Personal Stuff
On-the-ground
Support for Ukrainian Citizens
Walking on Fire
An Unexpected Honour
A Prestigious Lifeless Performance
Sharing a Stage with my Heroes
The Importance of a Full-time
Planetarium Manager ...
The Glasgow
Science Centre Solargraph
Meeting a Human Transformed by Space
Lifelong Carer for my Parents
Most people care about
their parents.
I though, was a carer for my parents from
age 6 (when I learned to read), until age 55 (when
my father passed away aged 92). For half a century I
had to assist my parents with their day to day
lives; and for a large part of that time I was
directly responsible for their well-being.
My parents were poorly educated, neither of them
having finished primary school. My father was
Sicilian (from a small Medieval village called
Piazza Armerina); and my mother was Greek (yet born
and raised in Alexandria, Egypt). They met in South
Africa in 1965, and I was born the following year.
At age 6 - as soon as I learned to read and speak
English - I became their full-time translator. When
people came to the door, I had to stop playing and
sit with the adults to translate incomprehensible
adult matters. At age 10, when television arrived in
South Africa, I had to translate the News for my
father every evening - both the English and
Afrikaans broadcasts. As a teenager, I had to
translate every single television programme we
watched together as a family (not very pleasant for
a grumpy teenager!).
One of the main reasons I emigrated to the UK in
2000, was to move my ageing parents out of South
Africa and the deteriorating health system. On
acquiring my first full-time job in Armagh, Northern
Ireland, I purchased a suitable house (no stairs to
climb), on the edge of a secluded housing estate (as
my father was easily irritated by noise - plus, I
didn't want my parents' incessant bickering
disturbing the neighbours!). My parents arrived in
the UK on 28 September 2000.
After two years I moved
to Glasgow (and three years after that to
Birmingham) - all the while having to cover both the
house mortgage and my rented accommodation.
I visited my parents as often as I could, usually
twice a year.
My mother passed away in May 2012 (age 79). I
created a memorial website for her, and
had a QR link to the site etched on the headstone.
My father is buried with her. A few months after my
father passed away, their ageing cat died, and we
had the cat's ashes scattered on the grave.
I recently learned (in this article), that although life is very stressful for children growing up this way, they benefit from early development of psychological and emotional skills associated with solving complex adult problems.
Walking on Fire
For me it felt like a science experiment. Yet I found it VERY empowering.
I was manager of the Glasgow Planetarium (you can see the dome behind me) and the company we booked for the charity fundraiser emphasised the scientific aspect of walking on fire and not the more popular woo-woo nonsense.
So, if it was carefully explained to you why skin doesn't burn over short fire walks of 3 to 4 meters, would you attempt it?
Fire walking is popular because it helps us realise many of our beliefs are self-limiting ie.
🔥 if you believe the coal will burn you, you will never walk on fire
I’d LOVE to know:
➤ have you walked on fire?
➤ would you like to walk on fire?
➤ have you ever turned down an opportunity to walk on fire?
An Unexpected Honour
On 20 October 2018 a colleague and I delivered a double dome immersive experience at the Royal Academy of Arts (London), for an evening event called Cosmic Ocean.
The Royal Academy of Arts is based in Burlington House, Piccadilly - which is also the home of the Linnean Society (established 1788), a learned society dedicated to the study of natural history and taxonomy.
Our domes were set up in the Reynolds Room, where, on 1st July 1858, research papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were presented, and the world first heard about the origin of species by natural selection.
When I saw the commemorative panel in the room I couldn't believe my eyes (and my luck!), and photographed it with one of my projection boxes in front of it.
Interestingly, botanist and explorer Joseph Dalton Hooker (who was present when the papers were delivered) wrote that after the presentation 'the room was awestruck and completely silent, with a lack of discussion about the papers, possibly due to the subject being too novel and ominous'.
Even more interesting, the president of the Linnean Society at the time clearly had no idea what momentous changes this discovery would bring, writing in his annual review: "The year which has passed ... has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionise, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear."
How astounding that visionary, brilliant people are so often not appreciated by those around them at the time.
A Prestigious Lifeless Performance
On the evening of 5th November 2009, I suffered a 'fatal heart attack' and a public 'autopsy' was performed on me in the Royal Institution Lecture Theatre (London) - the prestigious auditorium where Michael Faraday first demonstrated electromagnetism (1831) and where the annual Christmas Lectures have been held since 1825.
