Tuesday 5th July 11

Another long day... working in a school near Leeds.  I had decided that to get me there on time, I'd use a taxi from Leeds station out to Farnley Park Maths and Computing College.  So I worked backwards to get my start time.... Work at 11, so needed to be at the college at, say 10.30, so needed to be in Leeds at 10ish, therefore needed to leave York 9.30ish, and leave the house at 9ish. 

Actually, most of these times got shifted forwards by about 10 minutes, but I got to the College at 10.40 and was changed and ready to perform by 11, as contracted.

My role was to be part of a 'Gifted and Talented' day, for about 60 kids who were all 14 or 15 years old... so hardly children any more!  I had 3 one-hour shows, each one a circus science and maths thing, my 'Professor Fiddlesticks Fun Physics' show.

This starts with me about to do the juggling and then I stop and say, oops, I'm supposed to do some maths here, aren't I?  Let's get it over and done with, so watch this please and tell me where the maths is, and I throw a single ball up and let it come down onto the floor nearby.  From this we often get a comment of 'gravity' and then, with prompting, the other forces of pushing it up and pushing it across. These three variables (although gravity isn't really a variable here) make the lovely parabolic curve.

So, with that out of the way, I get on with devilsticks and then explain/show the way that the baton balances on the fulcrum if either side is of equal weight, but falls off if one side is heavier.  If allowed to fall, inertia keeps the stick rotating, so it's easy to catch on the second stick... and if caught off centre, it falls off in the other direction, and can be caught by the first handstick again.  Easy physics, so then I make it much more interactive and invite two volunteers to come and have a go.  With young children, there's a forest of hands goes up, but with 15 year olds, they need persuading.

The next thing is easier to get them to participate in, the feather balancing.  And this is a good way to demonstrate friction with the air, or air-resistance, as the feathers have much more surface area than a simple stick.

The diabolo shows gyroscopic force, and yo-yo balls chaos.  Then the 4 wheel unicycle is usually popular, and only a select well-balanced and controlled few get as far as the 2 wheel unicycle.  No-one got as far as the one wheel unicycle in any of the 3 shows I did today.  I then finish the show with devilsticking and unicycling at the same time, as a 'clever' finale.

So, I did one show before lunch and two after, and all seemed to go well.

At about 3 I got changed and walked up to the bus stop, and the bus took me to within 4 minutes walk of the station... and just managed to get a train home, with one minute to spare.

When I was in York I remembered that I needed to get my Fiddlesticks boots re-soled, so I went to the cobblers behind the Spurriergate Centre and left then there, to be collected on Thursday.

So was home before 6pm, had a bit to eat and went to a Transition meeting at 7.30, at The Seahorse.  There were a young couple using the parlour, but they were quite interested in what our meeting was about so they stayed, and contributed.  Dave Merrett, Kit and Ivana turned up, and we discussed the various ways we could get a Community Generator project going; I have some notes to type up and weblinks to forward.

Home before 10pm and then a late night followed......

Friday 19th March 10

Up far too early... 6am... because I had to be on the train heading for Scarborough at 7.25.
So I got my bike loaded up and everything ready by 6.55 and bought my tickets, and just got the train with a couple of minutes to spare, and had a smooth trip over... mainly reading NewScientist.

Glenn was waiting for me at 8.15 when I arrived, and he took me to St Peter's School where Joanne his wife is head of Science. They have had a whole week of science events, and my show was the culmination of the week.

I had a coffee and a sit-down, then got changed and was ready for 9am... when something quite interesting happened. The school do an activity every morning called 'wake and shake', which is about 10 minutes of music and movement, to funky modern pop music, with teachers leading the movements. The idea behind this is that when the children go and sit down in their classrooms, they are eager to start learning and have woken up and got some endorphins flowing. There were two sessions, first the older ones and the the little ones down to Reception.

It looked fun and the majority of the children took part and seemed to enjoy it. I think it's a great idea.

Then at 9.20, it was my turn. I had the eldest children first and did my full hour's show. I love doing my Fun Physics show and workshop... and today I did it four times, although the afternoon sessions were just 45 minutes each, which was a bit tough.

Glenn picked me up at 3.15 and took me to the station, I got changed on the train. I met Christine in the train and talked with her about mediation and related subjects.

I picked up some compostables on the way back home, balanced on the unicycles on the trailer.

Exhausted but my next door neighbour had a load of bricks delivered so I got the wheelbarrow and helped him move them.

I cooked my own tea too, carrot, broccoli, pasta.

Tuesday 19th January 10

A really good day, up quite early and felt full of energy. Rang the bike shop to see if they will mend my dynamo, they'll do it on Thursday.

I spent some of the morning doing assorted things inside and in the afternoon did more chainsawing, quite a lot, and cleared a backlog. Geddit? BackLOG!

