afreebean – to be continued??

Six months into my PhD… how time flies, and how different life is from this time last year.

Anyone with a little insight will notice that I’ve moved my blog back to the wordpress site and my freebean.com website will shortly be taken down. This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma.

I have been almost entirely absent from personal social media for the last few months. I don’t think anyone’s really noticed as, having moved nearer home, the family I set up this blog for are seeing me in person on a regular basis and aren’t reliant on my facebook/instagram updates. My friends back in London are keeping in touch via other means by and large.

In addition the other purpose of this blog – for sharing adventures and vanlife, hasn’t ‘dried up’ so much as I’ve not felt that the adventures have been ones for sharing. ‘#vanlife’ saved mine, well, at least my van was all important in giving me the freedom that I needed, the confidence I could do something like that, and in a way, the start of a relationship I hadn’t dreamt I’d be lucky enough to build. But now it is a luxury and one we may or may not decide to part with. All well and good.

The dilemma is that, with the old website I was able to run a couple of blogs in one place – a science / PhD type blog, plus my adventures, vanlife and more creative side. That doesn’t work so well here. So… do I continue writing?

I definitely want to have a writing outlet, particularly in regards my ‘work’ aspects. I think that landscapes, landuse, forests and farms should be of importance to us all at the moment. An awareness of our impact on the environment and long term sustainability has gone from ‘mainstream’ to ’emergency’, a big step up from my woodcraft group childhood in the 80s when we were all considered a bit odd… So I’ll definitely continue to write, but is this the right place for it? Do people write a number of different blogs?

Has a free bean fulfilled its place… I’ll have to gather some thoughts and make a final decision on this. But to everyone who has had the patience to listen and hopefully enjoyed some of my stories. Thank You.

I do have one personal story to tell, but it’s not about me, its about a dog….

 

PhD Poster for the BIFoR Annual Conference

So I’m attending my first academic conference as a PhD Researcher. This one is very much a ‘home’ affair as its the Birmingham University Forest Institutes (BIFoR) Annual Conference (link). As Forest Edge Scholars we’re all preparing academic posters outlining our research. As PhD students with less than six months experience this research is limited to scope and overviews only! But it’s been a good experience trying to summarise the initial ideas of what I’m planning to do…

Having spent far to long worrying about this I’m now going to send off my poster for printing – seeing my work in A1 size is going to be a bit terrifying – here’s hoping the layout / spelling / pictures don’t look to ridiculous! (If I start worrying about the actual content again I’m never going to get this finished….)

Finding the wood in the trees. A PhD – Part 1

I think starting a PhD is probably different for everyone. That’s sort of the point, that you are on a unique journey that identifies (hopefully) new, original knowledge or understanding about something. There are probably a lot of similarities in the PhD path, but I can’t really describe those. Perhaps if you’re in a team working on a project, then you have a good understanding of the routes your colleagues are taking, but even though I’m part of a cohort, the nature of ‘Forest Edge’ means we really are ‘going it alone’.

We are the first cohort of Forest Edge PhD students at Birmingham University, as part of BIFoR the Institute of Forest Research. Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, one of the presiding prinicples of our studies being that they would be interdisciplinary. This means we really are studying completely different aspects from the effect of coppice bundles on nitrates in streams to the use of wild spaces by children.

Not only are we interdisciplinary as a group, my studies are interdisciplinary by nature. Although I will finish with a PhD in ‘Geography and Environmental Science’, I am (unusually I think), combining both the social science and physical science aspects in a study of Landscape and Land Use Change. I’m focusing on Land Managers perceptions and preferences in regards afforestation for Natural Flood Management; Forest, Flood and Farmer. If I don’t complete the PhD I at least have a future album title. It’s a win win situation.

