Telescopes

I've always had a fascination for astronomy and space, and I used to devour comics and stories related to it. I tried when I was 13 years old to make myself a 6-inch reflecting mirror to make myself an astronomical telescope, patiently grinding one disc of glass over another in my garden, walking around it and making a circular motion with my hands as I fed carborundum powder and water into the discs. Alas, it didn't work, but chance helped me out. While I made a bookcase in school woodwork class, my friend made a wooden tube by steaming thin wood and curling it into a tube intended for a telescope. When it was finished he declined to pay what it would take to keep it, so I bought it instead. I fitted a very long focus 4.5-inch refracting lens at the top, and I had two powerful eyepieces I could fit at the bottom. The result was a telescope that had huge magnification, but little light. 

I stationed it in my garden with an altazimuth mount, one that could move in either a vertical or horizontal direction. I could really have used an equatorial mount to track the Earth's rotation, but I couldn't afford one. Given the huge magnification and low light gathering ability, the obvious object to study was the moon. Night after night I looked through it at the moon, studying always the terminator, the point where the sun is rising or setting on the moon and the shadows are most pronounced. Over the course of two or three months I made drawings of the craters, mountains and valleys that I saw, and gradually constructed a map of the moon measuring about 30 inches square. I checked in the library so I could write the names of the prominent features, dreaming that one day I might go to visit them. I never did, though I did watch on television as other people did so.

Sand and tide

The sandy beach at Cleethorpes was very close, and a local playground. We built sand castles, of course, out of the wet sand at the edge of the tide. One of our favourite games, however, was to build a fortress of sand around us against the incoming tide. Placing ourselves several feet apart, we would each pile a circle of sand, maybe a foot high, and stand inside as the tide came in. It was always a thrill when the tide washed all around it with us inside, as small islands in the water, with the shore line behind us as the tide advanced up the beach.

The walls would start to fail as the waters surged, and we would use our toy spades to dig wet sand from beneath us to shore them up. It became more desperate as the waves grew stronger and it became ever more difficult to dig sand fast enough to maintain the walls. The ending was always the same. A surge of tide would breach the walls, sending water flooding into our positions. Screaming with excitement and mock fear, we would splash our way noisily back to the safety of the shore with our shoes tied around our necks to keep them dry.

Pluto and Bonnie Jean protected us

I had a close encounter with a barrage balloon when I was 2 or 3 years old. The balloons were deployed as part of the air defences over the Humber to protect Hull and its docks and Grimsby across the Humber. Their cables were a hazard to enemy planes, especially at night. There were two flown from nearby where I lived at the time, called Bonnie Jean and Pluto. These may have been nicknames given to them by local residents, or they might have been names they were called by their RAF crews.

I was in a pram with my sister, facing each other, when we saw on the other side of the street a barrage balloon being winched down, and very close to the ground. It was an enormous silver thing, with one of its three fins deflated. Maybe it was being brought down for repair and maintenance. I called out excitedly and asked to be taken across the road to where it was coming down. My sister, a year older but apparently less adventurous, screamed in fear and panic and demanded to be taken away from it. Fear outvoted curiosity, however, so I did not get any closer. 

We were told after the war that Pluto had been struck by lightning at some stage, and we presumed that meant it was destroyed. Apparently the balloon unit was moved South just before my 4th birthday to help defend against the V1 flying bombs.

Junior school trip to the brickworks

Miss Burgess was a fantastic junior school teacher. She took her class of 9 year-olds on a series of trips to see at first hand how things were done. We went to a jam factory, a lighthouse, and fish docks, among others. One of the most memorable was the class visit to the local brickworks. Set in the countryside a short bus ride away, it featured a huge clay pit, from which the moist clay was extracted. It was moulded into bricks by being extruded through shaped nozzles, and chopped into brick lengths as it emerged. These were dried to remove any excess moisture that might have made them crack, then fired in huge kilns. It was very exciting to stand near the heat blast from those ovens as the bricks went in.

Each of us was given a block of clay to take away. Later at school we shaped it into whatever took our fancy. There was a foot-powered potter's wheel to assist us. Our efforts were then taken away to be fired in a kiln and returned to us as brick-coloured pottery that we could then paint. Most of the children made dishes, though I remember one elegant flower-pot. I chose to make a triangular dish, rather than a round one. Mine had quite thick sides that I shaped and smoothed by hand, it survived the firing process, though some that were too thin did not. They all came out fired to a red-brown colour. I painted the inside of mine grey, the outside blue, and the flat tops of the triangle one red, one yellow and one green. I thought it looked elegant, though in retrospect it must have seemed rather squat. It was my only venture into the art of pottery.

