In Pursuit of Genius

Whilst training just a touch too hard for University Challenge, I took a little time out to read an article in New Scientist. This concerned the sought-after mental state of "flow". In this mental state, everything is possible, your reactions are sharper, and time appears to fly by. Previously thought to be achievable by only the very best, athletes, marksmen and the like, it now seems that this magical state is within the grasp of us mortals.

By this point, I was mentally exhausted. I no longer knew my own name, but I could inform you that William Rufus had heterochromia, the deepest lake in Europe is in Norway and that the Hellespont is named such because mythical twin Helle fell off a flying golden ram into it and drowned. My state of mind was not "flow". It was more "stagnant".

So, the window to this mental state seemed like a nice one to open. Unfortunately, this relies on something called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and the machine that can provide that is going to set me back £5000. If anyone has a spare £5000 lying about, it would be greatly appreciated.

Meanwhile, a phrase in the article which caught my eye was "cosmetic neuroscience". This is a DIY approach to tailoring your own brain to the demands of the modern world. Technology is evolving faster than we are, so why not use technology to make ourselves a bit better?

A quick look at a few web forums make clear why not. Some enthusiasts report temporary blindness, staining of the skin, burning and flashing lights in front of the eyes. Most alarmingly, one user reported feeling a burning sensation within their brain.

Perhaps not then. Perhaps my current state of docile idiocy is safest.

In any case, tCDS is yet to aid in the absorption or recollection of facts. It mostly helps when learning new tasks, or in the cases of people being treated for degenerative diseases, relearning old ones. There are fears, however that this may be possible in future. Just as today, ambitious students with parents to please are resorting to dopamine reuptake inhibitors to get them the university grades they need, precautions may be needed to prevent future students from "electrodoping".

I can give this advice to any university officials worried about their students using a nine-volt battery to get them through their exams. They're the ones with green-stained skin and burns on their temples.

How to Love Mondays

I currently love Mondays. This is not because I have been visited by James Reed. This is because I don't work, and have nothing to do particularly.

However, I am trying to get a job. More specifically, I am working on my dream job of becoming a writer/renowned genius/unicorn-riding ninja. Unfortunately, the number of "useful tools" on the internet is so vast that they all are made useless. Let me give you an example by telling you the state of my web browser this morning.

I opened my emails. My emails suggested I look at a job that had just become available at the BBC. This reminded me that I still hadn't posted off my application to Focus. I opened the Focus website. As part of the application for Focus, I had to include my term dates. The Liverpool University website opens.

Next, an email from my mother reminds me that I haven't posted anything on Fiverr yet. Annoyingly, Fiverr wants an example photo of my work. I'm a writer. I have to now take a photograph of a piece of paper. Whilst not taking a photograph of a piece of paper, I remember that I haven't checked People Per Hour for a while. I suggest to potential employers that they google Sachtastic or Sacha Torregrosa-Jones.

I then realise that I may have made a fatal mistake. I google Sachtastic. Luckily, my website sprouts first, followed by, annoyingly, Roblox. I try to delete my Roblox account. The people at Roblox kindly inform me that there is not currently any feature for deleting my account. I wonder how this is legal and resolve to do something about it later.

The next link is for something called Scribd, which I signed up to last March and promptly forgot about. This would probably be a useful tool if I ever had time to write anything which wasn't instantly devoured by one or other of my projects.

So, my browser window is now a mess. Happy Monday.

Far from having nothing to do, I've suddenly uncovered all the things I should have been doing when I was in university. I also have to email all the publications I telephoned last Monday to tell them, in writing, why they need me to work for free for them for two weeks.

I'm also supposed to be revising my stripy little socks off for University Challenge, going to ASDA, doing my electronics tutorial and apologising to the editors I already have for not sending them anything recently.

I want to know how I ever coped before I had Mondays. I love Mondays. They enable me not only to get things done, but also to realise how much I'd forgotten needed doing.

