Home

Blog Posts

  • Brain cell

    GIANTmicrobes | Brain Cell (Neuron). If anyone should feel a wish to buy me  a last minute Christmas present, this would be perfect.  I have a ‘brain cell’ mug that I’ve had since I was an undergraduate, and this would be its perfect postgraduate companion.

  • Christmas Break

    I decided at lunchtime today that I’m stopping now for Christmas.  I’ve still got all the presents to wrap and a lot of sorting out to do before my Christmas visitors arrive, so having got my last self-imposed deadline out of the way yesterday, I am going to give myself some time off.  I may…

  • Back to writing

    Yesterday, rather unexpectedly, I sat down and started writing again.  I was overcome with an urge to sest my thoughts down on paper (well, computer screen) as I read the first publication in a ballad flyting from 1540.  I wrote down what I thought about it, how I interpreted it and the background to is…

  • This week

    Most of this week I have spent analysing the extant sixteenth century ballads.  I have a big spreadsheet with the names of the ballads in one column and all sorts of topics and features listed across the top.   I have comments in some of the boxes, and others are just ticked off.  It’s a slow…

  • This is an interesting blog post, and confirms something I had long suspected. There is another angle that the author hasn’t considered – the need for academics in some fields to travel for long periods to conduct primary research is hardly conducive to a ‘normal’ family life. I already have my children. In fact, if…