You can probably tell that at nearly three months in I’m pretty excited. The start was daunting. You arrive without a program, spend a few days trying to sort out adminstration whilst wondering what it is you are actually doing. If you’re lucky you meet your supervisors fairly early, which was a godsend for me, because I’d been to as many relevant sections of the library as I thought might be relevant and was starting to freak out. They calm you down and through discussions you identify the first few things you need to go away and think about. A key one for me was ‘what is geography?’ As my background is Music – Physics – Education – Science and Technology Studies and the last Geography lesson I can remember (no lie) I was colouring in a river… (Leon I’m so sorry, I should have spent more time in your department!!). Turns out Geography is awesome and pretty damn broad – if it involves people and place, it’s geography. And it can go from standing in a river taking depth measurements to analysing anxieties and behaviour. It’s cool!

So, alongside a crash course of sitting in on Masters seminars and in-depth background reading, I also had to look at some of the specifics of my own studies. I really have chosen something that spreads across topics, I’m having to get a grounding in literature around farming knowledge, landscape perceptions, basic silviculture, flood modelling, Natural Flood Management etc. Becoming an ‘expert in my field’ as every good PhD student should, would be damn daunting, if it wasn’t for the fact that ‘my field’ doesn’t really exist as a thing. I suppose that’s good.

I’ve been very lucky as I have two incredibly supportive supervisors who are happy to meet regularly and can manage my rather circular lengthy unravelings.. they’ve helped me get writing and not go down too many unnecessary rabbit holes. Although the fact that we all get on so well is possibly making our meetings considerably lengthier than average…

Things did become difficult about two months in, as the volume of what I needed to unravel had become so great. But it was slowly teased out, and the act of ‘having’ to write something made me choose various focus points to hold on to. In the run up to Christmas it was my friends who became really important, being able to discuss topics with them, understand where they were and share ideas and concerns, made all the difference. The Forest Edge cohort itself is developing slowly, we’re finding our feet as a group, but I’m looking forward to the new year as we’ve got some plans and I think it’s going to be a really unique and special group to be part of.

I feel I’ve come through the first three months with something resembling a cohesive research design. This has arisen from both the original proposal and the literature I’ve chewed through. The holiday period is a bit terrifying as we’re only two months in when December hits and everyone starts getting all festive. Now we’re nearly back, it will be January and a whole month has buggered off without any particularly grand progress. But, being an older student, this is not new to me and has been an pain throughout my professional career as well, so I’ll get to grips with it.

I am nervous though, I’ve not come through this period unscathed. I’ve had at least one grilling that (whilst I still think it was unnecessary) did raise some key ideas I will have to tackle, and, I don’t know, at least 6 or 7 moments of ‘what if I can’t do this’. I’m not kidding, genuine knuckle tightening ‘what if this is a really bad idea’ moments. But they’re pretty quick to pass. I know it’s going to get trickier, that I’m going to feel more lost, particularly in the run up to data collection, when I’m meant to know what I’m doing but feel like I have no idea what’s going to happen. I also know, however, that this is pretty normal, and that when it does happen, I’ll have support and guidance. Or at the very least, friendly faces who’ll buy me a pint.

So, thoughts on doing a PhD at three months in?

Don’t think like a student. You may be ‘studying’ and ‘learning’, but you’re not a student. You are driving a project, setting your own targets, experimenting, learning, testing, analysing. You’re essentially doing a job for which you need master level project management skills, the ability to drive yourself whilst managing some life balance that I can only believe is practiced by the self-employed guru or televangalist….

It is also (second only to teaching) the best job in the world. If you get a chance to do it, do it.

Landscapes: My Labyrinth

I am meant to be writing up a short piece on the landscape research I’ve been studying over the last few weeks. This follows on from two months of landscape / flood management / farming / forestry literature research which is forming the first part of my PhD. I will do two things next week: write a blog post on the first three months of a PhD (mine, obviously), and get my head around the landscape literature I am really struggling to contain into a useable mess (rather than the web of complexity currently in my head).
I tried writing it this morning but it didn’t work. So I wrote a poem instead. It actually says a lot of what I want to say in the essay, but hasn’t quite nailed the political dimension of landscapes as it should….

