The Sound Panel (by sarah)

It a year of fiddly work but there is a sound panel complete with sounds of space, slime moulds and cracking ice to name some of the eight.

It is obviously not a full sound cave but it a proof of concept and a piece of science-craft in its own right. It could not have come about without the aid of ESA, UWE, Ella Matthews and Alaric. Not to mention those who sponsored the project so that we could actually buy the components without them there is no why I could have afforded to make this.

For the next week as part of National Science and Engineering Week it will be on display at Centre Arts in Cheltenham.

World Book Day :) (by sarah)

Thursday was world book day - it caught me slightly off guard as it was a day earlier than I'd put in the diary! But I'd known what Jean wanted to be for a while - a Dwarf, not just any dwarf but the one that carries Bilbo about in The Hobbit. So we dug out a knight outfit I picked up in a charity shop a few years ago and made a beard out of some fun fur we had laying around (left over from a dog costume I made for a halloween party right at the beginning of the dawn of this blog!).

Jean loves The Hobbit and after Alaric had read it too her read it herself and has been getting me to read bits of it too. She was grumpy that I wouldn't take her to see the film!

I think she made a really good dwarf 🙂 You wouldn't believe how militant she was over exactly what colour and length and fit the beard had to be! But it was all accomplished without any actual sewing.

We love world book day here, my little girl picks who she wants to be and we make the costume together normally the weekend before as a family activity and she takes the book into school.

She enjoyed the dressing up but was a little disappointed this year as they have a supply teacher who didn't realise it was book day so did normal work and she had to show her friends her book at lunch time instead. She said everyone was sad about this.

So when I came across this BBC article I was annoyed and hacked off. So much so I posted a reply:

The idea of them picking a character from a film or TV tie-in book is actually a good thing. Those books are essential to getting reluctant readers reading. The kids get to play games and talk about their favourite books and share stories.

Then there are the vouchers which though under used are appreciated by many families and I myself bought my first reading book because of such a voucher.

I think this article misses the point of fun from books, gently encouraging the children into the realm of reading rather than making it inaccesible and academic.

There is also the issue of costumes - really they shouldn't be an issue - you have to spend time with your child anyway so if you don't want to spend loads of money make something out of what you have at home with your child. With Fabric glue and stick on velcro you don't even have to sew. Most children also now have some sort of dress up gear in the home if you get really stuck.

Also I am seeing a lot of reaction against making subjects fun for learning at the moment. This makes me sad as it is a way of getting those who are uninterested interesting - after all World Book Day isn't really that needed for kids like Jean - she loves reading, she adores books and so on. What they are for is the ones who are struggling or have given up or think they can't do it. That is where the magic lays and for the kids that aren't struggling - well these fun days give them social skills and good memories.

I've seen people saying that kids associate fun with 'a doss' but they don't - not really get bored if it is too easy. For the kids that want it to be easy maybe that's because they are actually struggling - now don't get me wrong we all no there are lazy oiks out there but they are a minority and who knows such events might even get them interested - sometimes they are the more intelligent ones anyway.

Especially at primary school age children learn through play, this doesn't mean the play can not be challenging and useful. Different children learn in different ways so have a good variety of techniques and methods is good at least for the younger end of the school age range.

This is How Stupid People Die (by sarah)

That moment when you've gone off to take one photograph and realise it is dusk, you are in a tumble down industrial area amongst broken glass and iron rods half exposed from crumbling concrete. You have £100 odd worth of camera around your neck, you've left your phone in the car along with you husband and kids, and worse you have no idea anymore which direction said car is in. Then just to add the icing to the cake a group of three 'youths' wonders into sight and you realise it was their shouting and the ring of a beer can football that pulled you out of the contemplative glaze of photo snapping bliss you had been in moments before.

You do not run as that is provocation, beside satistically you know that the middle aged man on his own that passed you at the beginning of this adventure is more likely to be a danger than three young men. Apart from some cat calls they are fine - you take another photo of graffiti and as you know they've seen the camera anyway and just keep walking, with confidence hoping it will come out to somewhere more populated by people. Maybe even somewhere you know.

And the monologue that is spinning in you brain is one of half remembered self defense techniques though you do not dwell on them as being afraid in the half light of urban decay is a sure way to draw attention to yourself in unwanted ways. Same goes for the crowded city streets and the apparently safe board room. You keep walking aware of your surroundings and potential escape routes, you do not avert your gaze nor do you linger.

