diamond geezer

 Sunday, May 07, 2017

Notes from Boring 2017
A conference at Conway Hall, Holborn, 6th May 2017

Organiser James Ward welcomed us to the seventh Boring Conference, a celebration of the mundane and the overlooked, with his two traditional housekeeping jokes. He then kicked off proceedings with 7 facts about the number 7, each of which was neatly summarised by means of a subjective isomorphism to the group S Club 7.

10.45 James Ward @iamjamesward: So much brighter at non-science subjects
The title of the opening talk gave few clues to its content, but a broad hint was offered when James observed it had recently been World Stationery Day, part of National Stationery Week. He offered us a tantalising glimpse of his stationery-related bookshelf, featuring Henry Petrovski's seminal The Pencil, but chose instead to focus on Derek Hall's 1984 volume Basildon Bond - Letters for every occasion. This handy compendium offered useful exemplars for written communication in a pre-email age, advising readers how to respond when unable to accept a christening invitation, when requesting an increased salary or when booking a guest house by post. The talk's title was a quote from a letter to a school regarding a "child's problem with teacher", in which poor Anne was being treated less than optimally by Mrs Woollacott. Even though Derek advised against proposing marriage by letter, a template was still provided, along with various excruciating scenarios for making up after a quarrel or breaking off an engagement.

11.02 Tiahowler Biltawülf @Biltawulf: Ironing - live
After the success of last year's on-stage jigsaw puzzle action, 2017's mundane Live Task involved the pressing of damp clothing. Tiahowler brought an ironing board and hangers onto the stage, along with a big pile of washing which he hoped would decrease during the day. He proceeded to smooth while others spoke, pausing for carrot cake just before noon and unscrewing a bottle of red wine mid-afternoon. During his ironathon Tiahowler pressed 15 shirts, 9 pillowcases, a king size duvet cover and a king size fitted sheet, the last of which created somewhat of a debacle when it became unclear when to stop. At least two of the newly-ironed shirts were donned as costume changes during the day.

11.06 Zoe Laughlin @zoelaughlin: Transparent Concrete
Zoe Laughlin is Director of the Institute of Making at UCL, with a particular penchant for innovative materials, which she views as a talisman of human achievement. Zoe was the only contributor not to launch into a set of slides, hence we all had to visualise her Venn diagram in which she postulated architects as the sexy overlap between artists and engineers. From her bag of props she withdrew a block of concrete that floats, then a block of self-healing concrete whose microscopic cracks are sealed by intrinsic bacteria. Her key story involved the stubborn unwillingness of a French innovator to share a sample of transparent concrete, so she ended up commissioning some of her own. Although technically opaque, glass fibres pass through the material allowing light shone on one side to be visible in speckles on the other. Zoe was excited by the potential of her transmissive medium, for example in allowing traces of sunlight to pass through walls, but as yet no producer is biting.

11.19 Alan Connor @alanconnor: Fact-checking a geography quiz question
As well as being an author and writing for the Guardian, Alan is also the question editor for the BBC2 quiz Only Connect. All questions for the show are checked by an independent panel of verifiers, led by a clergyman's wife from Cornwall, although occasionally ambiguities do slip through. Alan recalled one awkward incident when a 2nd round sequence question was supposed to conclude with the shortest verse in the King James Bible, Jesus wept, but an alternative interpretation had to be accepted. Even geography questions are not immune to destructive verification, so great efforts are made to avoid reference to disputed territories or the coastline paradox. The board game Trivial Pursuit was singled out for giving credence to a false definition of a "blue moon", lifted from a children's almanac, so that society now accepts this to be the second full moon in a month rather than the third of four full moons in a season. A far more expensive faux pas in the original Genus 1 pack was the claim that Columbo's first name was Frank, based on a false fact planted in The Trivia Encyclopedia for copyright reasons, and a $300m lawsuit followed. Always use a second source, Alan advised.

11.39 Liam Shaw: Pallets
Liam is a mathematical biologist at UCL, and former University Challenge contestant, who recounted his own quizzing controversy when a flag-identification furore erupted on the letters page of the Daily Telegraph. Liam led us through a history of the humble pallet, the wooden structure defined as "the structural foundation of a unit load", and once described as "the single most important object in the global economy." Pallets came to prominence in the 1940s as a key enabler of military logistics, but really took off after Norman Cahners added two perpendicular notches to create 4-way access. The creation of the European Pallet Pool in the 1960s improved trade by facilitating substitution, although North America insisted on a separate standardisation based on inches rather than millimetres. Every Euro Pallet contains 78 nails, 11 boards and 9 blocks, can support 60 times its own weight, and is personally approved by Global Brand Ambassador Reinhold Messner. However counterfeit pallets from Ukraine have become a significant problem, triggering the recent (and somewhat bitchy) collapse of the EPP, and hinting at a bleak scenario for the future of pallet exchange.

