After a few false starts, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been switched on at CERN, the European research facility for experimental physics. It's already producing some amazing results and those with the imaganation and energy to get it going are to be congratulated. The following little poem is intended as a tribute, poking a little bit of fun at those who thought the facility being swtched on might have dire consequences.
For those familiar with "Albert and the Lion" read out loud with the same accent ...
Th’experiment had started well
No-one dead, nor yet unwell
Director said, “good work from all
“To make that bang from things so small
“Of course we had to whizz them fast
“Around a circle deep and vast."
So vast, in fact, that Switzerland’s
not big enough to hold said band.
A bit of France is needed too,
they gave some hectares, quite a few.
Germany when asked, of course
considered the request a sauce
Now, in that subterranean cave
Things strange, not particle nor wave
Had come to be, but none could see
them. Strangelets some and black holes wee.
Yes, holes in space and time there were,
So tiny no-one knew that there,
Beneath the rocky snowy alps
Were nasties seizing all the scalps
Of protons, neutrons, other things
For nothing has sufficient wings
The dread black hole e’er to escape
Till they, says Hawking, ee’vap’rate
You ask yourself, now why do this,
And risk creating an abyss
Into which the earth might fall
(and after that ’t would be quite small).
Well, ’tis a quest called find the Higgs
A boson, generous, it gives
its mass to all the other bits,
then t'universe forever quits
To make the Higgs appear again
A massive bang, like way back when
The cosmos, it was young not old,
Will do the trick the Higgs to unfold
Guess what, a most surprising thing,
Some Higgs were made inside that ring
And now there’s something new to note
The Higgs are black holes’ antidote!
That’s why results there were so few
And earth’s still here – a planet blue
Not black, nor charred, nor gone from view.
Th'experiment it lived right through.
Saturday 27 November 2010
Dealing with grief
The telephone rang at about half past nine in the morning. Silence at first, then a rasping gasp – “he’s gone.” It was my wife’s best friend from school days. “G.’s left me”, “when did this happen?”, “in the night, he wouldn’t wake up and now he’s gone.” He and I had been friends for nearly twenty years. My wife took the phone from me, scream, tears, questions and listening all at the same time. “We’re coming” my wife said, then called her two sisters.
Funerals have to be within twenty-four hours, so that means today. This is Lebanon, so the right clothes have to be worn, with the right accessories and the hair and make-up need to be ‘done’ to match the sombre mood. Preparations completed and the sisters having arrived, we set off up the mountain to support the new widow.
Arriving at her home an hour later, it was, predictably, deserted. No dogs, no barbecue going, the house itself seemed to have shrunk and died too. My wife had just returned from a trip abroad during which she’d bought her friend a new mirror to replace one that had been broken and supposedly was bringing bad luck. It seemed very important to my wife that the mirror be delivered to the house that day, so we left it tucked away in a safe place. We all deal differently with grief.
They lived just outside a small village, with one Greek Orthodox Church. We set off to find it. After about a quarter of a mile, the eldest sister felt we’d gone too far and must have missed the church. For some reason, she rarely addresses me directly, but speaks to my wife instead. “Let him turn back” spoken as would one to the mother of a toddler “would he like a glass of milk?” – the great advantage is that I can dial it out so carried on. All three sisters have a desperate desire to turn off main roads at the earliest opportunity and dive down dirt tracks left and right until lost; fortunately the church appeared before I had to cope with all three in unison.
First into a huge receiving room, where already over a hundred and fifty people were seated. The chief mourners are expected to stand and receive everyone who comes. The widow wore dark glasses, her brother-in-law openly showed his tear-stained face not really able to believe his brother was gone. More people kept coming in, and an overflow group formed on the terrace, at the centre of which was Mr. A, a lifelong friend of the deceased. He, poor fellow, had arrived at his friend’s house summoned to try to revive him, he’d called an ambulance and a doctor, but nothing could be done beyond confirming death. And Mr. A’s healing process - to talk, about his own brother, his friendship with G, the state of the country, the events of the morning “He just switched off, like both his parents.” We all deal differently with grief.
Time for the service. Three priests and four responders speaking Arabic. In a Greek church. With over three hundred people. After a while the widow gets up and starts polishing the coffin. Her brother tenderly and gently takes her arm and leads her sobbing back to her seat. Only six hours before she’d been making him coffee.
