S’funny.
The stuff I am most proud of is the stuff that I am not very good at. Stuff I am genuinely good at I keep to myself but when I have to work really hard to learn something I get a lot of pleasure from it and I want to shout it from the rooftops.
Is that just me?
[Clearing out my drafts folder while I wait for my meeting to start and discovered this. Dunno if it's any good or why I wrote it.]
Splendid wrap up of the Darwin Anniversary last year in the London Review of Books (it’s not short).
The reviewer focuses on the question Why Darwin? After all, there are plenty of people (ok…not plenty of people…a few people) who have made as big a contribution to science as Darwin - Einstein, Newton, Gallileo - why is Darwin such a big hero?
According to Dawkins, Darwin’s idea wasn’t just a great one (‘the most powerful, revolutionary idea ever put forward by an individual’), it is essentially the only idea you need to explain life and all its phenomena: ‘Charles Darwin really solved the problem of existence, the problem of the existence of all living things – humans, animals, plants, fungi, bacteria. Everything we know about life, Darwin essentially explained.’
After a roundabout tour that disses evolutionary psychology and the New Atheists, the reviewer settles on the idea that, even without Darwin, someone would’ve come up with Natural Selection [er...they did - ed] just as someone would’ve discovered oxygen without Priestley [er.... -ed] or figured out calculus without *Newton [now you are just messing with me - ed]. But Darwin’s great contribution was not that he was one of the greatest scientists of all times. It was that he was a great writer.
You can still say, with perfect accuracy, that the Origin is much more than its ‘essential’ theory of natural selection: it is a book, a magnificent theatre of persuasion, ‘one long argument’ (as Darwin called it), supported by masses of arduously compiled evidence, ingeniously organised and vouched for by a special individual, with known special virtues and capacities.
It so happens that I am reading The Descent of Man at the Moment, so I have recent experience of Darwin’s writing. It really is magnificent. When you think that he was writing about cutting edge science - not a popularization - and that, in fact, he was the one doing the cutting… it just takes your breath away.
If you have tried reading The Origin and got stuck at the pigeon chapter like I did, give Descent a try. You won’t regret it.
* For all the received wisdom about the inevitability of discovery, it was surprisingly hard to come up with a third example to make my joke work.
It cost me an E string and the skin off the top off my ring finger but I am done.
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Making music is hard.
I started with the drum track this time and it made everything so much easier. The rhythm guitar was fun even though you can’t really hear it over all the other tracks. I finished everything except the guitar solo in one day but it was another week before I could get back to it. Most of the drumming is me but I threw in a drum loop for the first verse just to see how it sounds. If I had picked a slightly faster tempo, I would have had a ton more loops to choose from. Oh well.
I played the piano part on the mac keyboard. I could’ve re-recorded it on a real piano when my midi cable arrived but I was too lazy. I did record the bass on the piano though. Can you believe I had my piano for 20 years before I got a midi cable? I thought so.
In that extra week, I had got much, much better at the lead and could play it through in one take and it was tempting to go back and re-record it but I was impatient to get to the solo.
Man, was that solo hard! I had to cheat a little. I recorded most of it in one go but had to go back and overdub the last bit because my fingers are too slow.
I got bored following the tab for the final solo so I ad-libbed a bit. I broke a string string bending to get that top A which is why it sounds a bit flat at the end - I was scared I would break it again!
I re-recorded the vocals too and was joined in a duet by guest vocalist, Mrs Clown. She was the photographer for the album art too!
Most fun song yet! On to the next one! It will involve dark desert highways.
Daniel Larison on anti-jihadism.
For most of the last decade, our preference in and out of government has been to deny that U.S. and allied policies had anything to do with jihadist attacks and their ability to recruit and win sympathizers. This acknowledgement would be to “blame the victim,” so that even if it were the correct analysis it was politically incorrect to say it out loud. Instead we have been treated to a whole host of explanations for why jihadist violence exists and why it tends to be directed at the U.S. and our allies. The lamest of these has been rather popular, namely the claim that “they hate us for our freedom,” or modernity or secularism or whatever it is that the person making the argument finds worthwhile about the West and sees lacking in Muslim countries. Then, of course, there is the trusty appeal to the enemy’s insanity. Unlike us, they are not really rational, and so their actions cannot be explained by referring to anything so mundane and normal as political grievances.
