This blog has been long in the making. Long, because until recently, I’m not sure I would have been able to type out these words without flooding my keyboard with tears. But the time has come for me to write down a few personal thoughts about Peggy Wheelock.
This week, about four and a half years after Peggy’s untimely death, we had the Continue reading
At different times in one’s life one is more likely to be an interviewer or an interviewee, but these things are never immutable. As it happens I have been the subject of several interviews recently, something which has made me think a bit differently about how to tackle these things and reminds me what it feels like to be the one put on the Continue reading
This picture has been the subject of a number of eructations on social media recently. I felt it too good to pass up. I regret that I cannot find a credit for it (if anyone can find this out and tell me I’d be grateful.)
There is much talk in higher education about the importance of transferable skills. For a PhD student this means that you receive training in things beyond your own particular field of research. Typically this would include being required to consider your writing and presentation skills; additionally, maybe you would be exposed to ideas of project Continue reading
All things must pass, but some things pass too soon. Two months ago, Scottish author Iain Banks announced that he had terminal cancer and had at best a year to live. He is now dead, at 59. So passes a waspish talent in literary fiction – and a towering voice in SF.
Continue reading
The prospect of a weekend with some warmer weather sends us Brits in to a frenzy of outdoor eating. So, in this spirit, and ignoring the light rain, I went searching for our barbecue and found it under a pile of old flowerpots in the garden store. As I struggled to extract the barbecue from the tangle of pea sticks and garden tools, I noticed our Continue reading
The course of the news was slightly perturbed recently by the description of the 55-million-year-old fossil primate Archicebus achilles, which was published in Nature. (DISCLAIMER: I was the handling editor, and steered the paper from submission, through peer review, until the time when it was brought blinking into the light.)
Here is the BBC TV ne Continue reading
As 26 June draws nigh, I’m starting to get a little nervous about the outcome of the UK Treasury’s decision on the 2015-2016 budget, which will decide how much public spending will be allocated to the science budget. Science is Vital has been hard at work trying to sway hearts and minds with our latest campaign – for those of you Continue reading
The long-list for the Royal Society Winton Book Prize was announced last week which, if the publishers blurbs listed in the write-up in the Guardian are to be believed, represent a real cornucopia of delightful reading. As it happens, I am in the middle of reading one of the long-listed books at the moment (Life’s Ratchet by Peter Hoffman) an Continue reading
Heartened this morning by a couple of very nice customer reviews for By The Sea, as well as by some sunshine, I went to the beach with the Canes Croxorum. On the way I took some photos of places that feature, if slightly modified, in the novel.
This view is taken by the cliffs, looking east, just to the east of Cromer. The cliffs are on the left of Continue reading
