I looked in on the Open University's 40th anniversary open day briefly yesterday. What a wonderful celebration. In the queue for registration I chatted to two graduates who started their studies in 1972. They must have been amongst the earliest students and long since finishing their degrees they are still doing short courses. The day seemed to have attracted people of all ages, from the very young, who were enjoying the pink anniversary balloons and the train round the campus, to current and prospective students, the occasional staff member no doubt and those like the couple I encountered, for whom the Open University still holds very dear memories.
I wished I'd had time to see more, as there was a wonderful array of research projects being demonstrated in a wide range of areas across different faculties. In music technology, for example, a cellist was being taught to emulate the teacher's bowing technique, using sensors which gave a graphical display on a computer screen. In a knowledge media institute project, netbooks and webcams brought the close-up detail of a field trip to geology students who were unable to be physically present. I looked at the OU's Milton Keynes telescope and watched as its Majorcan sister was remotely controlled from a desktop PC. I could have spent all day exploring the many exhibits.
Whatever people's motives for attending the event, the day must surely be viewed as a resounding success for them and hopefully will have attracted some new students in the process.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Friday, 26 June 2009
Vacances
I was in France a few days ago, in the Seine-et-Marne region, a few miles east of Paris. The local town was very sleepy, but it was interesting how different it was to similar sized towns here in England in terms of possibilities to buy fresh food. We were told that essential shops, in this part of France at least, are protected in that if one becomes vacant, then the lease is offered at a reduced rent to a jeune homme (or, I presume, femme) who is prepared to ensure the continuity of such things as the local bakery, patisserie or butchers. In addition there are the weekly markets which sell the most amazing local produce all laid out in mouth watering fashion.
The French expect to be able to buy beautiful fresh cooked loaves twice a day. In the town where I live, there is often very little left apart from cakes after lunch time and certainly no second baking. We still have a butcher but the greengrocer closed his shutters for the last time several years ago. We have a farmers' market one Saturday in four and good supermarkets, but we don't have the vibrant pavement cafés that you find in France that give their small communities so much atmosphere.
So why are matters so different in France? Is it the fact that parking is so much easier? Once you have bought your parking disc, for example, you can enjoy an hour and a half's free parking there, without worrying about the cost, as often as you like. It can't be the weather. Northern France is probably just as wet as Britain. Perhaps it is indeed just the fact that whenever you go to France you feel you are on holiday, even if, like me, sometimes you are combining work with pleasure. The French make it very easy to do that, as broadband seems to be available just about everywhere. Until the same situation exists in England, vivent les vacances en France!
The French expect to be able to buy beautiful fresh cooked loaves twice a day. In the town where I live, there is often very little left apart from cakes after lunch time and certainly no second baking. We still have a butcher but the greengrocer closed his shutters for the last time several years ago. We have a farmers' market one Saturday in four and good supermarkets, but we don't have the vibrant pavement cafés that you find in France that give their small communities so much atmosphere.
So why are matters so different in France? Is it the fact that parking is so much easier? Once you have bought your parking disc, for example, you can enjoy an hour and a half's free parking there, without worrying about the cost, as often as you like. It can't be the weather. Northern France is probably just as wet as Britain. Perhaps it is indeed just the fact that whenever you go to France you feel you are on holiday, even if, like me, sometimes you are combining work with pleasure. The French make it very easy to do that, as broadband seems to be available just about everywhere. Until the same situation exists in England, vivent les vacances en France!
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Treasures
It's ironic really, that on a day when the death of the schoolbook was being predicted [1] I had just spent a good 2 hours searching through a resource online for something I could have found in 2 minutes if I'd only had the book.
Online resources are great for reading about cutting edge technology, up to the minute research, news, weather and opinions. They are cheap, well in fact free, if we have broadband and don't have to worry about the costs per minute of being online. Where they don't score well though, is in providing a familiar friend that we can thumb through over and over again, rereading sections that interest us, bookmarking pages and perhaps tucking away a postcard or other memento inside a particularly special volume. Even an online resource you've read before changes at the whim of the editor, so you might have put a particular page in your favourites list to return to at a later date, but it could have disappeared completely by the time you return to it months later.
All this perhaps goes to explain why my bookshelves are groaning. Some of the volumes are seventy or more years old. I might not look at these very often; they have no pretty pictures, but they are treasures. When I pick up a poetry book and read lines by John Masefield or W.H. Auden, I am truly transported back to another age, not just because of what is on the page, but because I can hear my mother reading out loud to me when I was very young. Will I ever be able to say that about a sheet printed off from the internet?
