steampunk is a sub genre of science fiction, dealing with alternative realities where steam power still prevails, dirigibles ply the skies and adventures are still to be had.

The things I enjoyed about the day, was the imagination, the fantasy, and the sheer good spirits of the event and the people attending. My chaperone was amused, bemused and confused, especially by the near ubiquitous use of the round goggles.

I returned home with a sudden need to acquire an Alethiometer (a sort of clockwork Oracle, from the book by Philip Pullman, “Northern lights”, also known in America as “The Golden Compass”. A few bespoke ones had been created back in 2008. They were instructions on how to make one yourself on the web.

However, I succumbed to the modern steam punk version, I downloaded the app!



Picture album accessible here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/CambridgeSteampunkJune2014

I was Infected by Evolution and survived.

I was infected by evolution last Friday. And it’s someone else’s fault! Someone who sneezed, or possibly even just breathed. Whatever, they gave me a cold. This is of course a man cold; runny nose, streaming eyes, fatigue and a hefty dose of self-pity. I would have been thoroughly safe from infection if it hadn’t been for – Evolution.

A Cold Virus. The structure is similar to that of a polio virus and also foot and mouth. Image created by merging and editing a depth map and a color coded map of Rhinovirus B14 capsid proteins by Jean-Yves Sgro

You see, normally when you catch disease, your body’s natural defences kick into action and, if you survive, that defence includes an alarm system. These are antibodies. They remember what infected you in the first place. We have even harnessed this effect as vaccination, bringing serious killers under control.

Our bodies do the same thing whenever we catch a cold. Yet we can catch colds several times a year, for the rest of our lives. Why? I asked myself through gritted teeth and streaming eyes.

What is giving us these colds?

Up to 80% of calls are caused by rhinoviruses. They are very small, even for viruses, with the typical diameter of 30 nm. You would have to string 1 million of them end to end to make a 3 mm long chain. There are at least 100 different types.

A single cold virus has a shell with 20 triangular faces, a shape known as an icosahedron. The shell, technically known as the “capsid”, protects the important instructions inside. These tell a cell how to make more viruses.

As few as 30 individual viruses breathed up your nose from someone else’s sneeze can cause infection! The virus binds to the inner lining in your nose and throat. It creates a pore and slips into a cell. The slightly acid environment inside your cells breaks open the virus. Its instructions are released and convert your cell into a virus factory.

Eventually, the cell bursts and the released viruses go on to infect more of your nose and throat. The irritation makes you sneeze, spreading the virus to others.

This carries on until your body’s natural defences battle and win against the virus infection inside you. Theoretically, you are now protected by antibodies against that virus infection in the future.

Yet you can still catch another cold. So we return to the question, why?

It’s because the viruses change. It’s evolution in action. Here. Now.

For you and me, our instructions are written in double strands of DNA. Two metres of it in every single one of our cells. Over 30,000 instructions written in 3.2 billion DNA units called base pairs. When our DNA is copied, it is checked and corrected to minimise mistakes. The error rate is as low as one error in 100 million base pairs.

A rhinovirus’ instruction is only 7000 or so bases long. It is made from a single strand of RNA, not DNA. When the cold virus RNA is copied, the error rate is as high as one in 3000. There is a real chance that each copy contains at least one or two changes.

So, returning to that initial moment of infection last Friday. When I breathed in those 30 or so virus particles, each one was slightly different from the other. Some may have been similar to a cold I’d had before. My body’s defences identified those and killed them off quickly.

But there were others sufficiently different. My body didn’t recognise these new invaders until I’d been infected and I’d had a full scale cold.

When you catch a cold, you are not just catching one cold, you are catching several different viruses at the same time. By the time your colds make you sneeze, you are passing on a different mix of viruses to your unfortunate neighbour.

When you have a cold, you are part of evolution in action.

Further reading:

Rhinovirus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinovirus#Pathogenesis

19-3 Rhinoviruses are single-strand RNA viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm of the host cell: http://www.microbiologytext.com/index.php?module=Book&func=displayarticle&art_id=477

Rhinovirus Genome Evolution during Experimental Human Infection: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010588

Human Rhinovirus 14 images: http://www.virology.wisc.edu/virusworld/viruslist.php?virus=r14

An answer to the "I'm bored!" holiday child

Children are amazing - on the one hand, they can keep themselves occupied in the strangest games, on the other they can be bored, listless, unenthusiastic and bereft of ideas. Particularly during the holidays. Here is one solution that worked last Bank Holiday Weekend.

