Singapore Grand Prix - Race Day

Arrived at the race track in time for the first of the support races. The guy selling me a beer said that it was going to rain within the next 2 hours, which in his opinion would be cool for the McClaren team. Looking at the grey clouds, I thought that he was probably right. In the end, it remained dry the whole time.
Wandered around some of the other trackside viewing points that I had not visited the day before. Many great locations available. The only downside compared to a grandstand seat is that you do not get the large video screen and commentary, which is vital for knowing what is going on in the rest of the race. One way round this would be to rent one of the Kangaroo TV consoles which are basically portable multi channel TVs that allow you to tune in to the race action, including in-car shots and the ability to follow the driver of your choice. Cool, but I decided to pass on it this time around, and reverted to my grandstand seat for the race itself.
The race itself was incident packed, with two outings for the safety car after drivers hit the crash barriers. This meant that the end result was rather a lottery, but it made for exciting viewing.
Post-race entertainment was provided by the Wailers. I am not sure how the band were entitled to use this name, other than the fact that some of them came from Jamaica and they played the Wailers' greatest hists. There did not appear to be any of the original band members present in the lineup. Anyway, an entertaining way to round off the evening while waiting the crowds to disperse.
Although the Singapore track is impressive, particularly because of the nighttime setting, it suffers from the same drawback as Monaco in that overtaking is very difficult. It was certainly something well worth experiencing, and I was glad that I had taken the opportunity to be present at this historic moment in the evolution of F1 racing.

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Singapore Grand Prix - Qualifying Day

From Grand Prix

From Grand Prix

From Grand Prix

Yesterday, I had come to the conclusion that my grandstand seat was not necessarily the best place from which to view the race, so today I decided to explore the viewing opportunities around the rest of the race track. Most of the circuit park is accessible to all ticket holders, the exception being the paddock and stands next to the start area. It turned out that there are many good viewing spots right next to interesting bits of the track where it is possible to get up close to the action.

Singapore has a new tourist attraction - the Singapore Flyer - which is basically their equivalent of the London Eye. I decided to take a flight. The concept and design is basically identical to the Eye (although they claim it is the biggest of its kind in the world), and it provided a great view of the race track and the starting grid. I was able to watch some of the support race from his vantage point, and get some good shots of the city.

Musical entertainment for the evening was courtesy of the Australian Beatles Show - not a bad imitation of the real thing.

Walking around the circuit in the 30 degree temperatures and Singapore humidity was literally a draining process, and I was dripping with sweat the whole time, except when in enclosed spaces with aircon, such as the Flyer. I could hardly keep topped up with water and Tiger beer.

The qualifying session itself was tense enough, with Hamilton only just getting into the vital Q3 session. It should be a great race tomorrow.

Singapore Grand Prix - Practice Day

Today was my first opportunity to see the full extent of the transformation of Singapore’s streets into a F1 race track. I must say that they have done a great job, particularly with the track lighting which is bright and yet not too harsh. It is particularly impressive seeing all the historic buildings in close proximity to the track.
My grandstand seat is not particularly good, being one of the last to be sold, and is near to a not-particularly interesting bend in the track, and rather a way from the giant TV screens which you need to see to follow what is happening elsewhere on the circuit. However, I used this practice day as a chance to wander around other parts of the track, and there are many alternative viewing points that give you an interesting perspective on the race.
I was also using this first day to get a feel for how to do motor sport photography. Not as straightforward as you might think. For a start, the general public has to view the race though the protective barrier, so every shot has a mesh grille superimposed on it. (Only the professional photographers have access to unrestricted vantage points.) Then you have to work out how to actually capture the car in your shot, using a fast panning technique. This takes some practice to perfect, and for every successful shot, I had to discard five failures. Happily, digital photography makes this a less painful process. Finally, you have to get the camera settings right. It is no use using auto exposure, auto focus, etc as these just do not work in this environment. Everything has to be set manually, which again takes some practise.
In between each racing session, there are plenty of other things to do, including sampling some of the regional foods on sale at the nearby hawker stands, and listening to musical performances on one of the several stages dotted around the race track area. Also many stalls selling F1 merchandise, but I did not feel inclined to fork out £40 for a tee shirt just to show that I supported Lewis Hamilton.
And then of course, there are the cars themselves. They look much brighter in real life than on TV, and nothing can prepare you for the engine noise. (I will be wearing earphones today). But that is all part of the atmosphere of being at a live event.

