Now that's an odd name for a dog.

Weird that they didn't give the photographer's name, eh?

(Awesome photo, though, that is in danger of making this Yorkshire lass feel homesick. Check out the series - there are some stunning shots included in the slide show).

TMA: Too Many Acronyms

My Computer files and email inbox are awash, overflowing, drowning in the acronyms used by various funding agencies, academic institutes, media outlets, and assorted other organisations.

I'm sure many of my readers have the same issue. However, my problem is Compounded by working on (mainly) Breast Cancer in British Columbia, Canada - with American, British, and Canadian Collaborators. So the same letters tend to occur over and over:

• A is for Agency, Alberta, Alliance, America, American, or Association
• B is for Breast, British, or Broadcasting
• C is for Canada, Canadian, Cancer, Center, Centre, Centres, Collaborative, Columbia, Consortium,  Corporation, or Council
• F is for Foundation or Fund
• I is for Innovation, Institute, or Institutes
• N is for National or Network
• S is for Science or Society

R is always for research and H is always for Health, for which I suppose I should be grateful.

Put any of these letters together in any Combination, and I probably have a matching folder somewhere.

Let's see, I have folders for the following: AACR, ACRI, BCCA, BCCRC, BCCF, CBC, CBCF, CBCRA, CCSRI, CFI, CIHR, CRUK, GBC, NCE, NCI, NCIC, NIH, NSERC, and OICR.

So today, Checking my Credit Card Balance online, I was Confused to see a payment to an entity Called BCF.

Very Confused.

Was there a new player in town? The British Columbia Foundation? The Breast Cancer Fund? The Broadcasting Centre Foundation? British Central Fund? Boring Christmas Food? Burgeoning Cat Fur? Big Chaotic Frenzy? Bring Cath Fudge?

And why the Bloody Cockeyed Fuck am I giving them money??!!

Until I realised the item was related to our upcoming trip to Vancouver Island.

A trip that necessitates paying a reservation fee to BC Ferries.

I think I need to get out more.

More fun with logos

In searching for a better version of the London 2012 logo to use in my last post, I came across some real gems in Google Images.

I think we all looked at the original logo and thought "hell, I could do better than that". These people set out to prove it:

Very, very nice - I like the top one best, but the bottom one is also excellent. The middle one's a bit meh, but it's still better than the official logo.

This person went in another direction:

Says it all, really.

2012 LOLympics

I have had an incredibly hard time not laughing out loud at my desk today.

If you thought the London 2010 Olympic logo was bad (and it really, really is),

you should see the mascots!

ROFLMFAO!!!!!!! What the fuck were they smoking thinking??!! As if the actual design isn't bad enough, the execution is awful too - the one on the left is all lumpy, FFS!

More hilarious photos here

I know a lot of people didn't like the Vancouver 2010 mascots, especially when they first saw them, but I thought they were pretty good. Except for Quatchi, of course - Quatchi is AWESOME. I bet he could kickWenlock or Mandeville's ass any day of the week.

Although Quatchi loves all winter sports, he’s especially fond of hockey. He dreams of becoming a world-famous goalie. Because of his large size, he can be a little clumsy. But no one can question his passion. He knows that if he works hard and always does his best, he might one day achieve his dream. Quatchi is always encouraging his friends to join him on journeys across Canada. He is also often recruiting others to play hockey – or at least to take shots at him!

The sasquatch is a popular figure in local native legends of the Pacific West Coast. The sasquatch reminds us of the mystery and wonder that exist in the natural world, igniting our imagination about the possibility of undiscovered creatures in the great Canadian wilderness.

A hockey-playing sasquatch? Now THAT is a mascot.

Suck it, London!

(But thanks for the giggles)

Democracy in the UK

Me: "So what are you going to do today?"

Dad: "Stay here and watch the election coverage on the internet"

Yup, it's election time in the UK!

