Travel travails

I am writing this post on 1 April, and it’s my first post of the year. The last 3 months have been very busy, and there hasn’t been much of note to write about. But I realised yesterday that so far in 2024 I haven’t travelled much beyond the county of Staffordshire, and my last trip of any distance (Birmingham) was last December. I didn’t travel outside the UK at all in 2023, and my last overseas trip was to Ghent, Belgium (for a conference) in July 2022.

This is unusual for me, and perhaps shows a new pattern. It led me to think of the possible reasons for the change. For many years I would travel to a conference, usually abroad, at least once a year. Of course the lockdown put a stop to such conferences (in 2020 and 2021), but they have started up again since. Air travel is definitely less appealing to me, and in the UK for the last two years at least, there have been rail strikes at fairly regular intervals, which has made planning difficult. But this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Back in 2018 I finally took steps to get counselling for travel anxiety that I had been experiencing for several years. Although it helped, I think the timing of the pandemic and lockdown so soon after meant that I didn’t have a good chance to put the counselling into practice. So, as I noted in the post about my 2022 conference, the anxieties were still there. This residual anxiety, on top of the challenges of all kinds of travel now, means my attitude and preparedness for travel has changed.

Regarding conferences in the coming year, I am on the organising committee for one in August in Astana, Kazakhstan. A combination of the timing (when I have responsibilities at work), and the location of the conference, means that if I attend it will be online (and it remains to be seen if that is possible). Another conference which is of peripheral interest is in Milan, but it is during my University’s graduation week. So I won’t be travelling to either of those.

There will certainly be some travelling within the UK in the coming months, including Chatham for external examining at the University of Greenwich, and a PhD viva at the University of Newcastle. Non work travel to some concerts and shows later in the year is also planned.

So in conclusion, I will be travelling again before long. But a lot has changed in the world of travel, certainly since the pandemic, and as noted above, my attitude to it has changed too. But I have my memories of great trips to the USA, Brazil and many European countries which were made in a better time for travel. I am pleased that I took advantage of this while I could.

My review of 2023

I started 2023 in the KPA, having divided our Christmas between Keele and a London visit. The aim had been to spend Christmas in our house in Milton, but limitations of public transport to get to Stoke Station between Christmas and the New Year meant we needed to be in Keele which has a better bus service. The London trip was to see a show, and it is described in separate post.

The main non-work-related events of the year for me were the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery, where we saw an amazing exhibition of Paul McCartney photos, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which was as good as ever, and the GBBF, described in detail in a separate post (sadly the 2024 edition has been cancelled due to building work at Kensington Olympia). I was privileged to see one of my favourite bands, Focus, play twice, in April and November, at the Shepherds Bush Bush rHall, both times staying at a very convenient hotel next to Shepherds Bush Market tube station. Elton John played a long set at Glastonbury which was shown on TV and much enjoyed. We also saw a David Hockney exhibition at the NPG, and Cliff Richard’s Sapphire Tour show at the Cineworld in Hanley

I only attended one conference in 2023, because there were few that appealed, added to transport issues (the intermittent rail strikes continued). The one I attended was a birthday tribute for a colleague at UCL, where I saw several old friends, which was nice. After the conference Angela joined me in London for a couple of days. I also saw some old friends at the Lab Dinner in November, and enjoyed the SCR Burns Night dinner at the beginning of the year.

Teaching is now almost back to normal after the pandemic. Lectures are all face to face, and some exams are reverting to the old format. I found it quite challenging, particularly in the autumn semester, where we were usually timetabled into 2-hour slots, which doesn’t suit my subjects well (who wants 2 hours of Quantum Chemistry in one go?). I volunteered to take on the Exams Officer role when it became vacant, because it’s something I have done before. It did prove to be a challenge however, and one that will continue in 2024. After much discussion with Angela, I decided to reduce my contract for 2024/5 to 0.6 FTE (3 days a week). This is a kind of progression to full retirement, but still doing some of the parts of the job that I enjoy.

