Dreaming of Freedom » Education

A dreamy mild November

Suzi — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 19:58:57 +0000

It’s been a remarkably mild November. The fireworks on Midsummer Common on the 5th were of course lovely. Kate and I avoided the crowds quite successfully and still got a super view. We even managed to get a drink, though not a seat, afterwards in the Free Press.

We had the second ever meeting of the Bookends at the Elm Tree on the 14th where we talked long and hard about Island by Aldous Huxley.

The Christmas lights were switched on on the 20th which did seem a little early but as Michaelmas Term finishes on the 2nd of December I guess it wasn’t. They were accompanied by all sorts of singing and dancing which included Mam’s little girl and a small boy who was very good on the sax. The music drifted all over the marketplace. Lion’s Yard was full of tap dancing, choirs and proud parents holding up phones trying to store the memories. Andy and I escaped the excitement to sit on a tree trunk near the Mill Pond with a couple of coffees and some great conversation.

On the 26th Tim graduated. There was much wearing of gowns, lunch at Churchill and leaning over the balcony in the Senate House and then after all that Tim was no longer just Tim but Doctor Tim. Many congratulations and celebrations! Jon spent the whole day taking photos and Mum was so proud she couldn’t speak. As it was graduation day we all got to walk around on the Senate House lawn which we made the most of as I guess it will be the only time I will be allowed. Such fun!

All in all November has whished by smoothly in a blaze of easy weather and fun. I’ve even managed to get a lot of work done and a couple of poems written!

A trip to Lord’s Bridge

Suzi — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 21:19:40 +0000

Today being a Sunday and there not being a whole lot of stuff to do, Tim took us to Lord’s Bridge to show us round the telescopes there. He took advantage of it being a friends and family day so we got a guided tour of the site by Rosie, Bodie and for some of it Tim himself. It was my first time there and I drank in the sight of the huge white telescope that greeted us as we entered. Lord’s Bridge takes it’s name from the old abandoned railway station that once linked Oxford and Cambridge. It’s a wind swept flat ex-MOD site that is now home to a mixture of decommissioned and functioning telescopes.
When you enter the site there is a new looking recently repainted telescope that is owned by Manchester University. It links up to the telescopes at Jodrell Bank. You then follow the road round to find some defunct telescopes amongst which is the the 4-acre Array where the first pulsar was discovered. It just looks like a bunch of posts in a field. Originally wires were strung between them and this set-up acted like a giant dish to collect data. The now overgrown grass once had sheep grazing underneath to keep it short and out of the way of science. The area is now weed covered and under the 4C Radio Telescope wild orchids and strawberries grow amid the grasses and crow picked rabbit skulls.
Bodie showed us the only optical interferometer telescope on site, the rest being radio interferometer telescopes. Mirrors, tubes and a bunker were all carefully explained. The telescope is actually a prototype for the telescope at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico.
We ended the tour with a look at the AMI small and large Array that Tim works on. These white telescopes hummed and moved in their mechanical search of the sky and our cameras clicked, while with satisfaction we all nodded to each other that this was what we’d come to see, these were telescopes we’d imagined.

A lecture on the daric and walk in the Botanicals

Suzi — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:45:42 +0000

This cold weather has preserved little patches of crisp white snow everywhere, so cycling around outside feels very scenic. Today was a day of crisp fresh air and frozen water. I cycled to the Fitz to attend a talk by Dr Adrian Popescu from the Department of Coins & Medals on the ancient coinage of Persia. It was fascinating of course. He talked about how the Persians took over the production of coins from the Lydians when they expanded their empire. The Persian coins know as the daric, were made in both gold and silver and depicted a running archer presumed to be a king because of the crown he wears. When talking about the Persian propensity to bride rather than fight their enemies, Dr Popescu made a lovely reference to Greeks admitting to falling to the Persian Archers. After the talk he let us handle both gold and silver darics – they were surprisingly tiny and a satisfying oval shape that made you want to pick them up and turn they over in your hand. It would be absolutely fascinating to do some research on shapes and how we respond to them.
Afterwards I went to the Botanical Gardens and walked along the crunchy gravel paths admiring the reds and oranges that still linger in the barks and leaves. The pond was frozen and had little moorhen shaped footprints all over it. The Garden is free to get into during the winter – as long as you go during the week.

