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What I Read In April

Posted on 30 April 2023 by Henry Gee

Screenshot 2023-04-25 at 13.33.25Simon Morden: Down Station Faced with a disastrous and life-threatening fire in the tunnels of the London Underground, a motley group of underground workers finds themselves thrust through a portal into the alternate universe of Down, which has its own rules and the magic is loose. This could almost be juvenile fantasy except that one of the refreshingly diverse cast of characters says ‘fuck’ a lot. Enjoyable, though I didn’t enjoy it sufficiently to seek out the sequel, The White City.

 

 

 

 

Screenshot 2023-04-25 at 13.34.06Taylor Jenkins Reid: Daisy Jones and The Six This is the recollection of a fictional 1970s soft-rock group, not modelled on anyone in particular, though comparisons with Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac are inescapable. The writing is mostly in the form of snippets from interviews with the main characters. I first came across this through the televisual adaptation on Amazon Prime, which took a few liberties with the text, but which I enjoyed more.

 

 

 

 

Screenshot 2023-04-25 at 13.34.39Alastair Reynolds: House of Suns Reynolds is in the top rank of SF writers working today, and here he is at the top of his game. The plot is as audacious as they get. Six million years before the main story opens, Abigail Gentian has herself cloned 1000 times, sending her clones out into the Galaxy as explorers. Six million years later, two of the shatterlings, Campion and Purslane, are late for one of the Gentian Line’s periodic reunions. And fortunately so, for they just miss the extirpation of most of their siblings. Someone, somewhere, wants the Gentians uprooted. But who? And why? Lashings of pure bravura sensawunda don’t get in the way of a gripping plot. One of his best.

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On Being Unnerved – Get out your Velcro

Posted on 29 April 2023 by Athene Donald

Not infrequently I find myself having to give after dinner speeches in my College: to alumni as well as to different parts of the student body. The first time I had to talk to the Freshers, I suspect I was as nervous as they were, only in my case it was regarding my speech rather than worrying about which knife to use that preyed on my mind. I kept clear of most of the alcohol on offer that evening, as the idea of tripping over my words appalled me. After eight years, such speeches no longer seem so daunting, but I haven’t forgotten the nerves. It is all part of what seems to be a recurrent theme in my life, as in most people’s I would guess: doing something for the first time always has the potential to be nerve-wracking. I don’t think those of us of a mature age should be ashamed to admit it, or to remind the nervous young, that this is a feeling that can assail anyone at any stage of their lives. What changes with experience is that you may build up more confidence that, if things do go wrong, you’ll be able to pick yourself up without it wrecking everything for evermore.

For scientists, embarking on research, something similar applies. The first time one does research, it probably isn’t nerves so much as not knowing what one’s doing coupled with that same fear that things will go wrong. I recently came across a (quite old) commentary highlighting a not dissimilar problem: that of feeling stupid because research does not come easily, while assuming it does for everyone else. If one survives the first years of a PhD, and possibly a postdoc, then it gets to seem more natural that research is challenging and to realise that if the answers were obvious, you wouldn’t be doing the research anyhow. But that takes time, and many people feel that time could be better spent in some other sphere and consequently leave research completely.

This has all been brought back to me this week when I’ve been at a conference where an after-dinner speech from me was required. This was to a very different audience from undergraduates – one where wit rather more than exhortations to get enough sleep was required – and my nerves were reawoken, I think very obviously. I was once again moderate on the alcohol front as a result. It all seemed to go OK (no one laughed in the wrong place at least), and I hope when I have to do a repeat performance next year (in my capacity as chair of the organising committee), I will have a little more confidence. We shall see. I don’t think it should be as hard next time, or at least I hope that will be the case.

However, I am conscious that any compliments I am paid this year on the back of my words will have been erased from my memory by next. An article I read last weekend expressed this very clearly, albeit in the context of stress of a different kind – jumping out of an aeroplane.

“There is a great metaphor for this which borrows from the material technology of Teflon and Velcro. Most of us have minds like Velcro for the negative aspects of stress, which stick with us long after high-pressure events. In contrast, our minds are like Teflon for the positive aspects, which can slip away all too quickly.”

You don’t have to be a materials scientist to recognize what is meant. Switch the words ‘negative aspects of stress’ for ‘criticism’ and ‘positive’ for compliments and the message is clear: any words of criticism, from referee 3 or over Twitter or wherever they emanate from, will stay lingering unhelpfully in the mind for months if not years. The upbeat compliment that gave 30 seconds of pleasure and a sense of well-being will, as often as not, evaporate in a trice. Certainly, that is how my mind works, something my mother used to bring to my attention right back in my teenage years. Age has not transformed that propensity.

I think – just like discussing impostor syndrome – an old hand like me should point out to the rising stars the reality that life will continue to throw up challenges that are unnerving; that many of us are not so arrogant to believe we are always on top of our game (although unfortunately perhaps too many academics are, victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect, in which people greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence). And that any new challenge may provoke anxiety, however much one may be up to the job required. However, it clearly also behoves those of a nervous disposition to keep hold of that Velcro/Teflon analogy, so that the positive words of referee 1 at least do something to compensate for referee 3’s vitriol: whether or not the paper is ultimately accepted, at least someone found something good to say. There will always be people out there trying to score points or salvage their own ego by deflating someone else’s. Sometimes their words may be unkind but their conclusions correct, and sometimes they’re just plain wrong.

