Pickaxe handle

		There can be few things in life more satisfying than a new pickaxe handle. Surely in everyone's Top-10.
		After fitting it, I saw a forager, so prepared a bait hive. Yow! I collected a swarm on March 25th. We'll take a look in a couple of days to seee if she's doing the bizz.

No, I'm not

Token Man?

Tuned in to Radio Ceredigion as I walked across the cliffs - Popular Music [sic] interspersed with Welsh banter. Some of what they played was OK and some was diabolical. The highlight was a reggae band singing in Welsh, whose name I could not disentangle from the Welsh torrent at the end of the song.

Apropos of which, I once knew a man in Leeds called Jules who cracked a ceiling during his sexual endeavours. He was the only white man in a reggae band playing the pubs at that time (errr, 1983). He referred to himself as the "Token Honky".

Apropos of which, my contribution to the Women in IT Blog Carnival has received honourable mention.

Making things

Somehow, I got asked by Rob Phillips to contribute to his project on "Making Things". I had to take a photo of a thing I had made, or was making, and jot a few words about why.

I suppose he will distil something from dozens of such inputs. If you want to contribute yourself, I expect he'd be glad to hear from you.

My photos were of the sea, a hive stand, some honey, a posting like this one, a computer program, die Frau, Oliver, a script, my German dictionary, a plant, some cider.

Amguedddfa

Welsh is one of the very few languages in which words may be spelled with the same letter "three in a row":

(Actually, "Amgueddfa" means "Museum", and "Amguedddfa" is a misspelling).

3 things about women in IT

I read a request for blogposts on "Women in Tech". Here are three observations:

1. The percentage of women taking A-level computing in the UK was never >50% (quiz question - in what year was this exam first sat?), but this already low proportion took a significant dive around 1984. Now why's that?
2. In 2008 I gave the welcoming address to the inaugural Lovelace Colloquium for women students in Computing. This was the only time I have been in a full theatre and been the only man. As someone present said to me: "Now you know how it feels".
3. In our household, the gender divide of computer scientists is 50:50. This system works pretty well.

Kentish sound mirrors

Much has been written about the Kentish Sound Mirrors, and many pictures can be seen.  There seems little need to add to these piles.

The mirrors are a compelling sight: they are big - some huge - and rather forlorn. While we know they were demonstrated to "work", they raise far more questions than they answer.

We went to see the survivor above Hythe, now in a bit of a sorry state.  It was best approached across a very muddy field, and it was a cold and windy winter day.  It seemed a good plan to have a toddler and a lady on crutches in the party.

It really was jolly interesting.

(Fred is visible at the left).