Then it’s over and we all troop back to the receiving room where the chief mourners go through another ordeal – saying good-bye to all those who have come to pay their respects and have formed a long queue. “Don’t leave her alone” whispers her sister-in-law as we leave.
We go home, our emotional engines drained and running on fumes. We remember that some other friends are holding a party. We don’t feel we want to work at putting on the happy, entertaining face, but decide it might be our turn to wake up dead tomorrow, so we make a short appearance. We all deal differently with grief.
Funerals have to be within twenty-four hours, so that means today. This is Lebanon, so the right clothes have to be worn, with the right accessories and the hair and make-up need to be ‘done’ to match the sombre mood. Preparations completed and the sisters having arrived, we set off up the mountain to support the new widow.
Arriving at her home an hour later, it was, predictably, deserted. No dogs, no barbecue going, the house itself seemed to have shrunk and died too. My wife had just returned from a trip abroad during which she’d bought her friend a new mirror to replace one that had been broken and supposedly was bringing bad luck. It seemed very important to my wife that the mirror be delivered to the house that day, so we left it tucked away in a safe place. We all deal differently with grief.
They lived just outside a small village, with one Greek Orthodox Church. We set off to find it. After about a quarter of a mile, the eldest sister felt we’d gone too far and must have missed the church. For some reason, she rarely addresses me directly, but speaks to my wife instead. “Let him turn back” spoken as would one to the mother of a toddler “would he like a glass of milk?” – the great advantage is that I can dial it out so carried on. All three sisters have a desperate desire to turn off main roads at the earliest opportunity and dive down dirt tracks left and right until lost; fortunately the church appeared before I had to cope with all three in unison.
First into a huge receiving room, where already over a hundred and fifty people were seated. The chief mourners are expected to stand and receive everyone who comes. The widow wore dark glasses, her brother-in-law openly showed his tear-stained face not really able to believe his brother was gone. More people kept coming in, and an overflow group formed on the terrace, at the centre of which was Mr. A, a lifelong friend of the deceased. He, poor fellow, had arrived at his friend’s house summoned to try to revive him, he’d called an ambulance and a doctor, but nothing could be done beyond confirming death. And Mr. A’s healing process - to talk, about his own brother, his friendship with G, the state of the country, the events of the morning “He just switched off, like both his parents.” We all deal differently with grief.
Time for the service. Three priests and four responders speaking Arabic. In a Greek church. With over three hundred people. After a while the widow gets up and starts polishing the coffin. Her brother tenderly and gently takes her arm and leads her sobbing back to her seat. Only six hours before she’d been making him coffee.
Then it’s over and we all troop back to the receiving room where the chief mourners go through another ordeal – saying good-bye to all those who have come to pay their respects and have formed a long queue. “Don’t leave her alone” whispers her sister-in-law as we leave.
We go home, our emotional engines drained and running on fumes. We remember that some other friends are holding a party. We don’t feel we want to work at putting on the happy, entertaining face, but decide it might be our turn to wake up dead tomorrow, so we make a short appearance. We all deal differently with grief.
Wednesday 24 November 2010
State of the Nation
UK Trade & Industry is the arm of government with a brief to promote British companies and products. In the last few weeks, the two most senior civil servants in that department have both visited Lebanon and have explained that the efforts of HM government will be much more directed to assist in developing trade and investment in the growth markets (of which Lebanon with a reported annual GDP growth of 9% is certainly one) rather than the large but comparatively slower growth regions where most of the UK’s exports currently go (Europe and North America).
The British Lebanese Business Group – the BLBG – has been mentioned in a couple of earlier blogs. It’s a tradition that Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Lebanon addresses the group once a year.
The current ambassador, Her Excellency Frances Guy, has given a reception at her home for members of the group on the last three occasions and, in spite of the cuts in government spending, was able to make the same kind and generous offer this year.
Billed as a “state of the nation” speech, HE took us through the tensions in the region and in this specific country and gave her view of the ways in which these might develop and thus impact or present opportunities for business here. Questions were lively, broad ranging and responded to with candour and clarity.
While we all promised not to quote directly, it will come as no surprise that the questions of relations with the neighbours (Israel & Syria), the external influencers (KSA and Iran amongst others), Hezbollah and the impending indictments from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (investigating the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri) all got an airing. Rather less expected was an excursion into earthquake proofing of buildings.
