Large Hadron Rap

Today (Tuesday 30th March 2010) those brilliant boys and girls working at the CERN laboratory successfully collided two proton beams in the Large Hadron Collider. To celebrate, watch this awesome rap written and performed by CERN staff members, which explains just about everything you need to know about high energy particle collisions (unless you are a particle physicist, in which case I imagine you need to know a huge amount more).

▼ Credits etc.

Rappin' about CERN's Large Hadron Collider! Links below...

Apparently YouTube fixed the sound! Still, Will Barras made two options trying to get around the original problems:
Other YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3iryBLZCOQ
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/1431471?pg=embed...

Vimeo is downloadable if you log in.

There has been a lot of interest in the original mp3, lyrics, and vocals for remixing. You can find all that here:
https://www.msu.edu/~mcalpin9/lhc_rap...

There's also been interest in translation. You can get a subtitle-free version from Vimeo here (downloadable):
http://www.vimeo.com/1730771

With backing track available here (with and without Hawking-style voice):
http://barras.ws/rappin.html

Go ahead and translate, rap it, and post it! Just give us a shout-out, and it's probably a good idea to include the following credits ;-)

Images came from:
particlephysics.ac.uk, space.com, the Institute of Physics, NASA, Symmetry, and Marvel

I forgot Einstein Online, and they called me out:http://www.einstein-online.info

And I forgot Physics World (dunno what I was thinking when I put together the extra dimensions bit). Steve Abel set me to rights (but made no demands): http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/p...

The talented dancers doubled as camera people, with some work by Neil Dixon. Stock footage is CERN's.

Will Barras is responsible for the killa beats:
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~s9527813/

And thanks to MC Hawking, who first thought of using computer-voice to bring Stephen Hawking to the world of rap :-)
http://www.mchawking.com/

The rapper has a day job (we agree this is a good thing) as a science writer.
http://www.katemcalpine.com

They'll have a lot of data to sort. 15 million GB per year, actually. Want to get involved and donate your computer's downtime? Try LHC@home:http://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/

Lizzie and Sarah

On Saturday 27th March 2010, in the graveyard slot of 11:45am, BBC Two broadcast a pilot written by and starring Julia Davis (Brass Eye, Jam, Nighty Night) and Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson - of Spaced fame).

The show is called Lizzie and Sarah, and it is truly, truly wonderful. It is a beautiful example of what British comedy does best: it is dark, funny, biting social satire, in turns horrific, profound, hilarious, and captured in the best tradition of British kitchen-sink realism. It is about two fifty-something housewives in middle-class suburban hell, living lives of obsequious drudgery, almost invisible to their cheating husbands and trapped in the humdrum of their local community.

The characters, Lizzie and Sarah, are beautifully observed. There is something almost heroic in their quiet acceptance of their miserable lot - Julia Davis' character is an archetypal middle-aged housewife, an amiable doormat, masking the years of pain and thankless giving with a stoic smile and a shrug. It is a far subtler performance than her other self-written character, Nighty Night's Jill Tyrell, and here Davis gets to prove what a wonderful actress she really is - every nuance of her performance, every eyebrow gesture and every little sigh brings to life a rich, deep character struggling to emerge screaming through the mundane roles and rituals where she is stuck.

Jessica Hynes also gives a bravura performance, easily her best since Spaced. As Sarah, she is always turning a blind eye to the constant degradations of her despicable and distant husband (played by Mark Heap, oh yes), and yet she is a genuinely charming, funny and likeable, often heroically buoyant in the face of her pitiful existence. In a brilliant scene where Lizzie and Sarah confess their misery to each other, Hynes delivers a piece of dialogue that is both the funniest on TV in years and at the same time a tragic and very sad indictment of men who subject women to years of mental abuse, and the women who silently suffer.

The plot turns in this pilot episode when Lizzie and Sarah reach breaking point and take back their lives, in a marvellous twist that I won't ruin for you.

That the BBC has so far only produced a pilot is a crime. That the pilot aired so late at night, with so little fanfare, shows how toothless and cowardly the BBC has become. Their failure to recognise the combination of peerless comedy brilliance and profound, timely social satire is highly disturbing to say the least.

Until Saturday 27th of March you can watch the pilot here on iPlayer.

Update: Lizzie and Sarah is no longer on iPlayer. From Tuesday 30th March, you can buy it on iTunes for less than a couple of quid, which might even help it get commissioned. Or you can download a torrent here if you're a cheap bastard.

The BBC are asking for feedback on the pilot here. If you care about good television, I insist that you go there and add your voice to those who want to see this show made into (at least) a full series.

You can join the Facebook campaign here.

In the meantime, thank you to Jessica and Julia, you have proven that British comedy is still a shining beacon in a world of shit. You have made a challenging TV programme that carries the best of what art can be, it is illuminating and deep, it peers into the abyss of our lives and laughs, it is subversive and edgy, with a steely moral centre and an outlook that is ultimately humane and empowering. In any sane world you would be lauded as heroes.

Atom

Professor Jim Al-Khalili's mind bending three-part 2007 documentary series.

 It's just as good as Al-Khalili's recent documentary, The Secret Life of Chaos, which you can watch here.

▼ Watch Episode 1: Clash of the Titans

▼ Watch Episode 2: Key to the Cosmos

▼ Watch Episode 3: The Illusion of Reality

Joseph Campbell - The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, talks to Bill Moyers about his ideas, his studies, and his philosophy, in this six-part 1988 TV series for American network PBS.

Campbell's work in comparative mythology and comparative religion is truly fascinating, and across these six hour-long episodes he gets to explain his compelling take on life, the universe and everything.

Part historian, part academic, part mystic, Campbell has profound answers for life's mysteries. Picking up where writers such as James Frazer and Northrop Frye left off, Campbell shows how human cultural output - religion, ritual and fiction - reflects universal human values and shared experiences that deeply connect all members of mankind across historical and geographical divides.

• Watch Episode One
• Watch Episode Two
• Watch Episode Three
• Watch Episode Four
• Watch Episode Five
• Watch Episode Six

(youku.com)