Train over the Rockies

My colleague, Eamonn Butler, and I were due to attend a conference in Vancouver. We thought it might be quite an experience to take the train that crossed Canada and went over some spectacular scenery in the Rockies. The full journey took 5 days, over mostly flat country, so we opted for the last leg, catching it at Calgary to enjoy the scenic day and a half ride through the mountains. We flew direct into Calgary and enjoyed breakfast at the top of the tower before catching the train next morning.

After we'd settled into our cabin and enjoyed some spectacular scenery, we headed to the bar for a pre-lunch drink, only to be told that because it was a Sunday, the bar would not be open. Oh dear. This looked as though it might be a long journey, but the waiter helpfully told us that they could serve drinks with meals in the dining car. We spent most of the day in the dining car, having lunch there, then afternoon tea, and then dinner. The scenery was awesome, as were some of the gradients we climbed, but at least we had something to do as we watched it unfold. We reached Vancouver early next morning without a trace of jet-lag.

Cigarette cards for games and currency

At junior school cigarette cards, like conkers, occupied much of our playtime. Aged 9 or 10, we collected them, traded them, and gambled with them. They were cards that originally came in cigarette packets, hence the name. They measured, I suppose, about 3 inches by 1.5 inches, brightly coloured, with pictures on one side and a description on the back. Some depicted sports stars, whereas other series might feature famous ships, railway engines or aircraft. There were albums you could buy to stick them in, like a stamp collection. The boys all avidly collected them or traded them. 

The gambling games included one where the first player would flick one onto the ground a few feet away. The second player tried to land his card so that part of it landed on top of the other one. If it did, he won it. If it missed, the first player retrieved his card and tried to flick it to cover part of his opponent's card. They took turns until a card was won. In another game a player would stuff cards between the pages of a book, and his opponent would slide a card into the book, hoping to hit a page that contained one. If he did, he won the card. If not, his own card was left in the book.

The cards were currency, to be traded, perhaps for sweets. I believe they started being issued in the last quarter of the 19th century, but disappeared during a World War II paper shortage and never really came back. The ones we traded might have been pre-war. There probably are elderly collectors today who have albums of them in their attics.

Privatizing Poland in 1989

I was invited to Poland in 1989. This was before the fall of the Berlin Wall, while Poland was still a member of the Warsaw Pact. It had a new government, though, because Solidarity had won all the seats it had been allowed to contest in the recent election, and the Farmers' Party, previously allied with the Communists, had switched sides. The new government wanted to learn how to implement privatization, and the Adam Smith Institute knew about that. Just to be on the safe side, though, we took a Channel 4 TV 'Dispatches' team with us to film it for later broadcast. Even so, we were met at the airport by guards with sub-machine guns.

The conference went well, and we all celebrated with our hosts at the farewell dinner. As we prepared to pay, the restaurant told us they only accepted Polish zlotys. This caused consternation because none of us had any. They didn't take credit cards, either. One of our resourceful members solved the problem by going to the door onto the street and calling out "dollars!" Within seconds a small crowd had gathered, eagerly offering us zlotys for our dollars at the black market rate, much higher than the official exchange rate. The pile of Polish currency we paid with was about the size of a cushion.

Indoor sky-diving in Milton Keynes

I've done parasailing, but the idea of jumping out of a plane has never really been my thing. The risk of injury is higher than I'd like. I decided instead to discover some of what it feels like by doing it indoors in a wind tunnel. I found a sports centre at Milton Keynes that offers it, so went there one Saturday morning.

We suited up and were briefed about what to do, arms outstretched, legs bent, head back, look forward. We watched groups of others take their turn, one at a time. I noticed I was two or three times as old as the next oldest person there. Our group's turn came, and we were taken in and seated alongside the door. When my turn came I walked into the wind tunnel and launched myself forward into the air as I'd been told. I remembered to look forward as I used my arms to steer myself. It's a strange sensation, like flying in a high wind, which is what it was. I followed instructions so explicitly that when I came out they asked me if I'd done it before.

We waited for the photographs to appear on screen outside. Fortunately I was smiling when mine was taken, so I bought a high quality copy to entertain friends with.

