Welcome to Stalin World!

Grutas Park is a sculpture park in woodlands deep in the Lithuanian countryside. It is otherwise known as Stalin World, as though it were Lithuania’s answer to Disney World. Perhaps it is.

The main feature of the park is the collection of dozens of statues and busts of former Communist leaders, including Lenin, Stalin, Karl Marx and the founders of the Communist regime that ruled Lithuania when it was part of the Soviet Union before 1990.

Grutas Park was the brainchild of Viliumas Malinauskas, who was at various times a heavyweight wrestling champion, a Soviet-era soldier and the manager of a collective farm. After the fall of Communism he made a fortune from mushroom farming, and it was this money that led him to create Stalin World.

In 1998 he bought many of the statues and busts that now grace the park when these came up for auction having been removed from public display in various towns and cities. Some of these were enormous lumps of granite or bronze whereas others were relatively small. Many had been damaged when being toppled from their previous places of honour.

Malinauskas had no wish to venerate these people – many of whom had been responsible for the death of thousands of people, but to remind visitors of the history of the Soviet Union and how terrible it had been.

To this end, Malinauskas acquired other features of the Soviet system, such as watchtowers from which Soviet-era military music blares, and other reminders of the “gulag” system of camps for political imprisonment. The closest one gets to a Disney World experience is the short train ride one can take in a cattle wagon – ushered on board by uniformed guards – to a reconstructed prison camp surrounded by barbed wire.

After opening Grutas Park in 2001, Viliumas Malinauskas reminded visitors that it was better to see something once than hear about it ten times.

© John Welford

A few facts about atoms

Everybody knows that all matter is composed of atoms, but there some facts about atoms that almost boggle the mind!

For example, we all know that atoms are extremely small, but did you know that you could fit two billion atoms into the dot on top of each letter “i” in “billion”?

An atom consists of a nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, and electrons that whizz in orbit round the nucleus. There are as many electrons as there are protons in the nucleus.

However, what is not generally appreciated is that an atom consists mainly of empty space! If you could imagine an atom that was the size of a sports stadium, such as a Premiership football ground, then the electrons would be whizzing round the upper tiers of the stands and the nucleus would be a pea in the centre circle!

In other words, all matter is an illusion – everything that exists does so thanks to the energy contained in atoms. The actual matter in the atoms is almost non-existent.

© John Welford

How the Pacific Ocean got its name

Why is the Pacific Ocean so named? It was thanks to the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who sailed across it in 1520. His voyage down the eastern side of South America had been beset by storms and so, when he eventually found a passage to the west (through what is now known as the Strait of Magellan) he was greatly impressed by the calm sea he found on the other side.

The Spanish word “pacifico” means peaceful, and so it seemed to be an appropriate name to give this newly-discovered ocean. Of course, no ocean is without its bad weather, although the Atlantic does experience more storms than the Pacific. However, Magellan’s original impression was what he marked on his map and the name has stuck!

What Magellan did not appreciate was that the Pacific, at 166 million square kilometres, was twice the size of the Atlantic Ocean and the world’s deepest, at up to 4000 metres. The Pacific Ocean is actually larger than all the world’s land surfaces put together.

© John Welford

That, which, who

The use of the correct relative pronoun is one that used to be extremely important – if you wanted to speak and write correct English – but it has tended to excite less wrath from the pedants, if used incorrectly, in recent years. 

We are talking here about “that”, “which” and “who/whom”. In general terms, “that” should be used to refer to persons, animals and things, “which” to animals and things, and “who/whom” to persons. 

The basic rule is that “that” should be used to define the meaning or intention of the preceding word or phrase, as in “the book that I put on the shelf was a novel by Dickens”, whereas “which” would be used when the identifying information has already been supplied, as in “The novel by Dickens, which I put on the shelf, was far too long for me.” 

The use of “which” implies that you are referring to a specific item as opposed to another one, but this is not universal – “that” is often used in such a context. 

You can use “that” for persons when any member of a defined group is being referred to, and “who” when it is a particular person. Examples here might be: “People that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” and “Bert, who lives in a glass house, threw a stone.” In British English, it is common to use “who” in preference to “that” when there is uncertainty, but Americans tend to prefer “that”. 

It has to be said that the use of these relative pronouns is dying out in some quarters, and if omitting one does not change the meaning of a sentence, then there is nothing wrong in doing so. However, there are occasions when confusion can be avoided by including one. 

