Probability and Life

It’s a while since I did a vaguely scientific entry but a few things have occurred this week. Firstly the Reith Lectures have started: Sir Martin Rees’s first lecture suggested that challenges facing science in the 21st century are much more profound than previously: GM foods, stem-cell research and so on present many ethical problems; scientific and engineering developments in the past were much simpler and their use much more obvious – although I guess the Manhatten Project would fall into the modern category. Then last night I was idly watching a program about design. A claim on this is that things as we know them are being subsumed into generic electronics: TVs, radios, music players, telephones, computers, cameras, books all had their own identity. Now they are all merging into one basic format where the physical design is minimal and the user interface is key. What’s next?

The next event was a series of phone calls on Friday. Probability theory is fascinating and often yields difficult-to-understand results. Have you heard the birthday conundrum? The chance of two people in a group of 23 having the same birthday is greater than 50%. So next time you’re in a cocktail party, ask around! Another strange probability fact is that the most likely time for a truly random event to occur is immediately following the previous occurrence of such an event. So don’t feel at ease flying immediately after a crash; and if air crashes occur at regular intervals you should suspect some intervention rather than random occurrences. I had a good example of this with phone calls on Friday. As some of you know, we divert our home phone to my mobile so calls go to the mobile if we don’t answer or if the home phone is in use. I think the phone calls we receive are random – although the people who try to fix my computer or award me a cruise seem to call at regular intervals! Twice on Friday I received a call on my mobile while talking to someone on my home phone – I think this proves that the calls are random and that probability theory is correct!

The last scientific reminder this week was one of the series of 2-minute talks on Radio 4. Brian Eno described the Game of Life which was invented by mathematician John Conway in 1970. I had forgotten this but it reminded me of long discussions and fascination with work colleagues when it came out in the Scientific American. 1970 was well before personal computers and the internet so it was quite difficult to play at the time but these days it’s very simple – have a play here.

The Reith Lectures can be heard here.

The role of the state

A fascinating series of articles in The Times this week by Roger Boyes has made me think about the role of the state. Boyes’ articles report how he has been reliving the time he spent in communist Poland during the Cold War as a foreign correspondent when he was under regular surveillance by the authorities who suspected he was a spy. He met again his landlady who used to report on his movements, listen in to his meetings and, using her key, let the secret police into the flat to copy his correspondence. He has also seen some of the files recording all this information. Much was destroyed when Communism fell but enough remains to give an amazing insight to the intrusive state at the time. The Polish authorities eventually gave up on him but not before accusing him of ‘Nonchalantism’ – negative and nonchalant reporting of the Polish leadership.

At a time when our new coalition government is talking about reducing the size and impact of the state, both for idealistic and financial reasons, I’ve been thinking about our attitude to the state. The Boyes example is an extreme one although I believe we have more CCTV cameras per capita than anywhere else in the world. But we can trust our police and other authorities can’t we? However, we seem to have much lower respect for them than we used to and than other countries do. I spent three days in France last week. One day was with our French friends who live just outside Paris. Walking round their town I was struck by the civic buildings and developments – open areas, a market hall, a boules park and a magnificent Hotel de Ville. And I don’t detect any resentment about this level of spending.

I have similar thoughts when visiting Birmingham. The wonderful town hall and art gallery was built 125 years ago and echoes with civic pride.We seem to have lost this today. I’m sure any authority would have difficulty with such an investment these days. Back in France it’s easy to look at the extensive French high-speed rail network and compare it with our one line into St Pancras (I won’t mention HS2!) From the Eurostar train the sparsely-populated Northern France looks easier to plot a route through than Kent – much less the Chilterns!  But I sense that the French government would be much more assertive at making things happen – and would get away with it.

Looking at tax levels is interesting, too: I remember seeing some statistics a while ago when the government was trying to change our tax base – I forget which way but it was by less than half a point when measured as a percentage of GDP. Currently, if you believe Wikipedia, our total tax revenue in the UK is 39% of GDP, France is 46% and the USA 28%. Are we just culturally different from France or just ahead of them? I see that binge drinking is taking hold in France with Apéro Géant parties planned on Facebook: there was one threatened last Sunday on the Champ-de-Mars (the park around the Eifel Tower). The authorities didn’t ban it, they just reminded people that drinking alcohol in the park is illegal! So perhaps they’ll catch up with us one day.

