Topologist Now!

Monkey Swallows The Universe

2007-08-17T01:40:00.000+01:00

First, let me apologise. I don't have a photo of next door's cat. I'm not certain that it's illegal to sneak a photo of someone else's pet and then put it on the internet next to accusations of murder, but I don't want to risk it. And it would just be weird. However, if I did have a photo of the cat, and I did put it on the internet, and you could see the untrammelled hatred in its eyes, then you would understand.

Earlier this week I went to York briefly to catch the lovely Monkey Swallows The Universe play a little gig at the City Screen Basement Bar. MSTU are an indie band from Sheffield, and are very popular round here because their song Sheffield Shanty mentions lots of local places, like the Arts Tower (opposite my department) and Crookes (where I live). Sorry, this makes them sound like they have just one good song, but in fact they've just released their second album and it's a real blinder. What's more, as far as I can tell, the lead singer -- who also plays guitar and writes the songs -- is a real genius. Follow the link and have a listen!

Meanwhile, I seem to have fallen passionately in love with Sarah Dempster from the Guardian, who writes those little "what's on telly tonight" reviewlets with vicious scorn:

10 Years Younger Summer Special
8pm, Channel 4

In the first of a vexing cluster of seasonal "specials", style mandarin Nicky Hambleton-Jones comes to the rescue of Ruth Howard, a chipper charity manager whose considerable personal achievements are apparently rendered null and irrelevant by the fact that she has a) a gap between her teeth, and b) a stomach that resembles a dead turkey. "You could sweep the floor with my tits!" she hoots, entering into the spirit of buoyant self-evisceration that makes this series so uplifting. While a team of surgeons set about her bits with chisels and sandpaper, Hambleton-Jones offers us such handy tips as "the skin around the eyes is delicate". Invaluable advice for those considering using the area to sand their skirting boards, perhaps. But for everyone else, a spluttering raspberry in the face of human decency.

I Swear That Next Door's Cat Wants Me Dead

2007-08-05T23:45:00.000+01:00

Next door's cat wants me dead. This bandy-legged contraption goes by the name of Harvey and has a habit of wiping its arse on the lawn. When its owners aren't busily banging one bit of wall into another bit of wall using tinfoil for nails and string for glue outside my bedroom window at the crack of dawn, this cat will be waiting outside to stare me in the eye before waddling off like it's got a gun or a flick-knife or at least a nugget of murderous intent hidden in there somewhere.

The other night I opened the back door to put out the milk bottles (Domesticity Alert: milk is delivered to the house daily) when the cat popped out of its flap for the sole purpose of delivering me a hate-filled yellow-eyed glare. I took this as a warning; an I see you, human! type warning.

Okay, now let me enthuse about the book Darkmans by Nicola Barker that I read a month or two ago. It's an 800-page comic novel set in Ashford in Kent, about various people, some of whom are being haunted or maybe possessed by a mediaeval court jester. Forget all that. It's just very clever and very funny. Here's a bit that made me bellow with laughter on the train. Gaffar, who is Kurdish and speaks half in turkish and half in english (the typeface changes accordingly), is describing an acquaintance to Beede:

'She's trapped in a suffocating marriage,' Gaffar sighed, gazing poignantly after her. 'Separate bedrooms. Her son died last year. She blames herself for the whole thing because she was having an affair. Her husband's an insensitive pig who has no understanding of her needs. He's obsessed by this African macaw which he got from an Exotic Bird Rescue Centre in Canterbury. He's taught it all the phrases from Top Gear. Sleeps with it. Takes it to work. Rings it - whenever he goes out - and leaves these idiotic messages on the answerphone ...'

A couple of pages later, Gaffar has collapsed in the cheese aisle at the supermarket because he has a morbid fear of salad. A woman who works at the supermarket is checking he's okay:

'And where do you live now, Gaffar?'
'Now?'
'Yes.'
'Here.'
Gaffar pointed down the cheese aisle.
'He lives on the cheese aisle,' Beede said, 'apparently.'
'I am love of cheese,' Gaffar confirmed.
Susan Pope nodded, slowly.

(And since you ask, the paragraph indenting above is as it appears in the book. That's another amusing or annoying thing about it.)

Me Versus The Boiling MudorMy Feet In The North Atlantic

2007-07-20T23:26:00.000+01:00

This is an account of my recent week in Iceland, where I stayed with Stefan and Elinborg in their lovely new flat in Reykjavik. If I had to sum everything up in one word it would be "stylish". I think I used this word almost constantly, to describe the people, the houses, the shops, more or less everything. Just look though, even the pools of subterranean goo are a fetching colour!

Just a few of the things I did or went to:
1) Little Stefan's baptism. It was really nice to be invited and given my chance to hold the baby. (Apparently next time I will be babysitting.)

2) Witnessed the boiling mud (pictured) on a driving tour around Krisuvik and other places.

3) Sampled the Reykjavik nightlife in the pub where the famous people go. Apparently I saw five famous Icelanders, but you'd have to ask Olafia exactly who they were.

4) A fascinating visit to Iceland's archives courtesy of Elinborg's dad.

5) Whale watching from Reykjavik harbour. I saw lots of puffins and the back of a minke whale! That's one fin, and a bit of back, for about a second; most of the time I was sitting calmly not being seasick.

6) Had coffee in Kaffitar, my new favourite coffee shop.

7) Went on a typical touristy coach trip to the Snaefellsnes peninsula. Saw a glacier and got attacked by Arctic Terns. This is also the occasion when I paddled in the North Atlantic. Everyone else on the bus thought that this made me hard as nails, but in fact I've been in colder seas in Filey. It was all helped by the tour guide saying that you can swim but only for a few minutes before the cold gets you, which of course he himself can do! Apparently none of this is true though. Ah well.

7) The Golden Circle with the neeps. This included Thingvellir, Gullfoss, and the very original geysir at Geysir, but sadly it no longer actually geysirs unless there's been volcanic activity.

8) All sorts of other things! I might append them soon if time allows.

The New Internationalist

2007-07-05T18:12:00.001+01:00

That's me. How has this transformation occurred? Well, point one, a few weeks ago I was in beautiful Lille for an exciting maths summer school. This was surprisingly good fun ... the people were sociable, the maths was accessible, and the town was beautiful. Most amusing was the sheer excitement of one of the american participants when he found a hedgehog in the university grouds. Apparently you don't get hedgehogs in the states (and porcupines, armadillos, grizzly bears and mountain lions apparently don't cut the mustard), so this was a cause of much excitement. Doesn't mean that they had to trap it in a cardboard box though!

Point two, tomorrow I will visit Iceland to spend some time with the neeps and do other exploring. I hope to see puffins, alive or cooked, glaciers, volcanoes, geysirs, dried fish, rotten shark, oh, and to meet lots of nice people. Probably I will spend my time wandering around Reykjavik getting lost, but even that will be good fun.

I have therefore armed myself with some travel sickness pills to combat my aversion to air travel, which, last time I tried it, left me a pale sweaty wreck with no desire ever to leave the country again. This is why I Eurostarred to Lille! Feel free to browse my beautiful new article. Besides this, television and DVD and running for fun are my current masters, particularly Big Brother (do I hate Charley?) and The Shield and Lodge Lane.

Like a ginger Jack Shephard ...

2007-05-31T00:11:00.000+01:00

... or perhaps the missing third Mitchell brother. Anyhow, I tell myself every day how beautiful I am, so what you people think is hardly important!

So last week I was in Edinburgh for the fantastic Maxwell Colloquium. This was a one-day conference that featured some really exciting talks (and if this makes you raise a sarcastic eyebrow as if to say "exciting topology my arse!", then remember that you're the one reading a maths-themed blog) and left me feeling very enthusiastic. Of course it was also great to see the old place and the grimy, nondescript people I tend to call my friends (and whom I still need to post some of Woolworth's finest Mentos for YouTube-style experimenting).

Off to Lille in just over a week for yet more maths, this time a summer school given by Michael Weiss, which -- as if you lot would know! -- is exciting, but more exciting still is the fact that I get to go on Eurostar! I suppose this really just involves being on a train that gets gloomy for a bit, but it surely beats flying.

Compelled to mention the current reading-matter, Darkmans by Nicola Barker. The cover's a bit shit, and the whole thing's over 800 pages long, but it's fantastic so far, not least for the exceptional dialogue. I'll think about giving a more detailed description in future when I've read more. Watch this space.

