Invasion of the space people

Right well things happened. It's relentless this linear progression of time, isn't it?

So what have I been doing? The majority of my time for the past few weeks was taken up by alternately doing exams, preparing for the doing of said exams, watching large storms happening, or watching 22 tiny people in coloured shirts run around with a ball. Thankfully all the exams are finally over now so that leaves more time for frivolous pursuits, and also more watching of 'feet ball' as I believe it is called. Oh yeah and then I have occasionally been spluttering dumbfoundedly at the sheer quality if the recent Doctor Who output.

But more interesting to write about is my foray into the besuited world of the european space think tank, courtesy of flatmate, german, friend and European Space Policy Institute intern Andreas. The occasion was the opening of an art exhibition in the ESPI offices by a one Gerald Martineo, an Austrian-Romanian artist who makes paintings by pouring colourful plastics onto canvasses. His art is apparently quite science and technology focussed, and his latest series of work consists of colourless resin poured over huge canvasses, studded with used radiation sensors from various satellites and then themselves irradiated at Austria's only reactor to discolour them slightly. It was pretty good actually, though I was more immediately attracted to the coloured stuff. As I remarked at the time it is interesting that to look at one of his newer pieces you have to know a lot of background about it, without which none of the point of the work is evident. I've always thought that whether or not your art has an amazing message it should also look really cool on your wall, but this is just an opinion.

Anyway, although the art was fun, I really came because I've never been to a european space policy intitute before and I wondered what it would be like. I like to think I got a glimpse into a way of life/ career that is very different to my own. That week was the annual meeting of the UN Comittee on the Peaceful Use of Space so there were many UN types and hangers on wandering around. Unlike me free posh food and wine at a random exhibition opening are probably more the rule than the exception, so they all looked a lot less lost than me for the beginning of the event. However I got into the swing of things after some sandwiches and a couple of interesting speeches by a physicist and the artist himself about the meeting between art and science (in short our primary reward for doing either is the fact we are doing them) and an interesting but overlong speech by the ex-astronaut head of the COPUOS. Do you think that's an ugly acronym, or is it just me? It reminds me of coprolites for some reason (it might help to point out that in conversation it is pronounced 'cop-wuss').

I get the feeling that as I am not normally exposed to such speeches I actually found it far more engaging than some of the more experienced space-people. Frankly I was excited enough that there even exists a comittee on the peaceful use of space that says things like 'guys, let's use space for peaceful awesome things!', a fact which was naturally pretty obvious to everyone else. I'd kind of put my interest in space on the back burner, not having the benefit of a large planetary science department at Uni Wien, but being in a room with all these people who deal with space all day every day, even if primarily from a political/legal viewpoint, brought it all back. I very much enjoyed being able to wander up to people and get reasoned answers to things like 'Who's going to be taking people and stuff to space in 2030?' And true to form, I also got to add my two pennies on the importance of geology in space, or rather the importance of space infrastructure to the progression of geology. I believe geologists are the only scientists who would claim that it is absolutely undebatably better to land a man on the moon rather than send a robot. But even if that doesn't happen any time soon, geologists will have to rely on the political and technological developments in the space industry for a massive amount of their future research, from planetary geology to the use of aerial measurements of the earth, so I think it's time we got more interested in this sort of thing as a science.

Aaanyway so there you go, that's my pompous way of justifying why it was good to go to a place where they gave me free food and wine.

Bye for now!

Yt anthr blg ntry

Well I got carried away posting videos of Austrian pop bands last post so now I'll bring things a little bit more up to date. Apart from some more of the seemingly neverending exams (I'm even starting to see the benefit of having an exam term, things must be bad!) the most important thing that happened between then o'clock and now p.m. was my first field trip with the university here. I guess I was sort of apprehensive at the start what with not having a clue what was going to happen, but it turns out that the field trip experience in Geology is one that is relatively constant across language and cultural barriers.

Basically when you group geologists together they are suddenly surrounded by other people who will not only listen to but positively encourage discussion about rocks. Combine this with the fact you are being shown tonnes of new exciting rocks by an expert in the field, you're in the countryside, and in the evenings plenty of whatever the local food and beverages are is to be had, and you have a rather pleasant holiday. On this trip there wasn't even the pressure of marks to spoil the enjoyment!


Due to the differences in geology between the UK and Austria, almost every rock I saw in the 3 day trip was one I had never seen outside of a hand specimen. Whole cliffs stuffed with lovely minerals I never saw more than one of in the lab... Anyway what it all amounts to in not so rock speak is that I had fun. Especially cool is that the people leading the trip were working on research of the area, and so half the time we'd stumble upon something interesting and cool for them too, sometimes even something they couldn't identify at all! At which point we would usually have to break out the sledgehammers, because even normal geological hammers wouldn't make much of a dent in any of the rocks we saw...



