Slight return

I wrote this somewhere else, and it got sufficiently long that I thought it might as well go here, since the blog is still here. Prompted by Nov 11th, of course, but by other things too. ————————————————————————————————— Nov 11th 2020 My Anglo-German children have two WW1 veterans among their great-grandfathers. One London law clerk...

Nov 2020

More about Everest pioneer Griff Pugh

I’ve got a piece out today over at The Conversation about Griffith Pugh, who I mentioned a couple of days ago. I won’t post it here in full, I think. There weren’t enough edits to make it worth posting a pre-edit version, and if you read it at their place there are some nice photos as well. Anyway, here’s the opening couple of paras: ———————————————————————————————— Meet...

May 2015

Two more days to vote for the unsung hero of Everest

  A couple of days ago the June e-Newsletter from the Physiological Society dropped into my inbox. Among other stuff it contained this:   ———————————————————————————- Biography of exercise physiology pioneer in the running for British Sports Book Prize  Griffith Pugh (1909-1994) was a pioneering exercise physiologist and member of the first successful...

May 2015

Yes, chess. Look away now.

In which I revisit my youth as a chess-playing dweeb. Sort of. Contrary to an earlier threat, I haven’t posted much here about my chess-playing activities over the last year and a bit. Partly this is because these days chess stuff mostly goes on the chess club’s Facebook page. Partly it’s because I haven’t posted much of anything this last year. Anyway,...

May 2015

IUPS Part 2

Now that IUPS 2013 has concluded successfully, I thought I should add a few of my conference thoughts, other than those mentioned in the earlier post.   As I am a lazy so-and-so, and I can’t muster too much thinking this late on a weekend evening, I shall give my thoughts in a kind of poll/questionnaire format.   The Conference Centre Was… Actually...

May 2015

Too Many Tweets Make A… Historical Record?

In which we debate the historical usefulness of hashtags, especially in connection with scientific conferences like IUPS 2013. I occasionally get asked, within my University and even beyond it, to pose as some kind of social media expert. Which I’m not, of course – I’m more like a person with far too much familiarity with f!*ting about on the internet. There...

May 2015

Shame. Or should that be ‘Postdocalypse’?

Not IUPS-related tonight – but something that should concern the people there – should concern *us*. Especially the people WITH senior positions. Scientific research has a lot going for it as a job. There’s the big money, for a start. [Actually, that was a joke, as my scientific readers will have spotted. The money is pretty lousy compared to other...

May 2015

IUPS Part 1

A dispatch from the IUPS conference in Birmingham. I have to admit to some trepidation when it comes to big international mega-conferences like the IUPS (International Union of Physiological Sciences). They have never entirely agreed with me. The first conference I ever attended, the IUPAB (B for biophysics) in Bristol in 1983, was one of the mega-jobs,...

May 2015

Happy Birthday DC

It is a pleasure to wish a Happy Birthday today to my friend Professor David Colquhoun, who, as he reaches the palindromic age of 77, is still fighting the various fights for good science – and reality in general – and against ‘Unreality’, managerial bullshit, Prince Charles and his ‘knight-starved’ toadies, and all sorts of other things. To see the...

May 2015

Father’s Day

I must admit I hadn’t noticed it was Father’s Day until I switched on the computer this morning, what with us being a notoriously ‘Something’s Day’-averse lot at Chez Elliott. I was, BTW, not woken with croissants and coffee. let alone a gift certificate for a year’s subscription to Private Eye (ah well – next year, perhaps). Though come to think of...

May 2015