At five years old this blog really should be growing up, socialising with other kids, and starting on the hard pedagogical grind that leads to exams, success (?) and the joys of HE. However, we started there in the first place, so (after gesta’s take) this is my look back…
It’s interesting how often we’ve covered TV series, mainly on historical topics. My favourite post from this would be on Rob Bartlett’s Normans series, in part because it was so interesting to watch. Historical TV programmes are definitely the ones we’ve looked at the most (although the classification of some of them as “historical” is questionable, as shown by gesta’s evisceration of it), which probably shows up my weariness with a lot of scientific programming, where even the best seems repetitive.
There are a fair number of posts on our own efforts at outreach and popularisation. Here I’d pick my post on the Royal Society Exhibition, largely because it was such an interesting experience to be involved in. Outreach remains something that universities need to do continuously, and whilst I think experiences such as the above fit well with our skills and work really well, it feels in the current climate that something broader and shallower is required – getting the mainstream press to replace the low (or even high) level hostility against “boffins” and “ivory tower pedants” with more enthusiasm for the fruits of HE.
Broader posts about communication of what we do are also a theme, with one of the earliest being a general plea in this direction. However, my favourite would be a slight rant about a particularly idiotic proposal (in HE? surprised?), largely because of the fun I had categorizing the links…
I’ve not written a huge number of specialist science posts, and (theme alert!) the one I like the most again revolves around communication. I still think highly of Harry Collins’ work, but I still think the idea that mathematical literacy is optional for physicists (caricature!) is as unreasonable as general literacy being optional for humanities researchers.
And finally, simply because it makes gesta happy: fiction may not be better than history, but is it more true?
[...] now as they were then so to speak, and I want to highlight my selection below. Reivers is also compiling a list. His will be more amusing, I [...]