The Cheltenham Bayshill: thoroughly saved

When I lived in Cheltenham (1978-79), I visited many pubs (although there is nothing special about Cheltenham in this regard). Head and shoulders above them all was The Bayshill, and when I visited last week I was delighted to find that it remains a top-grade drinking hole in the middle of town.

During my brief tenure as regular there was a demolition scare: it being the sort of place that attracts those sort of people, some musically inclined locals immediately founded The Bayshill Rollers (yes, it's a pun) to release Save The Bayshill, which I bought. The B-side is the rarely heard Cheltenham Ladies - the College Ladies were a frequent topic of conversation in the pub. Presumably they still are.

(Actually this is at least partly nonsense. The Rollers had existed for some time under the name Decameron, a Cheltenham Arts College band founded by Dave Bell and Johnny Coppin, still extant in the early 2000s.)

It was splendid to see a copy of the disc mounted on the pub wall. Alongside it was a picture of the public bar mural which had featured a number of well known locals (not me - insufficient length of service). It photographs badly but fourth from the right (bow tie) is Aubrey Lewis, with whom I used to work at GCHQ. He was 60-ish in those days, drank beer prodigiously, and smoked lots of Capstan Full Strength cigarettes: a model for us all.

On age, perfection, semi-primality and being 142

Some years ago, the Frau was 28 years old: one day she became 29 and I cockily wrote in her birthday greeting "No longer perfect, but irreducible", and since that date have paid close attention to the primality or otherwise of our respective ages.

She was pleased and impressed when I noted that both before and after our recent birthdays (many thanks for your cards and gifts), both our ages were semiprime: which is to say all four numbers have precisely 2 prime factors (but you knew that already).

Which leads to the obvious questions:

1. What is the density of semiprimes?
2. What is the density of consecutive semiprimes: in particular is it asymptotically >0?

It took some web-searching to determine that an answer to the first question is x log log x / log x - a result I was unable to prove myself that is predictably due to Landau, although this is reported as a poor approximation, and better, less quotable, asymptotic formulae exist.

There does not seem to be a clear answer to the second question, which it need not surprise us pre-occupied the ubiquitous Paul Erdös (did I mention I once beat him at chess?). A simple computer program suggests there are many consecutives, and indeed triples (clearly, 4 in a row is no-go). Heath-Brown has shown there is an infinite number of such pairs [1] but I am unsure of their density.

Anyway, if I live to be 141-142, the pair of us can enjoy this happy numerological event again.

References

1. D. R. Heath-Brown, The divisor function at consecutive integers, Mathematika 31, 141–149, 1984.

<pun> A routine step for Man </pun>

Bar-room chat with Armando and Pierre very naturally turned to the Isle of Man moon-shot plans.

Having in the past authored a documentary piece mistaken by some as spoof or fiction, I saw an immediate opportunity to create an entertaining scam. But truth, as ever, is stranger than fiction, and it seems that the Isle of Man does indeed have a place near the front of the moon-shot peloton. The island state is variously listed as fourth (Hyperbola Flightglobal blog) or fifth (Daily Mail) most likely nation to mount the next personed lunar expedition.

It seems that the combination of the tax regime (well-known) and the Island's active encouragement of space industry (less well-known - to me anyway) combine to give Excalibur Almaz real plausibility of returning humans to the moon. The firm will use ex-Soviet former space stations; details are available.

Geeks are referred to the aforementioned Hyperbola blog, where technicalities are discussed in a measure of depth - I did like their observation Big rockets, complex spacecraft, and (lots of) money needed for manned lunar return. I think I had guessed that already.

Notable quotations on this hot topic:

• IOM.com writes: A three legged lander is a stable configuration as NASA’s unmanned Lunar Surveyor landers found in the 1960s.
• Hyperbola notes: While at first sight sensible, the plan does present other problems ... .
• The Daily Mail reports: Industry insiders have already said the island is already ‘punching above its weight’ in the 21st century space race.
• IOM today said: The Isle of Man is another step closer in the race to the Moon, according to space industry experts.
• The FTsays: Excalibur Almaz will charge wannabe astronauts an average of £100m for a six-eight month journey exploring deep space, and The company also hopes to drive revenues by emblazoning adverts across its space station, and If you make a mistake in space, it will kill you
• The IoM blogger ShareCrazy notes I am afraid of heights so will not be volunteering ... which UK citizen would you nominate? We offer up a choice in our Poll: Tony Blair (war criminal, serial liar), Cherie Blair (freeloader, parasite, ‘uman Rights persecutor), Lady Thatcher (Greatest PM we ever had, please come out of retirement), Wayne Rooney (congenital idiot, scumbag) and Bob Diamond (fat cat casino banker).

