Smoking

Smoking is an emotive subject. The popular view now seems to be that smokers are, at best, deluded fools hastening themselves to an early grave and, at worst, murderers.

I’ve never smoked (well, I say never - when I was 19 I smoked for about half a day but stopped because I couldn’t see what the fuss was about) but I have lived with smokers all my life. My mum smokes, my paternal grandparents smoked, my maternal uncles smoke - many the Christmas I sat after dinner in a room with up to 8 other people, all smoking, watching the air gradually fill with blue smoke.

But I’ve never been a smoking Nazi; if you want to smoke, I don’t mind. Indeed, there are certain instances where I WANT people to be smoking. The major one of these is in a pub.

There’s been a trend over the last few years to turn pubs into family entertainment. Woe betide the pub that doesn’t do food these days, or have a family room, or a kids play area, or a non-smoking policy. But I’m sorry that is not what a pub is for. Even though as a kid I spent quite bit of time in various pubs (nods to the Martello and the Windsor Tavern at this point), I don’t agree with kids in pubs. (Sorry to those friends of mine that have kids and like a drink). A proper pub is not a suitable place for children.

Proper pubs, though, are fading fast. What do I mean by proper pub? Well:

• You can smell it from the other end of the street; a proper pub has a distinctive smell, of died-in-the-wood ale, smoke, and long-term drinkers.
• It’s generally on the corner of the street - preferably with those green tiles half way up the building. You know, those green tiles that you only ever see on pubs.
• It is quite dark inside; the hardened drinker doesn’t want to see himself too well in the mirror above the bar.
• You can buy crisps and peanuts - maybe even chocolate - but you can’t buy dinner. Dinner is something you have before you come in or after you leave.
• You can smoke and they sell cigars from behind the bar.
• Regulars have their own seat and their own glass.

Most establishments that call themselves a pub these days aren’t proper pubs. You have to put up with kids running about (we’ll leave the poor parenting rant to another day), you have to put up with people eating all round you, you have to put up with clean air and no atmosphere.

I’ve never got this whole “passive smoking” idea either. As I said, I grew up with a family of smokers and it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. I don’t have asthma - a friend of mine, from a family of non-smokers, is way worse off than me there - it hasn’t stunted my growth (6′ 4″), and it doesn’t seem to have effected my ability to think for myself. So what’s the big deal?

I agree that smoking may not be the best thing that you can do for yourself (after all, you’re setting fire to something and then breathing in the results) but it is legal, so if you want to smoke, go to it. In fact, I’ll buy you a pint!

Formula Student - not as successful as it could be?

Thanks for visiting. For all the latest articles, check out our new home at http://wolfshowl.com.

I wanted to put a link here to the University of Sussex Formula Student webcam, but at the moment it appears not to be working; this could be because the UniSus Formula Student car is not working. Recent testing has proved to be problematic to say the least. (If the camera - or indeed the car - starts to work, I’ll update the post.)

But what is Formula Student I hear you ask (or at least I think I do - or perhaps the medication is wearing off). It’s the British equivalent of an American competition - Formula SAE- that aims to promote understanding of, and participation in, automotive engineering amongst university students, by getting them to build and then compete a single-seater racing car.

The premise of the competition is that the students are preparing a prototype car to present to a multinational car company. They have to design the car (within limitations laid down in the competition rules), build it, finance it and also present the car. The idea is that - as an elective project for engineering students - Formula Student will give participants the chance to put into practice the theory that they learn in their lectures.

My experience of Formula Student is third-hand; a friend of mine is a research student at Sussex, and is writing a thesis on the Educational Worth of Formula Student. A thesis which I’ve been dragged into as editor. In addition to this, in 2003 I went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where a number of the more successful teams - including that of Brunel University - were showing their cars and looking for sponsorship.

On the face of it, Formula Student seems like a good idea; as a non-engineering type of guy, I think I’d jump at the chance to be involved in a competition such as this. But in practice it seems that the competition suffers for several reasons.

First is timing; the competition takes place in July which is exam season. If you’re studying hard for your degree and you’re also involved in a non-credit project, which are you going to drop when time gets short?

Second is the fact that it is a non-credit, elective course. There is no incentive to complete the course, no tying it in with the curriculum, no credits gained towards the degree.

Third is the lack of support that some teams have to suffer with. Some universities - Bath, Leeds and Brunel have good reputations here - integrate Formula Student very well and the team has the support of academic and technical staff to get the car to the competition and make sure it does well when it gets there. Other universities do not have this support - whether because of a lack of resources or lack of interest from staff - and this indifference transmits itself to the team.

A number of papers on this subject have been submitted to the SAE: Integrating Formula SAE, Project Based Learning and Culture, and the just published Culture, Money and Space and are well worth checking out.

What I’d like to see is Formula Student made an integral part of the Engineering curriculum, with faculty committed to helping their students get through to the competition where they successfully complete all the events (are you listening Sussex?:-)). Until then, it’s really not worth the effort.

Fix You

[Edit: I've taken down the link to the YouTube "Fix You" video, because I've seen that it's available to buy - for the very reasonable price of $3 - from here, with proceeds going to the Chorus. Why not buy it and help them out?]

This one is for anyone that saw the Channel Four documentary last year “Young @ Heart”. If you didn’t see it, “Young @ Heart” is the story of the octogenarian chorus line of the same name from New England.

The documentary followed some of the main people behind the choir as they prepared to go out on tour and as they learned new songs. One of those new songs was “Fix You” by Coldplay, originally planned to be a duet between returning Young @ Heart veteran Fred Knuttle and his good friend Bob Salvini. Sadly, while rehearsals were still ongoing, Bob died. Fred, who himself suffers from a heart condition that had forced him to give up regular performing with the chorus, decided that he would sing the song solo as a tribute to his friend.

This video is Fred’s performance that closes the documentary and which - if you’ve watched the trials and tribulations, the triumphs and the heartaches, the tears and the laughter up to that point - can’t help but bring tears to your eyes.

It’s also the best version of the song that I’ve ever heard.

If you get the chance to see the documentary, take it. Whilst it has its sad moments, it is a masterpiece of feelgood television which is guaranteed to lift your spirits.

You can find out more about the Young @ Heart chorus at their website.

Google has a sense of humour

Not sure how long this link will last, but it’s quite funny.

Click the link