Consider this example: “Mr Jones said yesterday some shares fell rapidly”. This could mean either that he said this yesterday or that the shares fell yesterday. The ambiguity can be avoided very easily by placing “that” either before or after “yesterday”. 

In the interest of not using more words than necessary to make one’s meaning clear, omitting that/which/who should be encouraged – but only when the meaning really is clear. 

As to using “that” or “which”, it depends on how precise you want to be. A general principle of modern grammar should be that a difference that makes no difference is not a difference worth too much bother!

© John Welford

Trial by combat

Back in 2002 a man in Suffolk (England) named Leon Humphreys came up with an interesting idea for settling his dispute with the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency), who accused him of not notifying them when he took his 125cc motorcycle off the road and did not re-licence it.

This is an offence, and the DVLA took him to court so that his local magistrates could levy the appropriate fine. However, Mr Humphreys objected that this was a flagrant breach of his human rights and that he would settle the matter as his ancestors would have done, namely according to the medieval rules of Trial by Combat.

Back in Norman times it was believed that the victor in a judicial combat had God on his side and must therefore be in the right.

Mr Humphreys suggested that the DVLA should put up a candidate to fight him, and he offered that the weapons in question could be samurai swords, Gurkha knives or blacksmiths’ hammers. However, he did also point out that the fight would be to the death.

Not surprisingly, Mr Humphreys did not get his way. The magistrates suggested that, if he was correct in his claim that trial by combat was still on the statute book, he would need to produce the statute in question. Unless or until he did so, he would be required to pay a fine of £200 plus £100 costs.

© John Welford

Evolution is not "only a theory"

People who try to discredit the theory of evolution, preferring instead to rely on the Book of Genesis, will often say: “But it’s only a theory”. The implication is that it is unreliable and unproven and thus no more worthy of trust than the creationist view that they espouse.

However, what they are doing is misunderstanding what the word “theory” means. To them, something that is a theory is, by definition, “theoretical”. It is a back of the envelope idea, something thought up as an explanation that is no more than a thought and without any firm evidence to back it up. Another word meaning the same thing would be “hypothesis”.

That is indeed one meaning of “theory” but it is not the only meaning. To a scientist, a theory is a set of ideas that constitutes an explanation of how something works. It is the next stage beyond the hypothesis because it incorporates the evidence that any reasonable person would accept. It is the generally accepted account of the phenomenon in question, incorporating the laws and principles that govern what is known and observed.

There are many theories of the latter kind. The theory of gravity is one such, in that it is an explanation of how large masses exert attractive forces on smaller masses. Another is the heliocentric theory that describes how the sun sits at the centre of the solar system and the planets move round it in their orbits.

Neither of these theories can be described as unproven hypotheses, although this might well have been the case some centuries ago. When Galileo advanced the heliocentric theory of Copernicus he was thought to be a dangerous radical whose thinking was disputed because it challenged the teaching of the Church.

The theory of evolution has also been challenged because it is thought in some circles to be contrary to religious teaching. The “only a theory” jibe is therefore thrown at it just as it was at Galileo’s theory.

However, just as the heliocentric theory has moved from the “hypothesis” meaning of the word to that of “accepted explanation”, so has the theory of evolution. The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that it has long moved beyond being a hypothesis, although this was not the case when Charles Darwin first proposed it. It is now a theory that is accepted as fact in the same way that the heliocentric theory or the theory of gravity is accepted as fact.

To say “only a theory” implies that there is something better than a theory, and that if evolution was worth its salt it would be this something else. However, outside the world of mathematics there is nothing better. Absolute proof of anything is impossible unless the terms are defined so rigorously as to be make proof inevitable, as happens with mathematical statements and formulae. In the real world there are plenty of accepted facts, but they are encased in what are conventionally called theories. They are proven for all practical purposes and are therefore completely reliable. There is nothing more factual and reliable that a well-formulated theory, in the non-hypothesis sense, and evolution is one such.

© John Welford

Lie, lay

How often have you heard someone say “I’m going to lay down for a rest”, when they should really have said “lie down”?

The confusion arises because lay can mean either the past tense of lie, or be the transitive verb equivalent of the intransitive verb lie.

Thus: “I will lie here until dinner time”, but “I lay on the bed for an hour after lunch”.

A transitive verb always takes an object, whereas an intransitive verb does not, so that you have to lay something – you can lay the table, or a hen can lay an egg!

