Plathitudes

Sylvia Plath's Grave
Sylvia Plath's grave.

Many great poets have been inspired by religious locations and stone memorials: Shelley penned a sonnet about the crumbling remains of a statue to the tyrant Ozymandias; Larkin wrote about an Arundel tomb found in Chichester Cathedral; Wordsworth spent many weeks at Tintern Abbey, trying to come up with a rhyme for Tintern—and, indeed, abbey.

Yesterday, I found myself standing beside the grave of the American poet Sylvia Plath. She’s buried in a churchyard just across the valley from my house. Sylvia married local Yorkshireman and future Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, who presumably chose her final resting place after her suicide in 1963.

I’m not a poetic man, but, as I was looking down at Sylvia’s grave, the Muse Thalia grabbed me by the nuts and moved me to verse:

The poet named Sylvia Plath
Was composing a poem in the bath.
Her husband, Ted Hughes,
Was far from amused:
“Tha’s wet all t’ coal, tha daft lass!”

How long before Calderdale has its second Poet Laureate?

See also: Julian Date’s tribute to Ted Hughes

Come on, you chaps, time to dig deep

Occasional Gruts commenter, Friend of Charles Darwin, ship's master, Yorkshireman, and all-round good egg, Peter McGrath, has finally started accepting PayPal donations for the Beagle Project. The project's aim is to build a working replica of HMS Beagle, celebrating Charles Darwin's 200th anniversary and helping to inspire a new generation of scientists.

This isn't your typical half-baked, internet-based campaign. I'm in regular email contact with Peter, and, if anyone can get this thing built and on the water, it's him. Check out his weblog for more background info.

Go on, I'll be your best mate!

200% Owl

Twilight road
Owl Stump Bend.

About a mile from my house, there's a picturesque bend in the road with a three-foot-high tree stump that always reminds me of a giant owl. A very giant owl.

I was approaching this bend on my way home this evening, when a tawny owl [Strix aluco] flew in front of my car and landed on top of the public footpath sign at the side of the road. I slammed on my brakes and watched the bird in the car's headlights. It looked back at me for about 20 seconds, then flew up into the branches of a tree on the other side of the road.

I moved the car a bit closer and watched some more. Suddenly, a second tawny owl flew out of the darkness and attacked the first. After a brief altercation, the first owl flew off, and the second took its place on the branch.

Nowadays, owls are literally fighting each other to get a mention on Gruts.

See also:

Computer says, 'No'

Here we go yet again:

BBC: Paedophiles to undergo lie tests

Paedophiles are to undergo lie detector tests to see if they are likely to re-offend, the Home Office confirmed.

OK, for the sake of argument, let's assume the following:

  • lie-detectors have an accuracy of 90% (although I'm sure it must actually be far lower than this)
  • there is a 20% chance of a convicted paedophile re-offending if released (This figure is very difficult to estimate. The latest official recidivism figure for people conviced of child sex offences is 14%, but this doesn't take into account recidivists who are not re-convicted, nor people who would re-offend, but are never released.)
  • 100 convicted paedophiles are tested to decide whether they should be released

20% (i.e. 20) of the 100 paedophiles will re-offend if released. The 90% accurate lie-detector will detect 18 of these. So, presumably, they will not be released, and the other two will.

80% (i.e. 80) of the 100 paedophiles will not re-offend if released. The 90% accurate lie-detector will say 72 of these people should be released, and 8 should not.

Overall Results:

  • 74 people released from prison, of whom two (3%) will re-offend
  • 26 people remain in prison, of whom 8 (31%) would not have re-offended

If, instead of 90%, I had assumed a lie-detector accuracy of, what seems to me, a far more realistic yet still generous 60%, the result would have been a 14% recidivism rate, with 44 people kept in prison, of whom 32 (73%) should have been released.

Does this inspire you with confidence? If you were being accused of a crime, would you prefer your liberty to be determined by one of these machines, or by a group of your peers?

But we're talking about convicted paedophiles, so I guess it's all right, then, isn't it?

Meet Molly Carter

Molly
Molly.

Say my mum's new puppy is the cutest thing you ever saw in your life, or I will run over your cat!

She's called Molly, after my late grandmother. Had she been named after my other late grandmother, she would have been called Margaret.

So Molly it was.

I've given her the same speech I gave her much-missed predecessor when she was about the same age, explaining how she has a hell of an act to follow, but I'm sure she'll do just fine.

Best birthday present ever, according to mum.

I think this is the best batch yet

The Finished Product
Caesar adsum iam forte…

Seville oranges are in season, so Jen and I made some marmalade today. We'd never made any before. It took bloody hours.

I worked out that, if you take the cost of the ingredients and our combined salaries into account, each jar cost us approximately £23. Perhaps we'll stick with Frank Cooper's in future: he can undercut us by about 90%.

While we were making the marmalade, it occurred to me that two of the best things in the world for eating on toast both begin with the letters M-A-R-M: marmalade and Marmite™.

I wonder what marmosets taste like.