The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby $

Posted on 2015/10/31 by Neil Howard Posted in Education Plus Adventure Leave a comment

The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby

Those that take an interest in Rugby Union will undoubtedly follow the major events, with respect to Rugby, across the World. However, at this time, the phrase “the HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby” will not have a voice. The major event in the Rugby Union World is the World Rugby Union World Cup. This event takes place every 4 years and the 2015 World Rugby Union Championship (WRUC) final is to take place between New Zealand and Australia. Whichever of those two teams wins they will have won the WRUC three times. Most Rugby Union followers will have seen the HAKA. This is a challenge carried out by the New Zealand team to its opponents before every match that New Zealand play. This post titled “The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby” is to promote the sport, in Colombia, by grabbing the attention of the sports mad Colombians.

The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby. The HAKA Challenge

The HAKA originated as a traditional ancestral war cry or challenge made by the Maori’s to their enemies, the Maori’s being the indigenous people of New Zealand. It is an aggressive series of postures performed by the New Zealand team, with threatening movements and stamping of the feet with a rhythmic and screamed accompaniment. The performing of the HAKA began in the 1888/1889 tour but, without the media coverage of today, was not as well known as it is today. The New Zealand team introduced the HAKA into the ritual made before each game in 1905. Then HAKA, today, is widely looked forward to across the World even by those who have no interest in the game itself.

The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby. Relevance to Colombia

Should you get this far in reading this post you will be wondering if I am mad and that I have made an error in writing as the subject “The HAKA and Tucanes in World Rugby”. You may be thinking what he meant to write was “The HAKA and New Zealand in World Rugby”. However, I hope you have time to read onwards.

Colombia is a nation that is football mad. This can be seen when the Colombian National team has a game scheduled at which point the number of Colombian Football Shirts sold soars and each road roundabout has the latest National Football Shirt strung out, in their hundreds, for sale to passing people.

My experiences, of the passion for football in Colombia, has been over a period of over 20 years. I am a Liverpool Football Club supporter and I was happy to find that there is are Liverpool Supporters Clubs across Colombia. However, I am also a keen follower of Rugby Union (RU), having played for my school and Chester RU club. Accordingly, I became interested in finding out if there was any growing interest in Rugby within Colombia. Three years ago, I asked the question of my extended family in Colombia. The question ” Is there a National Rugby Union Team of Colombia?” Each member of my extended family gave a negative answer. They did not know.

Searching on the internet, I found that there is a National Rugby Union Team of Colombia. The teams head-quarters is located in Medellin and the teams nick name is “The Tucanes”. About a year ago, I watched The Tucanes play on their home ground and it is “work in progress”, that’s for sure. However, having followed the RU Team of England and the RU team of Wales all my adult life when playing in various competitions I have seen two nations take up the sport and now have a high profile in the World of Rugby Union. These two nations are Italy and Argentina ( The Pumas).

The final of the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup between New Zealand and Australia will commence, on the field, with the New Zealand team performing the HAKA. It is my hope that the Colombian Rugby Union team will view the HAKA and then ask themselves the question “How can such a small nation as New Zealand field such a fantastic team”

Rugby has long been considered a ‘gentleman’s game’ and as such some of society’s most influential characters, from Oscar Wilde to Elizabeth Taylor to car bumper stickers, have commented on the game of rugby.

The most well known of all Rugby Quotes

“Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a gentleman’s game played by beasts; football is a beastly game played by beasts.” – Henry Blaha

Post published: New Zealand beat Australia. First Country to retain the championship and the first country to win the event three times

NOW WATCH WHAT MAY BE THE BEST HAKA EVER

MyHcolombia.com – BRITISH COUNCIL accredited and your route to an MBA $

Posted on 2015/10/09 by Neil Howard Posted in Education Plus Adventure Leave a comment

M y H Colombia– BRITISH COUNCIL accredited and your route to an MBA, your studies and a great future

The BRITISH COUNCIL has been successfully offering training to agents since 2006. Such training enables their agents to follow all UK application procedures, with respect to entry, visas and immigration requirements. The BRITISH COUNCIL recommends that applicants, for whom English is a second language requirement, take advantage of their certified agent’s expertise in ensuring that an applicant is presented with a choice of English Language Schools and other educational institutions that will meet an individual aspirations with respect to quality and outcome of their studies abroad. MyHColombia, being British Council accredited, can offer you a route to an MBA and other prestigious World recognised qualifications.