However, no one ever said research was easy – or indeed giving an after-dinner speech (I cannot comment on jumping out of an aeroplane, but it doesn’t sound like my idea of fun). It is good to push oneself, and to learn from criticism, but not to the extent of letting it eat you up inside, even when there are plaudits as well as Velcro-inducing negativity tossed in your direction.

Posted in after-dinner speech, criticism, experience, Impostor syndrome, Science Culture | Comments Off on On Being Unnerved – Get out your Velcro

In which I head into the wind

Posted on 23 April 2023 by Jennifer Rohn
Tulips in the garden

Heart-breaking ephemera

Sometimes joy and sadness are hard to tease apart – there should be a word for the heavy lightness, or light heaviness, of springtime. This time of year always carries ambivalence: a scrum of flowers unfurl, scenting the air, but the winds are bitter-cold with that “not so fast” April scold, night temperatures not far off zero.

We are not finished with winter yet, not really, even though my garden is doing a pretty decent Koekenhof impression at the moment. Aside from the too-many tulips I keep layering in each autumn, accidentally unearthing old bulbs to make room for the new, the first (evil) Spanish bluebells are out, rushing ahead of their lazier but more true-hearted English cousins. Wild garlic blooms in the shady little woodland along our back garden wall, jostling with wild celery and the first cow parsley bunches. In my morning walk along the hedgerows, I see purple archangel, dead-nettle, green alkanet, dove’s-foot crane’s bill, all the pretty little weeds that don’t clamor to be noticed. I’ve been plagued with headaches and migraine auras recently, and it feels as if the icy air could anaesthetize my brain if only I could inhale enough of it.

I’m aware of significant stress at work, even though things are going as well as they ever have in terms of papers, grants, invited lectures and exciting collaborations, and my team is engaged and brilliant. Sometimes when I wake at 3 AM (why is it always exactly 3 AM? There’s a PhD thesis in there somewhere), my academic worries chase each other around in the dark, stripping the willow with my imposter syndrome. By light of day, I conquer them, and just get on with things. Science is such a strange profession, the sort of strangeness to which you become immune after long exposure. It tries so hard to spit you out once it swallows you, but if you are stubborn, you can cling on in there and try to achieve all the good things you’ve devoted your life to attempting. You do sometimes wonder what it would be like to work with a tailwind for a change – how much more would you accomplish? Or, perhaps the headwind is what sculpts the community into the sort of hive being that gets the best overall result, regardless of the fate of individual bees.

Posted in careers, Gardening, Research, The profession of science | Comments Off on In which I head into the wind

What does the Raab episode tell us about Academia?

Posted on 22 April 2023 by Athene Donald

The resignation of Dominic Raab in the latest Government bullying scandal, and the manner of it, demonstrates many of the challenges surrounding accusations of bullying in any sphere. Bullying is hard to define precisely; one person’s robust retort is another’s unacceptable hostility. This fact applies to science and academia as much as anywhere. I suspect many senior scientists will be well aware of others in their institution about whom rumours of bullying swirl. Yet it is hard to pin down, not least because the recipient(s) of the bullying may be too frightened to make a formal complaint. Administrators will only too easily hide behind – as was initially tried in the Raab case – the fact that nothing formal has ever been put on paper.

Whatever the case in Whitehall, in universities there are, I believe, actions that can be taken short of depriving someone of their job, which might make an enormous difference both morally and practically. I can immediately think of two professors in different departments in my University (neither my own) about whom rumours of inappropriate domineering behaviour abound. Of one of these I was told by a former researcher in their team, that he was ‘neither a misogynist nor a racist, he just bullies everyone’. I believe investigations had been initiated about this particular person – of course one never knows the detail – but nothing apparently transpired as a result. That word ‘apparently’ is important. Maybe the investigations found nothing, maybe they couldn’t go anywhere in the absence of a formal complaint, or maybe something was done but, because of the need for confidentiality, the actions taken were entirely below the radar. It’s impossible to know, although many may attempt to guess which applies.

The trouble with confidentiality (without any need for anything as formal as a non-disclosure agreement being required) is that it is hard for colleagues to have any confidence the matter has not been swept under the carpet, whitewashed, airbrushed out of the picture or simply a denial of wrong-doing has been accepted, if there is no visible sign of action. For that reason, I feel there is a lot to be said for visible action of limited scope being taken for what, to use the terminology of Scottish law, might be termed ‘not proven’ bad behaviour. This verdict in a criminal case implies that a jury believed the accused to be guilty but did not think the prosecution made their case beyond reasonable doubt. One can imagine many situations of bullying in the lab which could usefully be described in this way, and for which – since an HR process does not need to reach a criminal standard of proof – some lesser sanction could be applied.

For a professor in the sciences, one obvious response I’ve heard discussed, but never known be put into action, would be the refusal to let the individual supervise research students for some years, perhaps coupled with some requirement of attending certain courses. I did once hear of someone who was sent on an anger awareness course (though they were indeed someone who got very angry very easily, rather than someone who bullied, which was something I don’t think they were accused of). An academic who was no longer able to supervise students might well have cause to think harder about their actions and behaviour. Certainly, the department could then have a clear(er) conscience they were not sending a fresh graduate into a lion’s den to be humiliated and reduced to tears, or have their dreams of a research career shattered in front of their eyes.

