The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

My book is on the printing presses – this is very exciting and an excuse for a quick plug in my blog!

In the book I emphasise the importance of using our senses in natural navigation. I cover examples from the sound of birdsong to the smell of trampled fruit in London.

I stumbled across a kindred spirit on the Internet this morning in Sachin Somanna, the author of this article about Gayathri Tiffin Room. It certainly smells from here like one of the joys of the Indian city of Mysore:

“We do not need any directions to reach Gayathri Tiffin Room (or GTR as it is popularly known) because once we close in on Chamundipuram circle, the irresistible aroma of a Mysore Masala Dosa works like a natural navigator to this vegetarian restaurant that is located just a few meters from the circle.  Although the restaurant looks rather plain on the outside, the packed…

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For much of the UK, tonight promises to be a good night for some stargazing. With a bit of luck the only clouds for many will be from our breath. The moon, which is four days off full, will outshine many of the stars but should not spoil the party.

If the sky is clear we will get a very good view of Mars in the east in the early evening. Sitting between the constellations of Leo (easy to find) and Cancer (hard to find), it will be rising about thirty degrees north of east at dusk and pass through due east at 8.30pm. By then Orion, below the high moon, will have moved to occupy a large part of the southern sky. If you follow Orion’s belt down to nearer the horizon then low in the southeast you will see the brightest star of them all, Sirius.

If you do happen to…

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There is a good photo of the Great Lettuce, Lactuca Virosa, with its leaves aligned north-south on the Adur Wild Flower website. If you do use this to find your way then make sure you don’t eat too much of it as it is reputed to have psychotropic qualities. You are likely to head off in the right direction, walk in a circle and then find yourself back in the same spot, shouting something like, ‘Great Lettuce, Batman!’ I digress.

Just back from a little research in the New Forest. While I gather my thoughts about all the natural clues to wayfinding that the Forest revealed I just thought I’d let you know about a great website from a different part of our island. Stonesofwonder.com is a very informative guide to the prehistoric sites of stone monuments of Scotland, all arranged with celestial observation or inspiration in mind. There is information about the location of sites like  Ardachearanbeg, Clochkell, Cultoon, Finlaggan, Drumtroddan, Clava, Callanish and Stillaig, to name a few, and details about their relationship with moments like the equinoxes, solstices and lunar standstills. The website is well worth a visit, and much more accesible than the real things at this time of year.

The snow is melting away, but not at the same speed everywhere. The warmer wind which is blowing from the southeast today is leaving green swathes wherever it reaches. In this photo, which is taken looking east, the snow in the top right corner is being sheltered by woodland, but the snow to the left is also being left relatively untouched by the same wind because it is partly in the lee of the hill, but also because the woodland to the left of the picture is forcing the airflow up over it. In aviation terms the wind appears to be performing a ‘touch-and-go‘, coming into land before taking off again straight away.

Another enjoyable Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation course at the RGS yesterday. In attendance: a patent attorney, paraglider pilot, academic, film maker, doctor, retiree, vet, town planner and optical assistant to name a few.

Among the off-piste topics that we discussed there was talk of whether we sleep better aligned North-South than we do East-West and also the idea that the expression, ‘follow your nose’ may have some science behind it: humans have iron oxide in their sinuses which may account for some experiments that have shown a magnetic sense of direction in humans.

Lest I forget, I will be giving a series of talks to launch my book in March. The date and venue for my talk at the Oxford Literary Festival has been confirmed:

Wednesday 24/3 12:00, further details and tickets available here.

Hope to see you there!

…with a little help from the sun.

An interesting article on the BBC website today about the seasonal habits of Puffins.

The most interesting thing other than learning more about the puffins’ whereabouts was the method they used for understanding where the birds were at any one time. Using ‘geolocator tags’ that logged the time of sunrise, sunset the research team were able to deduce their location.

‘The loggers work by measuring light levels, recording when dawn and dusk occurs each day.

With this data, researchers can calculate day length, when midday occurs, and the daily longitudinal and latitudinal co-ordinates for the individual bird.’

The tags also detected when the birds’ feet were wet, the hope being that this would give information about when the birds were airborne, but the puffins foxed the researchers here: they like to tuck their feet up into their plumage when asleep. Their feet were dry even as they bobbed on…

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For better or worse I seem to have a sixth sense for when conditions are great very early in the morning. I woke at 5.30am and was instantly drawn out into the neighbouring field to take in the scene and to take a picture. The snow was being lit up from the south by the waning crescent moon, the stars were out in force and Mars was peering down in red confidence from high in the west.

I stepped over the style into the field, camera in one hand, tripod in another and then it all went wrong. To avoid waking anyone I had not stumbled around for my clothes in the dark, but opted for the worryingly standard kit for this time of day: pyjamas, thick coat and wellies. My left foot slipped a bit on the style’s ice and a successful bid to save my skin and camera led…

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Ok, this snow has been fun, but…

… now we’re so low on heating oil, firewood, coal and food that the sense of humour reserves are looking a bit depleted! School’s off the menu and the kids refuse to play in the snow anymore as they’re bored of it now. They go mental after being cooped up inside for this long, so my wife has inflated the boxing bag that they were given for Christmas in the optimistic hope that they might stop hitting each other and us.

Drastic evasive action needed and so I went on a crazy solo excursion (after spending an hour digging the car out of the snow and defrosting it). I returned with coal, a little wood and food. The car got me there and nearly all the way back, but I needed a spade and lots of gravel to make it back up our road. I…

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Nothing tickles me more than stumbling across an obscure reference to an arcane relationship between humans and the natural world. The tickling sensation is particularly acute when the reference is historic and it concerns celestial objects.

On New Year’s holiday in Strathconon in the Scottish Highlands I waded merrily into Simon Schama’s, ‘Citizens, A Chronicle of the French Revolution‘. The subject matter was rich enough and when generously layered with Mr Schama’s oppulent language it was a feast worthy of the Christmas period.

Following on shortly from the sentence, ‘The arrival of the Palais-Royal as a quotidian carnival of the appetites drastically altered all that.’, I learnt that the palace forecourt used to be home to cannon that would go off at noon each day when the sun’s rays passed through a carefully aligned lens to ignite the fuse.

I lay awake after reading that, thinking of how one day I must replace…

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