I’ve been learning Egyptian hierogylphs for nearly a year now at the Egypt Exploration Society in London. So far I’ve only translated texts provided by my course tutor that have been either texts from monuments or specially written texts to practice things we have learned.

The other week I was at the British Museum and saw the book, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit (hieroglyph edition)’, and thought it would be fun to transliterate it, then translate it back into English.

As I’ve only been learning hieroglyphs for a year, I’m bound to make some a lot of mistakes.

The books I am using to help me with translating are:
1. ‘How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs’ by Mark Collier and Bill Manley- this is a good starting point to learn heiroglyphs. It doesn’t have a complete sign list, but I use it for the odd thing like pronoun lists or verb forms.

2. ‘A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian’ by Raymond O. Faulkner – You can’t do without this if you’re doing hieroglyphs.

3. ‘Egyptian Grammar’ by Alan H. Gardiner- again, this is a requirement for doing hieroglyphs.

Another good book to have to learn hieroglyphs, but one I am not using to translate, is ‘Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs’ by James P. Allen.

Before I get to translating the book, I will very, very basically explain just a little bit about how hieroglyphs are translated.

Ancient Egyptians used hundreds of different hieroglyphs during the Middle Egyptian period (this went up to thousands later on). There are three different roles that hieroglyphs have. The first is as a phonetic representation of the sounds of 1-, 2- or 3-consonants (Egyptians didn’t write vowels) in order to make up words; the second is as an ideogram, so the hieroglyph of a face with a line under it would mean ‘face’ rather than simply the phonetic sound ḥr (which are the consonants in the the word for face); the third is as what’s called ‘a determinative’ – it clarifies what is being said.

The first thing one needs to do is transliterate the hieroglyphs into alphabetic symbols representing the different sounds. The ‘alphabet’ used for this is as follows:
3 – English sound ‘ah’
ı͗ – English sound ‘ee’
y – English sound ‘ee’
ˤ – English sound ‘ah’
w – English sound ‘oo’
b – English sound ‘b’
p – English sound ‘p’
f – English sound ‘f’
m – English sound ‘m’
n – English sound ‘n’
r – English sound ‘r’
h – English sound ‘h’
ḥ – English sound ‘h’
ḫ – English sound ‘kh’
ẖ – English sound ‘kh’ (like the German ‘ich’
s – English sound ‘s’
š – English sound ‘sh’
ḳ – English sound ‘k’
k – English sound ‘k’
g – English sound ‘g’
t – English sound ‘t’
ṯ – English sound ‘ch’
d – English sound ‘d’
ḏ – English sound ‘dj’

In order to read the transliterated words aloud, Egyptologists insert an ‘eh’ sound between the consonants so the little face symbol above ‘ḥr’ is pronounced ‘hehr’/'hair’.

After transliterating, you need to translate, which involves picking out the individual words. As ancient Egyptian didn’t use spaces between words nor punctuation, sometimes this can be rather difficult. This is why you need sign lists and dictionaries. As I am only providing a literal translation, I’m not even going to get involved in grammar or verb forms etc, which also isn’t the easiest. (Update 11/06/12: I am now attempting a translation into readable English.)

OK. Onto the translation.

I will only show the cover and the first page of the book (copyright, schmopyright), but will provide as much of a transliteration and literal translation (without punctuation etc) of the entire book as I can. If anyone finds any mistakes, let me know (via Twitter).

COVER

Line 1: sḏdt n
Tale of
Line 2: ptr sẖˤt
Peter hare

PAGE 1

Line 1:
wn pw sẖˤt nḏst 4 irw rn sn
Be this is Lives this/it hare small 4 (unknown) (shape?) names their

Line 2:
m fw3psy mw3psy
with(?) namely Fwapsy Mwapsy

Line 3:
sd mḥw ptr wn sn ḥnˤ
Tail of Linen Peter be they together with

Line 4:
mwt sn ḥr ṯs ẖr mnyt n
mother they upon sandbank under root of

Line 5:
cš ˤ3 wrt
cedar tree great great

Update June 10th
PAGE 2
Line 1
ḥḏ n rf t3 ḥḏ-n-t3 ḏd.n sẖˤt i3t (det. ‘old’) (det. ‘woman’)
Dawn (thus?) land said/spoke our hare old woman

Line 2
i mr-w 3 (det. ‘family’) (det. ‘woman’) di (det. ‘woman’) šm tn
Oh! My love Loves (unknown) (family of woman?) please go you (pl.)

