Aliens vs Mayans

I'm not one for a conspiracy theory. Conspiracies are seductive and slick, but the truth is surely always actually a messy contradictory affair. So I am happy to debunk a cosy little theory that I knitted together on Twitter this morning.

It started with this Guardian article which relates, with a remarkable lack of cynicism, that the Mexican government is cooperating with a new documentary movie which will reveal how aliens interacted with ancient Mayan people. No, really.

Producer Raul Julia-Levy said the documentary-makers were working in cooperation with the Mexican government for what he said was "the good of mankind". He said the order to collaborate had come directly from the country's president, Álvaro Colom Caballeros.

"Mexico will release codices, artefacts and significant documents with evidence of Mayan and extraterrestrial contact, and all of their information will be corroborated by archaeologists," he said. "The Mexican government is not making this statement on their own – everything we say, we're going to back it up."

(Well, Caballeros is actually the president of Guatemala, which is also involved apparently, but never mind that.) You can't see me, but I am still rolling my eyes in disgust at this, but please, I have to deal with the speck in my own eye before I can take a chainsaw to theirs.

In a nutshell, this article caused me to 'go off on one' on Twitter and I mentioned at one point that this was an indication of the awful state of the Mexican tourism industry: that they were now so desperate to make people visit their country that they were prepared to "literally say anything". And, thinking that I really had to get this off my chest properly, I then sauntered over to Google to find a lovely graph showing how US and European tourists were avoiding Mexico.

Well, guess what. I couldn't find one. No one would deny that there are massive problems. This from the Washington Post, April 2009, reveals the impact of Swine Flu, with resorts running at 20% occupancy rates. And this was after the effects of drug cartel violence had begun to be noticed, as this (from the same month) shows. I'm guessing the global economic hoo-ha doesn't help much either.

But things have been improving, albeit from a catastrophically low base. The LA Times reported that visitor numbers for 2010 were up 17.8% on the previous year, in fact, with the trend set to continue in 2011.

So, despite 35,000 deaths over four years, a US State Department travel warning, slashed prices and a promotional tour to the US during which the president Felipe Calderón has resorted to pimping a PBS travel series, I draw the line at accusing the Mexican government of conspiring to fraudulently claim the country contains sites of contact with extra-terrestrials in order to boost tourism.

Because the whole thing is preposterous.

As the Guardian later makes clear, despite the fervent publicity-garnering quotes from the producers, the highest ranking name attached to the project from the Mexican government is Luis Augusto García Rosado, minister of tourism for the Mexican state of Campeche. A glittering career awaits, presumably? But surely nobody with pretensions to political credibility is going to want to be connected with this.

I haven't seen the film, no-one has yet, and I reserve the right to change my mind once I have. But the likelihood that they will be able to produce the sort of evidence that would persuade me is very very small.

What annoys me most about the 'aliens/early civilisation' theory is that we are so ready to belittle the incredible achievements of these societies. Like us, these people struggled against disease, weather, competitors and yet with rudimentary technology produced some of the most amazing artefacts in human history. Archaeologists and historians devote their lives to understanding what these people believed and thought, and how their societies functioned. But we, knowing better, feel the need to attribute the credit to unknown magic powers. It's as if sites like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, the Nazca Lines or Chichen Itza weren't impressive enough by themselves.

But then conspiracy theories are, of course, the preserve of those who are never satisfied with what's staring them in the face.

Your Five A Every-So-Often

Five more gems from XKCD.


Duty Calls

Jealousy

Making Hash Browns

Fortune Cookies

Purity (I guess History is just applied Sociology..)

Charging for Gas

Excitement! In Houston!

I've just come back from the supermarket. That's not it. That was only moderately exciting and only then because of the exchange with the man in the cheese counter that went decidedly frosty when we simultaneously realised we were both correcting each other's pronunciation of 'parmesan' (well, I was saying 'parmesan', he was saying something else).

No, the excitement occurred in the car park where I found a new installation! An electric fuelling station for cars no less! I know! In Houston, TX, the Coruscant of the US petrochemical industry. This must be how Howard Stableford or Maggie Philbin must have felt like I wondered as I instinctively went over for a closer look.

If it looks small and cute, a bit like a toy version of a grown-up's petrol station, then I should point out that it is. Like the tiny, shiny electric car they have plugged in. I spoke to the man (a silver-haired, moustachioed man, as if they hired him just to look mature and reassuring) and he went on at some length about voltage and socket specifications and so forth. The gist of it was, I think, buy a Japanese car and pay extra to get the bigger spout (it's NOT a spout, but you know) because then it would refuel faster - 40 miles in 15 minutes. If that doesn't sound terribly good, then consider that stations like this are for 'topping up' and one mainly charges one's car overnight at home. And the electricity has still got to be generated somehow of course but let's not be churlish. Mr Moustache tells me they plan to have fifty of these dotted around Houston within two years and I say good luck to them.