Posters about my book on the tube

When I published "Think Tank" a few years back, giving my no holds barred account of the history of the Adam Smith Institute, with all the gaffes and howlers committed along the way, I decided to help publicize it myself. The publisher, BIteback Publications, was quite small and specialist, and there was no way they could afford an expensive promotional campaign. I decided to go totally over the top by having posters to promote it on London Underground stations. I simply wanted to see the book and my name up there. I could only afford 48, which is not even one for every five stations. However, I requested a bias towards centrally located ones in Zone 1.

When they appeared, I started receiving mails and messages from friends who had seen them. They were at stations that included Westminster, Paddington, Waterloo, Charing Cross and Bank, used by City and Parliament people every day. I sought out a few of the posters and had myself photographed standing next to them. Fortunately Michael Crick, the political commentator tweeted about seeing them and started a conversation about them that set other people looking out for them.

When asked what my motive was, I replied "self-aggrandizement," thinking I might as well be honest about it.

My first hot air balloon flight

I'd always wanted to do it, so I booked a flight from Newbury in Berkshire and took teenaged nieces along with me. We helped inflate the horizontal balloon with air before the burners were lit to heat it. We climbed into the basket that came up to about waist level and held on as directed. Take-off was fast. I had expected a gentle and graceful rise. Not a bit of it. A final squirt of flame, the helpers let go, and we shot up into the sky. Within seconds the onlookers were dots on the ground, and we were half a mile high.

The other feature which surprised me was the tremendous forward velocity. We had waited to catch the still air of the evening. Even so, the balloon was carried forward at real speed. We headed first over railway lines, then a river with a small stone bridge. A flight of ducks took noisily to the air as we soared over them. Cows and sheep tended to gallop away as we passed overhead. It was a slice of England, pocket handkerchief fields and hedgerows, woods, villages and country lanes.

We came down on a cricket pitch outfield, just after the last over of the day had been bowled and while players and supporters were enjoying the evening sun and a cool pint on the pavilion. Cricketers and spectators gathered around to help. We gained the impression that having a multi-coloured balloon drop out of the sky was the perfect ending to a day's play. It was an excellent first time for me, and I did it again several times.

Segways in the Old Town of Nice

I took my first Segway ride in Nice. I'd read about them and was intrigued. When I saw that rides could be had, starting on the promenade in Nice, and going through the Old Town and the market, I booked a ride. We found how heavy they were when we had to pull them down to the promenade. There we were given instructions. It was time to step up. I was slightly apprehensive, but need not have been. The feeling was intuitive. As I stood on it, the machine balanced itself. I practised as instructed. Lean forward and it moves forward. Lean back and it stops. Bend right and it turns right, and so in. It helped that it had a handle to hold on, but I soon found I could control it without that.

It was speed limited by a governor to about 15 kph, but was so easy to control that I could weave around pedestrians with ease, even along the narrow streets of the old town, and through a market crowded with shoppers and sightseers. Curbs were tricky, but OK if you took them square on instead of at an angle. Everyone looked, since they were something of a novelty. I went on them many times subsequently, becoming so proficient that the instructors disengaged the governor and allowed me to ride at an exhilarating speed down the promenade.

How absurd that they are not allowed in the UK, either on pavements or on roads. They are not a problem elsewhere.

Watching Soyuz launches from close up

I was the first person in the UK to book a private space flight. I did this in the late 1990s with Space Adventures, a firm that buys space on other company's vehicles. Alas, I was told "maybe two years," as has been the case since with every vehicle. Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is still saying "maybe two years" well over a decade since he started taking bookings. Space Adventures has actually flown paying customers into space on Russian Soyuz rockets to the International Space Station. I saw two of those launches from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The first saw Richard Garriot fly in 2008, and the second was to watch the second flight of Charles Simonyi a year later. I was accompanied at the launches by Paul Allen, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and other luminaries.

If the first was impressive, the second was incredible. I was taken with a small group to ascend the rocket on the morning of the flight and actually touch the capsule. In the afternoon we emerged from our bunker 2 minutes before blast-off to stand on open ground about 220 metres away. As the countdown reached zero, 20 rocket motors roared into life with an ear-splitting intensity. Great sheets of flame shot from the below-ground chamber, and as the rocket slowly lifted itself, the cantilever arms swung back to free it. It was the apparent that at least a third of the rocket had been below ground. It roared skyward on a pillar of flame. The ground shook with a throbbing vibration.