Thanks to the Keele Philharmonic Ensembles, I was able to do some playing this year, with the highlight being the Keele Philharmonic Orchestra Christmas concert. I hope to continue that in 2024.

Regarding social media, it’s been an interesting year. Facebook is much as ever, and is where I post mostly. Twitter is now called X, after Elon Musk bought it, and it isn’t what it used to be. I have accounts on Mastodon, Threads and BlueSky, but none of them (so far) are working well for me in terms of getting responses to posts, etc. I posted on that separately, and my conclusion then was that X, for all its faults, is still best for interactions.

I have continued to enjoy working with the local branch of CAMRA, which has included being Webmaster and Secretary, as well as Treasurer, which has proved more challenging! I was happy to help with our Beer Festival that we ran in October.

I’ve continued to enjoy Pokémon Go and Ingress. For Ingress, having reached level 16 in 2022, I have enjoyed it, without needing to improve my score. For Pokémon Go, I’ve concentrated on Agnes’s account, and got it to level 40 on 30 December, which was excellent timing.

We ended the year spending Christmas at our house in Milton. It’s been lovely, from attending Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve to cooking our traditional Christmas meals in our new kitchen. It’s been very relaxing and a good preparation for the New Year, which will undoubtedly have its own challenges.

Mastodon and Threads are still not replacing Twitter/X for me.

I have used Twitter/X since 2009. Last Autumn, when Elon Musk started seriously messing around with it, I opened an account on Mastodon. I had quite high hopes for the platform, and built up 83 followers, many old Twitter contacts. But then it slowed down, and I found I was getting very little response to posts there. And moreover, many contacts simply didn’t make the transition. This might be connected with the relative complexity of getting set up there.

Fast forward to 5 July, and Meta’s launch of Threads, and I was in at the beginning. Again, some of my Twitter contacts moved there, but not many. As of now I have 43 followers. There didn’t seem to be the same issues as with Mastodon, and if you use Instagram, it’s very straightforward to get set up.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, my follower numbers are increasing again and I am getting lots of responses to my posts. So I have refreshed my profile there, and it is once again my go-to social network, along with Facebook (which serves a different purpose for me).

I’ll continue to persevere with Mastodon and Threads, but for now, Twitter is still the most effective, much as admitting this is hard!

GBBF 2023

The Great British Beer Festival is one of the highlights of my year. It didn’t happen in 2020 and 2021, so last year was the first festival for 3 years (see my post about it here). I had been looking forward to the 2023 festival since last year’s festival ended, so to say it was much anticipated is an understatement!

First, some general points about the festival itself. It followed its traditional pattern, and it didn’t take long to work out where all the bars etc were. One difference this year was that there were no printed programmes, and an app was provided. The beer list was published in advance as an Excel spreadsheet, and I managed to print out the essential columns so we had something to refer to. The app worked OK but took a while to get used to. I would prefer a printed programme, but from experience I know the cost of printing them is considerable, and apparently there wasn’t a great take up last year and many were wasted. However I will mention this in my feedback, as having a printed programme is very useful, as well as being a souvenir of the festival.

In terms of logistics, we managed to stay even closer to Olympia than last year, about a 5-minute walk, and that made everything much simpler. Plus, breakfast was included, which helped get the day off to a good start. As is now traditional, I attended on 3 days, travelling down the day before and returning on the evening of the third day.

