stuff and nonsense!

Auntie Who?

There is a superb article in Popular Mechanics about the discovery & ongoing deciphering of the Antikythera machine. I think it's worth a full read.

Extracts:-

This is the story—or at least one of the stories—of how one of the world’s most confounding archaeological objects, the Antikythera mechanism, began its 2,000-year-long residency at the bottom of the Aegean. Pinpointing the mechanism’s origins

Milled with millimeter precision, likely using ancient tools like vertical lathes and bow drills, the device contained dozens of gear wheels that operated together in a dizzying display of astronomical information.

With insights gleaned from the fragments that remain, scientists know that a hand-cranked dial on its front side tracked the motion of the sun, the moon, and the other five planets known to antiquity: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The other side of the device housed two more circular dials. The upper dial reconciled the mismatch in periods between the lunar month and solar year, while the lower dial calculated both lunar and solar eclipses. It even contained a separate, smaller dial for marking athletic events like the Olympic Games.

Read on Here

They walk amongst us...

Bizarre story from the Beeb today. This chap sounds like a real Walter Mitty.

BBC News - Teaching assistant lied to pupils about killing 250 people as a sniper

Graduation again

Back at Bay Campus this week, doing the graduation marshalling thing. I do enjoy it.

I even got to ride the Hog in, as it's the first dry day in weeks!

The office for the Week. The warm glow of Welsh Winter Sun ☀️ 🌞🌞🌞☀️

BeerRiff - My Happy Place

This is a long overdue post about the finest little bar in the universe:-

If you thought Heaven is a Halfpipe, you were wrong. Heaven is BeerRiff

https://beerriffbrewing.com/

16 taps of bangers, with not a Carling or faux Spanish lager in sight. All keg brews, which I prefer. Usually 5 or 6 of them made in house, a Stout or two, a Helles lager, a Cider, a proper German Lager, a Sour, and a fine collection of Guest Ales from the UK'S finest Craft Breweries ranging from session pales, to full on premium IPA's. That's just as an idea of their range, as they have now made 400 different brews over the years.

Tipples like these - changing every time I visit

Even Beer & Pizza deals! (The pizza is getting better, actually)

If you are inclined, a fridge full of fine independent brews to take out (not at supermarket prices, tho), and a good selection of low alcohol brews

The taproom is now with added soundproofing, so the bar is much less echoey

The pizzas look like this

I just checked the BeerHunter, and it seems that I've tried 517 halves here over the last 7.5 years - or to put it another way, 68 per year, or 1.3 a week :-)

They also have an online shop.

Donc. If excellent Craft ales are what floats your boat, BeerRiff is undoubtedly the finest bar in Swansea, perhaps in the Universe, and my Happy Place.

Even Dr. Bob promises to visit one weekend..

I love this. Perfect image of Rhys - owner/brewer/creator

When is a Conspiracy Theory not a theory?

So. I dismissed the statement that there was a cabal of Zionist sympathetic peadophiles in the higher echelon of power as tin foil hat crazy.

Then came Randy Andy, Donald Trump, Peter Mandleson, Bill Clinton, and many others linked to Ghislaine Maxwell & Jeffrey Epstein.

A private island 'Isle of babes', a private jet 'the lolita express', and procured young women. A crazy tale indeed.

Support the Sheen!

There are still tickets available for 'Our Town', one of the first productions by the newly formed Welsh National Theatre. Brief summary below:-

It runs in 4 venues, including Swansea Grand Theatre from Fri 16 - Sat 31 Jan 2026, with Sheen as stage manager and Starring.

Cwrw'r Wythnos pedwar ar hugain

Men-tal-elfs

I decided to start up a 'gathering' today, taking a lead from David's comments about men's mental health, and men of a certain age.

Men-tal-elfs.... Gettit? Men/Mental health/elves? I'll get my coat...

The idea being to set up a regular meet where us guys can chat & support each other. To do this, I think a regular date is needed, monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly as agreed by the group, otherwise it doesn't happen & ppl drift apart. My thoughts are to initially meet in a pub & then go for a curry, have a chat & a daft laff. Wednesday seems like the best plan, as it doesn't interfere with other social plans, going away at weekends, & other clashes.

So to this end, I sent the following WhatsApp to 15 or so mates/colleagues/pals;-

"Would you like to meet up once a month, for beer, curry & talking bollix? Say something like 1st Wednesday on the month, date in the diary, where us blokes could get together & have a good laugh, and do the stuff that blokes do. I'm happy to organise the first few, and then those willing could agree a date/time/frequency to suit. If you fancy this, let me know, & ill come back with a date in the new year, after the Christmas chaos, and in the cold miserable nights of January. Cheers, Chris"

I've have had 10 positive responses so far, & am delighted. I informed David of this plan, & he said he would join in as & when he is down this way. (I didn't expect this as he lives 180 miles away!) Likewise Rob - informed but not expected due to day clashes & the distance.

Perhaps the idea may snowball, with people inviting their friends along to future gatherings. That would be grand, and may even help in some little way.