We all waited before celebrating until the confirmation came through, "orbit achieved." Only then did the champagne corks pop as we toasted Charles and wished him a good flight and a safe return.

An airship ride over London

It was an airship, albeit a small one, and it offered rides over London from a field in Hertfordshire, easily accessible by train and taxi. I booked a ride, curious to know what it would be like. It was an Airship Industries Skyship 500, with a huge FUJI logo on the side. It was a non-rigid airship with an inflated bag of helium and had a gondola underneath that could take a crew of 2 and 8 passengers. It was powered and steered by two ducted fans.

We boarded it via small steps and strapped in.  The fans whirred and the ground crew detached the restraining ropes that held us down. It ascended slowly at first, rocking just a little until it built up speed, then it cruised over green fields, woods and countryside until it reached London. It flew us directly over Westminster, the Abbey and Parliament, then followed the Thames to Wapping and beyond. I took some excellent photos since we had clear visibility.

There was an epilogue several months later when I had a visit from the police, reporting that a car with my number plate had knocked over a parked motorcycle in Cornwall. I've never driven to Cornwall, but could I establish my innocence? I checked the date, and by coincidence it was the date of my airship flight, with my presence on it a matter of record. I had an alibi, since I'd been in another place. Clearly someone had taken down a wrong number.

My book was flown in space

I'd given modest support to Cambridge University Spaceflight, a group of students bent on exploring space with balloons and rockets. My gift was fortuitous because the University promptly doubled the sum, since they had shown ability to raise funds elsewhere. The students decided to give me a gesture of thanks by flying one of my recently published children's science fiction books to the edge of space.

 I went to the launch of their Nova balloon and watched them attach a copy of my "Dark Visitor" to an arm suspended from below the balloon. I filmed the take-off as it ascended toward the heavens, slowly at first, then gathering speed until it disappeared from sight. The students had equipment to monitor its flight, it's altitude, velocity and location, among other data. The purpose of the flight was research; my book was just an additional passenger.

The balloon took it to an altitude of 32km, or 105,000 feet, above 99% of the atmosphere. When the balloon burst, a parachute successfully brought back its payload, including its cameras, data recorder, and my book. They later presented me with magnificent photos of my book, set against the total blackness of space, and with the huge blue and white curve of the Earth below it. Wow!  Not many authors have had that done.

A helicopter to Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef

I'd finished another speaking tour of Australia, ending up in Sydney with just over a day to spare. I decided to spend it on the Great Barrier Reef, on Heron Island. It meant a short plane flight to Gladstone, then a trip out to the reef. Short of time, I opted to do it by helicopter, a trip of about 20-25 minutes. As we sailed over the crystal-clear waters, the pilot spotted a giant manta ray below us and asked if I wanted to follow it. I readily assented, and watched the great creature swimming just below us, its wings rippling rhythmically as it glided through the water.

I spent my day on the Great Barrier Reef, doing a little snorkelling and seeing a Southern night sky more amazingly lit up than any I have ever seen. It was quite a thrill to see the Great Bear upside down on the horizon, with the two pointer stars indicating the direction of the Pole Star, always below the horizon

By sheer chance it was the one day of the year when the baby turtles hatched, and I saw them scuttling down to the water. Many would make it, but some would not. I flipped over one that had fallen on its back, wondering if I'd interfered with the course of nature. I needn't have worried, though, because I saw an American woman deposit a whole armful of them into the sea.

The thrill when a new book arrives

It was a fantastic thrill when the first copies of my first book arrived. It was the book of my PhD thesis, published by Open Court, a prestigious US publisher with a great range of philosophy books. It was hardback, with a dust jacket that had a photo of me on the back. When I picked it up and smelled the fresh print, I felt I had done something that was important to me. It was called "Trial & Error and the Idea of Progress," spelled out in white Times New Roman lettering on a red cover. I put it on the mantelpiece and just stared at it for a long time. 

I have done the same with many books since, but there was a special magic about that first one. There was a sequel decades later. A friend read it when it was long out of print and urged that a paperback second edition should be published. This posed problems because there was no electronic record of the book. It had appeared long before personal computers and digital technology. I bought a second-hand copy, an ex-library book, from Amazon, and had it chopped and each page scanned. I hired someone from India online to use hand-corrected optical character recognition to produce a Word copy of it. That made a paperback second edition possible. The original cover was reproduced, and I saw no reason to modify any of the ideas of the original. It was reprinted verbatim. When the first copies were delivered, I remembered the original feeling and experienced it again.