 

My Labyrinth
I see, reflected back at me, my childhood.
A memory, a tree
A small stone, and an apple for my best friend.
A fear of climbing where an Ash once stood,
A wild space tamed and paved, uprooted and regrown.
Young trees old and over-mown bluebells surviving pigs and grandmothers and strimmer spells.
Memories in the smell of summer cut grass.
Identity in changing fields and things I’d never change
that will not last.
A land dwelt, worked, drawn in frames of time.
Mine. Not mine.
And yet my strength was built on roads and cliffs and mountains, not in this.
This place on which I built exists in time and mind
I love but have no need to walk the fields, I walk them sleeping, waking, dreaming
I have learnt to separate myself from place and yet cannot, will not, do not have to leave this space behind. It is part of what is mine.

Whatever happened to the VanPlan

Two years ago I sold my house in ‘london’. http://www.afreebean.com/blog/2016/12/08/the-van-plan-part-4-overlapping-milestones/
My van was part finished and #vanlife was on the horizon, daunting but exciting. I pretty much stayed in the UK that year, between London and Wales, working and travelling the UK. A time I kept family and friends well informed about through this blog.

Two years later though and life has changed completely.

Completing an MSc at University College London (UCL) changed a lot of things, as well as my knowledge and skills set. Exploring Science studies (sociology, policy and communication of science) took all my time and most of my focus, which is why my last ‘adventure’ post was nearly a year ago on our trip to Malta. It’s not that I haven’t been keeping up with tales of our adventures, it’s rather that our adventures this year have been about work and life.

Leave London; Finish the Masters; (Support Kane whilst he starts a new job in a very different location); Buy a House; Start a PhD

The work on the MSc paid off and my dissertation, (exploring understandings of ‘forest’ and how peoples values of ‘forest’ were important) won the department’s ‘best in STS’ prize. More importantly, that time spent in and thinking about, the beautiful Wyre Forest (my case study) led to new possibilities, contacts and an ability, finally, to focus my future where I wanted. On the landscapes I loved, understanding and exploring the complexity of values I respected and the ongoing conflicts and challenges faced by the rural environment (field, forest, river and town) and those working and dwelling there.

For the next 3 years (at least) I will be completing a PhD at Birmingham University as part of the BIFoR Forest Edge Scholarship program from the Leverhulme Trust. I’m looking at landmanagers/farmers perceptions of and preferences for landscapes with a focus on forestation and whether this can be integrated with Natural Flood Management.. #forestandflood @BIFoRuob #PhD. I’ll be posting about the PhD here: at the forest edge  if it’s of interest. This blog will stay focused on outdoor adventures; hopefully I’ll manage a better balance over the next year!

So where is the vanplan now? The van is tip top and still in use as a #campervan and mobile office for field work. Now I live in a gorgeous little house with a lovely lovely man and #vanlife is purely for the weekend/work trips.

Malvern and its gas lamps

And my van is a luxury.

So, after so much work, frustration, time and joy, I will probably look to sell on and downsize in the Spring. That van has so many adventures in store; so do I. But perhaps by different roads. For two years though, that van was more my own home than anywhere else in the world.

Academia and a Learning ‘Difference’

There was a point during my first term’ when a colleague suggested that, perhaps, students with dyslexia and dyspraxia just didn’t study social sciences.

On sitting the January exam and discovering that I was the only student in that years cohort with ‘special needs’ I started thinking that she might be right and I might have made a really stupid decision. I’d found the first term hard, really hard, I took 3 to 4 weeks over assignments that colleagues wrote in a couple of days. And my feedback was the same on every single paper: good knowledge, but poor organisation and structure mean the argument was unclear. Well I bloody know that! I’m dyspraxic, poor organisation and structure in writing are pretty much the summary on the tin! Also I’d just tried to learn how to write four different types of ‘argumentative’ essay from youtube videos.

Actually this wasn’t a bad thing, the ‘disability’ support at UCL is good but it took over a term to get my application approved. I started watching the Youtube videos after a long conversation with my personal tutor (who dealt with my nearing melt-down very well). He’d pointed out the apparently obvious (not to me) fact that different disciplines expected , or rather required, different styles of writing. He also pointed out that the interdisciplinary nature of the STS Masters meant that yes, I was having to submit essays in four different styles, but at least I was finding this out early. This was better than finding out when papers you want to publish got rejected.

