Biographical Note
It’s 1st July 2017, which means that it is ten years to the day since I officially started work at Cardiff University (for the first time). Can it really be so long ago?
Quite a lot has happened in the intervening decade, including spending three and a half years at the University of Sussex before returning to Cardiff last summer.
The first of July was actually a Sunday in 2007, so my last day at work in my previous position at the University of Nottingham was Friday 29th June. I remember they threw a nice leaving party that afternoon and also persuaded me to sign up to Facebook to keep in touch. Facebook reminded me of this on Thursday.
I was a bit slow in putting my house in Beeston on the market in 2007, and rented a flat in Cardiff while I sorted that out. Unfortunately the Credit Crunch and I didn’t actually manage to move permanently to a little house in Pontcanna for almost a year. In the meantime I had to travel regularly to and fro between Cardiff and Nottingham by train.
The main thing I remember about the summer of 2007 was the extensive flooding, much of which was located in South Wales and up the Severn towards Gloucester and beyond. That is precisely the route that the train takes from Cardiff to Nottingham so I had quite a few travel problems!
I didn’t actually start blogging until 2008 when I was firmly established in the house I bought here in Cardiff, and which I’m sitting now as I write this rambling post.
They say that ‘all good things come to an end’, which implies that this blog should carry on forever. Maybe I’ll keep it going until its tenth anniversary, after which…well, we’ll see. Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam.
Anyway, although pipped at the post for this year’s Beard of Summer award I did receive a bit of good news in today’s paper by way of compensation!
In fact the two books arrived in the post yesterday. I’ll be disposing of them at work in due course..
In the Dark 
July 1, 2017 at 4:52 pm
Peter, main thing I look/come to for in your blog is discussion of interesting papers and conference reports. Unlike 10 years ago, very few science blogs or forums discuss astrophysics papers. I will be very sad if yo stop blogging.
July 1, 2017 at 7:14 pm
You had the misfortune to start blogging around the beginning of the STFC birth crisis, so there was a lot of anger in the community and blogs like yours and andy lawrence’s became important places for people to let off steam. We never got back the money that was taken out of astronomy, so the anger should still be there – but somehow people are resigned now. But new crises doubtless lie ahead, so you’ll be needed as much as ever.
July 1, 2017 at 8:33 pm
Blogging may have allowed people to let off steam but, by your own argument, it didn’t actually achieve anything…
July 2, 2017 at 12:22 pm
“Didn’t achieve anything” implies you don’t think things could have been even worse than they turned out. But that’s not so. Steps like getting the ESA subscription dealt with separately, plus getting exchange rate protection, just about saved the ship from going under. I have no evidence that public debate on the crisis helped, but it certainly felt necessary at the time.
July 2, 2017 at 6:29 pm
There is indeed no reason to keep blogging if you have no courage or knowledge to face the truths.
July 2, 2017 at 7:08 pm
Thank you for your encouraging words.