We had been on an outing the day before, the evening's discussion on what or where to go next had come up with no helpful ideas or solution. My daughter knew she wanted to do something - but just couldn't come up with anything that inspired her.

I was pretty desperate by the next day.
"Good Morning, have you had any idea by now what you would like to do?"
"No!" was the answer.
"In that case, this is what we are going to do.
"We are going to take a maximum of five Lego figures and a camera - and photograph their adventure exploring Milton Country Park!"

To my utter astonishment, barely had the words left my mouth, and my daughter had dashed upstairs, found the dusty Lego box and was excitedly choosing which Lego figures to take along.

We spent over two hours wandering through Milton Country Park. We aroused strange looks and passing children would wonder "Dad, ist that a Lego man? It is a Lego man!" And their parents would hurriedly rush their children by to avoid the deranged people we were.

The full adventure story of Lego Family's Day Out in Milton Country Park" can be found in the slideshow below. If you cannot see it, go to the album at https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/LegoFamilySDayOutInMiltonCountryPark



And if you are wondering which age groups this might work with - my daughter's 23! (And I enjoyed it too).

Sourdough Bread and Romans in Horningsea

Sherds from Roman pottery Horningsea (1) showing distinctive pattern

I noticed some pottery with an interesting lined pattern on its exterior surface, amongst the pottery sherds that Rodney Scarle was sorting for the Norris Museum. To my surprise, Rodney told me that they came from the Roman potteries not far from Milton, in Horningsea. The patterning was quite distinctive for this region.

Rodney had taken part in an excavation with some colleagues from the Archaeology RheeSearch Group just north of Horningsea, where they found what was thought to be a Roman bread oven (1). This could possibly have been to support the nearby pottery.


As a bread maker myself, this was a particular interest! Since this was a historic period before the availability of commercial baker’s yeast, the Romans most likely used sourdough starters (2, 3). This is something that I’m reviving again at home. I have an established wheat culture, named William, and I’ve just started a rye sourdough culture, Reilly.

Sourdough is a mixture of natural cultures of yeast and bacteria (4). Sourdough starters (bit of live dough retained from the last loaf) are used to seed the next loaf. Some sourdough cultures can be maintained for generations.

The interesting find with Rodney’s Roman bakers oven, was the remains of a pewter dish within the rubble. We speculated that perhaps the baker had died and some of his key goods were placed in the oven which was then ritually destroyed so it could not be used by anyone else.

All speculation, but something to think about when eating my next loaf of sourdough bread.

References:

1. Rodney Scarle, (2011) Report on excavations in the garden of The Lodge, Clayhithe Road, Horningsea in 2011 (revealing a possible Roman bread oven). Report stored at the Heritage database at Shire Hall, Cambridge.
2. The History of Bread - Roman & Greek Bread http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/about/the-history-of-bread/the-history-of-bread-roman-bread-and-greek-bread/
3. Coquinaria blog article, Roman Sourdough Bread, http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/Rombread.htm
4. History of Sourdough, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough#History_of_sourdough

World Gold Reserves, Swimming Pools and Pubs

My German colleague, Ulrich Heker, has lately been lamenting the increasing cost of gold for dental technicians. Well, the solution might be closer to home. Germany has the second largest stock of gold in the world, as co-director Jane found out in a fit of lateral research.

Gold Reserves indicated by height of each square 

 America leads (of course!) with an amazing 8133 tonnes of the soft precious metal. Germany follows with 3390. We Brits have a paltry 310 tonnes of the stuff – presumably mainly in bling. What surprised me was that the influencal lender to nations, the International Monetary Fund “only” has 2814 tonnes.

Apparently the total known world gold reserves amount to 31,320 tonnes, which seems a surprisingly small amount.

Gold is indeed a precious metal.It is not only beloved of for its decorative glint. The high conductivity and chemically inert metal is also used for electrical contacts and circuit boards.

Silver and Gold circuits and contacts on PCB

Gold is also very dense, at 19.3g per cubic centimetre it is 19.3 times heavier than water. To put it in context, if a large 2 litre milk bottle on a supermarket shelf was instead filled with gold, it would weigh as much as a 12 year old (38kg) .