Line 3
r š3 r w3t tn r pw im n tn
to country to road you that speak(?) (utterance? intent?) this is there (when?) together not you(pl.)

Line 4
nswt(?) šm r ḥrt-š in s3 grgr
but go to garden in Son of Gregor

Update June 11
PAGE3
Line 1
ir-n tw st3w r itf-tn
‘born of/whom made’ them crimes to/at/concerning father your(pl)

Line 2
im rdi n(y)-sw ḥm.t s3 grgr
when placed he belong to wife son of gregor

Line 3
m t srf
in bread warm

Update June 12
PAGE 4
Line 1
3s irf tn m ir dw.t
hasten (so)too you(pl.) with/from take action(?) evil

Line 2 nbt mk w r prt
lady/mistress See! I to go

Update June 13
PAGE 5
Line 1
ˤḥˤ n ṯ3i n s sẖˤt i3t
stood up (to?) (past tense. doh!) took up/seized snatched (to?) her(?) Old (female) Rabbit (Mrs Rabbit?)

Line 2
mnḏm šwyt s šm n s
basket sunshade go (she?)

Line 3
ẖr nhwt r pr rtḥy in
carrying/under(?) protection(?) trees to house baker fetch

Line 4
n s t p3t m wnšty 5
bread loaf in/from/namely(?) plum/raisin/currant 5

Update June 13
PAGE 6
Line 1
ist rf wn fw3psy mw3ps
(encl. part.) (encl. part.) lives/content(?) Fwapsy Mwaps

Line 2
y sd mḥw m sẖˤt nḏs
y Tail of Linen with/from/in rabbits small

Line3
t(det pl.) nfr bi3.yt (det ‘says’) sn h3 n
beautiful marvels say(?) descended

Line 4
sn r w3t/w3i tn r in nt bnrt
They towards road/start you(?) to get/fetch (belonging to) dates.

Update June 18
PAGE 7
Line 1
iw ms ptr m bin (det small) wr.t sḫ
Surely/Indeed Peter in/with/as bad (det small) great(very)
Line 2
s (det movement) in.f r š n s3 grgr
hurry/flee (by him? can’t quite get what in.f means) to garden of Son of Gregor
Line 3
ḥr ˤwy
immediately

UPDATE 18th June
My (attempt at a) translation into English directly from this text, not from the original book- “There live four small hares. Their names are Fwapsy Mwapsy Linentail and Peter. They live together with their mother upon a sandbank under a very large cedar tree.

Fwapsy Mwapsy Linentail- little, beautiful (marvelous?) hares- went down the road to fetch (their?) dates. Peter – a very bad little one – hurried immediately to the garden of Son of Gregor

I will continue update this with the transliteration, literal translation and “readable” translation of the rest of the book as and when I do it.

Along with the Protosnap, I also got a few Lilypad components- a coin cell battery holder, some LED ‘petals’ (I also got some “normal” LEDs), a button board to turn things on and some conductive thread.

Orignally, I discovered all of this because I was interested in the idea of making a finger on my winter gloves conductive so I don’t have to take them off when using my iPhone this winter. I started looking into where I could get conductive thread and stumbled upon this amazing world of geeky crafts.

About a month ago, I got very excited about Becky Stern’s LED shoe clips. I knew then than my sights were set far too low with the iPhone gloves. I wanted clothing that lights up…

So I found all the stuff, ordered it… and here I am…

I’ve done my very first soft circuit project. It does not involve the Lilypad Arduino. I’m still experimenting with that.

I was in M&S the other day and passed by this jumper. I was very excited because of the metal zippers. I thought I could use them as a switch. (Click to embiggen)

I’ve got a necklace I bought in Tokyo that I’ve never worn. I thought I might be able to use it somehow.

I sewed on a string of the small pearls and the small chain.

On one side, I sewed two little pads on either side of the zipper at the very top. When the zipper is fully closed, the circuit will be closed when the zip mechanism itself touches them.