One day, Larison will say something I disagree with.
WARNING: Don’t watch this if you are offended by cartoon penises. Definitely not safe for work.
Crossing the line is an important milestone in a young sailor’s life. King Neptune demands that every time a ship crosses the equator, everyone aboard be called to account for his sins and he rises from the deep to hold court. He pays special attention to those who are crossing the line for the first time. A visit from Neptune is an momentous event and the day that a ship crosses the line is set aside for festivities and the libations flow freely.
Three-Legged Volleyball
The first event of our day was the Race to the Line. The brave souls from the ship’s crew launch all manner of craft into the inky blue ocean and race the last 100 yards to be the first to cross the equator. A few sailors take the race seriously and build elaborate sailing vessels and canoes but emphasize novelty over velocity and a more typical craft is an inflatable sheep or a sex doll chosen, no doubt, for her seaworthiness rather than her pulchritude. Sadly, our race had to be called off on account of the unusual number of sharks surrounding our ship so we turned to the second event of the day - the three-legged volleyball.
Chief MEM Doing a Handstand Dive
My readers have doubtless run a three-legged race in their youth and three-legged volleyball is organized along the same principles. Each team consists of four pairs of player, each tied to his neighbour at the ankle and the thigh. The ball is tethered by a long rope to the net posts to prevent it going over the side. The combination of the Siamese contestants, the tangling rope and the vast quantities of beer is practically guaranteed to ensure hilarity. The WEMs’ mess - my mess - won the day! Hoorah! More beer for us!
Inward Dive
Time for the diving contest and the Jimmy decided that we would safe from the sharks if we posted sailors with machine guns on the bridge wing. No one wondered whether we would be safe from drunken sailors with machine guns. We had three dives each and I took second place with a pike dive, an inward and one-and-a-half somersaults. Hooray! More beer!
One Down, Half a Somersault To Go
I did a little extra curricular diving later in the day. I dived from the bridge wing - about 35 feet up. You had to dive out about 8 feet to clear the side of the ship and my foot slipped as I dived. I tumbled a full somersault and narrowly missed hitting my head on the side. Oooh. Close one!
A Last Minute Contestant
Next up was the deck hockey. Deck hockey is a traditional naval pastime - more ancient that Uckers - played with a puck made of masking tape and a set of walking sticks which double as weapons. The WEMs won again! More beer!
Time for the main event of the day - The Court of King Neptune. The role of the King was played by the Chief WEM who was the fattest man that I have even seen in real life.
King Neptune with his Entourage
He was also the meanest. We called him Ten Bellies. Not to his face, of course - except that one time when Jumper Collins called him that over the phone. Ooooh! That did not end well!
King Neptune has a large entourage of oddball characters - a judge, a doctor, his queen, some henchmen and (honestly) the Three Bears. Neptune’s Queen Consort was played by my very best friend Jacko.
King Neptune starts the proceedings with a speech about how there are sinners aboard and he has come to deliver justice. One by one, the sinners were called up to the dock and the charges against them are read aloud.
Silence for King Neptune!
The Captain is the first defendant and then the Jimmy and they are followed by all the first-timers. The routine is the same each time and - as far as I know - has barely changed over the centuries. King Neptune calls the name of a sinner and Neptune’s henchmen armed with maces, battle-axes and clubs made from masking tape apprehend the suspect, beat the crap out of you and drag you to the dock - a large, red chair - where you prepare to face justice.
The Judge reads the trumped-up charges and quickly finds you guilty [this is not too different from normal military justice, about which more another time - ed]. The Doctor forces you to swallow a disgusting and unfeasibly large pill and then the chair dumps you unceremoniously into a pool filled with nasty-smelling leftovers from the galley where the three bears beat you some more.
The Trial
I have compared notes with sailors from other navies and they all report a similarly bizarre ceremony with only minor differences in the proceedings. How great is it that such a crazy ceremony should survive for so many years?
Wikipedia has an account from 1825.
