Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Damn Burns!
This evening I get to give a speech at the University of Glasgow Astrosoc Burns Supper. The event as a whole is a meant as a tribute to the life and works of Scotland's most well loved bard, Robert Burns, who penned such classics as A Man's a Man For A' That , O, MyLuve is Like a Red, Red Rose, and the perennial Hogmanay favourite that no-one can ever remember the words to Auld Lang Syne. My part in this event is to give a toast to the Scots from all the non-Scots present. This generally will involve a massive slagging light hearted, and witty, ribbing of the Scots. At present I've not written the speech yet, but I have a basic idea around which it will hopefully naturally form - then there's always a bit of last minute improv which can be done. I do, however, have to live up to my now legendary speech from two years ago, when I loudly proclaimed "Damn Burns!" and launched into a tirade about him being so inconsiderate as to have gone and been born on a date which just so happened to clash with Watford playing in an FA Cup replay.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
What I did today!
So I just submitted my diary of what I did today to history matters as I talked about in my last post. Here it is in all it's glory (or general dullness):
"I was woken up at 8am by the alarm on my mobile phone. I got out of bed and got dressed in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a zip-up hoodie. I made a cheese and Branston pickle roll for my lunch. I then had some Tesco's own brand Weetabix, with semi-skimmed milk, for my breakfast, whilst watching the BBC Breakfast news. I brushed my teeth. I packed my gym clothes and lunch, including my roll, two bananas, and a Mars bar, into my bag. I looked out the window and noticed that it was cloudy and had been raining, so put on my coat. I left my flat at about 8.40am and walked to the gym, whilst listening to a Suede album in my iPod.
It took about 25 mins to walk to the gym, where I changed into my gym clothes - shorts and sleeveless t-shirt. I spent about an hour in the gym, using weights, the exercise bike and the rowing machine. After this I had a shower and changed back into my jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. I left the gym at about 10.40am and walk to my office in the University of Glasgow Physics and Astronomy department.
On arriving in my office at 10.45am I switched on my computer monitor (turned off the previous night to conserve power) and then checked my e-mails. I also checked out the astronomy e-print archive for any new papers which had been posted.
At about 11.10am I went to the departmental common room for a coffee break. I bought a can of Diet Coke, for 50p, from the vending machine and sat and talked with my friends for half an hour. I then talked with a couple of colleagues about some results we wanted to present at a conference in December.
At 12noon, I went to an informal discussion group, which I'd organised, talking about an astrophysical paper on observations of a double pulsar system (PSR J0737-3039A/B). This discussion lasted about an hour.
At just after 1pm I went back to the common room to have lunch. I sat down with a group of my friends and ate my roll, bananas and then Mars bar. We talked about things including at what stage of ripeness bananas are best to eat. I like quite ripe bananas, with a few dark spots on, as they're sweeter than greener bananas.
After lunch I returned briefly to my office and then left for a meeting at 2.15pm. The meeting was to discuss how best to perform scientific outreach work to schools (or other groups) making use of the new planetarium we have. This meeting ended just before 4pm and I rushed back to my office to take part in a telephone conference.
The telephone conference is a weekly event with collaborators across the world. On the conference call I gave details of a paper I was writing that needed submitting for review and of plans for presenting results at the upcoming December conference.
After the conference at about 5pm I did some more work on the paper I was writing.
At 6pm I went up to the common room for another can of Diet Coke and a quick chat with some friends. Some of us then went to the Research Club (a bar for staff and post-graduate students at the University of Glasgow). I ordered a plate of Nachos and a pint of Stella Artois. There was an event on at the Research Club in which a local shop (Demijohn) was providing samples for tasting, so we went to that. The samples included various olive oils, vinegars, vodkas, liquors and whiskys, which we sampled in small measures.
After the tasting event I had another pint of Stella Artios. I then left the Research Club, at about 11.15, with a couple of friends and walked home. It was raining hard when we left so after the 25 min walk home I was quite wet. At home I dried my hair and turned on the TV to see some highlights of the nights Champions League football matches."
I did my bit, you do yours. By the way the stuff I sampled from Demijohn was all really good - I recommend it.
"I was woken up at 8am by the alarm on my mobile phone. I got out of bed and got dressed in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a zip-up hoodie. I made a cheese and Branston pickle roll for my lunch. I then had some Tesco's own brand Weetabix, with semi-skimmed milk, for my breakfast, whilst watching the BBC Breakfast news. I brushed my teeth. I packed my gym clothes and lunch, including my roll, two bananas, and a Mars bar, into my bag. I looked out the window and noticed that it was cloudy and had been raining, so put on my coat. I left my flat at about 8.40am and walked to the gym, whilst listening to a Suede album in my iPod.
