Common ground

In one of those serendipitous occurences, mine and Reivers’ research met on some common ground: to wit level four of the university library.

The surface

Last week I was at a conference in Germany. After my talk, which went surprisingly well for something written at the last minute on a very new piece of work, I got into an argument about the “reality” of the surface of a star. Given my position in setting up this blog, you might think it obvious what I thought.

British Nationals 2006

Last weekend (15th and 16th July) saw the British fencing national championships take place at RAF Cosford. The winners were in women’s epee, Georgina Usher; men’s epee, Alistair Gerrard; women’s foil, Dominique Stowell; men’s foil Richard Kruse; women’s sabre, Louise Bond-Williams and men’s sabre Alex O’Connell.

Leeds IMC 2006 report

The IMC 2006 seemed to live up to its billing as the biggest ever this year if the breakfast queues were anything to go by. Certainly there were people from all over the world and many and various sessions, but was it any good?

International Medieval Congress (IMC) 2006

From 10th-13th July 2006, the largest gathering of medievalists in Europe will take place at the University of Leeds: 1,300 participants and delegates are expected, the thought of which terrifies the living daylights out of Reivers. I shall be going, presenting and hopefully catching up with a few old friends.

History 1-round ball game 0

This is just a quick post to highlight this article on the BBC. In a survey for the History Matters – Pass it on campaign, 73% of respondants said they had an interest in or valued history, as opposed to 48% for the round ball game played with 22 players. This survey, as with others, must be taken with a pinch of salt, but interest in history out there is very real. I just hope that I contribute in my own small way.

Setting borderlines

We are in exam season in the UK; university and A-levels are done, and GCSEs must be nearing an end. Usually the media stories wait until the results are out in August, but this year they have started already. This annual occurence shows no sign of going away, and too often misses the basic point.