CRANKSPIRACY: BLACK FRIDAY—NOT AS NICE AS IT SOUNDS

2015 will have three Friday the 13ths. I don't mean that Jason Vorhees is returning in a back-to-back cinematic triptych released faster and more furiously than anything in the Fast and the Furious franchise, but that there are three months in which the 13th falls on a Friday. To whit: February, March and November.

Surely that’s a fluke caused by that whole February-March collusion (the subject of another conspiracy, perhaps)—in the long run there should only be a one in seven chance of the 13th falling on a Friday. Right?

What if I told you that it can be proved mathematically that it’s not an even race, that Friday is more likely to be Black than any other day of the week? Suddenly it seems a little suspicious, doesn't it?

Yes, I know it sounds impossible at first. After all, 52 weeks doesn’t fit evenly into 365 days, so it tends to cycle through. Every day of the week should get a go at being the 13th.

But this is all complicated by leap years, that extra 29th February we get every fourth year. Except it's even more complicated than that, because turns-of-the-century are not leap years. Except it's even more complicated than that, because every fourth century there is a leap year, eg the year 2000.

Somehow this all works out to make our calendar match up with the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, although occasionally the time lords at Greenwich throw in an extra second to keep us on our toes. Watch out for it this year on 30th June, when 11:59 pm will have 61 seconds. (I would say to set your clock for that, but well, I don’t know how you can).

Anyway, the end result is that, according to Wikipedia, every 400 years of our calendar contains 146,097 days, which is 2,871 weeks exactly. So the distribution of days of the week is fixed in every 400-year block, therefore they can never exactly even out.

And it turns out that, over the 4,800 months in those 400 years, Friday the 13th occurs 688 times. That gives it slightly more than a one in seven chance; more like 1.003 in seven.

But, you protest, that's just the luck-of-the-draw, isn't it? For that to be a conspiracy it would have to have been rigged right from the establishment of the calendar!

That's exactly what I'm suggesting.

Our calendar system is known as the Gregorian calendar, established in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. Notice those Roman numerals: XIII = 13!

Having founded a whole calendar, Gregory XIII is rather well-known, as is his heraldic symbol, a dragon (actually a truncated dragon, which sounds to me like a drag). This rather devilish logo has over the years been fuel for many an anti-Catholic conspiracy theory, frequently comparing the pope to the Beast of Revelation, about whom it is written, "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?"

Who indeed. And what chapter of Revelation do you think it is that bears this prophecy? I'll answer for you: it's Revelation 13!

(That’s also the chapter with the famous Number of the Beast, 666, but it’s hard to find a connection to 13 there. The best I can do is read 666 in base-13, in which it’s equivalent to 1098. And the only significance of that is that it was the year the First Crusade arrived in the Holy Land. Hmm…)

OK, so the existence of a conspiracy is proven beyond doubt, but how did it start? What is the meaning behind Friday the 13th?

According to scholars such as Dan Brown, in his authoritative work The Da Vinci Code, the suspicion around the date started on Friday 13 October 1307, when King Philip IV of France arrested Grand Master Jaques de Molay and sixty other Knights Templar. The Knights Templar, an order that was founded during—well bless my soul—the First Crusade.

It's well-known that all conspiracies begin with the Knights Templar.

Now whether there was an apocalyptic reason, beyond mere commemoration, for Gregory XIII—clearly a secret Knight Templar and probably a freemason too (like Sir Christopher Wren)—to set up the calendar like this, I cannot say. Notoriously secretive, these Illuminati. But I intend to keep looking for an answer, at least until they stop me.

All I can say is that it beats the alternative conspiracy theory about the Gregorian calendar—popular at the time of its inception—which is that it was a plot to cheat tenants out of a week and a half's rent.

I think we can dream a little bigger than that.

@ASTROCAVE, MELBOURNE

Pope Greg XIII, up to no good I'll wager. Ospedale Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome, published by Ditta Vasari Fotografo Editore. Said to be a fresco in the great hall of the Banco Santo Spirito in Rome, featuring Pope Gregary XIII. Wellcome Library, London, image number V0030917.

