Causality

Causality is a big thing in statistics.  Just because x is related to y does not mean y caused x to happen.  My day started with a demonstration of causality.

Eggs.  Tired this morning; should have gone to bed before Jon got home but didn't.  Came down to a quiet house, fed the cats and went to the fridge to get some bread for toast. Lara's daBird toys are on top of the fridge - out of reach, but tantalisingly waving around as I open and shut the door.  Lara jumps up onto the counter, peering up at the precious prize.  Coffee, I need my decaff.  There's enough water for my cup in the Senseo.  I collect my mug and put the sweeteners in, press the button.  Get the butter out for the eggs.  Look at the coffee.  No foam. Odd.  Ah, I've forgotten to put a new coffee pad in the machine!  Idiot.  Take the cup over to pour down the drain.  Something is in the back of my mind.  An unpleasant scuffling sound and a plop.  Eggs.  My two yellow boxes of new Extra Large eggs are both on the floor, inverted, with yellow globes glistening and melding within the globulous transparency of raw egg white.  I have just lost potentially a dozen eggs.  The cause?  Well there is Lara, innocently standing where the boxes stood the moment before, next to the fridge.   What has happened?  Lara has tried to climb on the boxes to get to her toy; it made her higher.  Lara has knocked all my eggs onto the floor.  Of course I should have taken the cue and moved either the eggs or the toy.  So the true cause of the accident, knowing Lara's character and potential for impulsive attempts to get what she wants, was my failing to prevent it...

Have you ever tried to scoop broken eggs off a tiled floor? My first aim, after shouting at the cats, who immediately ran to help by investigating this new feature on their floor, was to rescue any intact or nearly intact eggs.  Four were suitable for storing carefully in a bowl, fractured but not smashed.  Of the remaining 8 I managed to salvage a few which could be used for scrambled egg for breakfast but every moment not spent tackling the rest resulted in the further spread of gloop which resisted my every attempt to scoop it off the floor by just glooping in another direction. Eventually I had to subdue it with a vast amount of kitchen roll before washing the area repeatedly until my shoes stopped sticking.

I was 15 minutes late leaving for work and 15 minutes late arriving.  Eggs. The rather large scrambled egg was rather nice, however.

Today I got a surprise when my ex-colleague arrived at the office to complete the clear-out of her things.  She was to have spent the term working with me on the module but having disagreed with our line manager over teaching duties accelerated her retirement and her last day is next week.  Immediately I felt myself tensing.  On the one hand it was nice to see her; on the other I found my peace shattered and today I was feeling really tired.  I realise that this term, working with new colleagues who do not need me to 'mind them' and who take some small responsibilities for aspects of administration has made this term less tiring than I expected. My colleague tells me that some of her health problems have worsened over the last few months.  "You know, don't you" she says, "it's this place!"  She goes on to declare that everyone hates it here, and that she's glad to be getting out.  "I dont hate it" I state plainly.  "I'm doing a job that I enjoy with colleagues I like and respect." I know she is convinced that workplace issues have caused her health problems, to the extend that she blames our line manager for all her problems.  This one person has caused her health to deteriorate and her stress levels to soar.  In truth I think her stress is caused not by another person but by the mismatch between her expectations and reality; the wearing down of her internal resources to cope with the demands of her job after a series of major life stressors over the last few years.  In case I'm determined not to let her attitude get me down.  She informs me she's binned all her lectures. Got rid of everything.  Anyone who takes over the course next year will have to work their own programme, despite it having been validated in it's current form.  We'll need to get together and sort out Summer School in the next few weeks, she informs me, as she will be away until just before.  She asks me to send her the materials.  She hasn't got them (despite my giving them to her every year) - she has deleted all her work.  She wants us to rewrite part of the course. I say I haven't got time to rewrite it; if she wants to change some of the material she presents, that's fine.  She wants to get rid of some of the 'serious' stuff.  She thinks we should make it more 'fun'. I point out it's a credit bearing module, so we have to keep an academic focus.  She then starts telling me that she doesn't like the material about the MBTI on some of the slides.  This was material I asked for her input on previously. I'm feeling aggravated already.  I'm trying to work.  I have a teaching observation to do in 30 minutes.  I don't want to argue about this joint collaboration but already I'm beginning to regret I agreed to do it again this year.  Maybe it's just not worth it because I really don't want all this aggravation. But I keep quiet, as I always do.  So does she cause me to be stressed?  Well just as I tell her that it's not our boss that has caused her health problems, so I can't claim that she causes me to be stressed.  The stress arises from inside myself but I guess my consistently stifling my annoyance and irritation - irritation against myself too for allowing myself to take these things personally as much as anything - that could be causally related to a rise in my stress levels...