Finally! A reason for my blog to be.

Frequent visitors to this blog may have wondered what it was all about. I do not blame you. I must admit, I was also struggling to work it out.

Despite multiple attempts to write articles with some sort of underlying theme, my boredom would inevitably get the better of me, and I'd find myself writing about tea one week and the theatre the next.

This is a problem.

As an aspiring journalist, a blog is an essential tool. It gives me practise when it comes to writing for an audience, and also provides me with work that I can showcase. However, all articles aimed at whippersnapperish journalistic types of my calibre clearly mention the fact that a blog needs a theme. This is how an audience is created and captured.

I have no theme. I have no guiding light, I have no purpose. I do not know my audience, all I know is that I want them. I need them.

I need you.

I don' t mean to sound desperate, and I'm really not. I am assured that "Is Anybody There?" is a fairly well-read blog. Even the title cries for attention, though- I ought to be ashamed.

I am not ashamed. I now know what this blog is. This blog, like the thousands which detail the many laments of thirteen-year-old girls, is about the life of the author. However, unlike the many desperate pleas for attention flung into the ether by adolescents, this is worth reading.

I will tell you why this blog is worth reading. I will tell you why this blog is worth putting in your favourites list. I will tell you why it is worth following @sachtastic on twitter. It is worth doing all those things because I am a person worth listening to, and I have things to say.

You had a dream once. It was probably to be a fairy princess or a superhero bus conductor. You're secretly still working towards that dream, I know you are. You've changed it a little, rubbed out the physically impossible aspects, but you've still got that dream.

My dream was to be a fantasy hero, riding a white horse so fast that none could beat it. I would be adept at archery and swordfighting, as well as being an enigmatic deuteragonist with a dangerously sharp wit.

Note deuteragonist. I don't want to be the hero that everyone loves. I want to be the slightly mad one that everyone wishes they could be. Including, evidently, me.

I want to sit in the background, playing puppet master, creator, hero and fiend all at the same time. In short, I want to write. I know I can do it. The thing is, there's no point to my fantasy character if nobody reads her.

So read me. For once, this blog is not about tea, or Alan Bennett, or the perils of the internet. This blog is actually about me, about who I am, and about the course I am steering for. I am here now, exposing my metaphorical squishy sensitive parts that you might peruse me, and if the scratchy hessian mittens of criticism* bring tears to my eyes, what does it matter?

In my writing, the hero of my imagination, who put me to sleep as a child, is born.

I turned twenty earlier this month. I am into my third decade on this planet and I can't help but think that I'm going to have to start making sure I have an impact.

From now on, this blog is about the journey I am taking. I will one day be a writer, a real writer, not a blogger, not a smidgen above angsty teenager, a proper writer. If all goes well, I hope it will serve as a guide for the budding journalists and writers of the next generation. If all goes badly, I hope it will serve as a cautionary tale to the budding journalists and writers of the next generation.

Deuteragonist seeks protagonist. Must be willing to offer me a job, and to let me ride a white horse. Ta.

*Note: I am not serious about this metaphor.

Sherlock Sacha: On the case!

Spoiler alert: the following is a combined review of both Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows and the last instalment of Sherlock series two. Anybody who has not seen either would be well-advised to firstly note the URL of this blog, watch either or both, and then return.

If you only wish to watch one, I can inform you that Sherlock S02E03 gets 5 stars, but Sherlock Holmes 2 only gets four.

Both films dealt with the climactic showdown between Sherlock Holmes and his arch-rival James Moriarty, the scene at the Reichenbach Falls.

Guy Richie’s blockbuster dealt with the picture with what you might call “authenticity”- keeping close to the iconic Sidney Paget image of the two men fighting over the Falls. However, the rest of the film bore little resemblance to the plot of ‘The Final Problem’. It introduced Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes; Fry’s performance overshadowed all else. I understand that Mycroft Holmes is supposedly far superior to his brother in terms of intellect, but Fry’s character was too much.