I sewed the battery pack on the front. If you look at the big picture, you can see that I’ve sewn one of the positive connections down with conductive thread and run it to one of the pads next to the zipper. I’ve taken some conductive thread from one of the negative connections all the way round the back of the neck of the jumper to the other side to join up with the negative connections on the LEDs. I sewed the remaining two connectors down with normal thread.

I sewed on 5 white LED ‘petals’ in between the pearls and the chain. You can see the conductive thread- the top line is the negative connection, the bottom is the positive. I needed to keep it on top of the fabric because my skin is conductive (I am sewing on small bits of fabric over the zipper pads and anywhere else the conductive thread goes all the way through the jumper).

Notice the lights are off when the zipper is undone.

And on when it is zipped up.

I might be addicted to this already.

NOTE: If you are in North America, Lilypad stuff can be bought directly from Sparkfun and conductive thread is at Lamé Lifesaver.

I have now completely changed my mind. With this whole Sarah Palin thing, McCain has shown that he is clearly chaotic and dangerous. He should not be in charge of a country which has so very much at stake. America has a chance to step out of the darkness, a chance to wake-up, a chance to join this wonderful world we live in. This will NOT happen with McCain in the White House. If he puts so very little thought into who he chooses as his running mate – the person who could end up being the Vice President of the country for 4 whole years- what amount of contemplation will go into, say, starting another bloody war?

It’s clear now that the McCain camp more-or-less tossed a coin when it came to choosing a Vice-Presidential running mate. McCain spoke to her once on the phone and once in person the day he offered her the job.

“Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.”

She had ALREADY been given a lengthy questionnaire which asked for information on ‘personal matters’, but she didn’t feel it appropriate to mention that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant in that questionnaire. She waited until Wednesday, the day before they offered her the job, to let them know that. She had informed them about her husband’s DUI and McCain aides say they had already found out about the ethics investigation she’s under in Alaska (you’d think the Republicans would have had enough of those for a while).

One of McCain’s advisors said, clearly using this week’s Acceptable Republican Terminology (in italics): “We made a political determination that the American people would not object to a female candidate with a 17-year-old daughter who was pregnant. We believed that parents all over America would understand that life happens (my emphasis). The team made a recommendation to the senator that these issues were not disqualifying.”

“Life happens”. Hmmmm. Now, in normal language that would read “mistakes happen”. You know, the condom breaks, she forgot to take a Pill, he didn’t pull out in time, they weren’t given adequate sex education to understand how to prevent themselves from getting pregnant, their parents either never talked to them about birth control or forbade them from using it. You know, those kinds of mistakes.

BUT… because last spring when Obama used the word ‘mistake’ when talking about sex education the Republican Machine took the quote out of context and said that he was talking about abortion. Well, of course, they can’t use the word ‘mistake’… so what do they do instead? Use a completely ridiculous sounding sentence- “America would understand that life happens” (when you’re busy making other plans) – with that good ole Manchurian Candidate-like trigger word ‘LIFE’ which wakes up this crowd of Bible-thumping zombies hiding out in the backwoods.

Speaking of Bible-thumping zombies, this is Sarah Palin at her church. it’s about 14 minutes long, if you don’t have the time to watch it all, let me just tell you that at one point she says that she thinks the War in Iraq is ‘God’s will’ and that God wants drilling for oil in Alaska’s 20 million acre wildlife refuge. Seriously.

When I was 19, I saw the film ‘Jesus Christ Superstar‘ (US) and said to my friend, ‘Judas is so cool!’. She laughed and I had no reason why. I hadn’t learned that Judas was hated by Christians for betraying Jesus. When I learned this, it seemed truly bizarre:

• Surely, Jesus ‘foresaw’ Judas’ betrayal (according to the lyrics in JCSS: ‘One of you here dining/ one of my twelve chosen/ Will leave to betray me…’ or in Matthew 26: 21: and as they were eating, he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’), so, clearly, Judas had no freewill in the matter. Why should he be ‘damned for all time’ if he had no choice?
• I didn’t understand why, exactly, Judas should be damned for being a vital part of the Saving of Mankind. Clearly, according to the rules of Christianity, Judas was created by God specifically to ‘betray’ Jesus. Doesn’t seem right to me.
• Why did Jesus, on the cross, say about the men nailing him up, ‘Forgive them, they know not what they do,’ but poor Judas was damned for eternity?