M y H Colombia– BRITISH COUNCIL accredited and your route to an MBA in English speaking countries

Note that most English speaking countries have adopted similar rules to the United Kingdom, hence BRITISH COUNCIL agents are ideally placed to give information with respect to most English speaking countries with regards to visa regulations and educational organizations. The BRITISH COUNCIL register of accredited agents, that is, those agents that have successfully been trained and obtained the BRITISH COUNCIL certification, shows only a very limited number of agents that are based in Colombia.

By interrogation of the BRITISH COUNCIL’s data base, only 25 Colombian agents are shown as Certified UK agents, for consulting and advising students with respect to GCSE, Boarding Schools, Language Schools, Undergraduate and postgraduate studies. M y H Colombia is one of those agents that are shown within the list

In four years of operation, M y H has had a 99% success on visas applications. A particular strength in making successful outcomes, is the fact that M y H has both Colombian and British Directors.

Note that MyHColombia (McEwen and Howard) is a sponsor of the Asociacion Colombiana de Profesores de Ingles (ASOCOPI) based in Bogota, Colombia

The list of accredited BRITISH COUNCIL agents in Colombia can be found at

http://bcagent.info/gal/search.php?member_country=Colombia&member_business_name=&member_family_name=#

MyH Colombia– BRITISH COUNCIL accredited and your route to an MBA, contact MhColombia, Bogota for further assistance.

Or GO to great programmes in great schools by clicking here “PROGRAMMES”

M y H has three URL which all lead to the main web site and which has a link to the desk of Pilar (Certified UK Agent) in Bogota Colombia. You will find her very courteous, friendly and helpful particularly with respect to life in the UK.

The URL are;-

www.MYHcolombia.com

www.estudiaryviajarmyh.com

www.mcewenandhoward.com

When you apply to study programmes abroad, through MyH, the monies for your course and accommodation are paid direct to the bank account of the specific school and/or university of your choice, hence to keep total transparency in the whole process.

We invite you to keep consulting our blog, which main purpose is to help, advise, encourage and guide students to reach their potential through gaining academic success and social skills,. Read more about adventures that will lead you into gaining leadership skills through sailing experiences, for example. You will also find information with regard to costs of life in different cities of the world, and many other learning experiences. Do not delay ring MyH today for free guidance. If it you have a question, even if it seems trivial, MyH will follow it up free of cost to you.

For more information on HOW TO with respect to obtaining a visa to enable your further studies, travel, adventure, sail training and useful information for your career please check out links below

Time: A Man Made Concept With No Relevance To The Universe $

Posted on 2015/09/29 by Neil Howard Posted in Beginners Physics, Go Adventure in Space Leave a comment

Time Is A Man Made Concept

The writing of this article was prompted by a conversation that took place between myself and a very dear friend as we discussed making our way to a presentation, by Dai Chef, at Brynteg Holiday Park in North Wales. It was a glorious September day with no wind, a blue sky and the Sun shining strongly down on the Park. Of course, the Sun cast very distinctive shadows and one such shadow was made by the slim trunk of a tree which is growing outside of my Caravan.

The presentation was to be at 12 Noon and, as we stood outside of the caravan, my friend asked me did I know which way the caravan pointed. I understood, of course, he was asking in which geographical orientation the van was set. I replied that the Sun rises over to the left side of the caravan door which would be East. My friend, being one step ahead of me, said that the satellite dish on the caravan pointed to the South-East which he said was the direction of the satellite which was being picked up by the dish. I was stuck for a moment, then, I looked at the shadow of the tree , looked at his watch and told him that the direction of the shadow from the tree pointed North. He was happy with that and we started our short walk to the presentation. As we started to walk I asked my friend what he saw when he looked at his watch. He looked at me as to why I should ask such a question and then said “The time”. I replied “What if I told you that time does not exist and what he was seeing was a sundial showing his position on earth relative to the sun” That statement was taken in with a snort and no response by my friend. We, then, went on to really enjoy the presentation by Dai Chef and the offerings of his delicious cooking techniques.