Now this is my blog, and if anyone disagrees with my reading of the meeting, then please comment, but I’m going to give them anyway. Put simply the mood was, on the whole, more positive than negative, with a different feeling from the times when the government had collapsed, when the presidential chair was vacant and when civil disobedience produced no-go areas in down-town Beirut. Yes, it could all go pear-shaped, but no-one actually wants that to happen.
So what is the effect on doing business? “Do we re-stock or not?” “Do we invest or hold back?” are permanent questions in all lines of business, anywhere in the world, and it’s the business people who will ultimately answer these questions, not the governments and their diplomats. Let’s realize that growth in business comes from addressing growing markets, so if the GDP growth here really is as shown above and the mood is more positive ….. well it’s your money, you decide.
The British Lebanese Business Group – the BLBG – has been mentioned in a couple of earlier blogs. It’s a tradition that Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Lebanon addresses the group once a year.
The current ambassador, Her Excellency Frances Guy, has given a reception at her home for members of the group on the last three occasions and, in spite of the cuts in government spending, was able to make the same kind and generous offer this year.
Billed as a “state of the nation” speech, HE took us through the tensions in the region and in this specific country and gave her view of the ways in which these might develop and thus impact or present opportunities for business here. Questions were lively, broad ranging and responded to with candour and clarity.
While we all promised not to quote directly, it will come as no surprise that the questions of relations with the neighbours (Israel & Syria), the external influencers (KSA and Iran amongst others), Hezbollah and the impending indictments from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (investigating the assassination of the former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri) all got an airing. Rather less expected was an excursion into earthquake proofing of buildings.
Now this is my blog, and if anyone disagrees with my reading of the meeting, then please comment, but I’m going to give them anyway. Put simply the mood was, on the whole, more positive than negative, with a different feeling from the times when the government had collapsed, when the presidential chair was vacant and when civil disobedience produced no-go areas in down-town Beirut. Yes, it could all go pear-shaped, but no-one actually wants that to happen.
So what is the effect on doing business? “Do we re-stock or not?” “Do we invest or hold back?” are permanent questions in all lines of business, anywhere in the world, and it’s the business people who will ultimately answer these questions, not the governments and their diplomats. Let’s realize that growth in business comes from addressing growing markets, so if the GDP growth here really is as shown above and the mood is more positive ….. well it’s your money, you decide.
Sunday 21 November 2010
Money Talks
“Money talks.” How often have you heard that expression?
It’s true though, and I know because mine keeps saying “Good Bye”.
Having been in England for three weeks, I got back late on a Monday, the eve of Eid al Adha or Festival of Sacrifice. It’s also Independence Day on the following Monday, so the Banks, Public Services and many of the shops (in predominantly Muslim areas at least) have closed down for a week. So, it seems to me, living here in West Beirut, that Lebanon just closed for my return. It shouldn’t have, but it took me rather by surprise, never mind, it’ll be a cheap week.
But wait a minute, there is a tradition that on the big Festivals, Ramadan, Christmas, Easter, and Eid al Adha gifts of money are given to trades people, concierges, and others who’ve given good service. Boxing Day comes four times a year!
At the same time, all those services that had continued in my absence, basic stuff like drinking water and electricity, fell due this week.
It’s got to the point that when the door bell rings I hide. I’m neither mean nor stingy, but being a Yorkshireman with Scottish ancestry I am a bit “careful” – I like to know where the spondoolicks have gone and that they got good value, but really I just want to leave the steadily lightening wallet by the door and nail up a notice asking anyone who comes just to help themselves! It isn’t that I mind paying my dues and giving, I just want to know how all these people knew I was back – and while the country is closed. Cash is just dashing madly off in all directions. Perhaps envious of my semi-vacational English sojourn, it’s just packing its bags and leaving as fast as possible. When will the blizzard stop?
The answer is today. Why? Because my wife came back today (although we left together, she extended her trip by a few days) and she normally deals with all these demands, so at least I won’t see the dripping, nay gushing tap.
The purpose of her extension by the way was partly to … wait for it … SHOP. “So how’s the plastic?” I asked her. She looks a bit blank for about half a second and then realizes that I mean the credit cards. She smiles. “Worn out from overuse” she says.
Hmmm, it seems that they’ll be getting a rest for a bit then, but no way will they be packing their bags and saying “Good Bye.”
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Landing at Beirut
Arrived back late on Monday evening at Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri International Airport.
