Finn Evans's Blog

We sighted a farmer, possibly harvesting rye and oats, before…

finnevans — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:19:04 +0000

We sighted a farmer, possibly harvesting rye and oats, before our target and the shadowy image of Boreray, began to emerge out of the greyness of the horizon.
the shallow sandy bay was backed by a barren green hillside, covered by a vast scattering of dark grey rocks. Most moving were the forlorn-looking ruins of an old chapel and crofts. We felt we were invaders.
The island possessed a silent aura that demanded respect.
One could sense the energy and spirit and hardiness of the long gone inhabitants.
That night the wind and rain tore ferociously at the tent as the force 8 hit us; it was a luxurious feeling to be snug, warm and safe in our sleeping bags. Thoughts of being stranded and stormbound drifted between the dreams.
The morning’s forecast had a familiar ring, “Force 6 becoming 8″; there was a lull so we had to move.
Across the Sound of Harris the going was rough; we had a large following sea with waves aided by the wind and the flood around Berneray, pushing us both from behind and from a broad reach angle.
As we passed Pabbay we were hit by successive heavy squalls; the promontory toe Head would be out of the question.
spotting a narrow isthmus on the map near Northton we opted for a large portage; half a kilometre would be a long way but, following our Griminish Point experience and the safer option seemed favourable. Idyllic Taransay spoiled by man’s flotsam.
Twang and the makeshift shoulder sling (my tow line) gave way.
Carrying two fully laden sea boats across km of sand dunes was no mean feat; it was a major operation! We’d move one 60/70 metres then have a “rest” walk back to collect the other. Every muscle in our bodies ached under the strain.

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This comprises a small number of true wasteland species, commoner there…

finnevans — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:16:51 +0000

This comprises a small number of true wasteland species, commoner there than in other habitats.
The larvae of certain moths, for example the wormwood shark (Cucullia absynthii), depend on food plants growing on wasteland.
And rare microlepidoptera feed on the roots of tansy, or mine the leaves of fat-hen.
The list of species is growing as more and more animals adapt to the urban commons.
In South Yorkshire and the snail Cepaea hortensis and the pill woodlouse (Armadillidium vulgare), both normally centred on limestone terrain, are beginning to turn up on fragments of the urban common that are rich in mortar and therefore calcareous.
Studies of the diet of kestrels in Sheffield and Manchester have shown that urban populations take fewer small mammals than do those in the countryside.
But the town-based predators capture substantially more birds such as sparrows and starlings and pigeons.
So it is not only the composition of species that is different on urban commons, but also the life-styles of those species. The extent of our urban commons is difficult to calculate.
The Civic Trust undertook a survey in 1976 and estimated that there were then 104 670 hectares of urban wasteland in Great Britain.
The average size of these plots was less than 1 hectare in the inner city, but up to 10 hectares at the edges.
In 1978, 558 per cent of inner London was wasteland; in 1979 inner Liverpool had some 400 hectares of waste ground.
Attitudes to wasteland vary but the official view is that it is unsightly and depressing, contributing to an air of dereliction and offering an example to vandals.
Liverpool is currently spending in the region of £4 million a year reducing its urban common.
As dormant land is an inevitable product of the planning system in the UK, we need a definite policy to deal with what will be a long-term feature of the inner city.
Councils are reluctant to allocate finance for temporary schemes and so community groups sometimes take a hand.
These groups find positive uses for the land and such as urban farms, allotments, community gardens, play parks, or car-parking. In Liverpool a group called COMTECHSA encourages this kind of positive action.
And the city’s Greensight Project and started by the Rural Preservation Organisation, is now attracting a great deal of attention.
Its philosophy is to treat sites in such a way that wildlife is encouraged back into the city. The project’s treatments cost as little as 54p per square metre.
On the other hand and the standard aesthetically-sterile interim solution of grass and trees, which most local authorities favour, costs between £5 and £7.50 per square metre.
The Greensight approach is not only cheap to implement and maintain, but also flexible and so that sites can be treated individually.
Members of the project carry out their own maintenance, as few sites would survive long if handed over to the local authority. The designs are not static; they represent only a beginning.
Eventually Nature becomes the designer, and the maintenance required is that sufficient to ensure that the sites remain acceptable to the public.

