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My favourite science writing

rosegeorge — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:10:05 +0000

I am in Cape Cod hanging out with scientists at the Provincetown Coastal Studies institute. It’s work, honestly, though when the skies and seas are blue and the sun is shining, it doesn’t feel like it. It was a glorious day during which I saw right whales, humpbacks, minkes, finns, grey seals and harbour porpoises, the sight of every single one feeling like the grandest privilege, and I come back to my hotel room to find this lovely piece by Chrissie Giles of the Wellcome Institute, in which she judges The Big Necessity her favourite piece of science writing. It is funny that today I was telling one of the scientists how weird it feels that my book is considered a science book when I was so bad at the subject at school, and that I in no way feel like one. It is a lovely review not least because she quotes something that no other reviewer has, but which is one of my favourite bits of the book, ie the encounter with the Japanese hair salon receptionist. Thank you, Chrissie.

The toilet barbarians

rosegeorge — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:43:29 +0000

I wrote a comment piece for the Yorkshire Post on the lack of public toilets in Leeds, the UK’s fourth largest city (and my home); and on the toilet barbarians who are closing down public toilets left, right, centre.

The President and pooh-pooh

rosegeorge — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:57:31 +0000

Last summer I went with WaterAid to Liberia. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been a hero of mine – with reservations – for a while, most importantly for keeping a country at peace when everyone expected it to go back to war. She’s also a hero of mine – with no reservations – for her support for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene). She has written an op-ed that includes the word “toilet,” and how many presidents have done that? So when WaterAid asked if I’d like to go to one of the countries they work in, and which one, I picked Liberia. Partly because of Ellen, but also because it is dizzyingly, terrifyingly wrecked and I wanted to know how any leader goes about fixing a country in such a state. I wrote the story in the end for Guardian Weekend magazine, after the magazine that originally commissioned it decided that “Ellen’s moment has passed” (this was just after she won the Nobel Peace Prize); and “we’re having an African charity appeal and we can’t have two African stories). So huge thanks to Guardian Weekend for daring to run something about shit when most magazines wouldn’t touch it. Here is the link to the Weekend piece. Photograph of me and the President below by Aubrey Wade:

Immingham

rosegeorge — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:48:09 +0000

The UK’s largest port, by tonnage. Coal, soybeans, oil, gas, Tesco, cars: it takes in everything that keeps us going.

All the use I have made of my eyes or my nose

rosegeorge — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:37:34 +0000

In a speech to the Metropolitan Sanitary Association 10 months before the launch of Bleak House, Charles Dickens declared his great mission as a reforming novelist: “I can honestly declare tonight, that all the use I have … made of my eyes – or nose [laughter] that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that searching sanitary reform must precede all other social remedies [cheers] and that even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are most needed, until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency.”

Hear, hear.

It’s dark, so you want to go home?

rosegeorge — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:14:05 +0000

I translated as best I could the transcript of the final phone call made to Captain Schettino, commander of the Costa Concordia, by Gregorio De Falco of Livorno Coastguard. According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, this was the third phone call. During the first two, disbelieving Coastguard officials had asked the captain if he was on board his ship. “No, I’m not, and I’m not going back there.” Also according to Il Fatto, he had by this time already taken a taxi, telling the taxi driver, “get me as far away from here as possible,” whereupon the taxi driver took him to his home and made him a coffee. That, apparently, is where the third phone call took place. Even if you don’t speak Italian, you can gather what’s going on in the original recording by the increasingly incandescent tones of the Coastguard official. At one point he is nearly spitting with disbelief and rage. It is looking very, very damning for the captain. My translation:

