It seems "Jaffa" has lost all meaning

Jaffa Cakes were called Jaffa Cakes because the jelly bit was orange flavoured. The name has been stretched for a while, with all sorts of fruity flavours available. 

But McVities have now taken it a step further by dispensing with fruit as the flavouring altogether. Instead, their latest special edition Jaffa Cakes are "cola bottle" flavour. 

There is an unusual marketing tactic on the side of the box - basically daring you to prove you are brave enough to eat them.

The cola bottle saying "Sweeet!" sums up the flavour. They are very sweet with a slight cola flavour which did taste like cola bottle sweets. The jelly is brown like cola bottle sweets too. 

The "serving suggestion" is a mystery. It looks like cola bottle sweets floating in blood.

I remember when Jaffanatics were called Jaffaholics. McVities even used to advertise a Jaffaholics Anonymous phone line. I called them up once and they sent me some free toys called Tangs - they had 'koosh' bodies and funny faces.

Jaffanatics sounds better to me than Jaffaholics. It's important we don't over-medicalise this sort of thing. 

Bookshelf juxtaposition (biography edition)

It amuses me when random books get put next to each other and seem to contradict...

I spotted these two in a charity shop and it made me smile.

It's vaguely hopeful. However shit your life has been so far, tomorrow will be a good day. 

Well, maybe. 

(And yes, I've done this before, a couple of times)

Toys R Us R Back (sort of)

Toys R Us went bust a few years ago now - so long ago the former store was used as a mass vaccination centre (Jabs R Us) during the pandemic. 

But now it's back, resurrected by WH Smith and relaunched with a flurry of branding.

It had a clearly demarcated section in the branch of WH Smith where I first saw the Toys R Us sign.

And the company has gone all in on the branding, bringing Geoffrey the giraffe back to life in a variety of toys and other merch.

I appreciate how WH Smith have leaned into the branding, including this timeline of former iterations of Geoffrey that ends with him arriving in WH Smiths. 

This feels like more than the reappearance of a 'zombie brand'. There's been some investment in the launch.

And in the store where I first saw the Toys R Us comeback, there was even a photo opportunity with Geoffrey.

He looked rather relaxed about his return.

Pretty pebble beach balancing

I was lucky enough to go to my favourite beach during our recent week in Gogledd Cymru. One night I played around with some pebbles on the beach. The sun was setting and the light added to the fun.

Gogledd Cymru - Mehefin 2024

A short round up of our recently concluded holiday in North Wales. We did the touristy stuff because we had good weather and the area was gearing up for the touristy season.

We explored castles.

We explored beaches.

We built our own castles on the beaches (because Cymru doesn't have enough castles).

We saw little steam trains.

We rode on a steam train to Blenau Ffestiniog and for the first time ever in my life it wasn't raining when I went to Blenau Ffestiniog.

When we ran out of trains, we rode on trams.

And sometimes we just had to do the scenic driving ourselves.

Could this look more Welsh?

We were staying on a farm and got to meet the ducklings and the pigs.

And on a more wilder note, we went to the osprey centre and saw nesting ospreys (and chicks).

We were blessed with great weather every day and in the evenings we enjoyed pretty sunsets.

And that was our gorgeous holiday in North Wales.

Book of the Month: Existential Physics

The tagline 'A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions' grabbed my attention and made me buy this book by Sabine Hossenfelder, whose day job is studying quantum gravity at Frankfurt University.

The questions covered in Existential Physics are a mix of hard science (How did the universe begin? Are humans just bags of atoms or something more?) and speculation (Is the universe conscious? Do copies of us exist in a multiverse?) with some extra stuff that is a bit of both - hard speculation, if you will. 

Along the way, there are some very interesting summaries of what we can say for certain, and some ideas that scientists advocate for that are, at best, ascientific, meaning there is just no way, now, to know. 

The chapter on death and dying and how, on a human level, it illustrates entropy provided a me with a new take on the subject. Although there is no evidence for an "afterlife", and no workable scientific theory for one, the impression individuals make on the universe as "information" is never truly lost - unless it ends up in a black hole. Versions of us sort of might continue to exist, which is weirdly comforting.

I got a bit lost in the discussion about free will and determinism, which cropped up in a couple of places. I can accept that our universe is almost entirely predictable, if an observer had access to enough data and in that sense 'free will' as understood by most people doesn't actually exist. It's not a very intuitive way to approach things though - and Sabine acknowledges this and addresses the issue of holding people to account for their actions, whether those actions are pre-determined or not. There are a few similar diversions from physics into ethics throughout the book.