11.54 Claire Thomson: Danish Public Information Films (1935-1965)
Continuing the UCL vibe, Claire is a lecturer in Scandinavian Studies with a penchant for an underrated movie genre - "not a topic that brings the boys to the yard", she confessed. Denmark introduced its own public information films at cinemas in the 1930s to fill screentime which might otherwise have been taken by German propaganda. Claire has rifled through the cellar at the Danish Film Institute and digitised such early gems as How A Brick Comes Into Being (1936), somewhat inexplicably the most-hired film in mid 20th century Denmark. Jaunty brass accompanied an action-packed clip urging recycling for the war effort, while the filming of They Guide You Across (1949) accidentally led to the destruction of a Norton Sinclair camera clipped by the wheel of a Douglas DC4. Internationally the peak of production came with an Oscar nomination for A City called Copenhagen (1960), but Claire's personal favourite is The Potato (1944) whose information is imparted entirely in song.

12.12 Louise Ashcroft @LouiseAshcroft1: The Argos catalogue
First introduced in 1973, and often worth a fortune on eBay, Louise contested that the Argos catalogue has become a touchstone in the evolution of the UK's cultural life. As a child poring over double-page spreads of calculators, lawnmowers and stretchy gym equipment, she considered the catalogue an empowering window into an alternative reality. Today she sees strong parallels with the Whole Earth Catalog, launched by Californian counterculture in 1968, and read out a Ginsberg-esque beat poem created from Argos catalogue product descriptions to help prove her point. So many of Argos's original products were orange, she noted, from chairs to crockery to vibrant rugs, while the shower pages also acted as mainstream soft porn with carefully positioned suds. These days Baby's 1st Tablet has ousted the caravan playtent, and the women modelling engagement jewellery no longer gaze with expressions of despondent sadness.

12.36 Benjamin Partridge @benpartridge: What is beef?
Ben produces the award-winning Beef and Dairy network podcast, the inevitable successor to the Attlee government's first agricultural newsletter, The Livestock & Meat Situation. Having shocked us all with the revelation that the plural of beef is beeves, Ben went on to investigate the classification of farmed meat by asking "What is beef?" This question became important in 1978 when The Livestock & Meat Situation was split into separate newsletters, and specialist herds such as ox or venison needed to be allocated to one or the other. Four categories were supposedly established based on molecular analysis - Beef, Lamb, Pork and Chicken - which Ben illustrated by means of a 2-way chart. Venison is here classified as 'forest beef', goat as "mountain lamb", rabbit as "hedgerow porkmeat" and turkey as "robust chicken". Such all-encompassing taxonomy ensures that there will never be a fifth meat, Ben conjectured.

LUNCH



2.11 Steve Cross @steve_x: When did the world end?
That's "when did the world end?" according to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, as aficionado Steve pulled apart the opening chapters of Douglas Adams' masterwork for clues. Decimal currency was in use behind the bar in The Horse and Groom, giving a lower bound for the year as 1971, while the purchase of six pints of bitter for under £5 suggested the Vogons arriving no later than 1987. It was also a Thursday, because Arthur Dent "never could get the hang of Thursdays", and Arsenal were playing that afternoon, "without a chance" according to the barman. Steve checked diligently through the fixture lists to confirm only four Arsenal matches on Thursdays during the period 1971-1987, two of which he discounted for being on Boxing Day or at New Year when sunrise in the West Country occurs too late for Arthur to have woken in daylight. Torn to choose between Arsenal v Tottenham on 11/5/72 or Arsenal v Liverpool on 1/5/80, Steve's faultless logic plumped for the latter, based on a rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone by Eddie the shipboard computer, confirming planetary destruction for 1st May 1980.

2.23 Jay Owens @hautepop: On the Residue of the World
Recovering geographer Jay became obsessed with dust in her student years, initially as a dissertation avoidance tactic, but then devoted her thesis to it, and now publishes a monthly dust-themed newsletter. She made contact with dust experts at the National Trust, who must walk the fine line between over-cleaning and surface erosion, so vary their dusting schedules according to furniture type, height and location. John Ruskin wrote in detail about The Ethics of the Dust, observing that who cleans in a society is more important than who governs, while a recent art installation at Westminster Hall celebrated centuries of ingrained grime. The modern iPhone is dust-blasted to achieve optimal smoothness, Jay noted, but paradoxically the perfection of its surface exposes every grain of dust thereon. Dust also kills, with silicosis affecting millions globally, especially in ill-regulated factories in southeast Asia. We must take responsibility for the dust we create, Jay concluded, because dust is inexorable.

