What’s the easiest way to become a less lazy photographer?

I’m thinking of becoming a less lazy photographer. Can you help? Brussels window. Long-time readers of this blog will know that I enjoy a bit of photography from time to time, since I have an annual tradition of posting my favourite photographs at the end of each year. Photography is something I’ve enjoyed since childhood. I was probably only seven...

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Books of 2022

Another year, another tweet thread of the books I read these past twelvemonth. Click on the images to access higher resolution versions which are just about legible, or better still, read the thread on Twitter. In 2022 I managed just 20 titles, five of them novels and seven by women. Of the novels I read – all by women, it turns out – the most captivating...

Dec 2022

Photos of 2022

Another year, another two thousand or more photographs, some of which I thought were quite good. There’s a little taster below but if you want to see the full set of 55 pictures that were my favourites from this year, you need to click through to my album on Flickr. Silhouetted Robin. Louvre Reflections. Colourful Communication Barcelona Balcony...

Dec 2022

Intelligent life: Isaiah Berlin

Thanks to the paucity of my education and cultural life I have come late to Isaiah Berlin, the noted philosopher and historian of ideas whose thinking provided such a guiding light to the 20th Century. But I’m definitely a fan now. I’d heard the name, of course, but would have been hard-pressed to tell you why he was well-known. I started tracking...

Nov 2022

Part-time talking – open science, research assessment and gender equality

Things have come to a pretty pass when the UK can turn out Prime Ministers more frequently that I post to my blog. It might be taken as a sign of the times if the times weren’t so damned confusing. Black and white shot of people reflecting off the gleaming surfaces inside Barcelona airport Whatever. The itch to keep writing is still there, even if...

Oct 2022

Passing the Baton

“The Queen is dead; long live the King!” is such a cliché of stories and films that it was surprising to hear it for real. Not that we did actually hear it for real. The secrecy surrounding the Queen’s final hours means we cannot be sure what was said at the moment of her passing or even if the new King had arrived in time. But the transition was immediate...

Sep 2022

A Declaration on Bicycle Assessment – the Decision

Reader, I bought a Brompton. After all my research – and a considerable amount of humming and haa-ing – I finally took Henry’s advice and went to my local bike shop to test-ride a couple of different eBike models. The cheaper one on offer there didn’t work out – easy enough to ride and a motor with plenty of power, but nothing like the compactness...

Aug 2022

A Declaration on Bicycle Assessment

You’d think assessing bicycles would be a lot easier than assessing researchers, but I’m not so sure. Though I spend quite a bit of time as chair of the DORA steering committee pondering how best to evaluate research and researchers, this weekend I’m mainly preoccupied with rethinking my commuting options. When in 2004 we moved to our current house,...

Jul 2022

To the sea

With emails running alongside for the first part, barking for attention, we beat a retreat from London. The clamour of work was soon swamped by the heat and light and sights and sounds and smells of Barcelona, and by the newness and oldness of it all. In the evening as we wandered the narrow streets in a desultory Google search for a restaurant, the...

Jul 2022

Message for my reader

For the longest time I have been meaning to get back to—ugh!—blogging. Regular readers, should any remain, will see that this is the first post of 2022. I haven’t broken any promises with the hiatus and have no excuses to make. I’ve been busy. I know – who hasn’t been busy in UK academia? Nevertheless, the first half of this year was intense, with...

Jul 2022