So, anytime one of goes away, the other has to get them a bad present from the airport. On my trip to DC in April I picked up a little presidential fun. He lives on top of our coffee-maker, along with the egg-shells ...
Showing posts with label comedy of daily life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comedy of daily life. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Friday, November 7, 2008
Only in a Cambridge student paper ...
Headline on the US election: "Yes we could", thus identifying the correct use of the conditional subjunctive.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Most amusing sign-post yet
So, I took some time off revising my PhD for its publication as a book (an experience that's a blog in itself), for a morale-restoring bike ride around some neighbouring villages recently.
I decided to take a short-cut between Coton and another hamlet by cycling down a "bridle path".
Bridle paths seem designated for horses, but judging by the single, grass-bare groove in the soil are frequently used by bikes.
Mountain bikes, probably, the serious type, rather than my enfeebled second-hand incredibly low-slung town bike. Nonetheless, like a good Australian I didn't allow totally inappropriate tools to prevent me tackling a job.
Anyway, while bouncing along the remains of a corrugated track made, it seemed, by giant tractor treads I came across this gem of a warning sign (click for larger image):
I decided to take a short-cut between Coton and another hamlet by cycling down a "bridle path".
Bridle paths seem designated for horses, but judging by the single, grass-bare groove in the soil are frequently used by bikes.
Mountain bikes, probably, the serious type, rather than my enfeebled second-hand incredibly low-slung town bike. Nonetheless, like a good Australian I didn't allow totally inappropriate tools to prevent me tackling a job.
Anyway, while bouncing along the remains of a corrugated track made, it seemed, by giant tractor treads I came across this gem of a warning sign (click for larger image):
Because, y'know, its not as if horses hadn't been traversing this area for a while already ...
Sunday, June 8, 2008
First time for everything
So, a month ago I was late for my first ever exam, the one I had set for my masters course.
As the course convenor I was obliged to be there at the start of the paper to make sure no students had problems along the lines of: “My exam paper appears to be missing/written in Chinese/the paper for another course/on fire, etc”. I also had to flip through the materials my students were allowed to bring in and check they hadn’t smuggled any forbidden knowledge in through notes in the margin.
It should be a reasonably easy thing to turn up to your own exam on time. Except, of course, the law school does not have its own exam hall and the central exam timetablers can send you pretty much anywhere. We also have a pretty spread out “campus”, which includes many anonymous-looking or poorly signposted buildings that could easily be just another office block.
Leaving - I thought - plenty of time, I set off in search of my exam. Despite the heat of the day (a rare full sun and 25 degrees centigrade in humid London), I’d worn a suit and tie. I think my idea was that students shouldn’t see me looking too relaxed while they had to face a masters’ exam. Whatever I had in mind, it didn’t work out well.
The street my exam was on was easy enough to find. No problem there. But as I wandered around the top of it, I noticed few building had numbers on display, and none of those numbers was high enough. I began to get edgy. I still had a few minutes up my sleeve, but not really enough to go back to my office, check details, and set out again.
I crossed a major road. The other side was a new street. I had a missing building on my hands.
Beginning to breath faster and perspire slightly, I pulled out my mobile to call my secretary. I say “my”, but she works for eight other people as well – mostly more senior than me. She has been around for a while though, and is a gold mine of practical information. Calling her would have certainly answered my problems.
If I’d had her number.
At this point, I did what any calm, collected young academic in a suit and hard-soled shoes would do in a crisis. I ran.
Three or four blocks later, dripping on the front desk at the graduate office, I panted out my problem and they pulled out the map of exam locations. I mentioned the street name.
“You do know that on that street the numbers run up one side to the main cross-road and then back down the other?”
Well, I did now. I’d showed up at the wrong end of the street. Good thing it was only another three or four blocks to run back.
I’ll say one thing about exam panic. At least it prevents LLM students noticing that their examiner, who’s seven minutes late, has just dried his shirt out by standing in front of the hand-drier in the men’s room.
As the course convenor I was obliged to be there at the start of the paper to make sure no students had problems along the lines of: “My exam paper appears to be missing/written in Chinese/the paper for another course/on fire, etc”. I also had to flip through the materials my students were allowed to bring in and check they hadn’t smuggled any forbidden knowledge in through notes in the margin.
It should be a reasonably easy thing to turn up to your own exam on time. Except, of course, the law school does not have its own exam hall and the central exam timetablers can send you pretty much anywhere. We also have a pretty spread out “campus”, which includes many anonymous-looking or poorly signposted buildings that could easily be just another office block.
