Archive for Europe

Back to Barcelona Again

Posted in Barcelona, Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on June 12, 2024 by telescoper

Last night I arrived back in a very rainy Barcelona. Although I got a bit damp on the way back to my flat from the bus stop, the journey was otherwise uneventful. The one thing worthy of note is that although the approach to Barcelona Airport was a little bumpy owing to bad weather, the pilot managed to perform one of the softest of soft landings I’ve ever experienced. It was so well done that there was a spontaneous round of applause from the passengers. Clapping when the plane lands used to be fairly common, but nowadays is a rarity reserved for occasions such as this.

The end of my stint in Barcelona is now in sight so I plan to see the sights I haven’t yet seen, or at least as many of them as I can manage. Next week I have to travel to Rome for the 2024 Euclid Consortium Meeting, at which I’m doing a plenary talk on the first morning. The week after that I have to travel to Valencia to give a seminar, so it will be a busy second half of the month.

Talking of the Euclid Consortium, my term as Chair of the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee (ECDC) closes at the end of June 2024, at which point I will also be leaving the Committee after 4 years on it. Hopefully I will find a bit more time to do research in the last two months of my sabbatical; I’ve spent about 50% of it so far on ECDC matters, and progress on writing papers has consequently been slower than I’d have liked. I hadn’t anticipated such a big increase in papers submitted to the Open Journal of Astrophysics, either but fortunately I’ve managed to get the most time-consuming aspects of that automated and since that it hasn’t taken up that much of my time.

As it happens, yesterday was the day of the Departmental Examination Board for the Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth. I haven’t been teaching this year, so wasn’t involved. I do know quite a few students who will be graduating this summer, though, and am a little sad I won’t be around to congratulate them. I might see some of them at their conferring ceremonies in September though.

And then there’s next academic year to look forward to. What will I be teaching, I wonder? I’m not going to think about that until I have to…

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Hasta la vista, Barcelona!

Posted in Barcelona, Biographical with tags , , , , on December 22, 2023 by telescoper

I’m reliably informed that Spanish people don’t really say “hasta la vista” very often, but it seemed an appropriate title. I’m writing this post in the Departure Lounge at Barcelona Airport, having got here in very good time for my flight. Last time I checked in here the check-in staff were so slow that it took two hours to drop my bag at the desk and I only just made it to the gate in time for my flight. This time I arrived three hours ahead of time and it only took about 15 minutes to get processed so now I’ve got ages until I leave.

Yesterday, my last day in the office, we had a “Christmas Toast” in the foyer of the Physics Faculty building which consisted of a couple of inaudible speeches, followed by drinks and snacks in the company of a Grubb Telescope, an Atwood Machine, and many physicists.

This morning I said goodbye the flat I’ve been in for most of the past three months. I’ll be back in Barcelona in 2024, of course, but I’ll be in a different apartment when I return. Although my time in Barcelona is not over, I’d like to thank my hosts – especially Licia and Raul – for what has been a very enjoyable stay so far.

I’ll be back!

P.S. The last arXiv mailing before Christmas brought news of the accepted version of a paper for the Open Journal of Astrophysics, so I’ve just made the overlay and published the paper. That means that we finish 2023 with a half-century of articles in Volume 6. Roll on, Volume 7 (2024)!

UPDATE: I arrived safely in not-Barcelona and am looking forward to spend the next couple of weeks very lazily.

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The Irish Question 

Posted in Biographical with tags , , on April 7, 2017 by telescoper

Not surprisingly, given the imminent likelihood of big cuts to UK Astronomy funding as a result of our withdrawal from the European Union, quite a lot of the conversation at this evening’s RAS Club dinner revolved around ways of keeping EU citizenship in the post-BrExit era.

Through a bit of independent investigation I discovered a few weeks ago that, at least in principle, I qualify for Irish citizenship. This is because one of my grandparents (my grandfather on my mother’s side) was born in Northern Ireland. That is sufficient for me to claim Irish nationality, if I can prove it.

The problem is that the grandfather concerned died quite a long  time ago, when I was a kid. In fact, all my grandparents are deceased. To make matters worse I don’t know exactly when he was born or where or when he married my grandmother. This is a problem because I need to produce both his birth certificate and their marriage certificate, along with my mother’s birth certificate (and mine) to establish my case.

It is almost certain my grandfather was born before Ireland was partitioned in 1921, so his birth records may not even be in Northern Ireland but could be held in Dublin.

It looks like I have some interesting research to be getting on with!

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