Of course, I'm his worst nightmare being a) already persuaded and b) unable to afford to buy an electric car anyway, but that doesn't stop me being excited and out of the goodness of my heart here's the link to the company's website.

Not living in California, or the Future, this is the first one I've ever seen and there was a moment, when I asked the man if I could take a picture, that I felt the temporal differential between my current self, all excited and startled, and my embarrassed future self who muttered "What are you like, it's just an electric car refuelling thingy; there's one on every corner in Space Year 2025." And I have to admit, this was compounded when I discovered the damn thing has been there for three weeks and I hadn't noticed.

And, for all I know, they're two-a-penny where you are too, but I don't care. There's one here, in HOUSTON.

How exciting!

Admin

Oooh, new Facebook is exciting isn't it! Isn't it?

Oh.

Well, never mind. The changes have prompted me to rediscover some Notes I posted on there during 2008. In a spate of displacement activity I have decided they rightfully belong here and I've started migrating them over. Cue tedious formatting. (NB: I LOVE tedious formatting.)

You can find the first ones here.

Correction

Actually, that was a lie. That isn't what happens, the crucial (and possibly slightly smug) difference being that I do often have very clear memories of my dreams, sometimes for years afterwards. I'm not saying they don't fade. And I'm not saying I remember everything. I'm not even saying that I remember any more than a tiny fraction of the total amount of nocturnal visualised brain activity that must occur during the many, many hours of my life that I spend asleep.

But, most mornings I will wake up with the after-images of a dream safely washed up on the beach of my consciousness. And, insofar as any of this has any meaning or importance, I find this a satisfying and stimulating state of affairs.

What I don't do is spend a lot of time agonising over what my dreams mean.  I'm not looking for clues to explain the inner workings of my mind or suggestions from my unconsciousness as to how I should manage my life. Having said that I do get recurring dreams, or rather recurring situations which get re-staged every now and then. That's quite interesting, but they don't tell me anything I didn't know already.

No, what I enjoy is the act of creation, the idea that my brain can spontaneously spin a scenario out of nothing for me to experience. I'm fairly certain that this was what I am trying to ape when I am writing, but I get discouraged by the wearying reality of having to think about it and having to write it down. All I really want is to have the story play out effortlessly in the comfort of the visual centres of my own brain, thank you very much!

So when that does happen and I wake up and am able to consciously remember the narrative, I find that quite amazing. And the more complex and long-winded the salvaged dream is, the more exhilarating it is to go back through it once I'm awake.

I feel I must warn you that the gnawing dread that's been building inside you, the growing fear that I might actually tell you one of my dreams, is now about to be realised. You may look away now. But I promise it's a good one: brief, vivid and not particularly weird as far as I can see, but you may be the judge.

It happened this morning and prompted this whole post, of course.

Today I spent an indeterminate time before I woke up staring out of the top floor south-facing window of the house I don't own overlooking the San Francisco Bay. I was looking across to the city. I knew all about my house already, obviously, I didn't need to examine that. But for your benefit I'll mention the pale brown hardwood floors and the luminous bare white walls, all washed clean by the sunshine that splashes in through the green shutters. Not much in the way of furniture, but then we've only really just moved here, haven't we? And that's why I'm checking out the view.

Despite it being a beautiful sunny day with clear unbroken blue skies, a thick mist has moved in off of the ocean, obscuring all but the tops of the tallest buildings of the SF skyline. When I peer carefully, I can see the cables and hawsers of the Golden Gate Bridge reaching out of the fog, although the bridge itself is in completely the wrong place. Well, it would be rather in the way of my view if it had been left in its original position.

I can see the walled garden beneath me with its dark green lawn and beyond that there's the road that dips down the slope towards the Bay itself. I should be able to see the large mossy rocks that rise out of the dark blue water. But I can't see them because the water is suddenly in tumult, writhing like a monster. Then I realise that it is crashing towards me, uphill, swamping the road and drowning grass and trees with frothing white foam. I'm not perturbed. I can see this is a small, albeit dramatic looking inundation and judge it not likely to endanger the house or garden which do, after all, have a wall. I'm just about to shout for L to come and have a look when, JESUS, EVERYTHING IS SHAKING!