So, what about the beers? I continued my recent practice of drinking thirds, to enable more to be tried. On the first two days I tried to stick to lower abv beers, only switching to stronger ones on the third day. Here’s a list (see my Untappd account for details):

Day 1, 1 August 2023 (11)

Sub Four – Good Chemistry Brewing – 3.9% abv

Riff – Clearwater Brewery – 4.3% abv

Leezie Lundie – Ayr Brewing Company – 3.8% abv

Mangoes Into a Bar – Bowler’s Brewery – 4.0% abv

Seren – Big Hand Brewing – 3.7% abv

Snowdonia Ale – Purple Moose Brewery – 3.6% abv

AVA – First Chop Brewery – 3.5% abv

Dr Morton’s Rogue Apostrophe – Abbeydale Brewery – 4.1% abv

Bee’s Knees – Weatheroak Brewery – 3.7% abv

Solaris – Newbridge – 4.5% abv

Flying Elephants – Ulverston Brewing Company – 3.7% abv

Day 2, 2 August 2023 (12)

Bunny Hop – Purity Brewing Company – 3.5% abv

Wharf IPA – Harvey’s Brewery – 4.2% abv

Anthem – St Austell Brewery – 3.8% abv

Quencher – Theakston – 3.4% abv

Hoperation IPA – Arkells Brewery – 4.2% abv

BG Sips – Blue Monkey Brewery – 4.0% abv

Jemima’s Pitchfork – Glamorgan Brewing Company – 4.5 %

Tiramisu Lucaria – Thornbridge Brewery – 4.5% abv

Millions of Peaches – Hackney Brewery – 4.0% abv

Strawberry Blush – Runaway Brewery – 4.5% abv

Tonkoko – Brew York – 4.3 % abv

Mena Dhu – St Austell Brewery – 4.5% abv

Day 3, 3 August 2023 (9)

Bad Day at the Office – Alechemy Brewing Limited – 4.5% abv

Avalanche – Fyne Ales – 4.5% abv

Hush – Little Brewing Company – 4.4% abv

Citra Quad – Loddon Brewery – 4.4% abv

Earl Grey IPA – Marble Beers Ltd – 6.8% abv

Mango Fever – 4T’s Brewery Ltd – 4.6% abv

Hop Troll IPA – Tillingbourne Brewery – 4.8% abv

Golden Thread – Salopian Brewery – 5.0 % abv

Collusion – Surrey Hills Brewery – 5.2% abv

(+1 not recorded)

In terms of favourites, it’s hard to narrow the list down, but I did like Hush (day 3, 3) very much.

The Champion Beer of Britain (CBoB) was announced at the festival this year again, which was a good move. The 1^st prize went to Elland Porter, 2^nd to Abbot Ale, and 3^rd to Salopian Darwin’s Origin. Decisions are made by a taste test, but even so there was a lot of background chatter about the 2^nd prize going to Abbot. In my view, it is what it is. Abbot is a fine ale, although not one to drink in a session! I’m not a porter drinker generally, but Darwin’s Origin is a favourite of mine.

I was grateful for Angela’s company on the first two days, and on the third day it was good to meet Rob Bell. Colleagues from Potteries CAMRA were there at the Trade Session on the first day, so it was nice to see them (although we missed Lyn this year).

All in all it was a great festival, and I look forward to the 2024 edition!

June 2023: External Examining, a Conference, two Exhibitions and a Musical

June 2023 was a busy month, and before some of it disappears from my memory banks, here’s an account of the highlights.

I’ve been External Examiner for Physical Chemistry courses at Bath for 3 years. In 2021 and 2022 everything was held remotely, and I didn’t visit as would normally be the case (ironically I could have visited in 2022 but for a rail strike). Anyway, this year I did visit, travelling down on Sunday 18th June, and staying over in a Holiday Inn Express in Lower Bristol Road in Bath. My fellow external examiners were keen to walk to the university on the Monday morning, an uphill walk of 3 miles in considerable heat, but I made it. The meetings for the rest of the day were uneventful, and I made it back home by 11:00 pm after a stop off for dinner, in spite of a 40+ minute delay to my train from Bristol Temple Meads.

My new External Examining role is at the University of Greenwich, Medway Campus, which is accessed by train to Chatham. I decided to visit for the day (on 22 June) rather than view student work remotely, so travelled via Euston and St Pancras to Chatham. The only issue with the outward trip was arriving late at Euston, and having to run in considerable heat to St Pancras (at least I know the way well!) Anyway, I got there as planned, and as well as looking at student work, had a quick tour of the campus, which is very interesting, being mainly housed in former Naval buildings. My return trip was uneventful, and I got home shortly after 10:00 pm.