Back to Poland in the cold war: one interesting comment from Roger Boyes refers to a time when he was having difficulty with his new Polish father-in-law. He says “I had never admitted that to myself; hadn’t framed or spoken the thought out loud. Yet the secret police had truffled it out and analysed it with precision. At times their knowledge of me was deeper than my self-knowledge.”

Now, what about all these potholes?

Roger Boyes' articles are available here, here and here

April in Paris

OK, so it’s May. We had a quick trip to Paris on Eurostar last weekend. It was a good weekend to pick – not a cloud in the sky and as it was Pentecost, a holiday weekend in France, lots going on. Champs Elysée was transformed into a sort of farm. Half the length of the road – from the Rond Pont to L’Etoile – was filled with all sorts of growing plants in large planters – virtually the full width of the road. There were wheat, beetroot, lavender, hops, haricots, maize and lots more including plants for bees!

Down the sides of the Avenue were stalls run by the French Young farmers – all sorts of things to taste including oysters from 3 sources: the Arcachon ones were the most expensive! And there was beer, wine and champagne to taste.

How’s your French? Have a look at the web site

And what are the crude wooden huts high up on the Pompidou centre?

Garden for the Children

We’re trying to persuade the local council who manage the cemetery adjacent to the Church to use a corner for a garden for the youngsters. Helen’s idea – the proposal is to have a wild garden and a more formal area. The wild garden would have bird boxes, bat boxes and rotting wood to encourage insects. We already have a rare butterfly - the white hairstreak – living in some elms in the Churchyard. The local natural society is planning to plant some more elm trees to maintain the colony. The butterfly only lives on elms and, not surprisingly, has suffered since Dutch elm disease.

The second part of the garden would have raised beds so that the children can grow some flowers and small vegetables. The area proposed for the garden is adjacent to the by-pass. The proposals have met with a very positive enthusiastic response from lots of people. We’ve had e-mails offering to sow extra seeds or give spare plants and the raised beds are already committed.

I’ve had an initial informal meeting with some of the council representatives – they happened to be in the cemetery when I was visiting the Church. I sense that the wild garden is not an issue because it’s in an area that is already fairly wild – to the left of the photo below. However, I sense some unease about the raised beds: we clearly need to ensure that any planting is sensitive: no beans or similar tall plants and nothing that makes the place look untidy. It also needs not to look inappropriate from the adjacent cemetery.

I hope we manage to persuade the councils of the value of this to the community because I’m sure that many people – not just the youngsters – will benefit.

Watoto Choir

We went to Watford today and who was singing in the Harlequin but the Watoto Choir. They were inspirational. Perhaps we can get them to our Church again?

Zone plus - winning photos

Last Saturday, Anna was presented with her prize for winning in two categories of the photography competition.

For bigger versions, click on any of these images.

Children

Over two weeks with no comment. I think I’ve surfaced after Zone Plus – but Helen is already booking the summer event. After several false starts, we’ve decided on the two days after the summer bank holiday – 31 August and 1 September. We have to move out of Church because the contractors are starting work on the clerestory windows so it’s not really practical to have children running round the Church. So it’s the Oldham Hall and school grounds. We’re widening the age range a little – allowing younger children to participate. One of the interesting factors of the first week was that virtually all the participants were organised by their parents. I had expected a number of older teenagers to pop in. Perhaps in the summer things will be different.

We’ve also been focussing on younger children in Church during the last few weeks. We’re trying to revitalise Junior Church – for the youngest members. We’ve had some good workshops. We’ve been missing active leadership for this age group but things are slowly dropping into place. I had an email from one of the mums today saying that her daughter – now a teenager – is full of ideas for the little ones. We need to find a way of tapping this enthusiasm without disrupting school and exam pressures! I don’t know how teenagers communicate these days: I hear they’ve gone beyond Facebook (“ that’s for parents now”) I’ve suggested a pizza with some of the young Zone Plus helpers to get ideas for new activities in the summer. Perhaps this is the way. I’ll keep you posted.

Communicating with adults is no better these days. We’re well into the Blackberry/IPhone era but people still don’t know what’s going on. Perhaps that’s the problem: information overload.