Leaving - I thought - plenty of time, I set off in search of my exam. Despite the heat of the day (a rare full sun and 25 degrees centigrade in humid London), I’d worn a suit and tie. I think my idea was that students shouldn’t see me looking too relaxed while they had to face a masters’ exam. Whatever I had in mind, it didn’t work out well.
The street my exam was on was easy enough to find. No problem there. But as I wandered around the top of it, I noticed few building had numbers on display, and none of those numbers was high enough. I began to get edgy. I still had a few minutes up my sleeve, but not really enough to go back to my office, check details, and set out again.
I crossed a major road. The other side was a new street. I had a missing building on my hands.
Beginning to breath faster and perspire slightly, I pulled out my mobile to call my secretary. I say “my”, but she works for eight other people as well – mostly more senior than me. She has been around for a while though, and is a gold mine of practical information. Calling her would have certainly answered my problems.
If I’d had her number.
At this point, I did what any calm, collected young academic in a suit and hard-soled shoes would do in a crisis. I ran.
Three or four blocks later, dripping on the front desk at the graduate office, I panted out my problem and they pulled out the map of exam locations. I mentioned the street name.
“You do know that on that street the numbers run up one side to the main cross-road and then back down the other?”
Well, I did now. I’d showed up at the wrong end of the street. Good thing it was only another three or four blocks to run back.
I’ll say one thing about exam panic. At least it prevents LLM students noticing that their examiner, who’s seven minutes late, has just dried his shirt out by standing in front of the hand-drier in the men’s room.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Movin’, movin’, movin’
(New desk, click for bigger image)
I’ve often blogged about how often I move. However, the last two years in Cambridge I managed to stay in the same building and just upgrade rooms. Easiest move ever: just prop two doors open and carry everything up a flight of stairs.
Now, though, I’ve finally done it. Private accommodation, outside the sheltering womb of college and onto the UK rental market. After looking at some total dives, I got lucky. There’s a flat just behind the law faculty that’s been handed down through a few generations of Trinity Hall PhD students now. The location is ideal, the rent is very good and the carpets … well, let’s not talk about the carpets.
The flat is, a rarity for Britain, let without furniture. The system that’s evolved is incoming flatmates pay the out-goer for their room furnishing and the communal bits and bobs, then add and subtract as they see fit.
I immediately wanted to subtract a desk (huge, government issue, ugly with heavy metal filing drawers), a small wardrobe with vanity (less than 30 centimetres rail space) and a chest of drawers. The drawers were amusing. You could open three of four on any given day, but with few guarantees as to which. (“Right, I’m just about ready to go out … but it seems my socks and underwear are not. Hmm …”)
So I hit the local Salvation Army store where the finest in Cambridge’s veteran and slightly scarred furniture turns up. I found a big sturdy wardrobe, an impulse-buy armchair and a mock-Edwardian, seven-drawer writing desk. The nice people there even said they’d take away my old furniture as a donation (and, frankly, a kindness) when they delivered.
I paid up and turned to leave when I saw the fateful sign: “It is your responsibility to check furniture will fit through your doors.”
I measured the width of my new desk. About 80 centimetres and thought of the narrow front door to the new flat. “It’ll be fine,” I thought.
Getting home, I measured the back of the door, 81 cm, and sighed with relief.
Then realised the door has a thickness. Opened, the thickness of the door would have to be subtracted from the width of the frame. I measured the door's thickness, 4 cm.
“It’ll be fine!” I thought, not very convinced.
Next day the Salvo’s arrived and genially hauled my first piece up the stairs: the desk. Lining it up with door, it just wouldn’t go through. It couldn’t be angled around as the stairway was too tight, the door opened into a tiny vestibule and the desk’s sides were solid.
“Um,” I said in desperation, “if you lend me a screwdriver, I’ll take the front door off its hinges.”
So, they schlepped to and fro with furniture old and new(er), while I removed the front door and parked it inside.
The desk was heaved up again, rotated on its side and gently eased towards the door frame. And stopped.
“Just needs another quarter of an inch,” one of the deliverers said. “Tell you what. Take the screwdriver and see if you can get the top off.”
Fortunately, it looked like this had been done before: a variety of screws secured the writing surface on only three sides. With the top off, it slid through. Just.
“You like this because it had character, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered sheepishly, “I guess I just didn’t realise how much.”
“Hmm. Do you want us to stay while you reassemble that, or are you going to buy a screwdriver?”
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Deep breaths
My life in Cambridge is, by and large, a bowl of peaches. Not a cloud in my metaphorical sky.
