Brians Soapbox May 2008



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EXPERT OPINION

As always, the opinions expressed in these pages are purely and personally those of myself, Brian; they are not the official views of Queen, or of any other organisation or individual.

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**Wed 14 May 08**
ITALIAN ROCK FM

[An Italian Radio Station, facing closure, posted a message on youtube... SEE LETTERS]

Well, that's a bit of a shock ! Yes, I have yet to prove that I can help save just one Radio Station - and that close to home ...

I'm deeply touched by the message, but I think it's a bit outside my capabilities to take on anything else like this right now.

May I wish you guys luck ... My heart will be with you - I hope it all turns out for the best.

Cheers
Dr. Bri

**Wed 14 May 08**
PROGRESS IN SAVING PLANET ROCK ....

Just a quiet update.

My partners and I, in the "Save Planet Rock" adventure, are getting close to an agreement with GCAP, and relations are cordial !!!

It has been a much bigger set of variables to sort out than any of us realised - and even now I can't tell you that it's certain there will be a deal struck ... but the will is there.

Thanks so much for your supportive messages ... I feel we may be about to enter the heart of a very passionate and thriving Rock Family. This is fascinating and challenging. Onwards !!

cheers
Bri

**Mon 12 May 08**
JENN ART APPEARS AT L.A. BANG SIGNING...! EEK!

**Thu 08 May 08**
PLANET OF ANGELS

Brian at KLOS Radio, Los Angeles - 5 May 2008
(left Stew Herrera, right presenters Cynthia Fox and Jim Ladd)

Here's the happy scene after a very Jet-lagged BM spent a pleasant evening at Los Angeles's KLOS FM Station.

cheers
Bri

**Wed 07 May 08**
SPANISH MOSS AND SCOTCH MIST

OK !

It's been a while since we got 3-D on the Soapbox. I took a few sequential stereo's in Florida ... and finally just got a moment to mount them up ...

I have a great love for Spanish Moss! Perhaps because it makes me feel like I'm in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland! But it's beautiful, and immediately makes you aware you are in a different world, down there in the swampy lands. I love the swamps .. I hope they don't drain too many more ... it's a wonderful landscape .. mysterious and unique.

These lovely trees were beside the Hilton Hotel in Gainesville, where I stayed for the Honorary Degree ceremony.

Enjoy !

This stuff just hangs in festoons from the trees like some amazing Christmas Tree decoration. It seems to favour some trees over others - I never saw it on palm trees, perhaps because they shed their fronds so often. But I"m assured that it is NOT parasitic, and the proof is here in the fact that it grows on wire fences and rope meshes too too .... here's a young 'seed' ... although I assume it propagates vegetatively ...

Although it's not a parasite (unlike the people who sell guitars with bogus signed scratch plates), I have seen evidence that too much of it is not great news for its host ... the lower branches of some fir trees seem to die off when covered with the moss. I guess it's just another example of the fact that, its not just Too Much Love that will kill you .... too much of almost anything tends to suck.

Cheers
Dr Bri

**Wed 07 May 08**
FLORIDA, LOS ANGELES, AND BEYOND - OR 'GATORS AND ANGELS

I used to write about all the stuff I was doing, didn't I, on this site ... but there is just too much now ... I can't possibly keep up.

But here's a couple of snippets ... I'll try harder !

Firstly, thanks to all the NICE people who turned up at the book signing in Los Angeles yesterday ... thanks for all the good will, and gifts, and I really feel like I made a couple of new friends, as well as renewing some old friendships. I will probably have something to say later about the people who managed to cheat and lie their way into getting me to sign stuff purely to make money, parasitically, from the event .... but that's for later. It's actually hard not to let stuff like that completely ruin your day ... I was exhausted at the end of a long day's promotion, and when when I discovered how some scumbags had taken advantage of my goodwill, I felt so angry and despondent, all I wanted to do was NEVER sign anything again ...

I am trying to keep the good stuff in the front of my mind, right now.

Los Angeles is very close to my heart ... it is a second home to me, and I always feel thankful and grateful every time I get back here ... amazed that I am still alive and able to enjoy it, after all these years.

My trip to the newly refurbished Griffith Park Observatory was brilliant ... I was looked after by the amazing director, Dr Ed Krupp ... and the place is absolutely spectacular. It was great to be 'back-stage' in a place where me and my kids have spent so many happy hours. The observatory is selling our BANG! book, and they have some signed copies, so if you were not able to get down to Book Soup, yesterday, check the observatory out.

