Oxford!

I was in Oxford earlier this week for the conference launching the new Journal of Topology. The conference was luminous, to say the least. If you don't believe me then look at the programme. With one possible exception the talks were all good. It's just a shame that the attendance was quite low, and in particular very few of Sheffield's Mathematical Elite made it.

Anyway, it was a good few days, except that the sheer pink-bombed floral hideousness of the place where I was staying will haunt my dreams for at least a month; its only merit was that in one corner of the room I could pick up some kindly soul's wireless signal. Yes, wireless theft seems to be a continuing theme of this blog.

I also read (in the five-minutes it takes to read a graphic novel) Fluffy by Simone Lia. This is a book about Fluffy, a bunny who thinks that he's a child, and Michael, his daddy. Sounds mental, but it's very cute, and some of it takes place in Sicily and so reminds me of the time I spent there on holiday a year or two ago. You can borrow it if you like!

Yup. That's it for "news". Well, I think I saw that guy from Drop The Dead Donkey walking down St Giles in Oxford, but it might have been a tramp. The conference has kind-of inspired me to get on with some work! Which is what I'm a avoiding right now by writing this entry ... although there is another motive. Hmmm.

Scotland!

Ah, Scotland! Land of beauty and grace and friendly people, of chips with salt'n'sauce, of highland and lowland, of hairy cow and tracksuited ned, of porridge and butter tablet!

The main reason for my visit to Scotland this week was to give a seminar in Glasgow on Monday. I arranged to give the same talk in Edinburgh on thursday, and so I had a solid three spare days for having fun and mathstalk with friends and colleagues. The talks, I think, were okay, and there was a definite improvement from the first talk to the second.

Dinner in Glasgow took place at a nice indian restaurant. Bizarrely enough, on the wall by our table was a portrait of Kramer from Seinfeld. (Now a controversial man, of course.) The rest of the paintings were just swirly things and landscapes! Still, the beans on toast was brilliant.


Here is our band. As you can see, I am the frontman (such charisma, see) and Colin Murray is a big fan.

It was really great to catch up with people and find out how things are going. Of course, much is the same, but the differences really stand out. Most amusing, I think, is how Lord Bailey has taken on the role of coffee machine's curmudgeonly enforcer with such relish. It's a fine machine, of course, and it obviously benefits from the Tobester's tender caresses, but I feel that a little bit of the world's joy has died.

This post was brought to you courtesy of someone else's wireless connection. If you are the provider then thank you and sorry. But it's your own stupid fault.