How Earth Made Us - A Review

How Earth Made Us is a television series devoted to how the physical geography of the planet has shaped the rise and fall of civilisations. As someone who’s played a lot of games of Civilization IV, I can tell you that success primarily rests on the terrain around your cities and the availability of resources, so for me this seems like a fascinating subject for a TV series.

And to be fair to it, it is. The programmes continually throw up stuff I didn’t know about, and it is genuinely fascinating material. The first four programmes of the series are based loosely around the four “classical” elements:

• Deep Earth, which focused on fault lines and how they’ve brought minerals and groundwater to the surface to allow cities to develop near them;

• Water, which focused on… well, fresh water and our drive to be near it and to control it;

• Wind, which focused on how patterns of winds both form the world’s desert and fertile regions, and dictate the directions of trade routes; and

• Fire, which focused on those great fuel sources of civilisation down the ages, wood, coal and oil, and the way that they drove some powers to imperial heights and others to backwater mediocrity.

It’s really interesting stuff. You see why Britain became the powerhouse of the industrial revolution while China, despite huge coal supplies, couldn’t get proper access to them until the late twentieth century. On the other hand, you see why China is brilliant for farming, while Australia is so terrible for it that the Aborigines became the only major human culture not to bother with it. You find out about great civilisations that you’d barely even heard of (those poor, poor Minoans) and, most importantly, you get to find out where all the wonders in Civ 4 come from (oh so that’s what Angkor Wat is).

But that’s only half the story and unfortunately, it’s the better half. While the substance of the programmes is great, the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s not really the presenter’s fault, per se. Professor Iain Stewart is an okay enough presenter, even if his name is annoyingly like that of the mathematician Professor Ian Stewart. His Scots accent is fairly engaging. But my goodness, but does he have a roundabout way of getting to the point.

Here’s how a typical section of the program goes. Stewart will start by introducing a particular topic. Maybe it’s a problem that needs a solution, maybe it’s a city that for some reason got abandoned, something along those lines. He’ll build up the topic for a while, but just before you think he’s going to explain it, he’ll go “In order to find out, we’re going to have to go to a twenty second establishing shot of people doing peopley things. And then I’ll climb a sand dune, while wheezing about how hard it is to climb a sand dune, or I’ll have a minute long sequence where I get dressed up in enough protective clothing to go through the heart of a fire. And then I’ll show a computer graphic, or talk to someone, or…”. At this point, if you already think you know the answer, you’ll be screaming it at the television. If you don’t know the answer, you’ll just be screaming.

Granted when he finally stops messing about and tells you, it’s fascinating stuff. But the roundabout way he goes about it is just a frustrating tease. You end up thinking that if he just got straight to the point, he’d be able to cram twice as much interesting material into each hour-long programme.

Professor Stewart frequently gives lectures to sell-out crowds, and these lectures are reported as “amazing”. Perhaps they are. Perhaps it’s the content of the lectures that’s so amazing. Or perhaps it’s just that Stewart, when confined to a lecture theatre, doesn’t have access to all the clever gimmicks that a TV show provides, and so he’s forced to stick to the point and actually stick to what he’s good at, which is telling us incredible things we didn’t know.

I ended up skipping the fifth and presumably final programme of the series, since it appeared to be “How Us Made Earth” rather than “How Earth Made Us”: in other words, the ways in which we’ve affected the planet. For one, it’s going against the concept of the series, and what makes it so unique and interesting in the first place. For two, there are already enough programmes on that subject, and they tend to beat about the bush less.

The fact that I gave up so readily when it came to watching the finale sums it up. This programme is presented in a fashion that is annoying and long-winded, yet the material is so fascinating that I couldn’t stop watching. But as soon as the topic changed to something less unique, I couldn’t watch any more.

Join the club, Australia

I didn't give any reports on the cricket after the previous one. That's because it was too depressing. England, thanks to the batting of the aforementioned Jimmy, Broad, Swann (and Monty I guess) ended up making 435, which looked competitive at the time. No-one made a century, but with everyone except Monty reaching double figures, that didn't seem to matter.

Then Australia batted. And the way they batted almost seemed deliberate, like they were trying to teach England a lesson. Katich, Ponting, North and Haddin all made centuries. Even Clarke's 83 was higher than any score an England player would make in the match. 674-6, leaving England in a position where all they could do was play for a draw.

That didn't start out well. Cook and Bopara both fell LBW before the rain came at tea on the fourth day. Bopara can consider himself a little unlucky, as the ball looked like it would have gone over the top of the stumps, but both were guilty of playing across the line when they should have been playing straight. That, essentially, is why Australia dominated the match: they batted straight and bowled straight and bided their time.