You think, 'This is how stupid people die,' and then you snort with the realisation that you have nicked the quote from a TED talk you watched the night before. And that shunts your brain into thinking that it is thinking and what it is thinking about and the words Third Thoughts sneaks in and you're like damn! Now I am quoting Terry Pratchette in the almost fear - that fear you are not feeling, that fear you are keeping at bay.

The kids are gone, they went into a side alley and now you are in territory you recognise and daydreams of pirate days with real tall ships and Christmas Fayres with real snow filter in your brain and you think - I'm actually quiet a away from the car and the quickest way is back through those buildings that now seem to loom out of the dusk.

So you again consider how stupid people die, but now you have your bearings and know the way and this way is much shorter and there is an old couple out for a walk and they might be lost but they are walking into the corroded corridor of split wood and ripped metal.

You follow and storm your way home, reasoning that you are wearing big boots and a flappy coat and yes it's all purple and your over weight but it is probably dramatic or something.

And you still stop to take photos because things look different from this angle and hey wow that was a fantastic one of the birds flying away and it shall be called The Escape.

There is a world within worlds in this place you walk unwittingly, there are jungles and homes and hope.

And really it is only a few derilict buildings with seagulls roosting, slowly the industrial endevours of a previous centre are being consumed by the small of nature and you feel previlaged to see it all before it is ripped asunder and the new of this centery is put in it's place. Clicking the button on the camera you try and capture just a little bit of the awe.

Kenyan Jean (by sarah)

So Jean has run out of reading books to read at school so they are giving her factual books instead, so far she has brought home ones on photography, democracy, Egypt and this weeks one was Kenya. She got very excited about this as I had done a talk on my time in Kenya a few weeks previously for Al's cub pack.

She started asking me questions and then disappeared upstairs - there was a picture of typical Kenyan dress so she ferreted through stuff and produced a costume she announced to be Kenyan Jean.

It was: my mothers old belly dancing outfit or harem pants from the 60's, tights with rainbow wellies (she said it was too cold for no shoes and sandles), then she had on a t-shirt with a sparkly 2000 on it covered in her victorian style red coat. On her head my hawaiian wrap around skirt - it was surprisingly effective though it looked more Ethiopian too me compared to what I saw in Kenya though I'm aware there were different styles of dress depending on Tribe etc...

She went to the park like it - initially I was worried that people might take it the wrong way but then I thought - you know she is not taking the micky she is interested in another culture and playing and as it was people only smiled.

Also I pointed out she looked a bit like my nan as she always used to wear a head scarf to stop the wind mucking up her hair! (think Mrs Figg out of Harry Potter!).

Dating of Old Monuments (by sarah)

I've been working my way through documentaries on various subjects as research for my Punk series and one of the things that keeps coming up is that you can't date monuments. You can date the last organic stuff inside them like food left overs and you can date when the stone was formed but you can't date when it was quarried and used to build the monument.

But I am wondering if this is true. When I was doing my MRes there was a technique that dealt with exposure dates - in this case sand dunes but I know it has been used for other things. If I recall correctly when a cosmic ray hits the surface it can cause little explosions which leave scars called tracts which can be counted. The number off them combined with the rate of cosmic rays hitting the surface gives you how long they have been sitting on the surface.

Now there is a similar thing that happens due to probability and atomic decay within rocks but you can tell the difference.

I can't remember all the specifics but it does seem to me that this could be used.

Obviously there would be issues such as open cast mining or quarrying could leave rocks on the surface for 1000s of years before building occurs but I think most builders would have removed weathered sides of blocks to make them look nice. Then there are issues over rock type - are different types more susceptable to the tracts forming? What if it is a composite material made of fossils and rock fragments?

Some monuments no longer have their outer layers such as the giant pyramid in Egypt so you would get a mixed date of = quarried date - time spent under cladding + time since cladding was nicked or disappeared.

But I can't see these as being worse than the issues surrounding migrating dunes. the dating of these structures would be very important for sorting out our own history and how civilisations have come to be etc...

There maybe more issues with dating like if it can only give dates accurate to 1000s when you need 100s or 10s of years or them only being relative to other techniques but I think it would add an extra layer to what we know.

Now obviously I have been out of the science world for years now and can't even remember what the names for all this sort of stuff is and I am not an archeology expert so maybe these are already being use or rejected or what ever and it just hasn't filtered through to the books and documentaries I am getting my hands on.

However I thought I would share my idea just incase - plus people may suggest other sources of info for me 🙂

p.s. having a quick little looky at stuff it would appear there are interesting optical dating methods for minerals that have been exposed to sunlight - surely some of that would be interesting to archeologists. Also another problem with the dating would be how long the monument had spent buried in the ground too!