Moving on, as we grow up we are all taught how to tell the time

This piece of knowledge has been handed down, from generation to generation, from the first human beings whose simple understanding of time was by observing that there was day and there was night.

As the human species developed the word “time” was brought into language . As the understanding of our very existence developed the need to organise our lives required a more accurate means of measuring time. Hence the invention of the sundial.

Most of the human race understands the operation of a sundial, where a shadow of a vertical set piece is projected onto the face of the sundial. A fantastic invention of its day but of little use when the sun set below the horizon or when, as in many parts of the World, the Sun is blotted out by clouds. These facts were a challenge to those that sought to measure time more accurately. The video below shows a very good understanding of how man kind has developed the measurement of time without knowing what time really is.

It has to be understood that our system of time measurement is having to deal with the fact that the Earth’s rotation is slowing down. In fact, at the formation of the World, it was spinning much faster where one Earth Rotation was made in, by today’s time cycle, of 6 hrs. With the new knowledge, that Mars has water, could we colonise Mars were our system of time would be very challenged.

Science is struggling with the issue of time and its very existence but, for the daily use of mankind, a system of time measurement, of this very elusive concept, has been devised over millennium. All mankind refers to time with respect to events in their daily lives, their birth date, how old they are, our Sun’s position , the duration of our Galaxy and the birth and death of the Universe.

Life has developed on Earth and, very likely, on other very distant planets. The distances between our closest planets are extremely difficult to overcome and the distances to other planets we may never have the resources or technology to overcome. However, should, by the remotest of chances, we were to colonise a new world, some billion, billion, billion miles away, what time system would we need to set up as Earth’s system would not cut the ice

Whilst we are contemplating our existence on earth , our earth is changing beneath our feet constantly. The Earth’s population is forever threatened with natural and, of late, man made catastrophes. It is ageing, its dynamo is slowing, its magnetic field will decay and from that moment life on Earth will decline. We, as a human race, will end and, eventually, all life will end and the Earth’s existence will end. Not to belittle the Human Race and its triumphs and tragedies, it has to be understood that we are an accident of nature. In the vastness of the Universe we are nothing, an insignificant blot. When we are gone forever, a in an instant, after the last human being succumbs to fate, a billion billion years shall go by, in an instant, as there is nobody to monitor our time pieces. Time as we understand it will have disappeared. Our measured time, only of use to us, is irrelevant to the Cosmos, the Universe and Nature.

Let us put “time” in the pigeon hole were it best sits. It is a human concept and plays no role in the physical laws of Nature and the Universes.

Many scientists now believe that time does not exist and an “instant” may be defined as the relative position of every particle ( which covers every physical mass) in relation to every other particle. There is no past or future just this “instant”. We are the product of constant change at varying rates of change. however, to have a “rate” of change man devised time otherwise we could never set a time (a grand GPS) to meet at the pub

There is one consolation. We may fear death and believe that we shall miss an awful lot after the very moment of our last breath. However, in an instant, after your last breath and as far as your life is concerned, a billion years will have elapsed and everyone will be dead, that’s for sure.

Please note that the whole purpose for the existence of www.mcewenandhoward.com and its associated blog is to help, advise, encourage and guide students to reach their potential through gaining academic success and social skills, whilst also gaining leadership skills through sailing experience

Beginners Physics- Understanding What Your Time Piece Is Really Showing ? $

Posted on 2015/07/08 by Neil Howard Posted in Beginners Physics, Go Adventure in Space Leave a comment

What is your Watch or Mobile Really Telling You ??

