A Walk Around Britain

I actually stumbled across these guys a while ago, and have been meaning to write some incomprehensible mumblings about them for ages. However, what with the thesis reaching its inevitable conclusion I haven't been doing a great deal of anything except typing furiously into a LaTeX document! Now that the beast is finally finished I have time to waste, so there should be many more comments appearing on this wee collection of random drivel in the near future.


Walk Around Britain is a little jaunt being undertaken by three brave souls: Ed; Will; and Ginger. These three minstral are spending their time hiking around Britain, literarly singing for their supper. The idea, as I understand it, is very simple: to travel the length and breadth of the land with nothing but the clothes in their packs, a good solid walking stick, and an ability to turn a tune.

To quote the men themselves:

'A Walk Around Britain' is not a project, nor a grand plan, or any kind of national event. It is some people who are walking around, and learning in the oldest and most intensive way known, on a simple footbound journey.

The journey started back in 2004 when they followed the Pilgrim's Way from Winchester to Canterbury. Out of this simple exploration of an age-old path that has been trodden by hundreds of thousands of feet, the grander undertaking occupying them today has grown. Starting in February of this year near Canterbury, they have presently covered much of southern England, learning all manner of songs and stories along the way. At present, according to the website, they are in Wales, aiming to spend the summer slowing making their way northwards through the Lake District and Yorkshire, until they finally finish up in Scotland, just in time for winter. The last bit may sound like madness (it certainly doesn't sound like my kind of fun), but they are planning on constructing their very own roundhouse within which they will spend the winter. Then, with the bluebells of springtime, they plan to be up and off again for another year of walking and singing.

I love the idea of this. Particularly from the point of view of the simplicity and freedom of simply wandering wherever your feet take you. So much of our lives today are driven by the tightly controlled schedules imposed upon us, either by ourselves or others, that this freedom to wander is a welcome breath of fresh air, and might serve as a reminder of just how irrelevant the lack of shredded marmalade in the supermarket (or whatever) really is.

I also think there is another, more culturally important part of what Ed, Will, and Ginger are doing. Britain undoubtedly represents a treasure trove of information on the history of the human race. Archaeologists and historians have been able to reconstruct the settlements, industry, and battles from remnants left behind by the people of these islands over more than 3000 years. However, the culture of these people is very poorly understood. With the rapid advance of modern technology (such as this very blog), however, the traditional ways of recording the culture have equally rapidly dwindled away. Hopefully, through the book(s), cd(s), and other chronicles of their adventures, at least a part of this cultural record might survive a little bit longer.

The End of Mr Y

In this superb book, Scarlett Thomas throws together the concepts of modern scientific thinking and physiological reasoning regarding consciousness into a thoroughly gripping yarn. To describe it simply as a novel is doing Thomas a great disservice. In truth it is really a very clever thought experiment in the classical sense of Schrodinger or Maxwell, all nicely encased in a fast-paced, entertaining adventure story. Although there are a number of reviews out there(e.g., bookslut or Katrina), here's my two penneth.

The story follows disillusioned Ph.D student Ariel Manto. Her supervisor vanished some 12 months prior to the begging of the tale, and as we begin her University is falling down. Through a series of strange events she ends up finding a very rare copy of the book 'The End of Mr Y' by Thomas Lumas, a supposedly cursed text of which there are only a couple of copies known to exist. Contained within this valuable work is the recipe to make a drug which allows one to access the Troposphere, a extra set of dimensions where all consciousnesses interact. Obviously, being the plucky young heroine in a modern adventure novel, she goes straight out to get the necessary ingredients and have a go herself. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose and and we're led on a merry old romp.

Although the basic skeleton of the story isn't something insanely creative and new, the concepts Thomas discusses along the way are what make it. Some pretty complex and very thought provoking issues are introduced, all in a manner that leaves the reader interested and wanting to know more. Somehow, Thomas manages to strike the perfect balance between being complex and engaging, without also being confusing.