So taking its high density into account, what would 31,320 tonnes of gold look like if collected in one place? Well, the total volume would be 1623 cubic metres. Now that is equivalent to a solid cube of less than 12m x 12m x 12m.

Typically, this is expressed as fitting into ONE olympic sized swimming pool. But I needed something I could relate to locally. Was there a suitable building with the same volume?

Yes! The Waggon and Horses pub looked large enough. I phoned publicans David and Louise to check. David and I worked out that there was cellar space and of course, soon there would be the restaurant extension at the rear.

Waggon & Horses in Milton - Equal to World's Gold Reserves

So all the whole world's gold reserves could fit into the same space as the Waggon & Horses in Milton!

David's last comment was “When it arrives, just give me a pound of the stuff and I'll happily move out into the shed!”

The First Christmas Pudding

“Ah” sighed my mother as she finished the last spoon of our Christmas pudding “ This reminds me of the time just before you were born, when I made our first Christmas pudding”

It was November 1956, in post-war Sheffield. Pea-souper smogs were still common. A young German wife, Rose, and her British army husband 'Lofty' were expecting their first baby, living under the shadow of the university in a small mid-terrace house. With hardly a penny to their name, it was a house full of fun and laughter. The younger sister, barely 18, but trained in child care, had come over from Germany to help and keep Rose company in a foreign land.

Christmas was but a month away and Rose had read in a woman's magazine about the famous British Christmas Pudding! Furthermore, this was going to be the first time with the in-laws. The decision was made – we'll make our own!

Following the recipe to the letter, the shopping was done and huge mounds of dried fruit, carrots, apples, suet, flour, treacle and spice went into the largest bowl that could be found in the kitchen. As the only coal fire in the house was in the living room, Rose and her sister set to work there. It looked as if it was going to be a big pudding, a very big pudding – in fact a gargantuan pudding!

The pudding was covered as it now had to rest for the night. The result of all this hard work was proudly displayed to Lofty when he came back home in the evening.

All the excitement and effort had the effect of inducing another kind of labour. Rose, nine months pregnant, and Lofty had to take an unexpected walk to the maternity hospital at 2 am, on a cold winter's night. After an exhausting 22 hour labour, I was born, a 9lb giant of a baby!

Rose's young sister was now increasingly worried, not only for her sister and the baby – but the pudding mixture had been left for longer than overnight. Would all their work be for naught? As her English was not up to understanding the recipe herself, she brought it along to the very first visit of the new mother and her baby. Together, they pored over the recipe, line by line. They discovered that they had overlooked a minor detail –

The recipe was for 22 puddings!

So poor Rose's sister had to return home, carefully form all the puddings in any cloths that she could find and steam them for the rest of the day.

The puddings were a triumphant success! Having been prepared so well in advance they became their appreciated presents for all the family, both in England and Germany – arriving by post, train and boat in time for Christmas 1956.

Faizan E Medina Mosque, Peterborough

There are two ways that you can get into Peterborough from the rail station. Yesterday I chose to take the footbridge leading into Queensgate. It was a glorious morning and as I looked to my left, I could see the dome and minaret of a mosque. So, after having attended the eco-cluster breakfast, I wound my way through Peterborough streets to find the building and have a look.

At street level this was not so easy to do, as the distinctive dome and minaret were out of sight. I finally gave in, and when a petite figure in a burka appeared in front of me, I asked for and received friendly directions.

I arrived at the Faizan E Medina Mosque. It appeared shut as I wandered round, until someone opened the door and asked what I was looking for. “I’d like to have a look at the mosque, I’ve never been in one before!”

Directed to the side door, I was let in. The entrance hall contained seating so that you could take off your shoes and stack them tidily the shoe rack before going further into the building. I was introduced to the Imam Hafiz Zia Rasul, who was unfazed at my appearance at the door and generously offered to show me around an answer my questions.

Hafiz took me into hall, the heart of the mosque. A large open space, covered by a carpet with distinctive markings in regular rows; each one functioning as a prayer mat. To the front, facing Mecca, was a decorated niche flanked by two podests from where the imams could address the congregation or lead the prayer. The niche or as is better known, Mihrab, was shaped like a large gateway and the inner curves were richly decorated in different Arabic scripts. Above us was the great canopy of the dome, again richly decorated in flowing Arabic script which Hafiz told me had been done by craftsman who had come all the way from Egypt.