My trip to Florida was incredible too .. I know Jen has put up some info about that, elsewhere on the site, including my speech to honour Professor Paco Sanchez, my former co-supervisor in the University if La Laguna in Tenerife. I was invited by a man who is almost certainly the greatest figure in the theoretical study of Dust in the Solar System ... Professor Stan Dermott ...

I'm going to illustrate with a bit of promotion for HIS book, rather than mine, which is an amazing text-book - a bible for anyone entering the world of dynamical studies of Solar System bodies.

Photo by Ashley Espey, of the department of Astrophysics, University of Florida.
'Gators Rock !!!!

(Oh, I'll be telling you about my exploits with alligators later, too ... if I get a minute !

Cheers
Bri

**Sun 04 May 08**
FRANCISCO SANCHEZ APPRECIATION

My speech notes ... although I didn't stick to the notes - I never do, really .. this is what I PLANNED to say !!

Bri

Brian's Slides

[Editor: Red type in speech nots below indicates slides as shown above.]

FRANCISCO SANCHEZ APPRECIATION

Joseph O'Connell Center, Gainesville, Florida

SATURDAY, 3 MAY 2008

I wanted to be here for this.

Title Slide My thanks to Stan Dermott for inviting me to be a part of this … I feel very honoured. I know I am in the company of Astronomers and particularly Zodiacalists and Solar System Astronomers – and Dusty Astronomers – who know more about this than I do, so I feel particularly humble speaking here.

Here is the Zodiacal Light (2) – something which is a common thread for many of us here. I’d like to pay tribute to this great man, by lightly sketching how he has affected my life, and give a very small glimpse of the man from the interactions I have had. It will also give a view of the very early days in Tenerife, some of which I was privileged to share. And, by rambling through the history of the Zodiacal Light, which is a common thread for many of us here, I hope to, in my personal way, locate Paco’s place in the history Astronomy of the Canary Islands and Spain, which has a great bearing on Paco’s place in history as a whole. I collect pictures of the ZL, and here are a few, - the Zodiacal Light is what links many of us here to Paco.

Cassini claimed the discovery of the Zodiacal Light … in 1685. It’s fascinating that there are so few early mentions of a phenomenon which must have been very conspicuous in the skies of generations of shepherds throughout prehistory. Nevertheless, Cassini opened up the study of the Zodiacal Light, and advanced some pretty good theories of what caused it.

I now jump a couple of hundred years to 1856, when a young Scottish astronomer called Charles Piazzi Smith, or Smyth as he later preferred to be called … visited Tenerife, in a quest to verify a theory which had been put forward by the great Newton himself, that the ‘seeing’ for telescopes ought be improved by going up a mountain, because there would be less air in the line of sight. In an expedition run on a shoestring, and mounted on mules, Piazzi Smyth established a base camp on Mt Guajara, at 8,900 feet. And later even higher, at Alta Vista, not far from the top of Mount Teide – I think about 10,000 feet, Mt Teide being over 11,000.

He published his book on the expedition, "Teneriffe – an Astronomers Experiment”, the first book ever to be illustrated with Stereoscopic pictures. Here are a couple of them … he did some sight-seeing in Tenerife also!

And so began Astronomy in Tenerife. And the links to Paco are even stronger here, because Piazzi Smyth had a particular fascination for the Zodiacal Light …. Here is HIS drawing of it (pretty bright for him!). He was even the first man to attempt to capture a spectrum of it.

So the next famous Astronomer in Tenerife was Paco! And we have seen that Paco single-handedly, over the following 30 years, piloted Spain and Tenerife, and La Palma to the forefront of modern astronomy. (He also secured dark, unpolluted skies for his beloved Island observatories.)

I entered a PhD project in 1970 at Imperial College London, under Prof Jim Ring, a pioneering Infrared astronomer. But also Jim’s department already had a history with the Zodiacal Light. They had already tried to find evidence of Doppler shifts in absorption lines in the light reflected from the ZL – on a mountain in Bolvian Andes. They didn’t really succeed – they found emission instead – H Alpha emission, which obscured the absorption feature. So, as a post-graduate student, I took on the project, switching attention to the Magnesium I emission line.

At this point, Prof Francisco Sanchez was already engaged in Zodiacal Light studies in Tenerife, in the tradition of Piazzi Smyth, and had published important papers on the photometry and Polarimetry of the ZL.