There were on board the ship a great number of officers and seamen, who had never yet gone South of the Tropics, consequently were to be initiated into the mysteries of crossing the Equinoctial line, and entering the dominions of Neptune; great preparations had been making since our leaving Woolwich, for an event which promised to some part of the crew great amusement, to the other great fear; many a poor girl at Woolwich, and at Spithead had been deprived of some part of her wardrobe, to adorn Amphitrite; from one a night cap and gown had been stolen, from another some other part of dress, and although I had no hand in it, I was as bad as the rest, for I was consenting thereto. An immense grey horse hair wig, sufficiently long to reach well down the back of Neptune, had been purchased in England by subscription, accompanied by a venerable grey beard to sweep his aged breast; a tin crown and a trident completed the regalia. On a review of all those who previously had crossed the line, I was selected as Neptune; in vain I endeavoured to defend myself from being deified, it was useless, I must be Neptune, all remonstrance was vain; I took it, resolved to use the trident with mildness. Now reader fancy to yourself the writer of these lines with his legs and arms well blacked, his cheeks, vermillion, short and very loose trowsers, a double frilled shirt, from whose ample folds the salt water dripped plentifully, two swabs for epaulets, a long grey horse hair wig, a venerable beard of the same colour, a tin crown, a trident, and to complete the whole, a hoarse church yard cough; fancy all this I say, and Neptune, or your humble servant in his shape stands before you. The evening before we expected to cross the line, the lookout man reported at 8, P.M., a light a head; presently a hoarse voice hailed “ship ahoy” which being answered by the Captain, Neptune intimated his intention to visit the ship early next morning. Accordingly early in the morning the ship was made snug, the top-sails were close reefed, courses hauled up, top gallant sails furled, a new sail was secured to the gunwale of the barge on the booms, the other edge to the hammock netting, leaving a hollow of eight feet, capable of containing an immense quantity of water; into this sail the very men who were to be dipped in it, were employed in pumping and bailing water, little thinking, poor creatures, they were making a rod for themselves. A gun had been dismounted on the forecastle, the carriage made into a car, on which were to sit Neptune and Amphitrite, and between them the Triton; in order to keep all secret, a sail was run across the forecastle to screen Neptune and his gang from observation. Just before the appointed time, all who were likely to undergo the dreadful operation of shaving were ordered below, the gratings put on, and a constable stationed to prevent the ascent of more than one at a time; a wise regulation, for our numbers were nearly equal, and had they shown fight, might have conquered; a rope was rove through a block on the main yard arm, to one end of which was secured a handspike, astride of which sat a man with his hands fastened to the rope over his head.
…
The first of the ship’s company that were shaved, who was brought up blindfolded by the whole posse of constables was the armourer, a weather-beaten honest old Hibernian, who had been a farrier in the Peninsular Army for many years. At the reduction, he had found his way as armourer of some small craft, and thence to our ship; on his entering for our ship, so anxious was he to be within the given age, which was thirty, that on being asked his age he gave it as eight and twenty, although fifty six was written in legible characters on his old cribbage face, which throughout the ship’s company had gained him the cognomen of old eight and twenty. On this man then the barber had to perform his first functions; a bucket was filled with all the cleanings of the hen coops, pig-stys, &c. and with it a due proportion of tar had been mixed; with a large paint brush dipped in this villanous compound, and his razor, close to him the barber stood waiting the signal. My first question was “what is your name my man?” “John S—-, your honour,” at the instant of his opening his mouth the brush went across it, when the face the poor creature made it is impossible to describe, “phoo what do you call that?” “what do you call that?” I again asked the old man how old he was, “eight and twenty your honour, and so I am; oh I will spake no more, I will spake no more.” As a last effort to make him open his mouth, I said if you mean to put him overboard, mind have a good rope round him for perhaps he cannot swim. Terrified at the idea of being thrown overboard the poor fellow said “I cannot swim, oh, I cannot swim;” but as the brush again crossed his mouth, he uttered with his teeth closed, “I will spake no more, by J—s I will spake no more if you drown me.” Amid a roar of laughter two men tripped the handspike on which he sat and sent him backward into the sail where the bear was waiting to receive him; it was soon over, he escaped and stood by to see his shipmates share his fate. At the time of his being shaved he was not aware who Neptune was, when he found it out I could not get him to speak to me for some time; at length Irish good temper conquered, and we were friends again.