In between on a floating floor above us was the separate area for the women and an observation gallery. We went upstairs and made our way to the gallery where a crowd of schoolchildren were clustered near the balcony. We heard their loud excited chatter in the background but now they were quieting down. As part of its outreach, the mosque regularly receives visitors from schools, so the children can see an aspect of life experienced by some of their friends.

Earlier, Hafiz had also shown me one of the copies of the Koran. As a publisher, the first fascinating aspect was that of course Arabic script is read from right to left. The second was the beautiful flowing Arabic script within. With the avoidance of any figurative representation, calligraphy is still common and beautiful art in the Arabic world.

In a mellow singing voice, Hafiz read out the first paragraphs at the beginning of the Koran. I asked about this way reading out. “Reading out the Koran is something we make as beautiful as possible” was the simple answer.

I’d heard the call to prayer, presumably from the minaret, which had also been broadcast within the mosque. But it was time for me to go and catch the train back to Cambridge. So after giving my thanks to Hafiz and his colleagues, I put my shoes back on and set off back in the direction of the station. Already, in small groups, people were coming out of the surrounding houses and going in the direction of the mosque for the second of the five prayer times during the day.

New Triops and National Flour

Late Saturday evening, shining a light into the aquarium revealed a tiny motile organism, still less than 1mm long. Sunday morning found at least three of these small organisms in the tank. At present it is still impossible to establish whether these are truly Triops but my hopes have been raised.

Mrs Thomas has been busy baking oat biscuits today and as we perused the collection of wartime recipes, in "We'll eat again" compiled by Marguerite Patten (ISBN9780600325246), we came across mention of "National Flour". Intrigued, I was tempted into a serious online search to establish the exact nature of the flour.

Basically, National Flour was a less refined flour that still contained wheatgerm. It was promoted on health grounds by the then Ministry of Food in the UK, between the years of 1942 to 1956, when it was discontinued. 

During my search, I also found that the colonial government of Kenya had in turn promoted a National Flour, though this comprised a mixture of 70% wheat flour and 30% maize flour. Apparently this made baking bread much more difficult, until an enterprising baker found that adding some oil to the bread dough dramatically restored the quality of baked loaves. The story is recounted in Madatally Manji, “Memoirs of a biscuit baron”.

The gathered information has now been added under "National Flour" to the Wikipedia page on Wheat Flour.

2012 gradually accelerating, New ideas and opportunities

At last, the winter inertia is gradually diminishing. This was prompted in part by an unexpected invitation from Germany to visit for exploratory talks. This came totally out of the blue and was due to the host remembering me from a 2006 event.

With the book "A View from the Lodge" now printed and Mr James the author actively pursuing sales, attention turns to "Dark Seeds 3AM" by Mrs Lowry which is close to completion, following talks with the cover photographer and designer of Perfect Yellow.

A message left on the New Scientist group of LinkedIn requested mentors for US High School science projects. One of these was in the area of molecular biology, an area in which I have considerable experience. Contact with the student resulted in a favourable response and i now await the project initiation.

A casual internet search on certain technology matters revealed a dramatic change in accessibility and cost-effectiveness in certain areas. This has led to the exploration of a new venture which I am researching further assiduously.

Sadly, Hermione Triops is now deceased. Triops, like all arthropods, grow by repeated shedding of old skin and expanding before the new skin hardens. Hermione had a small amount of old skin was not shed, around her tail after one moult. The subsequent moult proved laborious because the old remnant made it impossible to fully shed the next skin. I did attempt microsurgery which did remove most of the old shell, but the tail was now so constricted that food waste could not be ejected and after two days, Hermione passed away.

Sad though this incident is, the different forums on the internet suggest that moults are a known crisis point, leading to premature death.

I have set up a new hatch of Triops two days ago but have yet to see any sign of life.

The headlines are currently dominated by the holing and capsizing of an Italian cruise ship, the impugned conduct of the captain during the emergency and the continued search for the missing passengers, numbering 20 or so.

Skype conversations and annotating stained glass photos.