An easy way to remember this is: “Lay down the law and lie on the floor”!

 © John Welford

led, lead

A lot of people seem to be getting this wrong these days, usually by writing “lead” when it should be “led” – as in “the path lead me in the wrong direction”.

The confusion comes because “lead” can be pronounced either as “ledd” or “leed”, depending on its meaning. The “ledd” sound is only used when “lead” refers to the grey metal of that name. The “leed” sound is the present tense of “led”.

So correct usages would be:

The lead on the church roof has been stolen.

Does this road lead to Leicester?

He led me astray.

© John Welford

Remembering Benny Diceymus

5^th November is celebrated in the United Kingdom as Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night, this being the date in 1605 when King James I and Parliament were saved from the dastardly Gunpowder Plot. Guy Fawkes was the plotter who was discovered in charge of the barrels of gunpowder underneath the House of Lords and who subsequently suffered the punishment of being hanged and quartered. 

Despite this grisly form of execution, the custom has been ever since to burn a “guy” on a bonfire, and to let off plenty of fireworks.

When I was a student in the early 1970s at what later became Bangor University in North Wales, there was a much more involved form of celebration, which was known as Benny Diceymus. This went back some years before I arrived, and continued for some time afterwards, but has now been abandoned – probably for health and safety reasons.

During my first and second years at Bangor I had a room at Neuadd Reichel, the oldest of the three men’s halls of residence. This was where Benny Diceymus originated. 

The story began with an error on the part of the Hall Warden, who presided over the formal evening dinners in Hall, at which staff and students were required to wear gowns. Grace was always said before dinner was served, and – this being North Wales – there had been much discussion over whether this should be said in English or Welsh. A compromise was reached and a Latin grace was agreed upon. This included the word “benedicimus”, which means “we commend”. The warden, not being a classical scholar, had no idea how to pronounce this word and so said “Benny Diceymus”.

The students – most of whom would not have not any more idea about this than the warden – promptly declared that Benny had been murdered, or diced, by the warden and so should receive a proper send-off.

This developed over the years into a formal procedure that was presided over by a high priest, a higher priest, who had to be taller than the high priest, and an even higher priest who had to be taller than both of them. Once the obsequies had been observed in the Junior Common Room, Benny’s cardboard coffin was then conveyed to its funeral pyre. 

It was no coincidence that this ceremony took place on 5^th November, because there was clearly a good excuse for building a suitable bonfire. That also led to the possibility of someone else’s bonfire being commandeered for the purpose of burning Benny’s coffin. That was when the true fun started.

Parading the coffin through the streets of Bangor was bound to attract attention, not to mention the gathering of extra followers. It also led to students from the other halls of residence doing what they could to stop the procession reaching its intended destination, especially if that destination was their own bonfire that they had intended to light in their own good time.

In other words, what began as a solemn scripted ceremony in Neuadd Reichel JCR often deteriorated into a grand punch-up somewhere on the streets of Bangor. It was usually a fairly good-natured confrontation, but sometimes tempers frayed and a few idiots got carried away and went too far.

The custom of Benny Diceymus as Bangor’s version of Guy Fawkes Night has therefore gone in and out of favour over the years, possibly depending on what the local Police had to say about it. Part of the event included posting an In Memoriam notice in The Times that lamented Benny’s passing, but that has not been present for a number of years. Presumably the students of Bangor now have less violent ways of enjoying themselves every 5^th November.

© John Welford

Either, neither, any

Either (the same applies to the negative form - neither) is used when two objects/situations are being covered, as in “I don’t like either blue or yellow” Any is used when the number of alternatives is greater than two, as in “I don’t like any of these colours”. 

An important thing to note is that either is always followed by or, and neither by nor, so it is “I don’t like either blue or yellow” and “I like neither blue nor yellow”.

A point that can lead to difficulties is that either and neither are singular words, not plurals, so the grammatically correct thing to say/write is “Either you or I am mistaken”, but that does not sound quite right to most people, given that “Either you or I are mistaken” might sound more natural. You can avoid this problem by phrasing it differently, such as “Either you are mistaken or I am”, which sounds perfectly OK – whereas “Either you are mistaken or I are” would clearly be wrong!

And how should you pronounce either/neither? There would seem to be a fairly even split between “eether” and “eyether” – so the choice is yours!

