Hastily snapped this, as we went into the shop. But to be clear, the mystery shopper wanted the same number of fillets as en croute. Perhaps they were having coeliacs around?
An engineer’s or a computer programmer’s brain behind this list, I fancy. Or perhaps ex-military. Continue reading
Historians of the future will no doubt make much of the UK’s political ramifications of the moment. This week has seen a particularly strange spectacle as the Tory party tears itself apart and the Labour party seems unable to sort itself out and step into the breach of political leadership. I happened to be in Brussels during the excitement of the no-confidence vote against Theresa May. That was n Continue reading
Recipe 1
It’s a simple recipe. Gather together some people who want to change the world. Put some inspirational speakers in front of them to get people fired up about diversity in science. Provide cakes and biscuits. Teach some basic skills in editing and writing for Wikipedia, then set them loose on a list of scientists who deserve, but don’t yet have, biographical articles in Wikipedia. Continue reading
The question of what should the composition of any team ‘look’ like remains one I feel uncertain about. Whereas a list of a dozen invited speakers who are all males smacks of bias or incompetence rather than a true reflection of those whose work is outstanding, if a senior executive team is small enough, say 4, but is all male can one say the same thing? There was the year my College was run by a Continue reading
Have a setback, bounce back. That is what all the self-help books would proclaim loud and clear. It applies as much in science as anywhere else, perhaps more so since the setback need not be in one’s career or personal dealings with others as in the experiments that go wrong again and again and again. It is, you may think, easy for the self-help books to trumpet such resilience but who really mana Continue reading
As we approach 2019, it’s about time I got around to sorting out 2017’s best pictures(!). Readers, I present to you: my top ten photographs of last year. So, in no particular order, we have:
Simon Pagenaud in turn 1, Honda Indy Toronto
I went to a gig on Friday night.
That in itself is probably worth a blog post, but this gig was a bit special because the Younger Pawn was playing bass in a band called Charles and the Big Boys, and they were supporting an apparently well-known act playing in Islington.
I’d managed to keep the date free from work trip commitments and childcare duties (which again is a post on its own), and Continue reading
Tangled up in blue
Last Thursday was a normal day. After a few hours at my desk working on a grant application and a paper revision, I ran to the tube station, threw myself into a train down to the main campus, trudged a mile or so to a remote building near Russell Square and sat through a two-hour Faculty teaching committee meeting.
Back up north, feet considerably sorer, I ate half of my lunch Continue reading
I’m a big fan of the “Tomorrow’s Professor” blog from Stanford University. Their motto is “Online faculty development 100 times per year” and during term time, 10 minutes of reading a handy tip about how to be better at my job is sadly all the professional development I can manage to fit in.
Last week’s topic was Change Leadership in Higher Education. The Continue reading
