Latest posts

Studious

Posted on 9 January 2021 by Henry Gee

As you’ll both know by now, playing live music means a lot to me. I’ve been playing live since student days — before — and at times music has been the only thing that’s kept me going. Many of my closest, fastest and longest-lasting friends I’ve met through music. Whenever I’m not in some kind of combo, Mrs Gee complains that I am wandering round like a los Continue reading →

Posted in blues, D C Wilson Band, flabbey road, friendship, home recording, Music, pandemic, voodoo sheiks | Comments Off on Studious

Rethinking Qualifications? It’s About Time

Posted on 8 January 2021 by Athene Donald

For the second year running our school assessment system is up in the air, for totally understandable reasons. A Levels were explicitly cancelled but the Government seemed incapable of giving a clear answer about this month’s BTec’s, the vocational equivalent. Leaving decisions about whether the imminent exams should go ahead to individual schools was a clear failure of leadership, putting both th Continue reading →

Posted in A levels, BTec, Charles Clarke, David Goodhart, David Sainsbury, education, skills | Comments Off on Rethinking Qualifications? It’s About Time

Microeuoi

Posted on 7 January 2021 by Henry Gee

Somewhere in Neal Stephenson‘s sprawling Baroque Cycle, two men are urinating against a wall — and remark on the simple joy of such an action. Both had undergone lithotomy, an operation to remove painful calculi, in their case, bladder stones. One of the men was a fictionalised version of the diarist Samuel Pepys, who had had a bladder stone the size of a tennis ball removed in 1658. I Continue reading →

Posted in Baroque Cycle, bladder stones, COVID-19, diabetes, golden arches, i have spoken, it is the way, jelly babies, life always feels better after a big poo, lithotomy, Neal Stephenson, pandemic, poo-phoria, Samuel Pepys, SARS-CoV2, Science Is Vital, the mandalorian, urination, vagus nerve | Comments Off on Microeuoi

Rating Conferences

Posted on 6 January 2021 by Nicola Spaldin

Following the SWOT analysis of our master’s degree program, the next step in our curriculum development plan has been a series of Rating Conferences. Introduced as a tool for evaluating and developing curricula almost ten years ago [1], a Rating Conference consists of groups of around 10 students who vote on statements about the degree program, followed by a moderated group discussion. We ha Continue reading →

Posted in education, Materials Science | Comments Off on Rating Conferences

Mmxxery

Posted on 3 January 2021 by Henry Gee

Being the contrarian that I am, I shall defy convention by saying that 2020 has been a year that’ll stand in the anals annals tale of years as historical and transformative. True, millions have suffered, in all sorts of ways, and some of them — including people I knew — have died, horribly. And isolation has taken its toll on mental health. Some personal relationships have suffer Continue reading →

Posted in a very short history of life on earth, Apparitions, christmas university challenge, Domesticrox, education, Leeds University, Lockdown, pandemic, Politicrox, SARS-CoV2, Science Is Vital, Science-fiction, vaccine | Comments Off on Mmxxery

A Playlist for Troubled Times

Posted on 2 January 2021 by Athene Donald

During the recent weeks and months of staring at a screen, when there is little variety of scenery or (physical) company, I have found music a comforting companion. When I say music, I mean classical music which has been a frequent backdrop to my life of the pandemic. Listening to Joyce DiDonato’s own choice of playlist of ‘New Year cheer’ on BBC Radio3’s Inside Music this weekend, and the importa Continue reading →

Posted in Desert Island Discs, Music, pandemic | Comments Off on A Playlist for Troubled Times

Squintlepiece

Posted on 31 December 2020 by Henry Gee

The Turkey City Lexicon is a document from the SF Writers of America that offers advice to would-be authors of science fiction, pointing out the pitfalls that snare the unwary novice.

A Pitfall for the Unwary Novice: from https://www.starwars.com/databank/sarlacc

A problem peculiar to SF is striking a balance between ordinary domestic events and the otherworldly happenings with which the protagoni Continue reading →

Posted in abyss, Apparitions, apple podcasts, Barnaby Kay, brian aldiss, children of the stones, chimera, christopher lee, david wingrove, giant betentacled menace, howard phillips lovecraft, indigo, jana carpenter, joanne froggatt, jonathan forbes, kraken, molluscs of mass destruction, nicola walker, nucula, nyarlathotep, origin, podcast, podcasts, romola garai, royston vasey, sarlacc, science fiction writers of america, Science-fiction, squid on the mantelpice, stone circles, storyglass, tamzin outhwaite, the harrowing, the lovecraft investigations, the piper, tracks, trillion year spree, turkey city lexicon, vincent price, Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Squintlepiece

That Was the Year That Was

Posted on 29 December 2020 by Athene Donald

2020 is a year we are all likely to want to forget, and yet it is likely to be unforgettable. Some can make a little joke about that

For others, such as renowned professor of primary health care Trisha Greenhalgh, frequently in our news feeds, there is nothing remotely funny to Continue reading →

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Books of 2020

Posted on 29 December 2020 by Stephen

I made what I think was a smart move at the beginning of 2020. Instead of waiting until the year’s end and then struggling to recall what I thought of the books I had read, I created a Twitter thread of one-line reviews as I completed each title. Here, finally, is the entire thread:

Books of 2020

Books of 2020 – a twitter thread. Click on the image for the high-res version.

Continue reading →
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In which life imitates art, and an epidemic leaps off the page

Posted on 29 December 2020 by Jennifer Rohn

In mid-November, a journalist from BBC Southeast contacted me about a perplexing rise in COVID-positive cases in the nearby borough of Swale, a mainly rural part of Kent known for its fruit orchards, beer hops and vast areas of marshland within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The borough is dominated by windswept fields and open land dotted with the occasional factory or wind t Continue reading →

Posted in Epidemics, Lablit, Science Funding, The profession of science, Writing | Comments Off on In which life imitates art, and an epidemic leaps off the page