(I am referring in this piece to British English – conventions could be different in other parts of the English-speaking world)

© John Welford

Can, may and might

The words can, may and might all have to do with the possibility of something happening in the future, and the first two can also be used to indicate that permission is being granted for something to happen. But what determines when each of these should and should not be used?

Here are three sentences:

I can go to London
I may go to London
I might go to London

Do they mean exactly the same? Not quite!
The first could mean that it is physically possible for me to go – I have bought a train ticket, for example – whereas the second implies that, although the possibility is there, there is a chance that I won’t go – I could change my mind, for example. Can is therefore more positive than may. The third is nearly identical in meaning to the second, on the assumption that we are only talking about the possibility or probability of going, although may is a more positive word to use in this context.

However, the same words would also suffice to imply that permission has been granted for the trip – in the case of can and may, but not might. In terms of permission granting, there is no real difference between can and may.

There can therefore be confusion as to what is meant in a statement such as: You can open the box. Does this mean that you are physically capable of unlocking it and lifting the lid, or have you been given permission to do so? It could be very important to make this clear, because either interpretation is possible. 

If using the past tense, might does what may does in the present and future tenses: I may go to London tomorrow but I might have gone yesterday. 

When subtle shades of meaning are involved, it is vital to get things like this right! (It is also worth pointing out that can and might have other, completely different, meanings in English, and May is the name of a month. As if this little matter was not complicated enough as it stood!)


© John Welford

Flammable and inflammable

These two words actually mean the same thing, namely that the item being described is liable to burst into flames under certain conditions. Inflammable really means "very flammable", but the two words tend to be used interchangeably. However, it might be thought that "in" implies "non", as it does in words like "independent", which is the opposite of "dependent". Clearly it could be dangerous if the word is misunderstood, so it is safer to avoid using "inflammable" and prefer a clearer expression such as "highly flammable". For the negative, "non-flammable" is the clearest word to use.

© John Welford

Lincoln Green and Robin Hood

As everybody knows, Robin Hood and his Merrie Men (plus Maid Marion) romped through Sherwood Forest robbing from the rich and giving to the poor during the reign of King Richard I (1189-99), wearing clothes made from Lincoln Green cloth.

Of course, what everybody knows may not be true at all, and there are serious doubts about the Robin Hood story at a number of levels.

However, one aspect of the legend may surprise people more than others, namely that the Merrie Men, had they existed at all, would have worn red cloth, not green!

There was a cloth made in Lincoln that was known as Lincoln Green, but this was only made after 1510 (when it was first mentioned in documents), which was centuries later than Robin Hood’s time.

There was a much earlier cloth that was called Lincoln Greyne (or Grene), but this was a bright red product that used grains of carmine dye to achieve the colour. The word for grain at that time was “greyne”. The resulting cloth was highly desirable and expensive.

There is clearly room for confusion between “greyne” and “green”, especially as there really was a Lincoln Green cloth at around the time that the Robin Hood legends were being restored by balladeers in the 17^th century. Earlier ballads, dating from the 14^th century, would have used “greyne” and it was a natural transition to “green”.

But would the woodland outlaws really have worn expensive red cloth? That’s a different question altogether!

© John Welford

St Peter and St Paul Rocks, Atlantic Ocean

It is not unusual to find groups of rocky islands close to a coastline, but stuck out in the middle of an ocean? That is where you will find the St Peter and St Paul Rocks – in the Atlantic Ocean about 590 miles from northeast Brazil and 1,100 miles from west Africa.

They are 15 small islands that rise to no more than 60 feet above the sea. The total land area is about 160,000 square feet. They are uninhabited, although the Brazilian Navy has established a scientific station and lighthouse on the largest island.

The name comes from the event that led to their discovery in 1511. A Portuguese nobleman, Garcia de Noronha, was in charge of a fleet of six caravels on a voyage to India. One of the caravels, “St Peter”, crashed against a rock at night in the middle of the ocean, and the crew had to be rescued by the crew of another caravel, “St Paul”. 

The St Peter and St Paul Rocks, despite their apparent lack of importance, are extremely interesting from a geological point of view. They are the very top of an undersea mountain that only just breaks the surface. The technical term for the sort of feature they represent is “megamullion”, this being a ridge that runs at right-angles to a mid-ocean ridge, which in turn marks the point where two tectonic plates are moving apart and allowing new ocean crust to form. The Rocks are the world’s highest megamullion (at 12,000 feet), being composed of mantle rock, and are not an undersea volcano that has reached the surface.