Finally, with my blogging duty done and my stomach more-or-less recovered from cheeky Hobbit-chef Jamie Oliver's fantastic sticky toffee pudding (which I, who apparently am "good at puddings", made without even having to practice), I'm off to watch the Lost Season Three Finale. It's been fantastic so far, I certainly didn't watch five episodes back to back last night, and -- for any of you who got bored of all the faffing -- you really do get some answers in series three. Can't wait.

The world is jealous of my gleaming boxfresh treads (pictured).

2007-05-22T00:39:00.000+01:00

This photo was taken to preserve for posterity the daybright wonders that are my new running shoes. Yesterday I took them for their first proper outing and was worried that they'd get all muddied by the great outdoors. But despite my taking a tumble halfway along the Rivelin Valley, the shoes returned from their ordeal just as bright and breezy as when they left. (I ended up having to tweezer bits of path out of my hand, but that's another story.)

What's more, my knees (also pictured) are causing a stir in the world of politics. PM-in-waiting Gordon Brown has called them "the next big policy issue", while Tory leader David Cameron has dismissed them as an abomination that "no right-thinking person would condone." The knees themselves have issued a press statement asking that they be allowed to bear their considerable burden in private, out of the public gaze.

Finally, shocking events in the real world! I refer, of course, to the inexplicable departure of Daniel and Melinda from their respective competitions. I had them both down as winners! This means that either I am totally out of tune with public opinion, or that I should have phoned in to vote. But which is it?

Windowsill Visitor

2007-05-06T03:50:00.000+01:00

Today my bedroom windowsill had the honour of playing host to this visitor, who I think belongs to the people next door. That's the other next door, not the people we share a garden with. Their cat is a malicious one-eyed minger named Harvey who once gave me a dirty look while I was washing up and would certainly not be welcome on my windowsill. This one can come back anytime it likes though.

Apparently next week's Culture Show will feature Charlie Brooker discussing the phenomenon of "TV elimination shows", which I assume refers to Joseph rather than programmes about beardy purists eliminating televisions one by one like emotionless culture-daleks. Anyhow, can't wait!

Swansea!or,I am increasingly bald!or,Too Much Television!

2007-04-28T16:24:00.000+01:00

Last week the British Mathematical Colloquium was held at lovely Swansea University. I say lovely because, although Swansea itself is somewhat thrillfree, the university is situated right next to an expansive beach. I forcibly recreated the Summer 2005 vibe by making people join me on the beach for a ramshackle game of ultimate frisbee. This, despite the rising tide steadily eroding the pitch/court, was something of a success that, coupled with my knowing how to find the pub, made some people think that I was the whirling centre of all things social -- an accusation that anyone who really knows me can easily dismiss. The talks were really quite variable, which was a shame, but hardly surprising given the nature of the BMC. There was still enough good stuff -- and nice people to talk to -- to make it worthwhile.

Someone with a camera took some photos during the conference, and on the right you can see an especially lovely one of me. We Sheffield folk do indeed leave marks. Followers of the previous link will see that this brings us squarely to the post's second subject: my increasing baldiness. One day I will shave it all off (well, I will shave the remainder off), but I am wary of the reaction. Although lots of people think it would be just fine, others desperately want me to do it for reasons of hilarity, while others (whose opinion I dismiss) think it would be very ugly indeed. What do you think?

Finally the most important topic of all: Television. Since moving to Sheffield I now have i) a living room, ii) digital television, and iii) a housemate who also likes the telly. Together, these things mean that I spend an unhealthy amount of time in front of the box. The latest catastrophe reared its ugly head on the comments to the last post. This is Any Dream Will Do which I'll try to explain:

Each week Graham Norton introduces a troupe of hand-picked "Josephs" (singing dancing posing prettyboys) each of whom sings a song to impress "The Judges" (a leering Denise Van Outen and three other somebodies from musical theatre), "The Lord" (Andrew Loyd Webber propped on a gold-spangled throne like a malevolent dogfaced marionette) and of course "you at home". Votes are cast and one Joseph gets binned. Rinse and repeat.

Of course this sounds like horror stacked upon horror. I suppose it is. But somehow each element is carried off with something approaching charm and the whole thing adds up to a very enjoyable bit of telly. Plus you get to shout at the ones you hate.

Why is this my life?

New Arrivals!

2007-04-09T19:17:00.000+01:00

The household has recently been bolstered by the arrival of these two little fish: Kozzy and Morris, happy to be living in a biscuit jar in the happeningest living room in all of Crookes. Kozzy is the red-and-white one, and of course is a supporter of The Blades; Morris is the ginger one, just like his namesake. The whale stickers came free with The Guardian.

Aw!

Oxford!

2007-03-23T11:33:00.000Z

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!

2007-03-10T13:58:00.000Z

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.

Too much Tengo

2007-02-19T02:23:00.000Z

I have recently been digging* New Jersey's finest, Yo La Tengo, so much so that since my arrival in Sheffield I have bought six of their albums. (If you don't believe me then look at the picture.**) I only just counted these albums and I'm pretty impressed with myself. Anyhow, it's all good stuff, but my favourite track by far is Pass the hatchet, I think I'm goodkind, which none of you will be surprised to hear is more than ten minutes long. Not that you'd bother listening to it anyway. Harumph.

*Dig, for those of you who are deaf to the modern, is a word used by the kids when they like something. For example, one tracksuited youngster at the back of a bus might say to the other, "Man, I'm really digging that tinny rattle coming out of your phone. Turn it up so that everyone else can dig that shit too!"

**The lizards are just for scale, but then so are all lizards, with the obvious exception of the chameleons, who are there to verify your colour balance.

It is cold and Charlie Brooker despises me.or"Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament got only one mouse button?"

2007-02-08T22:18:00.000Z

Point One: It is cold. If you don't believe me then just look at the picture. (The Loch Ness Monster is just for scale.) Moreover, I live up a big hill, so that in the words of our charming neighbours the house is "above the snowline we call it the snowline don't we it's more like the highlands than Yorkshire." So it's colder than everywhere else, though maybe Edinburgh folk can disagree.

Before getting to points two and three, a challenge: look carefully at the photo. At the back you can see the aforementioned neighbours' interesting shed, a marvellous concoction which stays in one piece despite being made entirely of roofing felt. However, slightly closer you can see another outhouse. What do you think it is? Remember that I live in the north of England and appeal to your knowledge of cliche, but don't mention whippets.

Point Two: I have a pretty new computer! It's a Mac laptop thingy, and it's lovely. If you don't believe me then just look at the picture. It does more or less everything I could want, especially by allowing me to blog! Also it lets me bluetooth pictures from my phone, hence the poor quality of this post's illustrations. It is so much fun.

Point Three: Charlie Brooker, of whom regular readers will know that I am not a small fan, hates Macs and the people who own them. If you don't believe me then just follow the link. I like to think that this is entirely to do with the questionable adverts featuring Mitchell and Webb, but maybe he really does hate me. Never mind though: the aforementioned ornament will mean an increase in (no-longer-non-seriousness-shame-inhibited) blogging, which can only mean more fun for you, my readers. Aw.

Walking!

2007-02-04T00:52:00.000Z

I had heard stories about the topology walks organised by our leader. Horrible stories! Mud-spattered tales of relentless forced marches up hill and down dale, through mile-high peat bogs and thick clouds of driving rain; tales of hapless mathematicians in heavy water-hugging wind-welcoming coats and disintegrating shoes, armed with only a Kit Kat for their lunch.

So it was with some enthusiasm, and a pair of worn-in Berghaus walking boots, that I agreed to go on the latest topology walk last month. The walk lived up to expectations very well indeed. First, the weather leading up to the walk had been ceaselessly vile, with just a glimmer of sunshine, lots of wind, but no rain predicted for the day in question. LIES! Well not entirely: it was dry for the whole morning, and someone who knows these things worked out that the wind must have been at least gale force eight*. However, by mid afternoon the rain had arrived, horizontally , and then we got lost, so that by the time we made it to the pub we were tired and wet. But no matter! It was still great fun to be out and about with my nice new colleagues, and best of all we got to see Kinder Downfall being blown upfall by the wind.

*You could google to find out how strong this means the wind is, but the correct definition is "feels like it'll blow your glasses off your face".