I'm not voting, because I don't think it's fair for people to influence the results if they don't have to live with the consequences¹. For the record, if I had decided to vote, I would have picked the Liberal Democrats - their coalition with Labour did some good things in the Scottish parliament, and I think that would be my favoured outcome for this election. Although if there's a hung parliament and Labour end up in third place, as is being predicted, a Lib Dem - Conservative coalition might better reflect the way the country voted and therefore be a fairer outcome, if a less natural relationship.

Speaking of which, the chance that the Lib Dems might manage to push through some kind of electoral reform is one of my reasons for hoping they form part of the next government. The current first-past-the-post system is blatantly unfair; the Lib Dems in the UK (and the NDP in Canada) get far fewer seats than they should, given the share of the popular vote they attract. Given that the UK and Canadian systems are essentially identical, my wish is the same for both systems: a mixed constituency MP / proportional representation system like the Scottish one. In Scotland, everyone gets two votes - the first for a candidate in your constituency, and the second for a political party. A certain percentage of seats in the house are given to the candidates who win in each constituency with the first vote, and the rest are divided up among the parties according to what percentage of the second vote they won. This system let me vote for Donald Dewar, the Labour candidate in my constituency, who was a bloody good bloke and also guaranteed to win regardless of how I voted, but also for the Lib Dems, who, as I mentioned, used their PR share of the seats to form a governing coalition with Labour and get some of their pet issues (abolition of university tuition fees, universal free care for the elderly) into the books.

Anyway, I seem to have got sidetracked from the original purpose of this post, which was to lament that I miss the British election fever. It's just not the same in Canada; people don't talk about politics as much, and we're missing a certain British sense of silliness and fun. Every Brit I know in real life and on the internet is positively obsessed with this election, and I've had a fantastic time reading their posts, debating with them,and listening to the hilarious Vote Now Show podcasts from the BBC². The last Canadian election campaign was deathly dull in comparison. My friends did talk about it, but not with the passion and obsession that you see in the UK. I think we actually discussed the US election more than the Canadian one. There were no election night parties with drinking games (featuring red, blue, and yellow drinks, obviously) based on the number of seats each party wins, and no-one stayed up all night to watch the results come in like everyone I know always does in the UK.

Part of the reason is that I'm in the West of Canada, where we're under-represented in parliament and where people are still voting when the results in the East are already known. Yeah, there's a complete ban on reporting those results until the Western polls close, but it doesn't exactly help to ease the existing sense that our voices don't matter and that people in other provinces have already chosen the government before we've even voted. I've watched election night CBC news shows where the outcome was announced within ten minutes of our polls closing, before a single BC vote had even been counted.

--------------------
From Wikipedia:
 
Electoral Quotient (Average population per MP):

Prince Edward Island: 33,824
Saskatchewan: 69,924
New Brunswick: 72,950
Newfoundland and Labrador: 73,276
Manitoba: 79,970
Nova Scotia: 82,546
Quebec: 96,500
Alberta: 106,243
Ontario: 107,642

British Columbia: 108,548

-------------------- 

Combining this situation with a first-past-the-post system is a recipe for voter disengagement and dangerously low turnouts, especially in the West³. We should have a mixed constituency MP / proportional representation system. You know, like the Scottish one (see how I managed to link what I originally planned to write about back into what I waffled on about at the beginning? Blogging WIN!)

Can any of my Canadian readers from over-represented and/or Eastern time zone provinces please let me know if there's any more election fever there than there is in BC? I might have to come for a visit during the next election campaign...

Anyway, if you're in the UK, enjoy all the swingometer action tonight! Have some red, blue, and/or yellow drinks for me.

And, if you haven't voted yet, GET OUT AND VOTE! You have a right that's been given to only a tiny minority of the people who have ever lived, and which is still denied to far too many: please don't take it for granted.

--------------------------

1) Although I might vote next time just to make sure that I keep my rights in case I want to use them in the future - see Tideliar's recent post about trying to register as an overseas voter. I'd probably vote for the Green party though, or someone else who hasn't got a chance of winning.