Nice programme tonight on the universe.  Gravity.  Apparently when Einstein looked at the work of Newton in identifying gravity he was not satisfied.  He needed to explain what caused gravity in order to accept the phenomenon was truly explained.  He was able to do this in his theory of relativity. A modern scientist looking at microscopic rock fragments from Mars proposes that it is not possible to assert that the shapes are remnants of living creatures without being 100% certain they were not caused by something else. Of course he's right.  To assume causality we either have to prove beyond doubt that it is a remnant of a life form (and we can't) or that there are no other possible explanations of the effect.  Are there other plausible explanations?  Yes, it could have been an affect of the thin gold coating used to allow the sample to be accessible to the electron microscope - he proves this by duplicating the effect on a terrestrial rock. There's too much doubt for us to assume causality.

Tonight I'm tired.  I think the reason is partly due to a lack of sleep, but the cause (even of that) is a lot more complicated...

Consequences

So travelling uneventfully this morning when after the penultimate junction on the M25 traffic begins to slow. Check SatNav (on to check ETA and traffic issues rather than to remind me of the all-too-familiar journey) - road showing clear.  Round a bend and see up ahead there are lights on the big overhead motorway sign.  Too far away to read, but a traffic message none the less.  This particular sign is rarely lit to indicate distance to junction - something like 'Junction 21: 23 miles 36 minutes" - and anyway the pattern of letters doesn't match. It's definitely a warning of some kind.  The usual at this point is "Queue on slip road" but there are two many words for this.

We crawl towards the sign.  Then it comes into view: "Take your litter with you like other people do"  WTF?? Someone bored this morning, thought that they would put some irrelevant message up in the middle of the rush hour??  As we pass the sign, traffic speeds up.  I get to the slip and find there is no queue at all, unusual at this time of day.  So the congestion has occurred because of the sign, nothing else... Consequences.

This of course starts me musing.  There can be consequences every day for the small decisions that we make - many that we will never know anything about.  Of course all traffic accidents are due to consequences, if you think of it that way.  Presenting the key assumptions of the normal distribution to statistics students today my slide displays the claim: "80% of drivers believe they are above average."  Of course with the majority of any distribution scoring average (around 68% within a normal curve) this is an impossibility.  If you think you're good you're probably average.

So why do 80% of people think they are better than everyone else I ask?  Some blank looks, then one girl offers "because they are over-confident".  Yes, I respond - but why might drivers be overconfident of their road skills?  More blank looks.  Okay, well this may be a consequence of a psychological principle known as the fundamental attribution error (or correspondence bias or attribution error).  This is the tendency of all of us to confer dispositional-related reasons for the observed behaviour of others, whilst recognising situational influences relative to ours.  How might this apply to driving?  When we observe erratic behaviour in other road users we think they are useless drivers.  When we run into difficulties ourselves we blame it on the weather, the road, or anything other than our abilities.  So basically we think in comparison to others we're better drivers ;-)  A consequence of course of this way of thinking can be over-confidence...

Back to musing.  Today I'm rejecting Radio 4 in preference to sing along with my mixed tracks on a USB key. The music prompts me to think about Jon going out singing last night, a rehearsal for Don Giovanni.  He knows the opera well, he's sung the role several times but he still has trouble remembering the words.  Ah, I hear you say, but men are not as good as learning words as women; it's a man thing.  Well that may be, but not all men have problems learning words.  And another thing - I can't remember the words to many things I've learnt over the years, even though I practiced long and hard; but the words in a popular song, heard 10 or 20 years ago, can come back to me to such an extent that I can sing along with delight.  Now I know enough to realise this can't be random.  There has to be a reason why I find some songs etched in my mind and others totally elusive - and it isn't just the genre - there are snatches of other things that are similarly never far from recall...

