The PM Glass Box. What was the highlight of tonight's show?
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Very witty.
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Oh, very neat.
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CQ obviously doesn't have the influence she thinks she has.
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Libya may or may not have supplied the IRA with armaments (I'm not sure I believe the propaganda) but who paid for them? Wasn't it mainly NORAID?
In love & peace, Dry.
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Your photo at the top of this blog is very artistic, but what about the trade marks on the marker pens? Is this a trial of a new BBC policy of product placement?
In love & peace, Dry
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It was George Harrison...if anyone sees Sid.
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Ahh .. Mozart's serenade for 13 wind instruments. Ahh .. Dry
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Argh! The weather tonight sounded like it was coming from a funeral parlour. No no no!
Bring back the shipping forecast style weather. Please.
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The energy companies weren't in, "so we dropped a note through their letter boxes". Excellent!
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Darn it, lost an hour somewhere and missed the programme :-(
Like the photo though!
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Didn't America [allegedly] finance the IRA for years and years? Erm... we still do business with them.
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Robert Peston, "they must be crackers to let lemans go but"...Love it!
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The story of the 99 year old republican - I'm still smiling.
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God love him. He's doing his best with the weather but sounds a bit like he's expecting the Boss to mark him out of ten any minute.
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No newsletter again :-(
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Here's a newsletter from the dim and distant past to make up for it :-
Hello,
We'll be on the air at around four or perhaps four and a half minutes past five tonight. Just to let you know.
When we do make it to the airwaves we'll be talking about the Queen's birthday, David Cameron in Norway, and BBC funding.
Nigel Wrench is putting together a lovely piece on Picasso's African influences. We're looking also at Cherie Blair's hair, and football chants.
By the way, we're thinking of giving over airtime to listeners to send greetings to loved ones, perhaps on special occasions. Just a thought - let me know if you'd be interested.
See you on the ice,
Eric Charles.
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They should try the weather done in the style of Michael Miles when he used to bang his gong in the Yes/No interlude on double your money. The gong would sound at the change of each region.
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Just ditch the weather. Nobody takes any notice, its always rubbish and a waste of time. So why bother.
Hmmm.. Same comments about "Thought for the Day."
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4. Dryopithecus
Yes Libya did supply the Semtex and weapons. I think getting caught red-handed was a give away. Yes some of the money funding the IRA was American. Yes evil terrorists did hide out in the Irish Republic. Yes some of these evil terrorists did claim assylum in America and walk about freely.
However, we are British and so we are expected to forget all this.
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18, That's a great idea!
"For today's homily upon the climate we are joined by Superintendent Nice of the God Squad".
-"Good morning. In winter, when it often snows, And Dick the shepherd blows his nose, How very readily one thinks; "Let's stay inside and have some drinks." Centuries have passed since these words first inspired us, and once again we must look forward to the time... but, wait! Let us not take the weather for granted, for all is in the hands of the Snow Queen, to whom, under so many names and in so many forms, every one of us pays lip-service, though in my case you are paying for it. Is this not the way to a better world? I think so. And in Arbroath there shall be scattered sun and showery periods, as the prophet foretells".
Thankyou, Superintendent - and now to the main story of the day: Gordon Brown insists he is not an idiot - but can we trust him? Here in the studio to say no is a conservative. To say yes... we were hoping to bring you a government spokesman, but instead Downing Street has issued a statement reading "wibble, wibble".
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Hmm, not sure about this musical accompaniment to the weather idea. Possibly it would work better if you chose something less ravishing than Mozart's Gran Partita serenade. Perhaps Vivaldi (I think you can see I'm going there...). Or, if you want really non-distracting and boring, how about something really wall-papery like Einaudi?
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And today we have with us Senzai Roshi of Zen Zei Shonal, East Cheam to bring us "No-thought for the Day":
Thankyou Senzai. And now to the main item of the news. Can Gordon Brown survive the uncertainty over his idiocy status? He insists he can. Here to say he can is one of his lot. Here in the studio is one of them to say yes and one of the others to say no. Gentlemen, you have 45 seconds to bring this controversy to a rational compromise..... no, come to think of it, back to you, Senzei San.
