Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Hello! It is, I dunno, midnight or something after solstice, and I have insomnia because despite trying to calm down with not-quite-paying-attention-to the Ab Fab and Father Ted Xmas specials afterward, I am still pissed off by the Masterchef: The Professionals Finale. Because there was rampant sexism, OK?

So, before you read any further, if you care at all about being spoiled about the winner of Masterchef: The Professionals, then read no further until you have watched it. If, like 99.99% of the Earth's population, you don't give a damn about that, then read on.

There were three finalists: Craig, Louisa and Steven. Craig was the youngest contestant (though he didn't look it) at 21, and had one of those faces my mind was constantly struggling to maintain a memory of. He was just...forgettable. Louisa, at 22, was second eldest. She was MAGICAL. And I don't just mean that because she was the only woman. Carry on reading and you will see. Steven was the only one on the whole programme with a sense of humour. A lovable teddy bear. Not the finest haute cuisine chef, which is why he didn't win the thing, but definitely the only one to whom my response was, "When he opens his restaurant, I want to eat there."

So anyway, the winner was Craig, because fucking Marcus Wareing (tosser) thought he was a "genius", and repeatedly said so. I don't deny that Craig's food looked and (from the sounds of it at least) tasted like something you'd get in a Michelin-starred restaurant of today. And that, to me, was the problem. He, with his granitas and his liquid nitrogen whatevers, was making exactly the sort of food you'd expect there, now. There was not much he served that I was surprised to see.

Louisa, on the other hand, was perhaps not doing all that which is of the zeitgeist, but she was doing things that Marcus Wareing "had never had before" although given that that was his favourite/most overused gushy anticipatory statement of the show, perhaps didn't mean much. ANYway, the point is, she used a lot of ingredients that were taken from non-European cuisines and blended them successfully with those that were, in unusual and apparently delicious ways. And her presentation was just as modern/de rigueur as Craig's. She is creative, dedicated, flexible, incredibly confident, commanding, attentive and prodigiously talented.

Steven was the only chef who actually looked as if he enjoyed eating as well as cooking food, which is always a bonus as far as I'm concerned. I don't think he was ever going to win the thing, being (a) far too chilled out and (b) actually in possession of a sense of detachment from the competition, like, "this is nice but it is not life-defining in any way". And his food reflected those qualities.

Anyway, the judging of the final was super annoying, because Marcus Wareing was just glaringly sexist throughout. He gushed over Craig as a "genius", and whilst I'm not denying the lad clearly has talent, at least from the appearance and alleged complexity of the dishes, Louisa was at least equally deserving of the moniker. But did she get it? Oh no. His praise for her was much more along the lines of, "Well done you clever little lady, isn't it wonderful that you're here."

Well.

Fuck you, Marcus Wareing. Those of us who have been around long enough to see that sort of bollocks from the people we work with recognise exactly how demeaning that kind of "praise" is.

So, I am hoping that in five years or less, the following events will occur.

1) Marcus Wareing will be removed from Masterchef: The Professionals for apparently never having actually enjoyed any foodstuff that is not a very small deviation from classical French cuisine.
2) Louisa, having opened her new restaurant which is receiving the same sort of accolades for innovation as Noma, receives a request for a booking from Marcus Wareing, which she politely declines.
3) Steven, having opened his wildly popular restaurant which serves whacky reconstructions of English pub favourites, gets a call from Louisa re: Item 2). He promptly adds to the menu a new recipe he has been saving for the occasion: Marcus Wareing's Sloppy Spotted Dick.

THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.

A little over a year ago, I wrote this, about what I wanted from the UK government. After the general election, I did something I’d consciously rejected all my adult life: I joined a political party. Slowly, verry slowly, I’ve been getting involved in my local party’s activities. I attended a meeting for the first time about a month ago, about campaigning for the Remain side on the EU referendum.

Now, in my constituency, joining any party other than the Conservatives could be seen as a bit of a jolly. Put it this way: Sajid Javid (Business Secretary) is my MP. He toes the party line so hard it’s a wonder he’s not permanently wearing sandals. But still, for me, a naturally cautious person, it was a big step. Even working myself up to entertaining the idea of campaigning for a political cause took me far outside my comfort zone.

Some of that caution has been trained into me. Many scientists discourage their proteges from being actively political. The message that’s tacitly (and sometimes overtly) drilled into us is that politics is for people who are willing to make bold, brash statements and even change laws based on very little evidence or popular sentiment. This idea is anathema to scientists, who are taught to prize the acquisition of repeatable results and well-considered, demonstrable precepts above all things. It takes months or even years to even think of putting possible conclusions based on those results before your peers.Politicians simply don’t have that kind of time to make decisions.