The conference I attended, on 26/27 June, was arranged to honour the 60th birthday of someone I have had links with for many years. It was entitled ‘From Minerals to Materials: Experimental & Computational Approaches’, and was held in my old institution, University College London (Chemistry Department). It was good to catch up with old friends there. The conference dinner was held in the Ambassador’s Hotel, which seems to be often chosen for UCL dinners these days. The only problem was getting back to my hotel (in Shepherds Bush, another story), since the tube wasn’t running due to an incident at King’s Cross. But fortunately I was able to get a taxi.

Wednesday 28th June was a free day in my schedule, so I took the chance to visit the recently reopened National Portrait Gallery (thanks to Angela for taking advantage of her membership), where I saw two exhibitions – the Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64 (amazing, lots of history and some interesting subjects), and Yevonde – Life and Colour (very interesting, and again with some interesting subjects). In the evening I had got us tickets to see the Spitting Image Musical, which was very entertaining, if a bit near the knuckle at times.

On 29th June I had a committee meeting for the RSC Applied Materials Chemistry Group at Burlington House. This went much as expected, and I travelled back to Stoke and Keele in the evening.

I have one more External Examining meeting, which is tomorrow, 3rd July, but held online. It’s for Loughborough University, and as I’ve always found it hard to get to, that’s fine with me.

July should be a bit quieter, but I have a trip to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition planned, and of course, the GBBF in August.

Thoughts on the Coronation

It’s nearly a month since the Coronation of King Charles III, and I intended to post something sooner than now. It’s a busy time of the year for people like myself, and the marking had to get done!

Anyway, I was pleased to be able to watch the Coronation in its entirety. I thought it was very well done, and the music was simply amazing. The organisers and everyone who took part deserve congratulations. There was a lot of talk beforehand about it having being scaled down, and the possible negative effects of that, but in the end it all seemed fine.

I also watched the Coronation Concert, and enjoyed it, although as I noted at the time, it could have been longer, so that the headline acts could have had longer sets. No doubt timings were limited due to the commitments of some of the key guests.

Last year I posted about the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which I also enjoyed. I mentioned then, and also when the Queen’s death was announced, that I had some misgivings about whether Charles would make a good King. All I can say so far is that he has made a decent start. These days I do support the monarchy, mainly because, pragmatically speaking, the system we have is (in my view) better than any of the alternatives. We live in challenging times, and as long as the monarchy can provide some stability, it will have my support.

The UCU and ‘that’ motion

The motion passed at the UCU conference on the war in Ukraine has provoked a lot of posts on Twitter recently. I’m not a member, and if I was, I would certainly be considering leaving. It led me to think of my association with HE unions over my career.

I joined the AUT (predecessor of the UCU) almost as soon as I became a postdoc, and remember standing on picket lines at Birkbeck in the mid 1980s. On moving to Keele, I kept up my membership and even joined the exec committee. I only became disillusioned with the union when they seemed more concerned about universities in the West Bank than trying to stop my university from closing my department. Sounds familiar? So when the UCU was formed in a merger with NATFE, I didn’t join.

Moving forward, I was Head of School when there was the last serious dispute centred on pensions (in 2018), and the current marking and assessment boycott is bringing back painful memories of very difficult times. If I was still a member, I would be concerned about the distracting effect of motions like the one recently passed on the real issues of concern. But thinking back to the latter years of the AUT, not much has changed.

My review of 2022

2022 has been an ‘interesting’ year in all senses of the word. Although we were out of lockdown, my University still insisted on social distancing being observed in teaching rooms, at least for the first half of the year, and examinations continued to be open book assessments online.