Written style and structure were important in helping people access what was being said.

This was a bit of a revelation and my papers in the second term rapidly improved. l also found a bit of a niche, I’m still not great at writing historically but I can really nail a policy paper; summarising content and linking advice to evidence succinctly was something l found easier than some other students on my module.

All this started me thinking a bit differently about the dyspraxia. It wasn’t holding me back, I just didn’t have the same skills or methods of learning as most of the other students on the course.

‘Most’ was clarified when I met another student (with aspects of dyslexia and dyspraxia) also in my cohort. Being a part-timer she had sat the exam the year before, (hence my lonely four hour solo). It is wonderful talking to someone who really ‘gets’ the way you think. Especially when that person is brilliant and creative and should definitely be studying their course. You can see in them more easily the skills you share that mean you definitely have a contribution to make. It was during these conversations that l stopped using the term ‘disability’. A ‘disability’ suggests that I am somehow less able than my peers and this is not true.

l have a ridiculously wide skill set but I felt embarrased talking about what I felt trickier or the aspects of taught education that I didn’t understand. This is frankly ridiculous…. I was a physics teacher for nearly nine years! All my students knew to check my sentences for grammar or incorrectly spelt words (never the specialist ones, but I was always particularly careful) and were encouraged to point out any errors. How could someone happy to let 14yr olds see their faults be embarrassed and feel like a failure at essay writing. Because I am ‘less able’? (l still struggle to write ‘disability’)

l realised, talking to my friend, that she wasn’t in any way ‘less able’ except in that she didn’t fit the very rigid expectation of an ‘academic mind’. Not in regards the ability to do, research, identify, combine, analyse, discuss or even present aspects. Just the bit where you put it on paper in a language and format designed for the ‘expert’ to understand. It wasn’t even that she (we) couldn’t do that, it’s just that each format has to be learnt , like a really complicated recipe, and you have to learn it by heart, and your version has to have all the movements written down as well…

So I’m suggesting a change of term: I don’t have a disability, I have a learning ‘difference’ and yes that does mean I need additional support to fit into the academic system. But I’m not less able. I’m Me.

I’ve successfully completed my Masters at UCL and started a PhD at Birmingham University as a Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar as part of the Forest Edge program.

So anyone who says I can’t write can go jump

And yes brain, that includes me too…

 

Malta Part 2

The ferry for Gozo is only 20 minutes from Melliha where we were staying, but we still managed to miss the 9.30am ferry. To be honest it had been getting really cold and we were struggling to sleep at night. Missing the ferry was a combination of that and the slightly odd signage at the ferry port meaning we went round a few circles, but were first in the queue for the 10.15. The ferrys run at least once an hour and are ridiculously easy (once you’ve found the way in). On at Cirkkewa, off at the Gozo port and you don’t have to get a ticket until you’re on the way back. We only had a day in Gozo and I was really hoping that we would get a climb in as the weather for Thursday and Friday was looking pretty poor. In all honesty I was feeling rough, but could at least belay for Kane. That meant finding somewhere that was at least a little sheltered and although you can often work out which way the crags are facing by the times given for direct sunshine (the maps aren’t great or particularly clear in regards the actual direction of the crag), it’s difficult to work out what the terrain is like. As well as that we wanted to see Gozo itself, so I’d identified a mini tour which would take us to four different locations with three potential climbing spots meaning we’d at least get a few interesting walks.

Stop one was on the south east coastline, a beautiful cliff off a well trodden path. Where you came off the path the scramble was clearly marked with little signs and stone cairns. Making our way up to the cliff we admired the tall exciting routes that we may one day (in the distant future) be able to climb. The routes we could climb where hidden away down a greasy dark dank crack in the rock, down which Kane discovered the wind was being funnelled quite efficiently. Well it was a lovely walk.