I believe, far from civil servants – or researchers – being snowflakes, we have over the decades created a system where bullies thrive. This I suspect is as true in academia as in Whitehall, but specifically in the former we have a world where (s)he who shouts largest, hogs the equipment and departmental money and terrorises their students so that they are too frightened to do anything but obey their supervisor’s every whim, gets furthest. There are exceptions, of course there are, but far from winnowing out the bullies at an early stage in their career, we instead allow incipient bullies to thrive under their bully bosses, and then to be tapped on the shoulder to move on to higher things, while other more meek but brilliant researchers get pushed aside.

So, can academia collectively think of a range of actions that are readily within departmental control that might drive better behaviour amongst domineering academics?  The positive aspect of removing students from a bully’s direction is that it not only acts as a penalty, but also protects the individual students. It would also be a very public statement of the fact that the behaviour in question has been judged to fall short. Of course, said academic would still be expected to teach, to examine and to serve on departmental committees ie do the rest of the bread and butter of academic life.

Should such a person be allowed to apply for grants? The reality is the bullies are often extremely successful at pulling in the cash, but a department might like to think it was more important to nurture future generations than solely acquire more research funding this year or next. Simply putting the brakes on an academic for a year (with a threat of a longer interregnum if their behaviour did not improve) might focus their minds without being utterly disruptive. After all, time was when the EPSRC introduced a system of ‘three strikes and you’re out’, whereby academics who submitted three successive grants that were judged of too low a standard were barred from further submissions for some period. It was an extremely unpopular policy which did not last long, but why shouldn’t a department introduce a different policy of barring applications?

I would like to think institutions would collectively examine their consciences about what they permit to go on within their buildings merely because it is more convenient to look the other way. This very public defenestration of Raab might just be a pivotal moment for academia to stop pretending it doesn’t have a problem. But I’m not holding my breath.

 

Posted in bullying, Dominic Raab, Science Culture, toxicity | Comments Off on What does the Raab episode tell us about Academia?

Waiting for Publication

Posted on 16 April 2023 by Athene Donald

As I get my hands on the first copies of my new book Not Just for the Boys: Why we need more women in science (publication date May 11th), and prepare for my first talk specifically about the book on April 22nd at the Cambridge Literary Festival, I’ve been reflecting on what it took to get here. Obviously, a lot of time for the actual writing, but also years thinking about the subject, reading about the subject and – not infrequently – blogging here about the subject. Years that built up long before the book itself formed itself in my mind. Even when I’d reached the idea of a book, it didn’t shape up to be the book it is for quite a while.

Last term the College hosted an event, consisting of myself and my OUP editor Latha Menon facilitated by the College’s Director of the Archives, Allen Packwood, discussing the experience of producing a book from our different perspectives. No doubt every author tackles the actual writing in their own way: for me it required significant chunks of time for me to be productive. I found the summers of 2020 and 2021 excellent for this, when College business was quieter and travel, indeed any kind of activity outside the house, severely limited (certainly in 2020). Not for me the style of a friend of mine who manages to sit down and churn out 1000 words in the most unlikely places (I spotted him doing it in New Orleans airport once, as we returned from a conference). Or how Vaclav Smil approvingly described Ernest Hemingway’s way: ‘You get up and the first thing in the morning, do your 500 words. Do it every day and you’ve got a book in eight or nine months.’

But the actual writing is obviously only part of the challenge. There is all the earlier spadework, the thought that goes into the book’s construction and shape before the text starts to flow (or doesn’t, when writer’s block hits). There’s the endless chasing of facts, quotes and data that you remember reading somewhere, but all the power of Google won’t produce the requisite material if you can’t remember it well enough to come up with a sensible set of key words to search. This was often a deeply frustrating experience. Then there’s the inevitable rewriting once the editor gets their hands on it. Latha, thank you for all you did, but there is no doubt you took strong exception to some of the original material, a deeply depressing experience at the time, however much it improved the book. I should put all this into context with one of the stark facts Latha brought up at the College event: that 99% of all book proposals are turned down. I’m not sure if this is her personal hit rate or an average over the trade. Even whether it’s a very precise number or just a general sense. Whatever, it is a somewhat terrifying statistic and one I’m glad I didn’t know before I started on this enterprise.

One of the final tedious tasks I had no appreciation of beforehand, was that of producing an index. As we all know, a good index is invaluable in any serious book, but how such were ever created before the invention of a search engine I cannot imagine. Even with one, it was something of a soul-destroying, time-consuming activity, but one that had to be done at speed. I tried to make things easier for myself by producing all the keywords/phrases while I waited for the arrival of the final proofs, so as to make the task speedy – as it needed to be – when the actual proofs arrived. It was still utterly tedious and, of course, subsequently the index too needed to be proof read. This activity was all part of the learning experience, demonstrating one is never too old to learn new tricks whatever the adage says, but it was not an experience I enjoyed.

One of Latha’s frequent comments to me was that the book read too much like a blog. Perhaps that no doubt valid criticism has had some impact on the frequency with which I’ve managed to write on this blog over the recent past, as undoubtedly those words made me think harder about how I write. I am hoping that that infrequency may change now the book has sped its way into the public market (or will in a matter of days). However, what I am most conscious of now, is the lull before people get to read the book. As I have written about many times before in the nearly 13 years I’ve been writing this blog, doing things for the first time is always scary. When it comes to a book hitting the bookshelves, though, all I’ve read about authors suggests that even at the nth time this moment is at least as scary. And so, I will admit to a fair degree of trepidation right now. I have learned that my blog has hit the mark for some readers, some posts more than others. But a book – as Latha pointed out – is a very different beast. What works well in 1000 words may work much less well in 100,000. I will have to wait and see, with fingers and toes crossed as I do so.