I started the year having had a lovely Christmas break at Keele, in what I thought would be our last Christmas there (but see later for more on this). The January exams were all online, and as discussed before, marking took longer, but I managed to finish it on time. My teaching in the Spring Semester was by combination of video presentations (for my large Digital Forensics class, for which a room wasn’t available that would permit sufficient social distancing), and some face to face teaching for my Chemistry module on Quantum Chemistry and Statistical Thermodynamics. This mix of approaches had a disorientating affect which didn’t suit me, so I was glad when we reverted to all face to face teaching in the Autumn Semester.

A highlight of the year for me was being able to help organise and attend my first international conference since 2016. Eurodim2022 was held in Ghent, Belgium, and I had a great week there, presenting three talks, two posters and listening to other talks. I was also able to catch up with old friends and colleagues, including Mario and Giordano from UFS, Brazil. Ghent is a beautiful city, and of course, for me, being able to sample Belgian beer was a bonus. I have written a separate post on that.

A second highlight was the Great British Beer Festival, held for the first time since 2019, which was excellent. I’ve also written a separate post on that. We also managed to get to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which was as interesting and enjoyable as ever.

In 2021 we bought a house. I didn’t mention it in my review of the 2021 because there was much work needed on it before we could move in. In the course of 2022, slowly work got done (getting anything done involving the building trade is still challenging, with great demand following lockdown), but in November, we partly moved in, because having someone there is essential to getting further work done, and leaving the house empty isn’t a good idea. We moved enough to make it possible to live there; most of our things are still at Keele, and will be moved at some point in 2023. But it’s a lovely house, with individuality and quirks that suit us, and Angela put photos on Facebook which show its many features.

The Autumn Semester went, but it was truly exhausting. I was teaching right up to 16 December, and I still haven’t fully recovered at the time of writing this review. I had to cancel my registration for the Christmas Solid State Group meeting (the first to be held in person since 2019) partly because of the rail strikes (see below), but also because, after the Autumn Semester, I was simply too exhausted. This was a big deal, as I love these meetings, but all I can do is hope for better things in 2023.

A challenging feature of 2022, sadly continuing into 2023, has been rail strikes (and also strikes in other sectors, but which haven’t affected me so much). This has made travelling difficult, and as a result we had to travel by bus to and from London to be able to attend the Abba Voyage event in November (but it was worthwhile). We also had a trip to London to see Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol in December, where we dodged the rail strikes (again, see a separate post on that). One consequence of that trip was that we spent Christmas at Keele, because of better bus connections to the station on 27 December. It was nice to be here, but rather unexpected, having written (but thankfully not posted), a post on ‘Our last Christmas at Keele’, last year!

I should add, in closing, that a more positive aspect of the year has been my involvement in the local CAMRA branch, which has included Pub of the Month (and the Year) presentations, and generally being more involved in the local pub scene, as well as looking after the web site and social media.

Also in closing, having not played my trombones since early 2020, I was asked if I could play bass trombone for the Keele Philharmonic/Concert Band concert in December, and I jumped at the opportunity. It went quite well, and means I am back playing again, something I wanted to do, but the right opportunity hadn’t come along.

I am writing this post on 3^rd January 2023. It’s my first day back in work, but I have been working from home, preparing for an MPhil viva tomorrow. It’s being done via Teams, again because the rail strikes, which are scheduled for almost all this week, make travelling anywhere difficult. That this is necessary illustrates the difficulties we face just now, and as I said earlier, let’s hope for better things this new year.

A post-Christmas trip to London, 27-29 December 2022

We were keen to see Dolly Parton’s ‘A Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol’ which was on at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, for a fairly short run in December-January 2022-23. Finding a time to go when there were no train strikes was challenging, but eventually I booked for Wednesday 28^th December, with the idea of travelling to London on the 27^th, returning on the 29^th. Of course, as soon as I had booked the tickets further strikes were announced, right up to early on the 27^th! To add to the complications, there was a Sunday service on the buses on that day.