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Singapore River Festival

By chance it turns out that there is this river festival running the whole week up to the Grand Prix. Friday night was the grand opening, with a load of musical entertainment in the Clark Quay area. The Singaporean Chinese seemed determined to outdo their Beijing cousins by putting on their own spectacular light show. (movie to follow). So plenty to do at night in the lead-up to the Grand Prix weekend.
I discovered a major drawback to my hotel selection: it has no swimming pool. Previously when I have been in Singapore it has been for work and I have had little time for lying by the pool. This trip is leisure only and the lack of somewhere to chill out in the afternoons is much missed.

Singapore

I left England with my body clock still on Pacific time, and by the time I arrived in Singapore, it was anyone's guess what time zone it though it was in.

Checked into my hotel, which is a basic affair in the red light district of Singapore. Not ideal, but all the hotels in the central area were either fully booked or had quadrupled their prices for Grand Prix week. I was not prepared to pay these rip-off prices, hence the 'interesting' location. My room is very small but just about has everything required for survival. I do not intend to spend much time there anyway.

Next task was to collect my Grand Prix tickets. Having travelled into the centre of town, I discovered that the Singapore Post office where I was supposed to collect the tickets was closed. Not a good start, but hopefully they will be open at some point over the next few days. On my taxi ride into town, we went though some of the streets that will be used for the F1 circuit next weekend. Workmen were in the process of installing concrete and wire mesh safety barriers and the overhead floodlighting really did make the road as bright as day.

Went to Clark Quay for a meal and beer at the Breworks microbrewery - one of my favourite eating places. After eating, walked round to corner to watch the GoFlyKite team putting on their usual spectacular performance flying their radio controlled kites. I will post a movie of this as soon as I work out how to convert the file from my cellphone.

On the way back across the river, I saw signs advertising the Singapore River Festival with starts tomorrow and runs for the whole week up to the Grand Prix weekend. Plenty of musical and other entertainment to keep me occupied in the evenings it would seem.

Finished off the evening in the Crazy Elephant bar watching one of the local blues bands doing some not bad Hendrix covers.

Seattle

I was originally planning to return to Seatac Airport by coach but the conference travel agents realised that my flight to London was in the evening and that this would mean me having to st around in the airport all day.  Instead, they booked me on to the commuter flight that connects Port Angels with Seattle.  So I got an extra half day to look round the town, and a short scenic flight to Seattle, with great views over the Olympic Peninsular, Puget Sound and the Seattle skyline.

More Port Angeles photos

CCC2, Final Day

I had the privilege of speaking the final slot of the whole conference. This had the advantage that many of the previous speakers had already covered much of the background to my topic during their presentations, so I was able to devote more time to the key points in my own presentation.  The presentation itself went well I think, and the feedback was certainly very positive, although I'm not sure how many participants actually understood all the implications of what I was saying.  Anyway, the questions were all intelligent enough.

One of the other presenters on the same session as me was a professor from Connecticut University whose work I had been following for many years, and who I had previously regarded as some sort of rival.  During the conference I had got to know him quite well ant it turned out he was an ex-Brit who had moved to the US about 40 years ago. He actually remembered corresponding with me when I was at Imperial and we had some good discussion about cosmology as a whole, and the quality (or otherwise) of the various presentations at the conference.   Although the details of his model are slightly different to mine, he was very supportive and offered to help me publish in the future if I encountered any difficulty in finding a suitable outlet.  He even offered me some constructive advice for improving the maths in my model. In the end we parted on the best of terms and will probably collaborate on something in the future.

Not surprisingly, there was no consensus on anything at the end of the conference. Everyone who came with their own theory stuck to it doggedly and would not concede any common ground to anyone else's theory.  The objective of the conference had been to find a way of switching public debate away from the discredited Big Bang model of cosmology, but which is doomed to fail unless we can come up with a coherent alternative. In this respect, the conference was a failure, and it is not clear how the Alternative Cosmology Group will take things forward from here.

From a personal point of view, it was invaluable. I met several professional scientists who provided useful advice and are keen to keep in contact after the conference to exchange data and theoretical models.  It has helped me to catch up with the latest developments in cosmology that have taken place in the six years since I left Imperial. It has provided several leads that I need to follow up to see how my model stacks up against various unexplained observational data.  I am not sure if or when there will be another CCC, but I have accepted initiations to two other theoretical physics conferences next year, which should be more than enough to keep me up-to-date. Now I need to get writing my next paper.

More CCC2 photos

CCC2, Day 3

Today we got to the part of the conference where a number of delegates were invited to put forward their own cosmological models.  Most of these were fairly flaky; many were incomprehensible.  Only one seemed to come from someone who knew what he was talking about, but even then it turned out he had made a major error in his data analysis which probably invalidated his whole theory.  Some of the debate got rather heated with the Russian participants in particular feeling that their theories were being denigrated.