The Rocks were visited by Charles Darwin when on board HMS Beagle in 1832. He noted that they had very little to offer in the way of wildlife, and that he not been able to find a single plant anywhere on the islands. He did find two birds, a moth, a crab and some spiders, but that was about it. 

Had Darwin stayed longer, he might have noted the relative richness of the tidal pools, which support sea slugs, shrimps and lobsters. The islands are visited by many migrating seabirds, and the seas surrounding them are populated by some 75 species of fish, including deep-water eels, sharks, and five – including the St Paul’s Gregory – that are found nowhere else.

This is a place that very few people visit, or are ever likely to.

© John Welford

Street names

Street names can be fascinating. I grew up in Tatnam Road (Poole), and lived at various times in Gravits Lane (Bognor Regis) and Windwhistle Way (Alderbury, near Salisbury). However, although it might seem that I am fated to live in streets with strange names, I ruined it all by spending the past 30 years in New Street (Barlestone, Leics) which is about as un-strange a name as could be imagined!

There are certainly some very odd addresses that one can have. I don’t think I would like to live in Barbers Piles (Poole) or Slaughterhouse Lane (Milford Haven). On the other hand, London’s Shoot-Up Hill sounds OK, and there’s Sheffield’s Letsbe Avenue which sounds like a good address for a police station!

One very odd street name is “Of Alley”, which is close to London’s Charing Cross Station at the west end of the Strand. To be accurate, what you can see is a small nameplate on a wall that reads “York Place formerly Of Alley”. The name is a mystery until you know the full story.

The streets in this area were developed in the 1670s by the second Duke of Buckingham, whose father had acquired York House and its estate in 1624. The second duke named the streets after his full name and title: George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Villiers Street and Buckingham Street are still there (the photo is of Buckingham Street). George Street is now York Buildings and Duke Street is now John Adam Street (part of). That leaves “of” from the name. It’s a short word so it only deserves a short alley, which is what it got.

I once had a friend who collected strange street names and had a whole book of them. There are certainly a lot of them about – and I suspect that it is not just the United Kingdom where they can be found.

Just for good measure, I came across the perfect address for me in Alabama – John Welford Road, a dirt track near the border with Mississippi!

© John Welford

Wind turbines

Do you love ‘em or hate ‘em? Wind turbines, that is.

The two pictured here are within a reasonable distance of our home in Leicestershire. They are “private” turbines in that they have been erected by a local farmer in a bid to generate electricity for his own purposes and sell any excess to the National Grid. They are also, as you can see, two-bladed turbines and not the massive three-bladed ones that are seen more often in the UK countryside.

People seem to get very worked up about having wind turbines in their area, calling them eyesores that ruin the landscape.

Personally, I do not share that response. I look upon turbines as being majestic edifices that add to the scene rather than detract from it. I would far rather have a cluster of turbines on top of a hill than a nuclear power station any day!

I am also mindful of the fact that turbines are generating much-needed clean energy and avoiding the need to dig yet more coal and other fossil fuels out of the ground and release masses of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it is burned. 

The largest turbines, such as those found in huge wind farms out at sea, provide enough energy from a single complete turn to power an average family home for a day.

They have been blamed for being a danger to birds, and there is some truth in this. However, work has been done to minimise the problem – one ingenious solution has been to paint one complete sail black, and this has been shown to have a noticeable effect in reducing the casualty rate. 

This area of Leicestershire was once thick with coalmines with their winding gear and slagheaps adorning the view in all directions. From a purely scenic perspective, I’ll take the wind turbines in preference any day!

© John Welford

The Zafimaniry people of Madagascar

The Zafimaniry people live in around 100 villages scattered throughout the forested highlands of south-east Madagascar. They are agriculturalists who are also known for their fine woodwork and intricate carving.

There are probably fewer than 20,000 Zafimaniry alive today, speaking their own language and Malagasy. They hold animist, spirit-based beliefs.

Zafimaniry houses are built from wood, bamboo and vegetable fibres. When a young couple set up home together they build a simple house that is in keeping with the newness of their relationship, but over time they will add extensions to the house until it becomes a solid, permanent building. This is partly to accommodate a growing family but is also symbolic of their strengthening relationship.

© John Welford

The day when things went wrong, then right

I have never been a great believer in Karma or Providence or Guardian Angels. But I do remember a day when a potentially very awkward situation turned out OK due to a string of fortunate coincidences.

