It's Impossible It's impossible, tell the sun to leave the sky, it's just impossible. It's impossible, ask a baby not to cry, it's just ...

The results of taking the first few chapters of Genesis literally are manifold.

Not the least is the old hoary: where did Cain’s wife come from?

Another is being forced into a position of defending the Bible as a scientific document.

And of course one is left with an extremely anthropomorphicview of God (God confined to human form walking and talking).

To these and countless other dilemmas, innumerable books and commentaries have been written to defend the indefensible - a literal six creation and then God resting (now that's got ta be metaphorical if nothing else folks).

Wise folks know not to argue the merits of a 10,000 year old literal creation with me. It is the proverbial red rag to a bull.

But here’s the one that annoys me the most.

My antagonist says: “don’t you realise that us coming into being by pure chance is utterly minuscule?”. The probability of blah blah blah is next to zero”.

But that is daft post hoc nonsense.  The probability of almost any event after the fact is also minuscule.

Do you realise that the probability that particular button ended up on your shirt in that position is also infinitesimal?

But that is entirely the wrong use of probability.

Dawkins classic definition of evolution includes the non-random selection of random variation. That takes a bit of unpacking. Part of the reason is that the word 'random' in mathematics and scientific reasoning  means something quite different from its everyday use.

Now folks, I am not a great Dawkins fan. His brand of atheism/agnosticism suiteth me not.

I think Genesis read with due consideration for much of the metaphorical content points us to a deep understanding of that ultimate reality that we call God. It points us beyond words to an encounter with "the name that cannot be named".

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat .....

Well okay it's a bugle


One motto of the Calliope athletic club that is etched in the minds of all members who have been with the club over many years is this:

" No run has ever or will ever be cancelled on account of the weather"

We were forced once by the Auckland City Council to cancelled an event because of a so-called Tsunami.

World War II forced us to cancel events.

This coming Sunday ( May 9th)  Calliope and Race Walking Auckland (RWA) were to challenge one another over a 10 km race walk.

Last night we older members Bill, Murray and myself arrived at the club to discover that the event had been postponed because of Mother's Day.

Who had perpetrated this ghastly deed we asked. Must be RWA. But no!!! It was, unbeknown to us, some members of our own dear club!

Bill reeled, I found myself gasping for breath and Murray was simply inconsolable.

It was a defining moment.

A watershed.

It spoke volumes about past and present values.

It hit at the very foundations of our athletic careers.

It is just too marvellous too marvellous for words .....

Yes it is ... it is maths     ....  maths deals to cricket ..... and leads it into the night light.

I am loosely following the world cup 20 over competition in the West Indies. I am like a cat lying around with one eye half open on the proceedings.

I see one of the players seems to being doing especially well folks. A fella by the grandiose name of Duckworth-Lewis.

Well, no actually, the name refers to a couple of statisticians by the names of Duckworth and ... you guessed it .... Lewis.

These blokes created a way of handling bad weather in limited over games.
Here's a graph of it:

Lots of Statistical tests are named after st ranged named statisticians. You see you can't be a statistician with a name like Smith.

My favorite test named after a statistician is ... now wait for ...it ...

Roy's Greatest Root aka Roy's Largest Root.

It is used in a MANOVA test.

Multivariate Analysis of Variance

heh but enough already!!!!

Back to Duckworth Lewis.

These guys base their analysis and resulting models on the idea that a team has two key resources at any given time in the game. Wickets in hand and overs remaining. The system is used to give a target score for the team batting second.

Of course the system has come in for a lot of flack from cricketers in particular. Most can't understand it.

But folks it is simple, elegant and really really works!!! It's mere child's play folks! I mean how could these two lovely guys get it wrong or was it these two lovely guys???

On top of the world looking down on creation ...

The Calliope Harrier Club established itself as the premier cross country race walking club in Auckland this last Saturday at the world famous Southland Centennial relay held at Owaikaka.


Caliope took out the first four places in this major race walking relay event and the fastest time. With yours truly setting a new lap record. The winning team had establish a four minute by the finishing tape.

The long anticipated challenge from Race Walking Auckland sadly did not eventuate.

The majority of the Calliope walkers, having been cross country runners in the past, were well placed to apply their cross country experience and honed skills to this very demanding new discipline of cross country race walking.

After the race we retired to our clubrooms to celebrate our new found success in this new discipline and to declare open the 2010 harrier season.

you must realize, smoke gets in your eyes

The Platters did the best job of the song.

Now they are singing it all over Europe as the ash cloud strands millions.

You'll go for a spin if ash gets in your engine ...





Friends of mine are overseas. There's Pat and Johann and Geoff to name but three. I know they have especially arranged this very eruption to extend their stay and avoid the rigours of real life back in old Nu Zulun.

Let's pray for a disaster said Pat to Johann, I love it here in London Town. And Johann, being on initmate terms with great powers, agreed. And so whoosh ... bang ... kaboom .. and various other onomatopoeia!!! and what da ya know!   "Love ya lava!" cried Pat. "Happy Holidays!!!"

The name of the volcano is of course Eyjafjallajokull and Pat being a linguist is all across this word.

It just might be calming down. Thrown some more valium down it folks!

Test flights have flown successfully through the ash cloud. Now doesn't that just fill you with unbridled confidence folks!!
                                II
But its big brother KATLA is tipped to go any day now.

Geoff is planning to take his cross country teams over there to run up Katla before she blows. Pat and Johann have been in training in the Waitakere's before this current trip and they may well join the team.

"Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
If you could use some exotic booze,
there's a bar in old Bombay."

Through all kinds of weather, what if the skies should fall ...

Calliope shifts into winter mode. This is officially known as the harrier season. It is signalled by the onslaught of April.

