Dr Alan Howard

Thanks for visiting my personal home page and web blog. I am a senior lecturer at the University of Reading, undertaking research in modelling aquatic systems, primarily the movement and growth of toxic cyanobacteria. I am also Senior Tutor in the School of Human and Environmental Science. My teaching interests cut across geography in its broadest sense and I am a keen exponent of the use of Web 2.0 technologies to support teaching and learning. On this site you will find links to some of my Web applications, which were developed either to support teaching or other outreach activities. In 2007 I wrote Don McLean’s (American Pie, Vincent, And I Love You So, etc.) official biography.

Cyanomap is a small application I wrote to automatically compile and map outbreaks of cyanobacterial blooms and other associated news with the help of the Yahoo Placemaker and Yahoo News API services.

Latest news on cyanobacteria:

7/30/2010 – State announces plans to address algae-choked Grand Lake St. Marys
7/30/2010 – Strickland, State Directors Announce Action Plan for Grand Lake St. Marys – 7/30/2010
7/30/2010 – Park officials close Moon Lake due to algae bloom
7/30/2010 – Willow Lake algae test results expected
7/30/2010 – Algae may be killing pets
7/30/2010 – Genes to Make Hydrocarbon Fuels
7/30/2010 – Paleontologist Hans Hofmann filled an evolutionary gap by finding evidence of early life in ancient rocks
7/30/2010 – Lake’s toxic algae might be killing pets
7/29/2010 – No swimming, fishing advisory for Grand Lake St. Marys continues
7/29/2010 – LS9, Inc. Makes Major Scientific Breakthrough in Converting Sugar to Alkanes

Full details and map locations.

“Don McLean is heading to Dover, guitar and oar in hand” – within hours my flippant tweet to Don’s twitter newsfeed featured in the Wall Street Journal as part of their coverage of flight disruption caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

In fact Don travelled to Europe in his luxury double-decker tour bus and had never intended to fly to Paris from London.

His musicians however were stranded in Nashville, only later managing to join Don for the British leg of the tour.

Group photo taken June 21st, 2010.

On May 7th I was lucky enough to have a backstage pass and guest tickets for Don McLean’s show at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

My friend Ron Buck and I had a lot of fun making the most of our access-all-areas permits and chatting to the band in the green room before the show. Everyone was excited to be back at this great venue and framed photos illustrating the venue’s long and rich history were liberally posted around the backstage corridors and dressing rooms.

Don’s performance was a complete triumph and he sang for two hours to over 5000 fans, old and new. Before taking my seat I filmed his stage entry and the amazing reception from the crowd.

Afterwards, backstage was buzzing with numerous VIPs and old friends who’d arrived to say hello to Don, who was clearly ecstatic at how the performance had gone.

I was lucky to be there and it was a great night.

Before the show – in Don McLean’s place on stage at the Albert Hall:

My probability model of Eurovision Song Contest voting is predicting victory for Azerbaijan in tonight’s contest in Oslo. The model has a high success rate but this year the contest is more open than normal with several countries in with a shout.

Predictions for the top-10 are:

1. Azerbaijan 1.14
2. Armenia 1.56
3. Israel 3.46
4. Germany 3.66
5. Turkey 4.51
6. Greece 5.42
7. Denmark 6.87
8. Ireland 7.97
9. Belgium 14.58
10. Romania 15.48

and for last place:

25. United Kingdom 133.65

…a few hours later…and the winner is…GERMANY…

Deserving winner but a rubbish performance for the computer model (r² 0.51 for correlation between prediction and result) but at least it got the UK result correct.

Don McLean has been talking about our book in an interview with the Sunday Tribune newspaper in Ireland.

Three years ago, McLean’s official biography was published. His friend Alan Howard had written it – with his blessing. “I wanted to get the first shot at telling my story and telling it accurately. I have de-emphasised some things, exaggerated other things and left some stuff out completely. I was in complete control. Publishers want kiss-and-tells these days but there are things I don’t want to talk about. I don’t want to talk about my failings. I work hard.”

Don starts his England concert tour in Birmingham tonight and arrives at the Albert Hall in London on Friday, the day we should get a new Prime Minister. Talking of whom, David Cameron was Don’s “support act” on the Andrew Marr show on BBC1 yesterday. Don was interviewed and he sang “Vincent”, which was slightly curtailed as the interview with Cameron over-ran.

Don McLean is back in the UK in April, with appearances on BBC TV The One Show, Weekend Wogan, Loose Ends on radio 4 and Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on radio 2, amongst many others. He has concerts across Europe in April/May including the Albert Hall on May 7th. His new album, Addicted to Black, is out on April 19th and looks like hitting the charts.

at last some decent snow and temps of -8.2 C in Brinkworth:

The Market Oracle, the influential Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication, has integrated an analysis of US recent economic history with the song “American Pie” , citing my book extensively.