Liberty - for the week

I'm away, enjoying a week of holiday.  Guess where I am.

Liberty, equality and fraternity

It looks as though I might be in New York, but instead I find myself in Paris again, seeing some of the sites that I have never seen before, and visiting others, like this one, that I have seen from the train many times.

This is a 9m tall replica of the Statue of Liberty, and it can be found on the Isle des Cygnes in the middle of the River Seine.

Replica Statue of Liberty in Paris, on the Isle des Cygnes

Having walked the length of Isle des Cygnes I didn't see a single swan.

Did you know that is where we get the English word 'cygnet'?

34 locks on the K&A!

The Kennet and Avon Canal crosses England from West to East, and it features one of the finest examples of canal engineering in the UK.  This is the Caen Hill flight of locks - 16 of them close together.

Looking down the famous Caen Hill flight, Devizes

Above and below the flight there are other locks, and today with an able crew I have cover 8 miles and negotiated 34 locks in total.  Half way down the flight my crew had to brave the attentions of nesting swans.

Nesting swans, Devizes

Fortunately they failed to break a man's arm as they are fabled to be able to do.  Some claim that they are able to do this just by looking at him!

Is Martin Robbins skeptical enough?

Martin Robbins, blogger for the Guardian, spoke to a packed audience at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub this week.  It was not the usual venue (which has a great meeting room but no atmosphere), but a real pub called the Port Mahon in St Clements.  The down-side of this is that the room was long and narrow, filled with an audience of 50 or more, and if you were unlucky enough to be sitting near the back it was difficult to hear or see.  In fact many were not lucky enough to be sitting at all, but the atmosphere was friendly and nobody was complaining

Still, I got more than the gist of his string of anecdotes about quack medicine in Africa, with tales of Joseph Obi in Gambia, Jim "Bleachgate" Humble, Homeopaths without Borders, the 'Real Medicine Foundation', and Jeremy Sherr.

His source of information was a period of a month or so in Africa a couple of years ago.  He had been generously supported by The Wellcome Trust. He and his team were quite successful in their attempt to find quack 1st-world medics plying their trade, but he was keen to point out that some of their associates actually do good charitable work.

Perhaps I was most surprised by his message about skepticism.  He clearly demonstrates a skeptical attitude on a lot of topics, and yet he seems to doubt the value of skeptical blogging in the Western world.  He asks why more skeptics don't get out to Africa to see for themselves what is going on there and to try to do something about it.

And yet . . . he has just been there on a well funded mission and clearly managed to do nothing that is very useful.  Yes he brings back a message about quack medics practising their trade in African countries, but then tells us that nobody here will do anything about it, and that it might even be a bad thing if they did.

To me it is obvious why more skeptics do not go on these missions.  For a start there is no source of funding, whereas quack medicine funds itself.  Secondly, anyone who thought about it would understand that Western quack medicine is probably no more harmful than the indigenous quack medicine practised by witch doctors and shaman. I for one am not a fan of interfering in developing countries. 

If we have learnt anything in recent decades it is that well funded and well-intentioned charity often manage to do more harm than good. 

Amateur skeptics are hardly likely to achieve anything better are we?

In-Seine lovers

If you jump into the river in Paris, are you in-Seine?

So goes the old joke.  (If you are not a geographer, you may want to Google to find out the name of the river flowing through Paris . . . or read on.)

Here is a photo from Pont de l'Archevêché bridge in Paris, looking toward the island which hosts the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Pont de l'Archevêché in Paris - padlocks for lovers.

 
Thousands of lovers from all over the world, have secured padlocks to the bridge, before throwing the key into the River Seine (pronounced 'sane').

Padlocks on the Archevêché Bridge in Paris

Surprisingly romantic!  These have only appeared during the last two years or so.  The original favoured Paris spot was the Pont des Arts, but overnight the tokens mysteriously disappeared one night in May 2010.

Apparently it's not only the authorities who expressed doubts about the attractiveness of this feature in the middle of the city.  From time to time a dejected ex-lover has been seen desperately hacking at a padlock with a pair of pliers.

Good luck with the pliers.  Call an engineer (with a pair of bolt croppers)!

Serving Saki

In some of Japan - if not all - rice wine is served in a way that seems wasteful to us foreigners.  The cup is placed in a box and it is filled until it is overflowing.  The waitress doesn't even stop then.  She keeps pouring for several seconds longer, just to prove without doubt that you are not getting short measure.

Serving saki traditionally in Japan

Apparently it is not good form to pick up the box and drink the liquid that it contains.  

Of course sometimes it is served hot (not my preference) and sometimes chilled - mmm. Its a while since I had chance to visit Japan and I'm missing it.

What a lot of hot air!

For a change, the hot air that I am talking about does not come from the mouth of a religious apologist, but it is contained in the hundreds of hot air balloons seen in this surprising photo taken by one of my colleagues and published here with his permission.

Hundreds of hot air balloons - a lot of hot air!

He snapped this spectacle at a ballooning event in Belgium in 2011.

Did you know that the air inside a typical hot air balloon weighs about 1 tonne?  You might ask why it still flies. 

The answer is that the cold air that it displaces is even heavier.  Yes - air weighs more that you might expect.  When the balloon is hovering at a steady height, the light, hot air inside plus the weight of the balloon and passengers is exactly the same as the weight of the cold air that it displaces.

To go up, the pilot makes the air in the balloon a little hotter (and therefore lighter), and to go down she allows it to cool a little.  The trick with going down is to avoid doing it too fast, and being able to get back almost to the balance point just before hitting the ground.

