Iron Man [A Bug's Life]

I was walking into college the other day, and I saw this plaque:

He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
As he traveled time
For the future of mankind

It's a quote from the lyrics of Iron Man, by Black Sabbath.

But what is it doing in Buccleuch Place, in Edinburgh University, round the back of the Adam Ferguson Building, just set into the ground with no other context? Is there some connection between the band and the university? If it were near the Informatics building, with its robotics research department, it might make more sense.

I've been learning about Semantic Web techniques this semester, and this question is the sort that SW would be good at finding answers to. Right now I can just use search terms - "Iron Man", "Buccleuch", "turned to steel", "plaque" and try to piece together bits of answers from the pages that are returned, along with irrelevant pages about Iron Man triathlons in Edinburgh, Black Sabbath gig reviews, etc. If the pages contained metadata to distinguish between Iron Man: song, Iron Man:comic book superhero, Iron Man:athletic event, and there were stored inferences such as Buccleuch Place is a location in EH8 is a location in Edinburgh; Buccleuch Place is a location in Edinburgh University; the Adam Ferguson Building is a location on Buccleuch Place - then you could ask the Web what relation This Thing (with its associations of song, subject, band members) has to This Place (Edinburgh university, possibly Adam Ferguson).

And it might tell you that Ozzy Osbourne started a PhD in Robotics in the university, before giving it up to concentrate on his musical career. Hey, it worked for Brian May.

September

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
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7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21 1	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Sun

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Sat

Perhaps it's a subtle coded reference to Ozzy Osbourne actually being a robot himself, having been replaced after a bizarre plectrum accident. This would explain why he's still apparently alive despite the staggering abuse he's inflicted upon himself over the last few decades.

Edited Date: 2008-01-13 11:56 am (UTC)

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I've seen things you've never known... *wants Rutger Hauer icon"

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*instant earworm*

Oh god yes, all friggin' morning.
I am iron man - when I'm near a magnet I go clang!

It suits itself to so, so many phrases.

clang!

*giggling helplessly* I'm so glad I wasn't drinking when I read that.

For best effect, lurch towards the person you're singing to on the last word, as if you were an iron man and they were a magnet :-)

Well, it's been moved since April....

I don't think it's been moved; that description fits its current location.

Same location, but on the ground when you saw it, rather than on the wall?

I think you could call this a wall. Incredibly low on one side, about 3' high on the other.

Ah. Fairy snuff....

There is NO comparison between Brian May and OO.

So forgive me - that last sentence is true or not? (of OO)

Not even slightly ;-)

Fascinating!

If you do find out, you must let us know!

I could find RockSoc and ask them, I suppose. Or ask on

edinburgers.

It's not a quote from the Ted Hughes book, is it?

i was just thinking that.

where did black sabbath get that quote from...

The book was published in 1968, the song in 1970.

is it a quote from the book though?

According to http://www.black-sabbath.com/faq/faq11.htm#faq11033:

"Ozzy came up with the title 'Iron Man' and I wrote it about this
guy who's blasted off into space and he sees the future of the world, which
isn't very good. Then he goes through a magnetic storm on the way back and
is turned to iron. He's trying to warn everyone about the future of the
world, but he can't speak, so everyone is taking the mickey out of him all
the time, and he just doesn't care in the end." - Geezer

(Geezer Butler, the band's bassist). That looks like it's not related to the book.

hmm.
even weirder that it'd be there near the uni then!

ooh - top tip. ask the servitors. they know everything.

Excellent suggestion!

I'm torn between trying to deal with the Iron Man ear worm by going and playing Guitar Hero, and ousting it by humming, "Iron Man! Iron Man! Does anything that an iron can!"

You are quite mad :-)

Sir, I like the cut of your jib. I propose that should we ever meet we should undertake and experiment to see if we can create an earworm so catchy that it will bring ~~the world~~ fandom to its very knees! Not to take it over, just because it would be really neat. And pay no attention to what Bugshaw said about you being mad. The those fools at the University/Institute/Government always say that.

Aieee! The world is not ready for mishalak/aardvark!

I have Particle Man stuck in my head now.

Still, you are right, it has dislodged Iron Man.

Just as well it wasn't Tin Man, I suppose.

Hmmm. My guess is as follows.

Before the Division of Informatics, there were several outposts of the Department of AI and the Department of Cognitive Science. Some parts of these were (and as far as I'm aware, still are) on Buccleuch Place. I've certainly been to CISA seminars on Buccleuch Place (before they moved to Appleton), and my lectureship seminar was there, back in 2003.

Edinburgh has a strong history in robotics, possibly the strongest in the UK. Their best-known early robots were Freddy and Freddy II. It's entirely possible that these two robots were in the basement of one of the houses on Buccleuch Place, and that the plaque commemorates them; Freddy II was built around 1973, so the lyric is near-contemporary.

[ the robotics part of DAI later moved to Forrest Hill, but that was in the late 1980s/early 1990s, so likely irrelevant to this hypothesis ]

I'd ask Alan Bundy - d you know him??

Not especially well. I'll ask Austin Tate, who I know rather better.

Nice theory, but as far as I know (ex AI student and current Informatics staff member) AI used to be based in Hope Park Square, not Buccleuch Place. Also, the Adam Ferguson Building is entirely the wrong bit of Buccleuch Place to be associated with the Cognitive Science people who are the Buccleuch Place bit of Informatics - they're at the other end in numbers 1-6. And they're much more into computational linguistics anyway rather than AI.
Also the robotics bit of AI had already been in Forrest Hill for years and years when I studied AI there in the early 80s. In the 70s lots of the AI academics in FH were wild-haired hippy types and they made a very fetching contrast to the smartly-dressed army types with whom they shared the building.

I thought that AI had moved from Hope Park Square by the early 70s, though I'm not sure where it moved to (that is, I don't know if there was an intermediate address between HPS and South Bridge). I also hadn't realised how long AI had been in FH - I did the AI MSc in 96, just after Jim Howe retired, and the department still spoke about the move to FH as though it was a recent event!

You're right about *where* on Buccleuch Place, though. When Bridget said 'behind the Adam Ferguson building', I'd assumed she was describing the position of Buccleuch Place, and not the location of the plaque within BP.

AI had certainly expanded from Hope Park Square by then I think, but it still had a presence there in the 80s because that's where the AI library was in the early 80s, and various people had offices there.
AI moved into more and more of FH progressively I think - when they started there in the ?70s the army still had quite a lot of the building I think, but AI expanded and the army contracted over the years. Possibly in 96 AI had only just taken over the complete building. Then again some of our staff have been here over 40 years and probably do remember decades-old things as relatively recent events!
I don't know if there was an intermediate location though. I don't *think* so but I'm not sure.

I was skimming and read that "Freddy II was . . commentary" [on the song]. Robots as commentary: an idea whose time has come?

and now, a hamster with a spaceship on its head

There's another one on the steps between Drummond Street and Infirmary Street which quotes '2 Minutes To Midnight' by Iron Maiden:

"Some blackened pride
Still burns inside
This shell of
Bloody treason"

It's something to do with iron, but WHAT? Unlike the the Buccleugh Place plaque this one is just beside a wall, not railings, as I briefly entertained the idea that there might be a connection there :-)