CRANKSPIRACY: THE BAKER IS INNOCENT I TELL YOU INNOCENT

The Great Fire of London. [1] You might have heard of it—and if you have, you likely also know that bakers were to blame. That’s right, bakers. Bakers! Bakers, those blessed souls responsible for bringing crusty bread, croissants and cronuts into the world. Bakers, who think of nothing else but feeding the world. Apparently, a professional baker ‘forgot’ to put out the fire in his oven, or didn’t really put it out properly, or something like that.  It was hot and dry, London was made out of sticks and straw and pitch, and hey presto, London’s burning.

I put it to you that this theory is ludicrous. A baker, living in a highly flammable house (inflammable, even) made of sticks and straw and pitch would know how to put out a fire properly. And what would a baker get out of burning down half of London, especially the half that contained his own bakery? [2] Insurance jobs were hardly worth the effort back then.

Now, what if I told you that there was someone else who benefited fabulously from the Great Fire of London? It made his fame and his fortune. Without the fire, this person would have been a nobody. Follow the money, that’s what we’re always told on cop shows. So who was this person?

Someone who had earlier proposed St Paul’s Cathedral be completely demolished and rebuilt, calling it ‘a heap of deformities’.

Someone who was no doubt cross when other Londoners opposed his vision and didn’t let him pull the whole thing down. (They did say he could build a dome over the existing tower, though).

Someone who then travelled to Paris expressly to work on a redesign of St Paul’s.

Someone who returned to London from Paris just a week before the Great Fire burned down St Paul’s Cathedral.

Someone who in subsequent years got to blow up bits of the remaining stonework (bonded together by once-molten lead) with gunpowder, thus erasing pretty much any trace of the previous structure.

Someone on whose tombstone (located in St Paul’s Cathedral) is writ ‘Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city...who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument—look around you’. [3]

Are you immediately suspicious of this person? As an esteemed political commentator once remarked, you bet I am you bet you are. So, who is the true perpetrator of the Great Fire of London?

Sir Christopher Wren.

After the Great Fire Wren didn’t just get to rebuild St Paul’s, he got the gig of rebuilding FIFTY TWO (52) churches—amongst other things. The fire established his career and allowed him to ‘afford’ to take a wife. (And then another, when his first died of smallpox. His second died of tuberculosis. Vaccines, eh—what are they good for?).

Wren was highly educated, having studied physics, anatomy, astronomy, mathematics, and other things. Furthermore, he was an architect, and who isn’t suspicious of architects? They are always up to something. Setting a fire and casting the blame on a poor innocent baker would have been a trivial thing for such a man. It is entirely possible the unfortunate Lord Mayor of London (Sir Thomas Bloodworth) was in the pay of Wren, and his failure to act to stop the spread of the fire (‘Pish! A woman could piss it out’ [4]) was recompensed amply once Wren had achieved his success. [5] After all, Bloodworth achieved an immortality of his own, didn’t he?

IT WAS SIR CHRISTOPHER NOT THE BAKER YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE.

ALICE CANNON, MELBOURNE

1. The one in 1666.
2. Actually more like two thirds.
3. Boastful much?
4. Women can piss quite as much as men thank you very much Sir Bloodworth although our bottoms would have likely been burnt in the process.
5. Documentary evidence for this frankly defamatory remark is yet to be located.

The villainous villain himself. Sir Christopher Wren, engraving by S Coignard, 1750, after M Rysbrack. Wellcome Library, London, image no. L0008200, Library reference ICV No 6874.

CRANKSPIRACY: YOUR MEMORIES ARE FALSE

Some time in the late 1980s, a wonder was released upon our land. An innovation the likes of which we had never seen before. A marvellous invention that promised untold pleasure, health, cleanliness, and time savings to boot. It would change our lives for ever.

That product was Pert 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner.

The world rejoiced.

