DEREK PUGH NEW BOOK... Turn Left at the Devil Tree (from The Lombok Guide, issue 158 

Lombok seems to be fertile ground for writers, with another of our resident expats – Derek Pugh – having recently published his third book.

Derek’s new book, “Turn Left at the Devil Tree”, was released on 1 December 2013 and is his latest work. The book will be launched in Lombok on 11 January by Mark Heyward, who published his own book “Crazy Little Heaven” in August last year.

Derek’s previous books include “Tammy Damulkurra”, a fictional story published in1995 (2nd edition 2013), and “The Owner’s Guide to the Teenage Brain, teaching teachers, parents and teenagers how to get the most out of their brains”, a non-fiction work published in 2011.

“Tammy Damulkurra”, has been described as a “Classic Australian Story” and a “Landmark in Australian Literature”.

“Turn Left at the Devil Tree” promises to be equally successful. The new book, with a foreword by Ted Egan AO, describes life as a visiting teacher in the most remotes parts of the Top End of Australia.

The title words were the only directions he had to find Wurdeja Homeland Centre in the vast forests of central Arnhem Land, but find it he did and he founded and ran a school there for four years.

Pugh’s story describes his love affair with the bush, the characters that live there and its wildlife. Working with Indigenous Australians in the most remote parts of the country has its share of challenges and successes, but life as a visiting teacher in Arnhem Land is tremendously fulfilling.

Derek Pugh, an ex Kakadu ranger, a teacher, naturalist and bushman worked in several homelands schools and joined a lifestyle as old as time. His memoir is by turns reflective, tragic and hilarious and describes a life in remote Aboriginal Australia which gave him an insight into a traditional culture which has been witnessed by only a few outsiders. 

Spending more than 20 years among the people and wildlife of the Top End of the Northern Territory, and accompanied by his ‘rough-tough hunting dog’ named Turkey, Derek Pugh revelled in the lifestyle and freedom of the bush. Told with respect and candour, “Turn Left at the Devil Tree” is Pugh’s ‘slice of history’.

“Turn Left at the Devil Tree” is distributed by Dennis Jones and Associates, www.dennisjones.com.au. For more information, visit: www.derekpugh.com.au

Taman Restaurant in Senggigi, together with The Lombok Writers Guild, will host the Lombok launch of “Turn Left at the Devil Tree” in conjunction with a wine tasting by Plaga Wines on Saturday, 11 January starting at 5pm. Copies of Derek’s and Mark’s books will also be on sale. All are welcome to attend!

For Santa to visit three billion children and deliver his gifts to all the world's children in just one 24 hour period, his sleigh and reindeer would need to fly, obviously, quite quickly. He needs to visit at least 8000 homes per second.

Putting aside the problem of the heat of friction could he do it? Up until recently he was limited to the speed of light - 299,800,000 meters per second, but scientists have recently discovered neutrinos actually travel faster than light, so this opens up all sorts of possibilities for Santa. If he can travel as fast as neutrinos then he might be able to time travel - perhaps he could slow his delivery to 4000 homes per second, but do it twice in the same second.

Or if he's pressed for time perhaps he could become more of a stickler for the rules - he needs to check his naughty and nice list more carefully and avoid wasting time at the wrong chimneys - no toys for naughty children. I think he's too forgiving sometimes.

The Earth is slowing down – by nearly 2 seconds a century. This means that 140 million years ago dinosaurs had only 23 hours in each day, and whoever (or whatever) will be around in 140 million years will have 25 hours in each day.

From the last pages of In The Footsteps of Stamford Raffles by Nigel Barley:

In the 1800s there was two measurements of dates. The maritime day ran from noon till noon (think 'noon sightings') and the terrestrial day from midnight to midnight.

Stamford Raffles was born at sea - on July 4th 1781, which was July 5th 1781 on land. He had two birth dates and he died at age 44 or 45 depending on which one you use.

By the way, this is a very interesting book about the founder of Singapore and "the Honourable, the Lieutenant Governor of Java", during the brief respite the Dutch colony had during the Napoleonic wars.

How the months got their names

This question comes up in classrooms throughout the school both in maths lessons and in English when we study the meanings of the roots of words. How can you teach about octagons without referring to octopi or October? The problem is October is now the 10th month, so lively discussions can occur about how this can be so.

