Conflicting wether forecasts. Library irony. A bit of a tirade against AI.

An old gent I speak to from time to time in the village told me today that snow is forecast for the weekend. My weather app says no such thing. We shall see. Today is supposed to give us “drizzle and a gentle breeze”, neither of which I experienced when I ran round the village earlier. It was quite bright but the wind was bitter, not at all gentle: “A lazy wind that goes through you not round you,” my old gent said. 

As I have already related, I tried to return my library book on Saturday, unsuccessfully. By a supreme irony, yesterday I had an email telling me that my library books are overdue. I expect that this was an automatically generated message. I doubt that AI can be expected to know that I did attempt to return the books … at least up to now. It’s a good job they no longer fine us for returning book late to the library. If they did then in the current age of increasing development and use of AI they might automatically extract the fine from your bank account! Beware of an AI take-over!

A group of writers, including Kazuo Ishiguro, Mick Herron and thousands of others, have published a book called Do Not Steal This Book, in protest against AI firms using their work without their permission. The book has no content other than a list of their names. Academics are concerned that students are too dependent on AI and that critical thinking is disappearing. “Lea Pao, a professor of literature at Stanford University, has been experimenting with ways to get her students to learn offline. She has them memorize poems, perform at recitation events, look at art in the real world.

It’s an effort to reconnect them to the bodily experience of learning, she said, and to keep them from turning to artificial intelligence to do the work for them. “There’s no AI-proof anything,” Pao said. “Rather than policing it, I hope that their overall experiences in this class will show them that there’s a way out.”

It doesn’t always work. Recently, she asked students to visit a local museum, look at a painting for 10 minutes, and write a few paragraphs describing the experience. It was a purposefully personal assignment, yet one student responded with a sophisticated but drab reflection – “too perfect, without saying anything”, Pao said. She later learned the student had tried to visit the museum on a Monday, when it was closed, and then turned to AI.

As artificial intelligence has upended the way in which students read, learn and write, professors like Pao have been left to their own devices to figure out how to teach in a transformed landscape.”

Even the Pope has reportedly has taken steps to ensure that Roman Catholic priests don’t deliver sermons written by AI. 

“Artificial intelligence, the new pontiff said in a recent meeting with clergy, “will never be able to share faith”, which is what giving a homily is all about. Resist the temptation and write your own words, he urged.”

Just another aspect of our strange modern world.

In a throwback to a time when people didn’t get their news via electronic media, indeed to an age when many people could not even read, here is an article about a “cantastorie”, a news-singer, Franco Trincale, the last “cantastorie” alive in Italy.

“Famous for combining true crime and political scandals into songs – and antagonising Silvio Berlusconi – Franco Trincale keeps the tradition alive in his nursing home.” He moved into the nursing home to support his wife who suffers from dementia and sings to her there but also gives concerts outside the home. 

Meanwhile, out in the wider world, the madness continues. Trump is trying to convince us that the bombing of the girls’ primary school in Tehran was in fact the work of the Iranians!?! Hesgeth promises that today will be the ‘most intense day of strikes’ in war against Iran. There is evidence of a longterm strategy of starvation in Sudan. And Israeli settlers continue to grab land in the West Bank. So it goes.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

When you have more than the weather to worry about. War attacking the environment.

 Someone I’ve never heard of posted the following on Facebook: 

“Regret to announce that we’ve reached Wrong Coat season. Every coat you wear from now til mid April will be the Wrong Coat for the weather.”

Quite so. It’s that time of year when you can have all seasons in one day.It’s not just down to global warming either. I remember going out in a light jacket, bare legs and sandals in early one day in the mid to late 1960s. By the end of the day it was snowing. Mind you, this was in Leeds, a bit further north and in Yorkshire where the weather is notoriously fickle - think Withering Heights and the cold wind over the Yorkshire moors.

But we only have fickle weather to contend with.

In Tehran they have bombed the oil depots. One report I saw read as follows:

“It is RAINING OIL in Tehran. 9 million people are living under a sky black with toxic smoke after US/Israeli strikes bombed fuel depots across the capital. Oil flooding the streets. People breathing this. Trump has blood on his hands, human and ecological. This is an environmental catastrophe.”

An activist and former political prisoner based in the central-east side of the city, told the Guardian that the situation was “apocalyptic”. “The situation is so frightening it’s hard to describe.” she said.”Smoke has covered the entire city. I have severe shortness of breath and burning in my eyes and throat, and many others feel the same. But people still have to go outside because they have no choice. Many places reopened today, but closed again because it’s impossible to stay outdoors.”

