Monthly Archives: May 2007

We’re putting the band back together

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Marty DiBergi:

Many of you have probably noticed that the polar ice caps are melting. Well, when I coined the term global warming, this is the kind of world-wide devastation I was referring to.

So, to spread the word about what they’re now referring to as global climate change, the folks at Live Earth have decided to hold rock concerts all over the world to spread the news—and they’ve asked me to reunite Spinal Tap to help with the cause.

You can watch the whole (15 minute) Spinal Tap mini rockumentary here.

No good deed ever goes unpunished (part 2)

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Pulling up to the M6 Toll Plaza (as they insist on calling it) on Wednesday, I spotted a car in another lane trying to move into mine, so I let it in.

Without even a wave of thanks, the driver pulled up to the barrier, leant out of the window, and threw his four pound coins at the collection bucket. Miraculously, every single coin missed its intended target and rolled underneath his car.

“Congratulations, you missed the side of the barn,” I muttered to myself.

By now, there was a queue of cars behind me, so I couldn’t reverse. So I sat and watched as the man got out of his car, had a chat with one of the unhelpful barrier attendants, then started groping around under his car to retrieve the coins. Having rescued three of them, he had to get back into his car and, through a series of about 20 backwards and forwards manoeuvres, slowly work it sideways until he could reach the fourth coin. Then he was off in a rage of smoke. Hooray!

Needless to say, I took extra-special care dropping my coins into the bucket.

See also: No good deed ever goes unpunished

The man who mistook somebody else’s dog for a hat

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Irish MickIrish Mick caught the train to Hebden Bridge on Sunday, and we went for a seven-mile walk which took us up onto the moors, then down into the valley, then along Hebden Water to The White Lion in Hebden Bridge. I’ve put a few photos from the walk on Flickr.

At one point, we were overtaken by a woman with unnaturally red hair walking what I took to be a greyhound, but which I later learnt was a lurcher.

Isn’t lurcher a great name for a breed of dog? It’s the ‘er’ at the end that does it. The ‘er’ makes it sound like the dog actually does something: lurcher, terrier, pointer, retriever. You see?

Anyway, about 10 minutes later, we spotted the same woman (the hair was a dead giveaway) apparently trapped in a stile on top of 10-foot-high drystone wall. As we got nearer, we realised what the problem was: the stile was one where you have to climb up stone steps projecting out of the wall, pass through a narrow gap at the top, then climb down similar steps on the other side. The woman had tried to lead the lurcher over the stile, but it had got half-way up and lost its nerve. The woman was now leaning back through the gap on top of the wall, trying in vain to coax the frozen dog forward with chocolate drops and gentle tugs on her long lead.

Richard and Irish Mick to the rescue!

I tried to get behind the dog and ease her forward onto the next step, but she wasn’t having any of that and jumped back down to the ground. So I suggested the woman come back down and I go over to the other side of the wall and pull on the lead.

The woman and Irish Mick somehow eventually managed to dog-handle the terrified creature into the gap on top of the wall. Then I had to climb up the steps on my side of the wall and somehow try to pick it up on my own. The problem was, one of the steps was missing from my side of the wall, so the dog’s feet were at my eye-level.

After a bit of general faffing about, I thought what the hell and just lunged at the dog. I’m not quite sure what happened next, but somehow the dog ended up on top of my head. I have absolutely no idea how I managed to climb back down the steps with the dog on top of me, but I did it somehow. Then I realised I was supporting the dog with my hands above my head, and there was no way for me to adjust my grip so that I could put her down. So I did the only thing I could do and fell over.

The dog landed neatly on all-fours, and I ended up flat on my arse, looking like a total idiot.

I wonder how they managed to get back home.

See also: The man who mistook his hat for a telescope

British icon, Stephen Hawking

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Stephen Hawking weightlessThis must surely be one of the most uplifting (no pun intended) images of recent years: Stephen Hawking free from his wheelchair and free (in his frame of reference at least) from the effects of the force that has so intrigued him over the years: gravity. The apple was a nice touch too: I’m sure he appreciated it.

But…

Now I know it’s wrong to think of a person as being defined by their disability, but in Hawking’s case, you have to admit, it’s very hard not to. Yes, he’s a talented physicist who has come up with one or two nifty ideas—I’ll never forget first reading about Hawking Radiation in A Brief History of Time and thinking, “Wow! That’s pretty obvious! How come nobody else thought of that?”—but can you honestly tell me you would ever have heard of the chap if he hadn’t been confined to a wheelchair and speaking through a voice synthesiser? Me neither. Let’s face it, he didn’t get trundle-on parts on both StarTrek the Next Generation and The Simpsons because of his physics; he got them because of his wheelchair, his voice and his physics. It’s the three things combined that make him into a great British icon.

…Which is why I kind of wish they’d taken a photo or two of him weightless while still in the wheelchair.

Yes, I realise the whole point of the exercise was to let Hawking escape his wheelchair for a few precious moments, but can you imagine the impact of a photograph of the iconic Hawking apparently defying gravity in his wheelchair? The juxtaposition of what science can achieve (make a wheelchair-bound man float in the air) and what it cannot yet achieve (make that wheelchair-bound man better) would be incredibly poignant. It would become, along with the iconic photos of Aldrin on the Moon and Einstein sticking out his tongue, one of the great images of science.

And then there’s that voice: doesn’t Hawking’s trademark, computerised, American accent seem a bit incongruous in someone who is supposed to be a British icon? Engineers at Sheffield University have developed a voice synthesiser based on the voice of Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan. Shouldn’t they upgrade Hawking and give him a Barnsley accent? Of course not (although it would be one hell of a hack): Hawking’s strange, impersonal, slightly robotic accent help make him less of a national icon and more of a world icon.

A bit like Nelson Mandella.