1.    January Named after the Roman god of beginnings and endings Janus.

2.    February februa, this month was the time for the ‘festivals of purificatio’ in Rome.

3.    March after the Roman god of war, Mars.

4.    April from aperire, "to open" because in Europe it is spring and the month when buds begin to open.

5.    May Maiesta, the Roman goddess of honour and reverence.

6.    June The fourth month was named in honour of Juno queen of the Roman gods.

7.    July named after Julius Caesar in his honour in 44 BCE,

8.    August named after Augustus Caesar in his honour in 44 BCE,

9.    September septem, "seven". After July and August were squeezed into the Roman calendar the last four months are wrongly named. For example September the seventh month is in fact our ninth. Some people say as March was the first month of the Roman year September was the seventh but the alternative story, whereby an emperor can create a month and name it after him has more intrigue when teaching the root words “sept, oct, nov and dec”

10. October octo, "eight"

11. November novem, "nine".

12. December  decem, "ten".

BBC TV (2009) Battle of the Brain, Notes from a TV show with info from The Mind Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Mind Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences are opposite what IQ is – a single intelligence.

The most controversial is the bodily kinesthetic intelligence.

“there is little science to Gardner’s theory”

There is more science to IQ and it’s been arounf 100 years or so.

IQ may indicate longevity and health.

IQ increases as you age, more education, more professional your job the higher your IQ goes.

Smokers are less smart!

Also

From Robert Maxwell TV series on The Brain

Extroverts: less saliva

Introverts – more saliva

Puberty: older kids are slower at recognizing emotions than 10 year olds.

Young kids have no control over amygdala

Teenagers frontal lobes are confused so they are more easily led into taking risks –this creates dopamine.

The more risks we take, the more insensitive we become to dopamine so greater risks are need to reach the same state.

Mood altering:

Reading happy words releases serotonin from the brain stem, sad words reduce the amount of serotonin

Citoyenne Henry, is recorded as being the first woman aeronaut, in a balloon, 1798, in spite of a ban on females going up. She was French

(One of my students found a reference on the internet to a June-Elizabeth Thurley who flew in 1795)

Bodanis, David (2000) E=mc2, A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation, Pan Books

E=mc2

C stands for celeritas, = swiftness in Latin.

From Io’s orbit around Jupiter, Cassini’s student Ole Roemer, a Dane, challenged him to predict Io’s reappearance after being behind the planet in 1676.

Cassini said 5;27, Roemer said 5.37 and was correct. T was to do with the extra distance the light had to travel because the earth was now on the on the further side of the sun. His speed of light calculation was accurate, but all scientists in those days thought light was instantaneous

670000000mph, London-LA in 1/20 second/ Mach 1 speed of sound, space shuttle mach 20, asteroid mach 70, light is mach 900,000!

Faraday 1821 found that electricity can be changed to magnetism and vice versa

Einstein Light waves – electrical and magnetic, driving each other forward. Light can only exist when a light wave is actively moving forward. It’s a quick leap frogging of electricity out of magnetism – its speed is the upper limit.

Protons moving close to the speed of light swell to become 2 units of mass each- then at speeds of 99.9997% of c the protons are 430X bigger than their original size, because E can become m and vice-versa , so c is a conversion factor telling how the linkage operates.

Sum of mass and energy always is constant – but why c2??

 P 65 Emilie du Chatelet E=mv2, lover of Francois-Marie Arouet, aka Voltaire used work from Willem sGravesands who dropped balls into clay and found distance squared when height doubled.

When you move 2x as close to a light the brightness increases by 4x. Accelerate a car by 4x stopping distance increases 16x.

Mass is simple the ultimate type of condensed or concentrated energy – a small mass is therefore a lot of energy as c2 = 448,900,000,000,000,000.

Cecilia Payne 1923 –sun is made of H and He through spectroscope analysis. The old guard was wrong, they read the spectroscopes as reading iron but could not understand why. Payne beat rampant sexism and proved her professors wrong

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra) at 19 years old in 1930 BLACK HOLES because of E=mc2. Time will finish in 1X10(34) years.