She went on, “This is no longer just a human rights violation. It is truly anti-human behaviour. If someone has a problem with the Islamic Republic government, that is one thing – but not with us, the people. You cannot attack water systems or refineries. Most of Tehran’s water comes from dams. If those become polluted, what happens then?”

It goes on and on. A steady destruction of people and places and eventually the world. War is more than ever an environmental hazard. 

That’s enough for today. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.

Celebrating women who got, and still get, things done - International Women’s Day.

Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day. I have to confess to knowing little about International Women’s Day, indeed to being quite unaware if its existence until I came across a small demonstration, a march of women, in the centre of Vigo in 2009, when we were living in that city. Maybe the various groups I was involved with in my working days had too many other things going on, too many other causes to work on, and International Women’s Day just went unnoticed.

Anyway, its origins can be dated back to the universal female suffrage movement and workers’ organisations in Europe and North America during the early 20th century. 

On the 28th of February 1909 a “Women’s Day” was organised in New York City by the Socialist Party of America. (I wonder how that would go down in modern USA.) There have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on 8 March 1857, but researchers have said that this was a myth. In solidarity with the 1909 “Women’s Day” in New York, Clara Zeltkin, communist activist and politician, proposed the celebration of a “Working Women’s Day at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen. It was approved but with no set date.

Here are Clara Zeltkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in January 1910.

On the 8th of March 1917 women textile workers in Saint Petersburg, then known as Petrograd, staged a demonstration demanding “Bread and Peace”, an end to World War I, an end to food shortages, and an end to Tsarism. Their movement spread and thus women had an important role in starting the Russian Revolution.  In 1922 Lenin declared 8 March as International Women's Day in 1922 to honour the women's role in the Russian Revolution. After that it was celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. And then in 1977 International Women’s Day was promoted by the United Nations. And here we are in the 21st century, remembering and, we hope, celebrating women and women’s rights but still fighting full equality and freedom from aggression and oppression of one kind and another. 

There’s been quite a lot of stuff on social media celebrating the women of Greenham Common - women opposing nuclear weapons and war. The men in charge of things seem to have lost touch with that opposition to war but even claim to be fighting “with God on their side”. 

Good grief!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Pegging out the washing. Various forms of madness in the crazy world!

Today, for the first time this year, I hung washing out to dry in the garden. I forced myself out of bed relatively early and put a load in the washing machine before going out for a run. This I pegged out, using correct North of England terminology, on my return and put a second load in. By late morning it was all on the washing line, moving feebly to the gentle breeze (weather forecast terminology). It wasn’t really an ideal drying day but pegging your washing out gives you the feeling that Spring has perhaps begun, despite the air being rather chill. So it’s not really very dry … but I tried! 

Having organised all that, after a late breakfast I set off for the library, planning to drop my books off, maybe choose something new, and then proceed to Tesco. I arrived at the library to find it closed! It closes at midday on a Saturday I think but I hadn’t put two and two together. Surely it would make sense for the library, and other such facilities, to stay open on a day when more people can make use of them and parents can take their children to choose books! The world is crazy.

I read that the Ministry of Defence has said that the UK is preparing an aircraft carrier, the HMS prince of Wales, the navy’s flagship no less, for a possible deployment in the Middle East. Hmmm! That sounds serious!

Crews have been alerted of a potential deployment to the Middle East, according to Sky News, who also reported that the vessel’s notice to move has been shortened from 10 days to five. The warship would need to be escorted by other vessels and a submarine. So it goes. The madness continues.

Here’s a cartoon for people who believe in miracles:

The actress Jessie Buckley is a favourite for an Oscar for her performance in Hamnet. Now it seems she is getting bad press, bad social media posts, because she said in a podcast that she didn’t want her husband’s cats in the bedroom because they would defecate on pillows. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. When I visit my son I insist that his cats are not allowed my bedroom during the night. But I’m not a famous person being criticised for my apparent antipathy to felines - she says she quite likes cats in fact, just not on her pillows. But cat lovers are saying that cat karma might lose her the Oscar. Another form of madness! 

And finally, here’s another one. Here’s a link to an article about the Telegraph having published an article about a family’s struggle to pay their children’s school fees and still go on about five expensive holidays a year, despite a joint income of £345k. The trouble is it’s all invented. The family doesn’t exist! Oops!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Fickle weather. A satirical cartoon. Being obsessed with grammar. Do(ugh)nuts. Bakery tourism.