The Nokia tune and about 200 other assorted cell ’phone start up sounds all seem to play at once within a few milliseconds of the aircraft hitting the runway. Fortunately the pilot knew where the terminal building was and headed straight for it, rather than worrying about what the navigation systems must have been saying after this supernova scale radiation burst from so many ’phones being switched on together.
“… the outside temperature is twenty-five degrees …” announces the captain, to which the man in the seats in front reacts by dressing up in parker, scarf, woolly hat and ski gloves. “Wrap up well,” he says to his son, “you’ll feel this different from the sixty we’re used to in LA”. Busybody here has to tell them that Centigrade rather than Fahrenheit is the scale used outside the US of A. They look confused until I tell them that in old-money that means seventy-seven, so off come the parker and accessories.
Clutching my various travel documents – passport, residency permit and landing card – I manage to join the queue with the trainee immigration officer, as always seems to happen. “Progress” is occasional and only just in a forward motion. The landing card asks for all the usual stuff, plus father’s name and sex (mine, not my father’s – steady now); I have somehow restrained the desire to write “ask my mother” and “yes, please”. Clearly someone further up the queue has allowed imagination to get the better of him with said card, as, after a noisy exchange, he is led away by a couple of serious looking chaps with side arms.
I’m wondering why there are so many people wearing white, and then memory kicks in, it’s the end of Hajj – the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Beirut airport isn’t on the scale of London’s Heathrow or Chicago’s O’Hare except in one area, the number of people waiting to greet those off the plane. Normally there’s a ratio of about five to one (for those who can’t find a calculator, that means an average of, oh!, a thousand people waiting to meet someone off each flight). There have been two landings and families of those returning from Hajj have swelled the ranks, so the noise is less that of staid airport arrival and more akin to that at a middle ranking sporting event, with tears, hugs, kisses and even the odd scream added. Although never much good at rugby football as a boy, I’m grateful for the “hand-off” and “scrum-down” training to get through the waiting crowds.
As I walk out of the airport into the warm at nearly mid-night, I look forward to home, a really good night’s sleep and then … full-blown re-entry tomorrow.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Oh, the joys of flat packing!
Oh, the joys of flat packing!
In London at the moment, I ordered a couple of lamp tables from a well-known and highly reputable department store chain. Yesterday they were delivered.
The price should have warned me. Whereas a lot of the bedside furniture on display in the store had price tags to make the eyes not just water but positively gush, those chosen were about the same price as a pub lunch with a couple of glasses of whatever takes your fancy.
So what arrived via furniture van were not, as expected, a couple of tables, but a couple of flat packs.
As a child, I played with Meccano, a wonderful construction toy that was a sort of generalised flat pack, from which toy cranes, model trucks with working steering and even rotary engines could be constructed from bits of metal with holes in and a variety of things that fitted in those holes, like screws and axles. The point is that I was trained early in life to make things out of odd bits through following instructions.
Each pack contained five lumps of wood with holes of various sizes drilled into them, sixteen bits of dowelling, twenty screws, eight very odd lumps of metal, four small cubes of wood, various stick-on things and two tubes of glue. And six pages, yes, six pages of instructions. “This item takes one person fifteen minutes to assemble,” was emblazoned on the first page. It took me that long to read the instructions.
Now we’re off, with the first few screws going in fine, and then there is the inevitable one that goes in at the wrong angle, the one that the slot for the screw driver is missing and the tube of glue that explodes when I try to squeeze the glue out.
Finally it’s done. It took me an hour and half – to make the first one.
Was it worth it? Well there was a sense of pride at the result, which looked as it should do and now does “what it says on the tin”. But an hour and half? For a supposedly fifteen minute job??
I’ll be back in Lebanon soon, where you can buy finished articles. Maybe I just haven’t been looking hard enough, but I haven’t seen a flat pack there - yet.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
We've improved our service to you - Oh No!
Don’t you just dread the words “to improve our service to you ….”?
It usually means that something has gone seriously, disastrously wrong or will do shortly.
Lebanon is no longer on the short list of “do not go to” countries. Its central bank is looked at as a centre of excellence in the Middle East for attacking money laundering. Nevertheless, certain companies, iTunes for example, will not accept a Lebanese credit card and yet others, Microsoft springs to mind, will not accept any kind of banking plastic issued by one country with a home address in another. My solution to those problems is simple, keep one UK credit card registered at a UK address. This isn’t fraud, as I own the property where the card is registered, and live there for a period of time in most years.