The majority of the delegates appeared to have written books outlining their personal cosmological theories, some published as real books and some in electronic form.  Clearly they must have had trouble in shifting their stock, since many of them had brought along copies of their opus to give away to other delegates.  I now have a suitcase full of books about way-out cosmological theories - enough to send me to sleep for many nights to come.

In the evening we had the conference 'banquet', which was not particularly notable, and we even had to pay for our drinks!  The first part of the evening's 'entertainment' consisted of the local tour operator giving a talk about the history of Port Angeles, including an epic tale of how they raised the town out of the tidal mud by sluicing half a hillside down into the town (see picture of mural illustrating this episode).  The second part of the show turned out to be our tour guide from Sunday giving us an hour long Mark Twain monologue.  Many delegated decided that the pub was a better option. Unfortunately I had to stay clear of that as I was presenting the next day.

 

CCC2, Day 1

The first day of the Crisis in Cosmology Conference proved to be very interesting. The sessions covered several topics with which I was not very familiar. This has given me a load of observational data that I need to assimilate into my cosmological model.  A number of speakers covered the background to some of the topics that I needed to include in my session, which is good as I have been able to remove these from my presentation, giving me more time to devote to the key concepts.  

The other delegates fall into two main categories: professional physicists working at universities, who have an unconventional outlook on cosmology, and independent researchers such as myself, many of whom are either retired or working in engineering related jobs.  I have to say that I have a lot more time for the professional physicists than for the part-timers, whose ideas are often fairly flaky.  

Talking of flaky, I have been plagued by one guy (there as a non-participant observer) who turned out to be a UFO nutter, and ardent conspiracy theorist who would have been very at home in the X-files.  

My list of useful contacts has expanded yet further, and I have already received an invitation to talk at another theoretical physics conference to be held in Australia later next year.

Olympic Park, WA

The Sunday before the conference was designated for side trips. I chose to go on a trip to the Olympic National Park, which is about 30 minutes drive from Port Angeles. Our guide, Willie Nelson (not the Willie Nelson but looked like him), was a real character who knew all about the natural history of the Olympic Peninsular. This made the outing informative and entertaining. The trip was split into two parts; a morning visit to Lake Crescent and the nearby primeval forest, and an afternoon trip to Hurricane Ridge. The views of the Olympic Mountains from the ridge were quite spectacular. The coach rides were a useful opportunity to get to meet some of the other delegates, and I made several useful contacts.

More Olympic Park photos

Port Angeles

Flew from San Francisco up to Seatac Airport, then a 3 hour coach ride via Tacoma to Port Angeles, which is on the North coast of the Olympic Peninsular.  Staying in the Red Lyon Hotel, where I have a room with a view over the sea to Victoria on Vancouver Island. It's only a mile or two to Canada from here!


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San Jose

Travelled on Caltrain from San Fancisco to San Jose, where Jonathan met me in his smart new BMW.  Quick drive around downtown San Jose then off for lunch at a microbrewery restaurant in Los Gatos.  Afternoon spent by the pool at his Alameda apartment.  In the evening we went to a local wine bar for some wine tasting and tapas.  

Paul Weller at the Fillmore

Last night I had the opportunity to visit the legendary Fillmore Auditorium to see Paul Weller in concert, thanks to Jeff, who had bought some extra tickets for the gig. The auditorium is just a 10 minute walk down Fillmore Street from Jeff's house, so very convenient. Weller and band were in good form and played a selection of numbers from his newer albums as well as a few Jam classics. A great night out.

San Francisco

The flight over seemed to pass fairly quickly in comparison to my more usual long haul trips to SE Asia. I arrived to be met by Jeff in California summer attire - it made a pleasant change to see the sun in a blue sky instead of the perpetual cloud that has covered the UK for the past two months. I had a great night's sleep at Jeff and Joan's elegant Pacific heights mansion. After lunch with Jeff in one of the trendy cafes on Fillmore, I spent the afternoon revisiting some of the tourist locations in the city.

More San Franciso photos

Rhythm Festival, Bedford

Back here again for the third year running to see a selection of ancient bands, mostly from the '60's and '70's. Luckily the rain held off for most of the weekend and Saturday was actually very pleasant. As usual, the real ale ran out on the final day - why can't they get this right after three years? In spite of this, we managed to have a good time and take in some familiar and some not so familiar acts. Arguably the best newcomer award went to Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams (http://www.slambovia.com), for two entertaining sets and for imparting their philosophy of life, which seems to incorporate String Theory as a religion !?!