James R Kirk

I spotted this in episode 3 of the original series of Star Trek. James R Kirk. I didn't know he changed his middle name - perhaps by Warp Poll. Mind you, I've always thought Tiberius was a belter.

Mmmm Christopher Tiberius Howell. Does have a kind of gravitas. Also, no-one could call me seedy any longer. I remember a friend wanting to change his middle name to James.....

Waiting for God-knows-what

How many hours have I spent waiting?

Waiting for the bus, a taxi, an aeroplane

Before a concert

In an exam room when finished, or waiting to go in/start

In a Doctors waiting room

In a hospital waiting for treatment

In a car waiting at traffic lights

In a supermarket checkout queue

Waiting for a concert/play/film/match to start

In an online queue

In a restaurant or a bar waiting to order, to be seated, to get served, then to pay

At home waiting for "an engineer"

Waiting for the late Dr Bob

Im not even going to count the times that I should be doing something, but watched the clock down instead.

It must be days, weeks, perhaps even years

To be human is to be a waiter. I guess I should be better at it by now.....

Half-baked?

I must admit that I've never seen potatoes baked like this.

Did someone actually go to the effort to manufacture this device, or is it made for another use? Bizarre.

Sorted!

My job for today & tomorrow - sorting graduation certificates into graduation order.

Nice view, & nice £'s :-)

Unified

I realised today just how much Swansea University has influenced my life.

Chem. Eng. summer school back in 1978

(I remember me, Nick, Mierion Jones, Prof Bowen, Prof Richardson, & thats all)

BSc Chem Eng with Prof Richardson in 1979, leading to a Job with P&G via the milk round. (in the days when employers would tour the Uni's looking to snap up the best prospects - they had positions to fill, then) This arguably leading to a Job with Heinz.

Trying to get the catering contract for the canteen & failing

Watching films, Plays & NT Live @ Taliesin

Kimmy working there, & supporting me through my re-training as a teacher (which I could do because of my first degree from there)

Now being employed by them, working as an Invigilator & Graduation Marshal, which gives me access to their online services, student discount and cheaper membership of the Gym.

Quite a lot to thank Swansea Uni for, over the years.

Great Pun!

Great Pun, BBC. A pointless fixture, also. Why would Wales play the world #1 team without 13 1st choice players, out of the IRB window, when ranked 11th? It's all about the money, Baaaaby. This is where the WRU has led us. Shame on them.

Was it worth it?

From the BBC:-

there were stark evidence of empty seats around the Principality Stadium in the crowd of 50,112.

Capacity of the stadium? 74,500 so, 2/3 full.

The crowning act of shame was the cynical eye gouging by Eben Etzebeth. I hope he recieves a maximum ban. When is a game of rugby worth damaging someone's eyesight? Pointless foul play.

Cwrw'r Wythnos tri ar hugain

Tribute (inverse)

If Tenacious D came up with "the best song in the world, (tribute)" , this begs the question, what is the worst? Well, ask no more.

Wikipedia has the answer. Kurt Cobain's 5th best album, also name checked by Frank Zappa as "proto punk" and loved by Johnathan Richman, I give you "philosophy of the world" by the Shaggs.

Believe it or not, it can be found on Spotify:-

Check it out for yourself, fellow musicologist.

If you TikTok, here's a link

(Shaggy was a style of haircut in USA at the time, btw)

Civilisation

An anthropologist once wrote about how the first artifact of civilization wasn't a hammer or arrowhead, but a human femur - discovered in Madagascar - that showed signs of having healed from a bad fracture. In the animal world, a broken leg meant you starved, so a healed femur meant that some human had supported another's long recovery, fed them, cleaned the wound. And thus, the author argued, began civilization. Augured not by an instrument of murder, but by a fracture bound, a bit of food brought back for another.

The second act in my opinion was to create the NHS.

Please don't destroy it

Hey Kimmy

Off to the 'diff next July to see these 2 legends. :-)

Should be a cracker - let's hope it doesn't rain! It's in Cardiff Castle, so I guess thats open air. We've never been to a gig there, which makes it an even better treat!

Y Chaos

Last week, I've mainly been invigilating @ Y Coleg, an associate institution to Swansea University. (See blog passim).

As usual, they are Chaotic Class, with wandering monsters.

Initially I was told it was a 2 hour exam, subsequently reduced to 90 mins. Of the 47 undergraduates expected, 17 turned up within 30 mins of the start time. Of these, 7 could not access the computer based exam, as they hadn't logged in to the course at all this year. 2 more couldn't log in at all, as they messed up their passwords. One guy acted as if he'd never seen a keyboard in his life, and eventually took 5 attempts on 2 different terminals to log in.

The Lecturer appeared, and claimed to have never seen half of the cohort this year. Quite a few went to their normal teaching room, not the exam suite. Apparently they don't read emails.

Despite this, most finished the exam in 20 mins, and had to sit & wait until the minimum time allocated had passed.