So far so good, until NatWest, in their infinite wisdom decided to “improve our service to you” and send me a new credit card, of course, to the UK address. Now the number of emails and text messages I get telling me of some wonderful new product or to give me advance warning of something, is legion. NatWest themselves go to great lengths to ensure that I keep my email address with them up-to-date and to offer me special on-line credit card services, they send me emails, telling me when my eStatement is ready to be viewed eLectronically. Nevertheless, nothing appeared to warn me of the impending debacle.
The property where the card is registered had tenants in, and they, the tenants, God bless them, did the decent thing and returned the new card to the bank.
At which point NatWest cancelled my credit card account; still no email, so I found out in the usual embarrassing way of having a payment declined. When I called the bank to find out what had gone wrong, the following Catch 22 conversation ensued.
“To improve our service to you, we’ve issued you with a new credit card and cancelled your old one – the new card was returned to us”.
“Thank you. Could you please un-improve the service and re-instate the old card, then I could use it to buy things again?”
“No, but we could send you a second new card.”
“OK, would you please send it to me here?”
“Certainly, just give me the security code on the back of the card so I can change the address where the card is to be sent”.
I gave the security code.
“Oh no, I mean the security code from the new card!!!!”
“But it was returned to you – you have it, how could I possibly know what it is.”
“It’s what our procedures require!!!!!!”
“But that’s just plain daft, HOW CAN I KNOW THE SECURITY CODE ON THE BACK OF A RETURNED CARD?????”
“Please don’t take that tone with me, Sir, it’s a security requirement ….. to improve our service to you.”
As luck would have it, I am in England for a few days, and so have managed to arrange going to the local branch to pick the thing up in person. I hope it’s there, as I can only speak to a call centre now, not somebody who is actually in the branch. Of course, the reason I can’t is that they’ve “improved the service to me” … again
It usually means that something has gone seriously, disastrously wrong or will do shortly.
Lebanon is no longer on the short list of “do not go to” countries. Its central bank is looked at as a centre of excellence in the Middle East for attacking money laundering. Nevertheless, certain companies, iTunes for example, will not accept a Lebanese credit card and yet others, Microsoft springs to mind, will not accept any kind of banking plastic issued by one country with a home address in another. My solution to those problems is simple, keep one UK credit card registered at a UK address. This isn’t fraud, as I own the property where the card is registered, and live there for a period of time in most years.
So far so good, until NatWest, in their infinite wisdom decided to “improve our service to you” and send me a new credit card, of course, to the UK address. Now the number of emails and text messages I get telling me of some wonderful new product or to give me advance warning of something, is legion. NatWest themselves go to great lengths to ensure that I keep my email address with them up-to-date and to offer me special on-line credit card services, they send me emails, telling me when my eStatement is ready to be viewed eLectronically. Nevertheless, nothing appeared to warn me of the impending debacle.
The property where the card is registered had tenants in, and they, the tenants, God bless them, did the decent thing and returned the new card to the bank.
At which point NatWest cancelled my credit card account; still no email, so I found out in the usual embarrassing way of having a payment declined. When I called the bank to find out what had gone wrong, the following Catch 22 conversation ensued.
“To improve our service to you, we’ve issued you with a new credit card and cancelled your old one – the new card was returned to us”.
“Thank you. Could you please un-improve the service and re-instate the old card, then I could use it to buy things again?”
“No, but we could send you a second new card.”
“OK, would you please send it to me here?”
“Certainly, just give me the security code on the back of the card so I can change the address where the card is to be sent”.
I gave the security code.
“Oh no, I mean the security code from the new card!!!!”
“But it was returned to you – you have it, how could I possibly know what it is.”
“It’s what our procedures require!!!!!!”
“But that’s just plain daft, HOW CAN I KNOW THE SECURITY CODE ON THE BACK OF A RETURNED CARD?????”
“Please don’t take that tone with me, Sir, it’s a security requirement ….. to improve our service to you.”
As luck would have it, I am in England for a few days, and so have managed to arrange going to the local branch to pick the thing up in person. I hope it’s there, as I can only speak to a call centre now, not somebody who is actually in the branch. Of course, the reason I can’t is that they’ve “improved the service to me” … again
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