Connecting with youngsters - and their parents

How do we connect with people these days? Improved communications (e-mail, text, smart phones) should make things better but they don't appear to do so. Is it a case of 'less is more'?

Zone Plus

We made it!

The pictures say it all...

Zone Plus days 2 and 3

The Urban Strides workshops yesterday were really what Zone Plus is all about: the youngsters actively participating, comfortable with each other and the environment and enjoying it. The instructor Natalie was fantastic, very professional and with a very good rapport with the youngsters. I’m not sure that the music would go down well with some of the congregation and Liam would be challenged on the organ!

Today was quiet – but with wonderful weather. The cycle track was busy all afternoon (including some interlopers) and Lucy and Andrew were kept busy with the bellringing.

Only one more day but I think we’ve already achieved some things. We’ve seen new people in Church and we’ve seen some of these develop over the week. There’s also been lots of networking amongst the helpers and visitors’ parents. And all the helpers – who’ve been great – have enjoyed themselves and many have asked for similar activities for grown-ups. More of this later but plans are being hatched for a whole range of activities for the 17+ age group. Not an intensive week like Zone Plus but throughout the year – perhaps in support of one of the windows. There’ve been several suggestions and requests – another Urban Strides session, organised walks, coach trips, outings on the river and canal... All these will be under the umbrella of... – we’re still thinking: Twilight Zone didn’t seem right, O-Zone is the current favourite – unless you have a better suggestion.

Tomorrow we have gra... sorry, street art and the climbing wall. I hope a good end to a fun week.

Zone Plus day 3

There are more pictures on the Zone Plus web site www.zoneplus.org.uk

Zone Plus day 2

Mike’s photo workshop was well attended by a serious gang of budding photographers. They all concentrated through Mike’s description of aperture settings, focus, exposure and so on. And they all participated in his fun exercises – one of which involved Liam hiding behind safety goggles and a pillow.





The afternoon brought two sessions with Urban Strides, the Street Dance compay from Wycombe. Andy Instone who founded the company is a local boy – he went to The Mibourne. His instructor this afternoon, Natalie, was fantastic: she got the youngsters really going in each of the one-hour workshops.

Many of the adults present want us to get Natalie back when we have the grown-up version of Zone Plus!

Zone Plus has started

Today saw the first day of Zone Plus. The cycle track was quiet in spite of wonderful weather but the drama was buzzing. We had 17 youngsters of varying ages. They all got on very well and the older ones were extremely helpful. But as someone commented: if you go in for drama you’re not the quiet retiring type! They did a series of exercises in groups and then developed an improvised playlet which they performed just before the end of the event.

Many of the participants and their parents were not known to us in Church so we’re achieving our aims of getting new people.

Helen had time to take young Anna round the bike track.



More pictures - click on the image to see them:

Zone Plus day 1

Easter day

...started at 6am with a damp dawn service: not many of the candles stayed alight for the walk up to St Peter & St Paul, Gt Missenden. The 10:00 service was great: a very full Church, joyful thanks to Elizabeth and Jo (on her birthday, it turns out). Liam and the choir were on form in their quick rehearsal before the service...




as were the bellringers.

Then off to Leicester for the Ginger Princess’s birthday party: 2 yesterday.

All very sustaining.

Now for Zone Plus: a day recovering and preparing tomorrow (later today – it’s 00:35) then off we go on Tuesday morning.

After Easter – Zone Plus

The main reason for the blog to be rather sporadic over the last few weeks is the time I’ve been spending on Zone Plus. This is a week (actually four days) of fun for 10 th 16 year olds in Church after Easter Monday. A few of us were inspired by Malmesbury Abbey Skate where the built a skate park in the Abbey for a few days during the February half term. “What a way of getting youngsters into Church” we thought. Zone Plus grew from there. We don’t actually have a skate park but we do have a climbing wall, a drama day, street dance and street art workshops (I’m not allowed to call the latter graffiti – there is a fear that the gable ends in Gt Missenden will soon be covered! The bellringers are inviting youngsters to have a go, we have a mini spa for the girls and we have a cycle track.

This was today’s excitement: the track arrived and has been set up ready adjacent to the tower. Cyclist Will has tried it out – and his fixed grin while he did so was wonderful. Helen, who has done all the arrangements for this particular activity was also visibly excited today. I just hope we get the weather to make the most of it.