It took about 25 mins to walk to the gym, where I changed into my gym clothes - shorts and sleeveless t-shirt. I spent about an hour in the gym, using weights, the exercise bike and the rowing machine. After this I had a shower and changed back into my jeans, t-shirt and hoodie. I left the gym at about 10.40am and walk to my office in the University of Glasgow Physics and Astronomy department.
On arriving in my office at 10.45am I switched on my computer monitor (turned off the previous night to conserve power) and then checked my e-mails. I also checked out the astronomy e-print archive for any new papers which had been posted.
At about 11.10am I went to the departmental common room for a coffee break. I bought a can of Diet Coke, for 50p, from the vending machine and sat and talked with my friends for half an hour. I then talked with a couple of colleagues about some results we wanted to present at a conference in December.
At 12noon, I went to an informal discussion group, which I'd organised, talking about an astrophysical paper on observations of a double pulsar system (PSR J0737-3039A/B). This discussion lasted about an hour.
At just after 1pm I went back to the common room to have lunch. I sat down with a group of my friends and ate my roll, bananas and then Mars bar. We talked about things including at what stage of ripeness bananas are best to eat. I like quite ripe bananas, with a few dark spots on, as they're sweeter than greener bananas.
After lunch I returned briefly to my office and then left for a meeting at 2.15pm. The meeting was to discuss how best to perform scientific outreach work to schools (or other groups) making use of the new planetarium we have. This meeting ended just before 4pm and I rushed back to my office to take part in a telephone conference.
The telephone conference is a weekly event with collaborators across the world. On the conference call I gave details of a paper I was writing that needed submitting for review and of plans for presenting results at the upcoming December conference.
After the conference at about 5pm I did some more work on the paper I was writing.
At 6pm I went up to the common room for another can of Diet Coke and a quick chat with some friends. Some of us then went to the Research Club (a bar for staff and post-graduate students at the University of Glasgow). I ordered a plate of Nachos and a pint of Stella Artois. There was an event on at the Research Club in which a local shop (Demijohn) was providing samples for tasting, so we went to that. The samples included various olive oils, vinegars, vodkas, liquors and whiskys, which we sampled in small measures.
After the tasting event I had another pint of Stella Artios. I then left the Research Club, at about 11.15, with a couple of friends and walked home. It was raining hard when we left so after the 25 min walk home I was quite wet. At home I dried my hair and turned on the TV to see some highlights of the nights Champions League football matches."
I did my bit, you do yours. By the way the stuff I sampled from Demijohn was all really good - I recommend it.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Blogging into the history books
On the 17th October www.historymatters.org.uk want you to record your day in blog form as part of a national historical record of of the daily lives of ordinary folk i.e. you and me.
"A mass blog-in, entitled ‘One Day In History’, will take place on 17 October as part of the History Matters campaign, supported by groups including the National Trust and the University of Sussex. The site will be archived by the British Library under the web archiving project.
We want to people to reflect how history impacted on them that day – by simply commuting through an historic environment, or how business history influenced their decision-making, or merely that they looked up some old sports statistics or listened to some pop music from the 1960s.
We want to record the ordinary lives of citizens. By doing so in vast numbers, everyone should feel that they are contributing something permanent and valuable to the historic record with material that could be used by historians and researchers for centuries to come.
The idea is inspired by similar experiments by Mass Observation, the social history resource founded in 1937 which still exists today at the University of Sussex."
If you'd like to join in with this event then go here and add you own experience, be it tedious and mundane or fun and exciting. This will be stored somewhere in the British Library archives apparently, for future historians to snoop through. I'll try to write something and also post it here.
"A mass blog-in, entitled ‘One Day In History’, will take place on 17 October as part of the History Matters campaign, supported by groups including the National Trust and the University of Sussex. The site will be archived by the British Library under the web archiving project.
We want to people to reflect how history impacted on them that day – by simply commuting through an historic environment, or how business history influenced their decision-making, or merely that they looked up some old sports statistics or listened to some pop music from the 1960s.
We want to record the ordinary lives of citizens. By doing so in vast numbers, everyone should feel that they are contributing something permanent and valuable to the historic record with material that could be used by historians and researchers for centuries to come.
The idea is inspired by similar experiments by Mass Observation, the social history resource founded in 1937 which still exists today at the University of Sussex."
If you'd like to join in with this event then go here and add you own experience, be it tedious and mundane or fun and exciting. This will be stored somewhere in the British Library archives apparently, for future historians to snoop through. I'll try to write something and also post it here.
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