Rain washed out the rest of the fourth day, but there was to be no such respite on the fifth day: it was clear all the way through. And again, England started badly. Pietersen, castigated for playing a rash shot in the first innings, this time decided to play no shot at all and was bowled leaving a straight one. Strauss batted solidly for a while, but was undone when, after Hauritz produced a long-hop that he cut powerfully for four, the next ball was in almost exactly the same place. Strauss tried the shot again and ended up top-edging to the keeper.

When Prior fell a little later, the score was 70 for 5 and lunch seemed an awfully long way away, never mind the end of the day and safety. But Collingwood and Flintoff saw England through to lunch at 102 for 5, with Colly dropping anchor and Fred counterattacking. Flintoff was dismissed after lunch with the score on 127 for 6, but the partnership had lasted a crucial hour and a half.

Collingwood stuck in there, building useful partnerships with Broad, Swann and Anderson. Both Broad and Swann lasted just over an hour each, Swann receiving a barrage of fearful blows from Siddle just before tea, but recovered to smash the runs that brought England ever closer to forcing Australia to bat again. While Collingwood and Swann were still at the crease, optimism that we could save the game slowly began to build.

But then Swann departed, and those hopes got reset again. Anderson is a capable blocker - he has never been out for a duck in Tests, and currently holds a record 50 Test innings without a duck - but Australia had reached the tail. Yet England still pressed on. Collingwood had now been at the crease over five hours, his lone hand telling in comparison to England's other specialist batsmen. Eventually, tired from hours of concentration, he made his first mistake: and it proved to be his undoing as he was caught in the gully.

Monty came out to join Jimmy, two tail-enders together, with eleven and a half overs - and forty-five minutes - left to bat out. They were the last wicket pair: if one of them got out, it would be innings over and very probably game over The first priority was to force Australia to bat again. This would take two overs - and ten minutes - out for the change of innings. A few shots later, this was achieved, but there was still a long way to go. As Ponting put spin on at both ends to up the over rate, the overs part of the equation became less important and it all became about time. The cut-off for the end of the test was 6.50. Take off ten minutes for the change of innings, and Jimmy and Monty had to make it to 6.40 to be safe.

There were a couple of moments of gamesmanship as the batsmen called for drinks and a fresh pair of gloves, but as deplorable as it is, any side in this situation would have done the same. But with block after block, and the occasional four off the bad ball, England ate up the time until 6.40. Ponting shook hands with the batsmen, and the draw was called.

It was a great escape, and I'm very proud of the efforts of Colly and the lower order, but I can empathise with Australia. Not least because England have been in their situation shoes times before: against South Africa, Australia themselves, India, and the West Indies twice. So yeah, we certainly know how frustrating it is to dominate a game, and to come so close to winning, only to be denied by a wicket or two. On the other hand, it's nice to experience the elation those sides felt in those situations.

Can England learn from being let off the hook by this? Maybe. We saw how the Australians batted and bowled: with application and determination. I'd like to hope that, before the second test at Lord's begins on Thursday, England's batsmen will all be working on playing with a straight bat, and their bowlers on contingency plans for if it doesn't swing. Otherwise things might end up going the same way at Lord's.

The First Ball

Before the start of the 2009 Ashes series yesterday, there was quite a bit of talk about what the first ball would be like. The first balls of the previous two Ashes series set the tone for each: both bowled by Steve Harmison of England, both faced by Justin Langer of Australia. In 2005, Harmison bowled a well-directed bouncer that hit Langer on the helmet: the end result was a closely-fought Ashes where England eventually triumphed 2-1. In 06/07, Harmison bowled a ball so wide that captain Andrew Flintoff received it at second slip: Australia went on to whitewash England 5-0. So the first ball had acquired a certain amount of symbolism.

So what of 2009? Well, one thing was certain: it wasn't going to be Harmison to Langer this time. For one, neither was playing. For two, this time England were batting and Australia bowling. As a result, the first ball was from Australia's left-arm quickie Mitchell Johnson to England's captain Andrew Strauss.

And... it was a fairly innocuous delivery, to be honest. Wide of the stumps, but not too wide, with maybe a hint of away movement. No runs scored, but equally Strauss didn't have to play. Not a good ball, not a bad ball: an average ball. One hopes that this is not the harbinger of an average series.

Perhaps not, going the first day's play: England 336 for 7, with Pietersen top-scoring on 69 and Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad the overnight batsmen. It's a score you can say anything about: Australia will be happy to have taken 7 wickets after being asked to bowl, England will be pleased with the positive attitude and rapid scoring: and with two spinners in their team, the fact that the ball was turning on Day 1 will also be of cheer. It was a tight and entertaining day's play, with plenty of attacking and counterattacking, and honours ended up approximately even.

