The Man with No Time

In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of an academic career is public outreach. Sadly, I think it's also one of the least appreciated aspects among the people occupying said academic careers, and usually the first to be dropped when time and/or funding is tight. As a PhD student I was heavily involved in the operation of the Astronomy department's mobile, inflatable planetarium. I even coordinated the program for two and a half years! We travelled all over Eastern Scotland giving shows to the public, and I loved it. Since starting my Postdoc position I've given several public talks, mostly at careers events. These have been great fun, and I learnt a lot about presenting from one of the outreach officers in the department at Warwick. But in the last six months or so I've started getting involved in a different side of the public engagement game - press interviews. These have been simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying, but on the whole I've e...

It's been a good year for me up to this point as far as TV watching goes, at least in terms of quantity compared to the last couple of years. The latest series of Sherlock was decent, the second season of Arrow is entertaining and possibly stronger than the first, and I've been able to catch up with some old shows that I enjoyed when I was younger. Then there was Orphan Black. I'm a bit late to the party with this one, and despite being only ten episodes long it's taken me some time to get through the first season. That's definitely not a comment on the quality of the show, more on my own viewing habits, but I am so pleased that I took the plunge as it's an excellent sci-fi show. Orphan Black doesn't exactly make a secret of the fact that it's about clones. (Credit: geekwire.com)

Something a little bit different today - I've been on television! I've mentioned it briefly before, but my boss is the 'Head of the Science Team' for the new ESA PLATO mission. Since it was selected by ESA last month he's been very busy giving talks, presentations, and interviews about the mission. Yesterday he had the science team from the local BBC TV channel along to interview him about it for a short piece. Since he was getting a bit fed up with the whole thing he decided that it would be good for myself and Dave (one of his PhD students) to get involved too! I was a little nervous about it, as I've not had any interaction with the press before. But it turned out to be a lot of fun. The science reporter was very easy going, and made it seem more like a chat than an interview. He did give me one piece of advice, which was to finish my thoughts even if I stumble rather than trying to restart, as you can always edit and do retakes. Very much like ...

It's the TV event of the year! Or something. The Doctors, all twelve of them. That's 50 years of television history right there. (Credit: bbc.co.uk) I like to think that it's no secret that I like Dr Who. My close friends are (hopefully) all aware of this fact, and more to the point tolerant of it. Most of them watch, some of them enjoy it as much as I do, some less, some more. But that's by the by, because I really enjoy the show. Ok, so it might not be particularly highbrow; in fact it's fanciful (often to extremes) frivolous at times, and not particularly complex in terms of characterisation, character development, or storyline a lot of the time. Yes, there are convoluted stories, but that's not the same thing, and once you look beyond the misdirection and explosions, a lot of the modern stories aren't particularly challenging. Yet it has a lasting charm and appeal that belie these traits. The show's changed a lot in its 'modern...

Myriad media are the subject of part 6 of my time-sinks series of posts. The main focus of this post will be on books, but I'll also touch on TV, films, magazines, music and podcasts as I ramble on.