These logical flaws were the start of my interest in religion.

It’s incredibly easy to accept the ‘truths’ of religion if you a) don’t know very much about the Bible or b) don’t know very much about history or c) don’t know very much about science or d) actively work to delude yourself. If you’re a rational, intelligent person who hasn’t been brainwashed since birth, the second you start to read the Bible, alarm bells start ringing. The more you learn about the historical reality of Israel and the Roman Empire at the time, the more unlikely it all starts to sound. The more you learn about pagan myths the more unlikely Jesus, Son of God, becomes. The more you learn about science, the more ridiculous the ‘miracles’ sound. If you are an educated and intelligent person who is also religious, you must delude yourself in order to remain religious.

I’ve spent 15 years or so devouring books on science, artificial intelligence, technology, psychology amongst many other topics which provided me with a grounding in “reality”. Whenever I’d look at religion and saw what people believed, I’d be shocked and astounded at their, well, to be frank, their ignorance. I have, however, only recently started reading books on Atheism specifically. I’ve subsequently learned that a lot of my own ideas about religion had already been voiced by many people before me.

I thought I’d make a list of a few of my recent favourite books on atheism, in case any of you are interested in reading more.

Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

US Readers:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

This isn’t about atheism directly. It’s about the scientific method. It teaches you how to use logic and rationality to recognise reality from ‘baloney’. Every school kid should sit an end-of-year exam on this book. If you only read one book on my list, make it this one. It’ll give you a good grounding in how to think.

Why I Am Not A Christian by Bertrand Russell

US Readers:
Why I Am Not A Christian And Other Essays On Religion And Related Subjects

This is, for me, the best place to start reading about atheism. The title essay was originally given as a talk in 1927 just down the road from me in Battersea. The other essays were written by Russell between 1899 and 1954. This, I think, is the most logical and simple book on the ridiculousness of religion you can read. It’s unencumbered by modern politics like the other books on this list. Some of the arguments have moved on since then, so those of you who are still actively deluding yourselves with religion may have a few ‘ah! ha! That’s wrong because…’ moments. I would, however, invite you to read the rest of the books on my list before feeling smug.

Portable Atheist edited by Christopher Hitchens

US Readers:
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

Now, I love Christopher Hitchens for so many reasons. Mainly because he cracks me up. In this book, he has chosen excerpts from some of his favourite writings on atheism. From Spinoza to Mark Twain; from John Updike to Carl Sagan, this book is filled with brilliance. Each chapter stands on its own so you can jump around throughout the book as you wish. This is the perfect ‘taster’ book.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

US Readers:
The God Delusion

I’ve got to put this one here as it’s the one everyone knows. It’s not my favourite on this list, to be honest, though he wrote some very good things on morality and children in this book (I, too, called religion ‘child abuse’ a few years ago) and find the book incredibly readable. I don’t find his arguments as deep as other writers’, but he’s always incredibly clear. I honestly think that if you read this and you’re still religious afterwards, then you are definitely delusional.

God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

US Readers: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Hitchens again. Oh, how he makes me laugh. (don’t think he’s funny? Watch this.) If you’ve read the first three books, you’ll definitely be ready for this one. This book is sharp and biting and often very, very funny. This was clearly written to start arguments. I heard recently that Hitchens said he’d be upset if we all woke up tomorrow and no one on the planet was religious. When asked why, he responded, ‘The I’d have no one to argue with.’ I love him.

End Of Faith by Sam Harris

US Readers:
THE END OF FAITH

This one is for ‘advanced atheists’ who enjoy digging a bit deeper into the whole topic OR people who’ve moved on past seeing the ridiculousness of Christianity and have moved onto the silliness (and/or violent insanity) of religious fundamentalism. This is probably my least favourite book on the list, but I mainly enjoyed it for the ‘thought experiments’ (at one point, he actually condones torture… and admits he wasn’t expecting to end up doing that). Most people who have criticised this part of the book have clearly never engaged in similar thought experiments themselves (you can learn quite a lot when you challenge your own beliefs). I also genuinely enjoyed his thoughts on how you can be an atheist AND spiritual (which is something I truly know to be possible). I was also interested to read that he sees religion as a form of mental illness (if I were doing a psychology PhD, I’d be researching the connections between religion and schizophrenia).