The weather has been lulling us into a false sense of security over the last few days, persuading us that Spring had arrived, even drying up some of the huge mud puddles on the footpaths where I run. So in the small hours of this morning the rain returned with a vengeance. By the time I went out and about it had reduced to the imminent possibility of drizzle but the damage had been done. The puddles were back with a vengeance and the footpaths through the woods were slippery with mud. What’s more, the temperature had dropped from a balmy 9°-12° to a more wintry 3°. Weather is a fickle friend!

I wrote the other day about US military commanders encouraging their troops to enter the fray because it was God’s will, and the End of Days was at hand. Here is Ben Jennings’ cartoon take on the matter.

Now, Phil and I are rather fanatical grammar correctors. We have been known to correct the grammar of news reporters, calling out in unison the grammatically correct version of what the television reporter had just said - I and me confusion is a particular bugbear. Here’s a grammar fanatic cartoon which made me smile.

Mind you, our insistence on correct grammar doesn’t mean that we believe our daughter should teach the subjunctive mood to Year Six pupils in her school. If I were writing the curriculum I’d miss that out as English is not a Latin language. (See what I did there?) Neither do I think this statement, which a friend of mine says us from the Home Office, is strictly necessary:

“From next year, migrants wishing to stay in the UK permanently will need to speak, listen, read and write in English to an A-level equivalent standard.

It is right that those who wish to build a life here work hard, contribute and are able to play a full part in British life.”

A lot of native Anglo-Saxons don’t “speak, listen, read and write in English to an A-level equivalent standard”. Have the people who write these things ever listened to people on buses or read comments on social media?

That’s enough of that.

Granddaughter Number Two was very excited when they opened a branch of Tim Hortons in the centre of Manchester.

For those who, like me, had never heard of Tim Horton’s, here’s a bit of information : “Tim Hortons Inc., known colloquially as Tim's, Timmies or Timmy's, is a Canadian multinational coffeehouse and restaurant chain with headquarters in Toronto; it serves coffee, donuts, sandwiches, breakfast egg muffins and other fast-food items. It is Canada's largest quick-service restaurant chain, with 6,043 restaurants in 14 countries.

Granddaughter Number Two, as well as her siblings and her mother for that matter, were delighted to be able to buy a range of different sorts of donuts: a rather overrated dessert product in my opinion. Chacun à son gout!

Time was donuts were called doughnuts and came in one form: vaguely round, filled with (usually) raspberry jam and coated with sugar. And they had to be eaten as freshly made as possible. For a while when I was in sixth form, freshly made doughnuts were available to buy at morning break. That’s the only time I have regularly eaten doughnuts. 

My daughter and her offspring are not the only ones a little obsessed (not seriously obsessed in their case, I hasten to add) with sugary offerings. According to this article there is a positive boom in luxury bakeries, producing pastries at crazy prices. For example, “At Copains, a Parisian favourite that opened its first UK branch in central London late last year, a large babka (about the same size as a supermarket chocolate twist) will set you back £12.50, while an eclair costs £11.90. In Harrods’ food hall, a stuffed, savoury croissant topped with gold leaf is £12. At Cedric Grolet, located inside the luxury Berkeley hotel, a hazelnut cookie will leave you £25 out of pocket. Yes, the age of the £10-plus pastry has arrived.”

And to think that my Italian friend protests about the price of coffee in the UK.

But according to this article “bakery tourism” is a big thing, with “bakery pilgrims” travelling across the country, or indeed across the world, to visit bakeries they have heard about through social media.

This is a strange form of madness. I say this as the person who makes birthday cakes whenever there is a family birthday and who looks out for recipes for new and exotic desserts! Hey! Ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

World Book Day. UK’s National Year of Reading.

Today is World Book Day, aka The Day When School Teachers Go to Work in Fancy Dress! We had a text message yesterday from our daughter asking if her father had a waistcoat and possibly a hat she could borrow. It transpired that she was putting together a Fagin outfit. Her primary school class have been working on Oliver Twist and it seemed appropriate that she, as their teacher, should go to work dressed as Fagin. We didn’t have a waistcoat to offer but I did find a suitable hat and a muffler, oh, and an old pair of woolly gloves whose finger-ends she could cut off, creating suitable fingerless gloves. A Fagin costume was coming into being!

Her own children’s school does not allow the children to dress up as characters from their favourite story book, which may be quite a relief to some parents, feeling harassed about finding a suitable costume. Instead the children are asked to bring a dressing gown and slippers, which they will don at some point in the day to read stories. It’s all to do with feeling comfortable, snuggled in your dressing gown and slippers with a good book. Personally I don’t need to be wrapped up cosily to enjoy reading; I can feel quite comfortable reading my book anywhere and dressed any old way. If I were still commuting to work Unwound be like those people you see standing in the tube train, balancing a book in one hand while trying to stay upright. 