2) I taught my parents how to play these podcasts from iTunes before I left this morning. They're both feeling homesick today. 

3) Oh well, at least we've got the oil sands Rocky Mountains and all the best ski resorts.

Ink

I've wanted a tattoo for, ooh, about ten years.

Not just any old tattoo, though - one that means something to me, that commemorates a specific event.

Initially, I decided that I'd get one when I got my PhD. But then, what with the rush to make corrections, get the thesis bound, sort out my Canadian work permit, move to a new country, get set up in a new lab, find a place to live, get a bank account, make friends, etc etc etc, it was suddenly a whole year since my viva, and it was no longer a current event.

Plus, although I didn't know anyone in the UK who'd got a double helix tattoo upon finishing their PhD, it turned out to be quite common in Canada. And I wanted something unique.

A couple of years later, as I applied for Canadian permanent residence, a new idea started to form in my mind. I knew I'd be shooting for citizenship as soon as I was eligible, so why not get a tattoo to commemorate that? The bringing together of two cultures - that's meaningful enough for me!

Given my family's Irish and Scottish roots, and my memories of the very happy few years I spent in Glasgow, I decided that I wanted a design that incorporated Celtic design into a Canadian maple leaf. I Googled all kinds of combinations of those words, but never found anything. So it would be both meaningful and unique!

The problem with unique was that I would have to find someone to design the tattoo for me. My initial attempts to sketch a Celtic style outline for the leaf looked Celtic enough, but not even the most patriotic Canadian in the world would have recognised the key component of their national flag in my work. And placing a regular maple leaf inside a Celtic circle looked cool, but from a distance, too much like the Air Canada logo.

"I'll do it", said Mr E Man

"Erm... OK...?" I said. I figured I'd let him take a shot at it, and at least use it as the basis for the final design.

But look what he came up with!

Mr E Man's initial sketch:

I absolutely loved the concept. For some reason I'd never thought to put the Celtic part inside the leaf!

The next step was to find the right tattoo artist. Mr E Man stepped up to the plate again: a work friend's partner/wife has a very well known and positively reviewed tattoo studio (according to her website, she was "the 1st female artist to own her own Tattoo studio in Canada", which is pretty damn cool). I called her, sent her Mr E Man's sketch, and she turned it into this:

Tattoo artist's interpretation of Mr E Man's design:

And so, earlier this evening, I headed out from work and went to get my first ever tattoo! I was pretty nervous, but the studio felt more like a nice hair salon than a den of painful torture (although I quickly realised that my normal hair salon level of chatter was not an option - I did not want to break her concentration! Hair grows back...) I was still apprehensive about how much it was going to hurt. The answer (for me) is more than a flu shot, more than a cat scratch, less than a bee sting, less than a bikini wax. Kinda like a sustained wasp sting. It hurt more as she went back to the lines she'd already drawn to strengthen the outline, and I'll admit to being very happy that I'd decided last week (on purely artistic grounds) to just get the outline, no shading!

 About half-way through

The whole thing took less than an hour, and while it obviously hurt, it really wasn't as painful as I'd expected.

A shot to give you an idea of size and placement

Hopefully the healing process won't be too long or too painful! I've got my instructions, and plan to follow them to the letter.

 Nice juicy close-up

I'll get another photo when it's all healed up and not quite so red!

I am sooooo glad I finally did this.

Britain's Got Talent Confusing Place Names

Do you ever find yourself cycling/walking/driving along, thinking of this and that or maybe just on autopilot, and then suddenly, for no apparent reason, chuckling over an incident or anecdote from years ago?

I did just that this morning. I have no idea why the memory popped into my head while I was cycling to work, but I suddenly thought of a story a friend told me about a train ride from Newcastle to Edinburgh. She'd started talking to an American couple who were visiting the UK for the first time, and was sharing her knowledge of the region through which they were passing. As the train came to a stop in the lovely seaside town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the American guy asked, "so, what is there to do in Burr-wick-upon-Tweed?"