THE NEXT BOOK I’M READING

Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

US Readers:
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos (US) was what really kick-started my interest in science. When Brian and I first met and started writing science programmes together, we’d always stop and think ‘What would Carl do?’ We still do that.

We were truly and deeply honoured to have met Carl Sagan’s widow and long-time collaborator Ann Druyan in New York in May. One of her friends had seen Brian speak at TED, so arranged for us all to meet up for lunch when we were at the World Science Festival in New York. For both Brian and I, it was a really huge ‘meeting a hero’ moment.

We saw Ann most recently at SciFoo. She and I took part in a ‘Religion and Science’ discussion there and afterwards I told her how brilliant she was in the discussion, so strong and clear. She flattered me by complimenting me on what I said during the discussion, too. *blush* We then talked for ages about being both scientific AND spiritual people and how we couldn’t see that there is a conflict between the two at all. We talked about our kids and how, when they aren’t brought up with religion, they see religion for what it is perfectly clearly by the age of 5. She talked about Carl. I love when she talks about Carl… God, she must miss him…. I’ve got a total girlcrush on her in the biggest way. I absolutely want to be her when I grow up.

Anyway, let me know if you decide to read any of these books or, if you’ve read any of them already, what you thought of them.

“Everyone thinks they have a right to be listened to…”

I was asked, “Doesn’t everyone have a right to be listened to?”

My answer, “Nope. Everyone has the right to SAY what they want. They don’t have the right to be listened to….There is a very, very big difference and some people don’t get it.” And then we went on for another 20 minutes trying to have a nuanced conversation two sentences at a time.

Maybe it’s an unfashionable thing to say. Maybe it doesn’t fit within a certain mindset. Maybe it’s wrong. I don’t know, but I’m going to expand my thoughts about this much more than 140 characters per post on Twitter allowed me to.

So my statement is: “Not everyone has the right to be listened to.”

Three thoughts within that statement need to be expanded: “not everyone”, “right”, “to be listened to”.

Let’s start with “to be listened to” as I suspect this could be the most confusing bit.

There is a semantic difference between “hear” and “listen”. The sentence ‘I heard my mother telling me to do my homework, but I didn’t listen.’ explains the basic difference pretty well. “To hear” is the act of detecting soundwaves with your ear. “To listen” is to make an effort to hear something or to pay attention to what you hear.

“Hear” can also mean – “to be informed of” (“I heard you were moving”). “Listen” can also mean – “to obey” (“My kids never listen to me when I tell them to clean their room”).

“To be listened to” means requiring the action of another person. You can’t stand alone in the middle of the desert and “be listened to”, you need another person to do the listening.

“Listen” is the word I used. Purposely. With the first definition I can restate my initial sentence in stronger, more absolute terms as “No one has the right to insist everyone else makes an effort to hear what they say.” or “No one has the right to insist everyone else pays attention to what they say.” Restating the sentence using the second definition of “listen” is “No one has the right to insist everyone else obeys what they say.”

Equally it is correct to say “Not everyone has the right to insist anyone else makes an effort to hear/pay attention to/obey what they say” as not everyone has the right to compel anyone else to do anything.

“Not everyone has the right to be listened to.”

“Right“. What is a right?

1. A right is something for which you do not have to seek the permission or approval or willingness of others. It is something to which you are legally and fundamentally entitled irrespective of anyone’s private thoughts.

2. A right is universal – everyone is covered, not just certain people or one group of people or everyone except one group of people.

3. A right pertains only to yourself and does not mean you can make a claim on anyone else. You do not have the right to claim ownership of another person’s money, property, time, life etc though you have the right to earn your own money, own your own property, do what you want (without infringing on the rights of others, of course) and live your own life in the manner in which you choose (again without infringing on the rights of others).