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All are infected by Bruce’s proto-funky basslines…

finnevans — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:10:08 +0000

All are infected by Bruce’s proto-funky basslines and the tender piano of Weldman (especially Round Midnight ). Best with which to dip your toes?
The opening track,Don’t look Back .
Recording quality (typical of JMT) is excellent ” dynamic and clean as a whistle. Remarkable for its (and Wilson’s) individuality.
(You might also try last year’s “She who weeps”[JMT ]; the beautiful song New African Blues certainly received a deal of wholly warranted airplay from London jazz station Jazz FM and many people have asked me where it came from. Now you know.
Tell your friends.)
Finally, another highly individualistic album: “Metamorphosis” by the World Saxophone Quartet (Elektra-Nonesuch ); not so well known in the UK as an ensemble, its members ” David Murray (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Oliver Lake (alto and soprano saxophones and flute), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone sax) and Arthur Blythe (alto sax)” are however individually (and, as you will find, jointly) something rather special. Improvisation is the key here.
For this album and the World Saxophone Quartet are joined by three Senegalese drummers (Chief Bey, Mor Thiam [who also shares a writing credit]and Mar Gueye) and an electric bassist (Melvin Gibbs, on three tracks).
The results range from the almost predictable (say the unsettled but distinctly South African “township” feel of Lullaby ) to the totally unpredictable,; the title track is indeed just that and ranging from a tight, boppy ensemble that would not be out of place as a riff in a Basie band arrangement and transforming (metamorphosing ” see?) into a complex interweaving of improvised joint soloing against rhythmic drumbeats and back again.
Masai Warrior Dance is more of the same; intermeshed and slightly jarring reed interplay, but held together with insistent African drums.
All compositions, bar the least complex song,Lullaby , are by Bluiett, Murray or Lake. Fascinating and definitely moreish.
[Steve Bohling]
Cassandra Wilson: see following page.
COLLECTORS GUIDE
Following last month’s investigation into budget labels and series, Peter Brown seeks out and sorts what’s what in the mid-price (£10 and below) mainstream.
BMG CLASSICS (RCA)” Under old name of “RCA Gold Seal”, at a very reasonable £7.99, one finds the cream of RCA’s old American catalogue including such treasures as “The Toscanini Collection” and the Chicago SO under Fritz Reiner, Horowitz and Heifetz playing Beethoven Sonatas and the Guarneri Beethoven String Quartets, Rubinstein in Chopin and Mozart, Sviatoslav Richter in Beethoven, and Mussorgsky, and Van Cliburn in concerto and solo piano performances.

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Hence and sterility.

finnevans — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:54:05 +0000

Hence and sterility.
The route around this problem was found in 1937 by a Frenchman, Pierre Givaudon.
He discovered that colchicine, a yellow alkaloid derived from the bulbs of autumn crocus (Colchicum ), will sometimes cause the chromosome number of plants to double.
Thus, hybrids that formerly were infertile with cells containing ill-matched set of chromosomes, could become fertile; by doubling and the chromosomes produced two matching sets.
Givaudon achieved his feat simply by soaking the growing shoots of plants in colchicine.
The arithmetic of chromosome doubling becomes somewhat complicated in the case of wheat because durum wheats (the kinds used in pasta) normally contain four sets of chromosomes (that is, are tetraploid) and the common bread wheats contain six sets (that is , are hexaploid). Rye itself is merely diploid (two sets of chromosomes).
Nonetheless, in the mid-1950s, Dr J. G. O’Mara of Iowa State University successfully applied Givaudon’s colchicine technique to a hybrid of rye and durum, and hence produced hexaploid triticales; one set of chromosomes from rye, plus two sets from the tetraploid durum makes three ” and double it and to make six. Such hexaploid triticale then became the subject of large-scale seed production. Many problems still lay ahead.
The seed set was still poor (that is, most florets failed to produce seeds) and the grains were generally small and shrivelled and so yields were disappointing.
Furthermore and the first triticale was far too tall and weak so that it “lodged”(is flattened) in a storm, and kernels in contact with the earth soon rotted.
In humid climates and triticale seed had the annoying propensity of sprouting prematurely; often, while still on the parent. Even worse and triticale in the tropics took far too long to ripen.
The new cereal was developed in temperate regions where summer days are long, and the parents of triticale evolved in climates where spring frosts can be devastating.
Hence triticale was developed as a “long-day” plant; it set seed only when long days indicated that the danger of extreme cold had passed. In lower latitudes and the shorter day length postponed maturation.
Fewer crop cycles could be cultivated each year and in mountain valleys frost sometimes damaged the cereal. Triticale was still “waiting” for the environmental cue of long days.
A small band of researchers, based mainly at the Universities of Manitoba and Guelph, in Canada, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico, worked hard at eliminating the undesirable traits of triticale.
The architecture of triticale was altered so that it would grow shorter; in this way more photosynthetic effort would go into seed production rather than stems.
Triticale breeders were keen to make the plant insensitive to day length so that it could be grown successfully at the Equator as well as in temperate regions.
A breakthrough occurred accidentally in 1967, when a sad-looking triticale plant at one of CIMMYT’s nurseries was fertilised by pollen blowing from some nearby wheat breeding plots.
The progeny from that chance cross yielded a triticale that was not only short but was much less sensitive to day length. Triticale looks more like wheat than its other parent and rye.
As in some wheats and triticale has long tufts (awns) sticking up from the seed spikes.
Most triticales have a characteristic cover of soft, velvety hairs around the stem, just below the seed head.
Thanks to the efforts of the breeders and the stem of triticale is short so that the plant is more rigid in the wind; grain size and quality are also vastly improved.

