Author Archives: rpg

About rpg

Scientist, poet, gadfly

Waiting for the miracle

Posted on 9 January 2024 by rpg

The thermometer has been stuck between 1ºC and 4ºC for about three days. The hens are huddling together in the coop, rather than sleep alfresco on their favourite perch. Only one of them has been laying since the solstice, and … Continue reading →

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One piece at a time

Posted on 3 January 2024 by rpg

While we’re on the subject of failure, there were a lot of bits of broken tree around the neighbourhood today. And Jenny was greeted by this somewhat alarming sight on the school run this morning. No, not the still-small-but-rapidly-growing boy, … Continue reading →

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English Trees

Posted on 1 January 2024 by rpg

It was a lovely morning, for 1 January. The sun made a valiant effort to warm our faces, or at least blind us as we turned up Bean Lane, and we parked our new, Green (and green) Mini in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Birds, Nature | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Communication breakdown

Posted on 16 November 2022 by rpg

Twitter is dead. Long live … whatever comes next. Twitter actually died a few years back. It was around about the time when your timeline began to fill up with images. About the same time that The Algorithm started showing … Continue reading →

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On postnatal depression

Posted on 24 June 2022 by rpg

I’m going to file this under “Better late than never”, cross-indexed to “No shit, Sherlock”. Discussion of mental health has over the last several years become less taboo than it was.  It doesn’t seem that long ago (it was 14 … Continue reading →

Posted in Me, Personal, Science | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Girls on film

Posted on 13 January 2022 by rpg

You will remember, in the Before Times, how Professor Robert Kelly’s interview with the BBC was photobombed by his children (and how ninja-ly his wife, Jung-a Kim, rounded them up). Even then I thought how very humanizing was this little … Continue reading →

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On occupational hazards

Posted on 5 February 2021 by rpg

(First posted over at the day job.) On Christmas Day I received an email. It was addressed to my 7-year-old son, and it told him that his coronavirus test was positive. There were mixed emotions. I was amused at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Friday afternoon, Nonsense, Science, Silliness | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

On fraud, redux

Posted on 1 December 2020 by rpg

One of the worst things about the pandemic is that it reminded me that once upon a time I was really rather good at RT-PCR. And that reminded me of when I spent 8 months in Sydney trying to replicate … Continue reading →

Posted in ethics, Ill-considered rants, Lab ratting, Me, War stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Sounds of the suburbs

Posted on 27 July 2020 by rpg

I’m sitting outside our apartment at Podere Castellaccia, the evening sun still quite high as the maestrale warms the porch. Our apartment is Grecale, the colder, northeast wind. Castellaccia is a fattoria and azienda vinicola; their olive oil is superb … Continue reading →

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Clampdown

Posted on 15 April 2020 by rpg

“ Hey Mike. Mike? Mike. Mike, can you hear me? Cannn youu hearrrr meee. Yes, I can hear you, but I don’t think you can hear me. No I’m not on mute. Have you got your sound up? Better? Good. … Continue reading →

Posted in Nonsense, Office life, Personal | Tagged | 2 Comments