He kindly offered us a site to build an observatory for our purposes. THIS is the state-of-the art observatory I was able to build, with the help of my great friend Carlos Sanchez, sadly no longer with us, whom Paco delegated to help me. Even in those days, when I was a lowly student, and Professor Sanchez was a very important professor of Astronomy, he treated me as a friend, and I was to call him, not Boss, or Sir, but “Paco”.

This is how the Paco’s Observatorio del Teide looked in 1972 - just a couple of huts and a couple of domes … this is what it looked like in 2007, thirty years later – a multinational complex, but still Paco’s baby. Here is a modern aerial view of the observatory, showing the ever-beautiful island of Tenerife and the ever- present Mount Teide.

Inside the magnificent hut, here is the core of my equipment, the Fabry-Perot Spectrometer, which I built, or rebuilt, and here is a vital piece which sits outside, the Coelostat … and here you see some chap who was lining it up ! Yes, a young Brian May, who spent at least some of his time getting inspiration in a different way … with a guitar. Here I am sitting in the crater at the very pinnacle of Mount Teide, pondering the question of where to go in life …

Well, the path I took led me to all kinds of things, many tours of the world making music with Queen, and finally to the top of another mountain, Buckingham Palace in 2002 ! This was more scary than the top of Mt Teide !! Here I am on a screen when it was over, and I didn’t screw it up, and I was thanking God ! In the midst of all this - Paco actually came to visit me for the opening of the Queen Musical We Will Rock You in Madrid, 2004 – and I have a picture to prove it ! I was very thrilled to renew the friendship.

Then, after a gap of 30 years, I was drawn back into astronomy, partly due to the encouragement of Paco, who told me he would open the doors of the IAC, the Institute Astrophysics of the Canaries open to me. Also due to my friend Garik Israelian, who is here with me, and of Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, who took me back on, at Imperial College, after a gap year of 35 years as a graduate student! Here we are discussing my return ! I actually was able to complete the Doctorate in 2007.

Shirtly after I became a doctor, Paco invited me to be a part of the First Light of the GTC - and here we are, promoting the event for the press…. And here is the magnificent beast itself, the GTC (again, forgive my hooliday snaps) .. and here we are … with the Prince of Spain, Felipe who is great supporter of Astronomy in Spain. I also had one of the best meals of my life, meeting for the first time, this chap – a celebrated ex-patriot Englishman – who was able to explain to me what a Dust Torus really is for the first time !! (5)

The inauguration is still to come, next year, and at Paco’s command I will be working on special music of the spheres for this very special event, possibly with Jean-Michel Jarre, who has expressed a great interest in collaborating. A great opportunity and a great challenge. And for me, and for Paco, some great circles completed.

So this is my history with Paco in a nutshell. Through the years of my absence, occasionally I was able to exchange messages with Paco – he was always friendly and encouraging. I actually felt a little guilty over the years, having ‘abandoned’ astronomy, and one day last year, I told him this. I said - “ I am so happy to back here, but what have I been doing for the last 30 years ? Not astronomy – I feel like a fraud”. He said, “Brian, it is the same for me, I was an administrator for the last 30 years – now I can return to astronomy too … we will return together” . This is typical of a man who offers everyone kindness and encouragement.

Finally, this man, who has been inspiration to me in Science, has been an inpiration in a more important way. He is an inspiration as a human being. This is a man who knows how to work but also how to live. He knows that he can get the best out of thise who wark for him if they have a decent balanced life, and he applies it to himself. For Paco there is always a time to be serious, and work damn hard … but there is also a time to play and smile, and laugh and eat good food and drink great wine ... to be a human being as well as a human doing !

So this is my tribute to Professor Francisco Sanchez – he is truly a great example to us all. Long may he enjoy the dark skies he has done so much to preserve for future generations.

Dr Brian May

**Sat 03 May 08**
MISSION TO SAVE PLANET ROCK

In response to many of your kind enquiries .... yes, those few words on the Soapbox about Planet Rock DID lead to me getting involved in mounting a rescue operation to save the station. I can't tell you who I am 'in league' with, but I am part of a small group of people who have great hopes that we will succeed in taking over the station, and putting it on a firm footing, for the benefit of its growing audience.

I regard Planet Rock as rather more than just a radio station - it is a symbol of free radio ... radio which is not run by large corporate organisations for the purpose of making tons of money, and has a free choice of what it plays. I'm not going to run down any particular radio station - this country has some talented and dedicated people working in music radio ...