—John Bechervaise , Thirty-six Years of Seafaring Life p.146-150
Long may King Neptune reign!
After I left HMS Southampton, the Navy instituted new fitness requirements and Ten Bellies was forced to leave the service. No one cried. Did I mention how mean he was?
I lived with Jacko in five different houses and he was my very best friend for a long, long time. I lost touch with him when I came to the States. If anyone knows his whereabouts, tell him I am trying to track him down.
Hmmm. This one needs more work…
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UPDATE
Some recording notes.
As always, I did not set out to record a track. I was trying to work on the guitar lead but it’s hard to play the lead without backing. It’s handy to lay down the rhythm Garage Band and then play the lead over it. It took me a few takes to get the lead right.
I played as far as I know - just the first verse - and then decided to try singing the vocals using the mic from Guitar Hero. The first time I started out too high and it sounded crap so I tried again singing low. That sounded even worse, so I tried high again.
I always end up doing the drums last - which is stupid because by then I have already messed up the timing. If I ever set out actually record something, remind me to do the drums first. I tried doing Ringo’s dun-ker-chhhhhhhh-tuk rhythm but the drum kit did not have a chhhhhh sound so I did the best I could with the tools available.
Four tracks so far.
At this point,I was gonna call it done and upload it to my blog but it sounded really stupid with no intro so I started a new track to play McCartney’s piano intro. I haven’t hooked my midi keyboard up to the Mac yet (no cable) so I tried to play it on the screen keyboard. I couldn’t figure out how to make it play an octave so I decided to play it on guitar instead. My poor little fingers can’t quite stretch to an octave which is why the intro sounds so tinny.
You can’t have just guitar-playing-a-piano-solo so I added drums and rhythm guitar and played Clapton’s little intro lick. So that’s an extra four tracks for the intro.
I couldn’t make up my mind whether to junk the whole thing or finish it. But, since all I really set out to do was learn to play Clapton’s lead for the first verse (which I did), I decided I was content with that even though I came in a little late on that first lick.
I figure a couple more weeks and I’ll be able to play the whole thing.
Garage Band is great when you have no one to practice with but it’s easy to get distracted and start adding all the extra tracks.
One problem I have is that when I export the track to MP3 all the levels get messed up and it sounds kinda hollow. Anyone know what’s up with that?
My daughter’s favourite philosophy problem…
Daniel Larison is rapidly becoming my favourite conservative and today he takes on a former favourite, Davids Brooks.
Brooks’ column today is about The White Messiah
This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.
Larison, as always, goes ever so gently for the throat:
Brooks is right when he says the story teaches that, “Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.” What he fails to do is connect this to the urges of our own liberal imperialists and humanitarian interventionists, who are constantly warning against leaving other nations to their own devices and who are frequently complaining about our boundless benevolence that is repaid with contempt or indifference. He might consult his colleague Thomas Friedman on this point, since Friedman seems to think that most Muslims worldwide are “holding our coats” while we do all the heavy lifting on their behalf and that Afghanistan can be likened to a “special needs baby” that we as a country have just adopted. Muslims do tend to be reduced to supporting actors in Friedman’s own journey of self-importance.
One of the commenters at Eunomia used the delightful phrase
the neocons’ inexplicable War Against Avatar
Excellent!
See, I was looking for a picture of a freshly inked tattoo. I knew it was there somewhere but I found a thousand other pictures first. There goes my evening. I’ll have to look at every single one of them….and so will you!
First up, Falklands tour from September, 1984 to March 22, 1985. Your blogger was eighteen years old and had already been in the Navy for two years. I joined HMS Southampton, a Type 42 Destroyer - in June of ‘84 and was with her for a year.
HMS Southampton
Trivia note from the Wikipedia article:
In 1984, she ran over one of the Shambles Buoys off Portland during final War Games before deploying to the Falklands, sinking the buoy and resulting in repairs in dry dock.
I was on board when that happened!