Avenue Q

2007-01-05T19:11:00.000Z

Well, Christmas in York was followed by New Year in London, which culminated in a trip to the West End to see Avenue Q. This is a musical, with puppets and people, kind of based on Sesame Street but not authorised or approved in any manner by The Jim Henson Company or Sesame Street Workshop. And I have to say that it is utterly fantastic!

Why is it fantastic? Well, it's totally irreverent, hilarious, and pretty filthy in places. The songs are catchy and the lyrics are hilarious, the actors and puppeteers are all brilliant and so talented, and the whole technique of the thing is awesome: at times an actor operating one puppet would be using the voice of another (operated by someone else), or having a conversation with themselves as different characters. In fact, it was so great that just the thought of it has been making me grin randomly for days.

It all sounds mad, I'm sure, but don't take my word for it: watch the video. I know I ask a lot of you, dear readers, but please watch this clip. I guarantee that you'll love it.

Friends think that this is the start of my love affair with musicals in general, but I have to say that despite the near-critical mass of pro-musical agitators at home, this is unlikely to continue. I mean, I have sat through the odd Rodgers and Hammerstein film, and even seen bits of that Maria business, but I still find it very hard to warm to the idea.

Gieshübler!

2006-12-27T02:04:00.000Z

He's a character, the best we have here, and something of an original, but above all he's all heart, and that's always the main thing.

Now pay attention and I shall explain. Back in the day (well, 1999) I was a fresh-faced first-year maths student in Cambridge, and for most of that year a couple of my best friends always called me Gieshübler. (Edinburgh people still call me Ginge, and I'm not sure I prefer it.) I only ever knew half the reason for this: Gieshübler is a character in the German novel Effi Briest, which one of the friends was reading for his course, and apparently there were some similarities between the character and myself. However, I never knew exactly what these similarities were; Gieshübler could have been a lovely man, or maybe a bit of a chancer, or perhaps a cast-iron shit.

The other day something reminded me of the Gieshübler business so I decided to buy the book and read all about it. Even if Gieshübler does turn out to be a degenerate kitten-eating serial murderer, this all happened so long ago that I won't take it to heart -- I hope. The quote at the top is the first mention of Gieshübler in the book, but that's only a couple of chapters in so there's plenty of room left for him to become a baby-stealing stalker.

The astute among you will have noticed that this means I've finally finished Middlesex. I've also read a few other things in the meantime, including books on atheism, string theory, and the Trojan war. You'll also have noticed a striking and well-established pattern: that my nicknames (the ones that people call me directly; god knows what they say when I'm not around) all seem to begin with G. This gives me hope that my next nickname will be Gangsta or The G-Man or something equally tough-sounding. Presumably this will never happen.

Christmas Tree!

2006-12-14T13:23:00.000Z

Behold the mighty St. Thomas Road Christmas Tree! Isn't it beautiful? Note the lovely apple decorations, the gingerbreads, the paper chains and the pretty fairy! Who else has decorations? Bet they're not as nice as ours!

(To be honest I have had very little to do with the tree, apart from my fair share of fetching it from the shop. Housemate is entirely responsible for the rest.)

Meanwhile, cast your eyes to the right and note that there are now more links for your perusal. So:
1) Learn about life in California with Neeps In The Sun.
2) See how my absence in Edinburgh has been so lamented that they've replaced me with a sheep, in Sheep Topology.
3) Get the best of YouTube with HumeTube.

Hedgehog!

2006-12-07T19:43:00.000Z

Observe the Great British Hedgehog in its natural habitat -- our back garden! Well, in true Sheffield terraced housing style, there is just one garden shared between us and our neighbours, divided only by the path between the two lawns, so technically he's snuffling around in the neighbours' half. Anyway, he showed up a couple of weeks ago to stomp around looking for dinner before hedgehogging off down the passage between the houses ... towards the road! God speed you Hedgey, noble beast, prickler of hands and bearer of ticks!

Note for the unaware: "hedgehog!" should be said as it is heard in Bob's Guide To Housework.

Meanwhile, God willing, or at least if the nation's grandmothers are too sherried-up by saturday teatime to dial in and vote for him, this post will be my last chance to complain about song-slaying junior freakshow Ray off The X-Factor. Ask no questions about why I watch the X-Factor -- the enslaved by television post will be along soon -- and just concentrate on the fact that from an array of twelve more-or-less talented hopefuls, this bizarre concoction has survived to the last three. In the words of Screen Burn, Ray is a "jigging, Brylcreemed cross between a ventriloquist's dummy and a screaming otter foetus who hits every note with a hammer". Please tune in to this week's semi-final and direct bad vibes his way. Or at least punch him in your dreams.

How Soon Is Now?

2006-11-28T15:48:00.000Z

This blog is called Topologist Now, and yet so many people -- their lives barren and dull without a regular sting of up to date me-news -- have been asking me "Topologist When?" Well, none of them phrased it like that, nor did anyone have the basic sense to phrase the question as a Smiths song. Indeed, the ceaseless whingeing clamour for new posts has been so crushingly monotonous -- "What happened to your blog?", "So what about your blog?", "I can't think of an original way to ask you why you stopped writing your blog..." * -- that my only hope for a quiet life of productive mathematics is to waste my time writing a new entry. I hope you're all happy.

So what is my excuse? Well, I guess I can only really claim that it's a settling in thing. I don't spend so much time in the office, since it's small and I have to share it with my very serious officemate, whose very presence makes me feel bad for faffing around on my computer. Nevertheless, I am now over this little hurdle, and having overcome my criminally vulgar shyness I am ready to rock your tiny world.

Over the next few weeks or so I aim to a) update everything on the sidebar, and b) barrage you with an encyclopaedic run-down of all things Richard. So prepare to hear how I transmogrify into an algebraic geometer, bake many fine tarts, hold dinner parties, commune with hedgehogs, walk in the Peak District, get enslaved by gadgetry and addicted to television (including a dangerously close encounter with the X-Factor phone poll), write campaign speeches for coffee machines, be terrified by Meadowhall, be usurped by a haggis and above all still fail to have finished Middlesex by now. Watch this space people!

* This is a little unfair since Old Man Urmintrude actually threatened to delete me from his blogroll. If he so much as tries it, I'm off round his house to chainsaw him in the trunk. That's right Dave. I'm calling you a tree! Tree!

The Greenest City

2006-09-24T15:15:00.000+01:00

On tuesday, after more than a week of living out of boxes and bags at my parents' house, I successfully touched down in Sheffield. The house is lovely, but it's taking a bit of getting used to. I've lived in just one room in a flat (or in halls) since I was eighteen, so now having a half-share in an entire house is a bit disorientating... but good!

So I'm still alive, and will post more once there's news and I'm a little more organised. Work, and therefore free internet access, begins next monday, so expect more details and activity then.

(Sheffield is the greenest city in europe. Official! This is because it has the greatest number of trees per capita.)

Unemployment & Book Report

2006-09-02T18:23:00.000+01:00

I'm unemployed! My year as junior dogsbody lecturer at the Edinburgh University School of Mathematics ended on thursday and I'm now officially unemployed until October 1st, when my new job in Sheffield will begin. It's very sad to be leaving the department and the flat and all of my friends in Edinburgh, but it's also quite exciting to be moving on. I expect that I'll become all teary at some point before I leave town for good next weekend.

Anyhow, what I do have is a week to fill before moving away. There'll be packing to do of course, but maybe only a day's worth. In the meantime I will be playing games and reading maths and maybe I'll start the second chapter of Middlesex.

Meanwhile, belumberjacketed Canadian man-tree Dave has requested that I join in with the book report, so here goes ...

1. One book that changed your life:
Algebraic Topology by Allen Hatcher, because I learned so much from it, and it's like the start of everything I do now. So it did change my life. It's a very geeky answer, but it's honest. Alternatively, The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, because it's so mad and I learned that things can be affecting even if they don't make `sense'.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
I can only think of Past Imperative etc by Dave Duncan. I'm sure there are other things that I've read more than once but I can't think of them now. This is such a dreary answer.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
I think the complete works of Shakespeare. This is what they always let you take on Desert Island Discs, and probably for good reason. Imagine all the fabulous language and stories in it. It would keep you going for ages.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Screen Burn by Charlie Brooker. You want to!

5. One book that made you cry:
Unlike Dave, I do cry at books and films sometimes. The last book I can remember that did this was Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's very sad at the end.