There is a small section of one of the later chapters that is probably the best precis I have ever read about artificial intelligence at this stage in the development of AI (pp207-210). Sabine outlines what is currently known about trying to create thinking machines and presents a convincing case that the first true AIs will be fragile and will struggle to survive.

"...artificial intelligences at first will be few and one of a kind, and that's how it will remain for a long time. It will take large groups of people and many years to build and train artificial general intelligences. Copying them will not be any easier than copying a human brain. They'll be difficult to fix when broken, because, as with the human brain, we won't beable to separate the hardware from the software. The early ones will die quickly for reasons we will not even comprehend."

That actually made me feel sad for the creations we might bring into being. Sabine also points out that these AIs will most likely be owned by people who are already rich and powerful and will reflect the ethics and interests of their masters. It's a very good point that I've not seen mentioned in other discussions of AI.

Another superb section is the interview with Zeeya Merali, which discusses whether it would be possible to bring another universe into existence. It's certainly doable in theory if beyond human current engineering ability in practice. But if a universe was created then it would separate off almost immediately, and develop detached from our universe. It could expand infinitely and sentient beings could evolve there and we would almost certainly never know, unless we discovered a way to observe other universes (which we can't do now, making the concept of a multiverse ascientific even though lots of scientists talk about it as established fact). 

This leads to a discussion of ethics and morality - what responsibility would the creator(s) of that universe have towards any beings that lived in it? That's an ethical conundrum in its own right. It also opens up the possibility that if it's theoretically possible that we could create universes, then this universe may also have been created in a similar fashion. Not that there is any need for a creator based on what we observe about our universe, but a universe created in a lab would probably look the same as ours from inside. 

Consciousness is a topic that crops up throughout the book. Trying to explain why humans have consciousness is really difficult - it's something that seems to be more than the sum of our parts (our constituent atoms) and if I understood what Sabine was saying, the observations of consciousness in complex combinations of atoms isn't something that could be predicted by just looking at those individual atoms. So, something currently unexplainable is going on. 

The final section of the book is about whether there is any purpose to everything. Sabine concludes that the desire to understand the universe is a meaningful purpose in itself, and I found that a satisfying way to end the book. 

I have read several 'popular science' books over the last few years. I found this harder than any I've read previously. The scientific terms come at the reader quickly and there were several occasions when I needed to re-read paragraphs. Some of the early chapters were particularly hardgoing, but I'm glad I powered through - either I got smarter as the book went on (unlikely) or the concepts were less bound up in mathematical theory so were easier to convey in words that a reader like me could grasp. 

As a plus point, though, Sabine includes a 'Brief Answer' at the end of every chapter which summarises all that has been said before into three or four sentences. I found that very helpful clarifying what I had just read. 

New philately phocus - pangolins

On Saturday 8th June I went to the annual general meeting of the British Thematic Assocation - the stamp collecting organisation I've belonged to for almost 15 years now. It was held in Swindon at an annual stamp fair called Swinpex, attended by several stamp traders and collectors.

Along with the usual AGM business, I saw a presentation about Sudan - in this case, not  the country! Sudan was the last known male Northern White Rhino whose death heralded the practical extinction of his species. The presenter, Jan, used a range of philatelic material to tell Sudan's personal story (he spent most of his life in Czechoslovakia after being captured as a calf in Sudan) and the story of how his species was hunted into extinction. 

This inspired me to make good on an idea I had to develop a presentation about a creature I've developed a fondness for - pangolins. I visited a dealer's stall and found some nice, inexpensive stamps to start a new collection. 

Pangolins are the only mammals with scales. They are also the world's most trafficked animal because their scales are used in "traditional medicine". Poaching levels are therefore high and pangolins are endangered as a result.

This sheet of stamps from Macau shows the Asian pangolin, which tends to be a tree-dweller. The pictures include a pangolin using its prehensile tail to hang off a tree branch.

The other stamps were from a mix of African countries and show the ground-dwelling pangolins that live on that continent. 

Rio Muni was the name given to Equatorial Guinea when it was a Spanish colony. The stamps show a chameleon and a pangolin. The other small set was used across French West Africa when they were colonies too. The Tanzania sheet includes a rhino on one stamp and a giant ground pangolin, that walks on its hind legs. 