The most interesting part of my day was my evening trip to Denaby, to attend the We Love The Earth Centre meeting. I'd been put in touch with a York woman, Imelda Havers, who runs Blue Fish Regeneration and was going to drive to the venue, picking up her colleague Sally Walker who is an architect specialising in sustainable buildings. So I was picked up at 5.45 and we arrived at Denaby Main at 7pm, minutes before the meeting started.

This meeting was less well attended than the first one, but a good cross section of locals, greens, and other interested parties, including one owner of a business named on the WLTEC website. The meeting was slightly better organised than the first one, but considering the huge mountain that has to be climbed if this group is to have any positive impact at all, relatively little got done.

The problem is that there is a lot of passion and strongly held ethics, but little leadership and no-one with much experience of running a successful community group with this size of aim. The interests of the leaders so far are expressed by building benders (temporary structures made of branches tied together) and cob ovens (often used at festivals to bake bread) but these are surely far removed from the interests of the majority of local people, who are probably drawn to green issues if it saves them money, but not for the 'save the planet' ideals of people like me.

Additionally, the document obtained by WLTEC from the RTTG listed a long list of multinational companies and big businesses, some of whom represent the biggest despoilers of the planet. The document describes these as 'partners', and in fact, the list is probably more a 'wish list' or a list of potential contacts. But this list has alienated the local deep greens, who have put RTTG into the same category as Costain, Eon and BASF, who are big builders, coal-fired power station developers and chemical companies. There was some defence of the RTTG, as it is run by 3 local blokes who are pretty keen on green issues and community involvement in this kind of development.

I am not sure if I am able to help the WLTEC group... primarily as I'm not local enough. I have offered my help if they want me, and I'll certainly attend the site meeting on 9th Feb to see if I can help the RTTG's work to get some good workable ideas for the site. I do hope that it isn't sold by Doncaster Council for housing, an open cast mine, bog-standard 20th Century Earth-Despoiling business or something similar. It must continue as a site for education and promoting sustainable development. My vote would be for a 'Northern CAT' type place. I'd love that!

Imelda and Sally got up to go as soon as it was obvious that the meeting had finished (I could have sat around chatting for another hour!) and I suggested we went to see the front gate of The Earth Centre site, as neither of them had been there. After this, we went home, and I was delivered safely back soon after 10pm.

Had a lengthy facebook chat conversation with a friend's wife who works in a school and wants me to help with her science week, with my Fiddlesticks Fun Physics show. Good stuff!

Saturday 11th July 09, Hebden Fringe

Slept well at Mark and Jennifer's but got up quite early as the boys had been up since daybreak... excitement I suppose. Both Mark and Jennifer had a busy day ahead, Jennifer to collect their cat from an orthopaedic veterinary hospital and the other to go to a meeting connected with work, probably a Green Party meeting knowing Mark.

I wanted to get into town at a reasonable time to do balloons in the central square, and Gill went out with all the boys to see their treehouse, and wasn't back by the time I was ready to go, so I left and walked down into town... but five minutes out I realised I had forgotten my bag of devilsticks and diabolos etc (duh!) so I trudged back up the hill and got this extra bag.

I set up right in the central part of the town, a pedestrianised square surrounded by shops and cafes, and blew up 3 balloons and stuck them in one of my bags, sticking up, and got on with some 'practice' devilsticking, which of course attracted attention. When plenty of people had started watching, I did a free first balloon animal for one of the most attentive and engaging children, after which lots more came forward and the next hour was busy with giving away balloon animals, which was exactly what I wanted as my part of the public part of the Hebden Festival.

I got enough donations to pay for my lunch and tea, so bought a pastie and little quiche for immediate consumption and a folded spinach pizza called a calzone for my tea later, wherever that was. At just after half twelve I packed up and wobbled off to the Central Street School where I'd done my show last night and was due to do my Fun Physics Show today followed by a free-play workshop. By 1pm I was ready to start but not many people had turned up but ten minutes later I had quite a good crowd.

The show went like a dream... warm-up acts from the audience first, then the 'obligatory mathematical bit' where I lob a single juggling ball up and ask if they spotted the mathematics, and soon get them to understand the parabolic curve and all say the word 'parabola' together, then devilsticks which is a good way to include friction, fulcrum, pendulums and frequency (you have to see the show to see how these are connected!). Following this is balancing, starting with a stick balanced on my nose and then peacock feathers balanced on volunteers hands, and this leads to a explanation of air resistance and friction again. Derek the naughty diabolo did his usual tricks and misbehaviour but explained gyroscopes much better than I ever could, and then we just had fun with the unicycles at the end. I do enjoy myself such a lot!

There was a chap doing some filming for the Fringe and he interviewed me outside before the workshop started, and by 2.30 the workshop's participants had arrived and I did a catching and throwing game followed by a quick run through of all the quick tips connected to the skills I teach. Then on to the free-play workshop which was pretty easy for me, although still had to keep my eyes out for stuff not going well and people getting stuck. Another full-on hour, finishing at 3.45.