(I understand the Sark cold-fusion project has stalled).
5EDR29Z3HCJT

Scott Walker - Bish Bosch: reviews

A visit to Google will yield many reviews of Scott Walker's "Bish Bosch". Some representative comments are:

• The first time I heard Bish Bosch, I never wanted to hear it again.
• ... who wants to buy an album you can hardly bear to listen to?
• The first thing you hear is 30 seconds of drums that aren't so much being pounded as punished, overlaid with a kind of electronic shriek. And this is one of the more approachable moments on Bish Bosch.
• Bish Bosch is sick with corporeal disgust and philosophical disquiet
• Walker has always protested that people miss the humour in his work - in fairness, that's perhaps an inevitable consequence of writing songs about existential despair, Nicolae Ceausescu, illness, and disgust at the human body
• ... listening to Bish Bosch is a bruising, draining experience
• There's something repellently fascinating about Scott Walker's notion of music these days.
• At the center of it all is an old man wailing about cutting off his own balls and feeding them to someone.
• And, boy, has Walker really bitched it this time - nine new astounding abominations, nine new non-songs, bastards all, hymns without harmony, sheer discordia, and, lyrically, nothing but beasts, buggeries, and decapitations.
• ... furious assault of dystopian instrumentation

To be fair, here are a couple of the rather fewer positive [sic] comments:

• I started listening to this album with a mild amusement but kept returning to it to be both terrified and impressed in equal measure.
• It might not encourage repeat plays, but to dismiss it as a racket is to do it, and its maker, a huge disservice.

Well, I've listened to it twice now.

I suspect some of these reviewers have not heard some other things I possess since they might then find Bish Bosch disappointingly melodic. While it may not be the thing I would play when Mother-in-law's at home, it's certainly a possession of note. Ah, that voice.

45 more minutes of Rapid Radio

Rapid Radio is described elsewhere. Earlier I posted a random 45 minutes that I dropped onto a C90 over 20 years ago.

Here's the other side of the tape: this one is from 30th March 1991 (Easter Day!). Around 22.10 you can year the DJ welcome in a local youth: I estimate DC Ranko to be about 12 years old, and he hosts the rest of the session.

Track listing

The DJ's speed and accent, coupled with my incompete knowledge of the genre, make this a little incomplete and unreliable.
Italic indicates uncertainty - corrections welcomed.

Time	Title	Artist
2.27	Thriller U	Back on my feet again
5.44	Freddy McGregor	Stop Loving You
9.14	???	Nothing like this
13.12	Freddy McGregor	Loving Pauper
16.09	Richie Davis	Jah Army
19.45	Leroy Mafia	Can't get enough of your love
23.48	Tenor Fly	Defend your words
27.07	Shabba Ranks, Admiral Tibbet, Ninjaman	Serious Time
30.17	Red Dragon	X amount
33.28	Johnny P	By law
36.44	Godspell	Golden Rule
39.5	Capelton	Magnet
43.14	Panhead	International Wok

Thanks to TechnoSauce for technical support.

I can't dance, either

A lot, and probably too much, has been written about Hawkwind. Quite a lot, and probably enough, has also been written about their quondam dancer [sic] Stacia.

I doubt that even the band themselves would lay claim to significant musical ability, but their show was certainly spectacular. When I saw them during their 72/73 tour they were rather loud with lotsa lights and electronics and probably (no, certainly) lotsa drugs. A jolly good evening.

Stacia - 6'2" tall with 52" bust - habitually danced naked and this encouraged a particular kind of audience: simple arithmetic will tell you I was a male in my late teens ....

In a splendid documentary on the band Lemmy explains that "It was very easy to get into our band in those days ... she had an uncontrollable urge one night to take all her clothes off and paint herself blue ... ".

Diligent research reveals that Stacia is very close to me in age and attended school in Exeter, as I did. I have no recollection of her at all from those days, which is odd. I attended a boys' grammar school.

The documentary includes a clip from the immortal "Hurry on Sundown", covered by Vetiver (who can indeed play their instruments) in their 2008 release Thing of the past , which is strongly recommended.

The hourly knell ringers

I attend Coventry Swimming Pool.

Much of it is busied by the junior section of City of Coventry SC, who are moving at quite a pace.

As I plough up and down, I spot a man of about my age. He sits fully clothed at a lane end in an easy chair, and has over recent years eaten many pies.

Tiny water nymphs approach him at pace, performing arms-only butterfly. "HEAD DOWN. HEAD DOWN" he bawls at them. They turn to do the next 50m legs-only. "LEGS. KICK. KICK." My, how this takes me back.

[I was swimming in the "General, medium" lane - not the slow lane - and was faster than most in it.]