The English...

...are a rather quaint folk who fret about whether the milk or the tea should be poured into the cup first.

I have a post up at Transport Blog about driving in China.

The Kate Kennedy Procession

In St Andrews today:

Robert the Bruce, King of Scots:


St Andrew and Field Marshall Haig:


Bobby Jones and John Cleese:

An astronomy joke

I heard this one from a professor of mathematics, with whom I had dinner this evening.

Two astronomers were using different techniques to estimate the distance to a far off galaxy.

"I reckon it's about ten to the thirty-two," said the first.

"Oh no," said the second. "I think it's only half that, about ten to the sixteen."

Boom, boom.

The last duel in Scotland

Over at Samizdata, Jonathan Pearce discusses the ancient, but forgotten tradition of duelling, a tradition I am firmly in favour of reviving. (Would anyone like one, by the way, just to get things started?)

I had a suspicion that the last duel in Scotland was fought in the students' union of my old university. This page appears to confirm it:

[T]he last duel recorded in Scotland was as late as 1899, fought by two students at Glasgow University Union after an argument over the candidates for election as Rector. Robert Henderson Begg supported Lord Kelvin, the university’s distingushed physicist, and Carlo La Torre supported Lord Rosebery, who had succeeded Gladstone as Prime Minister in 1894 only to resign a year later.

After the argument became an exchange of insults, the students decided that a duel with swords fought to first blood was the only solution. Begg won.

Unfortunately, however, further research suggests that the whole story was a joke:

But now researchers from the very same university appear to have spoilt the party, for they have revealed - to the horror of many - that the blow-by-blow account of the duel in Glasgow University Magazine was simply a student joke and that no blood was ever actually spilt at all.

The study by Glasgow University Archive Service claims the article was a satirical sketch put into the magazine as a joke, pointing to several made-up articles that appeared in the publication from this period.

I have to say, I'm gutted. And I'm not the only one:

David Grant, the current president of Glasgow University Union, said he was "bitterly disappointed" by news that the duel may have been a fake. "If the duel was false, then it’s very disappointing and tragic.

"I’m still to be wholly convinced, but I will be truly gutted if it didn’t take place because it was one of our claims to fame."

I used to think of Google as my omniscient friend. Now it just shatters my illusions.

Businessmen don't like competition

I've got a post up at Transport Blog about St Andrews taxi drivers complaining about 'unfair' competition undercutting their prices.

A view of London

I rather liked this picture from Brian's Culture Blog, but I felt it was missing something.

A mushroom cloud:


Mushroom clouds are rather pretty don't you think?

A little quiz for physics buffs: What's wrong with that picture, apart from the fact that it's faked? What's that mushroom cloud doing, or not doing, that you would expect a real mushroom cloud to do?

Views around Fife

St Andrews Cathedral



Anstruther Harbour



The Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth. I go diving here.

This last picture highlights something: taking pictures of the sea is hard. If you get the horizon slightly squint it's very obvious. Mountains, not having a straight horizon anyway, are more forgiving in this respect. Short of using a tripod and a spirit level, how do I fix this?