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Dunno. Something that would teach me to understand people better. Then I'd be more understanding! Seriously, the nicer we are to everyone the better, right?

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Every bad maths book I see. People hate my subject, and unfortunately its practitioners often do very little to change that. In fact, the effect's so negative that I think there should be a law against people writing shitty academic books.

8. One book you’re currently reading:
To A Fault by Nick Laird.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
Middlesex, but you all know that!

Pretty Water

2006-08-27T19:03:00.000+01:00

Besides preparing a talk on The Topology of Orbifold Resolutions for wednesday, I'm currently clearing out my office in advance of being booted next friday.

I'm taking the plants home today, and the camp pink watering can is coming as well. It had some water in it -- too much to water the plants and not have them leak -- so I threw it out of the window. It looked very pretty on the way down! That's all.

This place is very desolate now. Hum.

York, Sheffield, and questions of scale.

2006-08-20T19:22:00.000+01:00

As you all know, I'm leaving Edinburgh soon to move to Sheffield. I will cease to be a lecturer and I'll become a postdoctoral fellow. This takes longer to say, pays slightly less, and also needs explaining to anybody who doesn't work in academia. Still, I'm looking forward to it: no teaching, and the country's biggest collection of topologists, and -- most importantly -- no boss! I'll be free to research whatever I like.

Over the last few days I've been staying in York and visited Sheffield on Monday to sort out accommodation. I'll be moving in to a house with an old friend from York. This will be very slightly weird, and mostly a great arrangement. I'll just have to learn to tolerate Holby City and ceaseless tutting.

While in York I took this photo of the Windmill. As you can see, it's no longer in a state of disrepair, and in fact they're actually doing some work on it.
Anyhow, the brief trip went well and I got to read lots of interesting maths on the train. Really! I learnt all about stacks and classical Chern-Simons theory.

Finally, my last message has led to much controversy over questions of scale. To be precise, it seems that people were unhappy with my use of a smurf to describe the size of a physics book. I'd like to clear things up so that life can return to normal. As you can see here, a smurf is roughly the same height as a tetrahedron, and approximately ninety minutes tall.

I'm learning about physics from a very large book!

2006-07-31T15:44:00.000+01:00

Why oh why does a topologist give a pig's ear about physics? Well, topology is a sort of geometry, and, in the words of Sir Michael Atiyah, "In recent years there has been a remarkable renaissance in the relation between Geometry and Physics." This is what led me a couple of months ago to read The Road To Reality by Roger Penrose. This is a dirty great book about all of phyiscs whose 1000+ pages I mindlessly ploughed through, skipping the big words as I went.

Well now I have to try to understand an actual bit of topology that was inspired by phyiscs, and so in order to get to grips with it I have obtained this enormous book from the library. See how huge it is! The smurf is just for scale. I really don't think I'll get very far with it, but who knows...

Apologies for the shortage of activity here. I have my excuses! The strange reading / not reading business with Middlesex was because I never actually started it! In fact there was probably a solid month where I didn't read anything interesting because I was too busy getting my maths wrong. I'll definitely read it next.

Finally, have any of you seen famous people in the Edinburgh streets yet? I have one underwhelming sighting so far, of funny-ish Frankie Boyle off of Mock the Week.

Big Brother!

2006-06-27T15:03:00.000+01:00

This must be my blogging nadir: a pointless online diary entry about a pointless reality TV program, in which I will point out various things that the housemates / inmates / `characters' have done to render themselves fractionally less pointless than the other mewling gits whose company they're saddled with.

Before I go on you must understand that I love Big Brother. I watch it as often as possible. I spent the entirety of Big Brother 4 sewing a Highland Cow for my baby niece: BBLB at six, the normal show at nine, and repeats of both in the small hours, for ten weeks. That's a lot of telly and a lot of sewing.

People seem to find my love of Big Brother surprising, as if being interested in maths and stuff excludes me from watching the best show on the telly. For example, wine-soaked twistor theorist Toby Bailey was rendered speechless when I revealed that I watched Celebrity Big Brother last year. This kind of thing would be excusable if it didn't go round in circles: people whom I shocked and disappointed last year forget my affliction, enabling them to be indignantly condescending afresh the next time.

So where is all of this going? Well, I don't think this is the right venue to discuss my favourite housemates, except to say that Nikki should be appointed Enunciator-Royal for services to clear diction. Besides, my opinions about the current crop change more regularly than the England formation. No. I'll just strongly encourage you to watch this year's foul-mouthed, tattle-barbed, implausibly-augmented stropfest in all its hideous glory. And I'll also ask you to think back on Big Brothers past: how innocent and clean does the business with Nasty Nick and that guy Craig seem in contrast to this year's gaudy horror?

I'm going to try to be a little more regular with the posts in future. In particular, I will update all the music stuff and give an explanation for my slowness in reading Middlesex.

Days spent with the grass and sun, in the office, on the phone.

2006-06-08T15:49:00.000+01:00

Do you know what doesn't grind my gears?

Sometimes I agree with Dave's rants. Not the ones about customer service, but to whinge about posties, for example, is righteous. However, I now have to weigh in with an anti-rant. On tuesday I toolishly left my mobile on the bus. I assumed that it would be lost forever, was annoyed with myself, then got excited at the prospect of being able to buy a shiny new one. But no! The driver actually called Archibald (first in my phone book) telling him that my phone was in lost property; a trip to the top of Leith Walk and a two pound charge later, and I am reunited with my phone.

Three worrying things come from this: First, that I was quite anxious about not having my phone (I am only a recent convert, previously opposed to the things), and may have become dependent. Second, that in my two days of phonelack I didn't get a single message (boo!). Third, that I now can't hate Lothian Bus Drivers with every fibre of my being. True, most of them are miserablist gits who spend their workday trying to skittle the elderly onto their arses by braking sharply, but at least one of them is a kindly soul. Grr!

New Office

Right. I now have a new office. They moved me, and now it's permanent. This one feels a little bit bare, but it does have a slightly nicer view, and thank god it doesn't have one of these things spewing out heat and noise at my tired brain.
There's lots of unpacking type stuff to be done, but it doesn't seem worth it quite yet. It also has a whiteboard which keeps getting randomly decorated by my very many friends. Any small amount of maths on it gets hideously derided, while several senior members of staff (including the head of school) have seemed to quite like the pictures...

Summer Music
In deference to the lovely weather, which has finally arrived after weeks of gruelling malaise, I have been listening to Since I Left You by The Avalanches. This is probably the summeriest record I own, and one of few that I can forgive for being more than an hour long. But then on the bus my mind drifted to circa 1995, to Wake Up, Boo!, Staying Out For The Summer, and Supergrass arriving at Glastonbury via helicopter. Those were the days, eh? I like to think that my music taste has changed in the last ten years, but still reminiscing is nice, right?

57:12 ... cheeky cockney hobbit-chefs ... where's Toby?

2006-05-15T20:47:00.000+01:00

Get me with my Need To Know-style elliptical titling.

57:12 So two sundays ago was the Edinburgh 10k run. Me and a friend took part and and we both did really well. I was worried about not making it without having to walk, so I was really pleased to manage any time less than an hour. It was good fun and we spent the rest of the day walking around looking very pleased with ourselves. And why not?

Hobbits
Had friends to stay this weekend. It's the first bit of real hostery I've done, and I think the visitors survived. It was great fun and (with lots of help, and modulo salad-related errors of scale) I managed a recipe from scooter-riding midget Jamie Oliver's book Jamie's Kitchen. It turned out well and I'll be trying more of the recipes in future.

Where's the Baileylord?
Went to Stockbridge with the visitors and totally failed to see Toby in any of the fine food shops we perused. I was disappointed since I imagine him to spend his entire weekend standing around in the best foodmerchants talking high-class shop with the proprietors. Turns out he was in Burgundy, as if we couldn't have guessed.

Street Art

2006-05-04T14:25:00.000+01:00

This is some pavement art from Princes Street in Edinburgh. It's by Julian Beever and the idea is that if you look at it from the correct angle then the picture pops out of the pavement at you.

A friend mentioned about there being a famous pavement artist about town on tuesday. The next day I walked right past this thing (which looks stretched out and weird) wondering what the hell it was but not paying any attention. Then later on I was reminded and realised what I'd missed. It's a little faint because people have been walking over it for a couple of days, but still very cool.