We drove south around the coast, got a bit lost and found the most beautiful bay. The road had dropped down into the valley and it was sheltered and calm. There were a few traverses and Deep Water soloing routes out along the cliff edge that, given a few extra degrees and sunshine I may even have tempted Kane out along. But over todays grey and choppy water were not appealing. The valley was so sheltered it seemed daft not to try and find something to climb, there seemed to be a crag a bit of a stomp across a field but we were both a little tired and there was another section of the valley a little further up that looked more interesting for a walk. Kane had spotted an old waterworks in the guidebook and it looked like it would be a good exploration if not a climb. So we drove back up the hill, parked by an old stone half building and scrambled down the concrete slip to the top of the cliff. A path ran along the top of the cliff until the valley curved in one big hairpin bend (there’s a proper name for this but I didn’t pay much attention to my geography teacher at school). The path runs right to the end of the spit of rock that runs out into the bend, so we scrambled along, past three hunters and their lovely dogs (the guns were scarier than the drop, they seemed very friendly, both of us jumped about 30secs later when some poor pigeon got it), and when you think it’s going to be another hairy scramble there are beautiful deep cut steps into the stone leading you down to the old riverbed. Around the corner and through a tunnel in the spit you reach gold dust.

The Dream wall is a white expanse with one route after the next following the curves and features back up the cliff. Around the corner the rock takes its namesake Champagne and the delicate pinkish cream colours lead you on until you turn the next corner. On the opposite side of the valley is a deep cave, tempting routes and above it a channel is cut for water to run across an aqueduct towards the waterworks. The old buildings rise out of the rock like Minis Tirith and the climbs rise up the side in cracks and channels. Like hungry sugar starved children in a sweet shop we didn’t really know where to start, looked at everything within, above and below our grade range on Waterworks, and ended up back at Champagne wall for Kane to climb a lovely route just as it started to rain…

only a screenshot as I forgot m y camera, hopefully a little film to follow

We abandoned our tour of Gozo, happy with our finds and went for a little meander and a coffee in Victoria, the main town. Having arrived just in time to hear apparently thousands of starlings in the main square, but forgetting the éverything shuts until 7pm we had issues with dinner. I was starting to feel rather dreadful, it was really cold and we were both getting hungry. But we went for a walk around the Cittadella, the beautiful old town fortress with views across Gozo. Then Kane had the very sensible idea of heading for the port and eating there so I would stop worrying about getting tickets for the ferry back. The plan wasn’t looking good when we arrived at 6pm and everything was still shut, but as we were giving up hope the lights went on in the ‘tent’ outside the front of Ta Tuna a restaurant on quay. This was the most expensive meal we had this week and I would have paid for it twice (actually Kane treated me so I didn’t have to pay once). The family hosts managed casual, friendly and impeccable service all at once and the food was outstanding. We had salmon terrine, olives and fresh cooked bread on the house (bread so fresh the white rolls came later as they were still in the oven when we arrived), followed by swordfish and duo of beef which included the best steak I’ve had in years and I think single handedly stopped me getting a full on chest infection the following day. Chocolate puddings, Panna Cotta that I actually liked (I normally consider this a waste of a pudding), best cappucino of the week and to wish us Merry Christmas a liquer to finish, also on the house (which sadly I couldn’t drink, driving, but made Kane finish)…

Such a wonderful day, and enough food that I wouldn’t need to leave the house for a week.

Which was good because the next day we basically couldn’t.

The wind had already started by the time we got home and the storm was well underway by the morning. I spent breakfast wrapped up in a duvet and managed to pretend I wasn’t asleep by knitting. We ventured out for a coffee to the Seaview Cafe 2mins walk away, which did give us an amazing view of the terrifying waves crashing into the bay. Needing a little more outdoors time after lunch (sadly our flat had no outside view at all), we went for a drive up to the Red Tower of St Agatha. It’s an old fortress high up at the North end of the island, weirdly no one seems sure why or when it was painted red. As we got up to the tower we realised how bad the storm was when we saw the ships. The winds were coming from the North East, and in the Western Bay, and hiding along the coastline all the Tankers had come in to shelter. It was quite a spectacular sight; the Tower is above the narrowest point of the island so you can see both the Western and Eastern bays. The West bay is still a deep dark blue, filled with the lights of the boats. Whilst the East bay is a yellow grey and white with the beating waves.