If you were the only person living on the planet you would be able to live your life exactly how you want to no matter what gender you are are, what colour your skin is, what crazy things you believe, what crazy things you say, whether you are fully physically able or not. You would have the “right” to be able to find, gather, grow your own food, you’d be able to make a shelter, think anything you want, say anything you want etc etc

If then suddenly some other people appeared, do you gain MORE rights because there are other people around you or not? That is, because of the existence of other people, does that mean you are fundamentally entitled to “more”. Do you now have the right to their food, their home, their clothing? Do you have the right to force them to do things for you like grow your food, build your home for nothing in return? Do you have the right to tell them what they can think? Do they have the right to make any of those claims on you?

The answer to these questions, of course, is “No”. If not, please tell me why you think so in the comments.

Now…In this world where you’ve been entirely on your own and at liberty to sustain your own life in the manner of your choosing when suddenly other people have appeared, do you now have have the right to make them listen to (Make an effort to hear/pay attention to/obey) anything or everything you say? Do they have the right to make you listen to them? Do any of you have the right to be listened to?

Of course, the answer is ‘no’, but if you think the answer is ‘yes’, please use the comments to explain how ‘claims on property, liberty and thought’ are not allowed but ‘claims on time’ or ‘being forced to obey just anyone/everyone’ are.

A “right” is not an expectation, a desire or a wish based upon ones own personal preferences. A “right” is a fundamental entitlement for every single human being on the planet.

“Not everyone has the right to be listened to.”

Finally. “Not everyone” means just that.

There are some people who have a right to be listened to: law enforcement and judges, for example, but only, of course, when it comes to their jobs. You are legally required to listen to, to obey, a police officer when they are telling you to put your hands on your head when they are arresting you, but if you are Alex Ferguson, for example, you don’t have to listen to, to obey, what they think would be best starting line up for Manchester United. And if Alex Ferguson tells you to put your hands on your head, you don’t have to listen to him, unless you are one of his players and putting your hands on your head is part of a warm-up…

The reason some people- and there are others besides the ones I mentioned- are “listened to” is that they have authority. Authority is earned – by passing the bar then being a good lawyer, you may become a judge; by passing the entrance requirements and tests, you may become a police officer; by, well, I actually don’t have any idea how someone becomes a football manager, but I think you get the idea. Authority in all situations and circumstances is not the right of anyone.

Some people have authority in some situations. No one has authority in ALL situations.

Not everyone has the right to be listened to.”

I think when people hear the “not everyone has the right to be listened to” sentence they automatically think ‘freedom of speech’. Freedom of speech means that you have the right to say what you want. It does not mean that anyone else is compelled to a) provide a platform, public or otherwise, for you to use b) pay for you to say what you want c) publish, broadcast or listen to what you have to say.

I think it’s pretty simple. Many people don’t.

January

Me and Charlie Brooker

I was doing lots of stuff for Sunshine and Channel4.com, saw Ben Folds in concert, the Sunshine trailer was leaked by resourceful fans and I was interviewed for Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe.

February

/Cat blog

MASSIVE Sunshine stuff, loads of Channel 4 stuff, went to LIFT where Brian spoke and my Screepwipe interview was broadcast.

Watch Video

March

Danny Boyle on the Sunshine set

I know the photo above wasn’t taken in March, but the month was so freakin’ mental I didn’t take any photos. I was doing 7 days a week, 18 hour days mainly for Sunshine- press and bloggers’ screenings, press interviews, cast and crew screening, Manchester screening, messageboards, emails, IMDB, generally mentalness. There was also Channel 4 stuff, a discussion I took part in at the ICA, went to Cambridge with Brian who spoke at their Science Festival… and I’ve also got ‘Milton Keynes’ in my diary on the 16th. I’ve got no memory of what that was about at all.

April

Danny Boyle, Cillian Murphy, Brian

Another insane month. Sunshine was released, screening and Q&A with Danny at the Ritzy cinema, trip to Russia for the premiere, the 28 Weeks Later premiere… and I bought some ‘Sunshine’ props and costumes. :)

May

Tiger in my face

My Sunshine props and costumes were delivered. :) Was starting to get properly frustrated with the Channel 4 stuff, was weaning off Sunshine, I went to the Arthur C. Clarke Awards nominations, did a Social Media Club photo walk with Lloyd, went to Anna and Julian’s wedding and started looking at secondary schools for my son.