2.38 Laurence Jordan @lagwd: Sounding gestalts
Whereas Iannis Xenakakis generated sounds from the motion of an airborne kite, UAL graduate Laurence creates mechanical music from micro-biological observations. Specifically he takes contact prints from petri dishes scattered around his student flat, transcribes the resultant cultures using a concentric grid system, then reproduces the patterns onto chromatic punchcards. These are then fed through a music box mechanism by the turning of a handle, which allowed the Boring audience to enjoy a stirring performance by a lichen colony. The full suite includes yeast and e-coli, and can be investigated in detail on Soundcloud. Laurence has also experimented with rings of timber (end grain works better than long grain), as well as knitting patterns, which create a more regular approximation of melody, and he ended his talk with a bravura rendition of an argyle sock.

2.51 Abigail Brady @abigailb: Stop the world, I want to tune up
As a member of North London' leading Kenickie tribute band, Abigail was captivated by the recent discovery of habitable planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. Specifically she noted that their orbital ratios were in resonance, reminiscent of Bode's Law, and suggesting a connection to musical harmonies. Transposing the resultant frequencies by approximately 26 octaves to bring each into audible range, Abigail ended up with the notes C E G C F C which, as you can hear, make for a recognisable chord. Emboldened, she adopted the same approach for our own solar system, generating a Bm (B, D, F#) chord but with an additional C#, somewhat reminiscent of Pulp and Suede's penchant for a quarter step below normal tuning. Britpop aside, she asked, are we out of harmony with the universe? [full reasoning]

It's traditional that the after-tea session begins with a tabletop game, last year Mastermind, this year Snakes and Ladders. Conference stalwart Greg Stekelman emerged from the green room to take on a challenger from the audience, playing on a large board visible only to those on stage or watching from the balcony. Nelson started strongly with a leap up the first ladder from 4 to 14, while Greg toyed too often with the snake on 16 and soon fell far behind. The gap was soon 67 plays 8, until the serpent on 87 cruelly whisked Nelson all the way back to 24. Greg's increasingly angry hurls of the dice brought the scores briefly to parity, before his opponent took advantage of strategically located ladders to end with a strong 73/74/75/80/100 finish. His prize after this unexpectedly lengthy grudge match was a bottle of lager and a bottle of cider, later combined to form a celebratory snakebite.

3.55 Elise Bramich: Repetition in the work of Stephen King and Dean Koontz
At the start of her talk, subtitled "Or, Repetition in the work of Stephen King and Dean Koontz", comedy producer Elise confessed that recycling her opinions on Lolita had seen her through three separate modules of her English degree. Horror writers King and Koontz were similarly guilty in their respective oeuvres, she argued, admonishing Stephen King's sheer laziness in using an author as chief protagonist in 12 out of his 70 novels ("write only what you know, then add vampires"). Koontz's work is less subtle, much schlockier and more prolific, numbering well over 250 novels to date, and he too has a recurring character. "Fair enough," said Elise, "but should that character be a psychic labrador?" Intelligent dogs play too great a role in Koontz's canon, solving murders or collectively thwarting alien invasion... a preponderance explained by Dean's love for his own retired assistance dog, Trixie, herself a successfully published author. "Once you've found your good story, there's nothing wrong with repeating it again," Elise concluded.

4.09 Keith Kahn-Harris @KeithKahnHarris: The Linguistic Politics of Kinder Surprise Eggs
On opening a Kinder Surprise Egg not only do you find a small toy but also a small piece of paper warning "Toy not suitable for children under 3 years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled." in 35 different languages. Keith is deeply intrigued by the linguistic selection, for example why 22 official EU languages are included but not Irish or Maltese, and has approached various native speakers (most notably the Prince of Luxembourg) to translate the warning message into omitted tongues. One foreign correspondent confirmed that Korea has a separate leaflet (with an additional warning), while an alternative Chinese version unnecessarily includes both traditional and simplified canonical forms. Hebrew is never written alongside Arabic for political reasons, while the very similar Czech and Slovak are always included together to keep both nations happy. Obviously Keith wondered what the warning might have looked like 2000 years ago, and was only partly thwarted by there being no word for toy in the Bible. He ended his talk, and a consistently absorbing conference, by asking us to stand and solemnly pledge never to buy a Kinder Surprise Egg until the warning message is translated into Cornish. [Keith's slideshow]