Jan then paid me, and I was pleased with the fee, as it hadn't been fixed beforehand as it partly depended on the numbers of audience/participants, and as these had been quite low, I wasn't expecting as much as I got.

A walk though the park where there was another bit of the festival going on, and to the station where at four thirty something the Blackpool train came and I continued my journey to Warrington. I got to Preston and changed to the Euston train, and was soon at Bank Quay where a nice Warringtonian taxi driver took me to the hotel where I was spending the night. As I got into the hotel the rain started so I decided not to go for a walk and explore the local area, and I had my calzone and some fruit and dozed. But later, I got up and watched an excellent film on Virgin 1, which was on the hotel's Freeview package, called 'Inside I'm Dancing' which I loved. I would say it is easily in my top-ten favourite films.

I went to sleep very soon after this.

Thursday 16th October 08

Another early start, although as I'd bought two day's tickets yesterday, I was able to get to the station a few minutes later and go and hop straight on the train. Had a hassle free journey and was picked up by Mary, one of the staff at Paddock School, who visits the station every morning to drop her husband off so she waited for me to arrive at 8.30 and took me the 10 minutes to the school.

I was working with the KS 1 kids today.... reception and infants.... all doing Science Week, mainly stuff about bodies and senses, insects and minibeasts (a visiting animal wrangler with giant millipedes and a snake), this planet and the night sky (a planetarium) and my stuff on how things work, forces etc. So I again did three one hour shows, with very basic sciency info such as push/pull, weight, gravity, friction (explained with stickyness/roughness as opposed to not very slippery!) and gyroscopic forces explained (not!) with 'Derek the Diabolo' and an array of spinning tops and the like. Working with the very young is more difficult as their hand-eye co-ordination is not well developed, and some of the concepts might be a bit difficult, although I did check with the teachers first thing, and they said 'go for it'!

I had a good time with the teachers and other staff, a really lovely 'vibe' in the school. They seemed to enjoy the day too, and I was taken to the station and got the just-before 3 train back home. I stopped by the Building Society on the way home to put my cheque in, and at Country Fresh to pick up a medium box of compostables.

A peaceful evening... I pulled out of two meetings as Gill wanted me to stay in and ensure an easy evening for her, and anyway, I was tired so I was happy to have a quiet evening in.

Wednesday 15th October 'Blog Action Day'

I had to get up very early as I had to cycle to the station with all my gear to get a train at 7.40 to Huddersfield, to attend Science Week at Paddock School, where I was performing 3 one-hour 'Professor Fiddlesticks Fun Physics' shows for Key Stage 2 children, with circus tricks being used to explain and demonstrate various maths and science subjects. I did 2 before lunch and one after, they all went brilliantly and the audience/participants were wonderful. We all enjoyed ourselves a lot.

I got driven back to the station and was soon on a train back to York, I tried to read my NewScientist but kept on dozing. I cycled into town to visit Craft Basics on Gillygate to replace my peacock feathers which are getting a little ragged because of all the use they've been getting. I also called in to Country Fresh to pick up compostables, got 2 carrier bags and a large box, somehow balanced these on top of the unicycles on the trailer and took them home.

Gill had done some pasta for tea and we had yesterday's soup on top of it as a sauce. Lovely!


BLOG ACTION DAY
I'd been thinking about a Blog Action Day post for this blog, and although it's not about abject poverty but people on low incomes, I want to tell you about a scam which has been directed at me, as a small business owner.

Many businesses are suffering right now and some might be thinking about taking on some extra advertising to drum up more work and generate more income. But beware, entertainers and perhaps some other businesses are at risk of being taken in by a scam which could mean that you lose money, and at these times, no-one can afford to do that.

About 3 months ago I was phoned by a company offering to place an advert for me in a Child Safety Directory. The concept was that the directory would have a load of info in it about lots of child safety issues, such as roads, online safety, 'stranger danger' etc. I said it sounded like a reasonable idea and I might consider placing an advert in it. I asked them to send me the paperwork, a sample booklet and advertisers rates. Nothing came and I forgot about it. Then a few weeks later, I got another phone call with a persuasive person telling me that I'd agreed to an advert and the options were £399, £299 or £199... and remember they cover the whole country... I was sure I hadn't agreed to anything, especially as I'd not seen anything in writing, and was careful to not agree to anything, as a verbal agreement can be legally binding.

I have been contacted a couple more times and after the last conversation, got the company address and contact name, and I contacted Trading Standards, aka 'Consumer Direct' (telephone 08454 04 05 06) to discuss this issue. They were able to confirm that there have been many similar scams, aimed at ripping off small businesses who are well-meaning, kind and perhaps just a little gullable.... Their website gives good advice about how anyone can avoid being a victim, lose money, experience identity theft and therefore potentially lose even more money.....

Now this experience, even if I had paid for a non-existant advert, would not have landed me in poverty, but it would have reduced my available income, and once someone has been taken in by this type of scam, their details are sold to other scammers who try to take advantage of them as well. So beware, take care, and be careful.