I look up

A smartphone makes it so easy to look at email. No dismal slow boot process; I can get straight to the latest spam, grumble, exciting research news. It's so easy to just deal with simple emails over the morning coffee, maybe also glance at news, Twitter, etc. All of a sudden it's time to rush out.

Last Thursday went exactly like this. Noticing the clock I rushed around, pulled on my bike gear, shot out to the garage where my bike is; helmet, bike lock, backpack pulled on, lock the garage again, time to zoom off to work.

The weather here has been cloudy and grey for a couple of weeks. Last Thursday was different. As I turned from locking the garage door a seagull caught my eye, brilliant white drifting leisurely across a featureless blue sky. Higher up two swallows darted about. It struck me that they'd probably been here since April or May without catching my eye until now, at the start of July. I wondered why I don't pause and look up more often.

Consume Red

As a young fellow I formed a rather definite view of university. One went there to learn from people who had worked over many years at understanding their chosen subjects, at developing their own sophisticated understanding and, in most cases, going beyond the books to contribute new ideas and knowledge. Often these people were strong, distinctive characters with broad interests. They WERE the university - not the buildings or the history - and one learnt so much from them, not just about their subjects but about being a person.

The original conception of this blog involved several authors, colleagues in the old DACE. Our several disciplines would bump up against each other and all sorts of conversations would take place, a virtual mirror of those that happened spontaneously in the corridors, or especially in some of the day schools when we took pleasure in mixing up different academic disciplines. That hasn't worked out so instead you get just me. If you're looking for a blog purely on astronomy, adult education, politics or whatever, you'll be disappointed. What's here is my own, personal jumble of interests. "How to build your blog" websites will tell you this is not how to build an audience. Sorry. Me is what's here.

There's been Astronomy, adult education and universities but the promised "clattery atonal music" has been gravely lacking. I've let the reader down badly - no Henry Cow, Derek Bailey, John Zorn. So here in seriously belated recompense is a link to Ground Zero's Consume Red. It starts with the shrill, piercing sound of the Korean hojok, played by Kim Suk Chul, 82nd valuable intangible cultural asset of the Republic of Korea; "brilliant music sacred enough to blow away any puny ideas about copyright." Over the next minutes the musicians of Ground Zero start to join in, scratchy, electric improvisation over the keening cry of the hojok, getting more coherent and louder until a huge, monolithic noise develops over a brutal, thumping rhythm section. It's intense, claustrophobic but fantastically invigorating; I know of few other recordings quite so crushing. I love it!

I don't think it should be freely available on YouTube like this but you wouldn't get to hear it if it wasn't. I bought a legit copy from ReR Megacorp - it's only £5.00 at the moment.

If you meet me in Glasgow University it may be in the hope of learning something about Maths, Physics or Astronomy. Perhaps there will be some illustration or remark based on a book, a film, music I've enjoyed; maybe less overwhelming than Consume Red but I hope they add to the experience anyway.

Tycho Brahe, Great Britain, internationalism

Last week we marked the end of this year's Access programme in the normal way, with a "presentation evening". We invite everybody who's completed Access to come along, with pals, parents, partners, children if they wish. There is a little ceremony in which they are each presented with a certificate testifying to their completion of Access and the grades they achieved - one of this year's students has shared a photo of his certificate on Instagram. At the end I made just a few concluding comments, leading to the most important points: "well done, and good luck for whatever comes next!"

To fill out the concluding comments I drew on some tales of Tycho Brahe, the 16th century Danish astronomer. These tales are not in short supply. Tycho must be the prototype of the gothic horror movie philosopher wizard in his castle, surrounded by an array of lurid courtiers. The real castle was called Uraniborg, designed according to thoroughly thought-out philosophical principles and constructed on the island of Hven, in the Øresund between Denmark and Sweden. It no longer exists but woodcuts and prints from the time show a most amazing building. He maintained a substantial household there, assistants and visiting students, as well as cooks, servants, estate workers, a lutenist and indeed a dwarf jester called Jeppe. Some more of the more lurid Tycho tales are recounted here.

The Brahes were one of the ruling families of Denmark and Tycho was born to power and influence. Most Brahes became soldiers or statesmen; the Church would have been a more normal route for an intellectually inclined child. Clearly Tycho was a strong character who forged his own path, but his high birth meant that no path was closed off to him. Now many, many more people are able to work at studying, understanding and advancing knowledge.

In 1590 the histories of Scotland and of Astronomy collided briefly when King James VI sailed across the North Sea to collect his new bride, Anne of Denmark. During his stay in Denmark he visited Uraniborg, "the spot to which the eyes of all the learned men of Europe were directed", and took great delight in the intellectual discussion he enjoyed there. Tycho corresponded regularly with other learned men across the continent, exchanging and developing ideas, and his name was widely known (and yes, they were "men" - sorry, that's the way it was). Scots visitors to Uraniborg were not so terribly unusual and Tycho knew people in Scotland. Before he left Denmark King James granted Tycho a 30 year copyright on his works in Scotland, and presented him with two large guard dogs.

I wanted to use this story to illustrate the international character of academic research, and in particular to emphasise that this has been the case for hundreds of years. I wanted also to make a further point about the value of meeting people from other countries and cultures, as one will in higher education, and the importance of making them welcome, irrespective of one's voting preference in the EU referendum. I was happy that everybody in the room, as far as I could see, wanted to applaud at this point.

King James VI, of course, also became James I of England shortly, although it took a further century for the Parliaments to follow where simple heredity had first led. With the integrity of the United Kingdom once again up for discussion, this incident from four centuries ago seems to resonate in several respects with the worrying modern world.