Books are falling off shelves, toys are rolling across the floor (I am a conscientious unpacker after all), but that's nothing because the floor is moving, the window, the house, the whole headland is rocking and buckling. I swear I can feel the juddering climbing up inside my legs, sending my knees in useless directions, making me reel, even as I turn and try a staggering run towards the stairs. The children are downstairs, I've got to get to them whatever, but I'm thinking that I don't yet know what the rules are for an earthquake and that scares me. Am I supposed to find a lintel to shelter under? A doorway? Does my new super-duper house have a special room for such an emergency? I do hope so.

Plaster dust is falling from the ceiling. I'm just getting to the stop of the stairs. It's a beautiful staircase (more bare hardwood) but it's so steep, with several sharp, square turns. I can barely stand, but I'm just going to have to pour myself down it.

And then the shaking stops. Completely, like someone's thrown a switch. The quake lasted a second, maybe two. Everyone's all right. I return to the window. Nothing has collapsed or fallen, but there is water nearly everywhere, running along the road, sloshing and churning around drains or marooned in pools amongst the trees. Everything is still, even my hands on upon the white window sill.

And of course, suddenly, that's that. I'm awake and elsewhere.

Every Damn Morning

This one deserves its own post because this is my life, as perfectly reproduced by the peerless XKCD.

Flanders & Swann

Definitely cheating with this one - but then, the whole eight disc thing has gone out the window already, hasn't it? So I don't actually have any compunction in calling up for my next selection, Kirsty, the two live albums of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann - At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat.

Growing up, my musical influences missed these chaps. I knew of some of the songs, but I didn't know how they were connected, or who they were by, and I was wholly unaware of the concept of musical comedy - or should that be comedic music?

I did sort of come into contact with them, or come under their influence at least. My school friend Chris was definitely au fait with Flanders & Swann and he and I spent a long time collaborating on our own songs as a result. I can't in all honesty say that I knew we were emulating anyone, however, when we rattled off such classics as "I Had a Drawing Pin" and "The Mole Song". As far as I was concerned it was just what we did. Sadly, no recordings survive from this period.

So having unknowingly stumbled into the environs of Flanders & Swann, I unknowingly stumbled away again. It wasn't until after I left university that I re-encountered them, and when I did, it was through my wife.

Very early on, early enough that we were both still trying to simultaneously impress and size up the other, we got onto the subject of the laws of Thermodynamics, this being exactly the sort of thing that two arts graduates talk about in such a situation. I got excited, but only really because the Second Law is referenced heavily in the final Tom Baker Doctor Who story 'Logopolis' and consequently I felt confident enough that I could bluff my way through a conversation on the subject.

What happened next stunned and delighted me: this strange woman started to sing and click her fingers. Nobody sang. I had never had anyone sing at me in the middle of a conversation before. And she was singing a song about.. well, it was this:

So that was that.

The years that followed saw us do a lot of motorway driving and those two CDs got listened to an awful lot as we went. It turned out I had been missing out on quite a lot. They are wonderful performances. Funny, clever, even moving, they are an unambiguously English slice of mid twentieth century wit.

Here a few of the stand out tracks.

The Hippopotamus Song. I won't link to it here. It is easily their most famous song. It's also the one I have tired of most as it is the one I have sung so often (probably hundreds of times); for several years now it has been the 'bedtime song' that I have had to sing to my children. I'm letting the tradition slide a little now but I'm sure I've got many more renditions left to do...

The Slow Train. Exquisite and not at all funny, it is a lament for passing of the local railway stations and branch lines following the Beeching reforms of the early Sixties. Rather like film footage from before the First World War, it presents a picture of a England that has now vanished, overrode by modernity.

Which brings me to my last pick. "I don't know if you've ever thought of this," intones Michael Flanders, "but England hasn't really got a national song." He's right - God Save the Queen/King is really a British anthem - and, having dismissed other contenders (Jerusalem?), the pair offer this modest ditty.

Typical English understatement indeed. Nothing so perfectly captures the dilemma of English nationalism, torn as we are between an instinctive contempt for vulgar jingoism (at once both beneath our dignity and a shameful reminder of our past crimes) and our inherent and private conviction that we really are best after all. What rotters we are.

I've often wondered if there is an existing song that could be pressed into use as an English national song. The criteria are challenging, but if I think of any I'll mention them in passing. In the meantime I think we can agree that it shouldn't be this one.

