James Salter

How many Doctor Doctor jokes do you know?

You may start using them now.

Yes, after 3 years of trying, I finally changed my title just before 5pm yesterday. And no before you ask, I didn’t become a Miss.

Tips for Painters

If you’re painting, there seem to be two options if you find a sign attached to the wall:

1. Remove the sign, paint the wall, replace the sign
2. Paint very carefully around the edge of the sign

However, if you’re a painter currently working on our new floor at university, there appears to be a third option:

Just paint over the sign and hope nobody notices.

Transferred

Some of you will know I’ve been preparing for my Transfer Exam recently (basically an open presentation followed by a viva exam in the presence of an Internal and External Examiner to determine whether I can continue on to get a PhD).

The big day was today, and I’m relieved to say that I’ve successfully transferred, although I guess I can’t say that officially until I get the nice shiny letter from the university.

I’d like to apologise to all those of you who I’ve told that I was working towards a PhD (not a lie, because that’s what I’ve been doing, but not “officially”). Officially I was enrolled to do only an MPhil up until now (that’s the official route - the university won’t let you go for a PhD immediately). Now at last I can say I’m a proper PhD student.

All (!) I have to do now is finish off my research, write up, then go through a harsher version of something similar to today all over again in a few months time.

I feel though that at last I’m getting somewhere!

Oh, and I’ve added a pdf of my transfer report to my pubs list.

Looks Like the Ceiling is Coming Down, TBH

Below is the scene in the corridor outside our office at uni earlier today. What does it look like to you? Has Doctor Who come to pay us a visit?

No, in fact we’ve had workmen down the corridor for the last few days building large blue plastic-walled rooms and disappearing into the ceiling above. Something to do with removing asbestos apparently, although nobody bothered to actually tell us. Luckily we’re postgrads so we used our research skills to read the signs:

After some random guy knocking on the door this morning, asking me whether the door was our only exit (which it is incidently, unless anybody fancies jumping out of the window and landing on concrete slabs three floors below), a blue plastic box room type thing appeared just outside a little while later. At least they left room to squeeze out, sort of:

There were a whole load more visits throughout the morning (why does this always happen to me when I’m the only person in?), climaxing in half the office ceiling tiles being removed to the sound of an industrial hoover. Hmmm, I’m just hoping there wasn’t any asbestos directly up there, the amount of dust that showered down.

Early afternoon, the “work environment” had become less than conducive to “work”, so I decamped. Fingers crossed their blue plastic bags haven’t got any holes.

Greece Blog

While I was away in Greece, I tried to write blog entries about my adventures on my mobile’s Outlook calendar. Writing extensively via predictive text, I discovered, is a non-trivial activity. Sometimes therefore I just wrote a few notes.

Over the last couple of evenings I’ve been working on expanding those entries and making them a bit more legible. What you see now on my blog here are the entries I wrote as I travelled, but tidied up a bit. I’ve added some relevant hyperlinks, photos and maps. The full set of photos should be online soon.

Back Home

So, here I am back in the UK, reflecting on what has been a brilliant few days in Greece. I think a fitting summary and conclusion to the trip comes in the words of one of the guidebooks I took with me:

“The Greeks are a special people on a unique journey. They are heir to a multilayered heritage in a vital part of the world. They are generous, mercurial, emotional, instinctive, practical, and supreme improvisers. Personal interaction is vital to them. This means that life in Greece operates on many levels. Or rather, it operates on many crisscrossing levels, offering plenty of possibilities and a tremendous variety of lifestyles. The country embraces geographical variations one would associate with a small continent, only easily accessible. Socially, it has everything from the intensely private to the busy and cosmopolitan. The new generation understands its responsibilities, though not necessarily the challenges that lie ahead. Greeks live for the here and now, and this means they are ready to deal with just about anything, as it happens. The engaged visitor will emerge from the Greek experience enriched for life.”

For every moment I’ve been confused or irritated by the little cultural differences over the past few days, there have been many times greater numbers of exhilarating experiences, laughter, beautiful sights, great conversations and a friendly people trying hard to make sure we are mutually understood (”eyes, eyes, take off your eyes!”)

As the quotation says, the Greeks are a special people on a unique journey. It�s a journey I hope to witness further. I’ll be back…