Time at the Fitz: Dr Winifred Lamb and the Shahnameh

Suzi — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:26:05 +0000

Darkness creeps in at four o’clock everyday and I really wouldn’t mind hibernating around about now. Yoga was tough on Monday evening – fun at the time but afterwards the aches kick in! We had a new teacher – Paula – who had a very fluid style and we moved from position to position as if we were dancing. Yesterday I met up with Nic in our old haunt – The Fort St George – it’s always so quiet and peaceful there mid week.

Today I went to a very interesting talk about Dr Winifred Lamb the Honorary Keeper of Antiquities at the Fitz between 1920 and 1958. Educated at Cambridge, she went to work for the Admiralty during WW1 in Room 40. A well off only child she developed an in interest in collecting ancient vases and this passion led to her being offered the position of Honorary Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the Fitz. Simultaneously she spent time out in Greece on archaeological digs and became a pioneering force; leading her own digs and searching for sites to excavate in rural Turkey. The first dig she ran herself was on Lesbos and she was later awarded a PhD for her work there.
The speaker Dr Kate Cooper was very engaging and the 45 minutes passed by in a flash.

In the 30 minutes between collecting the token for the talk and the start I occupied myself by going to the exhibition ‘Epic of the Persian Kings: The Art of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh’. It’s the sort that needs a great deal of time and a systematic approach. It would also help to have a brief history of the Shahnameh a poetical epic about the myths, legends and history of Persia before the Islamic conquest. The old manuscripts and books on display have the most beautiful pictures and calligraphy and there is a hushed dimness in the room that makes you feel you’ve stepped back in time.

Lunctime talks at the Fitz

Suzi — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:44:17 +0000

I have had a super week cycling to the FitzWilliam for their lunchtime talks. On Tuesday I went to panel discussion in gallery 3 at the FitzWilliam which focused on sculpture and commerce. Chaired by Tom Flynn the panellists Nick Turvey, Timothy Potts, Adriana Turpin and Josh Lilley were all discussing if art had sold out to capitalism. The general consensus was that art has always sold out and that it has an audience and therefore a market. A fair point I thought

Yesterday Yuko and I went to a talk by a very entertaining speaker on Galileo and his eyesight problems. Some of the slides were somewhat gruesome but it was extremely interesting and I will never look at a portrait of Galileo in the same way again.

Today I went to a beautiful talk by Jila Peacock. She has been translating the poems of of the 14th century metaphysical Poet Hafez of Shiraz and has created a beautiful book where she has written the poems in the shape of the animal they talk about. She talked about the poetry and the context it was written in and then showed us a clip of the animated film that has been made using her images and the poetry called Tongue of the Hidden. You can see a clip here. It was a thing of beauty indeed. I unexpectedly met up with Nick at the talk and we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting until it was quite dark outside. We then, rather impressively, went to uni yoga together. You can listen to Nick on his radio station on Tuesdays 7-9pm on Cambridge 105.

Tomorrow I’m going to shake things up a bit by going to the lunchtime concert at Kettles Yard. I know! It doesn’t get much better than this!

Discovering John Clare at the Festival of Ideas 2010

Suzi — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 10:11:52 +0000

The Festival of Ideas started on Wednesday and I started off well by going to a lecture on poetry that very evening. It’s always so much easier to understand a poem when someone else has done all the research for you. My favourite poem was Clock-O’-Clay by John Clare and I now have the music of ‘Here I lie, a clock-o’-clay/Waiting for the time o’ day’ floating around in my head. The poem has these lovely Northamptonshire dialect words like Clock-O’-Clay (ladybird) and peeps (the bell of a flower) and is on the surface a gentle poem with a beautiful music of it’s own but look a little deeper and you see the dangerous world of the ladybird which Clare makes us aware of with his use of eyes. The poem is full of references of hiding from sight while eyes are all around – the dew is like fishes eyes and fly buzzing around while harmless for us seems more dangerous for a little creature hidden in a flower bell. The first stanza really brings this home for us because it is full of the i /aɪ/ sound – lie, fly, lies, eyes. The other stanzas carry the sound through for us – surprise, sighs, night and sight. The poem uses echoes from The Tempest such as Ariel’s speech ‘Of his bones are coral made;/Those are pearls that were his eyes’ demonstrating Clare’s somewhat surprising education because Clare was the son of a farm labourer and he lived and worked in rural areas his whole life. His poems reflect his love of the countryside and laments for its loss. It is now accepted that he is one of the great c19th poets.

So heartened by the fantastic experience on Wednesday I returned yesterday for more poetry reading fun with Grahame, after Yuko and I had been to see the John Cage exhibition at Kettle’s Yard and eaten a hearty lunch of Dauphinoise at the Punter. Cage’s modern abstract art reflects his interest in chance and it was produced using chance-determined arrangements. The work is to be hung like a score and there will be three movements throught the course of the exhibtion so don’t be surprised if you go back and all the painting have been rearranged.