But I do feel that, for a healthy climate for music in this country, we need to allow small independent stations to exist alongside the huge FM giants. I listen to radio in my car, one of the few times I am 'in my own space' - and, for me, who grew up with Zeppelin, the Who, Hendrix, Traffic, AC/DC, Van Halen ... THE BEATLES ..... tell me, where can you hear music from these kinds of artists these days ? You'll have a hard job finding "Kashmir" flicking through the channels in the UK.

DAB Radio has had a brave start, and can provide freedom from domination by commercially minded programming, but it might, at this point, slip between the cracks. I believe this cause is worth supporting ... and will be doing my best to put my money and expertise) where my mouth is ! We hope to be able to make an announcement soon. In the meantime, of you agree with me ... Demand your Planet Rock !! Demand your DAB !!! !

Cheers
Bri

**Fri 02 May 08**
FROM ALLIGATOR COUNTRY

I am in Gainesville, Florida ... making my speech tomorrow, a tribute to Professor Francisco Sanchez, who oversaw my Astronomical work all those years ago in Tenerife. He's truly a great man ... the father of Astrophysics in Spain. So it's an honour for me to be asked to speak, on the occasion of his being presented with the highest lifetime award in this University.

It's beautiful down here - Alligator country ... and green as green can be. On the trees, hanging like delicate Christmas tree decorations, there is that beautiful Spanish Moss - like you see in movies like "Gone with the Wind" .... to me, tired and jet-lagged but excited by this new challenge, it feels a bit dream-like - like being in Disneyland !

Ok ... a quick check of the speech - and grab some sleep.

Cheers all

Dr. Bri

**Fri 02 May 08**
CHANCELLOR SPEECH

Transcript:

DR BRIAN MAY ~ INSTALLATION
AS CHANCELLOR OF LJMU

MONDAY, 14TH APRIL, 2008

Thank you so much for all those kind words. I feel incredibly welcome and incredibly excited to accept this new challenge. Champion and Figurehead - I rather like those words actually if I had to chose. I will definitely endeavour to be a champion for all of you and a figurehead. Very touched to be in this wonderful place actually and so touched that so many of you turned up. It means a lot to me.

My associations with Liverpool go back a long way in every area of my life; friends apart from anything else. Much of our first work with Queen was done here, long before we were important enough even to be invited to the Cavern. We were up here rehearsing and writing and choosing our clothes and sleeping on people's floors in the very early days.

I have very fond memories of Liverpool in those days.

My academic links with LJMU are bound up with the University’s fantastic Astrophysics team led by Chris Collins. It’s an award-winning research and teaching unit that I have become to be very familiar with and also very proud of, and its work is truly pushing the boundaries of the understanding of our Universe.

Last year the University was kind enough to honour me by bestowing a Fellowship on me in recognition of my return to Astronomy, even before I had officially completed the work of my PHD at Imperial College, so from that point my connections with the University were firmly established. I have to say I was still quite shocked when Michael suggested to me that I might consider the post of Chancellor. It was really the last thing I expected. Since then I have had time to adjust and become attuned to the idea and I now feel that it’s not only a great honour, which goes without saying, but also a wonderful new kind of opportunity for me to help feedback some of the things which I have learnt to a new generation of students.

I’d like to say a couple of very personal thank you's, to everyone on this platform and to all of you who have had confidence in me, particularly the Board of Governors who have appointed me. If I can single out a couple of people, particularly Professor Michael Brown CBE who, by his own strongly felt conviction, not only convinced the Board that I was right for the job but also perhaps an even harder job of convincing me that I was capable and right for the job. He managed it in the end. I did say "No" in the beginning and he said, "Yes, you’ve said 'No'. That means you are perfectly suited for the job", so he is a man who doesn’t give up. God bless him.

Sir Malcolm Thornton, our Chairman, also believed in me from the beginning and has been so supportive on my journey to this point.

I’d like to thank my dear wife, Anita, who is here. She’s also an Honorary of LIPA, as I am sure many you know. She has managed to squeeze this ceremony into the middle of a long tour of the UK, in which there are very few gaps. She is playing Dolly Levi to spectacular receptions in "Hello Dolly" in a town near you, actually in June in this particular area. I have to give a little plug here - just opposite in the Empire, which actually we played many years ago. So thank you for being here, my darling. It means so much to me.