See also: Boring II, Boring III, Boring IV, Boring V, Boring VI


<< click for Newer posts

click for Older Posts >>


click to return to the main page


...or read more in my monthly archives
Jan24  Feb24  Mar24
Jan23  Feb23  Mar23  Apr23  May23  Jun23  Jul23  Aug23  Sep23  Oct23  Nov23  Dec23
Jan22  Feb22  Mar22  Apr22  May22  Jun22  Jul22  Aug22  Sep22  Oct22  Nov22  Dec22
Jan21  Feb21  Mar21  Apr21  May21  Jun21  Jul21  Aug21  Sep21  Oct21  Nov21  Dec21
Jan20  Feb20  Mar20  Apr20  May20  Jun20  Jul20  Aug20  Sep20  Oct20  Nov20  Dec20
Jan19  Feb19  Mar19  Apr19  May19  Jun19  Jul19  Aug19  Sep19  Oct19  Nov19  Dec19
Jan18  Feb18  Mar18  Apr18  May18  Jun18  Jul18  Aug18  Sep18  Oct18  Nov18  Dec18
Jan17  Feb17  Mar17  Apr17  May17  Jun17  Jul17  Aug17  Sep17  Oct17  Nov17  Dec17
Jan16  Feb16  Mar16  Apr16  May16  Jun16  Jul16  Aug16  Sep16  Oct16  Nov16  Dec16
Jan15  Feb15  Mar15  Apr15  May15  Jun15  Jul15  Aug15  Sep15  Oct15  Nov15  Dec15
Jan14  Feb14  Mar14  Apr14  May14  Jun14  Jul14  Aug14  Sep14  Oct14  Nov14  Dec14
Jan13  Feb13  Mar13  Apr13  May13  Jun13  Jul13  Aug13  Sep13  Oct13  Nov13  Dec13
Jan12  Feb12  Mar12  Apr12  May12  Jun12  Jul12  Aug12  Sep12  Oct12  Nov12  Dec12
Jan11  Feb11  Mar11  Apr11  May11  Jun11  Jul11  Aug11  Sep11  Oct11  Nov11  Dec11
Jan10  Feb10  Mar10  Apr10  May10  Jun10  Jul10  Aug10  Sep10  Oct10  Nov10  Dec10 
Jan09  Feb09  Mar09  Apr09  May09  Jun09  Jul09  Aug09  Sep09  Oct09  Nov09  Dec09
Jan08  Feb08  Mar08  Apr08  May08  Jun08  Jul08  Aug08  Sep08  Oct08  Nov08  Dec08
Jan07  Feb07  Mar07  Apr07  May07  Jun07  Jul07  Aug07  Sep07  Oct07  Nov07  Dec07
Jan06  Feb06  Mar06  Apr06  May06  Jun06  Jul06  Aug06  Sep06  Oct06  Nov06  Dec06
Jan05  Feb05  Mar05  Apr05  May05  Jun05  Jul05  Aug05  Sep05  Oct05  Nov05  Dec05
Jan04  Feb04  Mar04  Apr04  May04  Jun04  Jul04  Aug04  Sep04  Oct04  Nov04  Dec04
Jan03  Feb03  Mar03  Apr03  May03  Jun03  Jul03  Aug03  Sep03  Oct03  Nov03  Dec03
 Jan02  Feb02  Mar02  Apr02  May02  Jun02  Jul02 Aug02  Sep02  Oct02  Nov02  Dec02 

jack of diamonds
Life viewed from London E3

» email me
» follow me on twitter
» follow the blog on Twitter
» follow the blog on RSS

» my flickr photostream

twenty blogs
our bow
arseblog
ian visits
londonist
broken tv
blue witch
on london
the great wen
edith's streets
spitalfields life
linkmachinego
round the island
wanstead meteo
christopher fowler
the greenwich wire
bus and train user
ruth's coastal walk
round the rails we go
london reconnections
from the murky depths

quick reference features
Things to do in Outer London
Things to do outside London
Inner London toilet map
20 years of blog series
The DG Tour of Britain
London's most...

