Living Stole

I saw a ginger tom cat draped across the shoulders of his similarly red-headed and bearded owner last night on the bus. The tom was wearing a bright blue knitted cat jumper. His owner was getting quite irritable as the traffic was bad, but he couldn't get off because the driver wouldn't open the door between stops. The cat was flicking his tail in irritable sympathy with his owner, but he still looked very comfy slung around his owner's neck. What a nice way for a cat to see the sights of central London life!

A Tiny Output

There's an enthusiastic comment in a video about my paper from a young man who attended a conference I did last autumn at the Horniman Museum (wrong surname, but I know who he means). He did a great summary of the discussion at the end as well and his comments are very nice. I'm sure he will go far in whatever he chooses to do in life. We had to give a copy of our papers to groups of young people at the museum to read beforehand, then do discussion sessions with them a few weeks later at the conference. Mine wasn't recorded because we had a last minute room change. It's an interesting format for an event for anyone working in Higher Education, especially as there is a preoccupation with audience engagement (amongst other things) in relation to research at the moment. It's useful to think about how, or indeed whether, your own subject is relevant to anyone outside academia's so-called ivory towers, even for embryonic 'early-career' researchers such as myself. It's a good thing to have to write for different audiences too, avoiding as much jargon as possible.

I know it's an 'output' (as they are called in research jargon) albeit a modest one, but I wish I had done it better. It was not one of my best conferences unfortunately as I had a stomach bug and felt really sick. Queasy, like I wanted to vomit. Spew. (But I didn't). Swigging large quantities of water throughout the event got me through it, but it's a shame I didn't manage to attend more of the events planned as they looked really varied and interesting.  Aah well, ifs and wishes and buts are pointless and I suppose it's all part of the lengthy learning experience of trying to be a researcher in academia. Maybe seasoned conference-presenters have a spectrum of techniques to draw on in these situations to save the day.

One naively thinks some significant conclusion has been reached with the completion of one's PhD, but then the realisation dawns that it's just the beginning  [a slightly sinister and knowing post-doctoral laugh would finish this sentence off nicely].  I don't know if I have the energy or the motivation to think about all this right now, but I am very tired of working seven days a week for what seems like little money or reward. Perhaps after a better night's sleep, things will seem better too....or maybe it's an expected part of the ongoing malaise affecting HE. I don't know. Back soon in a hopefully cheerier mood.

Crimson Trousers

My doctor was wearing an impressive richly coloured pair of crimson jumbo cord trousers when I visited him recently. They coordinated well with the red and gold swagged curtains and red velvet screen. Quite flamboyant, considering the circumstances. Not very GP-ish, but a suitable colour for sickly patients I think, a much healthier looking shade than anaemic whiteish-beigey-magnolia for the usual decor of NHS rooms and conservative, rather dull dress.

It reminded me of Winston Churchill's red velvet one piece siren suit (left). It's difficult to imagine him lounging around in red velvet when the usual image of him is the cigar-smoking, overcoat clad, portly figure in photographs from WW2.  I saw the suit displayed in an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum once. We did a double-take when we read the label to that exhibit as it seemed so odd, but there it was. Apparently he also had blue and green ones made up for him by a Savile Row tailor. Garments are an interesting starting point for taking you on unexpected journeys into people's lives, or questioning one's own preexisting stereotypes, aren't they.

Image from Culture24 -  24 Hour museum.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'....

I know the wind has been blowing, tumbleweed style, through my deserted blog. It's taken a while to settle in, but I'm enjoying my slightly odd new job at last, I am heartily relieved to admit. I also have a new chunk of teaching elsewhere which seems potentially very interesting, so it looks like I'm crossing into new frontiers this year. A good thing too, as I'm fed up with being fed up about stuff.

There are better videos of tumbleweeds (I know because I have spent a disturbing amount of time watching them, in true procrastinator style) but this one has the advantage of being set to Frankie Laine's perky 'Rawhide'- a genius combination.