Gradually getting back into the routine of work, with a promising Skype conversation as well as the usual chats with Mr Heker as we drafted a new communication text together for his company.

Placed copies of both the Stereomicroscopy book by Mr Woolnough and the “A View from the Lodge” by Mr James as for sale on Amazon. This time I was offering to sell worldwide.

I also quickly generated German pages for the front and end of the Flash game and uploaded that as a separate entity.

Hermione the Triops has a carapace now around 1cm long, demonstrating the tremendous growth of this species. Spent a large part of the evening beginning to collect annotations and information on the stained glass windows of Worcester Cathedral. Began with the seven East cloister aisle windows. This has introduced me to the Saxon Kings and the gradual penetration of Christianity into the British Isles. 

Eve Arnold, photographer, died at 99. Spent some time browsing her pictures online. Rather than studio work, she appeared to photograph on location or behind the scenes at studios. The one that really struck me was a picture taken during the US integration crisis. It shows two girls, one black, one white, at an integration party eyeing each other with spontaneous smiles.

Start of Working year and finishing game design

It was a slightly later start to the first working day of the year. It started well with a call from Mr Straus for design task. Starting to work back through the e-mails, there was an unusual one from Germany, responding to my Christmas greetings and asking for a meeting out of the blue.

Not being able to find out much from a quick internet search, I replied suggesting the individual call me for a chat for futher information. This they duly did and it turned out that we had met briefly back in 2006 at the BIK business exhibition in Germany, where I had assisted my sister.

I had stated at the time that I was happy to meet up with people for idea exchanges if my visit costs were covered. My caller was offering just that. There also appeared to be synergies with another of my contacts in NRW and I put them in touch with each other.

In the evening, I could not resist working to finish the flash game that I had begun to design. Completed as “Your Business Startup”, I eventually published it on the StencylWork site, see http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/10438 and have a play! What was most amazing was that within an hour there had been over 40 clicks onto the site.

Triops, sunspots, Snowdrops and Stencyl game design

A colder but sunny day led to the cheap refractor telescope being dusted off to project the sun onto the ceiling at around 11 am this morning. One bold and four fainter sunspots were clearly visible and Mrs Thomas attempted to photograph the image on my behalf – pictures still to be uploaded. Seeing the magnified solar globe at about 30cm diameter on the ceiling also brought home the Earth's rotation as the disc could be seen visibly creeping along at a couple of millimetres per second.

Hermione, the Triops seemed a bit slower today when she suddenly turned on her back and started twitching. I dashed to get a camera but by my return she had just moulted, leaving her ghost of a shell behind – collected for microscopic observation. Within an hour, Hermione was actively feeding again, now another millimetre or so larger.

It was such a lovely day and we were in dire need of exercise after all the Christmas feasting, that we drove to Anglesey Abbey for a walk. We took the longer path leading to the wildlife trail. As we were on the return part of the walk we came onto the open lawns where snowdrops were already emerging under the scattered trees. Diverting along the Winter Garden walk, we saw more snowdrops at various stages of emergence and flowering. They had been beaten to it by the dwarf blue Irises that were fully open. Winter cherries were in bloom and several other trees were also flowering.

Late afternoon and evening, I continued with the design of the flash based game that I had started using StencylWorks. I designed a few additional simple characters or actors and ascribed a variety of properties to them. I aimed to have some that would kill my main actor on contact, a number that my character could stomp on and also two items that could be “collected”. Wasted some time trying to get an active scoring system from the available StencylForge library but could not get them to work properly. The game will have to do without scores for the moment.. All characters and functions set, The remaining time was spent designing the maze and location of the different characters that would interact with my character. More work to be done yet.

First battles with Stencyl

The first day of the year was heralded in by firework displays occuring on the hour in a sweep from the first dateline in the Pacific until reaching us here in the UK. Judging from an earlier walk, many could not wait until the allotted hour of midnight, with fireworks going off sporadically in and around Milton and Cambridge. Still, not a patch yet on the explosive mayhem seen in Germany on “Sylvester”.

We took the day gently and I resumed battle with Stencyl – a freely available flash game design software I had heard about on the BBC's Click program. The demonstration/tutorial of designing a simple walking and jumping flash game seemed straightforward enough.