[1] Harvey, Mike and Woolcock, Nicola (10 June 2009) Schools may copy Arnold Schwarzenegger and junk their textbooks The Times, page 17 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6466577.ece
Online resources are great for reading about cutting edge technology, up to the minute research, news, weather and opinions. They are cheap, well in fact free, if we have broadband and don't have to worry about the costs per minute of being online. Where they don't score well though, is in providing a familiar friend that we can thumb through over and over again, rereading sections that interest us, bookmarking pages and perhaps tucking away a postcard or other memento inside a particularly special volume. Even an online resource you've read before changes at the whim of the editor, so you might have put a particular page in your favourites list to return to at a later date, but it could have disappeared completely by the time you return to it months later.
All this perhaps goes to explain why my bookshelves are groaning. Some of the volumes are seventy or more years old. I might not look at these very often; they have no pretty pictures, but they are treasures. When I pick up a poetry book and read lines by John Masefield or W.H. Auden, I am truly transported back to another age, not just because of what is on the page, but because I can hear my mother reading out loud to me when I was very young. Will I ever be able to say that about a sheet printed off from the internet?
[1] Harvey, Mike and Woolcock, Nicola (10 June 2009) Schools may copy Arnold Schwarzenegger and junk their textbooks The Times, page 17 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6466577.ece
Friday, 29 May 2009
I'm not a PC
The penny suddenly dropped this morning as to why it was that at 11pm last night I had been struggling to complete some work I'm paid to do before a midnight deadline. Before you ask, no, I hadn't been out gallivanting all day and left it till the last minute. I'd been slaving over it diligently. So why hadn't I finished it earlier in the day? The answer's obvious really when you think of it. Cast your mind back to the adverts that have been appearing in a number of different forms on our televisions recently for a well known computer manufacturer and you'll probably spot the problem quicker than I did. Simple! I'm not a PC.
So why am I not a PC? I teach. I wear glasses, sometimes and a ring. All of those things according to the advert are characteristics of people who are PCs. It comes back to logic really. If you are something, then you must display all the characteristics of that something. Just because you have one or more of those characteristics it doesn't necessarily follow that you are that something. So having got that out of the way, haven't I just proved that PCs are not necessarily teachers?
Now that brings me to the next question I'm pondering. If only a PC could do my job in the stated number of hours it should take, but a PC isn't a teacher, can anyone do the job? Discuss! While you think whether there's any logical answer to the question I'd better get back to work. There's another deadline due soon.
So why am I not a PC? I teach. I wear glasses, sometimes and a ring. All of those things according to the advert are characteristics of people who are PCs. It comes back to logic really. If you are something, then you must display all the characteristics of that something. Just because you have one or more of those characteristics it doesn't necessarily follow that you are that something. So having got that out of the way, haven't I just proved that PCs are not necessarily teachers?
Now that brings me to the next question I'm pondering. If only a PC could do my job in the stated number of hours it should take, but a PC isn't a teacher, can anyone do the job? Discuss! While you think whether there's any logical answer to the question I'd better get back to work. There's another deadline due soon.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
Not Much!
I don't begrudge Andrew Altman his £195,000 a year as chief executive of the Olympic Legacy company,[1] really I don't, though I do wonder where the money to pay any performance related bonuses he might be awarded will come from. Londoners of course will be pleased that every effort is being made to ensure that the park's construction will benefit them all in the years to come and that it doesn't become just another white elephant.
I do wonder though, how the role of the Olympic Legacy Company is defined. In a February article,[2] London First said "it needs strong leadership too, of the calibre of John Armitt or Seb Coe, so that good intentions turn into reality." Surely such leadership should have been put in place before the final designs for the Olympic park were approved and building work started? There is much work to be done on selling the space to interested parties after the event but I would have thought it was now too late to alter the infrastructure plans in any serious way.
The London mayor's office brought in Bob Kiley to try to sort out the mess which was then London Transport. Kiley famously described the maintenance contracts he inherited[3] as part of the public private finance initiatives as having been drawn up "on the other side of Venus" . Let's hope that a similar fate doesn't await Mr Altman. At least he can look forward to a generous payoff if the job gets too much though. Mr Kiley was reported to be paid[4] "£3,200 a day for doing not much" after his resignation in 2005. I wouldn't mind being paid £3,200 a day for doing something, let alone "not much"!