(As opposed to the hideously persistent clouds in the literal sky, with their constant light drizzle – not enough to stop me cycling yet, but I suspect the onset of another cold.)
Anyway, nothing to complain of – well, almost nothing.
I am fairly close to snapping when it comes to a certain someone.
Remember the fairly mad, unsleeping, late-night mathematician? The one who scrawls his equations everywhere? (His latest point of attack is the surface of the bath-tub, pictured.)
My life in Cambridge is, by and large, a bowl of peaches. Not a cloud in my metaphorical sky.
(As opposed to the hideously persistent clouds in the literal sky, with their constant light drizzle – not enough to stop me cycling yet, but I suspect the onset of another cold.)
Anyway, nothing to complain of – well, almost nothing.
I am fairly close to snapping when it comes to a certain someone.
Remember the fairly mad, unsleeping, late-night mathematician? The one who scrawls his equations everywhere? (His latest point of attack is the surface of the bath-tub, pictured.)
He has started lecturing himself aloud in English (not brilliant English, but probably better than my French – which says precious little) while solving problems on his whiteboard. I had to go downstairs at 1 and 2.30 am to ask him to keep it down.
What madness is this?
On top of that, in a deadly quiet house, he has no concept of how to shut a door or drawer quietly. Everything closes with a bang. Probably not one you would notice in the day, but that shows a distinct lack of consideration at night.
Then there's the erieer sound of rythmic pounding: like finger drumming but with fists, or by kicking something. I am deeply afraid I will surprise him one day beating his head on the table in an effort to extract the solution he's seeking.
He has got the message that he is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the house. Frankly, this is fair enough: he is incompetent, inconsiderate, of dubious personal hygiene (learn to flush you moron!), smokes in violation of the lease, leaves ash on the stairs and in the toilet bowls … it just goes on.
At least he’s been terrorised into cleaning up after he cooks rather than leaving pans of rotting pasta on the sideboard for days.
However, he has apparently told one of the others we all hate him because he is here to work (18 hours a day) and we are only here to have fun.
I’d get a crap-load more work done, buddy, if I could get any sleep before 2 am.
I tried not to make too much of an issue of things for a while, working under the delusion he’d secured a transfer to accommodation closer to town. He apparently declined the offered substitute accomodation as there were “no shops” nearby.
Meaning that we’re stuck with him.
So, my new watchword is “zero tolerance”. OK, that’s two words, but I have extended the last courtesy of which I am capable.
An underslept Douglas is a beast not to cross.
Stay tuned.
What madness is this?
On top of that, in a deadly quiet house, he has no concept of how to shut a door or drawer quietly. Everything closes with a bang. Probably not one you would notice in the day, but that shows a distinct lack of consideration at night.
Then there's the erieer sound of rythmic pounding: like finger drumming but with fists, or by kicking something. I am deeply afraid I will surprise him one day beating his head on the table in an effort to extract the solution he's seeking.
He has got the message that he is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the house. Frankly, this is fair enough: he is incompetent, inconsiderate, of dubious personal hygiene (learn to flush you moron!), smokes in violation of the lease, leaves ash on the stairs and in the toilet bowls … it just goes on.
At least he’s been terrorised into cleaning up after he cooks rather than leaving pans of rotting pasta on the sideboard for days.
However, he has apparently told one of the others we all hate him because he is here to work (18 hours a day) and we are only here to have fun.
I’d get a crap-load more work done, buddy, if I could get any sleep before 2 am.
I tried not to make too much of an issue of things for a while, working under the delusion he’d secured a transfer to accommodation closer to town. He apparently declined the offered substitute accomodation as there were “no shops” nearby.
Meaning that we’re stuck with him.
So, my new watchword is “zero tolerance”. OK, that’s two words, but I have extended the last courtesy of which I am capable.
An underslept Douglas is a beast not to cross.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
A beautiful mind?
I knew pure mathematicians were weird. I’ve known a couple. I am now sharing a house with two.
What follows may be a vague breach of trust, as none of my new flatmates know that I blog – but what the hell, it’s a good story.
One of my mathematician flatmates needs alarmingly little sleep. (I won’t bore the world whining about what sharing with five people is doing to my stupid sleep patterns that always demand that though I am the last to get to sleep I should also wake up the moment anyone anywhere in the house leaves their bed ... Oh, wait, I just did.) He can get by on apparently four hours a night – and is always cheerful.
Grinning cheerful.
And he’s always working. He’s probably doing as much work as the next three of us put together at present (we’re all in a prolonged “warm up” phase, always best to limber the brain up for a few weeks before straining it, I think), but he always seems relaxed.