read the archive
Mar24  Feb24  Jan24
Dec23  Nov23  Oct23  Sep23
Aug23  Jul23  Jun23  May23
Apr23  Mar23  Feb23  Jan23
Dec22  Nov22  Oct22  Sep22
Aug22  Jul22  Jun22  May22
Apr22  Mar22  Feb22  Jan22
Dec21  Nov21  Oct21  Sep21
Aug21  Jul21  Jun21  May21
Apr21  Mar21  Feb21  Jan21
Dec20  Nov20  Oct20  Sep20
Aug20  Jul20  Jun20  May20
Apr20  Mar20  Feb20  Jan20
Dec19  Nov19  Oct19  Sep19
Aug19  Jul19  Jun19  May19
Apr19  Mar19  Feb19  Jan19
Dec18  Nov18  Oct18  Sep18
Aug18  Jul18  Jun18  May18
Apr18  Mar18  Feb18  Jan18
Dec17  Nov17  Oct17  Sep17
Aug17  Jul17  Jun17  May17
Apr17  Mar17  Feb17  Jan17
Dec16  Nov16  Oct16  Sep16
Aug16  Jul16  Jun16  May16
Apr16  Mar16  Feb16  Jan16
Dec15  Nov15  Oct15  Sep15
Aug15  Jul15  Jun15  May15
Apr15  Mar15  Feb15  Jan15
Dec14  Nov14  Oct14  Sep14
Aug14  Jul14  Jun14  May14
Apr14  Mar14  Feb14  Jan14
Dec13  Nov13  Oct13  Sep13
Aug13  Jul13  Jun13  May13
Apr13  Mar13  Feb13  Jan13
Dec12  Nov12  Oct12  Sep12
Aug12  Jul12  Jun12  May12
Apr12  Mar12  Feb12  Jan12
Dec11  Nov11  Oct11  Sep11
Aug11  Jul11  Jun11  May11
Apr11  Mar11  Feb11  Jan11
Dec10  Nov10  Oct10  Sep10
Aug10  Jul10  Jun10  May10
Apr10  Mar10  Feb10  Jan10
Dec09  Nov09  Oct09  Sep09
Aug09  Jul09  Jun09  May09
Apr09  Mar09  Feb09  Jan09
Dec08  Nov08  Oct08  Sep08
Aug08  Jul08  Jun08  May08
Apr08  Mar08  Feb08  Jan08
Dec07  Nov07  Oct07  Sep07
Aug07  Jul07  Jun07  May07
Apr07  Mar07  Feb07  Jan07
Dec06  Nov06  Oct06  Sep06
Aug06  Jul06  Jun06  May06
Apr06  Mar06  Feb06  Jan06
Dec05  Nov05  Oct05  Sep05
Aug05  Jul05  Jun05  May05
Apr05  Mar05  Feb05  Jan05
Dec04  Nov04  Oct04  Sep04
Aug04  Jul04  Jun04  May04
Apr04  Mar04  Feb04  Jan04
Dec03  Nov03  Oct03  Sep03
Aug03  Jul03  Jun03  May03
Apr03  Mar03  Feb03  Jan03
Dec02  Nov02  Oct02  Sep02
back to main page

the diamond geezer index
2023 2022
2021 2020 2019 2018 2017
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012
2011 2010 2009 2008 2007
2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

my special London features
a-z of london museums
E3 - local history month
greenwich meridian (N)
greenwich meridian (S)
the real eastenders
london's lost rivers
olympic park 2007
great british roads
oranges & lemons
random boroughs
bow road station
high street 2012
river westbourne
trafalgar square
capital numbers
east london line
lea valley walk
olympics 2005
regent's canal
square routes
silver jubilee
unlost rivers
cube routes
Herbert Dip
metro-land
capital ring
river fleet
piccadilly
bakerloo

ten of my favourite posts
the seven ages of blog
my new Z470xi mobile
five equations of blog
the dome of doom
chemical attraction
quality & risk
london 2102
single life
boredom
april fool

ten sets of lovely photos
my "most interesting" photos
london 2012 olympic zone
harris and the hebrides
betjeman's metro-land
marking the meridian
tracing the river fleet
london's lost rivers
inside the gherkin
seven sisters
iceland

just surfed in?
here's where to find...
diamond geezers
flash mob #1  #2  #3  #4
ben schott's miscellany
london underground
watch with mother
cigarette warnings
digital time delay
wheelie suitcases
war of the worlds
transit of venus
top of the pops
old buckenham
ladybird books
acorn antiques
digital watches
outer hebrides
olympics 2012
school dinners
pet shop boys
west wycombe
bletchley park
george orwell
big breakfast
clapton pond
san francisco
thunderbirds
routemaster
children's tv
east enders
trunk roads
amsterdam
little britain
credit cards
jury service
big brother
jubilee line
number 1s
titan arum
typewriters
doctor who
coronation
comments
blue peter
matchgirls
hurricanes
buzzwords
brookside
monopoly
peter pan
starbucks
feng shui
leap year
manbags
bbc three
vision on
piccadilly
meridian
concorde
wembley
islington
ID cards
bedtime
freeview
beckton
blogads
eclipses
letraset
arsenal
sitcoms
gherkin
calories
everest
muffins
sudoku
camilla
london
ceefax
robbie
becks
dome
BBC2
paris
lotto
118
itv