Art Tournament! (by sarah)

Tomorrow sees me running around the City of Gloucester like a blue bottomed one!

First off we are going to St Johns Hall on Northgate street for the prize giving and auction of the pictures on a post card organised by Sabre Arts. Me and the girls popped in for a look yesterday and the entries are FANTASTIC!

That starts at 11 and by hook or by crook there will be cake!

Then I have to be at the Cathedral for 2 pm to take part in the SOLD OUT event of the Poet Laureate finals! I'm not nervous honest (opps there goes another nail!). This is a free event but as numbers were limited there was a ticket allocation and all tickets were gone over a week before the event!

Me and the other finalist will be judged by a panel of poetry experts, the public and the local council. If I was to get it I would write a poem about Gloucestershire everyday for the year. Not all of those would be usable but it would be enough for me to give the community a book at the end of it.

After that I am whizzing off to Greyfryers and Black Fryers - not quiet sure which one I'm doing face painting at and which I'm doing a poetry set at but I'm sure it all work itself out!

There is also a classic car show at the Cathedral which I am really looking forward to - I love my cars I do!

Ju Jutsu Jean (by sarah)

This a poem I have written for my little girl Jean who is so enthusiastic she wants to take part on the next Olympics even though she will only be 10 then!

Her current plan is to work hard at Ju Jutsu which she has been doing for just over a year and to then cross train to Judo as there do not seem to be many martial arts in the Olympics.

She has just spent the morning watching the Judo and is now watching the swimming. She came up with a lot of the rhymes in this poem so it is really a joint effort.

Ju Jutsu Jean

Ju Jutsu Jean was ever so keen
To travel to London to impress the Queen
So she practiced and practiced and practiced some more
Till her muscles ached and her bottom was sore

She tried and tried
Till her mum cried
Not with sorrow but a bursting pride!

Ju Jutsu Jean the string bean
Was tall enough to be on a basket ball team
But she was kind and never mean
She washed her ghi
And made herself clean
Braiding her hair into a plated pair
And took the train to get her there

At the palace gates the guards said no
They informed Jean she would have to go
Ju Jutsu Jean turned said SO!
And with hands on hips did some back flips
And gave the guards some tips
On fighting a keen string bean called Jean

After a while
With the guards in a pile
Jean remembered her letter written in the style Roy-al
The guards groaned and opened the door
And Jean was amazed at the marble floor

In she went to see the Queen
Ju Jutsu Jean represented her team
And was awarded a medal with gleam

And so Ju Jutsu Jean the keen string bean
Beamed at the Queen
Showing off her gleam

Then she headed home once more
Were her mum had put bunting round the door
And smiled knowing there was a party in store
With food and singing and fun galore!

Me Bucky Balls and All (by sarah)

Thursday the 12th of July saw me at the Grain Barge performing geek poetry, throwing knitting and inflicting my sense of humour on people.

We turned up and there was some classical science equipment set up - which is always 'ooooo do you think there will be fire and explosions and glowing stuff?'.

The show got started with the comedic Steve proclaiming he had super powers - he the guy who organises and entertains between the acts.

The first act was Jim Bell with his spiders which the brave Suze who is very scared of them, managed to hold momentarily with lots of squeaking.

Then it was time for the fire and glowing stuff but alas no explosions 🙁

Then it was on to Sophia with her set on why parents are so annoying.

At some point a red nose appeared just to remind me that Clowns exist shudders

Then we had Joe Wright and a very funny sketch and video about Darwin - including all the mistakes in the video 🙂

Then we had Nicole Slavin and opera about STIs.

We then had a break were instead of talking to the people who had come to see me I was hovering waiting for a laptop to work so that my first power point in 6 yrs could be shown and to make it worse it wasn't actually a power point :/

But then we had the Science of Cocktails and me being me I announced to the room that I like the frothy head :/ Which Suze who was doing the talk gracefully sailed over.

Then there was Sam Phippen with his funny stories of Robots that kids build.

Then there was me - I was so nervous

Here is the video

And yes I corpsed and yes I got flustered and yes someone nicked my knitted bucky ball!

Then we had a talk on Viruses!

And then to finish off we had the halarious nerd rock of Mark Lewney.

Postcard Art (by sarah)

As part of the Art Tournament mini festival in August there is a picture on a post card competition organised by Sabre Arts. Here are my two entries:

Jean did her own postcard though she is not old enough to enter, she decided to do a space theme too 🙂

The cards are going to be auctioned for charity after the comp is over :).

The Higgs Field (by sarah)

This is a visual joke or pun about the Higgs field. It is in no way correct. I drew it last night and already this morning my little girl asks 'What's a Higgs Field?' so it's purpose has been served.

A Higgs Field is not the type of field where fluffy lambs play but it is thought to 'birth' the particles of the Boson family. These are sub-atomical particles but they are some of the ones that make up the sub-atomics you learnt at school. The Higgs-Boson particles are thought to be what gives all the other particles mass. Mass is what makes matter all clump together.

Matter is everything, so that is the atoms that make the stars, the atoms that make the Earth, the atoms that make you and me and Jeany and little baby Mary. All of it.

Without the Higgs everything would be wizzing around at the speed of light - they think. This was the idea they came up with 50 years ago, well specifically Peter Higgs did and he was told he was wrong but he kept going even though it is scary to be told you are wrong.

Now I'm still abit hazy on what is a field in this case and what is the particle so you may have to look that up yourself. (on that note guys are we talking probability fields and planck equations here? I'm a bit confused as the field is supposed to permeate the universe?)

The picture came from a friends facebook status were he gave his life sciences view on what had happened yesterday. I liked the imagery of a field giving birth to a particle and then I thought about the fact that yesterdays discovery had taken fifty years but like 3 of hard slog and that became the labour in my mind. Then I thought about the fact that they have found a Higgs-Boson and not the Higgs-Boson* and how annoyed anyone would be to have spent that long in labour and be told it wasn't over yet!

It is a shameless personification of something that can only really be visualised with mind bending maths and it is done as a joke! Honest guys don't shoot me 🙂

p.s. I am not saying that the theoretical part before the collider wasn't hard slog but more that the physical aspect of the experiments fit better with the idea of labour!