Anyway, my point is that for the first time in my life, I was actually willing to, however remotely, entertain the notion of running for a political office.

And then, today, Jo Cox MP, who has been outspokenly supportive of refugees and campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, was killed in the street by a man who allegedly shouted “Britain First”* as he committed the crime.

Jo Cox is, apparently, the first MP to be murdered since Ian Gow, who was killed by a car bomb planted by the IRA. In 1990.

Jo Cox is a woman only a couple of years older than I am. Jo Cox is survived by her husband and two small children, aged three and five.

So if you’re asking, is this heinous crime going to put women off of the idea of becoming active in politics? I can assure you that the answer is yes.

* an ultra-right political group

So apparently it's International Women's Day.

I have celebrated by achieving new nadirs in parenting.

Humuhumu is off ill from nursery for the week. The bloke and I had agreed I would look after her today because he had to lecture. (Don't worry, I get uninterrupted working time later in the week. Equality, you see!)

We had received an appointment for Keiki to have his eyes checked for long-sightedness and amblyopia - since Humuhumu has both - several weeks ago. I tried to have it moved a few days ago when we thought neither of us were going to be able to take him in, but was told that because of cuts in local services, the next appointment would not be available for another four months. So we kept it.

It was at a clinic I'd never been to. If I'd known then where it was, I'd probably have decided to take the appointment at the hospital in four months' time.

Humuhumu and I had to pick up Keiki from nursery in the afternoon. The area around the nursery is currently a construction zone and its entrance is controlled by a three-way traffic light. The fun thing about this arrangement is that you can't actually see people coming in or out of the nursery slip road until they appear on the main road, and sometimes they block off the slip road during the day to do work on it. So I waited patiently at the light, observed that the road appeared to be blocked, and drove past and parked along the main road. Never an ideal situation when you're on your own and have two small children to manoeuvre in and out of a car. The walk to and from the front door was long enough that when we finally managed to collect Keiki and get everyone back in the car, we were already late for his appointment. I tried to keep calm and drove off to the clinic.

The clinic turned out to be off a tiny one-lane road with double yellow lines on either side, meaning that there was nowhere to park within 200 metres of the entrance. The metal fencing around the clinic featured a dizzying array of signs, which I tried to parse as I drove carefully through the narrow entrance and manoeuvred into a parking space. The wonderful setup of this car park meant that I was blocking off two other cars, and would have to reverse very carefully indeed in order to exit.

The one good thing about the appointment was discovering that Keiki's vision is absolutely fine. The orthoptist was the one Humuhumu likes best as well, and she monkeyed around the room the way toddlers do when they like someone.

We said goodbye to the friendly receptionist. I discovered that in the twenty minutes we'd been inside, two more cars had arrived and parked perpendicularly behind me. Also, someone was waiting to take my space. In theory, I still had just enough room to reverse all the way back to the gate.

And if I didn't have a toddler and a baby howling at me from the back, and if I were not quite so inexperienced a UK driver (coming up on nine months since I got my licence), I might have been able to do it, but after three attempts to get through the gap between the building and the first perpendicular car, I was very nearly in tears.

The woman waiting to take my space parked up next to the clinic entrance (double reds) and came to my window. Another woman who had just left the building noticed, and came over as well. Both of them were terribly sympathetic and understanding, which made it more difficult not to cry. One offered to guide me out, and the other to go in and ask the person behind me to move their car. I tried twice more to get past with the guide's help, but she stopped me after the second go, saying she didn't think I could do it without taking a wing mirror off.

A third woman exited the building, and after coming over and making a lot of comforting noises, moved her car so I could, finally, get out.

While all of the above was happening, the primary school next door let out, meaning the road and pavements were full of small children. As I reversed very, very slowly past the clinic gates, I managed to read one of its signs. It said, "This car park is for registered clinic personnel and disabled persons only." Ah. That would be the icing on the cake of this EPIC MEGA DRIVING FAIL, then. To any such persons using the car park that day were inconvenienced by me: I apologise.

After we arrived home, I plonked my children in front of the television (don't worry, it gets worse) so I could dial in to a telecon. Usually this telecon takes about 20 minutes, so I reckoned two episodes of the Octonauts would suffice to keep them quiet. But of course, this was the one occasion in fifty when everything was not normal, and people actually had to have discussions about non-routine items. I realised we were coming up to the time when I was going to have to speak just as the emperor penguin episode was drawing to a close. As the end credits rolled, both childrens' heads swiveled round to regard me where I sat on the sofa with my laptop. I cringed as they spoke/babbled simultaneously.

"I'm hungry!" announced Humuhumu.
"BWABAAAACAT!" shouted Keiki.
"Can we have your input now, Dr Nanila?" requested my laptop speakers.