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The music? I kind of thought that Mozart made you clever because his music stops your mind from going all over the place, like trying to think about two things at once. Hmm. Best thing about the prog? The xylophone of course. Best yet.
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21 mccaffea. Is the Serenage for 13 wind instruments also known as the Gran Partita then?
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Serenade
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Really enjoyed the piece about grammar schools in NI but it contained the implication that in England we’re well ahead of the Irish and have evolved beyond such vulgar anachronisms – don’t be fooled - this system remains alive and well and living in England - 600+ state grammars still operating selection at 10/11 – countless kids labelled as failures and second rate by this system just before they embark on secondary education….let’s hope they succeed quickly in Ireland and that we can learn from them……how likely is that though?….ask David Willets!
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#20 & #22 redheylin
Something tells me that you listen to the Today Programme.
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#26. grotesquepeasant
As someone who was considered "not Grammar School Material" by the Primary school headmaster and therefore not recommeneded to sit the 11+. I like the majority of people my age went to Secondary Modern and so many of us never reached our full potential.
To be at the top of the A stream at Sec. Mod was boring and so I and a lot of my cohort left school as soon as we could (at that time 15). Selection by test at 10/11 is wrong, please understand that I KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE.
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Yep Dryopithecus, that's it's kind of nickname, like calling Beethoven's sixth the "Pastoral" etc. Not sure where it comes from or what it means though.
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I think it can be interpreted as a "large piece divided into many parts", which it is.
By the way, I literally didn't even notice the weather forecast. I was listening to the Mozart.
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27 - A spokesman for me has insisted that this is so and denied that it is not. In the interests of balance - or, as most people would call it, in the interests of an interminable and unedifying wrangle that is never to be resolved because it consists of half-truths, if you're lucky - a spokesman for a person who wants my job has denied that this is so and insisted that it is not.
I am therefore able to tell you that a greater percentage of me, year on year, listens to "Today" than at any time since 1992, while at the same time, in real terms, over twice as much of me doesn't, compared with Americans.
Thought for the day - I would not miss it. I can't wait to find out who is going to win.
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Beethoven DID call the sixth symph the Pastoral, but did not name the "pastoral sonata" or the "moonlight sonata". Pathetique - he did call it that, but he was in a bad mood as it had not come out right. Gran Partita, however, is when your grandfather drinks too much at Christmas.
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NO. really it means "big suite". You can manage yr own jokes
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In musical terms, is a partita the same as a suite? Would "big partita" be more accurate?
Which of Beethoven's works is the called the Pathetique?
I think "Today" should have scientists on "Thought for the Day" on the grounds that science is a religion.
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34 - 1. Yes, Germans use "partita", French use "suite", for the same thing - a series of short pieces, originally baroque dances. Different way of saying it - a "work (divided) in separate pieces" or a "work that is a sequence (of different pieces).
2. The Pathetique is the 8th Piano Sonata, "Grand Pathetique", Opus 13, C minor. It's generally regarded as quite good.
3. Yes it becomes so - "Big Bang" is simply "in the beginning was the word", but suffused with the semiology of chaotic violence rather than rational order. Which is odd, as science studies rational order. Hey ho. Come back in a million years, see if they are acting sensible.
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28. Looternite, it is rite. Believe it or not I passed, never thought I would not, but a couple of desks in front of me was Margaret Cooper - might pass, might fail. That's a lot of pressure; perhaps she was too nervous, one chance only. She failed. She cried. Was I supposed to feel smug? It stinks. If people are good at something, move them up a year. If that means more teachers it just does. Otherwise, the social dividees spend their whole lives ignorantly blaming the other kind on the other side of the gap for all that is wrong with their little worlds. Of course it's a class thing. That divisive system broke that little girl's heart, and that decided her life - and mine, because it stays far longer than the mild sense of relief at passing a test. Healthy competition - pah. Rant. Rant.
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35 redheylin
1&2 Yes, thanks.