I am pleased to say that I have a variety of book and festival appearances already lined up, and I will try to keep a list about these appearances (in print or person) up to date on the blog ‘Pages’ (always visible at the top of the blog and here). There are also already 5 podcasts you can catch up with on the web. These respectively look at the whole book in outline; a chat with Lisa Jardine-Wright, fellow at Churchill but also Vice President for Education and Skills at the Institute of Physics, to talk about the impact of early years on the choices children make; the Guardian’s science correspondent Hannah Devlin and I discussed the representation of science in the media; Paul Walton, professor and former head of department in York’s Chemistry Department and I explored what he did in his department that led to it being the first department in the country receiving an Athena Swan Gold award; and finally, economist Diane Coyle (also a fellow at Churchill) and I discussed what parallels there are between our subjects, given both have a distinct lack of women at the top.

So, here I sit anxiously waiting for May 11 and what happens thereafter…..One is never too old to be apprehensive.

Posted in Diane Coyle, editing, Equality, Hannah Devlin, Latha Menon, Lisa Jardine-Wright, Not just for the boys, Paul Walton, podcasts, Women in science, Writing | Comments Off on Waiting for Publication

The separation of life and death

Posted on 15 April 2023 by Stephen

Dad on the beach - Sept 2014

Who is that stranger in my father’s bed?
Those sunken eyes
The concave cheeks
Salted with stubble
The thinned grey hair
Plastered to a narrow skull.
I have lost the man I loved.

In truth it had been a long journey
To this resting place.
A slow stepping backwards
As memory stuttered and stalled
And confusion dampened
The flares of the anger
That made strangers of us both.

You used to fill a room with smiles
(Or suck the air out of it).
How did we become so
Disconnected?
Before the question is fully formed
The answer blurts out:
This is not death
It is life.

 

(My father died in February and I am still coming to terms with the loss. I don’t know what to make of it. Ours was at times an uneasy relationship; we were close and not close. I don’t want to dishonour his memory, but neither do I want to gloss over. I suspect I am not yet ready to look at it – or my own feelings – too closely.)

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A choral coda

Posted on 10 April 2023 by Frank Norman

I have been singing with Crouch End Festival Chorus (CEFC) since late 1994 but I have now retired from the choir. The Rachmaninov Vespers on 31 March was my last concert with CEFC as a member. It will be quite a wrench after 28 years singing with CEFC but my voice is telling me it’s time to quit. This will be the first time in my adult life that I have not had a regular choir practice to attend each week.

I’m not giving up singing altogether: I will continue singing in my local church choir most Sundays, and I’ll still sing semi-regularly with a couple of other church choirs. These all entail turning up on a Sunday, rehearsing and then singing the service, so there’s no midweek rehearsal. I will also remain on CEFC books as a guest singer so I will receive invitations to sing with them on some occasions, but I won’t be a committed member.

Looking back

I didn’t do much choral singing as a child but in my later school years we had an enthusiastic head of music (Father Thomas Carroll) and I sang Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Mozart’s Coronation Mass when I was in the sixth form. This sparked my interest in choirs.

A quick trawl though my memory suggests that in the past 47 years since leaving school I have sung regularly with sixteen different choirs, plus quite a few more that I sang with briefly or sporadically, or joined for one-off performances. Sometimes I sang with two or three different choirs at a time so I had multiple rehearsals to attend every week.

Here are a few highlights of my choral career including music that was special and performance places that were special, choirs and chorus masters that made a significant impact on me, and some treasured experiences.

My first adult choir – Woking

After leaving school I worked for a year, living at home.  I joined a local choir – Woking Choral Society, conducted by Nicholas Steinitz.  He was the son of Paul Steinitz so had a good musical pedigree. This was my first experience of music making in an adult group. I was only there for a year but I treasure my first introduction to Bach’s St Matthew Passion (glorious) and I remember a luscious concert in Guildford Cathedral where we sang Faure’s Requiem and Rachmaninov’s The Bells. Everything I sang was new and exciting back then.

Getting into church music – Bristol

At Bristol University I sang in the big University choir and we performed Tippett’s A Child of our Time.  The music professor who conducted the choir had a correspondence by postcard with Michael Tippett and he read these out at rehearsals to encourage and inspire us. Then we were amazed when Tippett actually turned up at one of our final rehearsals. My parents came to the concert and found it very moving.

My most formative experience at Bristol though was singing church music. Soon after arriving in Bristol I went along to a service at Clifton Cathedral. It opened in 1973 and I loved the modern concrete architecture. After the service I introduced myself, saying how much I’d enjoyed the choir’s singing. I somehow found I was then invited to sing with the choir.

Clifton cathedral spire

Clifton Cathedral

Clifton is an RC cathedral but we sang music from Catholic and Anglican choral traditions. The high throughput of music of different styles, from Renaissance to 20th century, was a challenge, especially as it was all new to me. I’m not sure I was much use to the choir at first.  I recall Chris saying later that he barely heard me make any sound for the first year I was there! By the end of three years I could sight read pretty well and I had sung a huge amount of music.  As well as regular weekly services on a Sunday we sang occasional liturgical performances of some bigger works: Dvorak Mass in D, Durufle Requiem, Monteverdi Vespers, Rachmaninov Vespers (in Chris’s own English translation). I also remember a parish pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. A chartered train took everyone from Bristol direct to Canterbury and we celebrated Mass in the Cathedral, with the Clifton choir singing. Canterbury Cathedral is a marvellous building, beautiful and full of history.  I remember staring up and marvelling at the beauty of the incredibly blue stained glass windows.