I pass the Sterling corner roundabout.  There is Morrison's (where I enjoy shopping on my way home - been there a couple of years now) and a couple of other distinctive places I can't recall now (even though it was only earlier today) and a BMW car showroom (which I don't think I noticed ever before!).  So why, when mentioning to Jon about the roundabout yesterday did I say, "You know, the Truprint roundabout".  Truprint, Bonusprint, a series of photographic print services that have been gone for years - a consequence no doubt of digital printing and less need for large premises.  So why would I have associated the roundabout in that instance with the old shops instead of the new one I visit often?  A throwback?  What is a throwback anyway?

A throwback as I understand it is an occurrence which is linked to a previous state of being - so a throwback in terms of gene expression is a characteristic which reappears having supposedly been filtered out of the current species profile; or a person or thing having the appearance of something from a previous time - hence 'throwback to the 50's' in terms of home decor.  So something returning or alluding to a more primitive expression or type.  For memory then?  Neuropsychologists now tell us that the most primitive form of memory is emotional memory - basic emotional responses to meaningful (even prelinguistic) stimuli or events. So maybe an old memory replacing a more recent one may occur as a consequence of the previous memory holding some emotional significance.

Back to Truprint then - why the Truprint roundabout?  Well I recall now the first time we travelled down the A1 and I noticed the photographic development centres.  It gave me a strange emotional feeling.  For years Truprint, Bonusprint and others were an important part of my life; all the photos I took of the children were sent for developing in those gaily coloured envelopes.  There was a lot of emotional significance associated with those envelopes; precious memories, attempts to freeze in time happy moments all too transient as your children grow. My precious children, for whom I invested so much emotional energy over so many years.  No wonder it's the Truprint roundabout!

Now I think back to the music issue - and it strikes me of course that the reason why I remember some songs so well is because they hold emotional significance.  Other words are such a struggle to learn because they mean nothing to me.  It's a technical exercise, no more.  And of course, now I think of it, it's a well know psychological fact that emotional significance can enhance memory recall in many areas. We remember emotionally charged events more immediately and with more clarity than non-emotionally charged.  Where the music has meant something to me or stirred my emotions it is much more likely to be etched in my memory.

So perhaps part of why Jon has such trouble with words as opposed to the music itself is that it's the tunes he finds emotionally meaningful, not the words.  In contrast my popular music is a deliberate blend of music and lyrics which I like to listen to because together they hold some emotional significance for me.  It's no surprise really that I find them easier to remember.

To Be or Not to Be - Married

Marriage.  What is it all about?  Today we've heard on the radio from so many authorities, spokes-persons and passionate believers - all of whom know that they know what is 'right'. So what is 'right'?

Well according to the traditional Christian church the only true authority of what is right is the word of God, and the only recorded word of God is the Bible. Yes, I know that what we call the 'Bible' is a selection of sources sanctioned by the early Catholic church, but the idea is that these people were inspired - by God of course.  Some of what they proposed, sanctioned and did you would hope was not inspired by God as that would make God well... unpleasant at the very least and very dubious in motive...

I digress.  So what in the Bible is the authority on marriage?  The first and primary text arrives early in Genesis.  Yes, I know that is part of the Jewish text and we're not hearing on the media about Rabbis up in arms about the prospect of marrying two men or two women... In the second chapter of Genesis we hear that in creation Adam (man) was a lone member of his species until God took one of his ribs and formed a female - Eve.  In the NIV translation we then read: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh".  It is claimed that this was the first wedding and that this indicates marriage, between man and woman, is God's destiny for all.  But from what I can see there's no word 'marriage' - there's just a principle that man is a social creature and better with a partner than without.  Man is not a solitary species. And of course in accordance with nature all creatures have to breed - and for that you need sperm and an egg; so in nature procreation is definitely the province of opposing sexes. However, I think we can agree by this point in human evolution that procreation is not an essential outcome of romantic relationships - or marriage for that matter.  In fact if we don't temper our procreative proclivities as a species there may be serious issues in the long-term future with food and water.