By now I had become quite good at lying perfectly still for an hour or more (while having my body drawn on with coloured markers). Ruth had launched the very first National Pathology Week the year before, and so I'd experienced a number of 'autopsies' at the hands of various pathologists around the country before this particular event.
One of my first appearances was at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons
Sharing a Stage with my Heroes
In June 2006 I was invited to be a speaker on the Tea, Talk and Telescope lecture series, hosted by the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Birmingham.I delivered an illustrated presentation about aliens, sceptical thinking and astrobiology, called Aliens on Earth. I developed this talk while at Armagh Planetarium and had presented it a number of times before (see below). Sceptical thinking and the possibility of extraterrestrial life have always been two of my greatest passions.
The Tea, Talk and Telescope lecture series ran from 2006-2014 and featured a number of academics and researchers I greatly admired - and even considered my heroes - like David Malin, Brian Cox, David H. Levy and Prof. John Brown.
In 1999, on making the decision to emigrate to the UK from South Africa, I very much looked forward to attending lectures by such people.
Therefore, considering my humble origins, I never expected - only seven years later - to be sharing the stage with some of these renowned science communicators.
In June 2004, due to funding challenges at GSC (Glasgow Science Centre), the CEO decided to make the critical post of Planetarium Manager redundant ... and soon I was to be out of a job.
The job description read: "A primary responsibility of this position will be to actively pursue sponsorship and fundraising opportunities, with the goal of eventually fully supporting the post through external funding".
Another critical duty was: "To supervise the day to day operations of the ScottishPower Planetarium, including all initial troubleshooting, ensuring problem-free operations seven days a week, 362 days a year."
So, aside from the stress of operating a £1 million theatre successfully 7 days a week, 362 days a year; I now also had to find my own salary!
Of course no-one believed I could do this, and everyone expected me to be gone by November.
Boy were they surprised (I remember the look on the CEO's face), when just a month later, I had raised £12,200 towards my salary!
The money came from the German company Carl Zeiss, the manufacturer of the planetarium star projector.
Unlike the relatively easy-to-operate fulldome (360° video) planetarium systems of today, traditional planetarium theatres consisted of a sophisticated array of mechanical projectors linked to diverse operating systems and computers.
This was the front page of the planetarium presenters' training manual I created:
And this was the goodbye card I gave my team when I left in November 2004:
Many would agree it was unwise to make the full-time position of GSC Planetarium Manager redundant. In fact, soon after I left, there was a change of leadership at GSC, and the new CEO offered me a 6-month contract to provide planetarium support remotely.
The Glasgow Science Centre
Solargraph
** Purchase this original pinhole camera image as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) **
In 2003 I heard that Tarja Trygg, a researcher at the Aalto University School of Art and Design in Finland, was giving away free pinhole cameras and creating A World Map of Solargraphs.
A pinhole camera consists of a piece of photo-sensitive paper (film), inside a small, dark cylinder with a tiny pinhole in it. The camera is positioned facing south, and when the Sun is out, it slowly burns a narrow trail across the film - with each day's trail slightly higher than the previous one (if moving toward midsummer), or slightly lower (if moving toward midwinter).
I promptly requested a few pinhole cameras, and on
the Winter Solstice (21 December 2003, when the Sun
was at its lowest position in the sky), I set one up
facing the Glasgow Science Centre, across the River
Clyde.
Six months later, on the Summer Solstice (21 June
2004, when the Sun was at its highest position in the
sky), I took the camera down and sent it to Tarja
Trygg for developing.
The result was the following breathtakingly beautiful - and unusually bright and colourful - solar artwork, or 'solargraph'
From left to right can be seen the IMAX cinema, the Glasgow Science Centre (GSC) and the Tower. Aside from the rich colours, this solargraph is outstanding because the Sun's tracks have also been captured as reflections on the river.
The Astronomer Royal for Scotland at the time, Prof. John Campbell Brown, was so impressed by this solargraph he included it in an article he wrote for the February 2014 edition of The Scots Magazine (the oldest consumer magazine still in print, first published in 1739). He also included the GSC Solargraph in his book Oor Big Braw Cosmos (2019)
In November 2004, on leaving the Glasgow Science Centre (where I worked as Planetarium Manager for three years), my planetarium colleagues (known as the A-team; 'A' for astronomy) gave me a signed farewell t-shirt with the GSC Solargraph printed on it.