The idea of any kind of book day began in 1922 when a certain Vicente Clavel, director of the Cervantes publishing house in Barcelona wanted to honour Miguel de Cervantes, writer of Don Quijote, and incidentally to boost sales of books. He chose October 7th, the writer’s birthday, in 1926 to launch his project. Now, April 23rd just happens to be the Saint George’s Day and Saint George (Sant Jordi) is the patron saint of Catalonia. Nice coincidence! So on April 2rd the Catalans traditionally give each other a book and a red rose.

Here we have World Book Day today, coinciding with the publication of special editions of selected books for children, aimed at encouraging a love of reading. There is another annual celebration on 23 April: World Book Night, an event organized by independent charity The Reading Agency. Presumably that’s for the grownups.

This year is also the UK’s National Year of Reading, aimed at encouraging all of us, not just children, to read for pleasure. It has been recognised that in general we don’t read enough. Reading for pleasure is a disappearing activity, its demise usually blamed on the smartphone. Research has shown that even the presence of a phone in the room reduces people’s ability to concentrate and to lose themselves in a book! Oddly though, smartphones have grown bigger, after decades of mobile phones growing smaller and smaller, and they have grown bigger because people use them to watch films and YouTube videos, and occasionally as a kindle! Such is modern life! So they want us to read more. 

And maybe we need to escape more into a good book, given the continuing parlous state of the world. War continues. There are debates about the likelihood of “accidental” bombings of schools given the accuracy of modern drone warfare. And people trying to flee the Middle East are having some difficulty doing so with rescue flights cancelled. All in all, a mess!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Getting up in the morning. The ongoing madness of the world. Whuppity Scoorie.

 Unlike other mornings, on Wednesdays I can get out of bed having snoozed the alarm only once. In that way I can organise myself to leave the house in time to walk a good way down the road, catch a bus at some point on the way to Uppermill, buy fresh fish at the diminishing market, fruit from the Italian greengrocery and maybe the odd item from the co-op, and be on the bus for home with my purchases just after 9.30. It’s good to know I am not a total slugabed! This was a good morning for a brisk walk first thing: blue sky and sunshine make everything more cheerful.

Amidst the ongoing madness of the world Donald Trump has declared he will have no more trade dealings with Spain as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez won’t let him use Spanish airbases to facilitate attacks on Iran. Good for Señor Sánchez! Our own prime minister is still doing a bit of fence-sitting. Despite he fierce Kemi Badenoch urging him to let the RAF attack Iran, he won’t agree to that. “What I was not prepared to do on Saturday was for the UK to join a war unless I was satisfied there was a lawful basis and a viable, thought through plan,” he says. “That remains my position.” However, he also says the government is taking action by sending reinforcements to Cyprus and allowing the US to use British airfields. Ben Jennings’ cartoon suggests that Mr Trump is not entirely satisfied.

Another bit of madness is the fact that US military commanders are reported to be encouraging their troops to take action against Iran with enthusiasm because it’s ‘all part of God’s divine plan’. One noncommissioned officer, complaining to the watchdog group the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, reported that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”. “He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’”, the NCO added.

Bring on Armageddon! Good grief!

In a lighter vein, I read about an alternative to Carnival in Lanark Cross in Scotland. 0n Ash Wednesday when the church bell rings 6.00pm a crowd of children, and more than a few adults, run three times clockwise round the church, swinging homemade balls of paper on string above their heads as they run. A bit of craft work there, making the paper balls - all good - and some healthy but seemingly harmless outdoor activity. Having fun without the need to hire expensive carnival outfits. Hurrah! It’s called Whuppity Scoorie, a traditional festivity dating from the early 19th century to celebrate the start of spring. It is no longer a competitive race, a change made to allow younger children to join in the fun safely.

0n Ash Wednesday when the church bell rings 6.00pm a crowd of children, and more than a few adults, run three times clockwise round the church, swinging homemade balls of paper on string above their heads as they run. A bit of craft work there, making the paper balls - all good - and some healthy but seemingly harmless outdoor activity. Having fun without the need to hire expensive carnival outfits. Hurrah! 

It’s called Whuppity Scoorie, a traditional festivity dating from the early 19th century to celebrate the start of spring. It is no longer a competitive race, a change made to allow younger children to join in the fun safely.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!