As a one-time biblical scholar I was regularly stunned by the extraordinary extent to which such allegorical biblical statements could be used to justify all manner of social and religious devices.  Of course this is not the only reference to marriage and the behaviour of spouses in the Bible.  There are many references to the 'rules' for husbands and particularly for wives (in terms of obedience, authority, support, virtuous behaviour) in the old and new testament but it has to be remembered that the social device of marriage was well established when these texts were written.  Thousands of years of human socialisation and society, but still humans need guidelines in the form of cultural rules and moral principles.  These guidelines are largely cultural however, something we so often forget when enraged by the value systems of others whose lives we don't share.

And marriage has always been a cultural device.  According to Wikipedia, a priest was not even required to be present for a couple to decide to be married (by verbal consent) until 1545 in the UK.  Every culture has it's own marriage 'myths' and marriage principles.  Ours are not exclusive.

"Although the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history, many cultures have legends concerning the origins of marriage. The way in which a marriage is conducted and its rules and ramifications has changed over time, as has the institution itself, depending on the culture or demographic of the time."  Wikipedia

So now, in the 21st century UK, we have already acknowledged that people want to spend their lives devoted to someone they love, not necessarily someone of the opposite sex.  Maybe it took society a little by surprise that so many gay relationships celebrated civil unions as 'marriage' - we know some ourselves and very precious and devoted they are too.  But maybe we also underestimated how important commitment is to a stable society.  Now our British government is suggesting we go one step further from civil unions and allow full legal marriages to those who want to celebrate the joy of a  commitment; maybe providing a stable environment for the rearing of children, maybe just making their lives a little bit happier and complete by being able to make that very public declaration - with the promises of faithfulness and devotion that it includes.  And contributing to a stable society, of course - something we all want.  Faithfulness and devotion - yes and sex, because sex is just a natural way of expressing love within a partnership.  What is wrong about a society seeking to promote commitment and stability?

Ah, but the church believes marriage is sacred, and to be sacred it must be sanctioned by the church.  So what is meant by 'sacred'?

Definition:  Adjective:  Connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration: "sacred rites"  OR
1. concerned with religion or religious purposes
2. worthy of respect or dedication
3. made or declared or believed to be holy; devoted to a deity or some religious ceremony or use
4. worthy of religious veneration
5. (often followed by 'to') devoted exclusively to a single use or purpose or person

Sacred then refers to that which is connected to religion, a principle of holiness (as defined by a deity) or something worthy of respect and dedication.

What then has 'sacred' to do with this new proposal, to extend the definition of marriage to include same sex unions? Actually as far as I can see no-one is suggesting the church has to conduct these marriages - of course a couple may WANT the church to recognise their marriage, but this is not going to be a given.  The church already has exclusions to marriage that are not upheld by civil society.  The church would not have recognised our marriage - marriage between two divorced persons is not an acceptable union. Civil marriage however recognises any commitment between a man or a woman - apart from bigamy; well in this country anyway!  Civil marriage has nothing to do with the sacred - unless we take the second definition: worthy of respect or dedication.  Any two people, regardless of their sex, who chose to form a positive, loving union where the needs of both are respected and promises are made to support and uphold their commitment in good times as well as bad - well it sounds to me like such a union is indeed worthy of respect and dedication.

So many laws are changed in our modern times to prevent crime and protect the innocent from abuse - here is the chance to make a change for positive reasons.  So come on people, this won't be the first time religion has not agreed with a civil process.  But maybe it's none of your business anyway.

Honourable or Dishonourable

If I start by mentioning the traffic I'm aware I'll start to sound obsessive...  However I can't hide my delight that the powers that be had decided after a couple of hellish weeks trying a new 'free for all' roundabout traffic scheme to reinstate the lights at the Mill Hill Roundabout!!   Free flowing traffic mid-morning (late lecture today) and 6pm.  Oh joy.

Lecture went well today and the fact that I'd neglected to put up my availability poll until this morning meant I had time to do my own thing during the morning and early afternoon.  Ceri back from her honeymoon and feeling very positive - looking enormously relaxed after just a week spending time together.  Just hope the pace doesn't knock that out of her too quickly.