Ultimately it's hard to judge who is better placed: it depends on what happens tomorrow. How many will Jimmy, Broad and Swann (and Monty I guess) make to boost England's total? How will Australia's batsmen fare? I don't know. I will say one thing, though: there were mild echos of the first day of Edgebaston 2005 in the play. Then England scored fast enough to amass 400 in a day, but were also bowled out in that same day. Nobody made a century then, either, and there was a mix of praise and criticism in the comments: the positive approach was just what the batsmen needed after the collapses at Lords, but the throwing away of wickets was undesirable. At Cardiff yesterday, similar views prevailed. Will history repeat itself?

¿Tiene una reservación para mi para esta noche?

So a few months ago I remember the Guardian talking about Michel Thomas, a famous linguist and teacher of languages with an unorthodox - but reputably effective - method that abhors homework and note-taking and other rote learning in favour of an enjoyable, conversational style. At the time, I thought "Well, that sure is interesting, would be interesting to see that in action" for a bit before forgetting about it. That is to say, forgetting I knew it rather than actually forgetting it. Because in yesterday's Guardian, as part of the continuing drive of the UK's broadsheet newspapers to keep circulation up, there was an audio CD of part one of Michel's introductory Spanish course. And I went "oh yeah, wasn't he that one guy? Yeah, I think he was. Maybe I should listen to it."

"Forgetting I knew it rather than actually forgetting it" is of course directly related to language learning. I got A* in Spanish GCSE but rapidly forgot most of it soon afterwards because I wasn't using it. But it was still there in my brain. I know this because I did an introductory Spanish course while I was at Cambridge and it all came flooding back - sort-of automatically making me one of the class' best pupils. Of course, after the class ended, I forgot it all again because I wasn't using it.

But yeah, back to the CD, which I've just listened to. The basic format is Michel talking to two of his students, with him explaining little bits of vocabulary and then asking them to construct sentences with it - simple at first, and then building to more and more complicated stuff. The idea is that before the students say it, you - as the "third student" - pause the CD, say what you think it is, then play and listen to what the students say. The students make mistakes, which Michel corrects to reinforce how to say things correctly.

And it develops very rapidly. The first CD focuses on three main things: the large number of words that can be turned from English to Spanish with just a few pronunciation tweaks (like... well... pronunciación); a bunch of verbs, mostly either present tense "I" or "you", or the infinitive form; and all those useful conjunctions like "for me" and "like this" and but and the negation and "I'm sorry" and all that lot.

Now that's all done in a little over an hour. We spent most of our first hour of Spanish in school saying what our names were. Of course, it helps that the course is aimed at adults rather than teenagers, and people who want to learn it by definition (then again, given that Spanish was optional, we did all want to learn it, but yeah). It's also a very small class - you and these two "virtual" students. How much do I remember? Urg... well, "where do you want to eat tonight?" is "¿Donde quiere comer esta noche?". "You know you want it" ends up as "sabe lo quiere", for those of you who want to sound sultry in Spanish. Basically what you end up with is a "sentence generator" inside your own head, pulling together all the little fragments you've learnt into a sentence.

Does it help that I've learnt Spanish before? Probably, yes: the fact that each new word is jogging my memory rather than being an entirely new fact allows me to focus on the sentence stringing more than remembering each new word. But it's pretty good, and I even asked Dad to go out and get today's Observer so I could have the second CD: haven't listened to it yet, but it should be fun.

Incidentally, the title for this blog piece means "Do you have a reservation for me for tonight?" - pretty much the last phrase learnt on the first CD.

Cardiff Blues

... well, not particularly bluesy I guess, just used that title because it was a pun on the rugby team. But yeah, I went with my parents to Cardiff today, to do some shopping and have a look round Cardiff Castle. We'd never been to Cardiff Castle before, as it happens - just seemed to be something we never did on trips to Cardiff. The main reason we went there now is because a few months we went to Castell Coch, were impressed by it, and found out that the same "team" were behind Cardiff Castle - the various Lords Bute and the architect William Burgess, late 19th/early 20th Century dudes who wanted to build new fancy castles on the ruins of old ones. I guess they aren't really authentic castles in that sense, but hey, makes a chance from the usual story you get at castles. Castles are fun, but too many similar ones is a bit wearing (all Welsh castles pretty much seem to follow the formula "built by Edward I, trashed by Oliver Cromwell"), so the variety is nice.