June

Brian at the Star Wars exhibition

Trying to get back into life and recover generally from Sunshine insanity. Sunshine was at the IMAX, spoke at Music Tank, Daywatch screening, more secondary school stuff (including an entrance exam… yikes!)

July

Me at the Gormley exhibition

Secondary school interview (yikes!), started on the Sunshine DVD release, bit of Daywatch work, David Hoyle started Magazine again… my son was offered a place at a secondary school (yay!)

August

Brian, Mo, Benny Wong, Cliff Curtis

Sunshine DVD release, 28 Weeks Later DVD release, Daywatch, more David Hoyle at Magazine… QR Codes.

September

QR Codes

QR Codes for 28 Weeks Later, interviewed about QR on various tv and radio programmes, my son started at his new school, I was invited to talk to the Nuclear Industry Association, recorded the Nature podcast sponsor stings, went to more David Hoyle shows, saw Prince’s final aftershow gig, got properly ill.

October

CERN

Still ill. Started working on a project looking at the Ageing Population, went to CERN twice – the first time with Kevin Eldon and Simon Munnery, the second time with Quentin Wilson- took part in a Nuclear Industry Association roundtable discussion, met Arvind from Slingshot Studios.

November

David Hoyle

Lots of meetings, dinners and lunches. Ageing Project roundtable meeting and dinner… And, of course, the wonderful David Hoyle.

December

My father came to visit, I attended the Juno bloggers’/Twitterers’ screening, fell in LOVE with ‘Juno’ (you’ll be hearing more about this), started Twittering (finally), went to see the King Tut exhibition, attended the Nuclear Industry Association annual dinner, my son had his birthday, recorded a Digital Planet with Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson, more talks with Slingshot Studios, David Soul…then…

…today.

After all that, I really need to rest over the next few weeks. I feel like I’ve still not recovered from my illness properly and still need to catch up on all of the sleep I lost last spring with Sunshine… My next 10 days will consist of POWER RESTING. I won’t do any work (except for watching the pile of screeners I’ve got), I won’t worry about whether or not I’ll have any work in the new year… I will just relax in the most hardcore way…

First things first, as all of you Sunshine fans will have heard by now, the film is being released in the US and Canada on the 20th of July! Yes! Finally. I’m soooooo very excited. I’m hoping to be in the States then, too, so I’ll be able to go through the excitement of the release firsthand! Weeeeeeee!

Second, some of you will remember the podcast Brian did with John Barrowman recently, well, there’s a CERN Podcast website now which will have the podcasts, photos and information about all of the podcasts they do over the coming months. The next person going out there will be author Charles Jencks and then (perhaps) Alex James. He’s also asked Charlie Brooker, Martin Amis, Stephen Fry and Daniel Radcliffe…

It’d be really helpful if all you blogger types could link to the site using just CERN in the link in order to help get it up Google’s results. Heh. Press is starting on it next week so there should be loads of people listening to the John Barrowman one (well, more than the thousands and thousands of Dr. Who fans who’ve already listened to it!)…

I’ve found out how to take… wait for it…. infrared photos with my Sony Ericsson mobile phone. It’s seriously cool. They do need a bit of Photoshop tarting (adjusting levels and contrast etc) as a mobile phone camera is really very point and shoot, but you have to admit the results are pretty amazing.

Normal photo:

Infrared photo untouched:

After adjusting the levels, colour channels and contrast:

More IR pics from Clapham Common:

Scary, evil, haunted-eyed child (ie my son in IR):

I’ll explain how to do it another day…

I’ve been looking into the effects of radiation on the human body and have found that radiation is measured in three different ways- the becquerel, the gray and the sievert.

The Becquerel measures how much activity there is in a quantity of radioactive material. A measurement of one becquerel means that in a particular quantitity of material one nucleus is decaying per second.

The Gray measures the physical effects of radiation or how much energy is absorbed per unit mass of matter. One gray is equal to one joule of energy deposited in one kilogram of matter.

The Sievert measures the amount of damage radiation does to biological tissue. As one gray of different types of radiation can have more or less effect on the human body, the sievert is used as a “dose equivalent”.