COASTGUARD (Gregorio De Falco): hello? Captain? This is De Falco in Livorno
SCHETTINO: Good evening, Captain
CG: Tell me your name please.
S: Schettino, Captain
CG: Schettino?
S: Yes
CG: Listen, Schettino, there are people trapped on board. Go with your lifeboat to the bow of the ship, there is a rope ladder there. Get on the rope ladder and get on board the ship. Get on board the ship and tell me how many people there are. Is that clear? I am recording this conversation, Captain Schettino
S: OK, Captain, listen,
CG: Speak up!
S: OK, the ship, now, I am in front [of it]
CG: Captain, speak up! Take the microphone and speak up! Is that clear?
S: [talking to someone else] …lifeboat…tell it to come here, get it to come over here. Captain, right now, my ship is listing.
CG: I know. People are getting off it by the rope ladder on the bow. You go and get on the rope ladder on the opposite side, get on the ship and tell me how many people there are there and what they have with them. Is that clear? You tell me if there are children, women, people who need assistance and you tell me exactly how many are in each category. Is that clear? Schettino, you may have saved yourself from the sea but I’ll make you pay for sure. Go aboard.
S: Captain, please….
CG: Please nothing! You get back on board!
S: I am going there now with the lifeboat. I’m there. I haven’t gone anywhere, I am there.
CG: What are you doing, Captain?
S: I am here co-ordinating the evacuation.
CG: What evacuation are you co-ordinating? Get back on board and co-ordinate evacuation from on board. Are you refusing?
S: No, I’m not refusing anything.
CG: Are you refusing to go back on board, Captain?
S: No, no
CG: Tell me exactly why you are not going back [on the ship]?
S: I’m not going because there is another lifeboat stopped there.
CG: GET BACK ON THE SHIP. THAT IS AN ORDER. You have no other evaluations to make. You have declared abandon ship. I am now taking command. GET BACK ON THE SHIP. IS THAT CLEAR? Can’t you hear me?
S: Captain, I’m going back on board.
CG: You call me as soon as you get on board, there is my rescue official there.
S: Where is he?
CG: At the bow. Go! There are dead bodies, Schettino. Go!
S: How many dead bodies are there?
CG: I DON’T KNOW. ONE, I KNOW FOR SURE. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO TELL ME HOW MANY DEAD BODIES THERE ARE!!!
S: But do you realise it’s dark here and we can’t see a thing?
CG: SO WHAT? IT’S DARK SO YOU WANT TO GO HOME, SCHETTINO? IS THAT IT? GET ONTO THE SHIP BY THE ROPE-LADDER AND TELL ME WHAT CAN BE DONE, HOW MANY PEOPLE THERE ARE AND WHAT THEIR NEEDS ARE. NOW!!!
S: Captain, I have my second-in-command here.
CG: So both of you get on board then. What’s the name of your second-in-command?
S: Dmitri
CG: Dmitri what?
S: Dmitri [inaudible]
CG: Get back on board
S: Captain, I want to get aboard but here there is the other lifeboat, there are other rescuers who stopped. Now I have called other rescuers.
CG: You’ve been telling me that for an hour. Now get back on the ship. GET. ON. BOARD. And tell me immediately how many people are on board.
S: OK Captain, I’m going.
CG: NOW.
[HANGS UP]

Search

rosegeorge — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:37:46 +0000

Look at this. No posts for a month and then three at once.

I am sometimes called eclectic. I wonder why. Then I see the list of search terms that have carried people to this blog:

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RIP

rosegeorge — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:32:47 +0000

Also, please remember that hostage-taking by Somali pirates is not, as is often said, a bloodless business. It can go wrong. Glen Forbes, who runs the excellent Oceanus Live, today lists all the known hostages who have died or been killed by or relating to piracy and hostage situations. They are:

