Towel Day

May 25 each year is Towel Day, in memory of Douglas Adams. Author of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (amongst other things, including the Dirk Gently series, the Meaning of Liff and Last Chance to See), Adams died in 2001.

So what’s with the towels? Well, according to the Guide itself:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value — you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-tohand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase which has passed into hitch hiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

On top of that, today’s date provides an additional opportunity to point and laugh at fuzzy and arbitrary thinking, something I think Adams would have liked (based on very limited second-hand data):

25 + 5 + 12 = 42

42, in the world of the Guide, is the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Quesiton of Life, the Universe and Everything. The Ultimate Question, of course, is

What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

(No-one ever said the Universe made any sense, after all – although it does work in base 13.)

This is pure numerology, which is taken surprisingly (alarmingly) seriously by many people around the world (it’s what the Mayan Doomsday prophecies are based on, for instance). So go forth today, fellow hoopy froods, and spread the word aboutcritical thinking in a humourous way, and don’t forget to bring a towel.

Completing the cycle

Last night was Breast Cancer Campaign’s annual reception at the House of Lords]. Having done a bit of fundraising for them over the last few years, I was invited to attend.

“Hi Mum! I’m at the House of Lords. okthanxbai”

There were canapés and wine aplenty, but the real reason to be there was the people in attendance. I met other fundraisers (both students and real people), patient advocates, supporters, researchers and survivors. Each group had their own stories to tell, which I found fascinating.

Review: Word of Mouth – Interpreting

Today I listened to a recent episode of Word of Mouth, a radio series all about language, presented by Michael Rosen. I mentioned this programme the other day, promising to write about the “Chugger Chat” episode. I will get round to that eventually (probably publishing on a Tuesday). This post, however, is about the “Interpreting” episode, which is available online here.

Rag Conference 2012

Every year, Raggies from all over the UK get together (not like that!*) at their annual conference.

Le Floorball Dans Le Monde

Un de mes passe-temps favoris, le floorball est un sport très peu connu en France (en Angleterre d’autant plus*). Samedi dernier dans les pages de Le Monde est paru un article à son sujet, racontant la première expérience du journaliste avec une crosse. Il s’agit d’une bonne introduction à ce sport ludique et facile à aborder.

*”d’autant moins”?

L’article est ci-dessous (clickez l’image pour l’agrandir):

Cults and Sects Are False Friends

Can the words used by different languages give us insight into our culture?

“Chugger Chat” on Radio 4 this afternoon

Covering two of my favourite topics, namely linguistics and charity fundraising, this programme on Radio 4 this afternoon (4pm UK time) looks promising:

BBC – BBC Radio 4 Programmes – Word of Mouth, Chugger Chat.

Michael Rosen investigates the language of chuggers and street vendors. If you stop people in the street to ask them to donate to your charity, come to your show or buy your goods, which words work best? The word “chugging” was coined by a journalist ten years ago to describe what some charities would rather call “face to face fundraising”. But, as Michael discovers, others in the charity world have decided to embrace the “ch” word and give it a positive spin.

How appropriate that this should be airing on a Tuesday, or #charitytuesday as it’s sometimes known (especially here!).

Although I’m not a chugger myself (my fundraising is all voluntary) and the skills and language required for face-to-face fundraising are different, I will still be interested to find out more and see what overlap there might be with my work. I’ve also written about how people reply to be asked for money, which may also come up in the progamme.

I’ve always been a fan of Michael Rosen anyway, so at the very least I will catch up online. No doubt I’ll write about the programme on here, too.

The Liberals Are False Friends

Today is the second round of the French Presidential election. Voters will be deciding who will lead the country for the next 5 years. The choice is between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round, two weeks ago: the Socialist François Hollande and the incumbent Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. It’s basically Left versus Right.

Although I do have political views, that’s not what I’m going to write about here.*  As usual, I’d much rather discuss a more “meta” issue. Specifically, this post is about the language that surrounds politics. Before you roll your eyes, I should make it clear that I don’t mean double-speak, half-truths, broken promises or “omnishamblesgate“. Rather, I find the words we use to describe entire groups of views for more intriguing. So let’s take a look at an example of a false friend. (Again, I’m referring to a quirk of language, not a politician!)

The Treatment of Alternatives at the Science Museum

I recently went to the Science Museum in London. One of the galleries within the museum is dedicated to the history of medicine. It contains a huge number of items from the Wellcome Collection, showing how our understanding of health and disease has evolved, from invoking evil spirits, through bloodletting, to the evidence-based therapies of today.

There have been some very exotic ideas put forward in the search for an explanation as to why we get sick and heal in a seemingly unpredictable way. Accordingly, a variety of weird and wonderful tools have been developed over the centuries to put these ideas into practise, a range of which are on display in the Museum. Accompanying these items are explanatory panels, allowing the visitor to go beyond pure mystery towards understanding and appreciation for the place different theories have in the modern understanding of medicine.

Post Hoc: At-Bristol meets the Science Museum

As a volunteer at At-Bristol, I was involved in a special climate science theme day for schools last year. The event was part of a nationwide projection run in collaboration with the Science Museum. Partly as a reward for volunteering, but also to develop our understanding of a number of the aspects involved, we volunteers were invited to go to London yesterday to visit the Science Museum. (By the way, we owe huge thanks to Krysten – a volunteer – for organising and leading the trip so well!)