It was also a pleasant change to have a full three day immersive german course too. No escape! Well, I could have escaped by speaking english but I really tried not to do that even though everyone is always really keen to show you they can, because (as good old WRN put it much better than me), if you start talking to an Austrian in english you've immediately ruled them out as a potential speaking-german-together person... It's weird how when you start out in one language, there's a sort of language inertia even though you're both pretty good at either. The countryside along the banks of the Donau near Melk and Krems is beautiful, (even with the Donau filled to overflowing the roads at some points due to the recent spate of rain), as are the small and very Austrian villages of the Waldviertel. Something that really does improve on the UK experience were the Gasthoefe we stayed at along the way, simple countryside hotels (maybe inns is a better word??) where the food is always tasty and pig and dumpling related. I tried some Schnapps made from what I reckon (translation problems aside) were Rowan berries. Actually pretty tasty, even though the original berries are supposed to be poisonous...

So yeah, lovely.

Time is really getting tight now, I'm wracking my brains and trying to make sure I don't accidentally sleep away my last few weeks here, which would be easy to do in the current 32 degree heat! Also I still have YET MORE pesky exams which I also need to learn for without letting said learning take over my life. I had an hour and a half long oral exam on Thursday. Granted half of it was basically being lectured at rather than asked questions of but still, phew! A far cry from the good old (mind numbingly terrifying for no discernible reason) 10 minute oral exams at school!

Der Tommington

Writing on the internet about things that have occurred to me.

Quite a full agenda this week. Let's press on, shall we?

Last weekend was the Vienna Stadtfest. I didn't realise at first how much of a big deal it was going to be, but walking through the city centre the day before I noticed the massive crowds and the many many stages sprinkled liberally about the place. I started out watching a Balkan brass orchester, the Orchestr Marijan Krstic. If you don't know what Balkan brass music sounds like already, you should probably just go listen to some. It's basic premise is to make you happy and cause you to dance by the masterful combination of many many brass instruments, all played with incredible skill and at high speed. These guys were masters of their art, and the dancing really got going when all 9 descended from the stage in the Heldenplatz and wandered about in the crowd, blasting full on trumpet solos into the faces of occasionally exstatic and occasionally just confused looking Viennese...

By this time my flatmate Joseph/Giuseppe had turned up, and we proceeded to wander towards the other stages. On the way we saw a VERY large number of tourists, lots of living statues and a man walking on a tightrope while juggling flaming torches. Arriving at the Radio Wien stage we stopped to observe the antics of several, I assume extremely cool, stunt bike rider type people. It is always faintly embarrassing hearing German speakers using english words while trying to be cool, and the music was deafening and a bit rubish, but I have never seen anyone do a backflip on a bike befoe, so i was pretty happy. All through the DJ set a band were slowly setting up with a drum kit, a violinist and a tuba player. I got that familiar feeling of excitement when you can;t figure out what the next band are going to sound like, and persuaded Joseph to stay and see the band. As it turns out, this was a highly excellent decision.

Binder and Kriegelstein is the name of the band, they consist of one man on vocals, drums and laptop, one man on trombone and occasionally tuba, a man on violin and a small, smiling ridiculously clothed frontwoman. The attire is an integral part of the group's appeal, and I think shows up an important point about them, namely that they are in no way at all serious about what they are doing. Each member was dressed for a completely different band, the violinist with a solemn face, trousers and a leather waistcoat like he was some traditional austrian session musician. The trombonist in a full on ska-esque suit, the lead singer in a weird combination of traditional austrian dress and cape with an electric pink wig, and the drummer in a scruffy T-Shirt.

The music was a genius mix of ska-pop, rap, pure sugary pop goodness and honest-to-goodness folk music, with hefty doses of silliness in behaviour and lyrics. The main aim of the band is to entertain you, and entertain us they did, with an aptitude for the ridiculous which was more suited to a band taking part in the Brainlove festival, incidentally happening at the same time back in London. The mighty crushing together of genres is a powerful mix, and it fills me with happiness that such a band are popular enough here to find a number 2 spot on the biggest stage at the Stadtfest.

After the end of the set we escaped to the haven of the classical music stage, where some waltzes were the perfect background to some delicious Kaesespaetzle (basically thin gnocchi like stuff with heaps of melted chesse and the odd bit of onion and pepper. Unhealthy and tasty, as all street food must be). On the move again we quickly escaped the pedestrian rock of some beloved Austrian band of yesteryear to find ouselves in the more unusual company of 'Angelas Wean Herrn Band'. These guys combined tradition Viennese songs with Jazz, with some success I feel. The Jazz kept on the right side of utterly insane, so I was able to deal with it and enjoy the songs and solos, rather than just stand there and wander why the heck everyone was tapping their knees in time, as I have been known to do when exposed to Jazz in the past...

All in all a successful day.

I shall leave you with a couple of musical gifts from Binder and Kriegelstein, to brighten up your day. First a crazed video:



And now a pop hit:



And to finish, the live experience: