Department Stores

Back when I was a young child growing up in Melbourne my father used to take me on special outings to the Myer department store, usually around the time of my birthday or Christmas. We'd park outside the hospital where Dad taught and walk into the city. The smell of warm nuts would welcome me into the store, then we'd go up past the clothes, the sports and camping gear, up to the toy section where I would chose a Star Wars or Lego toy for my present and dream about getting another model train from their wall of them.

The Myer Flagship store in Melbourne

Later we moved to the city of Rockhampton in Central Queensland. We had a couple of father and son shopping days there too, where we'd wander around the city, looking for a present. Again, I longed for a department store like Myer. There was Stewarts, an old building with multiple levels. It had that sense of age about it, but it only sold clothes and soft furnishings, nothing of interest to a kid. That was disappointing.

Nearby, Milroys sold more, but I don't recall anything of interest there until its closing down sale when the shelves were filled with an strange selection of odds and ends: Racing car tracks without racing cars, a stack of Bib Fortuna Star Wars figurines.

And that was it for department stores in Rocky. There was the K-Mart, the BigW, but they are one storey, modern affairs, full of cheaper goods and no atmosphere.

To me a city isn't a real city unless it has a proper department store.

The Takashimaya department store in Matusyama, Japan.

But, according to the sales figures, the department stores are dying now. Their eclectic selections work against them in this consumerist society with all the world's goods at their fingertips. We all want the biggest ranges and the cheapest prices and too time poor to wander aimlessly we'll order it online and send it directly home.

As a consequence the department store has streamlined and reduced what it sells. I go into a Myer now and the toy section is often tiny and not just shrunk by adult eyes. No wall of Star Wars or model trains, just a few choices hanging on a rack (Lego might be the exception, with all their different options now). Computers reduced to a couple of small tables, maybe three brands in all.

I love the old fashioned department stores. I don't know why. Maybe it's because they are not like a regular shop that sells a single type of good, where you enter with a single defined purpose. There's the mystery, never knowing what you will find on each level as you wander through the maze of aisles, through islands of goods in a sea of paths, at each opening of the lift or the top of each escalator new discoveries to be made. There is something tangible about shopping in a real department store that online shopping can't match.

And it seems that I am not alone in believing this.

Justice

My thoughts about the justice system in general, in an ideal sense:

A) The victim wants the offender punished. They want them to feel and understand the hurt that they have caused.
B) Society wants to be protected.

For A) you want the offender to feel a sense of guilt, a pain that makes them regret committing the offence.

Punishments of yore

B) Is more complicated as you have a number of factors.

1. Deterrence - preventing the committing of an offence in the first place due to fear of punishment.
2. Removal of opportunity - A custodial or capital sentence removes the offender from society thus preventing them from committing further crimes
3. Restitution - Paying for/repairing the damage caused (not always possible). This is very specific and will be ignored in this discussion.
4. Reform - Changing the character of the offender and removing the desire to commit further crimes and turning them into a productive rather than a destructive member of society.

Added into the mix is C. Issue of human rights. From a societal, not offender's, perspective, it is "How do our actions as a society reflect and impact on our society." This includes issues like wrong convictions and punishment of the innocent, the impact of punishment on society - what kind of society are you building through vigilante justice or public stonings for example?

I know that if I was the victim of crime I would be very angry and want to cause a lot of pain towards the offender. However, civilised laws are made by societies and not individuals, which is why they are usually about B and C and not A.

Unfortunately, getting the balance of 1,2,3,4 and C seems very difficult. The Scandinavian examples place a strong emphasis on reform with lower rates of recidivism than many other countries , but sometimes fail at removing the opportunity to commit further crimes. In the US and Australia it often seems like criminals, especially petty ones, come out of gaol worse than when they go in and are as such incarcerated for longer.

The death penalty offers the ultimate prevention of further offences without the need for reform, but can fail badly at human rights (especially for the innocent).

And as for deterrence, it seems to work best for rational people who are least likely to commit an offence anyway.

The biggest problem with getting things right is that not all people are equal when it comes to criminal behaviour, due to the nature of their brains and the environment that shaped them. Psychopaths have been shown to be largely incapable for understanding (or caring about) punishment, so deterrence simply doesn't work. Same with those driven to irrationality by taking drugs. Does an angry drunk think about gaol when they lash out? The compulsion to commit further crimes may, in certain cases, be too great to reform. This seems to be the case for many mass murderers and sex offenders.

But it's not true of every criminal. And the brain does change as one ages. For instance, adolescent male brains struggle to comprehend risk, which is why we see so many young people overconfidently driving too fast, jumping into big waves etc etc etc. Ten years later they will probably be a different person.

Ideally society could identify potential criminals as children and work on their behaviour to steer them away from crime. It's a lot of work to do so.

My personal belief is that if somebody is a strong potential threat to society - segregate them from society until they are no longer a threat. If they have reformed and are no longer a threat then release them. Put effort into reforming them into productive members of society. From a resources perspective, once they are productive you aren't paying for them any more.

And the death penalty is wrong because the justice system can be wrong.

Brown days in Sydney

Sometimes in Sydney on the days like today when the fires are burning the sky takes on a hazy Asian tinge. As I walked to work, hungry from a lack of breakfast, I could imagine a small food stall along the footpath, trestle tables and plastic chairs to the side, patrons slurping steaming bowls of noodles and soup or snacking on goreng pisang from little plastic bags.

Except that, being Sydney, it wouldn't be a rickety old stall but a coffee cart manned by hipster baristas serving styrofoam coffees and muffins shipped from a factory on the other side of the city.

Oh well, I can but dream.

Piggy bank maths

It feels strange watching Alex learn the basics of mathematics. So many solutions that come so naturally to me are a struggle for him, not through lack of intelligence on his part, but from their unfamiliarity as he tries to understand the basic concepts.

This morning it was money. When you think about it there's a lot of basic arithmetic stored in a piggy bank.

Alex wanted a milky pop from the canteen. That's 10 cents. Now he wants 5. For most of us that's easy, 5 x 10c = 50c. But he's barely touched on multiplication yet, so it's back to addition.

Fortunately, they've done counting on tens (a prelude to multiplication), otherwise the addition is very painful.

Okay, so we've got the first answer, now the problem is how to make it with coins. If you don't have a 50c coin then you need to make 50 from smaller denominations, say 2 x 20c and 1 x 10c. Again, we've got multiplications going on, or counting on twenties.

Then he wants to buy one for his friend. So now we have 5 + 1 = 6 milky pops. And we need to add 10c to the total cash required.

My spelling all that out was torturous, wasn't it? But that's the least level of detail required when you are starting out. For me now, I don't even have to consciously think about such sums. This level of mathematics is more of an emotional response than intellectual. Relationships between numbers have become intuitive feelings. Coins have shapes, you don't even have to think about the numbers on them, you just know how they fit together to make new numbers.

But I can see that developing in Alex. Sometimes he'll immediately pick the right answer to a mathematical question and it's only when he starts thinking about it too hard that he might struggle and get it wrong. It's fascinating to watch.

Communicating science

I recently read an article somewhere how versions of Pythagoras' Theorem were independently "discovered" in Egypt, India and China prior to its namesake. Why then do we associate it with a single Greek?

It is not uncommon for scientific and mathematical discoveries to occur multiple times. So who chooses the credit?

Communication plays no small part in this. The more widely a discovery is communicated, the more awareness there is of a result, the less chance that it will be repeated as if new. That means researchers can put their efforts into something new rather than wasting time on reinvention of the old.

Science communication shouldn't just be about promoting ideas for money and prestige, it should also be for ensuring that knowledge is accessible, not hidden away in some dark corner.

Purpose

I chose to believe that humans have three purposes. One is the purpose of life itself: To survive.

The other purposes are those that raise us above all other known species: To understand and to create.

The better our understanding the Universe the better we serve our first purpose as well and the better we can create.

It disappoints me that so many believe that our purpose is to believe or to gain personal wealth and power to the subversion of all other goals.

Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular 2015

Each fan has their own Doctor. Maybe their Doctor wasn't the greatest actor. Maybe he didn't have the best scripts. But he's the one they grew up with, who held their hand as they ventured into time and space.

For me it's Peter Davison. For B, David Tennant. Alex has Matt Smith. I wonder if Colin Baker has anyone?

That's the level and target of humour on display at the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular 2015, as hosted again by my Doctor. B and Alex complained it flew right over their heads, but there were enough true Whovians in the audience to laugh loudly.

Another year, another Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and another Symphonic Spectacular, my fourth. I attended this one in my current city of abode, Sydney. Last time it was here, The Metropolitan Orchestra performed at the Opera House, today it was Qantas Credit Union Arena, formerly the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

I think it sounded better, although a bit too much sound appeared to come from the speakers above us rather than the orchestra proper. We were at the side of the stage, near the bottom of the ring, a lot closer to the action than the previous three times. That meant seeing Mr Davison up closer too, though sadly none of the aliens actually came up the stairs close to us, as they would have done in previous concerts had we been so close.

The Metropolitan Orchestra was joined by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and soloist singer Antoinette Halloran. All sounded virtually perfect and I was very impressed. Conductor Ben Foster was amazing to watch up close, conveying and sharing in the emotion of the music through his baton skills, and adding the odd bit of interaction with Peter Davison and "acting" (courtesy of mentor Colin Baker). As an aside, his own compositions are well worth a listen as well.

I was very pleased with the selection of music this time. The soundtrack to Series 8 hasn't been released yet, so that music was still quite fresh and new. But there were also some of the best themes from back to the beginning of the series' reboot. A good balance was struck in my opinion.

The programme is listed below with some brief notes.

A Good Man?

The Thirteenth Doctor's theme might sound simple at first listen, but its driven energy has made it a real highlight of the last season. I had shivers down my spine as the orchestra started playing it.

Wherever, Whenever (Anywhere in Time and Space)

A suite of highlights from Series 8, the music mostly soared, but had some quieter moments. Despite my previously brief acquaintance with many of the themes I really enjoyed it.

The Doctor's Theme/Song of Freedom

A combination of the wonderful Doctor's Theme Series 4 and the Song of Freedom, also from that series, this was magnificent, the reminder on the big screen of the Doctor and his companions, including Sarah Jane Smith (the late Elizabeth Sladen) saving the Universe from the Daleks just made it more poignant.

The Companions

The Doctor's companions returned with this medley of beautiful themes for Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy. It's funny how Alex reacted best to Donna's section, even though it's one of my least favourite parts.

To Darkness

The ominous and powerful chorus of the Daleks, mostly from Series 4, followed by new music for the Series 8 episode "Into the Dalek". Of course there were Daleks in the theatre doing their schtick.

Last Christmas Suite

Music from the latest Christmas special. Like many of the Christmas specials, it was a bit light on depth, but still enjoyable.

We then had an interval for 20 minutes.

All the Strange, Strange Creatures

A favourite from Series 3, this music is dedicated to the large number of aliens that the Doctor battles or befriends. Many of them appeared around the venue. I was glad that this was the introduction to the second session because it is one of Alex's best loved themes.

The Impossible Girl

Clara's gentle and whimsical theme, a highlight from the last couple of series.

66 Seconds

The scary mummy on the space borne Orient Express made an appearance, scaring Alex a little. New music and not so familiar, I'll reserve judgement for now.

The Pandorica Suite

Music from the final episodes of Series 5, it also featured in the first two concerts. But it's exciting and the look on Alex's face when it closed with the wonderful "I am the Doctor" theme, otherwise missing from this concert, was priceless. 

Abigail's Song

The beautiful song from "A Christmas Carol" is one of the concert staples, and deservedly so.

Fifty - This is Gallifrey

First heard in Series 3, this is another favourite, evoking the Doctor's memories of his childhood home. Unlike the first couple of times it was played at the concerts there were no visuals of regenerations, so no disruptive cheers from the audience. Instead it was set to scenes of the 50th anniversary special. I loved it.

Death in Heaven Suite

The Master (well, Missy now) and the Cybermen return in the Series 8 finale. Exciting and uplifting (literally), the suite includes the theme for the latest Doctor, making for a fantastic finale for the printed program.

Naturally, there were encores.

Vale Decem

The dramatically sad song for the demise of David Tennant's much loved Doctor featured visuals for each of his regenerations, bringing out cheers from the audience (though strangely lacking for Colin Baker).

Doctor Who Theme

You knew it would end like this. And of course it should, with such and energetic and exciting rendition of the classic theme.

All in all an excellent performance. I hope the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular has many more regenerations left in it!

Previous concerts

• Melbourne 2012
• Sydney 2012
• Melbourne 2014

Apologies for the photos, only pocket cameras were allowed in, so I only had my mobile phone.