Encouraged, I designed some simple PNG versions of a walking and jumping figure plus an enemy in CorelDraw and then attempted to import them into a new program. What I had not realised, was that for each new game, you had to access a resource that gave you the basic functions. Also, whenever features were changed within the program you were designing, you needed to update the game regularly. My first over ambitious attempt therefore failed in a combination of malfunctioning downloaded elements and lack of regular updating.

Going back to using one of the “kits” with most functionality included finally lead to the first signs of success. By the end of the afternoon, I was more confident of beginning to start a simple game that worked.

This was only the start, and I have to see whether I want to persist.

My Triops is now about 4mm long at the carapace and because of the potential hermaphrodite or even parthenogenic nature has been named “Hermione”.

Triops, Solar activity and where to buy your meteorites

I've taken a break from work over the Christmas period and one of the fascinations that has gripped me is the living fossil Triops longicaudatus.

I set up a hatch of half a commercial packet of dried soil purporting to contain Triops eggs during the day of Christmas Eve. Whilst the suppliers advice is to use water above 20degC, preferably around 25degC, a trawl through Google Scholar found sufficient reference to Triops longicaudatus being able to hatch and grow at lower temperatures. We have a 20degC/18degC Day/night temperature cycle in the house this winter.

Late night on Christmas Day I thought I could see microscopic hatched life, though it was still too small to identify. By Wednesday it was clear that I had some small freshwater shrimps, a couple of daphnia and one possible Triops. By Thursday, the Triops was approximately 1mm long as measured by its carapace and swimming continuously around the tank.

Friday saw a distinct leap in size to about 2mm and a change in behaviour. For the first time the Triops stopped briefly when it encountered food particles and it also spent a much greater proportion of its time at the bottom of the small tank. Today, it had grown to 3mm carapace length, was highly active and continuing to display the stopping to feed for a couple of seconds behaviour that first occurred yesterday. Since Triops, like all arthropods, have a hard shell exterior, they have to moult to grow by expansion. The continued growth of my Triops indicates that so far these critical moults have not been a problem.

Whilst hidden behind rain clouds, the sun has also been demonstrating a more interesting active phase after an extended quiet period. Checking out the SOHO solar observation site revealed several sunspots again at last, so I may be out with the telescope to try a projection if the sky is clear in the coming days.

Solar activity has also been shown in a recent flare that not only interrupted radio signals but also led to the last Aurorae of the year 2011. Whilst hunting for the solar information, I came across a site offering fragments of meteorites from the asteroid Vest, the moon and Mars for sale – something to bear in mind for future Birthday/Christmas lists. (http://www.shopspaceweather.com/asteroid-vesta-meteorite.aspx).

Alternatively, I might try catching micrometeorites for free later in the year.

December in brief

• Alan James' book, “A View from the Lodge” published and printed.
• Contrast to the financial meeting in London – photography and filming of the public sector demonstrations in Cambridge see http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/nine-points-learnt-photographing.html. 
• Three trips to Hereford and back – family related. I used the opportunity to take a better set of all the available stained glass at Worcester Cathedral and spent time editing the images. 
• Also climbed up the Malvern's British Camp and Worcester Beacon with the SLR and tripod to try some panoramic views – images still to be edited. 
• Completed the total recreation of the company brochure for Jos-Reinigung Nord - http://issuu.com/miltoncontact/docs/jos-procedure-by-juengst. 
• Personal accounts and most of Company accounts done. 
• Timing totally out for my most recent speech at Toastmasters – need to tackle for 2012. 
• Had fun with Chinese Brush Painting, creating Robins and Holly for a video Christmas Card http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-do-robin-holly-feature-at-christmas.html. Originally initiated by a request by Ms Mix in Germany for an e-mail Christmas Card. 
• Saddened to hear of death of Gregor Scholz who visited the UK earlier this year and whom I acccompanied in London – article at http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/12/cheers-to-gregor-scholz-farewell.html. 
•  Saw a program about living fossils – Triops. Was so captivated, bought a kit to hatch at home and am currently nurturing a small specimen of Triops longicaudatus in a tank. 
• Had a lovely Christmas with the family.

Chancellor’s pronouncements.

Anticipation had been mounting during the day to hear the Chancellor Mr Osborne's  comments on the economy and additional measures to stimulate it , without actually spending any more money. One of the most critical elements was the bringing forward of the change to retirement at 67 to 2026, which impacts the baby boomers of the 1960s.