I cast about in desperation and my eyes fell upon the box of Mother's Day chocolates I'd been given on Sunday. Flinging the lid to the floor, I selected two at random and shoved them into my startled childrens' mouths, which allowed me to give my crucial 45 seconds of input after a slight delay. Afterwards, I discovered one of the chocolates contained raspberry liqueur. (I told you it got worse.)

Hundreds of years of women fighting to be allowed equal opportunities in working life and pay as men, and you get days like this. Is it worth it? Pardon my sweariness, but (please imagine me saying this in full American mode): Ab-so-fucking-lutely.

As usual, I’m more than a year behind the curve when it comes to viewing films. First of all, let me state that I enjoyed this one very much. I liked that it was a nuanced mother-daughter story. I found Maleficent’s shifts in character (mostly) believable. I cried over the revelation of the meaning of “true love’s kiss”, even though it was blindingly obvious what was going to happen. It’s visually beautiful, and I will certainly re-watch it many times - though probably not until Humuhumu and Keiki are a bit older.

Still, there were things that bothered me.

• Racefail: Rant 1: The fairies - the good, happy, sunny, nature-loving, communist fairies - all have RP English accents. I imagine this is at least partly because Ms Jolie does best role-playing an RP accent, as she did in the Tomb Raider films. But then the film-makers decided to give the humans - the greedy, vain, grabby, grubby, feudal humans - Scottish accents.
  
  And then the one human who ends up proving to be the unifying element between the races is the one raised by the (English) fairies. Who, of course, doesn’t have a Scottish accent.
  
  Nice job there, film-makers, for (possibly unconsciously) enforcing and even glorifying the English colonialist perspective. You’d think Americans would know better, given all that business in 1776. Especially since there is plenty of evidence about that it is still entirely possible for people to oppress one another for racial, religious and socioeconomic reasons, even if they’re not officially doing it under the mandate of colonialism. Er.
  
  
• Racefail: Rant 2: The one (visibly) black actor with speaking lines is pretty much just there to get smacked in the face by the human king. Er.
  
  
• The Ending: Rant 1: The fairies - the good, happy, sunny, nature-loving, communist fairies - start off by having a lovely society in which everyone gets along by cooperating and sharing resources. They have no rulers. Maleficent, though she is powerful, pointedly requests the assistance of her peers when facing an outside threat.
  
  Then after getting a massive bee in her bonnet over the wing-stealing business, which is fair enough, she suddenly decides to set herself up as queen. An ill-tempered, capricious and dictatorial queen.
  
  Okay, in the end she has a change of heart and all is wonderful and beautiful again and she hops gladly off her throne. And instead of going back to their peaceful, delightful, communist society, the fairies decide, “You know what I miss about that period of darkness and fear? Having a queen! So let’s appoint this teenage human - humans have a wonderful history of tolerance and peaceful accord - that we hardly know into that capacity. What a great idea.”
  
  I mean...What?! Why not just declare peace between the two realms? There was no need to introduce a completely different and obviously flawed system of monarchical governance into the one that got along fine without it for centuries before that. And again, wtf @ Americans. Er.
  
  
• The Ending: Rant 2: Diaval. Am I mistaken, or did Maleficent set him up a little with that whole I-saved-your-life business? And then use him as a slave? And then at the end, he’s standing next to her, looking like he’s now her equal and after that flying around joyfully, looking like a partner and friend? Because that really bugs me.
  
  Yes, most American films err on the side of spelling out far too many things that don’t need to be. But in this case, I think we could have done with some explicit statements. Specifically, Maleficent releasing him from his obligations, which it appears she obtained on false pretenses and oh, I don’t know, at least verbally apologising for robbing him of his autonomy for a mere sixteen years. He deserved a little more compensation than, “If I take off the hair-shirt and step off this self-appointed throne, you’ll forgive me and we can have a normal relationship, yes? Yes. Good.” Er.

I know that most of these complaints can be easily dismissed if one takes the view that, for all the improvement in gender dynamics on the original Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, it’s still a Disney film. But I think it’s worth considering the places where it could easily have been done better (casting a more diverse set of actors), and where problematic elements were unnecessarily introduced (the rest of the above list).

First, the JUICE mission to Jupiter and its Galilean moons, which our group has been working on for ages, has been recommended by ESA to win the first launch in the Cosmic Vision programme. This is the BBC article about it. Please note that this is not the same as full approval - the member states of ESA have to vote on 2 May to select it over the other two proposed missions. But it is seen as "rather unlikely" that the member states will vote against the Space Science Advisory Committee's recommendation.

And second, my boss has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society. Professor Michele Dougherty, FRS. In your face, persons who claim women can't be great scientists.