In the Dark

In Dublin Airport, as in most other European Airports these days, WH Smith has a monopoly on the sale of printed matter, including newspapers. This morning, then, on my way back to Wales and wanting something to read, and a crossword to do, on the flight, I picked up a copy of the Weekend FT and took it to the automatic checkout.

As you can see, the newspaper is clearly marked ‘Republic of Ireland €4. 00’ (the price has just gone up). I scanned it on the machine and was about to pay when I noticed the price had come up as €5.70. Querying this apparent error with the assistant I was told this was the price I would have to pay because “this is the airport”.

I refused, and bought the Irish Times instead. That was marked €3.20 on the banner, the same amount as I was charged. I eventually bought the FT when I got back to Cardiff. The crossword was quite easy.

I don’t know of it’s unlawful in Ireland to attempt to sell goods at higher than the marked price, but it’s certainly sharp practice to do it surreptitiously, as Smith’s have done, in such a way that many people will pay without noticing the fact that they have applied a 42.5% markup. But then this company has a reputation for dodgy business practices, forcing small newsagents and bookshops out of the High Street and replacing them uniformly dreary outlets selling overpriced low quality items. You will struggle to find a decent bookshop in any airport because of the Curse of WH Smith.

Perhaps, after Brexit, WH Smith will lose its monopoly but I’m not waiting for that to make a decision not to shop there again.

At the end of a very busy week in Maynooth I’ve at last been reunited with my books and other possessions. Eamon arrived with his van this afternoon, we unloaded all the boxes and I made a start of stacking the shelves.

It being rather warm this afternoon, however, I’m now a bit sweaty and have had enough so am going home for a drink…

So here I am, then, back in Maynooth. The rain was pelting down in Cardiff when I went to get the bus so I arrived at the airport soaked to the skin. Other than that, and a slightly delayed flight, the trip home was uneventful and I arrived in Maynooth in good time.

That was quite a surprise, actually, as this afternoon the Pope was doing his thing in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and there were many road closures in the city as a consequence. I feared a long delay on the Airport Hopper bus, but in the event it ran precisely on schedule.

Perhaps the lack of travel disruption was connected to the fact that fewer than 130,000 attended today’s Papal Mass for which 500,000 tickets had been made available? The last Papal visit to Ireland in 1979 drew a crowd of 1.25 million to Phoenix Park. Ireland does seem to have changed a lot in 40 years.

Anyway the heavy rain I left behind in the United Kingdom is pretty typical for an August Bank Holiday weekend. Here in Ireland, however, this is not a Bank Holiday weekend. The August Bank Holiday here is on the first Monday of August, not the last…

I didn’t realise until yesterday that the UK August Bank Holiday was originally set to be the first Monday too, but was moved in 1965 as an experiment to try to extend the summer; change was made permanent in 1971. You can read more about that here.

Anyway, since it is not a Bank Holiday Monday, I have a busy day at work tomorrow, including an Examiners’ Meeting. Perhaps my books will arrive too!

Well, the inestimable Eamon and Barry have been with their van and collected 34 boxes of books, including those shown below, files of notes, and sundry other items from my Cardiff residence.

It all went more smoothly than I’d anticipated, actually, because a parking space right outside my front door appeared about a minute before the van arrived. That saved quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing loading the boxes.

Another part of my relocation to Maynooth is thus under way.

I hope to be reunited with these belongings in Maynooth at some point next week as they are currently making their way to Ireland (via Birkenhead, apparently).

Not a lot of people know that a Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne, was published in 1960. Alexander Lenard, the translator, was also a physician, painter, musician, and poet, but he is most famous for Winnie Ille Pu.

The book is the only Latin book to become a New York Times best seller – it remained on the NY Times list for 20 weeks.

Here’s a sample page:

Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
House of Commons,
London
SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Farage,

I have now moved to Ireland, so if you would like to send all your clients’ money to me I promise to look after it.

Yours Sincerely,

Mrs Trellis

When I was packing books at my Cardiff residence last week I set aside a few I no longer needed. This morning I put them in a parcel which I took to the post office and sent to the Mother of Civilisation Library Project in Sindh (Pakistan).

In case you weren’t aware, the Mother of Civilization Library is a volunteer organisation in the Indus Valley around Sindh, in the southern part of Pakistan. Their project is to help and facilitate a libraries program in Sindh by collecting books. They contacted me a while ago about making a donation, and I’ve finally done it!

If you have any spare new or used books that you would like to send to the Library program, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to receive them! Your donation could do much to stimulate and encourage the growth of learning, especially among the young generation of students.

Please send books to:

Rashid Anees Magsi, Project Manager, Mother of Civilization Library

Country: Pakistan

P. S. If you send a donation from the UK be sure to say that you are sending books – the cost is much lower if your parcel contains only books than if it contains other items of the same weight.

It is now time for a quick public information broadcast.

Did you know that the Royal Society has teamed up with Science Foundation Ireland to enable early career researchers in Ireland access to the University Research Fellowship (URF) scheme?

This scheme provides five years of research funding (with the possibility of renewal) and has proved to be a stepping stone to their first permanent academic position for a great many scientists.

This scheme covers, but is not limited to, physics and astronomy. For full details of the scheme, see here.

The deadline if you want to apply to hold a URF in Ireland is 12th September 2018, which is just a month away so get cracking!

You could go a lot worse than applying to hold your URF in Maynooth!

Oh, and five years residency in Ireland qualifies you for citizenship. Just saying…

It’s the time if the year for repeat examinations at Maynooth University and resit examinations at Cardiff University (note the slightly different nomenclature).

There’s only a couple of students taking my own papers but I will be marking a few other papers in Maynooth so here’s a message for all students taking resits or repeats over the next couple of weeks:

For those people who think the summer is one long holiday for academics, I’m using a narrow window in my calendar to pack, and supervise the removal from Cardiff to Ireland of, some of these:

There will be about 30 boxes of books to ship. I have more than that, but I’m only moving my technical books for now; the novels, poetry, dictionaries, and other stuff will stay until I buy a house in Ireland.

I also have three or four boxes of old lecture notes. I almost threw these out when I left Sussex two years ago ago. I. thought I wouldn’t need them again because I was planning to take early retirement. Now things have changed and they might prove very useful.

In September I start to teach two new courses at Maynooth, one of which (Vector Calculus and Fourier Series) has similar content to modules I’ve previously taught in Sussex and Cardiff so hopefully I can use some of the notes and examples instead of starting entirely from scratch. That’s for students in their second year at Maynooth. The other new module is on Astrophysics and Cosmology for final-year students and I also have material for that. I’m looking forward to that as it is closest to my own research interests.

Anyway before I can start preparing for the new academic year there is the end of the old one to take care of. Coming up next week are the repeat (resit) examinations which have to be marked pronto so the relevant students know if they can continue in September.

And then there’s the small matter of research. I have two papers to write up {and one project which I’m stuck with) that I wanted to finish this summer .

Oh, and the new edition of my book Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction needs finishing off. And a publication for next year’s centenary of the famous Eddington Eclipse expedition. And getting the Open Journal of Astrophysics fully operational.

But, yes, it’s the summer holiday.

Now I’d better get back to work.