London

So the fact that I made no entries during my Dublin visit should tell you that I was pretty busy and didn't have very good internet access. I've just arrived in London. Not really feeling like spending time to blog about Ireland except that it was really good, especially the 3 day bus trip tour I did which was great. I'm planning on doing a couple of things whilst in London; the tower and westminster. Unfortunately there's a conference on at Nottingham which may wipe out some of my audience for my visit to Imperial College on Wednesday - hopefully not all of it. I feel like I'm back in civilisation after the Ireland trip - funny that.

Antipenultimate post?

For those keeping count, there was another fire alarm and evacuation and I heard that there was yet another, but it must have been during my night in Bath, so I missed it. Boohoo.

I think this may well be close to the last post here before I return home; possibly the second or third last, simply because I've been busy and haven't been taking many photos.

To remedy this, here's an exciting one of a letterbox.

And some sciencey cushions


Well, I like them anyway - they're in the university chapel, which itself looks really old, but isn't, and which contains a not particularly impressive looking pipe organ, that is (impressive sounding that is). Here's a snapshot of some of the people in the optics group. This was a going-away lunch for me, Ken and Lesley - they both having been in the group for some years. I felt a bit guilty that I was also sharing in their going-away lunch, myself having only been there a short time.

My research activities here haven't been all that successful and may still end up going nowhere, but I've learned a lot and benefited from being in another group, and having some opportunities to talk at a couple of other universities, so I'm judging the trip worthwhile. This week will be a bit weird because most of the group will be off at the Photon08 conference at Heriot-Watt uni. I'll be one of a handful left and my disappearance from the group will likely be surprise to some.

I think all my accommodation and flight organising is almost complete - just a few more things to book and I can say goodbye to that stress. The sun is out today for about the fourth day in a row - the longest stretch since I've been here, but I've been stuck inside again - I needed to pack and weigh my stuff because my flights to Ireland have stricter allowances. I may still run over-weight. I guess that's all for now.

Side trip to England

Apparently I neglected to mention that my BEC paper was published in Phys. Rev. A. Although I missed it, it also made the front page of the ScienceNews website for a day, although like myself I'm not sure that anyone noticed.

I visited Bristol U. last Wednesday and did a talk for the gurus of phase vortices. Mark Dennis whom I was visiting took me over to the Clifton bridge as was recommended as the place to go in Bristol. It stopped raining long enough for this activity.

The bridge and view were worth the reasonably short walk.
Then I made my way to the station and took the 15 minute train ride to Bath, spent the night there, and played tourist for a day on Thursday.
This is Bath Abbey photographed from the Roman Baths.

People don't get to use these baths anymore, but some creatures still do



I did two walking tours of Bath - on the night I arrived I did the Bizarre Bath comedy walking tour, which was pretty good. It's basically a comedian/magician guy doing a one-man (and one mysterious hidden helper) show involving no actual history. I also did the free Mayor's guides tour after seeing the Roman Baths - this is the history one and our guide really knew his stuff.


I had a pasty for lunch and some decent coffee too before making my way back to Bristol. Apparently the other thing to do in Bristol is to see the ss Great Britain. On my return, before catching the plane back to Glasgow, I didn't do this ... but I did have a nice ice cream because the weather was nice, and I visited the St Mary Redcliffe church, which contains a very impressive pipe organ. I would like to have heard it - It looked like it should sound really good.


So, now I'm back in Glasgow, it's back to trying to get some physics done. I haven't been terribly successful on this front so far, but there's still a tiny amount of time. I've booked my flight to Ireland, booked a 3-day tour there and organised to talk about my BEC stuff at Strathclyde U. and Imperial college before I return to Melbourne. Still more accommodation and flight organising to do but it's reasonably set now.

Oh, and the wolf cryer cried again last night, but it was only 11pmish, so no sleep was lost.

Back in the swing ... tomorrow

A bit of a gap in the posting there. During the gap I went to the Glasgow show on the 27th. This seemed to involve lots of people doing motorcycle tricks, some impressive horse riding, some people showing cows, others showing their wares in marquees and a section for kids to bounce around on various inflatable castles and animals. I didn't take my proper camera and the pics from my phone camera are of laughable quality.

Then, last weekend lasted from Friday until Monday because Barry and Alasdair from the group took a long weekend off with me and headed up North. I rented a car and drove, with Alasdair as passenger. Barry borrowed a car and brought his friend Ewan. Three other potential long-weekenders pulled out so we ended up having lots of space, and it ended up costing more than would have been ideal, but I think it was worth it.

We headed northwest to Fort William so Barry could meet up with his female German friends who were backpacking around. Here's a weird stone dome near Glencoe - we couldn't agree on what this was for - there's no entrance - I think it's for making charcoal in. Any ideas?

We started walking up Ben Nevis at 5pm and ran out of time to reach the summit. We did reach the cloud level though and there was reportedly no visibility from the peak anyway. We got as far as this waterfall.

Then we camped in the "Braveheart carpark" near Ben Nevis. We returned to Glencoe with the girls, Ute and Marieke, to do the walk to the "hidden/lost valley" also to act as meals for the many starving midges there. There was water cascading down the mountains everywhere. Just left of here is the walk through to the valley.
Which contained yet more water and midges

but also contained nicer wildlife

After this morning activity we drove up to Ullapool via Loch Ness and Inverness without stopping at any touristy Nessie sites.
This was quite a bit of driving. We camped at Ullapool, had a late BBQ and midge feeding session before the next day. This was mainly a walk up Stac Polly, which has great views. Here are a few - the real views are better.