No longer did we have to shampoo and condition our hair separately. That’s right—one application of scented goop and our hair was both cleansed AND conditioned. Shower times were cut in half.

But I—I was wary of Pert’s promises of bouncy, manageable hair and mystified by our frenzied enthusiasm for the new “all plus and no fuss”. It was if we existed in a strange dream. For I knew—KNEW—we had seen this concept before.

Not decades ago or anything, I can only have been about 14 when Pert 2-in-1 stormed the world, but I was sure this revolutionary technology already existed. I was sure I had even used such products in my hair—maybe five years before Pert’s triumph—though I could not recall how bouncy and manageable my hair became.

Was I mistaken, or had Procter and Gamble [1] undertaken a massive, world-wide program of memory erasure?

Clearly the latter is the most likely of those two scenarios. But why—why did the manufacturers of Pert 2-in-1 seek to excise our hair-washing memories? Was it purely for monetary gain, to erase a successful competitor from human consciousness so they could steal their ideas? And if so, what happened to those 2-in-1 trailblazers? Did they become a ready source of stearic acid for Proctor and Gamble’s chemistry department? Or—did the memory wipe conceal an earlier and disastrous Pert formulation, one that perhaps caused mutation, gluten intolerance, vocal fry and/or even death? 

Nothing can be ruled out at this stage. I shall continue to research this dark mystery personally, as I cannot trust that our police departments are free from the influence of Big Hair. But the perpetrators of this mind-wipe must be brought to justice. I will keep readers abreast of any developments, unless I, too, am disappeared.

ALICE CANNON, MELBOURNE

1.  The original manufacturers of Pert 2-in-1

Not even Pert 2-in-1 claims to cure 'eruptions on the head'. How has H Arnold's amazing preparation escaped the notice of global multinationals? [H. Arnold's Lime Juice and Glycerine], lithograph, 1876. State Library of Victoria, Victorian Patent Office Copyright Collection, accession no. H96.160/2244.

IT’S NOT ROT, YOU ROTTERS

We’re getting far too carried away with the word ‘rot’ these days—and not, alas, in the way Bertie Wooster would have used the term. (‘I mean to say, Jeeves, what bally rot!’).

We’re applying rot to all sorts of processes that do not involve actual rotting. Real rot is a process whereby organic materials (plants, trees, uneaten bean sprouts, small animals murdered by your cat) are broken down into much simpler forms, primarily through the action of bacteria, fungi and insects. Some internal chemical deterioration also occurs (e.g. in animal flesh, due to released enzymes) and warmth and humidity speed everything up. But in short, it’s all about microbes, baby.

Recently the vice-boss of Google spoke out about ‘bit rot’. Hurrah! Gobs of money will now be chucked at libraries, archives and other organisations grappling with the rising oceans of our digital heritage, right? Right…? Anyway, the unwary amongst us may therefore suppose that the innards of our computers are dissolving into puddles of fluorescent yellow slime in the manner of a neglected cucumber, but they would be mistaken. Mr Google was referring to the slow deterioration of software performance over time, due to changing operating environments—e.g. old software will run more slowly, be more buggy, or unable to be opened at all because the company that made it no longer updates it or quite possibly no longer exists. There is no rot here, only humankind's infallible failure to consider the long term.

‘Data rot’ refers to the gradual deterioration of digital storage media through a variety of processes—the dispersal of small electric charges within solid-state media, the loss of magnetic orientation in magnetic tape, or the chemical breakdown of the materials used to make optical disks—none of which involve any microbes whatsoever.

Then there is ‘red rot’, is a degradation process that occurs in leather. While leather can actually rot, this particular phenomenon is all down to acid deterioration. Do not blame the microbes, they are innocent! Various atmospheric pollutants and dodgy leather manufacturing processes are believed to be to blame. The acids break down the proteins, and the surface of the leather goes all weak and powdery and rubs off on everything nearby, especially your nice shirt. It’s quite unpleasant.