I left Bristol with a chemistry degree and some confidence in my singing ability.

More church music – Newcastle

I moved to the other end of the country and studied for a year in Newcastle, to get a PG Diploma in Librarianship. I joined the choir of St John’s, Grainger Street under Geoff Watson’s direction.  This is an Anglican church in the Anglo-catholic tradition so it didn’t seem such a big step away from the RC services I was familiar with. There was plenty of familiar music and many unfamiliar hymns. At St John’s I had my first experience of Evensong and of the peculiar magic of singing psalms to Anglican psalm chants.

Another strong memory of St John’s is the friendship I found there.  Joining a choir is a shortcut to gaining great friends.  After leaving Newcastle I met up with the St John’s people a few more times when they went away to sing the services in a cathedral for a week. We had great times and music in Lichfield, Southwell, Worcester and Chester.

A symphony chorus – London

I moved to London to start working as a Librarian.  One day I saw an advert recruiting for the BBC Symphony Chorus (BBC SC) and on impulse I applied and went for an audition. I didn’t really expect to get in but I did.  The BBC Chorus was a large symphonic choir, all amateur singers but with the resources of the BBC behind it.  The BBC SC was the resident choir for the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Now I was singing with a fully professional orchestra and with leading conductors.

At my first BBC rehearsal, in Feb 1981, I was thrown in at the deep end.  We started work on Berlioz’ Romeo and Juliet, in French of course with the choir divided in 16 parts. The second piece we rehearsed was Bartok’s Cantata Profana – in Hungarian and also in up to 16 parts. The Bartok piece includes a ferociously hard fugal section with the subject announced by the tenors on their own. Terrifying! I came to love this piece once I got to know it. Later that same year the Chorus travelled to Frankfurt to sing Britten’s War Requiem in a festival to mark the re-opening of the old Frankfurt Opera House, freshly refurbished as a concert hall. The symbolism of this (British choir, German orchestra, building partly destroyed in the war) was very moving. We were conducted by Eliahu Inbal, an Israeli conductor. He spent some time on rehearsing the chorus to sing incredibly quietly at the magic moments that Britten creates at the beginning and the end of the piece.

Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

In my years with the BBC SC I sang plenty of choral repertoire, both the standard repertoire and much unusual music. We sang 10-12 concerts a year.   The BBC was dedicated to new music and I was happy about this. Working with Krzysztof Penderecki on his St Luke Passion was an extraordinary experience. At first I didn’t know what to make of the score but gradually he explained what we had to do and the powerful music came together. We also joined the BBC Singers in a performance of the very challenging Ligeti Requiem.  The BBC Singers often joined our concerts to sing any semi-chorus sections or just to strengthen the sound. They were brilliant. They sang most of the Ligeti on their own but the Chorus sang in a couple of movements. Another highlight was singing in the first UK performance of Tippett’s The Mask of Time at the Proms. This was a long and complex work that took a lot of rehearsal. The BBC SC  took part in several of the Prom concerts each year in the lovely Royal Albert Hall, including the Last Night of the Proms which was always a great occasion, like an end of term party.

Back then I must have been full of energy.  Not content with all the rehearsals for the BBC concerts I also joined a church choir. I was living a few miles from Greenwich and paid a visit to look around.  I saw an LP in a shop window, a recording that St Alfege church choir in Greenwich had made.  It looked good – the kind of church music that I’d sung at Clifton and in Newcastle – so I went along to a service the next Sunday. I was impressed – the choir sang Messiaen’s short piece O Sacrum Convivium beautifully. I figured if the choir could cope with Messiaen then it was a choir I’d enjoy being with. So I introduced myself and joined up. It was quite a wild ride – loads of great music and great friends and much jollity (i.e. beer). The musical life in Greenwich was lively, much of it linked to St Alfege church and the choir directors Philip Simms and Steve Dagg. I had the chance to join in various one-off concerts conducted by them. I remember singing in the London premiere of a sacred piece by John Tavener, as part of the Greenwich Festival. Tavener attended our rehearsal on the day of the concert and vividly demonstrated the ecstatic quality of singing that he wanted from the choir.  He came over as slightly crazy but very inspirational.

Desert songs – Riyadh

In 1986 I went to work in Saudi, leaving all this marvellous music-making behind. It was not long before I discovered that there was a choral society in Riyadh.  It was a bit underground, for expatriates only, and it rehearsed in the basement of a hotel where all the guests were expats. Once more the choir was a good route to friendships in a place that was quite alien in many ways.  Musically the Riyadh Choral Society was a world away from the BBC but I sang my first Carmina Burana there – in a large gymnasium accompanied by two pianos, brass and timpani. I also sang the lead male role (Frederick) in the Pirates of Penzance, a rare step for me into the theatrical limelight.

Choirs on tour

I returned to the UK in 1989 and moved to Muswell Hill in north London. I rejoined the BBC SC for a few years but then they switched rehearsal venue from Broadcasting House in central London out to Maida Vale.  Coupled with an increase in the number of rehearsals I decided this was too much for me and I left.