We had left Portsmouth and stopped in Portland for some war-gamey kind of exercises and finally set off for Gibraltar. We had just made it out of Portland when the ship lurched and there was a painful scratching sound. Then the propellers started making a horrible noise. Back we went to dry dock to have one prop shaft replaced and the other straightened out a bit. We then headed with careful haste to Gibraltar.
Top of the Rock of Gibraltar with a Barbary Ape
It was pretty funny when we arrived in Gibraltar as we were the lead ship of our convoy and the two frigates had to salute us as we came into to harbour. All three ships were in full dress with all the crews lining the decks and right after the salute, each of the frigates unfurled a ginormous banner over the side.
One said
Buoy, Oh Buoy! What a Shambles!
The other said
Congratulations! It’s a buoy!
Note to Americans: “buoy” is pronounced like “boy” in normal countries (as in buoyant).
Our Captain went mad. He was very embarrassed. But not nearly as embarrassed as he was when he got court-martialed. And though they did a fine repair job of trying to straighten out that shaft it wasn’t fine enough and for the next six months, if we went above 12 knots, the noise in our mess - right above the seals where the shafts entered the ship - was absolutely unbearable. We couldn’t even shout to each other. My bunk (pit in nautical lingo) was about 4 feet from the seal.
From there, we were headed south!
[I'll tell you about our Crossing the Line ceremony another day]
Shit Fish!
Next stop:- Ascension Island where we encountered the shit-fish. They were like salt-water piranhas. We used to throw huge bags of garbage (gash in the lingo) over the side and watch them get eaten. The water would swarm and froth and the whole thing would be gone without a trace in a couple of minutes. Legend had it that if you fell off the ship, you would have a heart-attack before you hit the water. Any ichthyologists know what they are really called?
On to the Falklands!
The Falklands sucked really, really bad. It’s hard to imagine a worse place on earth. My family almost moved there in the late seventies as my dad worked for the company - Southern Ships Stores - that owned most of the fisheries there. We used to call the people that lived there Bennies after Benny from Crossroads until, one day, we weren’t allowed to call them that any more because someone noticed that it was derogatory. So we called them Stills (because they were still Bennies). I coulda been a Benny!
Port Stanley, the capital of The Falklands, had four pubs and they all sold the same cans of Penguin Ale. It was not uncommon to get banned from a pub in Port Stanley and, indeed, on one night I got banned from all four of them.
We spent Christmas Day anchored in San Carlos Water which the military historians among you may remember as one of the main landing sites - and the scene of a ferocious battle- from which British forces had recaptured the Falkland Islands two years earlier.
The picture on the right is taken on the Flight Deck. See the clear blue skies? I think that must’ve been the only clear day the whole time we were there. The five of us (Harry, Jock, Andy and Pincher) were great friends and went everywhere together. I wonder where they are now?
And here’s us having dinner. For some reason that I don’t quite remember, I wasn’t drinking at the time but everyone else was pished as a fart.
Dunno who the dude at the front was but I remember he was like just turned sixteen. Impossibly young to us eighteen year olds!
Here’s me with an after dinner coffee and my Green Machine Fighting Machine (the name of my mess’s football team) t-shirt.
Wearing that very t-shirt, I managed to play a full 90 minutes of football with 6 pints of beer in me, narrowly missing George Best’s record by 2 pints.
And here’s me sitting on my bunk.
Note that the bunks were stacked three high and note also that all of the bunks in the mess were, in theory, collapsible to make a kind of couch but, in practice, only two of the bunks ever were actually collapsed - the bunks in the two mess squares where the fridges, stereos and TVs were and where all the socializing happened.
The pits in mess squares were reserved for the most junior of junior ratings … unless… unless there was an Artificer Apprentice on board. Artificers (or Tiffies) were engineers and, because they were destined to be rapidly promoted up to a senior rating quite quickly, were condemned to suffer twice as badly during their apprenticeship. Most people had to tolerate 3 months in the mess square before they got promoted into a gulch pit, but tiffies - me and Jacko - had to spend the whole year there.
The rule for Mess Square pits was that you weren’t allowed to go to bed before Pipe Down at 23:00, but even then, you would have people sitting on your bed drinking until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning while you were trying to sleep. Fortunately, you couldn’t hear them over the noise of the bent propeller shaft.