After this, plans went a bit astray. Barry, Ewan and Ute had gone back to Ullapool to collect Marieke, who wasn't feeling up to Stac Polly to take her and Ute up north. Alasdair and I made our own way up, detouring to see some random sites such as this 4-6000 year old burial site,
which was home to several sheep
and missed the others whose plans changed, coinciding with mobile phone batteries going flat and some loss of communications. Anyway, they ended up in a different town so Alasdair and I camped in Talmine,
near Tongue on the northwest coast

Finally, on Monday we drove back down to Glasgow meeting up with Barry and Ewan (who had delivered the girls to Thurso to catch a ferry) at Dunrobin castle on the west coast


then via Pitlochrie and Perth, where we ate before finally arriving home.
Today I got no work done.

Recovery day

On Saturday, we (Bhuvanesh and I) went to the Loch Lomond highland games at Balloch. These guys wear shorts under their kilts.

Many a cabre was toss'd. It's kind of impressive.

And boys wrestling girls inevitably leads to tears (at least it did in this case, which was a bit unfortunate). No permanent injuries though.

However, there's only so much of the sorts of things that go on at highland games that one can tolerate, so we went off for a walk along the opposite shore of Loch Lomond, which turned into a bit of a trek...

... but that was probably good preparation for yesterday's walk up goatfell on the Isle of Arran, which involves a dash to the train station, a fast train to the coast, a leisurely ferry trip and then a reality check about how unfit I am at the moment.

We ran into Alasdair from uni - he was visiting his parents on Arran.
The views on the way up are great
There's a deer in there...
The views from the top are pretty spectacular, as all the guidebooks tell you, so it's worth the pain I'm feeling today.
And when we got down we had time for some sheep-watching

and a look at some old pagan standing stones - can't find these mentioned on any websites, but they were probably erected about 4000 years ago like the others on the island.

Then, a ferry and train trip later I arrived back pretty tired.

After a shower, I discovered that some joker tried to set off the fire alarm, because when I walked past the kitchen I smelled something burning - someone had put bread (charcoal when I found it) in the stove and left it on. I think it was my bread too. Anyway, I was prepared for another awakening in the night, but it didn't happen.

Today is Glasgow Fair Monday - it's a public holiday dating from the 12th century or something, so I slept in, recovering from the last couple of days of activity. I might wander over to the fair later - the sun is out. I feel exhausted, but a walk to the fair is probably a good recovery idea to stop me from seizing up.

I had a productive weekend... in sightseeing terms.
Saturday the sights were obtained in Stirling. The first thing I noticed was that, in stark contrast with Glasgow, the streets were actually clean. It seemed to me to have more old nice buildings than Edinburgh, and the castle was more "castley" too. I went with Bhuvanesh again, but I ran into Josep who is a Croatian guy also visiting U. Glasgow who was in Cairncross House for a few days when I first arrived, so we all grouped up for the day.

There was some sort of falconry demonstration going on - why there was an owl there I don't know.


After the castle we walked to the Wallace monument


This dragon

lay at one end of the Bridge of Allan, along the way.
That was Saturday. Then, today I walked around town - went to the Gallery of modern art, which has what I assume is one of the few native parrots in Scotland

and then I went over to Glasgow cathedral,


St. Mungo's museum, the necropolis and wandered back through U. Strathclyde campus in anticipation of a visit there to talk about my BEC physics.
I took about 290 photos this weekend, which is a lot more than I have been taking.

Wolf crying championship training

I haven't heard the excuse yet, but last night's fire evacuation was at 4:30am, which seems to be during the non-REM part of my sleep cycle. By the time I leave here, I expect to have a complete sleep cycle map based on random sampling at various times of night. Off to Stirling to see the castle and Wallace monument tomorrow. I'm finally making some progress with my physics too, which is a relief.

A break in the rain

The rain left us alone on Friday, so a few of us decided to have a BBQ after work rather than go to a pub. This photo is taken at 9:45pm, so it's still light very late, and annoyingly very early too. I've never used a disposable BBQ before - I assume you can get them in Oz, although I've never noticed. Anyway it worked well enough. We thought we probably weren't supposed to use it in the park, but the police and council vehicles cruised by, took a look at us, and ignored us. Left-to-right: Barry, Alasdair and Daryl.

Saturday promised poor weather ... and delivered. So I went to see the Burrell collection, which was a nice day out - it's small, high quality and free (a museum/gallery by the way) that can be seen in an afternoon.

And on Sunday I became a couch potato and watched the very wet British F1 GP and the slightly wet Wimbledon men's final, whilst avoiding getting wet myself by cleverly not going outside.

Cry wolf part 2

This is what the local fire trucks (2 of them) look like outside the place I'm staying.
No, I didn't take this photo on the night of the last post -. I took it 10 minutes ago. At least the idiot smoking in their room had the decency to do so at a reasonable hour this time.

Bleary eyed

Some joker in the student residence where I'm staying burned something in one of the kitchens last night at 3am, setting off the fire alarm and causing a building evacuation and the fire brigade to attend. Even then it took a while to turn it off and stop it retriggering.

Saturday I went to the Hunterian gallery and the Hunterian museum, which is part of the university, and had a chance to actually walk around the campus. It is a cool place with yet more cool gargoyles (I think they're gargoyles - I need to take a look when it's raining) and generally impressive architecture. I still have to find out whether the interiors of towers etc. are accessible.


















Newton's death mask actually looks a bit like one expects from other statues I've seen. I guess there are other copies of this around elsewhere?


They've got one of these long stripey men (Mighty Boosh reference):


Sunday was meant to involve some hill walking, but transport fell through, so I took the opportunity to hunt down some new boots. Sexy new GoreTex boots, ready for New Zealand.


After the boot search I also visited The Barras, which is I think meant to be Glasgow's version of a flea market - it was interesting, with lots of rubbish being sold. The Euro cup final was last night too, so now I don't feel any incentive to watch any more TV.