Special thanks to Cherie Blair and I know it’s going to be hard to fill her shoes. She’s been a fantastic Chancellor, everybody’s told me, and I am going to attack her later on for some tips on how to be something like the excellent Chancellor that she’s been. Thank you for being here to hand over to me that means a lot to me.

My thanks to my wonderful friend and mentor Dr Sir Patrick Moore, I can hardly believe, Sir, that in the middle of a punishing schedule which you always follow, and in the face of increasing physical annoyances, that you are here to support me in this very special moment. I offer my sincere thanks to Patrick, not only for being here but also for being the major inspiration for my return into the world of Astrophysics. Sir Patrick’s long been a supporter of the JMU and is also an Honorary, of course, and he has been very encouraging in bringing me into my involvement with the University. Thank you Sir Patrick. Bless you.

Continued....

Well, I suppose my multi-coloured life as a musician and an Astrophysicist, and a few other things besides, really do embody the message - the mantra of Liverpool John Moores University. The words 'Dream, Plan and Achieve', probably apply quite well to me. I have been very fortunate to achieve many of my dreams and truly I have never stopped dreaming, even though it’s led me into a few tight spots, but I thoroughly recommend it as a way of life. I am really looking forward to my term of office. I think this is a very, very unusual place. It’s a place of learning, which is unusually adapted to align with the outside world. It’s not an ivory tower by any means. It’s also extremely aware of what is required of a University in the 21st Century and what employers look for in graduates, and I know that in the years of my Chancellorship we will be setting a standard which others will be able to follow.

Specifically the World of Work, the WOW programme, that LJMU has embedded within all its courses, is emblematic of the people who make this University tick; many of whom I have been lucky enough to meet now. They have an unusual and a very enlightened approach to learning, they are committed to giving everything they can to the students with a very much of a can-do attitude. They teach by example as well as by lecture. As an employer myself, I know what I look for. I want people with knowledge and skills, but none of this works if they don’t have a good attitude, if they don’t have good people skills, if they don’t have a great mindset. People who have these qualities are the employees that everyone wants today and this is the place to get those qualifications.

I am following in very auspicious, no, that’s not the right word, 'pre-accomplished' footsteps, very worthy footsteps. First of all the late Henry Cotton, who was the very first Chancellor, John Moores the younger who is here and, of course, Cherie Booth, who is handing the baton over to me right now. I fully intend to follow the path that they have set and use my own talents to give a little more than is asked. That’s my ambition and I hope to help the University to Dream Plan and Achieve in an even bigger universe than it has already experienced. I will endeavour to be worthy of this honour.

Just one more word about this great mantra as I call it, the 'Dream Plan and Achieve' thing. I’d like to add my personal little stamp to this, a little postscript if you like; it's this. I would say [not only] to the students but to all of us - enjoy every part of the process, because the moment of achievement is not all there is. In fact sometimes the moment of achievement can be almost unnoticed as we sweep onto the next challenge and sometimes, quite frankly, I’m sure many of you will agree, the moment of that achievement, which we have all looked forward to, can be quite an anti-climax.

My message to all of you, and it's heartfelt, is the journey is everything because the journey never ends. The journey is worthwhile for its own sake. The moment is important for its own sake.

Suppose we went on a train journey to some important destination tomorrow and we were so set on the destination that we never looked out of the windows. Well, we would miss a lot and we are, all of us, every one of us here today, is incredibly fortunate to be on the journey that we are on. This is a magnificent place to be and I would just say to you all, let's make sure we look around today and every day and feel happy, grateful and blessed. Dream - enjoy your dream. Plan - enjoy your planning. Work damn hard and enjoy working hard and one day you will look back, whatever your achievement, and you will be able to say to yourself, "I had a great life and I have contributed something great to life".

Just so that you know that I practice what I preach, I’d like to tell you that I am enjoying this moment greatly and I fully intend to thoroughly enjoy my term as Chancellor of this University.

Thank you very much.

Dr Brian May

Courtesy of LJMU

Bri

**Thu 01 May 08**
NOT A CHILDREN'S BOOK

[Regarding this news item ROCK STAR TO PLAY SUPPORTING ROLE AT ASTRONOMY COMMENCEMENT EVENT:]

Yes - its all true. I leave on Friday ... to Florida, for the award, and then on to LA to do the Bang! stuff.

The only mistake is calling Bang! a children's book ... which is beginning to piss me off !!

Somebody has to tell them !

Bri

**Thu 01 May 08**
STADIUM ANTHEM CLUB

Excellent ! This ought to go on Soapbox !

Bri

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