So - the lecture.  Today was biological and genetic theories of personality; a lot of material and a lot to say.  A total of 68 slides, which others tell me are impossible to present in under 2 hours, but I'm sort of quietly impressed that I can pitch it just right, even with a break and finishing a little early - still getting in some little anecdotal examples and allowing time to respond to questions.  I enjoyed it, I DO enjoy it.  It's a part of teaching that I love - I feel like I'm sharing something of myself along with the material, and I can see that my enthusiasm means something to a lot of the students who are in turn so keen to feel someone cares about their learning experience.

Now today has brought some interesting news - firstly the final admission of the Rt Honourable Chris Huhne that he has lied consistently over the course of 10 years about his driving transgression.  Here is a man who insisted upon his honour with remarkable self-confidence throughout those years and now faces a spell in prison and public disgrace. How he ever thought it would go away and why he persisted so long in forcibly denying his falsification of evidence is quite mind boggling.  He has been proven indeed to be a dishonourable man.

Second is the declaration that the body of bones found under the Leicester car park is indeed Richard 3rd - the last of the British kings to die in battle and the last of the Plantagenets. With all the retrospective defamation of Richard it appears now that he was an noble man right to the end; that he fought bravely on the battle field and despite his light and delicate frame sustained several dreadful wounds before succumbing.

Almost as amazing is that the facial reconstruction, based on the skull, reveals how closely her resembled the image we have all become familiar with, but with a more gentle visage.  However, an art historian reveals that Richard's portrait had been altered after Henry came to the throne - to make him look harder, slightly evil, and more hunched.  The suggestion now is that this was a technique to try to justify the claiming of the throne by the then Duke of Richmond.  The portrayal of the man as a hunchback and an evil child-slaughtering villain, as so eloquently reflected by Shakespeare, may have been a reflection of the ensuing propaganda machine.  He had a curvature of the spine, bones reveal, but maybe Richard was in fact an honourable man, not a dishonourable one, after all.

Adaptation

Today I had a good Skype chat with Joe.  Almost as far away as he could be on another continent, experiencing a lifestyle as different from mine as I could imagine, yet joined by technology. An extraordinary list of physical endurances over the last week - tired, but pleased with his progress and no injuries.  I am enormously proud.

Speaking of endurances, just been watching 'Africa'.  Today it was the Sahara, and creatures that had the endurance to survive temperatures of 53 degrees Celsius - well for a few minutes at least.  Like SciFi heroes on a distant asteroid, these little silver ants in their space suits have 10 minutes to get out and find some food before they start to fry.

They find a fly with heatstroke and with moments to spare get their booty back into their underground home.  These, we are told, are the hardiest creatures in terms of heat in the world.

So who is filming them?  Cameras set up automatically to operate in heat of the midday sun?

No, people.  Specifically a jolly bearded young man in a t-shirt and chinos, kneeling on the sand to manoeuvre his camera along a steady track, head protected by a wide brimmed black hat, grinning with delight under his sunglasses.   The hardiest and most adaptive species on the planet.

A little later the crew set out to check their dune cameras, which have been recording the restless life of these ever-changing phenomena - I never realised how much they shifted, and that when they do they flow like water into different shapes, 'singing' with a bizarrely tuneful hum as they do. ANYWAY, the crew go to inspect the cameras and inform us that they have been VANDALISED overnight.  In the middle of the Sahara!! By what, you may ask?  What species could be out vandalising in the middle of the Sahara?  Humans, of course - and not because it helped them survive, provided them with anything to eat or improve their lives in any way - purely malicious.

Took the old car to Sainsbury's today.  She has been looking a bit of a mess with dirt and there are some Eastern European persons who run a little hand car wash operation in the car park.  Guy comes over, runs a wetted finger over the top of the filth, revealing shiny paintwork underneath.  How much? I enquire.  £9, he says.  I get my bags out and think to myself - well it's really filthy and he only washes cars in a car park for a living...  Offer him a tenner to restore her to her sunny disposition after a year of accumulated filth.

Returning with the trolley the green paintwork was indeed gleaming, although the 'keyed' scratch all along the side showed up very badly.  Said I couldn't understand why people had to do things so casually that were so malicious and pointless.  The carwash man said he sympathised. The very large, very silver, very expensive motor to our right was in fact his - and had indeed been keyed all along one side. Very expensive commute he has to work, he says (remember, this is Sainsbury's car park, this is a car wash man) - he could do with a nice little runner like mine if I was selling it.  Costs him over £20 just to get to work each day...  Well, I say, she's 15+ years old but only done 42,000 miles...  Yes, he says, he noticed when he was cleaning it - in very good condition too...  I thank him and say I will consider it if I am interested in selling...  So much for helping out those less fortunate than myself - looks like these particular migrants have adapted well to their new environment.