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The hole resulting from a damaged 250…

finnevans — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:45:58 +0000

The hole resulting from a damaged 250 mm sewer can be big enough to swallow a double-decker bus.”
In London the Greater London Council has found that “most of central London’s sewer system is more than 70 years old, of which a substantial proportion is more than 100 years old. Yet the Thames Water Authority has been cutting its spending on sewer renewal. It spent £18 million in 1980, but plans to reduce that to £13 million in 1984.
The introduction of newly-developed linings that can be pushed down into crumbling sewers to extend their life is widely touted as bringing the cost of renovating the nation’s sewers down somewhere nearer to what impoverished water authorities can afford.
But many of the plastics being used in the linings are relatively untried and nobody has any real idea how long they will last.
As Donald Rees from the South West Water Authority told the Lords: “It is all very well lining a sewer at half the price that it would cost to build a new one, but in fact it may only last a quarter of a normal funding life and may therefore be uneconomic.”
But the temptation for the quick fix is obvious for every water authority, faced with both its customers and its government demanding that water rates be kept down.
As water engineers have begun to face up to the problems of crumbling sewers and they have become concerned too, with the effect of holes in their other, parallel supply system and the water mains.
Because most of the water system is not metered and there is a fair amount of guesswork involved in establishing how much water is lost.
But most estimates put the figure at more than a quarter of all the water that enters the water mains network.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when water engineers were falling over themselves to find new pieces of countryside to flood for reservoirs that would meet rising water demand and their water mains were leaking more and more water.
(Ironically, now that the extent of this leakage is being understood and there are too many reservoirs, collecting too much water for a depressed industrial market that is switching away from water-guzzling businesses like iron and steel.)
London’s water mains leak 29 per cent(up from 19 per cent in the mid 1960s), Birmingham loses a similar amount.
But parts of Liverpool and Glasgow and much of rural Scotland lose as much as 50 per cent of the water. Meanwhile, many thousands of kilometres of water mains are corroding.
Soft acid waters, from the peaty hills that supply much of Britain’s water, are eating into the iron water mains of many towns.
That not only increases leaks, it also discolours the water and increases metal-contamination.
Last year the Yorkshire Water Authority tentatively began the first stage of a £150 million programme to eliminate the worst coloured waters from such towns as Huddersfield, Halifax, Bradford and Sheffield.
A report as long ago as 1975 found that more than two-thirds of Yorkshire’s water mains needed replacing, mainly because of corrosion.
It found that “little or no investment…on renovation or renewal works had taken place in the last century”.

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He was buried in Auchinleck kirkyard but, even in…

finnevans — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:37:22 +0000

He was buried in Auchinleck kirkyard but, even in death, he was not allowed to rest in peace.
Six weeks after his burial and the Dragoons discovered his grave and dug up his corpse.
They took it to the Gallows Hill, Cumnock, intending to hang it from the gibbet but the Earl of Dumfries intervened and stopped them as he feared rioting by the people of the district.
After sorely abusing the corpse and they buried it at the foot of the gallows, intending the burial as a final disgrace.
A headstone was erected by local admirers and many years later, when Cumnock required a new burial ground and the intended disgrace was completely reversed by the people of the town deciding to have the ground around and including the minister’s grave consecrated as their new cemetery.
In 1891, an obelisk of Aberdeen granite was erected as a memorial in place of the headstone. Alexander Peden, “The Prophet”, was a brave, devout man of great conviction.
If he was a zealot, it was in his strict adherence to his Faith; if he was bigoted, it was in his belief that the kirk was of the people and answerable to no master other than God. His name is revered still in Ayrshire.
Hundreds of admirers visit his grave each year and in many parts of the county children still play on Peden’s Pulpits and hide in Peden’s Caves. THE BLACKSMITH
John Morton was the Darvel blacksmith, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He had the power of his profession but was mild mannered and sincere by nature.
Many of his friends were Covenanters but, although he supported their cause in principal and loathed the barbarous conduct of the dreaded Dragoons, he took no active part in the rebellion.
In truth, his feelings were more nationalistic than religious as his principle objection was to English ways being forced upon the Scottish people.