This made my friend smile, because contrary to what a foreigner would logically think, Berwick is actually pronounced Berrick. (Warwick is also pronounced Worrick, not War-wick). Being a helpful sort, she politely corrected him with "actually, the w is silent".

"OK then", he replied, "what is there to do in Burr-wick-upon-Teed?"

Now, before I get into other examples of British-town-names-that-North-Americans-pronounce-incorrectly, I'd like to pre-empt any accusations of anti-North-American sentiment by pointing out that I'm aware that this works both ways. When I first moved here, I (and every Brit of my acquaintaince who's visited or immigrated since) mispronounced Chilliwack as Chilly-wack, and Winnipeg as Winny-peg, several times. A kind and helpful Canadian eventually took the piss corrected me, and I've said both names properly (Chill-uh-wack and Winn-uh-peg) ever since.

So. Back to Britain. Leicester rhymes with Fester, and Gloucester rhymes with Foster. Glasgow rhymes with Go, not Cow, and the nearby town of Milngavie is pronounced Mull-guy, but no-one ever gets that one right the first time (and I'm not even touching Wales). Also, county names that end in -shire should sound like -shuh, not -shy-er. (York-shuh, Lester-shuh and so on). -by on the end of a name (e.g. the town of Haxby, where I grew up) signifies a -be sound, not a -buy sound (Hax-be). And -ham on the end of a name should be pronounced -um, not -ham (so it's Old-um, not Old-ham, and Birming-um, not Birming-ham). So far, so good.

It's the -burghs, -boroughs, and -broughs that really trip people up though. You see, they're all pronounced the same way. Yup, Edinburgh, Peterborough, and Middlesbrough all end with the same sound - Edin-bruh, Peter-bruh, Middles-bruh.

No, really, they do.

But the best mispronunciation story ever was told to me by a friend who went to university in the Midlands. He was once asked for directions by a car full of Aussies - and could barely stop laughing for long enough to tell them how to get to Loughborough.

Which is pronounced Luff-bruh.

Not Looga-berooga.

The ties that bind

This BBC article about school tie styles brought back lots of memories!

Many British schools are apparently introducing clip-on ties in order to force their students into monotonous conformity "ensure consistency" and "provide an atmosphere of discipline". I think this is a terrible shame; while I agree with the underlying reasons for school uniforms (principally to minimise bullying due to discrepancies in how much parents can afford to spend on branded clothing), there is a proud British schoolkid tradition of subverting uniform codes to rebel against authority and express individuality, and diverse tie styles are a large part of that.

The BBC says "No-one can be precisely sure when the process started - it may even have been decades ago - but it's clear that it's reached crisis point." Decades ago sounds about right to me!

My primary school didn't have a uniform while I was there, and it was only when we moved up to secondary school that we had to learn to tie a proper tie knot. Our uniform consisted of black shoes (not trainers/sneakers), white socks, a navy blue skirt or trousers*, white or pale blue shirt or blouse, navy blue cardigan or V-neck sweater - and a navy blue tie with thin yellow diagonal stripes.

The official uniform code didn't mention shoelaces, and so we expressed ourselves chiefly through that medium. I remember having tartan and then fluorescent laces, while one of my male friends had laces printed with "left" and "right" (and insisted on wearing them on the wrong feet). Our shoes sported a veritable rainbow of individuality.

The official code also neglected to specify tie style, other than saying we had to have our top button done up and the tie knotted just below it. I turned up on my first day, age 11, sporting the traditional tie style that my Dad had taught me and that I'd spent hours perfecting. Only the first-years without older siblings were wearing our ties in this "kipper" style, which immediately marked us out as targets for ridicule.