Caviar suppers with the President of Mensa

Several times when I have flown back from the US on a daytime American Airlines flight, I have bought a tin of caviar duty free from the inflight shop. I chose Oscietra, usually in a 50gm tin. It was very much less costly than its equivalent bought in the UK. The caviar supper became a Mensa ritual, with the President of Mensa, Victor Serebriakoff and his wife, Win, acting as hosts at their home in Blackheath. They provided drinks and blinis, with fruit afterwards. Crucially, I took the caviar and a couple of young Mensa friends. The enjoyment was that Victor and his wife were intelligent and enjoyable conversationalists, whose company was dazzling to their young guests. And caviar was something the youngsters had read about but never tried. 

We did this from time to time over the course of several years, and built up a store of happy memories all round. Caviar remains one of my favourite foods. It is too pricey to eat regularly in restaurants, so I’ve sometimes had lumpfish caviar from Denmark or Iceland instead. It's not nearly as good, but recently a caviar copy called Onuga went on sale, one that comes very close indeed to the real thing, but at a tiny fraction of the price.

Eating your catch in a Florida restaurant

I've several times been fishing off the Florida Keys, renting a boat, complete with crew, from places such as Summerland Key or Key West. Usually it's for half a day, about 4 hours. The crew does the work, heading out to waters beyond the reef where the fish are to be found. They bait the hooks and set several rods in slots at the side of the boat so that the lines trail in the boat's wake. The customers, myself and friends, watch carefully to see if one of the rods bends over, indicating a catch. When that happens, one of us is strapped into a rear-facing chair to begin reeling in the catch. The rod's reel features a slipping clutch, so if a fish pulls sharply in an attempt to dislodge itself, more line pays out automatically.

The prime catch are sports fish, marlin and sailfish, which are released after being photographed. From the photographs fiberglass replicas are sometimes made to display as trophies. There are also eating fish, including king mackerel, which can be almost as big as a person, as well as tuna and grouper. When the boat returns to harbour, the crew fillet the fish and put the pieces into bags for the fisherman to take home. While every restaurant in the Keys serves fish, some offer "your catch" on the menu, and will cook the fish you provide in a variety of ways. I prefer mine done in cornmeal batter, hard to find in the UK, but absolutely delicious. And it’s quite a feeling to dine in the evening on a fish you personally caught earlier in the day.

When I was blessed by a saint

The only time I was ever personally blessed by a saint was in 1982. Pope John Paul II visited the UK on a pastoral visit, the first ever by a reigning Pope. His London tour took him up Victoria Street towards Parliament Square in Westminster. There were not massive throngs to greet his passage, although the streets were lined with a respectable number of people. To gain a better view I stood upon top of a junction box at the corner of Great Smith Street and Victoria Street. As the Pope’s procession went by, His Holiness turned in my direction, and saw me standing aloft. He looked me in the eye and reached out his arms to make a huge sign of the cross to bless me.

He was not then a saint, but a Pope. However, he was later sanctified and subsequently canonized, so it was Saint John Paul II who personally blessed me. My Roman Catholic friends were very envious, and one of them remarked, “Well, it just goes to show that he’s not infallible.”

Eating inexpensively in Lyons Corner House

The first time I encountered Lyons Corner House was on one of my infrequent visits to London. It was quite an institution, and it was inexpensive. As the name implies, they occupied corner sites. The one I visited was on the Strand opposite Charing Cross station. Founded in 1909, they occupied several floors, with a shop selling their own brand foods, and several floors of restaurant above.  They employed hundreds of staff, with waitresses called “nippies” because they nipped speedily about.

For relatively impoverished people such as myself, in the days before fast food, they provided low-cost, nourishing food.  Some of their produce sold nationally.  When I was a boy, Lyons Maid ice-cream was the major competitor to Walls ice-cream, though in retrospect neither of them bore much relation to real ice-cream.  For many Londoners and tourists, they were a godsend in the post-war days, though the food they served then would not pass muster today.

They struggled for years with costly premium sites and huge staff overheads before finally calling it a day.  The advent of fast food outlets changed public habits and tastes. They tried to compete, but their Wimpey brand, offering a stewed meat loaf in a bun that bore little relation to a hamburger, could not compete with the real thing. They were part of the London scene, but everything changes.