I left him last night doing equations on the kitchen table.
Not literally - there was, when I left, an ample supply of paper between his blue fine-felt tipped pen and the tabletop.
This situation did not apparently last out the night.
When I got up to make coffee this morning, on emptying grinds from the stove-top percolator into the bin, I discovered a few cigarette ends and a big wodge of paper covered in finely written equations sitting atop the garbage.
It seems that must have been the last of the paper, because on looking up to the back door I noticed something a little odd.
Two glass panes were full of equations, neatly laid out in non-permanent blue felt-tip marker. On close examination, some of the numbers or symbols (it’s all Greek to me) had been rubbed out with a finger and replaced.
Jonathon Nash, eat your heart out.
It’s all fine by me, so long as I don’t come home to find the lounge-room walls covered in newspaper clippings with red-circled letters spelling out coded conspiratorial plans.
That’d be awful.
Putting anything on the walls is a breach of our lease.
Me and the other lawyer decided we liked the equations and that they can stay.
So far our cleaner hasn’t said anything.
I knew pure mathematicians were weird. I’ve known a couple. I am now sharing a house with two.
What follows may be a vague breach of trust, as none of my new flatmates know that I blog – but what the hell, it’s a good story.
One of my mathematician flatmates needs alarmingly little sleep. (I won’t bore the world whining about what sharing with five people is doing to my stupid sleep patterns that always demand that though I am the last to get to sleep I should also wake up the moment anyone anywhere in the house leaves their bed ... Oh, wait, I just did.) He can get by on apparently four hours a night – and is always cheerful.
Grinning cheerful.
And he’s always working. He’s probably doing as much work as the next three of us put together at present (we’re all in a prolonged “warm up” phase, always best to limber the brain up for a few weeks before straining it, I think), but he always seems relaxed.
I left him last night doing equations on the kitchen table.
Not literally - there was, when I left, an ample supply of paper between his blue fine-felt tipped pen and the tabletop.
This situation did not apparently last out the night.
When I got up to make coffee this morning, on emptying grinds from the stove-top percolator into the bin, I discovered a few cigarette ends and a big wodge of paper covered in finely written equations sitting atop the garbage.
It seems that must have been the last of the paper, because on looking up to the back door I noticed something a little odd.
Two glass panes were full of equations, neatly laid out in non-permanent blue felt-tip marker. On close examination, some of the numbers or symbols (it’s all Greek to me) had been rubbed out with a finger and replaced.
Jonathon Nash, eat your heart out.
It’s all fine by me, so long as I don’t come home to find the lounge-room walls covered in newspaper clippings with red-circled letters spelling out coded conspiratorial plans.
That’d be awful.
Putting anything on the walls is a breach of our lease.
Me and the other lawyer decided we liked the equations and that they can stay.
So far our cleaner hasn’t said anything.
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
Yesterday, One of Those Days
(Sunny Optimism 0, Ratbastard Universe 12)
Universe to Doug: It was too hot to sleep last night, you really should consider staying in bed.
Doug: No, no, I’m tip top, honestly. I have a good feeling about to day. I have a positive outlook and I'm on top of my game.
Universe: We’ll see about that.
Doug: No seriously, watch me. Ta dah, wearing my favourite suit and here’s a shirt that don’t need ironing. Add a tie and I’m ready for a day in court! Ooh look, pasta leftovers, no boring ole sandwich for me! No sir. And look, not making a sandwich for lunch has let me get to the train EARLY. Yup, I’m here at the station early.
Universe: So where’s your train ticket, shmuck?
Doug: My WEEKLY pass is right next to my security pass so I can enter my workplace.
Universe: And where did you last see those two fab-u little items?
Doug: … In the pocket of yesterday's shirt - currently a crumpled ball in my laundry basket.
Universe: Yup, that’s where they still are alright. Frisk yourself all you want, they won’t turn up.
Oh and your train will be late, but you’ll convince yourself you don’t have time to dash home.
Doug: However, I can buy a ticket and still be at work in time to prepare thoroughly for court!
Some hours later. In a court room.
Employer to Doug: Do we have that volume of the Australian Law Journal Reports?
Doug: The one in their list of authorities? The one I was meant to dig out this morning? Um, no. You see, the temporary pass I was issued when I got to work - they didn’t key it into the system immediately, so when I got in the lift it would only take me to the ground floor and then it took all this time to … I guess you really don’t need to hear this now, do you?
Many hours later.
Doug: Well here I am. I had to work back to fix up my mess, but it’s all OK. I’m back at the train station where I deposited my car this morning, ready for a smooth ride home.
Hmmm.