The story was packed with near-misses, well-calculated fights and the liberal and largely unrealistic use of artillery. Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes was unremarkable, Jude Law’s Watson perfectly likeable. Irene Adler kicked the bucket rather conspicuously and pointlessly, but as she was a hideously irritating character, her passing acts in the film’s favour.

It is a perfectly good film, and very enjoyable. However, the margin of difference between a good film and a great film is so tremendous, that when I watched the conclusion to the BBC’s Sherlock, the Richie flick paled into utter insignificance.

I realised that big-screen Moriarty was all wrong- Conan Doyle meant Moriarty as Holmes’ equal, as an adversary worth sacrificing oneself to destroy. Big-screen Moriarty was dull, cruel where he should have been cunning, and most bafflingly of all, spoke with a Continental accent. I see no reason for this, and it was beyond irritating.

Fraction-of-the-budget telly Moriarty was vicious, a monster whose creativity was matched only by his deranged intent. Andrew Scott’s performance matches Cumberbatch’s without being overpowering, and Steve Thompson, who wrote by far the least exciting episode in the first series, made up for his dullness by constantly reinforcing the parallels between Holmes and Moriarty.

In fact, the story was so complete, so magnificent, I can think of only one criticism, and it is minor: there were far too many close-up shots of cups of tea. This will not help international relations.

So now I arrive at my final point of comparison, the very end for both Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis. Only, everybody knows Holmes survives the Reichenbach Falls, so there’s the puzzle- how do you inject excitement into a story everybody knows the ending to?

‘The Final Problem’ had a weakness in that it relied on the format of Watson acting as chronicler when Watson did not witness the death of Holmes. Both films dealt with it as well as could be done, as both Watsons saw both Holmeses fall, and apparently die.

The silver-screen’s answer was all right, but nothing special. Rarely is a prop introduced with no relevance, and so it was with the breathing device which Sherlock apparently steals from Mycroft and uses to survive his plunge into the Falls. As if a lack of oxygen would be one’s primary concern after falling hundreds of feet into icy Swiss waters.

I wasn’t taken by the rest of the series, but if Sherlock S02 had been as entertaining throughout as it was in that climactic scene, my heart would have exploded long ago. In ‘The Final Problem’, Dr Watson is taken away from the detective’s side by a note from a sick Englishwoman needing the attention of an English doctor; in the BBC adaptation, John is told that Mrs Hudson has been shot.

Holmes knows otherwise, and goes for his final confrontation with Moriarty. Rather than a fist-fight, what ensues is a battle of great, if damaged minds. Such is James Moriarty’s insanity and determination to destroy Holmes that he takes his own life. This Moriarty was everything that the big screen version wasn’t.

I was also impressed, and a little disturbed, to see a piece of what can only be described as “matter” floating in the pool of Moriarty’s blood.

Though Sherlock calls John from the rooftop, and insists he is a fake, John does not believe him. John cannot believe him because he knows him, and though I said everyone knows Sherlock Holmes survives the Reichenbach Falls, and though I knew a third series had been commissioned, there seemed to be no way that the great detective could have survived that fall.

We see the body, bloodied from falling face-down on the pavement, see John’s hurt as his best friend is stolen away from him, by Death and by ambulance-men. At Sherlock Holmes grave, John begs for one last miracle: for Sherlock to be alive. Hollywood would have had him appear behind the doctor, but Sherlock did not go to him, did not arrest his grieving.

Incidentally- it didn’t take the mind of Sherlock Holmes to realise that what John Watson really should have said at his best friend’s graveside was “I love you.” I think it must be the mark of well-written characters that were they human, they would have no choice but to love each other. The reason is this: they have been so well-crafted to suit each other that they could not possibly exist without the other.

One day I hope to give birth to characters like those. Wish me luck.