Marie Dedieu; 66 year-old, disabled French tourist kidnapped from Kenya;
Christian Colombo; French yachtsman killed during the hijack of SY Tribal Kat. His wife, Evelyne, held hostage was rescued by naval forces;
4 Americans – Jean and Scott Adam, Phyllis Mackay and Bob Riggle; killed after SY Quest was hijacked, and negotiations were being conducted with a US warship in the vicinity;
David Tebbutt; British tourist killed during the kidnap of his wife, Judith, from a holiday resort in Kenya;
Filipino Bosun and 2 others; [Beluga] Nomination. Killed in retaliation as a consequence of a rescue attempt, and one drowned whilst escaping; (mystery still surrounds the incident);
Wu Lai Yu; Master of hijacked Jih Chun Tsai 68. Killed in crossfire, despite ransom having been paid;
2 Indian sailors – Akbarali Mamad Sanghar (Captain) and Jakku Suleiman Sandi of Tiba-2 Halima following rescue mission by the Royal Omani Navy;
6 sailors – died of unspecified illnesses - abandoned FV Prantalay 12;
1 sailor – one of six sailors taken from crew-disabled MV Leopard (abandoned vessel picked up by Turkish navy);
2 sailors – reported to have died from MV Asphalt Venture crew members kept behind when the vessel was released after ransom payment.

And those are the ones we know about. It has been rumoured that another hostage from MV Iceberg, whose crew have now been held captive for over eighteen months, has also died, but that can’t be verified. A film by Neil Bell of Rabotat films about MV Iceberg will be released/screened next year. Neil kindly let me see the whole thing in its current form, and it is excellent. Here meanwhile is a trailer.

The Pirates of Somalia Trailer from neil bell on Vimeo.

A pizza-sized hole

rosegeorge — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:26:05 +0000

Happy New Year! Apologies for my silence; I am trying to write my book and so neglecting this blog. But here, to salute a brand new year – and thank god for it, because the last one was as appalling as the one before – is a Washington Post story about how a pizza-sized hole in a sewer caused DC WASA, the sewerage authority of Washington DC, $1 million and 3 weeks in repairs, according to George Hawkins, the indefatigable (he’s still in post, isn’t he?) head of DC WASA. And that is just one hole on one street. The American Society of Civil Engineers, who I often quote for their D-minus rating of US water and sewer infrastructure from 2005, have released new reports into the state of the nation’s pipes, and it is not comforting reading. $9.4 more billion dollars is needed every year to plug holes and fix breaks in fragile pipes between now and 2020. And still people ignore everything that they shouldn’t. I’ve been saying the same thing for so long that I’m boring myself, but ignoring sewer infrastucture is just stupid.

“People count on turning on the faucet and having clean water come out,” said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), chairman of the subcommittee on water. “Our nation’s water infrastructure is reaching a tipping point.”

People live by assumptions and expectations. But having a fully functioning sewer system in your city should not be one of them. It needs care and attention, in all sorts of ways.

WASH media awards

rosegeorge — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:57:30 +0000

In 2009, I was asked to serve as chair of the jury for the 2009-2010WASH media awards organized by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, an organization as excellent as its name is clunky. It was a great privilege and very humbling, particularly in this day and media age, to meet journalists who see their career as a vocation, who understand that they can bear important witness, and who choose to write about the too-often neglected topic of water and sanitation. Inevitably I was particularly interested in seeing good journalism about sanitation, but the awards are open to any journalist, in any media, writing about sanitation, hygiene or water issues. Here is this year’s call for entries:

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) welcome entries for the fourth edition of the WASH Media Awards. This competition is open to journalists who publish or broadcast original investigative stories and reports on water supply, sanitation or hygiene (WASH) related issues and their impact on individual and country development.

Entries must be published or broadcast between 1st April 2011 and 1st April 2012 in English, French or Hindi (works not originally produced in one of these languages must be submitted together with a translation). Eligible formats are: print & online, TV, radio, cartoons & photos.

Six prizes will be awarded: one for the best entry in print & online format, one for the best entry in radio format, one for the best entry in cartoons & photos format, one for the best entry for the theme ‘economics of sanitation’, one for the best entry from a journalist based in a high-income country or a reporter working for an international media outlet. Prizes 1 to 5 will be awarded to journalists from developing and middle income countries. The six winners will receive a cash prize and will be invited to participate in the World Water Week in Stockholm in August 2012 as special guests of WSSCC and SIWI.

Entries must be received no later than 1st April 2012, together with a duly filled in entry form, by regular post or email to wsscc@wsscc.org. For more information and to download entry forms please visit here.