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The power of such sources of information, or…

finnevans — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:50:07 +0000

The power of such sources of information, or alleged information, lies in its unprovability, whether true or false.
It has always been man-made in its entirety, for there has never been a supernatural source of information. 5)
Religious writing must be ongoing, as is life itself, and subject to constant revision. 6)
The underlying cause of religious failure is the tenacious adherence to belief in “gods” of time long past. These gods have no relevance to progressive life.
7)
All speculation or philosophising about the nature and existence of a “god”, before the arrival of life on earth is futile. A “god” and corresponding religion that can serve the human need, must be produced by mankind itself and that is and the “god”must be created by life and man’s intelligence, not life created by “god”. 9)
Mankind must abandon all belief that the unknown power which created the universe, if it were created within the meaning of that word as generally understood, is to be identified as the “god” that must be worshipped. (10)
The concepts of “good and evil” are associated with human life and they have not been predetermined in any sense whatsoever. 11)
The actual source of life is not known and is not to be attributed to the God that mankind can worship and that is, a definable God developed with life, and therefore not responsible for its origin. 12)
Life is to be enjoyed.
Evolutionary motivation, in all its complexity, is primarily directed to that end. 13)
God must be explained or defined in terms that can be understood, or at least readily believed, by the masses of the populace. 14)
It is useless for religious understanding to become the exclusive province of theologians and scholars and thereby create an academic enclave which excludes the mass of people whose business is other than theological studies. 15)
The Created God is the mental image of a storehouse of “goodness” which has been extracted from two sources, evolution and civilisation.

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In 1981 the government authorised the project in principle and…

finnevans — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:20:14 +0000

In 1981 the government authorised the project in principle and set up the Mediterranean-Dead Sea Company, which delivered a detailed study on engineering, economic and environmental aspects of the whole hydroelectric scheme last year. Effect on the environment
A project of this scale obviously has wide environmental impact.
This is being watched by the Environmental Protection Service, a public body located within the Ministry of the Interior.
A key issue is the effect on the Dead Sea, focused around two main elements ” the water level and the salinity.
The water level has undergone many changes in past history, due to natural and, more recently and to man-made factors. The proposal is to raise the level to what it was in the 1930s.
The Dead Sea is a terminal lake into which drains the River Jordan and its tributaries, as well as the streams flowing from the Judean, Edom and Moab Mountains and the Arava.
Once and the Jordan carried some 1.2 billion cu.m of water per year to the Dead Sea; other streams and ground water delivered an average of another 0.4 billion cu.m a year.
Flows decreased dramatically in the 1960s with the completion of Israel’s National Water Carrier, which conveys water from the River Jordan into the country’s water grid, and after the Kingdom of Jordan diverted the Yarmuk. The Dead Sea has receded as a result.
It covered some 1000 sq.km and stood at 393 metres below sea level in the 1930s. Now it is 800 sq.km and its level has dropped 9 m to 402 m below sea level. Evaporation lowers the Dead Sea some 1.6 m a year.
Given this evaporation rate and the smaller inflows into the sea and the level is continuing to drop at a rate of about 0.5 m a year.
In addition and the Jordanians are expected to complete the high dam at Maquarin this year. This will increase their exploitation of the Yarmuk waters via the Ghor canal.
The River Jordan will then carry only some 200 million cu.m of water a year, a sixth of it’s flow 30 years ago.
The Dead Sea waters contain a high concentration of salts composed of potassium, bromine and magnesium as well as other minerals.
The Israeli potash and bromine works at the southern end produce more than a million tonnes of these minerals a year.
Hotels and resorts along the western shores exploit the climate and the sea’s salts and sulphur springs.

