Hermes 4 - DESY Old Guys 4

I'm back at DESY in Hamburg for one last time. The Hermes experiment has stopped running, as has the accelerator where it was situated. To mark this occasion all past and present workers were invited to a 2-day-long party.

The highlight of these celebrations was a football match against the senior team of the accelerator. The match was quite a light-hearted affair, with numerous substitutions and an age range of approaching 50 years. I played for both sides (the DESY team had a couple of injuries and no substitutes) and ran around a lot.

A player from the DESY team told me that there are plans to build some new accelerator facilities on the DESY football pitch. This seems a pity, for the football pitch was one of the nicest things about DESY.

Lanose and other words.

Whilst sat on shift here in Hamburg I have been quite busy solving crosswords from the Guardian. My favourite clues of the past week have been

8's is 2. (two words, four letters each)

and

Author who can balance a pint on her head whilst playing snooker. (two words, first word seven letters, second word six letters)

The first is very easy if you think in the right way, the second requires a knowledge of english children's literature and of bad puns. In total I needed several hours and a few extra letters to solve them, though. In addition to these nice clues, which give an AHA! feeling when you find the answer, there are some clues which give a WTF?! feeling. One such answer was "Lanose", which was the last clue I found today.

Lanose is of course a little-known synonym for woolly. Little known in this context means that I have never heard of it. Any reasonably all-round educated person (such as my intelligent and discerning readers) would spot that it is derived from "lana" which is latin for wool, but being a beer-swilling germanic sort of bloke it passed me by.

But now I know, and I will try to remember. I will also try to remember that 2 is the cube root of 8, and that beer-tricks potter wrote some lovely children's books.

I now only have one shift left, and am slowly getting the hang of it. The key is to turn off your mind, and just follow stupidly the rules from here. It is then very refreshing to occasionally turn on the mind again and take a random journey through the world of english language and culture.

DESY bicycles

As an equal opportunities employer, DESY has to make sure that they don't discriminate against anyone. As all employees have the right to hire out a bicycle, these bicycles must all be suitable for everyone. On the principle of the lowest common denominator, this means that everyone gets a bicycle designed for a female midget.

It took me 2 days to work out that I had borrowed a ladies bicycle. I sort of wondered why my knees could touch, and why my back leg kept crashing against the basket above the rear wheel as I got on and off. Today I realised that the cross-bar was missing, and that I could just swing on and off lady-like. I don't cycle lady-like, though, I cycle like a baboon, with arms and legs pointing out at ridiculous angles.

This afternoon my bike got a puncture, so I pushed it to the nearest bike shop and asked whether they could repair it. They said that they could have it done by Friday, but they let me borrow the tools to do it myself, which was nice of them. This sort of cheered me up, I think, and I am feeling much better than in the past couple of days.

The importance of being useless.

Yeah, I know, it's a shit title, but this week was never going to be a literary highlight for this blog. I have nearly got through four of my seven shifts, which is some reason for hope. I am still sat here on shift, and am completely incompetent. When I started at HERMES five years ago I saw some people here on shift and wondered "how can anyone be so fucking stupid". Now I know, for I have touched the depths of utter incompetence.

My job here could be performed by a rather unintelligent robot, and 99.9% of the computing time for this dumbass robot would be trying to walk up a flight of stairs to reach terminal 2.

Situation: Monitor says "Magnet preparation"
Response: Type command list (a) into terminal 1, and press enter.

Situation: Monitor says "Luminosity run"
Response: Press button routine (I) into terminal 2.

Then every 2 hours type command list (b) into terminal 1, and press enter.

and every 4 hours copy some values from terminal 3 onto piece of paper.

Situation: Monitor says "Please turn off your HV"
Response: Press button routine (II) into terminal 2.

Situation: Something goes red, or beeps.
Response: Call phone number x-xxxx

Typically I have to perform a couple of these tasks in an eight hour shift. The saddest thing is that I am useless at it. It should be impossible to fuck up this job, but I keep forgetting to do stuff.

I have a feeling that my job performance and state of mental happiness are interlinked. It's not easy to care when you don't give a shit.

You're so perfect you don't interest me at all.

I went for a walk today, from DESY through the pretty suburb of Othmarschen, down to the River Elbe, then along the beach to the Museumshafen (literally a harbour museum, this is where several old ships are maintained). Everything is beautiful, green, clean, safe, and friendly, for this is one of the richest suburbs of one of the richest towns in the world. Everything was just like it was the last time I was here, and it will stay this way for a while, too, as it is pretty much perfect the way it is.

I don't know whether it's just the monotonous perfection, or the fact that every cafe and restaurant reminds me of someone I once loved, or the fact that I'm on shift, sat 20m underground doing fuck-all, but I'm feeling down. I wish I was excited by being in a big city, but I've seen all I want to see of Hamburg, and I want to go home.

Hamburg again

The least said about Hamburg and Hermes the better. It's depressing me too much, and I want out of here.

