More Amazement

I really am much read by my fellow academics. ResearchGate reports that my papers had 159 reads last week, including frequent mention of two that I regard as among my more significant papers. I am glad I have lived long enough to see it.

The two articles referred to are:

An "attitude to authority" scale

and

Half of All Racists Are Left Wing

It should be noted that almost all my papers are research reports rather than theoretical articles. And research reports stand as facts. You can disagree about the implications of the facts reported -- theoretical articles do that -- but you cannot disagree with the facts as such. The findings stand but what a reader does with the findings will be variable.

How much influence a reading of my papers will have is unknown. Since my findings were often uncongenial to a Leftist viewpoint they will no doubt often be read and then ignored. Leftists are good at ignoring reality

The funeral

I very rarely watch TV but I had a bit of idle time between 10 and 11pm last night so watched the funeral procession of HM the Queen through London. I was glad to be watching from the comfort of my living room rather than being out there standing up at the actual event. I got a better view that way anyhow.

I was a little surprised that the Orb and sceptre accompanied the Imperial State Crowm on the bier. They are symbols of rule and she could hardly be ruling while she was dead


The Orb and sceptre are visible above

The procession was of course a huge and magificent show -- principally because many units of the British armed forces have striking dress uniforms -- from the bearskin hats of the Coldstream Guards, to the plumed helmets of the Household cavalry to the Tudor splendour of the Yeoman Warders. Even the military police in their red caps looked good. There were in fact several uniforms that I had not seen before, often featuring plumes. See below for the flat green hat with plume. No idea where they are from



Detachments of any unit worth looking at must have been present.

I had expected a significant detachment from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. They would have to be the most magnificently dressed soldiers in the world. But I saw only a couple of Scottish troops. Strange. Some might have been deployed abroad but hardly all of them

I might have missed them, though. I read that the Queen's own piper played a lament during the procession.

And all the marchers were paid for out of the military budget, not paid for as part of the Royal Family. All the troops present were in fact working members of the armed forces who often see active duty in the field. They are real soldiers

It may have seemed odd that the Navy got the honour of drawing the gun carriage. Why? Simple. In Britain the navy is the senior service and is proudly referred to as that. They trace back to Alfred the Great, long before any army unit. The earliest army unit goes back only to the civil war and Cromwell's New Model Army. Traditions matter in armed formations.

I was pleased to see the King looking Kingly as he marched behind the bier


The king looking Kingly

But it was sad to see the red hair of Prince Harry. He actually has spent more time in the army than other any other member of the family so was well entitled to wear military uniform. But his downgrading was on his own head. He seems to be a bit dim -- like his mother -- and that American bitch he married has filled his head with nonsense and caused him to alienate his family beyond all reason. She has a lot to answer for



UPDATE: The headgear I wondered about would seem to be Scottish. It strongly resembles the headgear adopted for a meeting of the Clan Buchanan. See below

I am a lucky man

A lady in my life often tells me that I am a lucky man. She is right. For a single man in his 80th year to have three ladies calling on him regularly is indeed lucky. And I appreciate all three.

I particularly appreciate my intimate companion Zoe. As I have pointed out previously, there are some big incompatibilities between us but, countering that, there is much else:

She is just about as good-looking and as fit as a lady of her age can get, she is very bright, well educated, has a broad awareness of high culture and even is strongly moved by the music of J.S. Bach. That latter would mean nothing to most people but it is huge to me as I feel the same way about Bach. We also have lots of laughs and she fits very nicely into my cuddle

So that is pretty lucky. Just a high IQ and a liking for Bach would probably have tied me to her but there is much more besides

A wedding

Yesterday (Saturday) I accompanied Zoe to a wedding. It was in the Srbian Orthodox church at Wacol. It was the first Orthodox service I had attended and many details were different from the Presbyterian services I am used to.