The basic idea revolves around the principle that thought (i.e., consciousness) is matter, thereby enabling consciousness to take the form of a higher dimensional space. This Troposphere therefore allows you to gain access to other peoples mind and their memories. In principle, the statement that thought =  matter is true, thoughts can be observed as increased electrical activity within the brain. For me, how this ties with an extra 'consciousness' dimension is probably a step too far. But, one idea Thomas discusses along the way, is the belief that consciousness evolves in a similar way to physical traits.

This I find immensely emotive. As is pointed out, under this principle there is nothing to stop machines developing consciousness, indeed it could be thought of as being unavoidable. So, HAL or Skynet mightn't be that far off!

In conclusion, The End of Mr Y is a great book, and doesn't feel anywhere near the 506 pages in length it is. If you have an interest in the philosophical sciences then you'll find it extremely engaging, and well worth curling up with one sunny spring afternoon.

Alternative famine remedy...

Recently I came across a paper published in the September 1920 issue of the journal Nature under the rather presumptuous title; 'The Drying up of South Africa - and the Remedy'. This interesting paper (more of a comment, really) talks about the eternal struggle between Mankind and Nature (as in the hippy-ish force, not the journal!), opening with the paragraph:

'Whilst Man of all races and skin-colours is once more involved in fractricidal quarrels - how Superior Intellegences in more advanced spheres must grin as they watch our wars against one another through super-telescopes or by aethereal telegraphy! - Nature is making one more effort to get rid of man. This time through Drought. She has seemingly hated everything that rose above the mediocre on this planet, whether it was in fish shape, or the fish-saurian, the dinosaur, the struthious bird, the ungulate mammal, or the brain-worker, Man. She tried to nip us in the bud by reviving the Ice ages which she had used for other destructive purposes in the pre-Cambrian, Devonian, Permian, and Jurrasic periods. But this succession of cold spells only braced Northern Man to greater efforts and greater triumphs, and sent Southern Man to grapple with the tropics, and to digest and partly overcome their germ diseases. Now the tropics, and above all the sub-tropical regions are being threatened by drought. The desert is spreading in sub-tropical North America, in tropical South America, in temperate and sub-tropical Asia and eastern Europe, in northern and north-central Africa, and in that prolongation of the African continent which lies beyond the Zambezi and Kunene Rivers.'

Quite a rant, I know! Wait until you see the last paragraph:

'Man must give up internecine warfare and unite all his forces to defeat his arch-enemy, Nature. He must melt the ice at the North and South Poles, and put a stop to the spread of desert conditions in Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

H.H. Johnston'

'...unite all his forces to defeat his arch-enemy, Nature.' For some reason I now have an image of Nature in my head that's a cross between Brittania and the classical Victorian image of Queen Boudica.

Well, whether by design or not, we seem to be trying to do what he suggests, although somehow I don't think it's working quite how he imagined...

Big History

Big History is an area of science I only recently discovered via a talk given by Walter Alvarez at the 33rd IGC meeting in Oslo, Norway. This multi-disciplinary approach to looking at history, considers the major events/factors that have been the driving forces behind the formation of the world and indeed the universe as we know it today.

Personally, I find the idea of bouncing around ideas on such large scales fascinating. The way that, for instance, you can consider the evolution of complex life from the view point of a series of astronomical forcing factors really tickles my little grey cells. Also, discussing such topics is clearly perfect for pub based debates, where almost anyone from any walk of life can contribute something. It reminds be greatly of my 2nd and 3rd year Astronomy tutorials with Prof. Hughes, which turned into massive debates on subjects such as the origin of the solar system, or asteroid impacts, or any one of a million other subjects.

For an introduction to the topic one shouldn't look any further than Marnie Hughes-Warrington's excellent article in the Bulletin of the Historical Society, which provides a brilliant and engaging overview of the subject and how it has developed from the early imaginings of, for example, Isaac Asimov and Preston Cloud, in the 1980s through to the recent pioneering writings of David Christian and Fred Spier. Anyone interested in the subject should, I think, start there. It certainly worked for me!