[1] O’Connor, Ashling (28 May 2009) Olympic Park's future to be assured by Andrew Altman, American regeneration expert The Times, Main section Page 20 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/london_2012/article6374849.ece
[2]London First (Feb 2009) Olympic Legacy Masterplan Framework - London First welcomes real progress [online] http://www.london-first.co.uk/news/detail.asp?record=100
[3] Clement, Barrie (5 April 2004) Bob Kiley: 'We're still with the sherpas on the lower parts of the mountain, trying to find a way to the top' The Independent [online] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/bob-kiley-were-still-with-the-sherpas-on-the-lower-parts-of-the-mountain-trying-to-find-a-way-to-the-top-558912.html
[4]Muir, Hugh (29 March 2007) Former transport chief describes his new role: £3,200 a day for doing not much [online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/29/localgovernment.transportintheuk
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Sheep
There's never much competition for the various sections of the Sunday paper that flop onto our doormat with a thud. Everyone seems to have their own favourites. There's too much there to read thoroughly in any case without setting aside the entire week. My usual strategy is to skim the stories in every section in an hour at most and mark ones I plan to return to later in the week. Inevitably recycling claims many of those that remain undevoured by Thursday night.
I wonder if high street shops are warned of which gadgets will appear on the pages of supplements such as In Gear and Travel, both Sunday Times offerings, ready for the rush on Sunday afternoon. Today's featured gadgets include a SatNav for walkers[1]. Now don't get me wrong, SatNavs are great and next time I feel a sudden urge to go on a walk without having made any advance preparations I'll definitely consider downloading one of these OS walkers' maps to my GPS enabled phone. The snag is, for me at least, that it would create more problems than it solves at the present time. For one thing I'm not in the habit of keeping my walking boots in the car. They're still languishing in the garage covered in mud from the last walk. This brings me to the next problem. Will the walks you can download to your phone have any more information about which corners of a field closest to the style nearest to the pub on the way home have not been transformed by a herd of Friesians to a 2 foot deep quagmire, than the out of date walks guide on my bookshelf? No? I thought not. We dropped our map in said quagmire. It survived that, a little muddy perhaps, but the hosepipe outside the pub claimed it later! The SatNav probably wouldn't have survived even the mud.
I'm left thinking that for now at least I'll stick to good old fashioned maps. There's something rather good about being able to see the entire walk the whole time if you fold the sheet carefully enough. Then there's the later argument about which way you actually went as opposed to where you intended to go. Was that photo of you taken at the top of the peak or was it really only the hillock beside you walked up by mistake? It would really spoil the fun over lunch too if you couldn't recall the tale of how you had to climb the barbed wire fence to get back to the path without a 2 mile detour.
Anyhow, happy walking this weekend everyone, and if you see a sheep burping, do take a picture. Lamb may be off the menu soon[2] if too many farmers have a sudden urge to save the environment.
[1] Matt Rud, (24 May 09) SatNavs for Walkers , Sunday Times Travel Section Page 4 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/walks/article6342351.ece
[2] Jonathan Leake (24 May 09) Burping of the Lambs Blows Roast off the Menu, Sunday Times Main Section Page 11 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6350237.ece
I wonder if high street shops are warned of which gadgets will appear on the pages of supplements such as In Gear and Travel, both Sunday Times offerings, ready for the rush on Sunday afternoon. Today's featured gadgets include a SatNav for walkers[1]. Now don't get me wrong, SatNavs are great and next time I feel a sudden urge to go on a walk without having made any advance preparations I'll definitely consider downloading one of these OS walkers' maps to my GPS enabled phone. The snag is, for me at least, that it would create more problems than it solves at the present time. For one thing I'm not in the habit of keeping my walking boots in the car. They're still languishing in the garage covered in mud from the last walk. This brings me to the next problem. Will the walks you can download to your phone have any more information about which corners of a field closest to the style nearest to the pub on the way home have not been transformed by a herd of Friesians to a 2 foot deep quagmire, than the out of date walks guide on my bookshelf? No? I thought not. We dropped our map in said quagmire. It survived that, a little muddy perhaps, but the hosepipe outside the pub claimed it later! The SatNav probably wouldn't have survived even the mud.