Sideways: You're a derelict!

2006-05-02T18:51:00.000+01:00

If you haven't seen this film then probably you should. It's really funny, also a bit depressing, but very sweet in the end. I just watched the DVD and, being a detail-obsessed geek, watched it again with the commentary by the two leads. This was surprisingly good, they're very funny and the chatter amounted to them both mocking their own characters for the duration of the movie. This, with apologies for the swearing, is my favourite quote (Miles is a wine snob and this is his opinion of a popular wine):

Miles: It tastes like the back of a fucking L.A. school bus. Now they probably didn't de-stem, hoping for some semblance of concentration, crushed it up with leaves and mice, and then wound up with this rancid tar and turpentine bullshit. Fuckin' Raid.
Jack: Tastes pretty good to me.

For wine-related reasons of Toby mockery I actually set this as the hidden message on the computing projects earlier this year, but I had to take out the swearing.

Meanwhile, I jinx myself now by mentioning that I'm going to take part in the Edinburgh 10k run on sunday. Currently I'm sore after today's practice, but I think I'm about up to the right sort of ability. So fingers crossed. Now, according to the advice they sent, I have to start eating lots of carbohydrates to avoid hitting the wall too soon. Hum.

Finally, Newsnight Review update: The Double Life Of Veronique is on at the Filmhouse soon. Adjectives at the ready!

Lord of the Manor

2006-04-21T16:52:00.000+01:00

I have a room in my flat. I have an office. A room in my parents' house contains lots of my things. These are the three little pieces of world over which I control (sort of), and as a result they are all a great big mess. Each one is disorganised and filthy, in desperate need of a good dusting, and largely impossible to usefully do anything in. Further, since

a) I'll be moving in September,
b) my mum has plans for a guest room,
c) I have to vacate my office in a fortnight for redecoration,

each of my little dominions will soon enough need to be gutted, stripped bare of tat and shite, hoovered and cleaned, then repopulated with as much of the rubbish as I can bear not to part with.

Algebraic Geometry is unpleasant. But not as unpleasant as cleaning and sorting, and therefore I've been getting plenty of work done. However I have made a small start on the sorting. My mighty collection of change (pennies and tuppencess and fives) has been counted. The grand total came to just under fifteen pounds. Let nobody call me autistic.

I've just been teaching revision sessions for advanced highers students. The students are therefore 17 or 18 and among the cleverer schoolgoers. And one of them still managed to fall of an entirely static chair. How I despair! (Not really.)

East Angular

2006-04-16T13:22:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I went with my mum to Southwold (in Suffolk, East Anglia) to visit my Grandmother. If you've never seen it mentioned in every sunday supplement ever printed, Southwold is a pleasant seaside town with lots of pleasant retired inhabitants and a very clean and pleasant beach.

Good Things About The Trip:
1) Seeing my Gran.
2) Seeing the cats.
3) Bracing walks and seaside air.
4) Successfully fixing a wheelbarrow. (Despite my impractical desk-bound occupation I am in fact capable of minor practical tasks.)

Bad Things About The Trip:
1) Getting covered in cat hair.
2) The pleasant seaside air was bloody freezing.
3) I failed to fix the other wheelbarrow.
4) My lack of stealth and lumbering mathematician's gait robbed me of the chance to mercilessly bludgeon a rat with a steel poker.

Good Things About The Bad Things:
1) I now have a nice jumper to fend off the freezing seaside air.
2) Wielding a steel poker in a potential man-versus-nature showdown left me feeling vital and energised for a good three minutes.

Since the trip I've just been wandering around York learning lots of maths.

Finally, a question about adverts. When did they make Barry Scott camp? Surely he had a hard enough time using someone else's voice to sell pink acid to the general public already, but now the people behind Cillit Bang have put him in marigolds and an apron.

Alert!

2006-04-03T22:23:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the evil of blogger's cookie habit, my brother now knows about this page. I immediately assumed that this would be a bad thing, but on close inspection (and reading through all the posts ever) it seems not. So Mark, if you're reading, why not click on `comments' and say something interesting? Ah, go on. Feel free to adopt a wacky pseudonym.

A message from suburban York; My Latest Novel

2006-04-02T21:11:00.000+01:00

Help! I'm trapped in suburbia. Not really. I'm back here because things have wound down in Edinburgh and I can get on with work as well here as there. The particular reason for being here is that people have been having birthdays, which is always fun (well, when I remember them ...)

Anyhow, for those of you who don't know, my parents live on Windmill Rise, which has its very own windmill, pictured here. As you can see, there aren't any sails (removed for `safety' some years ago and subsequently lost by the council). Plus, it's pretty decrepit these days. This is a real shame because up until maybe 10 years ago it was fine and dandy, just that in recent times it's really started crumbling and hasn't had any attention from the powers that be. Boo!

Music News: everyone should listen to My Latest Novel, a very fine Glaswegian band with fantastic Glaswegian accents. I guess they sit somewhere between Arcade Fire and Snow Patrol. This could be a bad thing but it's not. You can download some mp3s from their site. Do!

Lots more to say about records, films, DVDs, and elliptic cohomology, but no room right now. Instead, guess what? On tuesday I'll be doing my full uncle's duty and babysitting all day. I'm a bit scared ...

How could I forget this?
Congratulations to Mairi and Simon on the birth of baby Sophie!
(Simon is my cousin...)

Employment.

2006-03-27T17:41:00.000+01:00

The title does not refer to last year's album by tune-dodging jackanapes The Kaiser Chiefs, but to the fact that I now have a job lined up for next year (well, academic year). I will be a postdoc at Sheffield University, where topology is king, for three years. It starts in October, and I finish here at the end of August, so I even get a month off for good behaviour. There will be a conference in the middle of it, but that's hardly boohoo material.

Lots of people seem to think that Sheffield is dismal and northern, and that's certainly been my own idea at various times, but it's such a good university to be at right now, and everyone I know who's ever lived there seems to love it. So I'm looking forward to it.

Add to this the fact that teaching's just stopped and winter's finally finished, and right now I'm feeling really rather optimistic about stuff. Hum.

The Proposition 2

2006-03-11T14:12:00.000Z

After Andrew's recommendation of it I decided to go and see The Proposition. This is the Australian `western' written by Nick Cave (of good miserable music fame). It's like a blood-soaked revengey crime and punishment deal, with a Kurtzish enigmatic/intelligent/psychotic murderer hiding in the hills. It was very good, but also really horrible, perhaps the nastiest thing I've seen in a while (well, since Hidden).

Apart from that it's been work work work and preparation for a brief visit to the south (well, to the south of here). The MCC (that's maths and computing stuff) projects I set for the third year were finished yesterday, so for most of the week I've been inundated with queries. Not that this is a bad thing: all the people I saw wer very pleasant and had thought about stuff before visiting. Still, it's good to have a bit more time. Only two more weeks of lectures. Hoo!

A Giant Snowball

2006-03-05T15:29:00.000Z

This lot brought the enormous snowball to my office as retribution for my not taking part in the pure vs applied snowball fight they had on friday afternoon. It's quite an achievement I suppose, but they seem just a little too show-and-tell with their schoolchild handiwork for my liking. Anyhow, a failed attempt to take it to the office of a wine-loving senior academic failed, and on the way back to the common room, giant snowball in hands, I was approached by one of my third year students who wanted some help with a project. I was a little pleased with my response ("I have my hands full") but still I don't think it's a great outcome. Thankfully the student didn't seem totally freaked out.

Mad Weather

2006-03-03T11:50:00.000Z

The weather here in Edinburgh is mad at the moment. It just snowed very much indeed and stopped just as quickly. Someone suggested a Pure vs Applied snowball match, but childhood scarring and a lack of gloves leaves me feeling like this would be a bad idea. Plus the snow just started again.

Meanwhile, a friend and I have discovered that a heady mixture of fatalism, nonchalance, and running for it at just the right moment will help you to catch any bus you want. Fact.

Orange!

2006-02-28T17:45:00.000Z

A colleague's office was being cleared out and these chairs were going spare. Two are destined for the flat of some friends, and the other two are mine to deal with as I please. Aren't they beautiful? It makes it look like my office's been breeding wee orange pod-chairs. Maybe skynet's been busy...

(Orange! is to be said in the style of that sample from a Boards of Canada track. Fantastic.)

Lecture

2006-02-21T10:59:00.000Z

I just gave a lecture. It was bad. I feel very disorganised at the moment and it's paying off as I manage to make an dog's dinner of my job. Argh! I'm preparing now for all the stuff to come. I'm resolved to get it all out of the way this week and then just sail through it for the rest of the semester. Is this wishful thinking? Probably. But I can only try.

I finished Lunar Park, which was quite good, and now I'm reading The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde which is really good fun so far. I'm also desperate to see some films but feel like there really isn't the time.

This was dull. I'll stop whingeing and get on!

Mogwai!

2006-02-09T15:14:00.000Z

More Mogwai. Yet again. I just bought tickets to see them at the Queen's Hall here in Edinburgh, just around the corner from my flat in fact. I'm so excited. There's even some live footage here on the BBC. The quality's pretty poor, but the band look like they're on good form which bodes well. Apparently certain parts of the shows have been deafening so I'll be keeping my distance from the stage.

In case you were wondering, I'm still reading Lunar Park and there's a character in it who pretends to be the Patrick Bateman and `looks a lot like Christian Bale'. This has reminded me that I have to buy American Psycho on DVD: if you haven't seen it, it's pretty nasty, but is like a costume drama, it's so accurate about the 80's. Christian Bale is hilarious in it.

Lunar Park

2006-02-06T14:43:00.000Z

I've been reading Lunar Park, the newish novel by Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho etcetera. It's very odd: it's written in the first person and the main character is Ellis himself. As such it's presented as being like a memoir, except it quite obviously isn't. The first chapter or so was like an account of Ellis's life since he was a student up to the `present day', which is a weirdly but not implausibly nastier version of the real thing. Anyhow it just got very fantastic because after only 70 pages there's an evil furby. That's right, an evil furby. I can't wait to see what happens next.

In other non-news I start my number theory lectures tomorrow. I'll be telling the students about the Sieve of Eratosthenes and I will be loved for it! I've also been listening to the last track of Explosions in the Sky's album The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. It's very cool and at some point I'll see if I can make it available to you lot.

Films and other stuff

2006-02-01T22:03:00.000Z

First, let me apologise for the lack of recent posts.

I'm so sorry.

In the last few weeks I've been to see a few films: Brokeback Mountain, A Cock And Bull Story, and Hidden. It seems like everyone's seen Brokeback Mountain, and rightly so: it's very good, and so sad. I didn't cry though. AC&BS was a wee bit patchy, but enjoyable enough to merit seeing. The parts where Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon were let loose were especially good. The structure was far less interesting than I expected. Not that I think any film less scrambled than Memento is a shod of water-treading pap, just that AC&BS let itself down a wee bit. Finally, Hidden is this new French film about a couple who receive video tapes of their house in the post. It was really gripping the whole way through, and then ... Also, it had one of the ickiest moments I've seen since Jack got his nose sliced in Chinatown. A sizeable portion of the audience screamed. Honest.

Anyhow, there you go. If you people aren't careful then I'll start telling you about Joyce manifolds.

I have output!

2006-01-26T17:40:00.000Z

I've been trying to formulate a new project for the little course I'll be lecturing sometime soon. I've decided to get the students counting primes and verifying the prime number theorem. Hopefully they'll be able to produce something like this picture.

It's a graph of n against pi(n)/li(n). Why do we care? Well, pi(n) is the number of primes below n and li(n) is the logarithmic integral. The PNT says that these two are asymptotically equivalent, and the graph shows this in action! (See, it gets closer to 1...) Okay, it's not impressive. If it were two stars colliding or a model of Canada being shot off to infinity, I'm sure you'd all be more impressed.

Our policy on marriage.

2006-01-25T14:15:00.000Z

This is fantastic. Read it now.

Burns Night

2006-01-24T19:08:00.000Z

On saturday Stefan and Elinborg cooked Burns dinner for a bunch of us. However, it turns out that everyone had worked out in advance that it was my birthday (my CV is online ... grr) and so they surprised me with cake. Which was lovely. We also watched the welsh film 101 Rekjavik, which was a fine thing: quite funny and also entertainingly misanthropic, at least until the end. Here's one photo, and there's another on flickr (photos link at the right).

Thanks to everyone!

Oh tedious week!

2006-01-20T18:19:00.000Z

This week has been very tedious. I got back from Sheffield feeling harrassed rather than refreshed by three days of homotopy and two at my parents' (though seeing people in York was nice). The rest of the week hasn't been much better and -- you know what? -- I don't know why at all. There was a fun evening out yesterday after the geometry and topology seminars, but I got rather drunk and have felt pig sick all day.

Actual news is that I submitted a paper (the sea of red ink one) to a journal for the first time ever. Probably mentioning will have jinxed me, but I hope they like it and that the referee doesn't rip me to shreds (if it even gets that far).

Feel free to learn about Homology and Cohomology via the link on the right. You're also welcome to access me if you wish.

Intrusion!

2006-01-16T18:37:00.000Z

So I got back to the office today and found this message on my blackboard. I really think I locked my door! So either a) Andrew is a wizard or b) Andrew has special insider methods. Which can it be?

Something About Topology

2006-01-16T02:17:00.000Z

Given this blog's name it's unforgivable that I haven't actually talked about any proper topology yet, but given the evidence of people actually reading I don't think I'm going to start. Except to mention that I just listened to an online lecture on `Derived Algebraic Geometry' by boylike genius Jacob Lurie, who might just be the man to do all the cool stuff with elliptic cohomology that nobody else has managed. The lecture was cool.

I forgot to mention the thing that happened in Sheffield that has most affected me: This man told me that I look 'at least 30 years old'. I had the great pleasure of teaching him in Swansea. If Andrew's lurking around, he might recognise the man and be able to verify that he's quite annoying.

Well, I've been bumming at my parents' for two nights and tomorrow it's back to Edinburgh and back to the grindstone.

Sheffield

2006-01-14T15:43:00.000Z

For the last few days I've been at the Sheffield Homotopy Miniconference. Homotopy Theory is a sort of topology where everything's even abstracter than usual and there's very little geometry left. It was a pretty hardcore affair. But Sheffield was nice, as were the people at the conference. Despite the harrowing five-talk-a-day schedule, there was plenty of socialising, and we discussed Rick Jardine's wall of hatred.

I also visited the Arts Tower and rode on the paternoster, though I think my dismount needs some work. Saw J too for lunch. It was fun!

Photos. New Semester.

2006-01-09T18:06:00.000Z

Depictee-sanctioned Scarborough photos can be seen at the link on the right. This one was taken on the beach after we'd had our chips. The photographer is Wrennyjen, who sat in a little sand hole (presumably dug by a child sometime earlier) to get the very low angle. So dedicated! Despite the obvious sunshine and beautiful blue sky it was bloody freezing.

So today is the first day of the new semester. I've lots to be getting on with, not least preparing for several sets of lectures and doing some lovely new maths. (Hopefully I'll be able to investigate the topology of Joyce's G_2 manifolds. Cool, eg?) Still, I can't quite be arsed to get down to any of it because I'm off to Sheffield for a conference on wednesday and there doesn't seem to be any point me getting my teeth into anything particular.

I finished watching Lost last night. That's the last 12 episodes done and dusted since thursday. Come on, that's impressive! What's in the hatch? Oooo.

Corpse in the Office!

2006-01-06T19:47:00.000Z

I came back to the office today after the Christmas break to find this corpse. My beautiful Ikea peace lily obviously failed to appreciate its two weeks of neglect. Now I just have a stack of marking to do, which will thankfully be alleviated by all of series 1 of Lost that my flatmate just lent me on DVD. And I still have some Seinfelds left. Did anyone see Larry David talking to Ricky Gervaise on C4 last night? I really enjoyed it.

That funny time between Christmas and New Year

2005-12-30T23:22:00.000Z

In the lull between Christmas and New Year I've been doing a lot of nothing. I've been reading some maths with a fair amount of success, and watching old Seinfelds that I bought on DVD for half price. Thrilling, eh?

There was a fun visit to Scarborough with some friends. For those of you who don't know, Scarborough is typical British seaside, almost to the point of being a cliche. It was freezing, but that didn't stop us from eating chips on the beach and going for nice walks around. There were even surfers out which, given the temperature and the drenching the sea was giving people on Marine Drive, was very brave. Looking back, we didn't do much, but it was lovely. Photos will appear.