My hope was that an early night would sort out my chest, and the storm would sort out itself leaving Friday to do its thing. Last day best day?

It was for the weather, and the location, and the company. I had falling out with the guide book having chosen a crag that was south facing and described in a manner that made it seem like a very easy descent (follow the obvious slope, crag on your left). This was actually a very precarious sea cliff scramble that we had to lower the bags down and I was going to need to be on belay to get out of. This did not put me in a brilliant mood as I don’t like being somewhere I don’t feel I can get out of easily, so it says a lot about the spectacular nature of the cave (and Steve the rescue pigeon) that it was so much fun. The nature of the overhanging cave and the fact that the lower offs depended on some interesting rope work to ensure I could pull Kane back into the cave (the upper lip being further out than the lower lip) meant I couldn’t really climb anything, it’s really hard to retrieve the quickdraws from an overhang and I couldn’t do it on toprope without a precarious swing on bolts that we wern’t 100% happy about, making the climbing a little unnerving. By the time we got to the (easy) last climb, I really couldn’t climb anything.

Actually I couldn’t do one particular move which was a pull up onto a 4.5foot high overhanging edge, off a pedastal out over a 10 foot drop. Yes I was on a toprope but I’m not beating myself up. Turns out that having a (very mild) chest infection, not climbing for a month and sea cliffs do nothing for my self esteem or head game. Meh. I have a plan of attack for working on this, and for once, this wasn’t the point of our holiday. We didn’t get five days of warm southern sun and endless climbing or grade improving challenges. But was that the point? I hadn’t gone with anything to prove. I hadn’t gone to achieve anything in particular. I’d gone to have a holiday, and a rest, with a very lovely man, on a very lovely Island. And I got exactly what I needed.

Thank you Malta, we’ll be back. Kane’s already picked a project route and I still want to try the prickly pear liquer.

 

Malta Part 1

I don’t think I’d been this exhausted since teaching. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be so tired your bones ached. Actually I do remember; I’ve just enjoyed not feeling like that.

But, I had deadlines to meet, essays to write and Chistmas knitting to prep. Studying has been my focus for the last three months with a very brief, but awesome, mini adventure in November. Kane and I escaped to my home turf, my old favourite, Wye Valley and exciting new crags in Gilwern. Otherwise I’ve been back in London, the van has been office and emergency accomodation, and I’m full time in the Uni quarter at Bloomsbury: studying sociology, politics and history of science. All those responsible things I’d given myself a year off thinking about in 2016-17, for the last three months I’ve been learning the terminology, asking questions and looking at the nitty gritty nasty.
Of all the times to try and lift your head out of the sand…. I’ll be honest there are moments when I’m trying to understand the world but there’s good science, bad science, there’s plastic, and the climate and Brexit and Trump and seriously l look around and think, well what the fk am I meant to do with this?!’
Anyway
(Sorry for swearing Mim)

So I had deadlines. So I did that thing where you work all hours you can to make sure you’ve done the best you can. And then you escape.
Carol, Kane’s Mum, is a legend and drove us to Gatwick. Which was a relief as l have never been so unprepared to travel. l had passports and a credit card and I was pretty certain that Kane had packed the climbing kit. I knew we were going to Malta as our lovely friends Pete and Carolina had given us a ‘hits’list briefing over dinner the week before; other than that I had no idea what to expect.

The Island of Malta is a beautiful Microcosym of multicultural history. Roman, Islamic, Spanish, Catholic Knights, the British; and yet there’s something utterly unique here. The landscape, a little like its people, is rugged, beautiful and suprisingly friendly. Especially to climbers, walks are quick, to warm beautiful walls of pocket dimpled limestone. It isn’t easy climbing, nor is it familiar, but it is sticky if you learnt to trust your feet,
After a day of travel we arrived in our flat for the week and promptly went out for pizza, fyi Melliha does really good pizza -look for where the locals are going for takeout.

