In the Dark

I’m having a restful morning at home because (a) it was our Departmental Christmas Lunch yesterday meaning that I’m feeling a bit fragile and (b) there’s a planned electrical shutdown in our building this morning meaning that there’s not much point going in until it’s all back up anyway.

Anyway, since various people made the odd facetious comment accusing me of skiving off last week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect a little on the Winter School that I was lecturing at last week. This took place at Passo del Tonale, in the Italian Alps and was the Sixth in a series of schools for graduate students and postdocs held there annually. When I was invited to take part, I was asked to give five lectures as a sort of overview of the current state of cosmology. Subsequently one of the other speakers dropped out so instead of inviting a replacement, the remaining four were given an extra lecture each. Then one of those was taken ill during the summer school so I stepped in at short notice to give another one. And so it came to pass that I gave seven lectures altogether, in the space of five days. That’s considerably more lecturing than I would have done had I stayed in Cardiff.

Anyway, here’s a picture of me during one of the lectures (taken by one of the participants, Chris Crowe).

Afternoons were kept free for skiing and snowboarding, but my dodgy knees don’t allow me to participate in such activities. I am not shap’d for sportive tricks nor made to court an amorous looking-glass. I had lectures to prepare anyway.

However the hosts looked after us well and there was a fine conference dinner on Wednesday evening,

the main course featuring a roast pig brought into the room by the chefs with some aplomb:

Everything was eaten. I was given the honour of having one of the ears, in fact. A bit chewy, but quite tasty in case you were wondering. I don’t know what the vegetarians did.

Anyway, at the end of the school the lecturers were presented with bottles of fine Grappa. I’ll no doubt be sampling mine over the Christmas vacation!