Things Fall Apart

The three of us – my wife Sue, 4-year-old son David, and me – had been visiting my mother at Poole for a weekend and we set off in mid-afternoon on the Sunday to drive home to Leicestershire. We had not had the car very long, having bought it second-hand a few weeks before – this was its first journey of any great distance since we had had it.

Shortly after starting off from Poole I thought that the exhaust sounded a bit noisier than it should have done and I made a mental note to get it checked when we got home. The noise got worse the further we went.

As we drove through Newbury (this was before the by-pass was built) there was a terrible clonking noise followed that of something scraping along the road. Part of the exhaust had decided to part company with the rest of the car.

Coincidence 1

This was that were on a journey of more than 100 miles, mostly on fast roads in open countryside, and the disaster befell us when we were going slowly through a town as we approached a roundabout.

Coincidence 2

We stopped – it seemed the best idea! – and asked a passer-by if there was anywhere that might be open on a Sunday afternoon that could help us to sort out the car. This person happened to know that there was a Kwik-Fit establishment just down the road to the right from the roundabout we were approaching. For the uninitiated, Kwik-Fit specialise in fitting and repairing exhaust systems.

We therefore gently limped round the roundabout and set off towards Kwik-Fit, hoping that they were still open at this time on a Sunday afternoon. Then things got even worse as the unsupported part of the exhaust fell down and dug into the road surface, acting as a very effective brake. We were now completely stuck and unable to move either forwards or backwards.

Coincidence 3

This was not only that we were now on a side road as opposed to the main route through Newbury, but that just at the point where we ground to a halt there was a house where some guys were doing a big restoration job. One of them noticed our plight and just happened to have a pair of heavy-duty bolt-cutters in his hand. He was soon able to cut the brackets that held the offending part of the exhaust in place, so we could carry on to Kwik-Fit.

Coincidence 4

Kwik-Fit was still open and would be for another hour!

However, the story now took another step backwards because they did not have the part we needed in stock. It would have to come from another depot. Normally this would have meant waiting until the following day, but the guy on the desk noticed that we had a young child on board and got on the phone to persuade a colleague to bring the part straight away. Another colleague agreed to wait until the part arrived and stay on after his normal finishing time in order to fit it.

This meant that we would have to wait for up to an hour, and possibly longer, before we could get on our way. So what could we do to keep a wide-awake 4-year-old happy during that time?

Coincidence 5

Just over the road from Kwik-Fit was a children’s indoor play centre (slides, ball-pools and the like). It would not normally have been open at this time but today it was playing host to a private party. The party organiser was perfectly happy to let one more kid join in the fun, so that was what happened. When it was time to leave, not surprisingly he didn’t want to!

More than coincidence?

Needless to say, we were extremely grateful to everyone who helped us out on what could have been a very awkward occasion indeed. It just goes to show that, by lending a helping hand and going out of your way, you can form part of a chain of fortunate happenings for somebody who has a problem. 

No – I’m not going any further than saying that everything just fell into place on that day. I know that some people might have seen the hand of Providence at play, but I think that’s just silly. There have been plenty of other times in my life when the right thing has not happened at the right time!

© John Welford

California's supervolcano

It is well known that a massive potential supervolcano lurks beneath Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, but it is less generally appreciated that another huge pocket of magma sits under the Long Valley caldera in eastern California. 

The caldera is 32 kilometres across, one kilometre deep, and is the site of a supervolcano eruption that happened 760,000 years ago, with smaller eruptions occurring up to 100,000 years ago. The site has been dormant since then, but geologists have noted that, since the 1970s, the central dome in the caldera has been rising, albeit slowly. So is the monster waking up? 

The chances of a massive eruption any time soon are extremely remote. That is because work has been done to estimate both the size of the magma chamber beneath the caldera, and the nature of the magma that it contains. 

It is estimated that the chamber contains up to 1000 cubic kilometres of magma, but the good news is that only a relatively small percentage of it is molten enough to pose any sort of danger. The general consensus is that magma that is less than 50% molten will not erupt, and the figure for the Long Valley caldera is 27%. A supervolcano eruption, which would cause devastation over a vast area and lead to the deaths of millions of people, is therefore highly unlikely, but a smaller volcanic eruption at some time cannot be ruled out entirely. 