During the next year or three I did several one-off concerts with different choirs.  Once you were known as a reasonably reliable and competent singer your name got onto choir fixers’ lists and I had the chance to sing in several interesting places. I sang Beethoven 9 in Bremen, in Ghent and at the Edinburgh Festival. After the Edinburgh concert I went along to three different Fringe shows and followed up with a couple of pints in the Festival Club in the early hours. I travelled with the Tallis Chamber Choir to Ireland to sing Patrick Cassidy’s Children of Lir at the Kiltimagh Festival.  Kiltimagh is a (very) small town in County Mayo and this was their first festival.  We all felt like celebrities walking about the place. It was a small place where everyone knew each other so of course they spotted that we must be some of the festival performers and greeted us like we were stars. I sang Mendelssohn’s Elijah in the Leipzig Gewandhaus with the Nederlandse Vereniging (Dutch Handel Society). Mendelssohn had a strong connection with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra so this performance had a special resonance. I had sung with this Dutch choir a few times previously, including a memorable tour with them to Poland in 1985 to sing Handel’s Theodora. I sang in the premiere of John Tavener’s grand work Apocalypse at the Proms, and later in the Megaron concert hall in Athens – that was one of the best overseas singing trips I made. Apocalypse had some wonderful moments but at three hours was a bit too long. Finally, I sang with Pro Musica two years running: Berlioz Requiem in Le Chatelet in Paris, and Beethoven Missa Solemnis in the Barcelona’s Palau de Musica – a truly beautiful concert hall.

A local choir with ambition

The chorus master for Pro Musica was a certain David Temple. One Friday evening a year or so after the Barcelona concert I was in my local pub when a whole lot of people came in at once, including David Temple.  We recognised each other and I learnt that Crouch End Festival Chorus (CEFC) had recently moved their rehearsal venue from Crouch End to a school just round the corner from my flat. I had seen posters for CEFC concerts and they seemed to sing interesting programmes.  Now they had started rehearsing almost on my doorstep it would have been rude not to join up.  I went to a rehearsal and David auditioned me.  I had not prepared anything to sing so he told me to sing Happy Birthday! I passed the audition and became a member of CEFC for the next 28 and a bit years.

For a while I had been a fan of so-called minimalist music but had not sung any of it. My first CEFC concert included Michael Nyman’s Out of the Ruins, a moving and mournful piece written in memory of the victims of the Armenian earthquake. A bit later we sang various pieces by Philip Glass – I especially loved Vessels from his mesmerising film score Koyaanisqatsi. David Bedford’s Twelve Hours of Sunset was also a special piece, finishing in a blaze of glory. Arvo Part’s Credo was a highlight and the choruses from John Adams’ opera Death of Klinghoffer were dramatic and captivating.

Alexandra Palace

Alexandra Palace

The choir also sang in external engagements for concert promoters like Raymond Gubbay and was booked for recording sessions, often of film music. This proved a lucrative activity for the choir and helped it to grow and to perform in more prestigious venues. As CEFC’s reputation grew so the engagements to more interesting. We sang a few times for Ennio Morricone in concerts of his own music that he conducted. More recently we’ve taken part in film screenings with live orchestra and choir.  The Lord of the Rings was a memorable one – not least because we sang it five times in one weekend! We’ve also performed Hans Zimmer’s music a few times, with him and his amazing entourage. The technical side of his  performances is very impressive.

CEFC used to perform mostly in churches, then used the Barbican quite often but it now has a new home in the theatre at Alexandra Palace.  This is ideal as it is local to the area, not too large, and the theatre has an excellent acoustic.

Rock stars

In 2007 CEFC was invited to sing with Ray Davies at the BBC Electric Proms in the Roundhouse, and this started CEFC’s choral rock adventures. The following year we sang again at the Electric Proms, this time with Noel and Liam Gallagher and Oasis. We sang a few more times with Ray and his band, mainly old Kinks songs plus a few newer songs. In June 2010 we went down to Glastonbury and sang with them on the Pyramid stage.  That was galactic. Just a few weeks later we were in the Royal Albert Hall on the first night of the Proms to sing Mahler’s 8th Symphony. That combination of two highly contrasting concerts and venues, just a few weeks apart, is uniquely CEFC and was a high point for me.

We sang several times with Noel and his post-Oasis High Flying Birds group on their UK tours.  For these gigs with amplified rock bands we had to learn a new way to sing. We each had headphones and were individually miked up. The key thing was to produce a good sound, not to try and compete with the band on volume.  For the sound test before every performance we each had to sing a phrase on our own. I recall the terror of singing into the vastness of an empty Manchester Arena and hearing my amplified voice filling the space!

In 2011 we sang with Basement Jaxx and the Metropole Orkest. I’d not encountered this music before but came to love it. The show was very flamboyant – we were all dressed in white shirts and white trousers, with black sunglasses. Some of the soloists had very extravagant and colourful costumes.

The end

Thanks to all the choirmasters I’ve sung for and all the other choir members I’ve sung with. I’ve learnt so much from all of them. I’ve enjoyed all the singing and have many great memories of ravishing music and fun times socialising after the music was over.

