Science in the UK

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

It’s not often I wake up on a Sunday morning and immediately feel so incensed that I have to write to my MP, but that’s what happened today when an article in the Guardian caught my eye that I could hardly believe.

The government – a government that claims to be in favour of supporting the development of scientific excellence in the UK – plans to close the Forensic Science Service.

This government funded centre has not only helped to bring hundreds of criminal cases over the years to a successful conclusion, but the research they have done has developed new techniques that will continue to improve the criminal justice process for years to come.  It is impossible to say where forensic science in the UK – and beyond – would be if this team had not been set up, but it is certain that there would be many criminal convictions, both past and yet to come, that would be unsuccessful without their knowledge and skills.  Is it really worth it to close them to save the relatively small amount of investment it takes to run this laboratory?  Of course not.

Link to the article in The Guardian

Some time ago a previous government (another Tory one) decided to close and privatise a number of centres of engineering and quality excellence that were around the UK in the name of cost-saving.  These laboratories developed new techniques for standardisation of electrical and mechanical measurement, solved some of the most complex mathematical problems of their time, became the baseline for countries around the world to use for standards reference, and developed new techniques for improving safety in both domestic and industrial equipment.  They developed quality systems that are now used worldwide, and laid the foundations for software development in safety-critical systems such as aeroplanes and medical products.  Did they make a profit?  Of course not, especially if taken in isolation, but their value to UK Ltd. was immeasurable.

That government decided that because on paper these laboratories did not – and could not – show a profit they should be privatised and made to run as part of other businesses.  The sites were closed and the land sold off, and the laboratories that a few years earlier had been the envy of the world became simply small units in the back offices of companies driven by profits and shareholders.  Now, almost twenty years later, almost none of those laboratories still exist.  The skills have migrated out of the UK, the business that once was theirs now goes to France, Russia, or China, and people remember the good old days with a wistful thought and a “whatever happened to…..?”

We still have scientific excellence in this country, and the FSS is an example of this.  Do we really want to see that go the same way as its predecessors?

G

Testing… One… Two…

Posted on February 12, 2012 by

You’ve all heard it.  The sound engineer shuffling on to the stage before the warm-up band and saying “Testing… one… two… one… two…” into the microphone whilst pointedly looking everywhere except at the audience.  Dressed in loose-fitting dark t-shirts and well worn jeans with two screwdrivers stuffed into one pocket and a roll of gaffer tape in the other (note to Americans… there’s no such thing as ‘Duck’ tape outside of the US.  It’s ‘gaffer’ or ‘duct’ tape.  Nothing else), the sound engineer performs the same ritual at stadium concerts and tiny pub quiz events with equal solemnity.  Can none of them count beyond two?  Why does one of them not occasionally break the mould and add on a ‘three’ at the end, just for kicks?

I get asked this question a lot, often by boys aged about ten when I’m setting up the PA for a school play, but occasionally by slightly braver than average adults who see me concentrating hard as I say “Testing… one… two… one… two…” into a mic and they prompt me with “three?” in case I have forgotten what came next.  So to anyone interested in this age-old question, let me tell you now that the answer is a technical one.  Sound engineers in general can count far higher than ‘two’ (many can get well into the double figures), but there is simply no need for them to do so when performing a sound check as those three words ‘Testing’, ‘One’, and ‘Two’ cover all the things you need to know when setting up a PA.

Let me explain.

When setting up a PA (that’s ‘Public Address’ if you don’t know the acronym, shorthand for a bunch of microphones, a mixing desk, an amplifier, and some scary big speakers) you need to know how it sounds in the space you have available.  A small room might resonate at certain frequencies giving a booming muddy sound, and a building with solid flat walls might give nasty echoes.  An open field might sound really dead and a concert hall might have so much echo you can still hear the applause dying away from the last group who played there.  All of these things get in the way of the basic job of a PA and sound engineer, which is simply to make sure everything is heard and heard clearly.

As well as listening to the room you also have to listen to the PA itself.  Is it loud enough?  Is it too loud?  Does it give that familiar rising whistle of feedback that means a microphone is too close to a speaker and that the audience are about to dive for cover?  All of these things can be guessed at or approximated when the PA is being set up, but it is only when you finally turn everything on and push some sound through it that you find out if your guesses were correct.

“Testing… testing… one… two… one… two…”

Yes, but why the same words every time?  Why not recite “Mary had a little lamb,” or even “Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more…”?  Surely that would have the same effect?

Actually, no it wouldn’t.  The key lies in the sounds that make up the words and how a PA system reacts to them.  The words are the acoustic equivalent of the typed phrase “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” that uses every letter on the keyboard; they cover everything the sound engineer needs to know in one easy-to-say phrase.

“One” starts with a nice “wa” sound that contains a lot of mid range and helps to highlight any boomy frequencies that might be there.  ”Two” starts with a hard “T” sound that can often cause popping in badly positioned (or cheap) microphones and can sometimes start a PA system that is close to the edge ringing with feedback.  It also finishes with a nice “ooo” sound that – if you say it right – can pick up on bass-boom, that dreaded rumble that fills a room with mush and drowns out the vocals.  Finally, “Testing” has a good double-s sound in the middle that can emphasise something called sibilance, the over exaggeration of the “s” sound that can make vocals hissy or scratchy.

That is why the sound engineer is concentrating so hard when he says his small piece to camera.  He’s not trying to remember what comes next, he’s trying to hear what the PA sounds like at a range of different frequencies and under various conditions.

AB – Abnocto Bibere

Posted on February 2, 2012 by

Abnocto Bibere… To stay out all night and drink.  Blood.

An ordinary life in an ordinary town is all that Samantha ever wanted, but when her neighbour tries to kill her and she is rescued by a woman who claims to be a vampire she starts to see that there is more going on around her than she had ever thought possible. With a killer hunting her down and unable to trust anyone but her closest friends, Samantha is forced to face the possibility that she lives in a world where vampires are real, and where one might already have changed her life forever.

Those of you that have been following what I do under the banner of The Lacuna Works will know that AB started life as a script for a film that I hoped to get made some time ago.  We had a good line on the funding and we even went as far as sorting out a cast and some of the locations, but then – as is so often the way – the funding disappeared and we were left high and dry.  Actually it was a bit more complicated than that, but  I’m not going to write about that here.  Email me if you want more info.

Anyway, with the film on hold whilst new funding was sought the story behind AB was one I really liked and so I decided to turn it into a novel.  I did some planning, drew up some notes, then last November I got started on the actual writing.  I finished it over Christmas then spent January editing it and tweaking it, until by the time it was finished I had a novel in front of me that I was pretty happy with.

AB is a vampire story, but a vampire story with a difference.  The vampires in AB do not sparkle, they are not demonic or supernatural, and they are not after your brains (ok, that last one might be zombies).  The AB vampires are powerful, sexy,  intelligent, quick, and… living right amongst us.  The house down the road that never seems to be occupied but where the garden is kept tidy?  The lock-up at the end of the road with the carefully maintained bolts and hinges that you never see open?  The shop on the high street that keeps hours so strange they cannot possibly ever see any customers?  All towns have their secrets, but some secrets are more secret than others.

Buy AB for the Kindle only £1.96

AB- Abnocto Bibere is available on Kindle now, but you do not need a Kindle to read Kindle books.  Pretty much any smartphone or tablet can get the free Kindle app and if you do that you can be reading AB in just a few minutes.

I hope you enjoy it.

G