3. As it happens, I am (or regard myself as) a scientist. I do see your point, but I think you're missing the point. The big bang theory is only that, but it is the best we have at present and it does agree with all the observations we have at the present time.
My belief is that science is a religion because it has a dogma and a code of conduct.
The dogma is that we can only learn about things around us by observing them. Observations are the only facts; everything else is theory. A theory is a statement (or a set of statements) that can be tested against observations. (E.g. the theory of evolution, the big bang theory.) This is in direct contradiction to most religions, in which there are fundamental beliefs that are endowed with the status of facts but that can neither be proven nor disproven.
The code of conduct of science is something like the following:
One shall not falsify one's evidence (bear false witness?)
One shall not present another's research as one's own.
One shall not ignore (or suppress) valid observations in the interests of furthering one's pet theories.
All of these have, of course, at one time or another been broken, but this is always strongly deprecated by the scientific community. There was, for example, a case not long ago in which a geneticist (in Japan, I think) claimed to have successfully created some cloned human embryos, which turned out not to be true and for which he was severely reprimanded.
I shan't be offended if you think any of the above doesn't make sense!
Dry.
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It makes sense perfectly well, and here we are again talking at the bottom of a page about something not entirely relevant. Never mind.
"Big bang" IS A TERM THAT DESCRIBES a set of observations but, as I said, brings in some spurious metaphysics. Nothing was big and nothing banged, since there was no space-time. It would be better to call it "the tiny silence". And the big-bang as a singularity, for no possible reason, nowhere and at no time, is of course, hard to swallow. One cannot help but ask "and what made that happen there, then?" And there is no possible answer. If you want a "beginning" sooner or later you will have to bring something godlike in - some mind, will - that transcends space time and is causal upon it.
Science is a code and a dogma, certainly, but that does not necessarily define religion, which may be seen primarily socially as a means of marking births, marriages, deaths and seasonal rituals.
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I have to say it was the words "Have a good evening"! lol
No really. I have just been told by a telphone company to "be more cynical" to what you hear. Some scam I believe.
Well I never did.
I live in a world where I actually sometimes imagine - surely no one else is reading/hearing and or seeing this or that? TV, radio - sorry Edward and newpapers - be it paper or digital. What on earth is oft said.
Thwe world seems weird and everyone in the Media can report it with such a straight face. Brian Blessed's reaction to something on Have I Got News For You - last night - a repeat.
No one would ever know you were an actor Brian - Paul Merton commented. lol But that would be me sort of Charlotte Green-ing the news.
The President of the United States has my respect. I would never make a statesman you know? Too out spoken but I understand one needs tact and perseverance in that world. OK.
Oh I forgot. Good morning anyone that cares?
Why good? Simple Simon didn't meet his Pi man this a.m. lol.
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40 Good morning, steelpulse! Somebody cares. The world does indeed "seem weird", but then what do you want poor Eddie and friends to do about that? "Good evening everybody... wow! dear o dear o dear. eh? what the.... anyhow, here is the news, if you can call this psychedelic blancmange of wrong-headed mediocrity "news"". ??
No, I think the old light humour and friendly touch is the way to go. It doesn't mean nobody cares. If you start to think you are the only one, you just get in touch here. It is not that at all, but you can start to think so if you take too much notice about politicians. They have not noticed yet, they are too busy being important. If you are not sure that the morning is good, just keep looking around until something gives you the idea that it is. Don't just sit there thinking about the children playing with matches in the gasworks, it's depressing.
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Just got in from seeing my cousin get married. Just a rest before I have to change and go to the mega-party. Rest awhile to let the champagne settle.
#40. redheylin
I'm with you let's all relax and be merry. They are a pofaced lot round here, crack a few jokes and you get referred.
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Listening to Saturday PM. There really are a lot of halfwits in the US.
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David: not as many as there were...
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L_S 43, Yes, I am here, and you have returned home.
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42 DMcN There are a lot of halfwits in every country. Assuming a median IQ of 100, I reckon that, to balance those with IQs greater than 125, there must be an equal number with IQs less than 80.