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This applies particularly to “wilderness” states such as Montana where large…

finnevans — Sat, 08 May 2010 15:58:23 +0000

This applies particularly to “wilderness” states such as Montana where large quantities of cobalt and platinum are lying under the ground. President Reagan’s rhetoric has, however, yet to be converted to action.
The Department of Interior has only just begun a two year study to streamline the fiendishly complex sets of planning rules that govern new mining projects.
Another problem is that the administration has given few details on the cash that it will put up to induce mining companies to begin new ventures.
President Reagan failed to support an effort in Congress to provide a five-year, $1000 million package of loans and other measures to tempt the mining firms into action.
Proposals for a Defense Industrial Base Revitalisation Act, which would also have provided cash for retooling over a wide range of American industry, had widespread support from Democrats and Republicans.
But hampered by the lack of enthusiasm from the White House and the measure failed to complete its legislative programme. Other nations have tried to open up their land areas.
In 1975 France started a detailed evaluation of the minerals it could obtain from its own soil.
The Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres and the state-owned minerals agency and spends about £5 million per year on prospecting and has found deposits of copper and tungsten, lead and zinc.
Japan also encourages domestic mining with government grants and loans that in the late 1970s totalled some £5 million annually.
Results in Britain from a similar scheme and started in 1972, have been disappointing.
Of £50 million that the government then made available to encourage mining companies, only about £10 million had been taken up by the middle of last year (see above).
Another technique to reduce the risks from a cartel is to find new overseas suppliers of key minerals.
The deposits may not be economic to mine now and though they could be either if the world recession lifts and demand grows, or if supplies from elsewhere are cut short.
Thus mining companies in the West are eyeing Morocco and Australia as possible sources of cobalt.

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The most virulent poison known from the animal world comes from…

finnevans — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:03:54 +0000

The most virulent poison known from the animal world comes from the skin of the small, brightly coloured poison-arrow frogs from South American forests (opposite and below).
Because of their lethal defence system and these small frogs are able to live bold, untroubled lives on the forest floor, hopping about conspicuously with bright colours advertising their presence.
Many other animals that harbour secret chemical defences also show themselves fearlessly to the world and some of them also perform special displays that indicate their readiness to engage in a chemical encounter.
Anyone who has encountered a skunk will know that before it fires its stinking spray it issues clear warnings of its intentions. It starts by stamping its feet on the ground and arching its back.
If this, combined with its vivid display of black and white fur, does not deter the enemy, it may then start swaying its body back and forth as if cranking itself up for action.
At this point it may ” especially if it is a spotted skunk ” perform a handstand and rearing on to its front legs with its hind legs held high in the air.
This amazing posture displays its markings even more conspicuously and in this position it may advance several feet towards the attacker.
In origin and this inverted posture seems to be related to the scent-marking action of certain small carnivores that deposit their odours upwards on high objects.
Some mongooses, for example, employ a similar handstand when marking overhanging branches with their personal scent, and South American bush dogs regularly stand on their front feet when leaving their personal odours on tree-trunks.
Presumably it is because of the link between standing up in this way and the act of squeezing scent from the anal region that the posture has become associated with the firing of the anal glands by the defensive skunk.
The message of the stance is clear enough ” come any closer and I will squeeze my glands tight.
However, before actually firing its spray and the skunk must revert to a position in which all four feet are on the ground and the tail is raised and the back fully arched. Then, looking back over its shoulder at the enemy behind it, it aims and shoots.
As it does so, it swings its body slightly from side to side, like a machine-gunner raking the enemy ranks.
This gives its nauseating, pungent spray a wider range ” an arc of about 45 degrees ” and greatly increases the defender’s chances of covering its target.
Any animal that has been sprayed just once will respond immediately and back away fast from a displaying skunk. And with good reason.
The spray is not merely unpleasant, but is also extremely painful if it reaches its target directly.
The noxious substance contained in the two anal glands, one on either side of the animal’s rectum, is called butyl mercaptan and it plays havoc with a predator’s face.
In addition to the foul stench it produces, it is also damaging to sensitive mucous membranes.
If it gets into the predator’s nose it can injure the tissues there and if it enters the mouth it causes violent vomiting.
If the spray hits the eyes there is almost unbearable pain and temporary blindness.
It is pitiful to see the agony of a naÃ¯ve dog that has nosed up too close to a skunk and been sprayed in the face.
Retching, vomiting and desperately trying to rub its face clean and the animal learns a lesson it never forgets. The stench of the skunk seems to last for ever.

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