Observations from a Hill

What did the Romans of the turn of the common era know better than twentieth century structural engineers? Concrete of course. A couple of broadcasts on BBC Radio Four, and a Scientific American article of a couple of years ago prompted me to compare and contrast Roman concrete with the now infamous RAAC [Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete]. The latter of course is now falling apart without notice in 1960s and '70s built structures all over the UK and beyond, just fifty years into their lifespan. By contrast, Roman concrete dating back 2000 years is still standing and faring very well, thank you: think the Pantheon in Rome: still featuring the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Most people would think, 'well concrete is just concrete, right?', and yes the basic principles are the same, but the mix of materials and how they are prepared are various, and variously effective under various conditions, so to speak. Concrete is essentially a mix of aggregate and...

Another month rolls over on the calendar [Rabbits, White Rabbits] as the first of February slots into place, putting Christmas, New Year and the [psychologically] longest month of the year behind us once again. Can't say I'm particularly sorry to see January go: it's always financially punishing, having less income and much higher fuel bills than in the warmer months; but it's survivable with a bit of ducking and diving, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and other such clichéd aphorisms. Suffice it to say, that with luck and a following wind [there I go again], we can look forward to an upturn in fortunes as spring gets closer and the weather hopefully warms. A quick glance at the bookshelf above me yet again makes me think on: The Origin of Capitalism by Ellen Meiksins Wood stands out, and reminds me of a piece in today's Observer newspaper, which essentially argues that governments simply do not understand the hospitality industry, preferring to outsource what should oth...

Sitting here staring at a blank page - as I've mentioned before, trying to dredge up an idea even for the shortest of posts - sometimes seems an intractable, self-imposed and almost certainly unnecessary task: however, I've not broken the one-scribble-a-day-minimum rule in the nearly five years I've been penning this daily missive, no matter the circumstances. Anyhow, 2,244 posts - and days - later, tonight's blank mind was woken up when I glanced at the small bookshelf on my desk here in the study/dining room/office [delete as functionally and descriptively necessary], and noticed my very old and battered copy of Jerome K. Jerome's 'The Idle Thoughts of An Idle Fellow: A book for an Idle Holiday', which vectored my empty mind back to a discussion on BBC Radio Four's 'Saturday Live' this morning, with Dr. Joseph Jebelli. He was expounding on "the power of doing nothing". He argues, and I concur avidly with his thinking - as would the Je...

Casting around for ideas for tonight's scribble I came across a YouTube  on a subject I've never really given much thought to, despite being aware of it: ternary logic, proposed in the early 20th Century by  Jan Łukasiewicz , pictured; the Polish logician and philosopher for whom the term 'Polish Logic Notation' was coined. Ternary logic, as the video explains, is founded on a base three counting system differing from binary logic in that it has a third state, rather than simply ones and zeroes, or logical true or false states. The third state is indeterminate, or 'unknown', and the logical states are given as [-1=>FALSE, 0=>UNKNOWN, 1=>TRUE]: the UNKNOWN being an undefined or NULL condition: a smoking gun, with no hard logical truth or falsity one way or the other. Weirdly, I've just walked into the sitting room and found Jane watching a documentary about the growing unease over the Lucy Letby conviction(s) for child murder, which was at a point w...

Another day, another memorial service. As more time passes, so do more friends, family and acquaintances in their turn. Today we attended the funeral of Jane's friend and ex-work colleague, Bronwen: a rather nice service to send her off, all in all, with remaining close family and friends in attendance. Bron had a good soul: friend and supporter of the underdog at all times, activist and, as her brother said in his oration, always a good socialist and union organiser; in fact, this was the first time I ever heard a brother describe his sister - in chapel at least - as comrade as well as confidante. Much catching up was done in the short after service drink at The Bull, Llangefni, and a few faces not seen for some considerable while were there to be reacquainted with...

We watched the last of the box set of Secret Army last night: the series was first aired in the the late 1970s, from 1977 to 1979, and was repeated on Freeview recently. The very last track on the set comprised a series of interviews with some of the cast filmed in the very early 2000's. The box set itself was published in 2018, some forty years after the original TV transmission, which itself was thirty-nine years after the events portrayed in it: a fictionalised portrayal of the resistance and [particularly] evasion lines in action in Belgium during the Second World War, that was later lampooned in the sitcom '''Allo, Allo'". What made me think on was the interleaving of all the different timelines between the real and the fictional. Dramatising events of the 1940s in the 1970s, and being watched by us in the 2020s, wrapped up in interviews from the turn of the century. The character of Natalie, for instance: nineteen years old at the start of the story in 19...