38 Redheylin: "the big-bang as a singularity, for no possible reason, nowhere and at no time, is of course, hard to swallow".
It's a big problem for physicists, too. Apart from the question of what caused it all to start, there's a contradiction with quantum mechanics, which (as I understand it) puts a lower limit on the size of a unit of space-time, so either quantum mechanics must break down in some circumstances or the universe did not originate from a point, as general relativity asserts.
Perhaps the answer lies in the suggestion that the universe we live in arose from a previous one via a bottleneck. Either the previous universe contracted to a bottleneck then expanded again or, alternatively, universes may bud off new ones (via black holes?), implying that other universes exist in regions we cannot access.
No supernatural beings are implied.
There's also the suggestion that we're just sprites in a computer game being played by some kid in another place. The universe and the things in it don't exist: we're just programmed to think they do.
TTFN, Dry.
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D 45, Not allowed to talk about IQ here. People will think you are bragging.
I always wondered why there couldn't be more than one universe. Probably my IQ acting up...
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45 "What CAUSED it?" butbutbut... if causation implies sequential time, you can't have a cause of time with no time. My theory is "the future sucks" hurhur. No, as you suggest above, I have always been an oscillating-steady-state person, from earliest youth. The universe is simply breathing. No need for any gods then.
But "other universes we cannot access" fail the Popper test as they can be neither proven nor disproven. Away with them! And I don't want to talk about quantum granularity (incompetence). Nor sprites in a game. It's just blooming Berkeley all over again. Just as subject to infinite regress, leading to errors of formal logic. The "kid in another place" stops playing the game and wonders WHO he is..... ah! Another computer game, played by a kid who is nothing but..... you get the idea.
How did we get started on this? Mustve been listening to Mozart made us all intelligent. Back to Britney, that'll fix it. Fixed HER for a start. Mind you, Mozart listened to a fair amount of Mozart and he did not act too bright.
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redheylin @ 47
Strange as it may seem, your posting cheered me up.
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redheylin @ 47
At least we agree on one thing: no need for any gods, then!
As far as the rest goes, including the Popper test (of which I'm not a strong supporter), I think we shall have to agree to disagree. I get most of your points, except for the reference to Berkeley.
May I suggest there is a confusion between two concepts of time: 1. time as the ancient concept that some things happen before others and 2) time as measured by a clock. In 45, above, I was using the first, that I call sequence time. I call the second coordinate time, as it appears as one of the dimensions when we map events onto a vector space.
No, I'm not trying to wind you up, & I apologise if I am. There are situations when the distinction becomes between sequence time and clock time becomes useful.
TTFN, Dry.
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48 - Well, Sid, that cheers me up, thanks.
49 - Dryo - "another" universe means something absolutely non-contiguous, even as regards continuity of laws, cause-and-effect. It can't be anything to do with us and we cannot detect it or reason it. So we might just as well ignore it if it is going to be like that.
We can still have gods just for fun. But not Odin.
A bottleneck-return just happening once explains nothing. It has to be a beginningless endless steady oscillation, otherwise it is just moving the paradox further away, out of sight, like the kid who is in the game of the kid who is in the game of the kid. In the end you still have to have some kid.
Berkeley also got involved in like concepts and ended up needing God in order to make sense. You know, though, what really does my crust, as a practical person, about that kind of solipsism, him and Descartes and them?
I just want to say, look, if you cannot be sure I exist, why write the book?
I strongly suspect that the framework of physical law cannot be thought of as extending when all dimensions are infolded, so the quantum granularity does not apply to the tiny silence.
I did not think you were winding me up, I agree about time. However, in a steadily-oscillating cosmos, can we not also make a case for "looped time" or "rhythm" as a distinct type? Experientially it certainly is, as our short-term memories also have a quantum effect - a moment can only be so short, so anything shorter than that is experientially simultaneous, and a sequence of repeated similar moments has an emergent reality of its own, otherwise we could not dance, which I can't, which is why I am typing this rubbish instead. Thanks for offering the opportunity!
Berkeley, to
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