The level of impending doom was outlined by the dire news for one young lady interviewed on Television - she had to look forward to another 45 years of Hairdressing!

Another impending change that would only serve to fuel the anger in the public sector strikes and demonstrations tomorrow – the fact that in addition to plans to change their pension plans, their pay rises after the current 2 year freeze would be limited to 1% per year.

No doubt another consequence would be to push public sector employees to leave the area for private employment – helping to achieve the 0.7 million posts that needed shedding to maintain the books.

Other activities today – learning to paint brachiating monkeys and leaping frogs in Chinese brush painting and met up with author Mrs Lowry on progressing her book. Helped Mrs Thomas install a new webcam on her PC – remotely as over 600 miles apart.

Two headaches – migraine and phone tapping

The morning was lost to a migraine, dozing off the pain to surface at midday and begin the gradual mental climb out of numbness. The remainder of the day catching up on four days of missed e-mails, responding to personal messages and chasing the book printers re the revised proof for author Mr James.

The backdrop entertainment was the Leverson inquiry into phone tapping. And what irony it provided. The celebrities and other well known personalities who appeared before an inquiry that was televised, the newspaper speculation before and after the event, the cascade of subsidiary news items spinning off into different programs.

On the one hand we had the stories of destructive press activities, hounding, prying and following their selected prey. On the other, we have the public, myself included, fascinated by the unfolding inquiry, the news and the witnesses called – precisely the fuel for the activities that we so greatly deplore.

Innuendo in pictures by Vermeer and other Dutch artists at the Fitzwilliam Museum in “Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence”

Yesterday, we went to the Vermeer exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum “Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence”. A bit of a misnomer as it should really be “An exhibition of 32 pictures by Dutch 17th Century Artists, including four pictures by Vermeer”. However, it prompted me to buy and read “Vermeer: The Complete Paintings”, by Norbert Schneider (a bargain at circa £9) from the museum shop. Consequently, I now want to go back and have another look at the paintings, as there is a more detailed symbolism in the images and finer detail to look at that suggests why Vermeer has gained such importance again.

The fast guide to the images of women in their domestic settings is the constant struggle between chastity and the potential eruption of passion in an age where more conservative values on marriage and chastity were being promoted by the authorities. Two Vermeers with women at the virginal are alternatively; The link between music and love in “The Music Lesson”; Hints of a lover's  departure before painting began in “Lady seated at a Virginal”, indicated by the abandoned cello and the picture of “The Procuress” on the wall behind the lady at the virginal.

The contrast is the chaste purity of Vermeer's “The Lacemaker” with her demure gaze downwards on a proper lady's activity, with a very uncluttered composition. This picture is on loan from The Louvre.

Pearls, by the way, represent either vanity or purity – depending on their use. Any picture of that age featuring a woman and wine (in a glass or porcelain decanter) hints at attempted seduction. Onions are erotic symbols and hanging chickens apparently indicate carnal desire! The symbolism of the day was codified, for example in Cesare Ripa's "Iconologia". Items that look innocuous to us had special significance in understanding the underlying message within a painting. A picture within the painting or a bowl of fruit, a gesture or particular posture and dress add meaning (as do the copulating dogs in "The Soldier and the Prostitute" by Frans van Mieris, 1658, though here the message is a bit more obvious).

Vermeer's artistic technique also differs from that of his contemporaries. Here are more aspects to look for.

1. The presence of slight visual and perspective distortions, blurring around the edge of the paintings and highlights. These are seen by some as evidence that Vermeer made extensive use of a camera obscura (a lens system that projects an image onto a screen) to aid his painting. Some of you may remember David Hockney's excellent TV program on the evidence for use of camera obscura by classical painters.
2. Point 1 and the use of colours and shade enraptured the early expressionists who saw in Vermeer a kindred spirit in the way he viewed and painted the world. In fact, when you visit the Fitwilliam Museum, go in at the main entrance, progress upstairs and wander through the Impressionists gallery on your way to the Vermeer exhibition. Then compare Vermeer's brush strokes and hints at detail to the perfect representations in some of his contemporaries' work.
3. Maps. Vermeer regularly and deliberately incorporated representations of real maps in his pictures to make a point. In fact Norbert Schneider uses the pre 1609 map of the Netherlands by Claes Jansz. Visscher and other elements, to re-evaluate the symbolism in Vermeer's painting commonly known as “The Art of Painting”.  Where most art critics see the entire imagery as referring to - the Art of Painting, Norbert sees the picture as a political statement. He claims that it plays homage to the re-ascendant House of Orange and recognises the positive change in popular opinion towards the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire; all this in a critical period in the Franco-Dutch war, just before a favourable outcome in 1674. This would date the painting to about 1673, much later than others think.