After the poetry Gahame and I walked back to meet Nicole in the Punter and ended up sitting at the wooden bar next to the sunflowers playing chess. In a truly egalitarian spirit we took it in turns to win.

Sunday

Suzi — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:29:56 +0000

I’m sipping tea in the Arts Picture House and enjoying their very free internet. Nothing like cafe living! It’s a very calm place and I’m sitting at the back surveying the people and wondering if I can write something fantastic for the next Free Inkers meeting next week. The cafe is like a huge film lovers sponge. It absorbs people about 30 minutes before a film and then they are squeezed out into the dark screen filled rooms and the places is empty tabled and silent chaired for an hour or two. It’s the sort of place you meet people you know which gives it a lovely homely feel.

I met up with the Humanists at CB2 again for the Cappuccino Club which is now such a success. I found them inside among the bookshelves and had to face up to the official end of summer. I guess the leaves will be falling soon. I should get out and about with that camera of mine. I’m already making plans for the long winter. Having discovered that Tesco Clubcard vouchers can be used for Open University Level One courses I’m planning to sign up quick sticks. Just need to decide what to learn. If you’re bored I really recommend studying with the OU. Their course material is of a high quality and it’s much easier than you’d think to study on your own.

To ignore the November blues I’ve just signed up to do the National Novel Writing Month and so now I can’t wait for winter!

Make the world a better place

Suzi — Thu, 06 May 2010 09:51:24 +0000

After an afternoon spent exploring Grenoble I came across the Bibliothèque d’étude et d’information. The sixth floor of the building is a wonderful library complete with solid wooden tables and those tiny library card drawers which makes you feel you’ve stepped back in time 50 years. To bring you back into the present the place was full of people working on laptop computers.
I found a little boulangerie to buy some bread from and was cycling home when I found the Natural History Museum and I knew the Museum of Resistance and Deportation couldn’t be far away. I found it on a little side street in front of a school.
The museum was well designed and of course extremely interesting and it even has information in English and German as well as French which made it easier to understand. It’s a powerful tool of well I suppose propaganda is the right word although it has a pejorative sense which I don’t mean. What I mean to say is that the emotioanl resposone they managed to engenger was effective and the message they got across was painful but also inspirational. You come out feeling like you must do something to make the world a better place and wondering how far you would go to fight for something if your back was against the wall. By the time I got to the top floor I wasn’t feeling too good and the displays about the concentration camps and the sight of a television showing pictures of members of the resistance shot by the Nazis and lying with blood oozing from their heads was too much for me and I had to stagger out feeling sick and lean up against my bike outside. In that respect the museum was remarkably effective but the knowledge that there is so much suffering still in the world makes it too much to bear. I was reminded of an anarchist group I met in a city in Germany – every year they have their annual meeting on the site of a concentration camp to remind themselves what they are fighting against.
Let’s hope that today the British elect a sensible government who will work towards making the world a better place, limit the unnecessary suffering and stop the wars, torture, abuse and exploitation that goes on in our name. If you are still undecided on who to vote for then check out Vote for Policies to find out what you agree with and They Work For You to find out how elected MPs have voted in the past.

Please don’t lable me

Suzi — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:28:34 +0000

It was extremely interesting hearing Ariane Sherine – talk about the Atheist Bus Campaign that she created last year. It’s always inspiring to hear about people who make a bit of a splash. The campaign was really encouraging for a lot of atheists out there and it’s great to see that they launched a bill board advertising campaign on Wednesday – targeting the concept of labeling children as religious or non-religious. See the image here. In a similar vein there is also an effort to campaign against faith schools that the BHS is running.
Find out a bit more about the funding of faith schools on the ATL site or on wikipedia. There is also an interesting dossier on Faith Schools
complied by the Accord Coalition.

Celebration of ideas in Cambridge

Suzi — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:28:01 +0000

Cambridge is beautiful in the autumn and it seems to be speeding by in a whirl of work and cycling. We’ve had a stream of visitors to Cambridge and have been on adventures around the city and up to the observatory to see the old telescopes and listen to talk about dust in the universe. There are free talks open to the public every Wednesday at The Institute of Astronomy at 7pm.

The Festival of Ideas started last Wednesday. I have been to two excellent sessions on how to read poetry as well as French film – the title of which has been translated into Couscous.