Posted in Biographical, Music | Comments Off on A choral coda

What I Read In March

Posted on 1 April 2023 by Henry Gee

Screenshot 2023-04-01 at 11.43.36David Mitchell: The Bone Clocks The only other novel of Mitchell’s I’ve read is Cloud Atlas, and, like that, The Bone Clocks consists of six novellas loosely tied together, though in conventional sequence rather than nested like layers of an onion, as in Cloud Atlas. Without giving too much away, each novella eavesdrops on a decade in the life of Holly Sykes, a seemingly very ordinary English woman, from teenage runaway to dying septuagenarian, though only the first and last parts are from her point of view. The Bone Clocks is a portmanteau of everything – literary satire to contemporary reportage, near-future dystopia to out-and-out fantasy. It’s never less than ambitious – some might say indulgent – but it is held up from collapse by the sheer quality of writing. I can’t remember the last time I read a novel this satisfying since 2014. That was when I first read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus: a very different book in many ways, but parallels The Bone Clocks in its evocation of how the fantastic may lurk even at the edges of everyday lives.

Screenshot 2023-04-01 at 11.46.38Gabriel Bergmoser: The Hunted There’s something about the harsh red centre of Australia that brings out the worst in people, worse even than Crocodile Dundee. So much is clear from this taut, exceptionally violent thriller about what happens when a young woman, caked in mud and blood, rocks up at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. Edge-of-your-seat stuff, this, but not for the squeamish.

 

 

 

 

Screenshot 2023-04-01 at 11.48.41Lewis Dartnell: Being Human A spirited canter through the ways our biology has inescapably affected world history in ways large and small. Learn how cognitive biases led to the disaster of the Charge of the Light Brigade and why we call chilis ‘peppers’; how inbreeding and genetic diseases led to war; how a mosquito was ultimately responsible the union of England and Scotland; and many more nuggets that’ll open your eyes and stretch your mind. DISCLAIMER: I was sent a pre-publication copy for endorsement.

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Diversity and Inclusion in STEM: What Will it Take?

Posted on 30 March 2023 by Athene Donald

Last week the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee produced its report into Diversity and Inclusion in STEM. It states in no uncertain terms that ‘Action must be taken that truly moves the dial’, recognizing that the issue of diversity is a problem of long-standing, yet evidence and recommendations from previous studies and analyses have not transformed the landscape. It has to be hoped that this is the report that finally does shift things, so that STEM is a genuinely inclusive environment whatever one’s gender, skin colour or familial background.

I wrote previously about the evidence Katherine Birbalsingh gave to this committee, in which she claimed girls didn’t like hard maths and that this was the reason so many chose not to study Physics at A Level. Her remarks at the time were not well received (see e.g. this write up) and do not get significant coverage in the final committee report, which states guardedly in the summary that

‘The evidence our inquiry received offered no consensus as to the reasons for this difference—male dominated-environments, and pre-existing societal expectations being suggested causes.’

Nothing about girls not liking hard maths there.

The original call for evidence was broad, but the bulk of the report focusses on school years rather than what happens in universities and thereafter. My own (written) evidence covered both stages in an individual’s life, but only the former was raised at the in-person evidence session I presented at last May.  It is very clear that the Committee perceives significant limitations in the current school system when it comes to encouraging anyone and everyone to see themselves as a potential future scientist. As it puts it

‘In our view, it is important that all children are able to see themselves in what they learn from an early age. A diverse national curriculum—that contains female scientists, for example—is one low-cost way of ensuring this. Similarly, the careers advice and support pupils receive from the earliest years should promote diverse and inclusive role models.’

I would like to think this report will get attention and traction, but it isn’t clear to me that that is usually the fate of such Select Committee reports. However, it is high time the lack of diversity in STEM gets sorted, to resolve all the downstream impacts on innovation for our economy, good decision-making by scientifically-trained policy-makers, not to mention a healthy education system and fairness and opportunity for all.

Not just for the boys

I discuss many of the same issues (albeit with a specific focus on the issues women face rather than the challenges for other minorities) in my upcoming book Not Just for the Boys: Why we need more Women in Science, which is due out from OUP in May (August in the USA). I am certainly hoping this book is read, not just by those who are in the midst of traversing the tricky career ladder of science, but parents, teachers and policy-makers. As Birbalsingh demonstrated in her remarks to the committee, many a (head)teacher seems unaware of the assumptions they make, assumptions that the social science literature simply does not support. The IOP has spent many years trying to make clear just how much the ethos of the school impacts on choices children – boys and girls, around different disciplines – make. But still far too many schools persist in treating boys and girls differently, with the result we see few female engineers and few men entering English degrees.

I believe the problems start right from the time a child is born, with societal expectations imposed on them in the toys they play with (read Let Toys be Toys various studies and blogs to exemplify this), or the clothes they wear. The explicit message that ‘I’m too pretty to do math’, once emblazoned on a T shirt for sale, I think has been eradicated, but implicitly that message remains and is heard by many a girl. Of course not all schools or families pursue such gender stereotyping, but far too many do and, it would seem, including Birbalsingh’s own school (Michaela, in North London).

And, as numerous posts on this blog have pointed out over the past decade and more, the experiences of women as they move up the academic ladder pile on to these early years’ experiences to make many a woman question what they are doing in science, and whether they belong. The boring familiarity of attending a conference or meeting where the men are introduced with their proper academic titles and the women reduced to a plain Mary Smith may be trivial in one sense, but it is demeaning and highlights that women aren’t fully recognized in the groves of academe. It is equally likely to occur when experts are lined up in the media, when somehow the expertise of the woman is frequently downplayed while all the honorifics of the man are enumerated.