Sunday was an 8 minute drive and a short warm walk to a sea cliff scramble (which I did not enjoy), to Irdum Irxaw, a deep gully with steep clean walls (which I loved). I managed half a lead and two seconds (seconding on sport just means going up the wall on the rope that your partner has put up and retrieving all the quick draws / protection they’ve used) before remembering that I haven’t climbed for a month and my brain was not forgiving me. Kane had sufficiently tired himself out fighting a 6c+ (hard!) so we called it a short day and went and got overexcited by local Christmas food at the supermarket.

On Monday we drove the surprisingly short distance (40mins) to the other side of the Island. On the south coast between Zurrieq and the Blue Grotto is Wied Babu, a beautiful limestone valley. The walk to the crag is a bit of an odd climb down metal steps from the road, but then a clear path with steps well cut into the rock leads your gutty down to the valley. Another half a lead and belaying in a chill breeze and I was exhausted. l belayed Kane whilst he worked a particularly terrifying overhanging flake which he nailed clean and from the ground up after lunch. Then I just needed coffee and sunshine.

Rather than heading straight back we drove around the coast hoping that the sunset would find it’s way through the clouds. We came to a tower by a beautiful Olive gone overlooking one of the strangest geographical features the seen. Il-Karraba is a strange yellow escarpment reached by crossing an edge of blue gray clay dunes. You can scramble around and even through the crumbling yellow and pink rock, the colours picked out by the sunset and each corner brings another view, athough be wary, enclosed tunnels disguise deep crevasses. The sun had set by the time we walked back across the dunes above the bay, it had been too cold to venture near the blue and the wind had cold all day.
Tuesday was meant to be a sunny day. Wednesday we were due for rain. What can you do?

Fortunately it turns out that Kane has a sanity button and looking at me on monday called ‘rest day’. So we’ve spent today being tourists. I made sure he wasn’t too hard done by, we spen the morning in Malta’s Classic Car Museum, which it turns out is excellent. In the afternoon we meandered around the walled city of Mdina looking at views, chistmas lights and crafts.

Tonight is a lazy night and tomorrow we’re taking the ferry to explore Gozo. We’re taking the climbing kit of course, after all one rest day is enough surely? and it might not rain. ..

The Arrogance of Frankenstein

Is the arrogance of Frankenstein his greatest crime? Are we at risk of forcing scientists today to stand on the same pedestal?

Many debates have been had about what Mary Shelley was trying to tell us when she wrote the celebrated horror about the eponymous scientist and his ‘Creation’.

In ‘Love your Monsters’ Bruno Latour argues that Frankesteins greatest crime is abandoning his creation.

I would suggest that Frankensteins greatest crime is his arrogance.

Frankenstein places himself above his equals early in the tale; his reaction to the opinions of his father, his judgement of his lecturers, his lack of engagement with his family or peers. He conducts his work in secrecy, taking no account of or consultation with others. He commits acts he himself ‘trembles’ to recall, without considering any values other than completion of the work at hand.

Even when the work has been completed he still does not engage. At the loss of the creature he fears not for the creature or its impact but only that his friends and peers will judge him delusional if he mentions it. After the death of his younger brother, when he does hold himself accountable, he still maintains his silence; as if he is the only person able to conceive of or understand the situation. The first death could be an avoidable accident but the death of the innocent Justine is placed entirely at the feet of Frankenstein. There is a suggestion that he recognises this crime; he maligns his obsession fearing that the ship’s Captain has also drunk ‘the intoxicating draught’ and he portrays the wisdom of those he loved.

Had he valued this wisdom earlier the ensuing tragedies may have been prevented. But of course this is a story, and without the arrogance of Frankenstein Shelley’s tale is unlikely to have lasted as well as it has.