However, there is also the possibility that the Long Valley magma chamber is actually moving in the opposite direction, as an example of a supervolcano that is dying as the magma cools down. Eventually it will all crystallize into a granite batholith and may one day – millions of years into the future – emerge into the open as the overlying rock is eroded away.
The real problem for the wider region is the Yellowstone supervolcano. Not only is its magma chamber ten times larger than that underneath Long Valley, but the magma does not appear to be cooling down. However, it could be thousands of years before anything really dramatic happens.

© John Welford

Why we get the governments we deserve

Politicians in a democracy are always keen to get your vote, and they seem to have very few scruples about how they achieve this. Most of them do not actually go around handing out money in return for votes (although this is not unknown), but they are always very keen to be seen to be in agreement  with the general mood of the electorate.

However, this often leads them into a different form of dishonesty.

Recent polling in the United Kingdom has produced some interesting insights into what the electorate believes to be the state of affairs in several key areas. For example, when asked what proportion of the UK population is Muslim, the consensus view is that it is 24%. When asked what proportion are immigrants, the answer is 31%. Out of every £100 of public funds spent on welfare, the electorate believes that £24 is claimed fraudulently.

However, these figures are way off course in terms of what is actually the case. The UK Muslim population is 5% of the total, 13% of people in this country are relatively recent immigrants, and only £0.70 out of every £100 spent on welfare goes to fraudulent claimers. The situation in these, and many other areas, is nothing like as dire as people like to imagine – this is, of course, assuming that it is a bad thing that a high proportion of the population are Muslims, which is a highly contentious point in itself but many non-Muslims are deeply worried about this.

So what does the average politician do if he or she wants to garner as many votes as possible? It is hardly in their interest to start telling people that they are wrong in terms of their assessment of the state of the nation – that is not a vote-winning strategy! Instead they will go along with people’s biased views even when they know how off-beam they are.

Thus our political leaders act in a highly dishonest way and make speeches that agree with the prejudices of the electorate. The false facts thus gain a new sort of truth – if everyone believes the exaggerated figures, and governments take actions that are based on them, they have suddenly turned into reality. Forget the real facts – prejudice wins votes! The Nazis in Germany came to power using just this sort of twisted thinking – if everyone believed that the Jews were the enemies of the German people then it had to be true. Unfortunately, the same is happening with today’s “enemies”, be they Muslims, immigrants or benefit scroungers. 

When a majority of people believe something to be true, whether it is or not, democracy tends to make it so.

© John Welford

Left-handed? That doesn't mean an earlier grave!

Being left-handed, I had rather got used to the idea that I was fated to die nine years earlier than if I had been right-handed. This is a statistic that has being going the rounds for so long that it has become something of a “given” – you’re left-handed, you won’t live as long, get over it.

The reasons why this is the case have not always been made clear, but I gathered that it had something to do with our general clumsiness as left-handers, plus the fact that, in a right-handed world, we are statistically more likely to suffer fatal accidents when we try to use right-handed things in a left-handed way. At least, I think it was something along those lines.

However, those fears are now all in the past because it has been revealed that the “nine years less life” statistic is a load of tosh! There is absolutely nothing to worry about if you are left-handed because somebody simply misread the stats and came up with a bogus bit of modern folklore.

Our “saviour”, if that is the right word, is Professor Chris McManus of University College, London, who is the author of “Right Hand, Left Hand”, in which he debunks the “nine years” myth.

The problem arose because the original research (by Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren) did not take all the relevant factors into consideration. In the late 1980s they looked at 2,000 people who had died recently in southern California and then asked their relatives whether those people had been left- or right-handed. 

What they neglected to take on board was that, 70 or 80 years previously when many of those people would have been born, there was considerable pressure on children who were naturally left-handed to become right-handed, especially for handwriting. Their younger relatives would not have known that they were really left-handed. However, as the century progressed there was much less pressure to switch and more left-handers behaved in left-handed ways.

What this means statistically is that, given that some people die at younger ages than others, there would be a higher proportion of left-handers as against right-handers in the “died young” group, but not so in the “died old” group, although the actual numbers of natural left-handers may well have remained proportionately the same across the whole timeframe. 

The researchers calculated that the average difference in age of death as between left- and right-handers was nine years. This is a huge difference, and one that should have alerted them to look again at the figures and ask themselves if there could be a statistical reason for this. However, they did not, and the myth was born.

I shall therefore go on being happily left-handed and, if I die nine years before I’m supposed to, at least I’ll know that my caggy-handedness is not the reason why!