It’s taken me a while to get my head around all of this and even longer to try and figure out how to explain it, until I thought about the differences between punches delivered by either Kylie Minogue or Mike Tyson.

So the becquerel would be equivalent to the number of punches being thrown. The gray would be the amount of energy that has been delivered by those punches. And the sievert would be the damage caused by those punches.

The number of times Kylie or Tyson punched you (the becquerel) could be equal but that number doesn’t explain how hard either of them hit your or whether or not those punches did any actual damage.

You can easily imagine that the difference between the energy delivered in a punch from Kylie compared to a punch from Tyson (the gray) will be very different. But it doesn’t tell you anything about the difference between damage caused by 100 little Kylie punches directly to your lip and one Tyson punch to your stomach.

One Tyson punch to the stomach may send you flying and make you lose your breath, whereas 100 Kylie punches to your lip may actually split your lip and cause you to need stitches. The sievert in this case, very, very basically, measures the likelihood of damage being caused by a particular ‘punch’ taking into account the number of ‘punches’, the energy delivered in each ‘punch’ and the area of the body that ‘punch’ is being delivered.

To get an idea of what a sievert means I will give some examples of the sievert measurement and the likely damage caused.

A dose of more than 80 sieverts (Sv) or 80,000 millisieverts (mSv) is expected to cause immediate death.
50- 80 sieverts (50,000-80,000 millisieverts) death happens after a few hours.

10-50 Sv (10,000-80,000 mSv) causes acute radiation poisoning and is likely to cause within 7 days. The highest radiation dose at Chernobyl was 20,000 millisieverts which caused the deaths of 28 people within the first four months after the accident and 19 subsequently.

6-10 Sv (6,000-10,000 mSv) causes acute radiation poisoning and death is expected to happen within 14 days.

4-6 Sv (4,000-6,000 mSv) causes acute radiation poisoning with 60% fatality after 30 days.

3-4 Sv (3,000-4,000 mSv) causes severe radiation poisoning with 50% fatality after 30 days.

2-3 Sv (2,000-3,000 mSv) causes severe radiation poisoning with 35% fatality after 30 days. Nausea and vomiting is common. 50% chance of losing all of your hair with a 3 Sv dose. General illness and fatigue is very likely. Recovery can take up to several months.

1-2 Sv (1,000-2,000 mSv) causes light radiation poisoning. 50% chance of mild or moderate nausea, general illness and fatigue and with a 2 Sv dose.

0.5-1 Sv (500-1000 mSv) causes mild radiation sickness. Headache and increased risk of infection due to the disruption of the immune system.

0.2-0.5 Sv (200-500 mSv) causes no noticeable effects. Red blood cell count my temporarily decrease.

0.05-0.2 Sv (50-200 mSv) causes no symptoms.

The average annual radiation dose in the UK is 0.0027 Sv (2.7 mSv). 84% of that or 0.00216 Sv (2.16 mSv) is naturally occurring radiation from radon, cosmic rays, gamma radiation from buildings or even our food. Of the rest, 15% of the average annual total radiation dose, or 0.000405 Sv (0.405 mSv), is medical in origin. 99% of our radiation comes from natural or medical sources. The remainder of the artificial sources of radiation, 0.000027 Sv (0.002 mSv) comes from occupational exposure, discharges (from nuclear, phosphate, oil and gas industries) consumer products and nuclear fallout from nuclear testing. You get half that radiation dose on a flight from the UK to Spain.

A dose of 1 mSv of radiation is, according to DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, “equivalent to an average risk of about 1 in 20,000 of fatal cancer. Cancer from all causes accounts for about 1 in 4 deaths in the UK.“.

Finally, I will point out that if you live in Cornwall, your average annual dose of radiation from all sources is a bit higher than average. It’s 0.008 Sv or 8 mSv per year due to the higher naturally occurring radon levels.

So, once and for all, can we all agree that the radiation risks posed to us from the nuclear industry are completely and absolutely minimal? If anyone is interested, however, I’m thinking of starting a campaign to have Cornwall shut down because of its obvious danger to public health…

So Henriette and Daisy, I apologise if I can’t reply.