Got a nice roast chicken for dinner.  Talking to Joe about his unpleasantly tedious diet and lack of meat made me think of a nice hot roast chicken.  He's a bit fed up with the repetitiveness of his diet and interestingly that's something we humans find hard to adapt to.  More variety - we love it; just look at all the variety in the supermarket.  My Sainsbury's has just introduced a new section of houmous like preparations - from the non-standard alphabet I guess some sort of ethic variation on the theme. None of them low fat, unfortunately.

Now this evening Brian Cox is on the TV.  Really nice series but also interesting how the Physicist has adapted to becoming a biologist and zoologist as well.  A good move - he now gets to travel all over the globe to the most exotic of locations to talk about the wonders of adaptive evolution - today the adaptation of the senses; for example how the bones in gills of fish have adapted over millions of years to become the tiny bones in the ear.  "All evolution of senses has taken place to allow us to survive."  Well I haven't got one of them (luckily not hearing or sight) and I reckon I'm lucky that I've been born at a time in human history when we have adapted our environment so well that the senses are not the most important requirement for our survival. Now that is a really impressive adaptation.

What is Love

Okay, so plenty of time to my own thoughts today - promised the cats I would not go out and as OH was out for lunch turned the radio off and just appreciated the quiet.

Okay not totally quiet; daughter phoned and had the first Skype from Joe for a week - glad to know he is tired but otherwise fine.  Can't view my blogs though - the Great Firewall of China. Getting on with sprucing up my next lecture on Biological theories of personality...

However, something Lilly said to me on the phone stuck in my mind: referring to her dog, Snoopy; "how can anyone say only humans can experience love?"  Whilst sorting the dirty washing I thought I'd put my mind to the topic, albeit briefly.  So here we go.  In the style of a true researcher this will require some investigation to accompany my thoughts.

'What is love' was apparently the most searched for phrase on Google in the year 2012.  Well according to Google anyway.  So love is a conundrum which has surpassed even the meaning of life!

Definitions:

Noun An intense feeling of deep affection: "their love for their country".

Verb Feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone): "do you love me?".

Synonyms noun.   affection - fondness - darling - passion verb.   like - be fond of - fancy - adore

Too simplistic.

"love is unconditional affection with no limits or conditions: completely loving someone. It's when you trust the other with your life and when you would do anything for each other".  

So what do the online 'experts' have to say?

1) The Physicist: Love is Chemistry.  "in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin.."  Love is a survival mechanism to promote long-term relationships, defence and protection, safety and security.
2) The Psychotherapist: Love has many Guises.  Just like a therapist.  Goes on to explain the latin names for love - e.g. eros, agape, philia, philautia, pragma and ludus (a playful fooling around or flirting - hmm, wouldn't call that love).
3) The Philosopher: Love is passionate commitment.
4) The Romantic Novelist: Love drives all great stories - with it is euphoria, without it is desolation and obsession.
5) The Benedictine Nun: Love is more easily experienced than defined.  It is in what it causes us to do that we can understand love. "Love is the one thing that can never hurt anyone, though it can cost dearly."

Okay, so humans can 'do' all of these.  What about other species?  What about your dog, or your cat?

1) Yes, animals can form a true and irrevocable, unconditional bond with humans, and with each other. You can also see in the dilation of pupils and purring that contact with the beloved (stroking, for example) is highly pleasurable.
2) With the exception of eros and agape I reckon you could equate these to the bonds domestic pets are capable of making with humans and with each other.
3) Well yes, anyone try to tell my daughter her dog isn't passionately committed to her... and, well there have just been numerous examples of selfless devotion.
4) Just compare the happy mutt to the tragedy of temporary abandonment...
5) True love is in the doing, not in the saying...  Well we all know stories of extreme self-sacrifice of animals for their owners, their offspring and for each other.  Yes it's nature but how is that different from self-sacrifice in humans?