I bought the nocturnal animals sheet because that's an important aspect of pangolin life. And Namibia is another country where pangolins live. (Also it had cool hexagonal stamps.)

I'm going to try and acquire some more stamps that explain a bit more about these fascinating creatures. 

Baseball in London - watching the MLB World Tour

A few weeks back my friend Gawain asked me if I'd like to go with him to a game in the Major League Baseball London Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets. Naturally I leapt at the chance to a) see some live baseball, and b) spend a day hanging out with Gawain! So off I went for the Sunday game in the series.

I saw the Mets play the Phillies a long time ago, way back in 2007 (and in the very early days of this blog! Here's my write up, which omits the most memorable part of that game, which was Art Garfunkel singing the National Anthem!)

I was in Swindon on the Saturday, so had driven on to Reading in the evening and stayed the night there. In the morning I caught a nearly empty train to London Paddington before swapping to the Elizabeth Line to Stratford station near the London Stadium, which was hosting the series. 

Train selfie

I was repping the Padres for the day. That's a thing at these games - everyone wears the shirts of the teams they support. I saw most of the MLB teams represented, a few minor league teams, and also some shirts from British teams including Cardiff Merlins, Sheffield Bruins and a guy with 'Telford' emblazoned across his shirt. I also saw an Expos cap - repping a team that disappeared almost 20 years ago when the franchise was relocated from Montreal to Washington and the team became the Nationals. Gawain was unique in his Cuba international shirt.

I visited Stratford station a few times during my time working a conference at the Excel Centre back in April. I had also visited the London Stadium in April to watch a football match - the playing area was quite different this time, however. It took me a while to work out where I stood in the stadium last time. But I got to see more of the stadium this time as we were able to wander around quite freely. 

We went and stood behind the Mets bullpen to watch the starting pitcher warm up, then meandered around to find some free seats.

We ended up sitting with the Mets wives and girlfriends, who all had very natty jackets with their names on the back. I imagine this was a road game where they all wanted to join their husbands and partners. We were joined at this point by Jamie, a Mets fan from the UK.

Cinnamon pretzel!

Philadelphia fan Rob McElhenny was there with his wife Kaitlin Olsen. He was introduced as the co-owner of Wrexham AFC. He was meant to be throwing the ceremonial first pitch and turned it into an even bigger "look at me" moment by changing it to "the first ever ceremonial double play!!" Later he and Kaitlin led the singing of 'Take me out to the ball game' during the seventh inning stretch

The Wrexham co-owner wasn't the only link to Cymru. Katherine Jenkins sang God Save the King before the game. She did pretty well to make that terrible tune listenable. But unfortunately she followed Marisha Wallace who sang The Star Spangled Banner with incredible force. I hadn't heard of Marisha before - she's a Broadway star apparently - but she had some pipes on her!

We also had some pre-game entertainment with songs from Jess Glynne. I don't know the names of the songs she sang, but I recognised them all when she sang them. She was pretty good and managed to sing without getting distracted by the mascots, Phillie Phanatic and Mister Met bobbing and weaving around her as she performed. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get near to the Phillie Phanatic and had to settle to watching his antics on the big screen. 

I got some relatively good photos of Mister Met though, as he came over to our section. 

As to the game, it took a while to get going. The pitching was atrocious. They had so many pitching changes the game ran over 3 hours. 

Both closers got relieved midway through the final inning. That was where the game lit up. The Mets were trailing 4-3 at the start of the ninth and were 3 outs away from a sorry defeat. Somehow they scrambled 3 runs from a mix of poor pitching and errors. The Phillies got a run back but couldn't tie the game and lost on a weird double play which involved the catcher tagging home plate before throwing to first after Nick Castellanos broke his bat swinging for the fences.

Some local knowledge from another UK based Mets fan, John, got us into Stratford Station without getting stuck in massive queues (like the ones I was in after the football match in April). From there it was another trip on the Elizabeth Line back to Paddington and then on to Reading and a drive down the M4.

Talking to Gawain, we concluded that many (maybe most) of the Mets and Phillies fans had come over from the USA to watch their team. This is probably what makes a series in London viable as both teams have large fan bases. There are baseball fans in the UK, and many are really into it, but there probably aren't enough to fill a stadium without being augmented by traveling support. 

The European series was meant to be in Paris next year but has apparently been pulled, so there probably won't be another opportunity to watch MLB this side of the Atlantic until 2026 at the earliest now.