The World News, of Tuesday the 29th June 2015, was dramatic. Time was to stop!!!. It was stated that the World Clocks would be adjusted by one second. The reason being that the Earth’s rotation is slowing down (and always has been from the moment the Earth’s journey was accompanied by the Moon). So, why did a fact of nature have to be matched by man made atomic clocks et al. Had time changed or had the basis, on which we have based time, changed. The World News outlets BBC,CNN, Fox etc and International News Papers all gave an account, before the event, of why the time had to be changed.

So, would that mean that each mechanical clock would have to be adjusted and, for complete accuracy, should people who have a wristwatch adjust their watch by one second.

In this blog there is a series of posts which carry the message that time does not exist so let an observation be made.

At all New Year celebrations, you will recall noting that Islands in the Pacific had their celebrations of the New Year first and then other capital cities followed with their own celebrations for their New Year. This occurs because the World Clock shows a different “time zone” for different capital cities. Larger counties with a great East to West distance eg the USA and Russia, have multiple time zones but a country, such as Norway. which has a very small East to West width but a great North to South Distance has only one time zone. All these time zones are there to have the Sun overhead, at 12 noon. By overhead is meant the Sun being half way across the Sky from an observers view.

When each person in the World opens their eyes, at the start of their waking day, one of the very first things which is done is to check the time. For many people the time shown may be 6am. However, the following day, the same person, following their same routine, will open their eyes and see 6am. This infers a day has gone by but that person is back at the same time. What every person in the World sees, on their time piece, is not “time” but an indication where they are, on the Worlds circumference, relative to the Sun. For our convenience this is shown on a scale of 1 to 24 (or 1 to 12 for am and pm) and we know this as our local time.

It has to be understood that each person has their own exact locating position relative to the Sun, our GPS if you will, but using that would lead to chaos in our lives and on the stock markets. To overcome this mankind invented the concept of time. Further, to enable the Worlds population to have a “time” that is useful the World is divided into segments. Think of segments of an orange, in this case 24 segments, and each segment is given a “time zone” between 1 and 24. In the USA, due to the great distance from the East coast to the West coast their are three “time zones”. Accordingly, even though we have a unique locator, our GPS, the land and sea surface that we are located on, have a general “time zone” to be able to organise our lives.

Many scientific people are coming to the realisation that “time” does not exist. One question that is challenging the scientific community is the duration of the Universe. Of course, everyone does not like uncertainty and, at this time, the scientific community believes that the Universe had a “start date” and therefore must have an “end date”. Whether the Universe started with a big bang and will end with a big rip or expand forever is still to be proven. Scientist have given a “time” in billions of years since the start of the Universe but what if the Universe just exists and there is and never has been, no such thing as a “non-existent Universe”.

If the Universe exists, always has done and always will exist, what length of time, in Earth years, has this been the case??

In a real life incident, which demonstrates the difficulties of “time”, as a Senior Engineer on board a container ship, shuttling between Los Angeles to Keelung, Taiwan, I had a personnel problem. The International Date Line(IDL) is an imaginary line running generally North to South is in the Pacific Ocean. A traveller crossing the IDL eastbound subtracts one day, or 24 hours, so that the calendar date to the west of the line is repeated after the following midnight. Crossing the IDL westbound results in 24 hours being added, advancing the calendar date by one day. The IDL is necessary to have a fixed, albeit arbitrary, boundary on the globe where the calendar date advances in the westbound direction. The crossing of the IDL on one voyage, by my ship, resulted in a Sunday being followed by another Sunday. As the Deck and Engine room crew were paid overtime on a Sunday, this caused the crew to submit overtime for both Sundays. Time gave me a problem then and is giving science a very big problem now.

Beginners Physics – Time and Gravity ( Part 1 of 8) $

Posted on 2015/06/13 by Neil Howard Posted in Beginners Physics, English Leave a comment

The Rise Of Intelligent Life and How Time Has Slipped into Conciousness

This series of posts are written in lay man’s terms to encourage and help those who wish to enter into the World of physics. There is still much to be learned and understood about our World, the Solar system and the Universe. There are a number of attributes of the Universe that there is much debate about. Two of these attributes are “time” and “gravity”. Many eminent scientists have spent their lives attempting to understand these two attributes and with each passing century our total understanding of exactly the nature of these two attributes leads us to other open doors.