After Christmas, we had a fun little trip over to South Georgia. I hope to tell you more about South Georgia another day so I’ll just mention that South Georgia may be the most beautiful place that I have ever visited.
It wasn’t all fun and games though. As an apprentice, I had to work for a period in each of the Weapon Engineering departments (small arms, Sea Dart, 4.5in Gun, Comms, Radar, fire control, Sonar plus some others that I don’t remember). That was my day job. But we each had other responsibilities too. Defense Stations and Action Stations.
For Defense Stations (americans have a funny term for this - Sean, help me out), but it basically means “we are not under attack right now, but we might be at any moment”. Defense Stations has half the ship’s company manning the weapons systems. We were at Defense Stations for most of the time we were in the Falklands and my Defense Station was the 30mm BMARC.
It was a pretty cushy gig actually. Each gun had two people (one to load and one to fire) and a little cabin where you could be ultra-ready which was code for sleep. Actually, I was teaching myself A-Level maths at the time and spent all of my watches working through a text book that I borrowed from Jacko (except for the dog-watches, which were cur-tailed).
Every now and again, we would spring into action.
“Alarm aircraft! Bearing: Red nine-zero! Elevation two-two!”
Usually it was a drill but one time it was for real when two Argentinian Jets came to give us a scare. They closed us to about a mile before they veered away and left us in peace.
Also, every now and again, we would actually fire the thing.
Defense Stations in a 30mm BMark
A brave pilot would tow a target on a wire - or release a drone - and the
“Alarm aircraft! Bearing: Green nine-zero! Elevation two-two!”
would be followed by
“Port guns, engage!”
And then I would blast away at the target at 60 rounds per second per barrel, flanked by two 20mm Oerlikans and accompanied by the 4.5in Mk8 gun in the bow, all filling the sky with tracer.
My Action Station (translation: we are about to engage the enemy) was in the gunbay.
The gunbay is the magazine underneath the 4.5in mk8 gun way up in the bow of the ship. The gun fires a shell every 2.4 seconds and there is a feed ring thingie in the gun bay below decks that has, like, 12 rounds ready to go. There are also rows and rows of shelves of additional shells. My job - along with a little scottish dude named Jock - was, when the gun was firing, to make sure that the feed ring never got empty. Because then the gun would stop firing and we would get shouted at.
Now. Imagine, if you will, a rolling sea. Imagine a magazine full of rounds weighing about 80lbs each. Imagine two 18 year old who have 5 seconds each to grab an 80lb shell and carry it over to the feed ring.
Any Gun in a Storm
Did I mention that we were way up in bow? When the ship rises and falls in a heavy sea, the forces on your legs are so strong that you can barely stand - never mind carry an 80lb shell. If it’s rolling too… fahgettaboutit.
Now imagine this:
“Naval Gunfire Support! 300 Rounds! Engage!”
Holy crap, that was hard work! The top shelves in the magazine were so high that you had to stand on tip-toe to drag the shell down from the shelf and catch it on your shoulder. 4 times out of 5, it would hit your collar-bone. Holy crap, that hurt!
The rest of our tour passed without incident. Oh. Except for the Argentinian submarine that followed us for a day or so before we started following him for another week or two. Oh. And the storm that caused the ship to roll over so far that one of the seas dart missiles fell over and we all thought we were going to die. Oh. And the Force 11 storm that followed us for a week on our way home.
Actually that was pretty nice. On any given ship, about half the people get sea sick and about half don’t. I get sick for about the first 2 or 3 days and then I am fine and nothing will bother me. Our Captain and The Jimmy both suffered from seasickness so, whenever there was heavy weather, they would send everyone who wasn’t actually required to keep the ship sailing to bed. The half of us who didn’t get seasick got to sit around drinking and playing cards. Sweet! A storm that lasted a week was a week’s vacation!
I am sure I have missed some important bits - like the Master of Your Domain contest (predating Seinfeld by several years!) and the deckchair bonfire and my Two Days’ Nines and the three-legged volleyball, but I am tired so, if I remember them, I’ll tell you about them another day.