On 30 March 2005, while on holiday in Finland, I
popped in to meet Tarja Trygg, and of course wore my
GSC Solargraph t-shirt.
In 2007 I captured a second solargraph from the
planetarium office at Thinktank Science Museum, and
both solargraphs are now part of Tarja Trygg's World Map of Solargraphs.
My favourite version of the GSC Solargraph though, is this one, worn by my wife
When that moment came, and I felt the thud of the undercarriage beneath me, I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief: I knew I had succeeded in finally leaving that unfortunate, deteriorating country - safe and in one piece.
Yet I knew a tremendous challenge lay before me. All on my own, I was entering a new, unfamiliar environment. A wintry world where I spoke funny and felt awkward and uncomfortable.
The first two weeks were the worst. The very first entry in my 2000 diary reads: "Went to bed in a bit of a panic...asking myself 'what have you done to your life?'"
Traveling to and from work on a bicycle in the middle of winter during my first three months in the UK was no joke either. Yet I stuck it out, marking days off my calendar until things improved.
I'm really glad I didn't throw in the towel.
And tonight, sitting in my comfortable warm room, with the snow lying thick outside, I can't believe that my diary once again reads 30th December ... and that Africa is far away."
My precious one-way ticket out:
The security of quality health care : when I look at my ageing parents and notice how ill-health is creeping up on them, I no longer worry about where we'll find the money to take them to a private hospital (to avoid the pressing thousands of South Africans queuing at state hospitals).
No bugs : when I switch on the kitchen light, I no longer see cockroaches scurrying for cover (vermin that are always there, despite your best efforts to keep a clean home).
No danger : when I look out my bedroom window at night, I no longer see lurking people and threatening shadows in the dark. There is absolutely no-one around - only the occasional taxi that serves as transport for the neighbour across the way.
Meeting a Human Transformed by Space
He described how in October 1957 (with the launch of Sputnik 1) he immediately wanted to be an astronaut, even before the word 'astronaut' was invented.
Just like the astronauts before him - and those that have followed him down to our day - going into Space changed his core values, and his life, forever.
- Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14, on seeing the Earth from the Moon
In August 1997, while on a family visit to Sarafina, I made a surprising discovery in one of the olive trees. Inside a knothole in a tree just to the left of the ruins of the old storehouse (below), something glinted in the sun.
Winning a Car
Extract from The
Watchtower, 15 July 1989, p30
Is it appropriate for a Christian to buy lottery tickets if the proceeds go to a charity?
Some people have reasoned that being involved in a lottery is not wrong or bad because the cost of a ticket (chance) may be small, because those participating do so willingly, and because some of the proceeds may be used for a charitable purpose, such as helping the poor. How valid is such reasoning?
While some claim that buying a lottery ticket is simple, low-cost entertainment, there is no denying the greed factor. If a Christian felt any impulse to ‘take a chance’ in a lottery, he should think seriously about the greed on which the lottery is based. Ephesians 5:3 says that ‘greediness should not even be mentioned among us,’ much less given in to by a Christian.
Even if the cost of a lottery ticket would not significantly harm someone’s personal or family finances, that does not mean that others are not harmed. Why so? Because almost anyone buying a lottery ticket would like to win. From where would his prize money come? If his ticket cost ten pesos and the prize is a million pesos, that means that he takes the ticket money from a hundred thousand other people. Does that harmonize with God’s counsel against coveting others’ valuables? (Deuteronomy 5:21)
Moreover, his winning will probably be publicized, moving many to begin playing the lottery or buying more tickets, even if they cannot afford this.
If a Christian genuinely wants to help the poor, handicapped, or elderly, he certainly can do so directly or in a way that does not involve gambling.
School Achievements
(my name at school was Mariano instead of Mario - an error made by my parents [who didn't speak English] when they prepared my birth certificate. I had my name changed to Mario on my passport years later)
“People ask me the key to success in business or life or whatever it may be. You don’t have to be perfect every day, you just have to give your best and be really good every single day and do it for years consistently. The compounding effect over time is unbelievable and if you do just a good job every single day and give your best, over years you’re going to be really successful if you continue to be consistent”