The Commons Select Committee report highlights many of these issues at school and in the scientific professions. Diversity requires we, collectively as a society, do better. I hope that the report receives the attention it deserves and stimulates action. As I anxiously wait to get my hands on a hard copy of my own book, and to see how it fares in the public eye, I have to hope my own contribution in this space will also help to ‘move the dial’. Society needs many more people to become aware of the systemic problems still facing women and other minorities in STEM fields. This is not only or necessarily to take blame upon themselves for being misogynist. The situation is more nuanced than that in general, because it is the whole culture we bring our children up in that is at fault, damaging both boys’ and girls’ life chances in working out what they really want to do, and what their talents are best suited for. Only when we resolve these challenges will society derive the maximum benefit from all its members in solving the numerous huge problems that the world faces.

 

Posted in Commons Select Committe, education, exclusione, Katherine Birbalsingh, Science Culture, Systemic Change, Women in science | Comments Off on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM: What Will it Take?

In which I capture the present, but forget why

Posted on 19 March 2023 by Jennifer Rohn

Ancient history (1997): does anyone map plasmids anymore?

I have always been a compulsive chronicler, ever since I was a small child starting off my first journal. I still write an entry nearly every day, taking a few months to fill in all the pages with my increasingly illegible scrawl, then adding the bound notebook carefully to the stack of hundreds of others fading in cupboards in my study – decades of events, sucked irrevocably into the past and largely forgotten.

This habit suited me well over the three decades that I worked at the lab bench, writing down every last experimental detail alongside taped photographs, x-ray films, plasmid maps, nucleotide sequence outputs. I captured not just the process, but analyses, conclusions, next steps – even a few unscientific expressions of joy or misery. These entries contain smudges of chemicals, coffee stains, and even what I suspect were tears. For all I know, some of the pages might even be faintly radioactive.

In more recent years, I have felt a strong compulsion to chronicle my home life beyond just what I write in my journals. It was actually Richard’s idea to start a family almanac when we moved to our ‘forever home’ back in 2015. Near the end of our fifth volume now, we both record weather observations, gardening activities, adventures in home-brewing and produce preservation, and any other domestic event that might be worth remembering: pandemic lowlights, comets and meteor showers, hen memorabilia (acquisition, laying habits and deaths), significant illnesses. After a few years we started to see patterns, certain events happening very close to the same time each year: the flight of ant queens, the first appearance of particular butterflies, the flowering of the first snowdrops, crocuses, ornamental cherries, daffodils, tulips, the onset of powdery mildew infection in our courgette patch.

Around the same time, we started a cookbook too – just an A4 notebook where we scribbled down our favourite food experiments or taped in printouts from online recipes or cuttings from magazines. These two volumes are encrusted in batters, grease, fruit stains and God knows what else. I like to think that a thousand years from now, scientists might be able to bring back some extinct forms of life with it.

In the past year, I’ve developed an urge to re-discover some of the more creative areas of my life that I haven’t fed in many years. I’ve started playing the piano again regularly, which I haven’t done since I all but abandoned the instrument at about Grade 8 proficiency when I went off to university. And following a bout of severe laryngitis that largely obliterated my singing voice in 2018, I recently decided to start taking weekly lessons to see if I could rehabilitate my vocal cords. A few months in and I am not only nearly back to where I used to be, but I am learning techniques that should make me sing even better, with a larger range.

Colored pencil sketches of flowers

Last weekend’s entry (Clockwise from top left: Magnolia, hyacinth, circus, evening primrose, wild garlic)

But the most exciting development has been resuming regular sketching. I’ve always loved to draw, especially botanical subjects, but do it only rarely. Inspired in part by Emma Mitchell’s flower sketches on Twitter, and Katherine May’s excellent book “Wintering”, I decided to start a botanical journal, capturing emerging flowers and plants in our garden every Sunday, not only practicing my technique but also documenting the changing of the seasons. After I spent quite a bit of money on a 72-piece set of Lyra coloured pencils and a hardbound book of fine vellum from Strathmore, I was worried that I might abandon it after the first entry. But the project has taken on a life of its own, and it’s satisfying to watch the pages fill up week after week, blossoming like a garden in springtime.

Last weekend, however, I did have a little wobble, wondering why I am so compelled to get all of this stuff down on paper. In the past, when my life stretched out forever, I assumed that the chronicles would come in handy, a reference to consult whoever I wanted to remember a forgotten aspect of my journey on this planet. But now I’m not so sure. Why go to all the trouble? Who is it for? I can’t imagine anyone being interested, even my own family tree once I am gone; unlike a laboratory notebook, it’s not even useful: nobody will need to see how I did it, or reproduce the result. All these hours, days, years of active chronicling, sometimes at a considerable cost (for it takes time and energy that I sometimes feel I cannot spare): what is the point? The experience of doing it, living through it more intensely by recording it? But no – if it was only for the process, I wouldn’t save anything: I’d discharge my heart and soul onto the pages and then throw them away. It seems the saving is part of it, but I no longer know why.

It’s a sobering feeling: in the past, there was only the evangelical certainty that I must gather and accumulate this diverse evidence. Now the stacks of dusty journals seem to look at me and say, “Well?”

Posted in academia, art, Domestic bliss, Gardening, Music, Nostalgia, The ageing process, work-life balance, Writing | Comments Off on In which I capture the present, but forget why