It is however an interesting experiment to discuss what might have happened if Frankenstein had stepped down from his high horse to have a chat…

Let us consider three possible outcomes to the question ‘is this a good idea?’

a) Yes – this is astonishing, let us support you in your efforts

b) Maybe – but perhaps we should start smaller, or think about the consequences, or perhaps not make a person quite so large that it can squash your skull with one hand…

c) No – this is completely unethical and should never have been thought of

In outcome a) Frankenstein completes his Creation, but he is not the only one responsible for it. He can’t just wander off and ignore it creating the abandonment that leads to the subsequent tragedies.

In outcome b) perhaps the Creation is never made, but much smaller studies of the science are completed. Perhaps Frankenstein can’t claim to be the ‘sole’ creator. Perhaps, after much discussion with his wife and family and the local community, Frankenstein decides to focus his attention on healing instead of regeneration. Perhaps the direction of the science is changed.

In outcome c) the Scientist may be prevented from completing his work, or even ostracized or demonised for what has already been done. Perhaps Frankenstein gets demonised for even thinking of the idea, but the science is out there; many great ‘men’ have been demonised and justified. Or perhaps more to the point, if you’re not telling anyone because someone is going to tell you to stop – perhaps there’s a damn good reason why they should.

I would argue that Frankenstein’s greatest crime was arrogance; but would I say that it was entirely his fault?

The clever conceit of the book is that Frankenstein is right. He is brilliant. He is described as such by the Ship’s Captain and at this point in the tale Frankenstein is a broken man; so how fabulous he must he have been in his prime.

The point is that being ‘brilliant’ doesn’t necessarily make you ‘better’. Elizabeth had hardly any of the achievements of Frankenstein, but even he can see the positive impact she bought to the lives of those around her. It’s a shame she didn’t have more of an effect on him. Why then, as the love of his life and the person most likely to influence him, didn’t she have more of an impact?

At every stage in the whole sorry story he is allowed to continue without anyone trying to stop him, support him or ask what the hell he was doing. Like all those considered ‘elite’ Frankenstein is on a pedestal which is reinforced by his family and the society in which he lives.  The community isolates Frankenstein just as much as he does so himself.

It is rare that Science, or people, are as clear cut as stories but there are many examples where echoes of Frankensteins arrogance, and his lack of engagement with those around him, can be seen.

• The ‘self-governance’ approach in 1975 of the Asilomar conference by the chosen ‘elite’ (and its echoes in recent technological discussions);
• Failure to involve farmers in the discussion of foot and mouth crisis leading to flawed scientific advice;
• The ‘Green revolution’; development of ‘low price / high yeild’ crops that may have increased inequality rather than reduced it;
• The governance of self-driving cars being discussed ‘after’ a crash,
• The rhetoric of ‘should’ and a lack of regulation in the recent governments A.I. report (summary),
• the atomic bomb…

We still place Science on a pedestal, at a distance above society, we don’t get involved until we are afraid, we hope and trust our ‘Scientists’ are brilliant, and we don’t want to ‘get in the way of progress’.

Frankenstein was brilliant. But would stepping off his pedestal have made him a lesser person or a better person?

The answer seems obvious, and yet it is not something we are enabling our own Scientific ‘experts’ to do today. We place them on a pedestal and require them to ‘speak truth to power’ on our behalf. When it turns out that ‘truth’ is a difficult concept we tell them we are sick of them.

Down-climbing from the pedestal is a treacherous challenge, but if Science is to achieve its greatest potential impact and least potential harm, it is a challenge the Scientist and the layman will have to overcome together.

2018 will mark the 200^th anniversary since the publication of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. It will be a year of Monsters, Science, Literature and Debate. Who really was the Monster? Should emerging science learn from the ‘Creation’?

Literature reviews will revel in Mary Shelleys remarkable ability to capture our fear of the unknown in a piece of work so fresh and relevant in could have been written this decade – not two hundred years ago. And there will be small children painted in green with a pretend bolt through their heads, because some images just stick.

200 years on and as an allegory for Science, Scientists and Technology ‘Frankenstein’ still has tales to tell.