My brother and his family are visiting at the moment, so tonight everyone's walking round on tippytoes trying to avoid waking up my little niece. Who's very cute, if you're one of the few people I haven't told this to a million times. I have yet to break out my secret weapon: a copy of The Gruffalo's Child that I bought in Scarborough (and was teased for). It will earn me much love.

Borderline

2005-12-22T21:08:00.000Z

I know that I often bint on about how much I like something and leave lots of links to it lying around, which you might, possibly but probably not, want to look at. This post is another instance of the same. Only this time I really mean it:

Listen to this right now:
Borderline by Sufjan Stevens

I made the mp3 myself and found it difficult. Modernity has passed me by. Make my pain worthwhile and listen. It's a very very beautiful song.

Formalities

2005-12-17T14:10:00.000Z

I'm disorganised. I haven't done any christmas shopping yet, or indeed any of the many things I wanted to do before christmas. There's a load of learning, marking, and preparation I want to do before the New Year and I'm pretty sure there won't be the slightest chance to get any of it done once the festivities start (not least because I will spend the most wonderful time of the year sleeping on the living room floor).

I'm currently enamoured of the new Bearsuit record, Team Ping Pong. These people are like a lo-fi version of Belle and Sebastian. Or more like three copies of the White Stripes where two of the Jacks are forced to play mid-80's Casio My First Keyboards. Anyhow, it's great, and the record clocks in at under 30 minutes! (This is a very good thing.) You can hear one track at the link at the bottom of this page.

Just to prove my point, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground just came on over the speakers.

I also finished reading The Talented Mr Ripley. I'm a great fan of the film (though it's lukewarm for most people) but really had to read the book after being in Italy (where it's mostly set) last summer. Perhaps the bit I liked best was the description of Tom's reaction to Venice, because it was so close to what I thought: you expect Venice to be a tiny, a little bit of it like you see in the movies and the rest a sea of tat and shod. In fact the place is huge, all of it like the films only better. Can you tell that I liked Venice, despite the pouring rain (oh me it poured)? The book was good too.

Today: weekend Guardian -- I have my fingers crossed that Screen Burn will be about Space Cadets -- and then more learning about formal groups, which is as dull as it sounds but irritatingly necessary.

Photos!

2005-12-11T16:29:00.000Z

You can now see various sorts of photos by following the "my photos" link on the right. When the page loads you should click on the icons on the left to look at each set.

Survival

2005-12-09T13:35:00.000Z

On wednesday I survived my viva, so it should only be a matter of time before I get some sort of certificate in the post. (Well, not before I make corrections and submit the fancy-bound copies.)

Then yesterday, my friends in the maths department treated me to a surprise party. This was amazing. Sunil claimed to have arranged a pub trip, and on the way there Otonyo insisted we take a slight detour to `drop his bag off' at his flat, where the rest of the motley retinue lay in wait in the living room! It was great. I especially liked the following things: The banner. The party food. The fancy salmon. The cake, with its wondrous icing. The gingerbread. Otonyo's hospitality. The evil cunning plottingness of it all. You people are the best! Thanks!

Photographs will follow. Watch this space! (It's the postgrad christmas party tonight, so maybe there'll also be pictures and news from that.)

Short Short Stories and The Goblet of Fire

2005-12-04T18:35:00.000Z

While rummaging through all of the rubbish on my bookshelf I found my copy of Short Short Stories by Dave Eggers. This is one of those little Penguin books you can get for dirt cheap, but it's based on a column that Dave Eggers wrote in the Guardian Magazine for about a year. Like it says, each week he wrote a single very short story. It was utter genius through and through, and made the Saturday Guardian something to truly look forward to (in much the same way as Screen Burn does for me now). Here are some of my favourite short short stories:

About the man uglier and scarier than Ratzinger

We can work it out.

They decide not to have any more death

In the name of fun and relaxation I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday. Ageing being what it is, the child-actors now have troublingly deep voices (well, not Hermione) and, experience being what it is, they can now actually act. So it was enjoyable and fun and rather well-done, I thought. And in response I went home and began reading number 5 (borrowed from V) which is rather good so far. But huge.

My view = large picture!

2005-12-02T15:07:00.000Z

This is my view. It's better than yours. Sorry if it takes an ice age to load: I put the spanking new camera on full resolution.

Paper!

2005-12-01T18:51:00.000Z

Finally I have `finished' the damn thing. This means that I've posted it on the preprint server where it'll hang around until I submit it to a journal. (Another question which requires supervisor input.) Anyhow, my faith in the world means that I think you will all want to go and look at it (or be terrified by the title), so here's the link.

I also finished sending off a certain batch of applications, but didn't get around to doing it as properly as I intended. Never mind: the deadline has passed. I'm now going to (try to) relax, but I don't want to go too far because my viva (my final ever university exam?) is next wednesday. Urk.

For the photo-happy among you, I will relax by buying a digital camera! Expect to be bombarded with various views and random things.

Humour in the Darkest Hours

2005-11-29T18:59:00.000Z

So today I gave my last lecture to the first year scientists/engineers. At the start, as is customary, I handed out questionnaires. As a student I was always really mean on these, but -- thank god -- they were quite kind to me. I've been smiling all afternoon because they were really nice, though how much of this is due to my relative youth -- I could be half the age of most of the lecturers -- isn't clear.

Anyhow, my favouritest one was this (they've been told I'm a Dr, which is premature):

What did you like about the course?
Dr Hepworth who managed to provide humour in the darkest hours.

Whether that makes me more of a clown than a nice guy isn't clear, but there you go. I liked it.

The iPod Zepto; I should be working.

2005-11-28T18:59:00.000Z

I know I should really be working, but this article on the iPod Zepto was really funny.

I feel like I've almost finished my paper now. Some kind people have agreed to glance over it for me; so far the only error is a split infinitive! Watch this space for news of its final emergence.

Reading Aloud

2005-11-26T18:52:00.000Z

In How to Write Mathematics the author advocated reading your work aloud to see how it sounds. This morning I gave this my best shot on the penultimate draft of my Teaching Philosophy. (These statements are a requirement of all US universities, and are one of nature's most profound sources of bullshit, codspeak, and piffletalk. I hope mine isn't that bad.)

So anyway, there I was nervously sipping tea and declaring my teaching competence and abilities to the wallpaper. It wasn't as "revelatory" as I had been lead to believe, but it certainly did help: there were three or four points where I just had to stop because it sounded so limp. Hopefully it's a little sparkier now.

Last night I refused to do any work, and at glacial speed read my way through a sizeable chunk of On Beauty, the new novel by Zadie Smith. I really like it so far. One of my favourite features of it is that there are many references to current events (well, mostly the war and Bush) and, more importantly, to popular culture and celebrities. So at one point a character in the distance is talking to `a famous black newscaster', and elsewhere someone on the television asks a contestant `how much of a reserve do you want to put on that?' I actually laughed out loud.

Snow!

2005-11-25T15:06:00.000Z

Like Dave said on his blog, today in Edinburgh we are beset by mingy snow! Despite the dullness of the photo (am going to get a digital camera sometime soon so that I don't have to use my phone), the snow was rather lush and fluttery. Now it's all slush and mess.

Had my penultimate lecture today. I also had thanksgiving dinner leftovers at a friend's for lunch, so now I'm familiar with proper cranberry sauce and sweet potato mash and green bean casserole. It was a fine thing.

Now I have to do more writing. God this is dull. Sorry!

The calm before the storm ...

2005-11-23T16:19:00.000Z

Well, the calm before the School of Mathematics Cheese and Wine Party. Funded by the staff (myself included, natch) for the benefit of the postgraduates and fourth year undergraduates, it sounds like a bloodbath in the making. The sole aim of everyone I've spoken to is to get violently plastered. I'm above that, of course. (In honesty, so shattered that a whiff of anything strong will probably knock me flat.)

So there's a faint buzz around the place, fuelled by the arrival of new updated photographs on the staff/students noticeboard. (Excellent for pointing out the people you hate, basically.) This means that even though the even doesn't start until 7:30 I'm doomed to not get anything useful done before then. Ach well. Resting is good.

"I'm living in my office," or, "I'm incapable of writing mathematics!" or, "Ach ach ach ach!"