Those, with knowledge of the subject of matter, for the last hundred years have had, at the core of their understanding, Einstein’s work of General Relativity. The apparent problem is that the rules that govern the smaller particles and the rules that govern larger masses do not match and there has been much debate as arriving at a common set of rules that govern all things. However, the attempts at arriving at this set of rules always comes up against General Relativity to which Minkowski gave us “Space time” as a way out of the problem and Einstein rubber stamped it.

In these posts, the rise of intelligent life is understood, not to have taken place over millions of years, but over billions of earth miles in a never ending journey through space aboard spaceship earth. This way of seeing the rise of intelligent life is set against the only universal known method of arriving at means of measuring movement which is through an arc and that is the reference to radians, as no matter were life happens to be in the universe, the circle will always have a circumference, a diameter, a radius and thereby the circumference of the circle divided by the diameter will always equate to the same numerical number of 3.142. Our current way of measuring life is by a relative location in space to the sun and the rotation of a point on the earth’s surface relative to the Sun. This method of measuring life is based on the man made concept of “Time”. It will be shown. in this series of articles, that the concept we have of “Time” is only good for our local place in our Solar System. It will not apply outside our local place in the Solar System. Further, the concept of linking the Suns movement across the sky was brought into being, probably, by cave dwellers. They were happy with breaking down the Suns movement to give them “Daybreak”, “Morning”, Midday”, ” Afternoon” , “Evening” and “Sunset”. Those divisions gave the cave dweller all he needed to know, about were he stood, relative to the position of the Sun. In those basic divisions of the day, the cave dweller was not aware of the concept of time passing or of movement made. However, in retrospect, we know that movement, for sure, was happening and over thousands of years we have substituted that “movement is passing” for “time is passing”. This has led to the “the problem of Time” which has become a problem to Physics only in a relatively short distance of travel, through the universe, by the earth.

Apart from the earth rotation around it’s axis and the earth rotation around the sun. the whole Solar system with the rest of the surrounding galaxy is moving through space at 1000+/- miles every six earth seconds however, an alien in the Andromeda galaxy would give a different number for his “time”.

Within a very short period (of time) of the Earth’s past travel through space many are now questioning the very existence of time. Time has slipped into our vocabulary, is used every day as a way of indicating were we are relative to the Sun, used to explain the distance that light has travelled from distant starts to reach us, and to explain how long ago the big bang took place but mostly to enable us to coordinate our individual lives with he lives of others. This article seeks to replace “time passing” with “distance travelled”.

The video gives some indication of the argument that time does not exist

https://youtu.be/4BjGWLJNPcA

(To Part 2)

Careers at Sea (Part 2) $

Posted on 2015/01/20 by Neil Howard Posted in Education Plus Adventure, English Leave a comment

The Journey of an Apprentice to a Chief Engineer

ShipSpotting.com

The Manchester Vanguard. Apprentice Richard Simpson’s first new ship

Dear Derrick,

I am a member of the Association but having a problem going through the correct channel for mailbag. Please cut me some slack and apologies

I came across the article from Shipmate Richard Simpson recently in the 2014 mailbag which gave me food for thought.

It was a hot summer in 1977 when Mr Richard Simpson travelled to Smiths Dock to join his first new ship as an apprentice. When he arrived at Smiths Dock there were three Manchester Liner ships at the dock. Two of the ships were the newest ships in the ML fleet. They were the Manchester Vanguard and the Manchester Venture.

With three ML ships alongside and far from the comforts of the home port it would be natural for the crews of the three ships to seek solace in a local hostelry. Accordingly, nature prevailed and the Bluebell was selected as the hostelry to seek solace within. The Bluebell was a large establishment located at the top of the escarpment away from Smiths Dock. It needed several cars to transport all the skeleton crews of the three ML boats up the road to the Bluebell, the road being a dual carriage way with a number of large roundabouts placed about equi-distance along the route. One of the cars, that made way to the Bluebell, was a white Toyota Celica and, at the car park of the Bluebell, the white Celica was parked alongside a red Toyota Supra.
Inside the Bluebell the evening was warming up and some of the younger elements of the ML team were, already, thinking ahead to the time immediately after the Bluebell closed for the night. The time to leave the Bluebell arrived, all to soon, but the young bucks had, by that time, attracted a number of young ladies and agreed with them that they should be escorted to visit the very best ships in the British Merchant Navy. Of course, the ship’s bonds were sealed and so the ML team had to buy stock from the Bluebell. The boot of the white Celica was very convenient to the point at which the “emergency stores” were brought out from the Bluebird and so the Celica was loaded to the load line and beyond.