For a start, people stood for the whole service. In Presbyterian services we stand up only to sing hymns. There were no hymns at the Srbian church. There were some seats down the side for the frail elderly such as myself. I was glad of that. Another difference was that all the men stood on one side of the church with the women on the other. Muslims and Haredi Jews would approve

The whole congregation of the bride's church must have turned out for the wedding. There were large throngs of both men and women in attendance. One thing I noticed was that lots of the young women were amazingly thin. Srbians could maybe teach other women a few things there. There were a lot of young men in formal dresss who also looked good. I did wear my sole and only suit with a white shirt and tie but some of the young Srbs wore shirts with studs. It'a long time since I did that.

The ceremony was also different from my experience. There were long speeches from the priest in Srbian which I understood not at all but I had a fair idea of what was being said. I conjecture that it would have similar content to a Tridentine mass. There were lots of opportunities for responses from the congregation and most of the congregation responded well.

An amusing thing to me was that the bride and groom were both given small crowns to wear at one stage. I had not seen that one anywhere before

The bride looked gorgeous. Being tall and slim was a good start on that but she had a great appearance generally. Her dress was fine but rather practical: No great billowing train etc. It was white with golden trims so was in perfect taste.

Both the bride and groom had been to my place for lunch a little while ago so it was good to see them tie the knot. A wedding is a very happy thing.

It was good of Zoe to get me invited to such a special occasion

The church was ornate internally but only with paintings. No statuary or carvings.

Below are two views of the couple during the ceremony






Exiting the church

More on my academic status

I have just received another interesting email from ResearchGate.

They report that last week I had 6 citations. That means that someone somewhere is citing one of my papers at the rate of nearly one a day. I am rather stunned by that. And half of my reads were from academics in the USA, followed by India.

Several of my papers did refer to India so the interest from India is not too surprising

What is surprising is that my most-read article is one that appeared way back in 1971. So maybe there will be someone reading my papers long after I have gone. I like that thought

Clarification:

ResearchGate has a comprehensive database of academic publications. They are a sort of academic Google. If a paper is cited by someone already in their database they will try to add that paper also to their database. So they would appear to have just about all the academic papers on the internet. And if a paper they see cited is not already on the net they will ask for a copy of it and put it on the net

The list of "reads" is different. They refer only to reads from the ResearchGate database. Many people will of course have read the paper in its initial appearance elsewhere. So it would probaly be safe to say that the total number of reads of any paper is at least twice what ResearchGate records. But the reads that they record could be seen as a useful estimate of total reads

Fathers' Day

Fathers' day in Australia is on a Sunday and my son Joe and I normally breakfast together on a Sunday anyway. And it was a good breakfast today -- running from about 9:30 to 11:30. So we talked a lot.

We mainly discussed our relationships but also American politics and electric cars. We noted that Mr Trump still seems to get more publicity than anyone else in American politics. Joe was more positive than I am about electric cars but we didn't disagree after we had discussed it.

The breakfast was as usual at the local pie shop where they do a very good bacon & egg burger with lashings of bacon. We also bought some delicacies to take away. They do unusually good jam donuts there so that is what I had. I like a jam donut to have lots of jam in it and the one I got certainly did. We took our delicacies home to have on my open verandah, which is always a pleasant setting. Joe shouted the breakfast

Joe told me rather a lot about his personal life that sounded very positive so I was pleased to hear that. It made a very good fathers' day for me.

Zoe arrived later in the day at her usual hour of 4pm so we then had an early dinner prepared by her. She and I will be attending a wedding next week so she brought over a big range of dresses for me to look at. She said she trusts my taste so wanted my opinion on which dress looked best on her for a wedding. After much deliberation we decided on one.

Zoe left to drive back to her place in Western parts at about 7pm. We spent most of our time together lying in bed. To look down on a pretty face smiling up at you is one of the better experiences for a man in his 80th year

Monday Update: I was pleased to get a nice newsy Fathers' day greeting by email from my stepdaughter Yvonne in New Zealand