Edinburgh Science Festival 3 - An afternoon at the Museum

This is the 3rd in a series of blogs from the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Myself and six other bloggers will be writing about the event during the fortnight.

One of the themes of the Edinburgh Science Festival is climate change. From volcanoes and earthquakes to flooding and weird weather … well, we had some of that in the city itself last week.

After a lovely, sunny Monday, Tuesday's weather did a 180 degree turn and provided rain, sleet, hail, sunshine and snow. Usually all within an hour and it continued for most of the day. That's all the excuse I needed to meet up with fellow Science Festival blogger Kate Adamson for a coffee and then head off to spend the afternoon at the National Museum of Scotland with a sketchbook. 

Here are some of the results:

Edinburgh Science Festival 2 - How Far, How Fast, How High?

This is the second in a series of blogs from the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Myself and six other bloggers will be writing about the event during the fortnight.

I have a confession to make: I have zero interest in competitive sports. So it is a testament to the lure of the Edinburgh Science Festival that last Tuesday I attended a presentation on the science of athletic performance.

How High, How Far, How High was given by Dr Yannis Pitsiladis and Professors Dave Collins, Ron Maughan and Andy Jones. In the lecture they covered - respectively - the genetics, psychological, nutritional and performance extremes of modern athletics. The psychological aspects were especially fascinating - who would have thought that you could convince trained weight-lifters to increase their performance by up to 10%, simply by telling them you were giving them steroids (instead of the sugar water actually administered)?

Each of the scientists gave a short presentation about their own field and then the evening moved onto a Q and A session. 

This turned out to be very exciting; there is something very special about listening to four experts debate their individual approach to wrestling information from nature. It was like having a personal ticket to the cutting edge of scientific research.

In many ways, for me, this evening’s talk encapsulated what the Science Festival is all about: It confounded my expectations, I learnt a lot about a subject I hadn’t previously though much about and it left me feeling exhilarated, wanting to know more.

Edinburgh Science Festival 1 - Doctor Dance

This is the first of a series of blogs from the Edinburgh Science Festival. As part of a competition, myself and six other bloggers will be writing about the event during the fortnight.

It’s the Edinburgh Science Festival; expect the unexpected. Go see a lecture called Emotion and Motion, you end up taking part of a 100-person dance routine.

Dr Peter Lovatt is an academic from the gloriously-titled Dance Psychology Lab at the University of Hertfordshire (I seriously hope it’s part of the Faculty of Funk). Together with choreographer Ruth Mills and members of the Dance House Company, he gave an invigorating presentation on what we see when we watch someone dancing. What’s the minimum information we need to interpret the dancer’s intentions?

Using six points of light attached to her shoulders, wrists and ankles - similar to motion capture used in animated films - a dancer performed a series of moves. It was surprisingly easy to ‘read’ her emotions. It was striking how similar this technique is to the cartoonist’s use of stick figures - complex information reduced ot its simplest form, relying on context and common language for interpretation.

It was a terrific lecture, greatly enlivened by dance routines from Ruth Mills and her company.  But it didn’t stop there. Oh no - Dr Dance has a mission. He got the entire audience on its feet, learning a set of simple routines to make Travoltas of us all.

Nice place to live

The sun is out

The grass is riz

I want to live

Where Wordsworth is.

So said viewers of Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location (prop. Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer). South Lakeland topped the pops in an online poll to find viewers’ preferred place to live. Of course, if they al buy second homes here then those of us who are here already may have to go live somewhere else.

This was one story in this week’s sun-soaked, soaraway Westmorland Gazette. The other concerned unused space at the Westmorland General hospital. Have closed bits down, administrators are surprised to discover they’ve got rather a lot of room and are wondering what to do with it. Rent it out to Channel 4 viewers?

These were the topics for this week’s cartoon. You can see my sketches below. For the editor’s final choice, wander lonely as a cloud to my website.

Deity Joke

Easter is on the way.

In the Lake District, it’s easy to spot this despite the holiday’s date-shifting, month-jumping intransigence from year to year; just look at the local businesses gearing up for visitors.

This week there was Another Sign.

And lo, a decorator in the Dales didst sit down to eat his sandwiches when he saw the face of Our Lord and Saviour™ staring at him from out of the wall. Not being particularly sore afraid, the decorator didst finish his lunch and then gave the face of Jesus a couple of coats of emulsion.

But not before taking a photograph, which is proudly displayed on page 3 of this week’s Westmorland Gazette.

Not being one to give up the opportunity to offend for Lent, here is my take on the matter. Eight cartoons were submitted (I was trying for twelve of course) but only one didst make it to the front page. See which you prefer and then get thee to my website and see which one met with the editor’s approval.

March

Last Saturday, the Westmorland Gazette and LibDem MP Tim Farron organised a march through Kendal. Not in support of Canada geese but to campaign for a new radiotherapy unit for Westmorland General Hospital.

In my years on the front page of the Gazette, I’ve done innumerable cartoons about the  hospital. 25 years ago the cartoon was campaigning to have the thing built. Now we’re trying to keep bits of it open. And all around us, the LibCon government is happily trying to dismantle the whole NHS.

This march was a big thing and the Gazette pretty much cleared the front page for it in today’s paper. The cartoon got a bit squished as a result but it did make me determined to cover the story.

The Gazette’s editorial team were not so sure. There was considerable debate about which cartoon to use, especially as I was trying to tie two stories together in the one cartoon - one of them from the wider, national news.

You can see the six alternatives below. Which would you have chosen? 

Comment below and then sashay over to my website to peek at the one which graces the front page of this week's newspaper.

Cull

Newspapers are a fast-moving environment. The news waits for no man (or cartoonist).

Up to a point, Lord Cropper.

In the world of the regional newspaper, some stories come around again and again. This week’s Westmorland Gazette stories were good examples. The Morecambe Bay HNHS Trust is still gathering headlines, with the resignation last week of its director. And this week it is being sued for negligence.

And out on the balmy shores of Windermere, the Canada geese continue to draw attention; 2600 petition signatories (including Bill Oddie and Brian May) want to save them but the National Park Authority wants to cull them. In fact, the Park wants to go on a culling spree and extend it to Grasmere and Coniston.

Here are this week’s rough sketches for the front page cartoon. One or two may look familiar. They’re the sort of stories where the prudent cartoonist banks ideas, knowing the topics will come around again.

To see which hit the front page, visit my website here.