The most effectual TopSat

This morning I got up early and was in work before 07:00 (what's the 'oh' stand for?...) to attend the TopSat launch event. This is a satellite that people here helped build -- more specifically, people in our department build a camera capable of a resolution of 2.8m from aheight of about 680km, which is pretty impressive given that the project cost just $22M, a fraction of the cost of most satellites with a similar function (taking photos of the earth).

Happily the launch went smoothly so the UK now has a brand new flying digital camera in space.

Oh, and we didn't launch it ourselves -- after a few presentations on the project we watched a live feed from the launch site at Plesetsk in Russia, where it was launched, alongside four other satellites, on a Kosmos 3M liquid fueled vehicle.

No Place Like the Home Office

Yesterday to celebrate the movement of the ID card bill through its third reading (a piece of important news, cleverly arranged to be overshadowed by Ken Clark) I emailed the Home Office through the address advertised on their website for general enquiries (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk), thinking that there was no chance they would offer a straight answer to how much the ID card scheme would cost (current estimates vary from about £3 billion to over £20 billion -- that's American-style billions, by the way), but I might as well ask anyway.

Today I received my response, which wasn't quite what I had expected...

Your message

 To:      public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
 Subject: ID Card Query
 Sent:    Tue, 18 Oct 2005 15:54:20 +0100

did not reach the following recipient(s):

Public Enquiries (CD) on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:44:20 +0100
   The recipient was unavailable to take delivery of the message
       The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=gb;a=cwmail;p=home
office;l=SDCEMB010510190844SAAKW16R
   MSEXCH:MSExchangeMTA:PHU:L01EM004

Hmm, if their IT infrastructure can't handle a simple email enquiry, what hope is there for the national identity register? Or maybe there is another explanation...

Crimes Against Music

Yesterday evening we went to see Mitch Benn at New Greenham Arts, on the site of the former Greenham Common airbase. Most of our friends have never heard of Mitch (they don't listen to Radio 4 as habitually as we do), so trying to describe him to them can be difficult -- I've settled on him being something of a cross between Bill Bailey, Weird Al Yankowic and Tom Lehrer, but definitely with his own style. Basically, he does cleverly written and (with the help of his talented backing musicians, The Distractions) wonderfully executed musical humour.

The show was great, with my personal highlights being "Ikea" (about the vikings who are "conquering the world with our self-assembly, flat-packed furniture"), "Now He's Gone" (a touching song about a girl who has a novel solution to ensuring that her boyfriend never fools around) and the spectacular "Macbeth (my name is)" (an Eminem style rap about the classic antihero who is told, "by man born of woman your butt is unkickable"). Oh and there was the one about the teaparty. And the stadium rock. And the West End musical. And...

Mitch and the band seemed quite fun in general: bassist, keyboardist and vocalist Kirsty turned up outside during the interval for a swift cigarette and a chat with those assembled, and there was a good opportunity to meet them (and buy albums) afterwards where we learned that it is easy to set Mitch off on one of his rants.

We'll be keeping an eye on his tourdates in future...

Long-Term Hedge

One edge of our garden is shared with neighbours and has a combination of 6' wooden fence and short sections of hedge (leylandii -- erk!). The other two sides, one of which borders a road which sees quite a lot of traffic, are bounded by a waist-high wire fence.

It feels quite exposed, so we want to do something about it. I like the idea of a hardwood hedge, but that would need quite a lot of trees/shrubs and I have so far been unable to find the right sort of plants at a price we can afford.

Until now.

Enter a Somerset firm called Ashridge Trees who can provide industrial (or should that be agricultural) quantities of young trees from an alarming selection of species for what looks to me like great prices. I expect we'll be ordering a few dozen trees this year. The only problem is that it will take a few years for the hedge to turn into a hedge, but it means we can be surrounded by things like blackthorn, crab apple and wild roses. Nice...