Anyway, we set out in good time on the 27^th, taking one of the first buses from Keele to Stoke station. When we arrived, we found the first possible train was at 10:25, and that we would need to change 3 times, and take a bus for some of the journey! The details of the trip were: Stoke-Stafford (train), Stafford-Rugby (train), Rugby-Milton Keynes (bus) and Milton Keynes-Euston (train). It all took 5 hours, but at least we were in London by early afternoon, and our show wasn’t until the next day.

Booking a hotel had been challenging too, with most of my regular options fully booked. So I tried a new hotel, The Gresham, just round the corner from the British Museum. When we had checked in, it was clear that the hotel were charging for their location and not the facilities offered, which were basic in the extreme. Our room had a double and single bed and a small ensuite bathroom. There were 2 power sockets located near the floor, a kettle but no cups or tea/coffee, and no desk, had I needed to do some work on the trip. In short, it was a disappointment, but we had somewhere to stay in a good location at a busy time, so we decided to make the most of it.

The rest of the trip went well and largely according to plan. We had lunch on the Tuesday in the Munchkins café (excellent) near the British Museum, and dinner in the TAS restaurant (Turkish) very close to our hotel (our second visit there, and it was excellent too). On Tuesday evening we had a walk around the area, and visited a couple of pubs (for research reasons, of course) – the Montagu Pyke (Wetherspoons) on Charing Cross Road, and the Craft Beer Company in Covent Garden. On Wednesday we headed to the British Library, but in the end just had coffee there before taking the tube to Tower Hill to seek out an unusual post box (with Edward VIII insignia) in East Smithfield ( a fair walk from Tower Hill). Having found this, and photographed it, we had lunch in the Liberty Bounds pub near Tower Hill tube station. We then made our way, partly by tube and partly walking, back to the Strand/Trafalgar Square. The weather was pretty awful – rain and wind, so we were glad to seek refuge in the Waterstone’s near Trafalgar Square where we had a welcome cup of tea. Later, we had an early dinner in the Breadline Café, before the walk through the rain across Hungerford Foot Bridge, to the South Bank Centre. We had time to dry out a bit before the show started, which was excellent, and well worth the effort involved in getting there. After the show we returned to our hotel by tube, with a quick night cap in the Museum Tavern.

On Thursday our train was at 12:53, so there was time for a trip to Leicester Square to look for some statues that were on display there – we found some, but some were probably hidden by the Christmas Market (so another trip will be needed when that has been taken down). We arrived at Euston in good time, and our train left on time. This time the journey took the normal 1.5 hours!

All in all, it was an interesting trip. The time taken to get to London showed how bad travel can be at times (in this case a result of a combination of engineering works, and effects of the strike over Christmas), and the hotel was, I’m sorry to say, another one I won’t be staying in again. But the show was great, and it was the reason for the trip, so as I said earlier, it was well worthwhile overall.

Travel and London hotels

Where I live, our main train operator for travel to London is Avanti West Coast. Since the summer we have suffered the double whammy of industrial action, and even when there were no strikes, Avanti operating a reduced timetable because they can no longer assume their staff will do overtime, so they are having to recruit more staff. I am travelling to London just after Christmas, and no sooner had I booked train tickets than additional strike days were announced! So it’s good old National Express to the rescue, but it shouldn’t be this difficult.

But I also wanted to talk about London hotels here. For years I have had my regular hotels, but something seems to have changed since the pandemic. I used to use the Imperial Group hotels, like the Tavistock and the Royal National. They are convenient for Euston Station, and well located to get to most places I need. The Tavistock closed during the pandemic, so as travel became possible again, I used the Royal National. It was fine then, but then they put up their prices considerably, and became less flexible about check-in times. The Tavistock, on a recent visit, couldn’t find my online reservation and the person in reception was quite rude. The result of recent experiences means I won’t be using them again, and need to find replacements. This isn’t easy because of the sheer cost of many hotels, but I’m on the case.