Writer's Block: Chicken soup

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Ideally a hot toddy of milk with ginger and a large dash of whisky and rum stirred in it. If it doesn'r cure it will make it a lot easier to suffer it.

Not Even Wrong

Certainly a lot colder than it has been recently.

Yesterday I got some food from Asda in Sittingbourne, basically stuff such as Bisto gravy granules, pasta sauce, and peanut butter, and some Asda own cat food pouches. The cats loved the pilchards in jelly, but cannily ate the pilchards and left the jelly.

I have finished reading the “Intellectual Impostures” book and now reading one on string theory, “Not Even Wrong” by Peter Woit, which I ordered from Play and arrived whilst I was in Seaford.

Not Even Wrong" tells a fascinating and complex story about human beings and their attempts to come to grips with perhaps the most intellectually demanding puzzle there is: how does the world work at the most fundamental level and what is the role of mathematics in its description? The author's perspective on this story is unusual since he has worked in both leading physics and mathematics departments and holds very sceptical views about 'string theory', the subject that has dominated research in this field for the past twenty years. The book begins with an historical survey of the experimental and theoretical developments that led to the creation of the phenomenally successful so-called 'Standard Model' of particle physics around 1975. Despite its successes, the Standard Model does not answer all questions that one would expect it to address, and for the last thirty years physicists have been trying to come up with a better theory. What the remaining questions are is explained in detail, together with the history of attempts to answer them, including the spectacular new mathematics that has arisen from these efforts. Lacking guidance from new experimental results, physicists have followed the principle that one should be looking for more 'beautiful' theories, and here, Peter Woit considers what the role of beauty may be in mathematics and physics. In recent years, string theorists have found that the theory seems to lead to an unimaginably large number of possibilities and may be inherently unable to make predictions. The author explains what physicist's hopes have been, why they haven't worked out, and what may be more promising directions for investigation. "Not Even Wrong" puts the reader in a position to follow this increasingly controversial story as it continues to develop in the years to come

Tomorrow 9pm on BBC 2  Prof. Brian Cox will be discussing quantum dynamics. I for one will be tuned in and probably will have to explain it to my cousin at the same time.

By Crumb!

Last night, whilst Tim was watching the comedy awards, I watched the Terry Zwigoff DVD “Crumb” on cartoonist and avid collector of 78 rpm records (the old shellac type) Robert Crumb, the creator of Fritz The Cat, Mr. Natural and the “Keep on truckin’” poster, including an album cover for Janis Joplin and The Big Brother Holding Company.

It is a superb documentary of the cartoonist and his estranged brothers , and the people he has influenced, plus his wives present and past.

Music and Comics

Actually cartoonists have often featured music in their strips such as the Buddy Bradley one which I read some years back, from Dave’s Comics in Brighton.

Here is a few selected from pages of vg+.

Dover Castle Last Wenesday / Thursday Morning

This is my cousin Tim singing in the pub late Wednesday night -



and bar staff, especially the gorgious one on the left.

Jaipur and Chilli Pete

Thornbridge Jaipur (5.9% ABV) is now in bottles and from Waitrose.





The Chill Pepper Pete Chilli Shop, Trasfalgar Strret Brighton where I got the ghost chillis.