As I'm typing this my precious Sophie, aka Cuddle-Bucket, aka Fluffy Bee (she fluffies herself up like a stripey black and white bee with her tail in the air when happy that you're coming somewhere too) is sleeping beside me.  She has been my companion all day.  Where I go, she will follow - crying if she didn't notice I'd moved straight away.

At one point I dozed off on the sofa.  I awoke to find Fluffy Bee sleeping beside me - purring happily in her sleep on her beloved blue blankie, tummy exposed trustingly, little paws in the air twitching with her dreams.  Faithful, relaxed, unconditionally adoring.

Right now she's in a similar pose on a mini blankie in front of the PC and next to the keyboard.  She likes the little light above, it's warming.  Every now and then she'll wake and initiate some stroking with nuzzling and little 'kisses'.  The big liquid green eyes look into yours (unusual in a cat - direct eye contact is generally seen as threatening) - unwavering, trusting, just happy to be with you.  Could it be love???

Higher mammals have the same pathways in the brain we do; they have and rely on well-developed emotional systems.  Whereas our cortex is vastly more developed (so we are able to reason with, rationalise, obfuscate and channel our feelings), in other mammals with a lesser dependance on the cortex emotions are primary drivers.  Just because a creature cannot rationalise it's emotional experience this does not invalidate it, surely?  Are we really so arrogant as a species that we believe that what we ourselves name 'love' is only a human capacity?

Ordinary or Extraordinary

Friday 1st February

Dreamy drive to work today - left midmorning courtesy of late teaching and the roads were clear. One of those days when it's a pleasure to be at work - enthusiastic students, friendly encouraging colleagues, minor blip finding the formula I thought I'd embedded in the student's scoring sheets didn't work...

Listening to Aung San Suu Kyi sharing her desert island discs on the radio this morning I was struck by her totally unwavering dedication to her country.  She recounts that she told her husband to be her country would always come first.  What did he think of that, the interviewer asks. 'He understood me', she replied. Clearly interested in what had made this woman so extraordinary, Aung San explained: “When people have chosen a certain path, they should walk it with satisfaction and not try to make it appear as a tremendous sacrifice.”

BUT, last minute decision this morning on the way out to EAT OUT this evening (I know, spontaneity, quite shocking really) AND to invite a friend.  Phoned her from the car (or the fish-bowl, as described by my interlocutors) and arranged to meet at ours and head on over to the local Turkish - tasty and informal; perfect.

Somewhat later than anticipated I head home. Mika again - this time 'Rain'.  I start to muse over what makes some people extraordinary and what makes the rest of us ordinary.  Is it the lack of any challenge to our basic principles?  What is ordinary? What do you want in an ordinary life?  Predicability, anonymity, unanimity, respectability, privacy...  Is it possible to be extraordinary and maintain these in your life?  Does everyone want to be extraordinary from time to time?  What would the ordinary really give up to be extraordinary? Is it enough to be extraordinary in one way or one place or at one time?

My musings were interrupted by the dual sensory invasion of "There are traffic disruptions on route" and the three lane queue considerably earlier than it should have appeared for the first major roundabout of my journey...

Isn't it fateful that when you go against your better instincts to stick to the main roads you know (despite    gridlock) and take the alternative offered you receive as a reward the confirmation that you are right in assuming that minor roads appear clear on your satnav because they are not monitored by traffic reports...  I barely got home in time to go out again.  M25 at a standstill.  A10 north at a standstill. Reason?  M11 shut because of accident, A10 closed at Royston because of overturned tractor and trailer.  And it's not even windy - so much for my theory. Two days running of traffic chaos - extraordinary.

Turkish was a success.  Having talked my friend through the last 200 yards of intractable queueing and waving from the kerb by the car park entrance we left that hooting, frustrated world behind and headed into the sublime calm of Vadi. Hot fresh thick pitta, Vadi special (all meats on rice and bulgar wheat) and baclava and Turkish tea to finish.

A chance to catch up, swap stories and spend company with someone who you know wants you to be nothing but totally honest and totally you.  Acceptance is such a special thing to find it's worth treasuring. We whiled away 2 hours and came out to find the ordinary world had returned to normal. All those frustrated people had found their way home eventually.  We sailed back north to the unconditional welcome of our kitties.

Extraordinarily nice end to the day, really.