More Causeway controversy!

Not many weeks ago, the National Trust was in the news for one of the exhibits in its new visitor centre at The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.  It seems that they have included a deluded creationist account of the formation of the stones in their exhibition.  Apparently God did it!  You can read a bit more about it here, in The Guardian.  Maybe they are now 'reconsidering', but until they have completely corrected the offensive error they should be treated with great suspicion.

Making a visit to the site this week I would say that the organisation is also treading dangerously close to a legal dispute that has been going on for over a century.  If it was anyone other than the highly respected National Trust I am sure that they would be on the losing side of the argument too.

The Giant's Causeway - amazing hexagonal columns of basalt.

I have been to the causeway many times before, and noticed that the National Trust's strangle-hold on one of the candidates for the title of 'the eighth wonder of the world' has been tightening.  Now you might reasonably say that the maintenance of the site must be paid for, and I would generally agree with that.  But the cost of maintenance can't possibly be as much as they are now asking people to pay.  Arriving at the entrance to the car par, you find that there is no option simply to park and pay a reasonable fee as there used to be.  The parking is apparently covered by the entrance fee. Now that deal sounds very reasonable until you know some of the background (and the magnitude of that fee for services that you do not need and might not want).

The Giant's Causeway - open access!

It turns out that free public access to the Causeway has been a hot potato for much more than a century.  Local people have of course wanted to cash in by selling their services to the visitors and nobody can blame them for that.  However, various attempts have been made by consortia to buy the land over which access must be gained, trying to monopolise the benefits.  In each case there has been something of an uproar.

In 1897, one lengthy legal battle between the syndicate known as the the Giants Causeway Company and local people went to the High Court of London. The court ruled that the road to the stones had existed for public access to the foreshore, proof came in the form of contractual documentation between Antrim Borough Council and a contractor for the upkeep of the stretch of the road between Dervock and the Causeway Stones. Read on.

So it seems that you have a right to access the Causeway legally and free, but The National Trust has to be congratulated for the way that it hides this information.  Using clever weasel words it implies that the visitor MUST buy a ticket to the new visitor centre in order to reach the famous site itself.  If you read their web site, there is very little if anything to suggest that this is not the case.  In fact, the only clues are in the gaps - the things that they do not say.

Now don't get me wrong.  I wouldn't object to paying a fiver to park the car for an hour or two.  That would cover my contribution to the upkeep perfectly equitably.  If I wanted to visit their creationist-friendly visitor centre and read the pseudo-science posters aimed at primary school children I might even be prepared to pay the going rate. 

But I didn't want that.  I wanted to go down to the coast and see this remarkable thing and not to be misled by a supposedly reputable organisation.  This is not an option that they make easily available.  Instead, for a group of four adults to visit, The National Trust would like you to believe that there is no other option than to pay £8.50 each.  That is a total of £34 to park for an hour or two, in order to see something free!  Even Central London car parking is not as expensive as that.

So - if you are visiting, the trick is to get someone to drop you by The Causeway Hotel, or to spend the £30+ getting a nice lunch there.  Alternatively, get the Park and Ride bus from Bushmills.  Whichever way you arrive at the site, walk to the Coastal Path which you can find by going to the left of the hotel.  Walk round the back of the hotel and down the steps to the road down to the Causeway.  It is perfectly legal and there is no reason to be ashamed of doing it.

Then you get to see an amazing site like this . . .

The Giant's Causeway - open access!

without being ripped off by an organisation that has gone way down in my estimation this year.

Another tip - look up the time of low tide and visit within 3 hours of that time if you want to see the full glory of the Causeway as you can see in these photos.

Do visit! Support local businesses - but boycott The Duplicitous National Trust if you can!


Related post:  Includes a view of Fingal's Cave - according to legend it is the other end of the causeway and it is equally impressive.

Sunday Selection 6

Continuing a new series where there is little additional content from me, but I simply share a few items, new and old, that have pleased me this week.  As almost every week, I see items on the web that I find interesting, amazing or  or amusing.  This disjointed ramble might be on any of my normal topics - or on other topics entirely.  My thanks go to the friends who helped me to find them.

First: Do Atheists Have Deathbed Conversions?
In short - there were two answers from different studies.  But if the sample of those surveyed is a group of young adults, would anyone expect their views to have hardened?

Next: Atheists More Motivated by Compassion than the Faithful
At least we get this right!

Podcast of the week: Pat Condell's Godless Comedy (audio or video of Waiting for Jesus.)
I'm usually a bit unsure about admitting to following Pat as he is much more forthright than most.  A friend once said, she didn't like his frothing-at-the-mouth approach.  But some of his challenges are worth a listen.

Tweets of the week: From @Twisty58.  Whether you accept it or not, the Bible IS my evidence...so it's up to you. ALSO...go read Isaiah 17 regarding Damascus...
She seems to think that the prophecy about the destruction of Damascus is happening at the moment. You have to have sympathy.

Life science of the week:   The Mystery of the Missing Chromosome
How the missing human chromosome is not evidence to support the ideas of creationists.

Atheist blog post of the week:  No Faith In The Bible
Another great post from Rosa Rubicondior, pointing out that all the prophets in the bible had seen evidence of god, but the rest of us are expected to rely on faith.

From the archives: Christopher Hitchens Epic Last Words R.I.P 1949 - 2011
Moving words from the great Hitch as he received the Richard Dawkins Award last year.

And finally . . .

Favourite places: North Yorkshire Moors Railway - one of the best places to see vintage steam in action in UK.

NYMR, at the top of the long, steep climb to Goathland.