Spare Time, or What's Left of It

In the Douglas Adams novel Life, the Universe and Everything, Slartibartfast expresses his intention to take up the octraventral heebiephone. As Adams explains, Startibartfast has "the wrong number of mouths", and any attempt to learn to play the heebiephone therefore would be, "pleasantly futile".

The point behind my latest diversion into the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is this: when I have something important to do, my spare time tends to be consumed by a far more complicated, and therefore more enjoyable, task. One which can be described in no better manner than with the words "pleasantly futile".

I have, at the moment, a very important thing to do. This is to revise my little blue socks off for my upcoming exams. This is of course, happening, but progress is slow. The problem is this- it can never truly end, thus rendering it a task which is unpleasantly futile.

Meanwhile, I have been using my Sunday and the fifteen minutes between revision hours attempting to construct a family tree for the entire pantheon of Greek gods. This is an incredibly slow task, especially as different writers give gods different origins and different names.

So far, I have positioned 59 different Olympians, mortals, Muses, Protogenoi, Titans and so on. I have written a biography for all but a handful. I am not yet proud of it, but I do feel a sense of impending pride.

I have hit upon something of a hurdle, however. After becoming tired of the many and varied progeny of Zeus, and returning to the primordial gods for some amusement, I hit upon the Wikipedia entry for Thaumas, the son of Gaia and Pontus (earth and sea). It said that he married and Oceanid.

Not thinking I had anything to fear, I tapped the link.

The writings of Dr. Wikipedia kindly informed me that the Oceanids were the children of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and there were three thousand of them.

Now I accept, being immortal, that you tend to have a lot of time on your hands. Boredom is going to set in eventually. "Tethys dear, shall we try for another?" "How long since the last one, Oceanus?" "About six hundred years." "Oh, that's a reasonable age gap, I suppose we could."

Three thousand, though? And that's just the daughters. The sons were known as Potamoi. Care to guess how many of those there were? That's right, another three thousand.

When I tried to find out the names of all these children, Dr. Wikipedia pointed out that only a "relatively small portion of their names" were actually given in Greek writings. It surprised me that Hesiod hadn't taken up the majority of his Theogony with listing them. In fact, fewer than two hundred Oceanids and Potamoi are named in all known Greek works.

All I can do is speculate then, that none of them were called Blue Ivy.

I must admit, the prospect of filling out another six thousand biographies, the latter 5800 with the word "Unknown", has moved my task from the realms of the possible but daft, into the land of the impossible and barking.

Back to revision then. Or learning the names and locations of all 27 French regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oceanids

In this game, you have to be more than just ahead

At around half one on the twelfth of December, I passed somebody in a doorway who gave me the news that there would be a broadcast from CERN the following day, and that there had been “findings”. I emailed my editor almost immediately, requesting to report on those findings, whatever they were.

I got no response.

At just before one on the thirteenth, I sat in the centre of the front row in a seminar room to watch the broadcast. I had my notebook in my arms and my Dictaphone on my lap. I was ready. Nobody was going to take this away from me. I had been ahead of the game.

Physicists: lecturers, researchers and students alike crammed into the tiny room at the University of Liverpool. The screen at the front of the room displays row after row of excited academic faces just like ours. The older members of the audience whisper the names of those they recognise; they are jealous of their position.

The aroma of sandwiches and crisps filled the room. Let it be known that, even when the world stands on the brink of the greatest scientific discovery in decades, lunchtime must be strictly observed.

When the broadcast started, there were early technical difficulties. As it progressed, they became on-going technical difficulties, and by the end of the broadcast, were late technical difficulties.

I ended up moving to another screen, standing in a warm corridor with plenty of other people who had no idea what was going on, holding my Dictaphone above the others’ heads.

I must admit, I knew at the time that what I was doing was futile, that I was resigned to the fact that my editor had ignored my email and that the story would be passed on to the first of my illiterate cowriters to fumble a desperate message on their iPhone.

The eventual response from my editor, when I asked if someone had got in before me was “hiya yer”- Which added quite a bit of insult to my already considerable injury.

