Week Five – 19/02/18 to 25/02/18 – Explanations

Another Wednesday, another blog post, here we go again! I don’t know if anyone even reads these…if you do then let me apologise for them cos they must be a bit convoluted by now!! 

This week has been a busy one so far, marred by the fact that I bashed my elbow up pretty badly (which is SUPER painful) but also boosted by the fact that I got a few new books to read which is awesome, AND I fixed the one expensive pen that I own so I was very happy about that also. I’m feeling pretty ambivalent this week if I’m honest, but I’ve just had a conversation at work that I was dreading, and so naturally I’m going to sit here and type it out of me. 

I was sat, minding my own business, when the subject of the latest invite out for a drink came up. After a bit of chatting someone asked if I was going and I said no. People then found out that I don’t particularly like to drink (or indeed eat) in front of people I don’t know, but also that alcohol isn’t really a feature in my life (apart from the odd drink at special occasions and Christmas) and from here the whole office dissolved into questions. ‘But don’t you like….’ ‘But what do you do at parties?’ ‘But what if someone offers you a drink?’ ‘But what if everyone else is drinking?’ to which I answer ‘no’ ‘I enjoy the party and drink other things’ ‘I ask for lemonade’ and ‘I don’t care’. the best one is when they start a sentence with ‘well you know when you’re drunk….’ and I’m just stood there like ‘no, I don’t.’

A few of you may have read blog posts by the Non-Alcoholic Student here on WordPress (and if you haven’t then you need to head over there immediately cos it’s one of the best blogs I’ve read on here), but they definitely manage to explain this a lot better (and more eloquently I might add) but if I’m totally honest then I don’t really know why I don’t drink. Admittedly I don’t like most alcohol, but there are a few common drink that I do actually like. I just choose not to have them. Whether it’s psychological, or just the fact that I like being entirely in control of myself I don’t know. But the problem emerges when I try to explain this to other people. It can get complicated, and even sometimes I’m sure people have though I’m lying because I’ve struggled to explain exactly and precisely why, especially when you take into account the fact that I’m only 22 and should be out every other night if my peers are anything to go by. 

People have tried to get me drunk before. Maybe that’s why I’m so mistrusting, honestly I don’t know. 

It’s a difficult thing to explain but I have a feeling that there must be something innate in me that doesn’t like it, because I don’t like eating and drinking in front of people I don’t know full stop! Whether alcoholic or not! Honestly it confuses me sometimes. 

If you’ve managed to wade your way through all that and have any thoughts then let me know, and thanks for putting up with it I guess! At the end of the day this blog is a place for me to vent a bit and I do feel better now, even though I’m not entirely sure that anything made sense. 

Anyhow, here’s to the rest of the week a relaxing few days and then more work! 

Until Next Time!! x

LGBT+ History Month 2018 – What Alan Turing Means to Me

‘The alchemist took logical principles, wire, and electronic circuits, and made a machine. The knight defended the right of that machine to a future. If only he had been able to save himself.’ – The Man Who Knew Too Much by David Leavitt

It was brought to my attention through this excellent post by the YABookers that this month is LGBT+ History Month in the UK, (it occurs at different times depending on what country you’re in) and it go me thinking about prominent LGBT+ historical figures. It was that that I realised that this was the time to talk about, what is for me, one of the most tragic loses from the 20th century, and one that is very close to my heart. 

The story of the Bletchley Park code-breakers is one that is familiar to many of us thanks to recent dramatisations such as ‘The Imitation Game’ and ‘Enigma’, and it is a story that captured my attention like no other when I was a teenager just getting in to history. Alan’s story may also be familiar to you, but it remained hidden for a long time, and Alan never knew the impact he had on modern computing, never mind his impact on post war England.  So, for those interested, here is a little bit about Alan and why we should remember him this month. 

A Cambridge maths graduate and professor, Turing’s mind was a one-in-a-generation occurrence, resulting in his recruitment to Bletchley Park to play a part in the breaking of the German Enigma code in World War Two. Nicknamed ‘The Unbreakable Code’ Bletchey’s code-breakers worked tirelessly to break a code, the likes of which had never been seen before. But only Turing realised that only a machine would be able to break the work of another machine. The ‘Turing Machine’, a device built by hand from scratch by Turing himself, was the first incarnation of the modern computer, and his work eventually helped to break the Enigma code and win the war over Germany. It was estimated that the work of the code-breakers shortened the war by around two years saving 14 million lives.

So why write about Turing? Well, Turing was a gay man living in the 1940s, a time of mass gay persecution, and a man who underwent chemical castration to avoid going to jail for his sexuality, and to be able to continue his work on his machines. The toll of this however resulted in Turing’s suicide and, just because he was homosexual, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century was lost, which to me, is desperately sad. Especially sad considering his contributions to science, computing, and the war effort. Who knows if we would be more advanced in the field of computing now had Turing lived (although I’m willing to bet that we would be), but I for one am incredibly sad, and angry, that he endured such an experience just because of his sexual preference. We still have a way to go in the acceptance of LGBT+ people, but we should also celebrate how far we have come since the times that Turing lived in.

Turing received a full pardon from the Queen in 2013, but it was too late to bring back Turing’s brilliant mind, and this quote from David Leavitt’s book ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ is one that has always stuck with me. Leavitt writes that often people are hounded because of their discoveries…’Turing was hounded in spite of it.’

If you want to read more on this subject, I’ll leave some book recs below, but if this particular area of study doesn’t float your boat, then check out these recommendations by the YABookers. 

Until Next Time x

Book Recommendations on Alan Turing and the breaking of the Enigma code: 

• The Man Who Knew Too Much by David Leavitt
• The Secret Listeners by Sinclair McKay 
• Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges
• The Bletchley Girls by Tessa Dunlop
• Seizing the Enigma by David Kahn 
• Enigma by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore 
• The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay