A colleague in my office came up with a really good new word this week. Flatronisation (noun) from flatronise (verb) meaning “to flatter in a patronising manner”. It covers such a wide range of situations, both domestic and professional. I think we should start a campaign to get it adopted as a recognised word…… “Don’t […]
I spent most of last week in Durham, working on an equipment trial at the Unversity with one of the professors in the Engineering Department. We had a lot to achieve, and not much time to do it in, so we were all working pretty long and tiring days. Last year, when I was working […]
I’m gradually getting used to my new glasses. My distance and middle-distance vision is noticeably improved, and I’m certainly finding it easier to drive in the evenings – much less flare from oncoming headlights. It feels like my close vision is slightly worse than before – I can still read ok, but small print is […]
I’m very short-sighted and have worn glasses since I was about seven years old. For many years now, my eyesight has been dreadful, but remarkably stable. I get my eyes tested regularly, and each year I’ve been told that the change in prescription was too small to justify getting a new set of spectacles. So […]
I was rushing to work one morning last week, and pulled the porch door shut behind me on the way, as I’ve done literally thousands of times over the last two decades. Except this time, the door slammed shut and the handle came right off in my hand! The base plate was still firmly screwed […]
The major landowner in these parts is the Eastnor Estate. Eastnor village (where I regularly go to the Pottery) and the castle are a few miles down the hill, but the deerpark is so huge that the back entrance to the estate is only a few hundred metres from my house. This has caused some […]
Last week, I was organising and hosting a joint industry / academia / government two-day workshop at our Malvern site, for about 35 people from all over the UK. They all needed somewhere to stay overnight, and I needed somewhere suitable to host an evening dinner / networking session. There’s a couple of hotels around […]
The clocks have gone forward, and that means that the quotations start coming in from tradesmen, all of whom are determined to help me renovate the cottage. One thing seems to be leading to another, and what I had thought would be a fairly simple and self-contained job looks like it’s turning into something much […]
Work has been even more manic than usual in the run-up to the end of the financial year. I had four weeks of equipment trials, on two separate projects, from mid-February up until Easter, by the end of which I was totally exhausted. So I decided that it would be a good idea to recharge […]
When I was a child, I absolutely loved the Ladybird Books series. I pretty much learned to read from the Ladybird Book of Ancient Egypt, and it certainly fired me up with an early and enduring interest in ancient history. I also clearly remember reading the “Peter and Jane and Pat the dog” books with […]