On the second day, I tied my tie back-to-front, with the narrow part in front and worn long enough to tuck into the waist band of my skirt, and the wide part tucked inside the shirt - just the way the older kids did. My parents both protested, so I retied it the "proper" way - and promptly switched back as soon as I left the house. I wore my tie in this way most days for the next five years, occasionally experimenting with the 1-inch-long-narrow-tie that was the most popular alternative. A few of my friends went for the 2-inch-long-super-wide-tie look, and even unpicked the tie's seams and spread the edges out to get it even wider. (This was, of course, an "ironic" response to the narrow ties of most of their peers). Some of the stricter teachers would make us fix our ties at the start of their classes, but as soon as the bell rang, the styles would magically revert...

Sixth-formers (those of us who stayed on for the optional final two years, from age 16-18) didn't have to wear the uniform. And the school ditched the ties not long after I left, anyway, and switched to a more modern trousers-polo shirt-sweatshirt combo instead. Most kids were pretty happy with the change, but - and here's the important thing - they continued to rebel through the medium of shoelaces.

As the BBC article says, "there will just be other ways to rebel."

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*For my first couple of years at the school, girls were only allowed to wear trousers from November to March. This unpopular restriction was finally overturned when we got our first ever female Muslim classmate.

Hierarchy in the UK

One of the things I love about Canada is the relative freedom from snobbery and classism. In the UK your accent gives away so much about your class, your education, and your region of origin, and people do judge you based on this information. I know, because I used to do it too.

In my case, inverse snobbery was deeply ingrained into me by classmates at my state (=public, in North American terms) comprehensive school*, and it took a few years to start to erase those impulses. "Posh" was used as an insult, and we mercilessly took the piss out of the kids from the city's public (=private - yes, posh schools that you have to pay for are called public schools in the UK, don't ask me why) schools whenever we met them on the streets or on the hockey field. As a frequent piss-taking victim myself, for my good grades and perceived "posh", non-local (at first) accent, I had to work a bit harder than normal to prove my inverse snobbery credentials to my peers, and consciously changed the way I pronounced certain words in order to try and fit in with everyone else.

I didn't really encounter classical (i.e. top-down) snobbery and classism until I went to University. Former public school kids who heard my accent and learned I was from a state school in Yorkshire assumed I was "thick" (direct quote), and were "amazed" (another direct quote) to hear that I was one of the top three students on my undergraduate degree course. Others saw my grades before they really knew me, and assumed I was from a public school "because you're intelligent" (yet another direct quote). My sister, who moved South instead of North, had an even harder time; some of her peers had never heard a real-life Yorkshire accent before, and actually laughed out loud when she spoke. She also blames her accent for her failure to get into Cambridge, despite getting straight As and being on multiple city and county sports teams and two musical ensembles.

Oh, and I'm sure I unfairly disparaged plenty of people with posh accents. Sorry.

But really, despite this divide persisting well into my undergraduate years, I'd barely thought about state vs. public school education since moving on to grad school 11 years ago. I was under the naive impression that the further you get from your school years, the less they matter. Surely, once you have a degree or two and a few years of real-life work experience, no-one cares where you went to school.

But this report on the BBC website yesterday gave me a wake-up call. How depressing that this state of affairs still persists:

Granted, I have no idea how the corresponding Canadian or US figures would look. Maybe they'd be quite similar. But somehow I suspect that the depressing graph above is an indicator of a very British problem. Both top-down and inverse snobbery, along with that pervasive British anti-intellectualism streak, contribute to this sad state of affairs, and to the waste of far too much potential.

Ugh. Now I feel icky.

ETA: this new article is an interesting take on social mobility. Canada is in the top five countries for social mobility, alongside the Scandinavian nations (yay socialism!) The US and UK are at the bottom. There are some very interesting points about how state education is funded, and the relative influences of parents vs. the state. Highly recommended if you're interested in this issue!

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*charitably described as "mixed ability intake". Two thirds of kids in my year left at age 16, and only about half of those who continued went on to University at 18. Three girls in my form of ~25 kids were pregnant by 14; one of them was divorced with two kids by the age of 19. But, thanks to some wonderful teachers, those of us who did well, did very well. The opportunities were certainly there for people who had the ability and the desire to take them.