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Is he a snooker player? He sounds like a snooker player. He has the undernourished ricketsy child in a gaudy waistcoat look of a snooker player.

posted at: 12:24 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

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I can't solve the three-body problem in my head. I have no feel for whether the moon should pass through all points in the sky, given long enough, but it still surprised me last night to see it quite so high above my eyebrows, even if it was full and nearly midnight at the time.

posted at: 12:30 | path: /simulations | permanent link to this entry

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A correspondent elsewhere suggests that the answer is "Hills of the North, rejoice", which is exactly the not-at-all-obvious answer I was looking for.

posted at: 23:20 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

I keep meaning to follow France more closely. I keep meaning to listen to more Messiaen and Poulenc, but I always forget that I like Messiaen and Poulenc at critical moments. I always forget that university websites last updated in the age of NTSC Mosaic are nothing like French newspaper websites.

It's very difficult to do this from England. The media coverage of France is nearly as hopeless as the coverage of Germany. The Second World War is consistently brought up in a way that would be unthinkable and probably rather tasteless when discussing, say, the Netherlands. I often hear France's surrender in 1940 compared to its non-involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with no further explanation given, as if the former in any way explained the latter.

I must remember, if someone tries this in my hearing, to ask them what the Dreyfus affair was, and see whether they know. Since I don't hang about with people who write for the Telegraph much, I may have a long wait.

posted at: 23:08 | path: /hexagone | permanent link to this entry

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Earlier this evening I was reading a piece on the web which claimed that

No amount of reflective clothing will save you from someone who can't see out of the vehicle in broad daylight.

This is far from the case. As the mass of reflective clothing approaches that of the vehicle coming towards you, the collision dynamics become quite different from the usual case where you can neglect the mass of the soft-bodied road user. For very large masses of clothing, there is even an inverse regime where you can neglect the mass of the car. It also helps with the last bullet point of Rule 139 in the Highway Code, not to mention actual bullets.

posted at: 23:18 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

I make it the fifth day of Advent today, which makes every Advent calendar I have ever seen deficient by four windows.

posted at: 23:09 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

There is at least one Memorable Advent carol which isn't Veni veni, Emmanuel. As I am telegraphing furiously here, I can't remember what it is.

posted at: 23:03 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

Now that near-universal wearing of seatbelts means that the car windscreen no longer plays its traditional role of bringing the occupants of the front seats harmlessly to a halt, perhaps it's time for it to go.

There's lots in the Highway Code about pedestrians and cyclists having to make themselves visible, but significantly less about motorists being able to see anything. Section 204 talks about removing snow and ice from the windscreen. I see nothing about ordinary road filth, which can make a windscreen opaque when the sun shines on it, or about wearing tinted lenses when you might be dazzled.

No amount of reflective clothing will save you from someone who can't see out of the vehicle in broad daylight.

posted at: 22:53 | path: /maunderings | permanent link to this entry

There's a piece about the aftermath of the recent riots in France on The World Tonight at the moment, and they've just mentioned a school that was badly damaged.

What astonished me about the news coverage was how the number of cars torched caught on as a surrogate death toll. Wouldn't schools burnt have been better, given that, on average, nearly a hundred cars burn in France every single night anyway?

posted at: 22:41 | path: /hexagone | permanent link to this entry