Vast vision must improve our sight

My favourite photo is Nasa's "Hubble Deep Field".

In 1996, the space-telescope (how cool a concept is that BTW.) was aimed at an "empty" bit of the sky and left on a long exposure. Even seasoned astronomers were knocked out by the sheer richness of what was revealed - called by some the "Galaxy Zoo". Some galaxies look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period "only" a few hundred million years after its creation when the universe more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.


There was an updated picture in 2004 , the so called "Hubble Ultra-Deep Field".


This was in many ways a more ambitious picture and technically more advanced, but to me it didn't have the shock value of the original. I can almost imagine the scientists' boggled-eyed amazement when they saw the first pictures coming through.

Like Douglas Adams said, "Space is big" - sometimes you forget just how big. Do please click on these images and then run through your current set of problems. I guarantee you will discard half of them as being too small to worry about.

Not moved by the sight of 10,000 galaxies ? Check your pulse - I think you are dead and just haven't stopped moving yet.


I have been helping out on the online Galaxy Zoo project. The idea is that the human eye is better at identifying whether a smudgy galaxy is elliptical or spiral and if a spiral, which way the spiral arms are rotating. Using a network of space geeks (guilty ..) who are willing to work for free, they are cataloguing galaxies, looking for patterns. It takes about 10 minutes to work through their on-line tutorial and then you're a fully-operational galaxy-sorter. Loved the idea that I could probe the limits of the known-universe from the comfort of my Travelodge room, wearing pants (no picture available).

Incidentally if you search Google News for "Galaxy" on Google news at the moment, most of what you get is an ageing trick-shot specialist called Beckham and his bimbo wife making millions in California. Give me the Universe any day.

Hmmm

As is probably well known, I work in IT. I'm about the most security minded individual on the planet. If it ain't over SSL or 128-bit encrypted, none of my personal details are entered. How is it, then, that someone has managed to spend £2000 of my money? As I said on my own blog, if it had been over a lost weekend of alcoholic blur, I would probably take it on the chin. The fact of the matter is that it was all done when I was in hospital so had no access to the internet at all, and would not have been able to type anyway thanks to the substantial quantities of valium I was subjected to.

The telling trait is that is all spent in Euros. I spend in pounds sterling and dollars only. Call me an infidel, but I do not believe in the Euro. That and the fact that I could not possibly have bought four items from a company I have never heard of in bloody Euros when I was parallel to the floor in a hospital bed, sedated to my hilt. For God's sake, I couldn't even remember whether my cousin had visited me so I doubt I would have found a computer, logged on to t'interweb and spent £2000 on anything. If I had, I would expect cruise tickets today and a fantastic holiday. Unfortunately, I suspect I am not that bright when I'm sick, so I've been electronically mugged.

Thankfully the bank have been brilliant. They'll have it sorted in days. They watch spending patterns and me buying something in Euros raised their eyebrows once I pointed it out. I send dollars to the US, occasionally buy things in dollars, but the rest is all sterling. I have never once used Euros, so they agreed with me straight away. Lloyds my peeps, Lloyds. Their customer service is second to none. Within three days, I'll have a new card and all the fraudulent spending refunded to my account. That is service.

All I can do is advise what I always do, which obviously isn't enough. Make sure you only order over SSL (https) and make sure it's 128-bit encryption. God knows how whomever managed to get my details (maybe I should not have taken my wallet into hospital with me), but I will track the swines down -- even if the bank can't.

Stan? Opinions? Help?

Blogger made good

Congratulations to blogger Guido Fawkes for getting into The Guardian's "Media Top 100" list at number 81. Doesn't sound like much until you consider Chris Evan is at 82 and Andrew Neil is at 85.

Despite being rather to the right of er.. everyone, he has a wonderful way with words and the same kind of sources that makes The Drudge Report/ such a formidable player in American politics. Pity he's wasting so much effort trying to get the funny, clever but terminally dishonest and inept Boris Johnson to run for London mayor. I do hope Boris realises how unlikely his election would be and save his energy for his TV and Newspaper careers.

Fawkes has his critics, but as far as I can tell they accuse him of being opinionated and publicity-hungry. You'd have to lock up everyone with a blogger.com account if these ever became crimes.

Stan predicts Guido to be in the top 50 next year - and at least one other blogger to join him.

For the record I have no ambitions in that direction myself. I blog as occupational therapy - I would weave baskets, but I am allergic to raffia.

NHless

I've done enough moaning about my own health on my own blog so I'll cease and desist.

What I am annoyed about is the imbecility that is the doctoral register here. We have perfectly brilliantly qualified doctors who are falling foul of a daft online application system. The mainstream media have been, quite rightly, all over this one.