2005-11-20T00:24:00.000Z

So those rumour-mongering mathematical astronomers have been spreading dirty lies about me. For the single barely-significant reason that I've been wearing the same shirt (but not the same undershirt or anything else, thank you) since tuesday, they're convinced that I've been living in my office.

Well, I have not been living in my office, but it certainly does feel like it. Why? Because I've been working quite a lot -- for example right now; check out the time! -- preparing various things, and in particular trying to write a paper and doing that computation I mentioned. Why why? Because I want to make competent applications for jobs quite soon, and all this should help my chances a bit.

Anyhow, not only does it feel like I've been living in my office, but for the same reason -- lack of time, leading to lack of fresh ironing -- I've been wearing the same shirt for ever and now look like I've been living in my office. Apparently I don't yet smell like I've been living here, but it surely is a matter of time.

So that's it. Busy. Ugly rumours. (I think the astronomers can technically be labelled a `gang'. I expect that they have matching tattoos and a pact (sealed, by starlight, in blood and spit, naturally) of mutual protection and ginger-mockery. They even have a weekly meeting called `astro-tea'. I bet that's a lie. `Astro-tea' must be a substance, not an event! They just sit there getting pie-eyed on star-candy pretending to have a team-building social!)

PS Dave: I'm currently listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. They're Canadian, you know!

Drowning in a sea of red ink!

2005-11-18T21:10:00.000Z

Today, right now, I'm correcting the first draft of my paper. After the mammoth typing session on monday I didn't look at it again until thursday, and was immediately depressed by how awful the opening sections are. Ach!

My spare half hours since then have been spent going through it with red ink, gutting and rewriting entire paragraphs and generally making satisfying improvements. Now all I have to do is type the corrections. At great length. On friday evening. Ach ach!

In fact, this week has depressed me. I don't know where it's gone. Things (including yesterday's already-sour mood) haven't been improved by a colleague repeatedly informing me of deadlines half an hour before they expire. I do know where some of this week went: down the drain in the form of a calculation I'm nowhere-near capable of making yet, but which I still spent a day and a half attempting. Ach ach ach!.

Dear reader, it hasn't all been doom and gloom! Sparkling, gemlike highlights have included two genuinely interesting topology seminars (really), the gift of a lovely (and now necessary) hat, and the alpha highlight: Disco and Neyir's gala screening last night of Canadian Bacon and Stewie's Big Adventure.

That's right. The Urminskies have a projector. It turns their living room wall into a cinema. It dominates. The films were extraordinary, and all the more so since the first was written and directed back in the day by Michael Moore. Plus it was about Canada. Well, attacking Canada. Plus plus, it contained the ageless line "in a decent, godfearing country I'd be allowed to beat you both to death!".

Paper!

2005-11-14T23:24:00.000Z

Hoo! One day, a late night, lots of fruit and tea, and that's the first draft cranked out. (Well, there was a week of general preparing for it in my spare time, but there you go.) That's sixteen pages of TeX, people. And now my eyes hurt! (Though Optrex helped.)

The plan now? Well, tomorrow I won't have anything to do with it, for reasons of health. (I intend to read `How To Write Mathematics' by Krantz first. Not that I haven't written plenty of mathematics before, but I've never been in a research-paper headspace before.) I'm going to draft research statements instead. That'll be hilarious. Oh, and there's a lecture to give as well. Ah, fun!

Paper paper paper

2005-11-13T16:29:00.000Z

This week I'm going to write a paper based on one of the chapters of my thesis. I've got it almost entirely planned and only need to type it all up. Which might take a while. So here's the thing: how can I type for hours on end without going mad? I'm going to buy an enormous thing of eye drops, for starters. Any other recommendations?

PS Guess which TV personality screen burn writer Charlie Brooker referred to as "like an ageing Thundercat"?

Sigur Ros

2005-11-11T15:11:00.000Z

Last night I went to a Sigur Ros concert at the Corn Exchange. If you don't know about them, Sigur Ros are an Icelandic band who make long songs that tend to sound like a cross between whalesong and The Lord of the Rings. They're possibly the most affected band on the planet (the singer uses a made-up language; they played the first and last songs behind a gauzey curtain that they projected lots of stuff onto; their last album but one was called () and none of the songs had names), but the music's just so great that you can forgive them.

And it was really good. Mostly it was stuff from the recent record, but they also played three songs from an oldie that sounded better than ever, and they closed with the last track from () which is utterly colossal (you can get it from the page linked above: it's subtitled `the pop song' DO IT).

An honourable mention has to go to the support act, Amina. When they came onstage I was sceptical: four ladies in floaty knitwear looking like they were just SR's string section with a silly name. And the first few things they played got a mixed reception. But then it got much much better, with the silliest instruments known to mankind (well, to be precise, they played a saw, `ring for service' bells that produced different notes, and a phalanx of different wine glasses). I bought their EP from the stall at the back before I left and am looking forward to putting it on.

Screen Burn

2005-11-07T17:02:00.000Z

This is the second post in my proposed series wherein I will berate you with information about things I like. You will then like them, and the world will become better.

Today's thing I like is Screen Burn. This is Charlie Brooker's weekly TV column from the Guardian. The great thing is that rather than reviewing the most worthy or interesting of the week's viewing, Brooker usually picks something awful and moans about it (and modern life in general) in ways that are often very, very funny.

For example, in a review of this year's Big Brother, he described Eugene as a "human pylon" and Saskia as a "burly, wrathful harridan with a face that could advertise war".

Screen Burn is so funny that I actually went as far as buying the book. That's right, they took 4 years' worth of columns and stuck them in a paperback. Doesn't deserve to work! Works! Here's a section where he's moaning about a Pop Idol-style reality TV programme called Making the Band from 2001:

The remaining `performers' are a bunch of hissing styrofoam meerkats desperately clawing over each other, craning their necks to suckle from the withered tit of fame; whining, mewling, preening, bitching -- they couldn't be more dislikeable if they strode around in Nazi regalia firing nailguns at ponies.

It made me laugh very hard. Even the index of the book is hilarious:

Oliver, Jamie: plugs Sainsbury's, 84, 168; turns air blue, 199-200; likened to Roy Hattersley, 285; is not a timelord, 307; can just about fuck off, 343.

Post-Lecture!

2005-11-05T14:26:00.000Z

So my first lecture came and went. My little plan to give them short breaks with the odd puzzle worked a bit. The course design makes it really hard to do anything short of just listing formulas and things; I avoided this in the first half (which took quite some planning) but in the second half it dragged, I got a bit bored, and I could feel the same coming from the students. Never mind: there's always next time.

Today, recovering after a postgrad party. Beware Poles with vodka!

Lectures!

2005-11-03T12:25:00.000Z

Tomorrow I will give my first lecture. It's going to be about vectors. There will be me, in front of a room full of something like 300 sceptical youngsters. Will I survive? I hope so. The main problem is that I have 8 lectures' worth of stuff to get through in 7 lectures. That's like an extra 5 or 10 minutes worth of stuff to cram in every time. I've prepared my notes now, but it looks like there's going to be way too much to cover. Eek.

McSweeney's!

2005-11-01T14:09:00.000Z

I think I'll start off my regular blogging by berating you with things I like. The first of these is McSweeney's. This is a quarterly magazine (a book really) full of short stories and things. It's edited by Dave Eggars, who wrote A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and the mighty Short Short Stories out of the Guardian (it's now one of those cheap little penguin books -- buy it now). It's dead good, but what's better is the McSweeney's website, where they post a very short and often funny story every day. Here are some of my favourites. Please visit them!

Klingon Fairy Tales

Things Koala Bears Would Say

Bawdy Best Man Speeches (the last one is best.)

The Short Essay That Conquered The Planet

TopologistNow Lives!

2005-10-31T03:50:00.000Z

Yes! Despite Deanna's failure to detect any life on this blog, it is in fact alive and kicking. I originally set it up so that I could get a new blogger profile with my name on it. This allows me to appear to be at least slightly serious (something which my regular pseudonym precludes) when posting comments to other people's blogs.

Expect more postings very soon indeed. In the meantime, those of you immune to innovative and entertaining music should go to the Mogwai website linked on the right and download the Hunted by a Freak mp3 from their audio page. It will change your world.

2005-09-25T23:50:00.000+01:00

Hi everybody. This is my first post here on Topologist Now! I had to begin a new blog after being booted out of my old office, Room 4620.