About eight cars left the Bluebell and last to leave the car park was the while Celica which was just behind the red Supra. A very attractive young woman was driving the Supra whilst all travelling in the Celica were qualified deck and engine officers and it is believed an electrical engineer was in the car as well. On the way down the escarpment the speed of both Toyotas was quite rapid whilst shifting up and down the gearboxes to negotiate the roundabouts. However, at the bottom of the escarpment the red Supra deviated sharp left whilst the course set by the Celica was straight on. A very hurried gear change from fourth to second resulted in the Celica engine dying and left the Celica cruising down hill and taking a lateral road which led to a grassed area. The occupants of the car got out and the Celica bonnet was opened up to investigate the cause for the engine stopping.

Japanese cars were relatively new on the roads of England , at that time, and the latest offering from Japan featured inspection lamps that could be suspended under the bonnet. So, very soon a pool of light shone in the darkness of the grassy knoll. The pool of light bathed the engine space of the Celica whilst the ex-passengers now were all inspectors with their heads under the bonnet. Little known , to all the inspectors, a resident of the grassy knoll had made way to the pool of light to see what all the inspectors were doing. Little known, to the inspectors, was that a blue mini, trimmed in police colours, had cruised into the grassy knowl also to see what the pool of light was hiding.

The timing was perfect for a comedy sketch. The resident of the grassy knoll got to the pool of light about 15 seconds before the driver of the mini. The resident of the grassy knoll joined the inspectors and was content until a hard and loud voice said “what’s going on here” at which point the resident of the grassy knoll let out a huge bray and took of at high speed. The inspectors just had time to see a donkey’s head dislodge the Celica’s bonnet stay before the bonnet came down on them all.
Fortunately, the policeman joined in all the laughter and offered to take all those on the grassy knoll, except the donkey, back to Smiths Dock and as it was the end of his shift he would ensure he stayed with us. The following day, the Celica had all it’s camshaft followers and push rods replaced and the crews of the ML ships prepared to leave Smiths Dock.

One of the two new ships had recently returned from its maiden voyage and I relieved Second Engineer Tommy Keow. I sailed, I believe, on the Manchester Venture, Voyage 2, to Japan via Gothenburg , Hamburg, Le Harve, Marsailles, Suez and Singapore. The Captain was Peter Cullen, the Chief Officer was William (Bill) Lowe, the Chief Engineer was Walter Stiegent . It was a memorable voyage and of course I remember very well Apprentice Richard Simpson.

It is very warming to understand that some young people who came under our wing at sea learned from us. Indeed, I left ML in 1980 and spent time in the Oil and Gas Exploration and Production then Engineering design . In 2011, I started up a study and travel business with its main operating office in Bogota, Colombia. However, I am still a simple sailor at heart and since leaving ML I have had the opportunity to be a member of yacht clubs in various countries. This has led me to various organisations that teach sailing skills to young people and which I promote every minute of my time. I know that my old Shipmates are all well advance in years, but I feel that had they been given the opportunity they would be part of the volunteer crews that are the RONA SAILING PROJECT , ADVENTURE UNDER SAIL, TALL SHIPS ASSOCIATION and SAIL TRAINING INTERNATIONAL to name a few.

In signing off may I take this opportunity to wish all my fellow Shipmates a warm thank you for being just great people to sail with and to you, in particular, along with all the Shipmates leaders, thank you for keeping the rest of us all afloat and in touch. ( END )

The “Disney Dream” Chief Engineer Richard Simpson’s ship in 2014

END