Muck

Well, I've been tempted back to the blog by a news item about filth. It's something in the Wellcome Trust e-newsletter about artist Serena Korda's forthcoming work that will be part of a spring 2011 exhibition called ‘Dirt: The filthy reality of everyday life’. She is asking the public to donate dust, collected from their houses, workplaces or other locations. She will use it to make an artwork called 'Laid to Rest' which will consist of 500 commemorative bricks made from dust given to the artist by the public. Anyone can contribute and each brick will carry an inscription with details about the dust from which it is made. The project will culminate in the burial of the bricks, returning them to the earth.  Lots of events as part of their 'Dirt' season are planned too - sounds fascinating!!

The press release says "Korda's work is inspired by the commercialisation of waste in Victorian London, particularly the vast dust heaps which dominated the skylines at the top of Gray's Inn Road. Immortalised by Charles Dickens in 'Our Mutual Friend', the dust heaps supported a wide range of industries, including the making of bricks. Mud from the brick fields of Somers Town was mixed with the ash, cinders and rubbish from the dust heaps, and transformed the discarded, detritus and dirt of London into the material from which the expanding city was built."

There's loads of balls of fluff and assorted debris on the stairs at college. They're so big they look like mini tumbleweeds. I was only marvelling the other day at how infrequently the cleaners sweep those stairs - probably not more than once a year - so it becomes sort of self-cleaning, I suppose... we clear the stairs by using them and kicking the muck away with our feet. Ah well, saves money on the Estates budget and cleaning is so boring anyway, surely even for people who do it professionally? I'm not sure how dignified it would be for students to see their tutor grovelling about on the stairs scrabbling for dirt, but I may give it a go. It's a tower block so a LOT of stairs. And potentially a LOT of dirt.

Her blog doesn't tell you what to do with your debris, but perhaps if one bags it up in readiness then more details will appear soon... Something thought-provoking to look foward to next year.

Image: London: The great dust-heap. Credit: E. H. Dixon, 1837. Wellcome Images.

The Procrastinator Returns

Haven't fancied writing anything for ages as all the stuff that's been preoccupying me wasn't really appropriate, given my rather half-hearted occasional attempts at anonymity and trying to be sensible about what I stick on the internet.

I have been offered a different job (part time) as my other one disappeared. It should be more interesting than the old one and will pay the bills (just about), plus it gives me time to carry on teaching in the same institution and to decide what to do with my PhD material. I wish my colleagues weren't going to be leaving though. I like working with people who make me laugh and I will miss their take on the peculiarities of daily life. Perhaps some of the new lot will have the same sense of humour.... I do hope so.

I've got to finish writing a conference paper today, which is presumably why I'm on here, obviously old habits die hard and all that. It's rather out of my academic comfort zone (different discipline) and I keep worrying that it will be regarded as flaky crap, though that's more likely if I don't get on with the flipping thing right now, I guess. But at least my trousers aren't likely to fall down while I'm presenting the paper, as happened to the Lord Mayor of Leicester when he stood up to do a talk for a bunch of schoolkids. Poor things, though it presumably made the occasion more memorable for them. He was a bit fat (it appears) and wasn't wearing a belt. Dearie me, trousers round the ankles... how undignified. Mental note to myself to select a good sturdy belt for Tuesday's outfit, as well as finishing the damn paper before dinner. Maybe the one with the horse's head buckle.... hhmm, it's amazing what you can waste time on when there's stuff to do....strange pink fingers in the pic though!

Marge Monroe

I suppose I'm doing the proud auntie thing here, but it was really nice to hear that my niece's drawing of Marge Monroe won her an (apparently nasty) plastic spider pig object and is star letter of the week in The Simpsons comic. That, and her getting a prize from her MP for winning a drawing competition recently, are the best things to happen this week. Thank goodness for the odd nice bit of news amongst all this redundancy crap. Life goes on...