I'm surfing the internet quite a lot at the moment, and am desperate enough to read the reports of english county cricket matches. The bitterest rivalry in county cricket is Yorkshire vs. Lancashire. It all goes back to the wars of the roses, and neither team likes to lose this match.

Often, if a match is heading for a certain draw because there won't be enough time for all the innings to be completed, a captain in a commanding situation will make a "sporting declaration". This means that he forfeits some of his batters to speed up the game, losing potential runs in the process. The upside is that there is then more time to bowl out the other side and win the match, the downside is that the other team could win. In any case the spectators will be entertained, and a win would be worth many more points than a draw.

A defeat by your bitterest rivals is unacceptable, though, so Yorkshire decided to carry on batting through the last day to secure a safe draw. For the last few hours of the match there was no possibility of victory. Blah blah blah, you say. Well all this is leading to a lovely quote from the match report on the bbc website.

Such was the dull nature of the game in the closing stages, Lancashire's Mal Loye fielded wearing a trilby hat.

Suddenly appearing objects

I have very good eyesight, but sometimes I just don't see stuff. After three days in Hamburg I discovered that they had built a new police station right at the entrance to DESY. I managed to pass this building several times without noticing it at all, and was surprised to say the least when I got off the bus this afternoon right next to a police station.

I also spend three evenings in the control room of hermes and never noticed the bottle of champagne which has a label declaring that in should be opened "for the first recoil proton". The new detector at hermes is called a recoil detector, as it detects things which are going forwards, but not as much forwards as other stuff which is going forwards. This means that anybody who happens to be going forwards at a good rate themselves would conclude that the stuff detected by the new detector is actually going backwards.

So if the new detector ever detects one of these "recoil protons" it is time to open the bottle of champagne. At the moment the recoil detector is in lots of small parts, and the experts are welding and hammering it back into shape. To be honest, I think that buying champagne and labelling it "for the first recoil proton" is a rather safe investment.

Key Access

I am back in the east hall of the Hera ring, looking after the Hermes experiment. Things have changed since I was here in November. The polarised target, which was my special bit of apparatus, was removed and replaced by a new detector.

The most obvious things here are the gaps. The new detector has gone into the place of the old polarised target, but it isn't as big. There are now places you can walk where you used to have to climb or crawl. There are gaps in the array of electronics, too, whole racks are missing. The odd thing is that nobody pushed the remaining things together, they just left the holes as they were, as a kind of reminder of what used to be.

One thing that hasn't changed is the chance for a key access. The experiment and accelerator are enclosed behind concrete blocks, and you can't get into the experiment when the accelerator is running because of the high radiation levels. If there is a short break then it is possible to go inside and try to mend the odd broken cable. To do this you have to talk to some guy in the accelerator control room, and say who you are. The sound system is really bad, though, so the guy just makes his best guess as to what you might be called. Of course you can help by giving some context: "Nass wie feucht" or "Vogel wie Tweet Tweet" [1]. Then you are allowed to take a key, and pass through the gate. Today we went in and reattached one cable, and swapped two others round.

[1] I have a collaborator whose name translates as "Wet", and one whose name translates as "Bird". For such circumstances it is easy to pass on the correct name.

Call to Arms

Next week I get to go to Hamburg to help out Hermes, in an effort to at least to show willing. The following play for three people sums up the situation. I don't know quite who the other people might be, but I am one of the folk dancers.

Act 4 scene 2.

A fort somewhere, at some time. The captain walks the ramparts, taking stock and surveying the damage from the previous day's bombardment. In the background the remaining bodies are being disposed of.

enter Lieutenant

Captain: What news bringeth ye.

Lieutenant: The enemy hordes are amassing, sir. Their construxion of the siege weapons runs apace. Our supplies are low, the powder is short. The west wall is but a ruin. We cannot hold for much longer.

Captain: Yet hold we must. Avast, what spieth I.

Lieutenant. A messenger of the King! What chance relief?

Captain: Open the gates! Let the messenger arrive.

enter messenger.

Messenger: I bring news, Sir, from the king.

Captain: Hold not your tongue! Which news do you bring.

Messenger: The king acknowledges your request for support.

Lieutenant: Yes, is the Cavalry brigade underway? Are the 18 pounders being towed as we speak?
Has the counter offensive on the eastern flank set forth?

Messenger: The king did his best to fulfill your request, Sir. Alas, the cavalry are preparing for the royal wedding and could not be spared. The artillery are stuck east of the river and cannot cross until after the bridge is officially opened. However, his highness sends news of reinforcments.

Captain: Reinforcements, what form do they take? When will they arrive?

Messenger: They are on their way as we speak, Sir. Hark, I hear them now.

Lieutenant: I hear but the sound of bells and and song. Which regiment shall it be.

Messenger: No less than the queens own folk dancers. It is the most which could be spared, Sir.

Lieutenant: What use be the folk dancers against the combined Mongol horsemen, Zulu Impi and Martian tripods amassed against us?

Captain: The world champion chip awaits. Let battle comments.