Though, it must be said, April has been generous so far with sunshiny days and a still summery feel here in Auckland town.

The track and field accoutrements (shot puts, discuses and high jump bars and mattreses) have been stored away to be resurrected next summer.

 Now the cross country season confronts with a series of courses offering terrain and topography with all varieties of slush, mire, and muddiness.

I hate cross country! My friend Tyrell salivates at the idea of swamp, marsh and quagmire. He belongs to the local Mud Enjoyment Society Incorporated (otherwise know as MESI).

Why is it that some people just seems to flow over the mud, while others like me get bogged down and invariably lose a shoe?

I fell head first into a cowpat once!

Then there is Calliope's favourite course at the Onepoto Domain. Now this place in below sea level! A little rain before race day and whadda get? Not only mud, but rivers (not simply to cross) to run along.

So if you seriously have a mud fetish then Calliope is the club for you my friend.

So come and join us.

Whooops there goes a thousand kilowatt dam …

I have enjoyed James May's Toy Stories over the last few weeks on TV3. I found it strangely refreshing and psychologically uplifting.

I tried to think why. I think it was because it was all about building or constructing things slowly and meticulously. It was about creativity and getting lots of people involved in the creative enterprize.

It made a sweet change to the usual diet of humans and objects being shot and blow up in every direction.

But sadly the programme has finished.

And what will replace it on Mondays evenings and 7:30?

The programme is called Destroyed in Seconds! How ironic. It brings viewers "clip after clip of the most shocking destructions ever captured on film."

Think I'll go out and buy some leggo.

Down and down I go, round and round I go, caught in a spin ...

Sunday morning training. Racewalking. Feeling good. Feeling fast. Flying along Kilarney at a good 6 minute km pace. Passed some cars illegally parked on footpath.

Along past the firestation. Really flying now. Foot clips something on the ground.

There is that knowing moment. I am going down and there ain't nothing I can do but land well and break no bones.

Grazed knee, grazed hands, grazed elbow ... grazed shoulder  ... no broken bones.


Girl-with-water-bottle offers water for inital cleanup - so those bottles have some use afterall. Thanks Girl-with-water-bottle.

Limp a couple of km to A & E clinic. Arrived with bloody leg, bloody hands, bloody elbow, bloody shoulder. Get patched up and  tetanus shot. Limp home.

Flying high in April ... shot down in May.

When I find myself lying flat on my face ... I pick myself up and get back in the race .... that's life ...

Don't you know that you're my hero ...

Most Nu Zulundus have never heard of Jose Rizal.

To Filipinos, he is the quintesssential Filipino - "the pride of the Malay race".

The problem with the word "hero" is that it is thrown around with gay abandon these days. The result – any old celebrity can be referred to as a hero. So a football star becomes a sports hero. You get my drift.

Joseph Campbell, the great researcher into the place of myth in human culture and consciousness was a lot tougher with his conception of hero.

One writer suggests that according to Campbell, “a hero is any male or female who leaves the world of his or her everyday life to undergo a journey to a special world where challenges and fears are overcome in order to secure a reward (special knowledge, healing potion, etc.) which is then shared with other members of the hero’s community”.

Rizal fulfills this conception almost perfectly.

Born in 1863, Rizal recieved an excellent education in the Philippine captial, Manila. Reading Rizal's dairies, you get the sense of an intense, passionate and very emotional human being.

Apparently as a young kid he was inspired by the sight of a moth circling a candle flame and slowly and inexorably being drawn into its light and the death that awaited. It was a metaphor that remained with him through till his brief 35 years.

As a young man, Rizal, like many educated Filipinos, left Manila for further study in Spain.

He earned degrees and a doctorate in medicine - opthamology. He was a polyglot learning over ten languages including English. However, he was best known for his writing - and his two novels Noli me Tangere (the English version was originally called The Social Cancer) and El Filibusterismo. It is these novels that fundamentally make him a hero. In them, he took on the Spanish regime and in particular the corruption, despotism and vice that was rife among the Spanish frairs, priests and hierarchy in the Philippines.

And thus, when he eventually returned to the Philippines for second time, he knew what awaited him. A furious Spanish establishment had him first exiled, then jailed and finally executed by a firing squad on December 30, 1896.

But his books ignited in the Filipinos the desire for freedom and self goverment. The night before he died he wrote a poem dedicated to his beloved Philippines: Mi Ultimo Adios or my last farewell.

The opening lines begin:
Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.


A good website with resources on Jose Rizal

JRJRJRJRJRJRJRKRKRKJRJRJRJRJRJR

You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don't mess with Mr in-between

Negative numbers folks! Now for some that was a bit if a mathematical turn-off in days of yore back in the old school yard.

But of course we do need them when it is particularly cold. Put on a bathing costume (alright - togs in Nu Zulun) and test out the difference between 27 degrees (centigrade) and   -27 degrees.

Your account's in the red - again negative territory. "Heh Frankie boy you owe me $35". I like to rephrase that "No, you owe me $-35" sounds better eh?

Read a summary of a class I was about to teach yesterday.

Places taken                              38
Place available                         -13
Maximum Number                    25

Fascinating I thought as I searched for a bigger room, because -13 meant that I had 13 students too many for a 25 seat room.

25 -38 = -13
25 seats taken by 38 students leaves 13 students with no seat.

Remember musical chairs worked on this mathematical principle.

One less chair than the number of people prancing around to the tune!

X-1 chairs and X people

 X-1 - X = -1 (one person has got no chair!!!!)

And of course Mr In-Between is zero, nada, zilch, zip, naught, nil, nullity, nothing and very close to diddly squat and nearby to stuff all.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mr In-Between +++++++++++++++++++