© John Welford

The Samurai way of life

The samurai were, during a long period of Japanese history, from 1185 to 1867, the elite military class to whom all others gave way, with even emperors at times being subservient to the shoguns who, as commanders of the samurai, held the real power in the land.

A samurai warrior would be recognizable from his dress, his weaponry, and his demeanor. When not armoured for battle, he wore a kimono and flowing, skirt-like trousers. His head was shaved on top, with his side and back hair gathered into a topknot. He was permitted to carry two swords at all times, one long and one short, carried at the waist. He was proud and haughty, and demanded to be shown respect by everyone else. He had the right to kill, on the spot, anyone who showed him disrespect, although this was not something that happened very often.

The samurai were warlords and chieftains, and the soldiers who fought for them. They were entitled to an annual gift of rice, but otherwise had to work the land when there was no fighting to be done. Their wives had an important role to play, especially during times of war, as they would have to run the household and even defend it against attack when the warrior husband was away. Many samurai women were trained warriors themselves, particularly in use of the naginata lance and the bow and arrow. Some samurai couples fought alongside each other in battle.

The samurai class, although elite, was also extremely numerous. At the end of the samurai era it was estimated that between 7% and 10% of the entire population of Japan were samurai, with more than a million (out of a population of 25 million) counting themselves as “high samurai”, who were allowed to ride a horse, with another half-million being “low samurai” who could carry two swords but were not allowed horses.

The samurai lived according a strict ethical warrior code known as “bushido”, as “bushi” is another name for Samurai. At the heart of bushido was complete loyalty towards the “daimyo” or lord, who may or may not have been the emperor, depending on the period of history in question. This loyalty meant that personal motivations had to take second place, with desire for material possessions being discouraged. Honor and pride were of supreme importance, as was obedience to the call to fight, whatever the odds.

The seven traditional virtues of bushido were: rectitude, courage, benevolence, respect, honesty, honour and glory, and loyalty. Others that have been included at various times are filial piety, wisdom, and care for the elderly.

Under the direction of bushido, during battle a samurai would seek out an opponent of similar rank and fight him with his long sword. On killing his enemy, the latter’s head would be severed and taken away as a token and proof of victory, with the heads of particularly high-ranking opponents being paraded in triumph on the warriors’ return.

Capture in battle was the supreme disgrace and, to meet this contingency, bushido prescribed a form of ritual suicide called “seppuku”. This involved use of the short sword to stab oneself in the abdomen (“hara-kiri”), with an assistant then decapitating the samurai from behind. Seppuku was also prescribed as self-punishment for other actions, such as acting dishonorably.

Bushido is believed to have its roots in Zen Buddhism and Shinto, the two main religions of Japan, as is evident from its emphasis on subservience and loyalty, and the ethical principles that it contains. However, it is also a warrior code, and it includes such principles as admiration of the sword and the need to perfect all the martial arts. The warrior must be morally pure as well as an efficient killing machine. By looking after his body and not indulging in excesses of any kind, he will be better able to do his duty.

The samurai warrior was also expected to be educated and to cultivate the arts. Many early samurai were also poets. The samurai warrior was a fearsome enemy but a respecter of women and gentlemanly in conduct.

There is therefore much in common with the Western concept of Chivalry, which was also concerned with the fostering of an elite warrior class that was pure in mind and body, and skilled in the use of words. The medieval concept of “courtly love”, by which the warrior-poet admired his beloved from afar but never touched her physically, could have come straight from the dictates of bushido.

There are even parallels with Islam, which was growing in the Middle East at roughly the same time as the samurai in Japan (from the 8th century CE). Islam means “submission” and it had military as well as religious origins.

Although the samurai were officially disbanded in 1876, the spirit of bushido has continued. The kamikaze (“divine wind”) pilots of World War II, who crashed their bomb-laden planes onto US ships, were latter-day samurai in that they set the honor of their emperor above all else and had no fear of death. It could even be said that the spirit of bushido is alive and well in modern Japan, in the form of the intense loyalty that employees have towards their companies, and the tendency not to argue with the instructions of people in authority. It is even the case that modern Japan has one of the world’s highest suicide rates at more than 30,000 a year, and deaths from seppuku are not unknown.

It is also interesting to note that the concepts of bushido have found favor outside Japan. The US Army’s “seven core values” are either identical to the seven virtues of bushido or have close parallels. The samurai way of life is alive and well, in America as well as Japan.

© John Welford