With my interest in microscopy, an additional fascinating fact was that when Vermeer died, Antoniew van Leeuwenhoek took over the responsibility for managing the estate when Vermeer's wife fell into financial difficulty.

What this ultimately also reveals is that beauty and art is really in the eye of the beholder. When I go back to revisit the exhibition I will be evaluating the pictures in a totally different light.

From international finance to repairing a webcam dropped in tea

I visited Mrs Hales-Tooke, who's two books I had published, after my brush painting class. Her son, photographer, artist and author Mr H Hales-Tooke was visiting from the US and I heard of his narrow escape during the floods in Spring. Our discussion also turned to the merits of printed versus digital books and the different strategies for marketing them.

Wednesday was a day trip to London for a talk on The Future of the international Monetary System, part of the OMFIF Golden Talks series. It was held in the Armourers' Hall, Coleman Street. The talk  was illuminating – concentrating on the longer term – there is a blog article on it now, “The International Monetary System is to local crises like the climate is to weather”. It provided a marked contrast to the immediate dramatic fluctuations and contagion in the Eurozone area.

The Armourers' hall itself was worthy of note and I spent some time photographing there (see article “the Armourers' Hall of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers”) before taking a walk through London from Coleman St to Holborn Station. The route was a slight meander, taking in the stained glass in Wrens rebuilt church of St Lawrence Jewry and the Occupy London tent city still outside St Pauls.

Thursday I visited Mr Woolnough, author of the Understanding and Using the Stereomicroscope. We had worked together closely on the book as I edited the design, layout, redrew some of the illustrations, added extra photographs and the quick start guide. The book is published by the Quekett Microscopical Society.

We were working together on the start of a new exciting project and made a lot of progress on the initial planning.

This morning began with a telephone call to Mr Ebert of Feinkaeserei Zimmermann, a friend from his previous visit to the UK looking for potential distributors of the Product of Designated Origin, the Altenburger Ziegenkaese. Today's call was a social catchup on mutual news.

The annoying and yet amusing immediate aftermath of the conversation involved my accidentally knocking off the web-cam from my PC right into a full cup of tea. Quickly retrieved, I could see the milky tea sloshing behind the lens. A search online gave instructions on how to open up my particular model and I set to flushing out the tea with water and then placing the opened web-cam to dry in a warm place.

Then it was an HBN day where Mrs Burbidge was notable for ensuring that every guest arriving was welcomed to the event.

Returning late afternoon, I set about ensuring that the visible and accessible parts of the webcam were clean before reassembling it.

With great anticipation, I reconnected the webcam and started a video. All seemed to be working well until I saw the picture on screen – the image was as blurry as viewed through cold tea. I had to admit defeat and order a replacement!

Stained and etched glass in the cloisters of Worcester Cathedral – and King John submitting kingdom to Pope

The drive back to Cambridge from Hereford began in pouring rain. I had contemplated stopping off at Cadbury World, but a phone call in advance established that they were not open today.

Seeing signs to the Royal Worcester factory on the ring road around the city, I decided to visit this instead and started following the erratically placed signs. By the time I was approaching the centre of the city without a clear indication on where to go next, I promptly stopped and parked near the Cathedral and made that my outing.

I spent a couple of hours photographing the stained glass windows in the cloister and then briefly touring the rest of the Cathedral. I came away with the clear intention to visit again. The photography took some time as the light was poor and the hand held camera needed long exposures that really challenged the anti-shake function on the device.

One new fact learnt from the sign by King John's tomb, he submitted the Kingdoms of England and Ireland to the Pope in order to patch up an argument about which Archbishop should be appointed at Canterbury that had led to King John's excommunication.

I edited the images in the evening, as best possible considering the quality, and uploaded them to my Picasa web album collection at http://goo.gl/uMRQn.