Do you know what, though? Sod them. I’m reporting on what CERN found, right here, right now.

Two experiments possibly found something, in roughly the same place, but not quite. It’s all a bit vague. They do, however, agree on the fact that we are a long way off confirming anything and the Higgs Boson will not be announced as a discovery until after more experiments in the following year. I wasn’t disappointed by this, but many of my (mentally) younger colleagues were.

The ATLAS experiment, represented by Fabiola Gianotti, concluded that the Higgs mass is somewhere around 125 GeV. All good scientists should know, however, that a discovery is not a discovery until it has been found to be accurate to something called five-sigma. The Higgs was “found” by ATLAS at 126 GeV at 3.6 sigma. This, incidentally, is a long way off five, and in theory, the readings that scientists are hoping is the Higgs… well, it could just be statistical anomalies.

These are fun in their way, but a massive waste of time and money. As Ms Gianatti put it, “I think it would be really kind for the Higgs Boson to be here.”

After ATLAS concluded their piece, the majority of people left. Only the most advanced particle physicists, many as they were, understood even half of what was going on, and being so advanced, they mostly had better places to be.

I must confess that I too left the corridor and returned to the problem class I was supposed to be in an hour earlier.

I am proud of being there though. I have, on my Dictaphone, a recording of a physicist making a joke. I suffered to get that; I had to trawl through a great deal of tape that was too noisy, or too scientific to use- just for that one sound bite. My arms ached from holding the thing aloft for the best part of an hour.

I was there, though. I stood on the edge of history, all for the distant and evanescent hope that I might one day write it.

Oh, and Merry Christmas. May your dreams be as deep and crisp and even as you want them to be, and may I have the sense to write a festive blog entry next year.

Universally Challenged

I know. I’ve been away. It’s because I’m struggling to express one particular concept. To corrupt a cliché, I have managed to snatch failure from the jaws of success.

Anyone who knows me, or has read this blog before will be mightily aware that I have a certain infatuation with the idea of appearing on University Challenge. The sad fact is, I may be about to miss that train.

I’m the reserve. I’m the cursewording reserve.

Out of the fifty or so who took the test, most were abysmal-let’s face it, most people are at most things. It’s a fact we live with, move on from but still have to put up with at times. There were just six candidates that stood out well above the rest. The team were in that six. I was in that six. One unlucky fellow was also in that six.

I guess I should count my blessings that I’m not him, her, it, zir or em. Another day, different questions, and I might have been. Say, if George hadn’t told me that Niels Bohr had said a particular something, or if I hadn’t looked up the dates of Immanuel Kant that morning. These two facts have now slipped my mind, but they came to my aid when I needed them.

That person is wandering around right now, stunned by the fact that they aren’t as much of a genius as they thought they were. Do they know how close they came?

I hope not. It’s rubbish knowing that you were a whisker from success. It’s rubbish being the reserve. I’m not going to poison the others, break their limbs or anything like that. I can’t pretend I wish them all well though.

They’re my Facebook friends. We went out for drinks last week. I had to sit in the pub with them, knowing that if anything on Greek Mythology comes up I’m going to be eating my own shoes in the audience, despairing that they don’t know any of it- but I do. I had to sit in the pub with them, knowing that I’m not really one of them, and that if I really want to get onto University Challenge, one of them is going to miss out.

If that happens, will they hate me? I want it to happen. I want one, non-specific member of the team to go down with crushing gastroenteritis an hour before we go to film the first round. I want him to gladly give his place to me. It might be bad for team spirit, but I’d love to save the day, I really would.

So perhaps it’s my calling to be the reserve. My brilliance has been confirmed, so my ego isn’t suffering. I probably won’t get onto the program, but there is still a chance. There is a chance of me being the happiest person alive for just a little bit, as a door that was creaking shut suddenly opens for me.

I want it to happen. I know it won’t. Wish me luck.