hello baldy

Lost a lot of hair over the last two days. Was hoping to look like Captain Picard but think I look more like one of Catherine Tate’s characters. But am I bovvered? No, of course not. Some of my best friends have receding hairlines and I can see some real benefits:

Think of the money I will save at my stylist down in Ludlow. A pity though because he is a man who knows everything about everything in the world – he could be called Orac if that title had not been seized by my old friend Brian years ago.
I now have a chance to make good use of the balaclava I was given for Christmas many years ago.
I will soon be able to check out the fuzzy ball theorem beloved of topologists.
I will look like a real physicist at last.


That has reminded me about Physics and some jolly interesting tales. There can be few things as boring as school Physics experiments and I remember one day doing ‘Searle’s disc’. This involves a metal disc about 15 cm diameter and 2 cm thick. It has three holes around the edge for thermometers. You suspend it from a clamp by three strings, you then heat the disc and allow it to cool. You read the thermometers every minute through the afternoon – what fun! You also get to draw some graphs! Anyway I was a bit careless with the Bunsen burner and managed to burn through one of the strings. The disc crashed to the bench smashing all three thermometers. The teacher (known to all as Boge) became apoplectic. It was a treasured experiment, generations of boys had done the experiment properly so why was I such an idiot? Fortunately some friends were doing a similar experiment with a thick iron bar being heated at one end – temperature every minute etc. They somehow managed to knock it over, it crashed to the floor, a lot more thermometers broken, they also managed to set the bench on fire. Boge’s wrath was a sight to see. It seems we were the worst class he had ever taught, we were a disgrace etc. etc.

Another Physics story. In the Lower sixth we were taught by text book Ted. I have heard other Physics teachers called this in schools, it must be a feature of Physics teachers. We all had a text book but Ted insisted on copying the book onto the chalk board and we then had to copy from the chalkboard into our exercise books. We did this for a whole year.What was the point?

One day Ted was late for the afternoon lesson. When he arrived he apologised and said all the staff had been watching the news and the Israelis had just reached the Suez canal. We all cheered! How sad that seems now. What sort of education were we getting that we had such a simplistic view of such a terrible event?

This reminds me of Bill Yates. Bill was the Tory MP for the Wrekin and he lived next door to my Aunt’s mother – what circles we moved in. I think there must have been a general election in 1966 or 1967. A group of us went to listen to a speech by George Brown in Wellington town hall. I remember we were very impressed by the way he dealt with hecklers – and there were a lot. Not many labour supporters in Wellington in those days.
Bill Yates’ claim to fame was that he went through a whole parliament and only spoke once – that was to complain that the House of Commons shop no longer stocked jam donuts. Then suddenly this man who must have been one of the most innocuous MPs ever elected had a crisis of conscience. He made an impassioned speech on behalf of the Palestinians, he dared to question the actions of Israel. This was too much for conservative Wellington. He got slung out and never stood as an MP again. I believe he emigrated to Australia.