Where are my car keys?
Ah. In the office.
I’ll phone my flatmate! He’ll be home and cooking me a yummy dinner by now because it’s his turn. He can come pick me up!
>dial tone, dial tone, dial tone<
Guess he’s not in. Wait! I can catch a bus up the street! Save me a half hour’s walk in this blistering heat!
Yup, this is a bus - it must keep going straight up my street, right? Right?
Universe: Oh, dear. Do I even need to try at this point?
A little while later …
Doug: OK, so the bus got me closer to home, at least.
Kinda.
Well, I needed the walk.
In this heat.
In a suit.
Anyway, I’m sure the flatmate is home by now … oh, he’s not. How fortunate there’s a spare key artfully hidden (by ME!) in the garage.
Universe: Um, remember how your flatmate loaned the spare key to his brother who’s now flown back to Sydney?
Doug: Seriously. I mean.
Dude.
The key is in Sydney?
Universe: Uh-huh.
Doug (deflated): Well, maybe there’s a window open somewhere. I mean, I told the World’s Greatest Summer Clerk, the friend who’s in town from Sydney, to call at 7! I don’t want to miss that call.
Man, would it be great to catch up with her tonight.
From inside impregnable, fortress-like house: >bring bring - bring bring<
Some time later yet …
Doug’s flatmate, the Gentleman Academic: Why are you trying to lever up your window from the outside, armed with only a small corroded garden trowel?
(Sunny Optimism 0, Ratbastard Universe 12)
Universe to Doug: It was too hot to sleep last night, you really should consider staying in bed.
Doug: No, no, I’m tip top, honestly. I have a good feeling about to day. I have a positive outlook and I'm on top of my game.
Universe: We’ll see about that.
Doug: No seriously, watch me. Ta dah, wearing my favourite suit and here’s a shirt that don’t need ironing. Add a tie and I’m ready for a day in court! Ooh look, pasta leftovers, no boring ole sandwich for me! No sir. And look, not making a sandwich for lunch has let me get to the train EARLY. Yup, I’m here at the station early.
Universe: So where’s your train ticket, shmuck?
Doug: My WEEKLY pass is right next to my security pass so I can enter my workplace.
Universe: And where did you last see those two fab-u little items?
Doug: … In the pocket of yesterday's shirt - currently a crumpled ball in my laundry basket.
Universe: Yup, that’s where they still are alright. Frisk yourself all you want, they won’t turn up.
Oh and your train will be late, but you’ll convince yourself you don’t have time to dash home.
Doug: However, I can buy a ticket and still be at work in time to prepare thoroughly for court!
Some hours later. In a court room.
Employer to Doug: Do we have that volume of the Australian Law Journal Reports?
Doug: The one in their list of authorities? The one I was meant to dig out this morning? Um, no. You see, the temporary pass I was issued when I got to work - they didn’t key it into the system immediately, so when I got in the lift it would only take me to the ground floor and then it took all this time to … I guess you really don’t need to hear this now, do you?
Many hours later.
Doug: Well here I am. I had to work back to fix up my mess, but it’s all OK. I’m back at the train station where I deposited my car this morning, ready for a smooth ride home.
Hmmm.
Where are my car keys?
Ah. In the office.
I’ll phone my flatmate! He’ll be home and cooking me a yummy dinner by now because it’s his turn. He can come pick me up!
>dial tone, dial tone, dial tone<
Guess he’s not in. Wait! I can catch a bus up the street! Save me a half hour’s walk in this blistering heat!
Yup, this is a bus - it must keep going straight up my street, right? Right?
Universe: Oh, dear. Do I even need to try at this point?
A little while later …
Doug: OK, so the bus got me closer to home, at least.
Kinda.
Well, I needed the walk.
In this heat.
In a suit.
Anyway, I’m sure the flatmate is home by now … oh, he’s not. How fortunate there’s a spare key artfully hidden (by ME!) in the garage.
Universe: Um, remember how your flatmate loaned the spare key to his brother who’s now flown back to Sydney?
Doug: Seriously. I mean.
Dude.
The key is in Sydney?
Universe: Uh-huh.
Doug (deflated): Well, maybe there’s a window open somewhere. I mean, I told the World’s Greatest Summer Clerk, the friend who’s in town from Sydney, to call at 7! I don’t want to miss that call.
Man, would it be great to catch up with her tonight.
From inside impregnable, fortress-like house: >bring bring - bring bring<
Some time later yet …
Doug’s flatmate, the Gentleman Academic: Why are you trying to lever up your window from the outside, armed with only a small corroded garden trowel?
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