Soave sia il vento

This is the corollary to A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I liked because the music enhanced the drama. This aria, from Così fan Tutte, is a wondrous and beautiful musical delicacy which holds little dramatic weight in the context of what is a fairly ribald farce. That's not entirely fair - the two women singing this genuinely believe they are waving their fiancés off to war. But their noble sentiments are undermined by the audience's knowledge that these men are actually playing a cruel trick upon their girlfriends, having been manipulated by the owner of the third voice in this sombre trio, Don Alfonso.

But never mind the context because, once rescued from the knowing winks and leers of Mozart's comedy, this aria deserves to be considered a thing apart.

Così is another opera that I have seen a lot. I spent the Summer and Autumn of 1998 hanging around a woman who worked at Glyndebourne and this was the piece that I always seemed to catch. No wonder that this aria increasingly drew focus from the rest of the show.

The words too are beautiful, even in English. 

Soave sia il vento,
Tranquilla sia l'onda,
Ed ogni elemento
Benigno risponda
Ai nostri desir.

May the wind be gentle,
may the waves be calm,
and may every one of the elements
kindly fulfil our wishes.

I can't think of a better benediction with which to begin a long and challenging journey. What I can't have been sure of then was that I was setting out on just such a journey myself. I kept hanging around that woman and eventually managed to persuade her to marry me. Soave sia il vento was sung at the ceremony, but then you probably remember that yourself.

If you have Spotify (and if not, why not?) you can listen to a rather good version of it here.

Diminishing Ripples

I was going to write something sober and reflective, trying to find some long-term perspective for the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September, 2001. Having logged on, I found this piece by Francis Fukuyama in the Guardian. It is brilliant and brief, offering succinct and incisive analysis. Timothy Garton-Ash put forward similar thoughts earlier in the week.

What they don't offer, what no dispassionate or clear-headed perspective can provide, what a lot of Americans still need, is comfort and reassurance. Because, unfortunately, there is none to be had. This has always been a dangerous world where terrible things can happen suddenly and irrevocably, and there is no policy, weapon or faith that can guarantee individual safety.

The unimaginable impact of that day will never diminish for those who were injured, for those whose friends or family were killed, or for those who witnessed the disaster first hand and escaped. But it would be a tragedy for America, let alone the world, if our future history continued to pivot around this black day.

Ha ha ha

Engineering Hubris

A-Minus-Minus

Future

Startling

To Be Wanted

Why Twitter is Brilliant (pt. 94)

Yes, the 140 character limit can be restrictive, but the opportunities are there for instantaneous access between anybody. The full Slanket of Con gallery can be viewed here.

Desert Island Disc #2

And then there's this.

Today, in Britain at least, it's so familiar that you might take it for granted. You might find it difficult to remember a time when this music was considered mysterious, alien and terrifying. Difficult, that is, unless you ever watched Doctor Who as a child and experienced the delicious sting of panic as the opening theme began. Too late now to run and hide, the show was starting and you were caught!

For viewers in the '60s and '70s, unfamiliar with the musique concrète avant garde, it was utterly unearthly. Devoid of recognisable sounds, the recording was literally physically constructed: each note was painstakingly produced from white noise, plucked piano strings or oscilloscope harmonics, before being modified, cut and edited by hand into vast lengths of analogue tape that ran out of the Radiophonic Workshop and up the corridor. With no multi-track equipment, the different tracks were mixed manually by synchronising individual tape players - that is, simultaneously hitting the 'play' button on multiple machines!

The writing credit belongs to Ron Grainer, but the genius behind this extraordinary arrangement was Delia Derbyshire. This original version of hers from 1963 is still bizarre, remarkable and like nothing else in British popular culture.

And... it's the first piece of music I ever bought.

On a shopping trip, my mother allowed us to choose one record each. My sister, Hannah, chose a double A-Side release of "How Much Is That Doggy In The Window" and "Polly Wolly Doodle", I think. And I found a seven inch single of the (relatively) new arrangement with a grinning Peter Davison on the cover. I was five years old or so - it's difficult to be sure because I can't find any catalogue details for this particular release. Since I can't track it down, I can't tell you what the B-Side was called either, but Han and I called it "Running Through the Jungle" music, by which we meant (self-evidently) a spacey, alien jungle because this was Doctor Who after all. We would play it and run around and around the front room until it stopped or we got dizzy and fell over, whichever came first..

If I could find it, I'd post that, but I can't so it'll have to be this instead!

.

You're Welcome.

I'm rationing these now. I'll just post five of my most favourite once a week.

Hallucinations 

Organic Fuel

Cat Proximity

Excessive Quotation

Commitment