Of course, taking priority over any castle features were two things: cricket inside the castle (yep. Like sometimes you have archery displays or falconry or something. This was a Kwik Cricket display. Funny old world) and - wooo - ducklings. There was a little moat around the motte part of the castle (the mound where the keep is) and the moat was home to various waterfowl. Initially though, the ducklings and their mother were hanging around outside the moat. Then the mother scrambled up a little embankment, but the slope was too high for the ducklings to follow her.

So there was this weird sight of a bunch of ducklings scrabbling and trying to jump up this slope, funny and sad at the same time. The mother was oddly passive about this, sitting at the top of the little embankment wondering what the problem was. Eventually a member of staff went over to try and pick the ducklings up, which worried me a bit - too much handling by humans can cause the mother to abandon the ducklings. Of course, once he tried to pick one duckling up, the others all scattered, cheeping frantically and running, looking for a less steep way into the moat. They made it in the end, thankfully.

Other than that, the castle was pretty... well, castly. Very nice, but... castly. Battlements and keeps and bits inside the walls and the inevitable stately home bit where Team Bute lived, although that was heavily adapted from a Georgian stately home from before they began their "renovations". There was some graffiti in the garderobe from the 19th century, if you're interested (as well as some from the 21st century. Well, at least there was precedent... :p).

Meanwhile in Cardiff city centre we did some shopping. Main thing for me was a new pair of earphones: the wire was going on two of my current pairs, so that one of the ears kept cutting out, while my evergreen Original Gameboy earphones (yep, the ones with the blue and red corrugated bits where the wire goes into the bud) are lost somewhere (shame. Much like the Gameboy itself, they appear to be indestructible). But these new earphones seem pretty good, although as always it was a bugger getting those little foam covers onto the earbud.

Anyway, I have a covering e-mail for a job application to finish off, so I'd better go now. See you next time or something.

Haircut of... normality!

Well, I had a haircut today, if the title didn't give it away. The usual, just getting it trimmed back and having my beard trimmed and stuff. I'm not the most revolutionary of people when it comes to hair styles. Okay I have a beard, but only because it's more convenient than shaving every day.

Saying that, my mum does pester me to trim it more often in between visits to the salon, and to be fair she has a point. If nothing else, left to its own devices my beard grow asymmetrically: on the face it's okay, but there's a big "bald spot" on the right side of my neck where hair just doesn't grow for some reason. It's odd. The upshot is that I need to keep shaving the left side of the neck back to keep everything in order. Well, "need to". You're fairly lucky if I do it myself once between trips to the hairdresser's every month and a half or so.

What else? Well, the Ashes starts in a few days, and England and Australia are playing some warm-up matches: England against Warwickshire, Australia against the England 2nd XI, known as "England Lions" (not to be confused with the British Lions, currently touring South Africa in rugby union). England were pretty ruthless against Warwickshire (bowling Warks out for 102 in their first innings), although the game ended up a draw (only three days, after all). Australia are having something of a mixed performance against the Lions, only leading on first innings by eight runs: Harmison got Hughes out twice cheaply, while Johnson conceded over 100 runs. If you understood that and found it interesting, you were probably keeping tabs on the matches anyway. But yeah, positive signs for England, although of course warm-ups don't really count for much. Only five days to go though! Here's hoping for nice weather over Cardiff...

So, blogging

Well, I've sat back and watched friends like Ben, Andrew and Daniel all write these bloggery-blog-type-blog things and for some reason never making one myself. For some reason I never really thought about it. Partly due to "yeah, what could I write?", partly due to "well you've got RealVG and your DA account and Jump Leads and forums and stuff if you just want to ramble incoherently", partly due to "I'd only forget about it after a few entries".

But... well, I haven't done article on RealVG for ages, and dammit, I need to write, in somewhere that's my own space somehow. Or something. Because I do want to be a writer, I have this vague, nebulous career goal that includes the word "WRITING" somewhere at its heart. And ultimately, the way to become a writer is to write. Consistently and constantly, about whatever's on your mind if necessary. And the more you write, the more fluent you become.

I've had a lack of fluency in my writing for a few months now: I stopped writing for myself when I started my teaching course, and when I quit the teaching course I couldn't pick myself up again. I'm slowly starting to get back into form: I rejoined Clydach Writer's Group, and I've put some short pieces together for that. With any luck, this blog will help accelerate this return to form.

If I can keep it up, that is. I'm pretty bad when it comes to starting things and not finishing them, so I hope this doesn't end with a whimper a month from now or something. I want to try and write something for the blog every day, but there's always the worry that things won't happen. But I guess things do happen, every day. It's just you forget about them because you forget to write them down. With any luck, that's what I'll do here. Even if I am rather late to the scene.