To be honest, I started off being unphased as it's about as ridiculous as corporate Britain. But recently (or to be more accurate, imminently) it has hit me. My GP is a locum and is about to have to go, and she has no job to go to.

Since my return from the US, I've been through a few GPs as I've moved around. Believe me, the locum girl who leaves at the end of the month is by far the best GP I have ever had. The thought of her not having a job leaves my jaw dropped. How can we train such talented people, let them run up massive student debts and then drop them like hot potatoes? I have always found it hard to relate to medical people, but this girl is such a natural and brighter than a flare. I cannot comprehend how we waste such skills. I don't care whether she would get paid over the odds -- I'll quite happily pay taxes towards that. In fact, increase National Insurance if that is what it takes.

My first GP surgery when I came back from the US was a husband and wife team. The bloke knew what he was doing; his wife was about as medically au fait as me so I just ignored her...a bit arrogant but you'd have done the same thing.

My second was in Leeds and he needed medication himself. I'd have given him lithium in industrial quantities. He was a nice guy, but kind of thick. His website was enough to send epileptics into A&E.

I've now fernagled my way into the best practice in this area, with the best GP I have ever known. And thanks to some bloody civil servant, she's off. I know she would be eventually because she is way too bright to be a GP (she'll be a consultant within a couple of years), but hell, I will miss her. She speaks English, not Medicalese (even though I can speak that) and she actually gives a rat's arse about her patients -- strange in this day and age.

I've written to the head of the practice to make a play for her to be retained. I am currently thinking about what I can write to my local MP that may influence future legislature -- it cannot be right for us to import doctors when our best universities produce such prodigious talent. I wonder how much of this is sexist? Stan will not believe me coming up with a conspiracy theory given my Telegraph-reading ways, but I honestly think that female doctors are discriminated against. The male ego kicks in, and the fact that women are more more people-friendly than men means there is a threat, so they're ignored. Go to the GMC website and and look through the registered doctors; from my casual analysis, only about a quarter are female. And do not tell me that there's only a quarter of females who are as bright as blokes...if you do I will prove this is not true by breaking your nose and altering the stats just a little.

My ex-wife was a do-goody two-shoes and she meant well, but she applied different rules to work than home. I still have the scars to prove it. I have no objection at all to equality of the sexes -- anyone who reads my blog will know that -- but I do object to discrimination in any form. Which is kind of contradictory really -- I want my doctor to have a job (preferably one that involves me being one of her patients), but I don't want to discriminate against equally well qualified foreign doctors.

I guess seeing that one of my local MPs is the Health Secretary, I can write to him and explain my concerns. And Dr T, go nowhere; you're an integral part of "keep Kenny alive" at the moment and just the smile on your face is worth a full regime of antibiotics.

Sorry Stan -- went off on one there.

Manchester Monkey Magic

"Imagine The Lord Of The Rings being done by the Chinese State Circus in the style of House Of Flying Daggers, and you are some way towards understanding the appeal of Monkey."

I went to Monkey: Journey to the West at the Manchester International Festival, and haven't been able to come up with a better description than the quote above from Kitty Empire's review in "The Observer".

The story is familiar to those of my age-group who watched "Monkey !" on TV in the 1970s. A spoiled-brat monkey takes on heaven, loses (of course) and seeks redemption through good works (body-guarding a cross-dressing monk on a holy mission). It's not compulsory to follow the story however, which is just as well, because the sub-titles at the theatre were set to "Random Fortune Cookie" mode, and you never knew who was saying what, or why (unless you had a smattering of Mandarin).

Damon Albarn's music was amazing. Mrs Stan thought she caught some influence from Messiaen, some bits I thought were like John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" and there were undoubtedly some classic Gorillaz-style basslines. It was hardly catchy, but it had the whiff of authenticity and was a perfect accompaniment to ninety minutes of extraordinary dance, gymnastics and martial arts on a breathtaking scale. Even Stanetta - who was sleep-deprived after a girlie sleep-over party - gave it fullmarks and stayed awake throughout, before coming home and sleeping 14 hours straight.

And cartoons of course - funny, wild animation from Jamie Hewlett, who worked with Albarn on Gorillaz. I'm ashamed to say I bought three miserly £7.50 back-seat stall seats for the family, and we could only see the bottom half of the screen.

But - £7.50 !! You pay double that for a cinema ticket in London West End. You pay five times that for a half-price on-the-day ticket for whatever Abba-Tribute musical is on in WC1. You pay ten-times that for Covent Garden opera, and that's where the true comparison is to be made. This, as Damon Albarn himself points out, was "proper opera".

Except it was full of families and ordinary people in casual clothes having a good time.

You don't get any of that at a Covent Garden opera.