I'm left thinking that for now at least I'll stick to good old fashioned maps. There's something rather good about being able to see the entire walk the whole time if you fold the sheet carefully enough. Then there's the later argument about which way you actually went as opposed to where you intended to go. Was that photo of you taken at the top of the peak or was it really only the hillock beside you walked up by mistake? It would really spoil the fun over lunch too if you couldn't recall the tale of how you had to climb the barbed wire fence to get back to the path without a 2 mile detour.
Anyhow, happy walking this weekend everyone, and if you see a sheep burping, do take a picture. Lamb may be off the menu soon[2] if too many farmers have a sudden urge to save the environment.
[1] Matt Rud, (24 May 09) SatNavs for Walkers , Sunday Times Travel Section Page 4 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/walks/article6342351.ece
[2] Jonathan Leake (24 May 09) Burping of the Lambs Blows Roast off the Menu, Sunday Times Main Section Page 11 [online] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6350237.ece
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Urban Rose
I'm not usually a fan of urban spaces. Perhaps I associate them too much with windy post-war shopping centres and soulless high rise tower blocks. There are exceptions of course. Take the Rose theatre at Kingston upon Thames. We were there for The Winslow Boy.[1] It was superbly acted but the theatre itself caught my imagination too. It has little in common with other theatres in the round, apart from its shape, in terms of construction methods. Its ceiling resembles the spokes of a huge iron cartwheel and one could be forgiven for thinking that someone forgot to apply the final layers of plaster to the foyer areas. I wanted to draw that ceiling, but even more delicious were the geometric shapes of receding triangles that lent perspective to the rooms of the set. Oh for a piece of charcoal!
This wasn't the first time in the last week that I'd found myself wishing I had a sketchpad in hand, not because I think I could necessarily turn out any kind of masterpiece but because art of any kind is somehow rather therapeutic; a pastime that is totally absorbing. The subject doesn't really matter. It could be anything that catches the eye from the odd perspectives in the theatre set to Ascot hats in someone else's painting or the stunning swathes of colour of an Azalea border.
Earlier that day we had been in an outpatients' waiting room. It was kind of them to display such lovely pictures on the walls. They were for sale of course, but my interest was in how they were painted rather than imagining them on my walls. This time I had a pencil at least but it was time to go before I had had a chance to finish. Perhaps I'll continue next time, or perhaps not. I should probably tear up my efforts and start again.
My week began however with a walk in the park; not any old park but one on the edge of a sixties shopping centre in Sussex. The sort where wind whistles round corners on blustery autumn days, leaves huddle in gutters and shopping lists are plucked skywards from your hands by sudden gusts, if you fail to grip them tightly enough. I'd walked around three sides of a square, depressingly, past abandoned shop-fronts on every corner, when I discovered that to reach my starting point the shortest route led through the park. For a few hundred yards I was in another land, of escapism, imagination and beauty. What an unexpected find.
[1] The Winslow Boy by Terrence Rattigan is reviewed at http://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/whats-on/the-winslow-boy
This wasn't the first time in the last week that I'd found myself wishing I had a sketchpad in hand, not because I think I could necessarily turn out any kind of masterpiece but because art of any kind is somehow rather therapeutic; a pastime that is totally absorbing. The subject doesn't really matter. It could be anything that catches the eye from the odd perspectives in the theatre set to Ascot hats in someone else's painting or the stunning swathes of colour of an Azalea border.
Earlier that day we had been in an outpatients' waiting room. It was kind of them to display such lovely pictures on the walls. They were for sale of course, but my interest was in how they were painted rather than imagining them on my walls. This time I had a pencil at least but it was time to go before I had had a chance to finish. Perhaps I'll continue next time, or perhaps not. I should probably tear up my efforts and start again.
My week began however with a walk in the park; not any old park but one on the edge of a sixties shopping centre in Sussex. The sort where wind whistles round corners on blustery autumn days, leaves huddle in gutters and shopping lists are plucked skywards from your hands by sudden gusts, if you fail to grip them tightly enough. I'd walked around three sides of a square, depressingly, past abandoned shop-fronts on every corner, when I discovered that to reach my starting point the shortest route led through the park. For a few hundred yards I was in another land, of escapism, imagination and beauty. What an unexpected find.
[1] The Winslow Boy by Terrence Rattigan is reviewed at http://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/whats-on/the-winslow-boy
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