Greetings from Leyte.

On the Island of Leyte in the Philippines, classes have finally resumed at Arado Elementary School (the school has been suspended until now in response to the COVID-19 isolation measures).

These images show the children enjoying the books we donated earlier this year.  I told them we will be sending some more books soon (along with a bunch of pre-loved soft toys).  The school staff have asked me to pass on their gratitude and appreciation to our club and to those who donated.

Cheers,

Penno

• Needs to be two stone lighter. Ouch!!
• Needs bar shoes. ‘At the Warnie.’
• Needs one eyed blinker and pacifiers. Great at the Fillies Oaks Day.

Bruce in love.

Last week we wrote about the romantic side of our President.  This week Lew reports that three of the cartoons in the paper were all inspired by the love life of our Charter President.

Titus O’Reily

Bob McMillan has kindly sent us this report from Titus.  

Fremantle v Collingwood (OS) 6:10pm Foxtel

First off, a big thank you to the Collingwood Football Club for the amount of material they provide me, they are one of the greatest content creators going around.

Eddie McGuire’s ‘do as I say not as my club does’ attitude was on full display this week as no less than his senior coach breached protocols the day after Eddie said people that did should be sent home.

There’s an easy explanation for the breach, apparently, Nathan Buckley had a few drinks, fell asleep on the couch and got up to go to the bathroom and walked out the wrong door and into a tennis match.

It’s happened to all of us.

When many people I know are without jobs, having their businesses closed and wondering how they will make ends meet, it’s breathtaking how a range of AFL players, officials and partners are behaving in such a cavalier fashion about the privilege they are getting.

I know, many are doing the right thing, but the ones that aren’t are selfish.

Think hub life is hard? Come back to Melbourne then, where it’s much, much worse, and only going to get harsher.

What I’d give to be locked in a Queensland resort with a pool for months.

Eddie was right about one thing; these people should be sent home. Buckley’s excuse was weak. Why did he think playing tennis with people outside the hub was ok? That makes no sense at all, it’s frankly completely unbelievable.

Once again, we learn there is one rule for celebrities and powerful people and another for the rest of us, and those who are given those privileges don’t even value it.

Pies to win.

Fremantle (61) v Collingwood (49)

Collingwood had a week to forget both on the field and off.

With no less than their senior coach breaching COVID regulations, and his President adopting his traditional foot in mouth position, a win here would have been just the tonic they needed.

Eddie McGuire defended himself this morning saying people had “misconstrued” his position on how people should be penalised for COVID breaches by accurately quoting him.

Good to have that sorted out.

As for the game, Fremantle surprised even themselves by beating the Pies, in large part due to accurate goal kicking, booting 10.1 to Collingwood’s 7.7.

I’ve mentioned this multiple times, but accurate goal kicking is a huge factor in winning, the only reason it is often ignored is because the other side kicks just as badly.

For the Pies, Steele Sidebottom showed he is a much better footballer than identifier of correct doors.

He kept them in this for long period, but the Dockers just applied too much pressure and the Pies made too many mistakes.

It gives a bit of hope to Dockers fans. That’s the problem with footy, just as you’re getting sick of it, it gives you a reason to believe again. It’s a cruel game.

Ten years ago this week.

A bit of a wordy ‘ten years ago’ this week, but I thought our guest speaker report from ten years ago was worth reprinting in its entirety. 

Whenever we have a club forum or a bit of O’Brien time, the same questions come up time and again.  Is dark energy a pure cosmological constant, or are models of quintessence such as phantom energy applicable?  Do the phenomena attributed to dark matter point not to some form of matter but actually to an extension of gravity?  Why is there far more matter than antimatter in the observable universe?  We know theoretically that Higgs particles should exist, but are the Muon detectors in the Hadron Collider capable of finding them?  What do we really know about gravitation and gravitrons?  Do black holes produce thermal radiation as expected on theoretical grounds?  And of course, can we develop a unified theory to explain all the forces in the universe?  So many questions, so few answers.

Fortunately, this week our guest speaker was able to shed some light on some of these important issues.  Vincent Hedberg, a Swedish nuclear physicist working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, was our guest speaker this week.  We had been advertising this speaker in the bulletin for some time.  Robbo said he read this, but thought it was a joke.  Well Robbo, here at the bulletin we don’t do jokes, we only deal in the facts. 

Vincent works for the CERN laboratory, Europe’s big physics research institution.  CERN’s biggest asset is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is essentially the world’s biggest microscope.  Vincent noted that in physics the guy with the biggest microscope is something, and the guy with the second biggest microscope is nothing.  American physicists claim that it is not the size of your microscope, but what you do with it that matters.  European physicists just snigger because everyone knows it is the European physicists that get all the girls. 

The LHC costs one billion dollars per annum and employs 2500 people.  9,000 physicists from 560 universities and institutions use the instrument for research.  Much like Boré’s driving technique, the Large Hadron Collider is capable of producing billions of collisions a second.  Most of these collisions are not interesting, but once every day or week there is a collision of some interest.  It takes enormous computing and man power to try to gather this important information from the mass of other data.

Vincent was asked whether he was worried the LHC could produce a black hole and destroy the earth.  He said he was not worried about this because the probability of it happening was ‘reasonably low’.  Encouraging he observed that if a black hole was created it would suck in nearest objects first, so in Australia we would survive slightly longer than most other places.

Vincent discussed the practical applications of CERN’s work.  Vincent noted that this is basic research, and with this work you often don’t know what you will discover until you discover it.  It does however help us understand the world we live in.  The project has produced advances in computer technology, medicine and superconducting magnets.  Most importantly CERN developed the World Wide Web, and gave this away free to humanity.  Also the LHC has produced a Dan Brown book and the new Tom Hanks movie ‘Angels and Demons’. 

The question remains, what was Vincent doing in Warrnambool?  Perhaps he had come to learn from Warrnambool Central Rotary’s work on sub-atomic particles.  Perhaps he feared his colleagues at CERN were about to create a black hole, and he wanted to get as far away from the Hadron Collider as humanly possible.  Perhaps his wife is from Warrnambool and he was joining her for a visit.  Perhaps, like much of particle physics, it will forever remain a mystery.  Whatever the reason, we thank Vincent for his outstanding, mind-expanding presentation.

It is now recorded in history that CERN did subsequently find the Higgs particle after discussing the problem with us.