And then there are the diseases! Oh my, the diseases. ‘Bronze disease’ is not a disease—there are no bacteria or viruses or organisms anywhere—it’s just chloride corrosion of copper-based objects. (Though to be fair they did suspect the involvement of bacteria at first). And you will be shocked to learn that ‘concrete cancer’ does not involve the abnormal growth and replication of even a single cell, and is merely a term used to indicate the physical and chemical breakdown of concrete (surprise!), often due to the rusting and subsequent expansion of metal reinforcements.

I do understand, really—calling something ‘rot’ is just shorthand, a quick way to indicate that something is (in the immortal words of the Australian Financial Review) fukt. By using these verbal cheats we may save ourselves some time, but at the expense of truly understanding what is going on—within both the inanimate and the animate (ourselves). It limits our understanding of the problem and therefore our capacity to prevent or solve the problem. So don’t call it rot when it’s bally not.

ALICE CANNON, MELBOURNE

Some actual rot, to compare to instances of not actual rot. 'Dangers to the health of infants: germs and bacteria. The germs in their natural state (on mouldy bread, and on a suppurating thumb) and the germs as seen through the microscope. Centre, a microscope.' Colour Lithograph from the Atlas der Hygiene des Säuglings und Kleinkindes, plate no. 25, by Leopold Langstein and Fritz Rott, published in 1922 by Julius Springer, Berlin. Wellcome Library, London, image no. L0039196.

SPECU-CRANK: BLADE RUNNER STRATA DATA

I can't be the only one who watches the gorgeous cityscape scenes in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), with its steel skyscrapers and smoking dark pyramid-blocks, and wonders just how such a dystopia would work in practice. How would one go about buying a flat? How would a development company submit its application to build a futuristic ziggurat? How does the future Los Angeles municipal government maintain and plan its horrifying infrastructure?

The colossal mega-city is one of science fiction's most durable and reliable tropes. Isaac Asimov's 'Trantor' of his Foundation series, an entire city-planet enclosed and covered by human habitation, must be one of the apotheoses, but the trope goes back to the early twentieth century, as early as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). In the Star Wars franchise, say, or in William Gibson's books, in the animated Akira (1988) and in such cult films as The Fifth Element (1997), the architecture of future megalopolises is an excuse for film makers and story tellers to cut loose and enjoy themselves, to make audiences gasp at their manufactured cityscapes. The Judge Dredd comics franchise has particular fun in evoking a post-apocalyptic megacity of laughable ultra violence.

These cities are beautiful, no question. What's missing, though, is a sense of history and of how those shiny (or ratty) cities came to be the way they are. Nuclear apocalypse? Dictatorship? Gradual reform? It's very hard to tell, and authors and screenwriters usually give only the most cursory of clues—leaving the rest for frustrated planning-minded audiences to ponder. 

Picture a company such as Mirvac or Lend Lease proposing a smoking ziggurat or a glass dome city, anywhere near any current Australian city. You don't see these kinds of gigantic projects this side of the 1960s. The civic activism of people inspired by Jane Jacobs' work—and its emphasis on smallness and human scale—and anti-development sentiments mean we probably won't ever see their like again. The closest we get to such science fiction is the delightfully ludicrous Aspire Sydney proposal of 2013, which involved razing large parts of central Sydney, building skyscrapers throughout the inner west, and turning Glebe into a monster conveyor belt. Alas for fiction writers, the proposal got the suppressed-snickering silence from Government it deserved.

Potential authors, I appeal to you as a planning and historically-minded reader. If you're writing your dystopian fiction novel or screenplay and you've got a megacity in it, give us some sense of how it came to be. Does it have a council? Are there megacity NIMBYs? What are the major urban questions? Are there buses, trams, a subway, and are people happy with them? These details will go a long way towards building a complete and satisfying world.

LIAM HOGAN, SYDNEY

An entry for a recent 'Designing Sydney 2090' competition. An angel leading a soul into hell. Oil painting by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1540. Wellcome Library, London. Image number L0030887, Library reference ICV No 17734.