Archive for Private Eye

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An Introduction to Philosophy

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , on December 11, 2025 by telescoper
Cartoon from Private Eye

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Publisherballs

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , on January 26, 2025 by telescoper

Private Eye has a regular feature called “Commentatorballs” which contains various verbal gaffes perpetrated by sports commentators, usually sent in by members of the public. It used to be called “Colemanballs” after David Coleman, but the name was changed after he passed away in 2013. Years ago, I had a couple of my own contributions published, actually.

Anyway, I’m seriously thinking about running a similar feature on this blog devoted to outrageous blunders made by academic publishers.

Here’s one that would make a good entry in “Publisherballs” from the journal Radiology Case Reports, published by – you guessed it – Elsevier:

On the left you see the title, author data and abstract and on the right an extract from the text that clearly shows it was generated by ChatGPT or some other AI bot. The authors cut and pasted the output without even noticing that the software they were using was explaining it could not respond to the prompt they gave it. Clearly the careful editorial process at the journal didn’t even go as far as reading the paper…

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The Post of Christmas Past

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on January 22, 2025 by telescoper

Hurrah! Today I received the Christmas issue of Private Eye:

It’s only taken a month to cross the Irish Sea from the UK and find its way to Maynooth!

I don’t know whether the delay is the fault of the Royal Mail or An Post or a mixture of both. Post is often delayed over the Christmas period, but not usually for this long. Storm Darragh caused some damage at the Port of Holyhead on 6th December which caused delays there until January. There was then bad weather in Ireland which caused disruption to deliveries. I suspect this item is part of a backlog gradually being cleared, as I have received post from the UK sent more recently than this.

Although this delay is an extreme example, the Eye usually arrives after about 10 days which means that more often than not I miss the deadline for the Crossword competition. I have therefore decided not to renew my subscription and instead to buy a copy at the local newsagent when it comes out.

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Academic Publishing: Never Mind the Quality…

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2024 by telescoper

I was interested to see that the latest issue of Private Eye contains a short item about academic publishing:

I’ve heard many stories of this type, with publishers putting pressure on their Editorial Boards to allow more papers to be published. This is undoubtedly motivated by the Gold Open Access model in which authors or their institutions are forced to pay thousands of dollars upfront to publish papers. Since the publisher makes an eye-watering profit on every article, why not publish as many as possible? The recent decision by the Royal Astronomical Society adopt this model is highly likely to have a similar effect there, as its journals will be able to increase revenue at the expense of quality. Under the older subscription-based system, publishers could sell their product to libraries on the basis of quality but they no longer need to do that to make a profit.

The academic publishing industry is perverse enough without adding this obvious incentive to lower editorial standards. There are far too many low quality papers being published already, a situation driven not only by the profiteering of the publishing industry but also by the absurd policies of academia itself which require researchers to churn out huge numbers of papers to get promotion, win research grants, etc.

This part of the academic system is definitely broken. To fix it, academic publishing must be taken out of the hands of commercial publishers and put into the care of research institutions whose libraries are perfectly capable of publishing and curating articles on a non-profit basis. But that won’t be enough: we need also to overhaul how we do research assessment. The principles outlined in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment would be a start.

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Astronomy Volunteers Needed!

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , on September 14, 2023 by telescoper

NASA apparently needs volunteers for an upcoming a forthcoming analysis:

From Private Eye

I’m not sure whether this involves a telescope, or an endoscope, or some other device yet to be erected, but I am always prepared to bend over backwards to help such initiatives. If you are similarly receptive, please apply to NASA. I’m sure they’ll be gratified by your submission.

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A Day of Celebration (?)

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , on May 6, 2023 by telescoper

The latest version of Private Eye (the cover of which is shown above) arrived in the post yesterday. I thought I’d leave it until today to read it. Apparently there’s some sort of event happening in London which appears to be causing some disruption to traffic. I’m not watching RTÉ One, the main TV channel here in Ireland, but it seems to be showing a special four hour long episode of Coronation Street. I’m surprised there’s so much interest over here in what’s going on in Poundland.

I’m told that today’s events are a celebration of “British values”, which means locking up peaceful protestors who disagree with the Establishment. On the bright side, taunting the population with a conspicuous display of wealth in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis while the rivers fill with shit and the country crumbles all around will do wonders for those campaigning for a Republic.

I already live in a Republic, of course, and today I’ll be celebrating not the Coronation but the end of teaching term. I’ll be doing a bit of gardening, watching the URC quarter finals, cooking myself a self-indulgent dinner and of course doing the Private Eye crossword. Oh, and toasting the Tories’ resounding defeat in Thursday’s local elections…

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Worrying Times…

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on November 14, 2021 by telescoper

So here I am, trying to plan my teaching for next week and wondering what’s going to happen between now and the end of term. Here at Maynooth University lectures finish on 17th December, five weeks from now. I’m just about on schedule to cover everything I’m supposed to, so I’m not worried about that.

What I am worried about is that Covid-19 cases are continuing to climb. The latest 7-day rolling average of new cases is over 3900 per day and the increasing trend show no sign of slowing down. It will reach the 5000 mark in a week or two. Some daily figures have already passed that milestone. The death rate is still relatively low – 74 Covid-19 related deaths were recorded in the last week – but is edging up; over a hundred people with Covid-19 are being treated in ICU as of today.

The Irish Government seems to have no intention of introducing effective countermeasures and is instead just advising people to cut down the amount of socializing they do. I don’t think that will work. It seems very clear to me that the Government lost the room many weeks ago by frequently implying that the Covid-19 pandemic was over. They then caved in to the hospitality industry by allowing nightclubs to open. It is no doubt in such places that the virus is spreading. The Government keep stating that they are concerned but do nothing, blinking at the onrushing disaster like rabbits caught in the headlights of an approaching car.

Case numbers on campus at Maynooth remain fairly low, though the latest figure (69) is almost double last week’s figure (35). Students in my classes continue to wear face coverings and observe the other protocols and all the signs are that lecture halls and labs are pretty safe environments but we have no say in what happens off campus. As well as being concerned for the health of students and staff, I have particular worries about my Department. We’ve been short-staffed since the start of term and simply have no spare effort to provide cover for lectures or tutorials if anyone becomes sick.

The Irish Health Service is under extreme pressure and the delivery of booster shots is being rolled out very slowly. I had my second Pfizer dose in June so should get a third shot in December but it is not clear that I will. I’m not going anywhere at Christmas anyway so that’s not a big deal but I’m worried by the broader picture. A cartoon in a recent issue of Private Eye is very apt:

Might we have to switch our lectures back online again before Christmas? Might our examinations be online again in January? Who knows. We’ll just have to wait and see but I think the blackboard in my study might be back in use very soon.

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Delivery Notes

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , , on January 22, 2021 by telescoper

I was a bit surprised to see the latest issue of Private Eye was delivered this morning. The Eye is published every fortnight on a Wednesday but, until recently, it normally took about a week to arrive in Ireland. Since the New Year however it has been taking much less time to get here. In fact this one arrived on the nominal issue date (22nd January):

I’m not sure why it’s suddenly got much faster, but I wonder if it might be related to a reduction in other items being sent to Ireland from the UK because of difficulties that kicked in as a result of Boris Johnson’s Trade Reduction Treaty on January 1st? (Perhaps not, though, because my 1st January Physics World still hasn’t arrived and that presumably comes via a similar route…)

Anyway, I’ve been reading quite a lot of stories about the changes that have occurred in receiving goods from the UK: long delays, vastly increased delivery charges, VAT and customs payments due on arrival, and sometimes orders cancelled entirely. I think items only worth a few euro are exempt from these new charges but I know of a few people who have been handed large bills when goods they have ordered over the internet have been delivered. I think it’s going to be very important in future that firms advertising in Ireland make it clear if the goods they are selling are going to be delivered from the UK.

These developments have at least provided some possible explanations of the reasons why so many people voted for Brexit. One might be that they enjoy filling in forms and wrestling with other kinds of red tape. Another, more likely, is “sovereignty” which I interpret as meaning “not having to deal with nasty foreigners”.

As regular readers of this blog will know I voted Remain and now live in the EU as a nasty foreigner. I do however think we nasty foreigners should accept the reality of this situation and respect British sovereignty.

Indeed I have seen many interviews with British business leaders who voted for Brexit complaining about all the difficulties that now exist to trade with nasty foreigners. I think there’s only one way for decent folk to react to this and that is to help these people in their hour of need by saving them the effort of form-filling, the extra expense of delivery, along with all the other headaches, and at the same time fully respecting their sovereignty, by simply not buying goods from them any more. It’s the honorable thing to do.

Fortunately it is increasingly possible for people in Ireland to do what Brexiters want by avoiding buying British goods. There are now 30 weekly sailings from Ireland to France, operated by 4 different companies. From tomorrow there will also be a new route from Dublin to Cherbourg by Stena Line.

But now I’m in a quandary. Am I disrespecting British sovereignty by continuing to subscribe to Private Eye?

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Four Weeks To Go

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on November 23, 2020 by telescoper

As I await another Zoom meeting I remembered this cartoon from last week’s Private Eye, which sums up the prevalent mood amongst academics these days (and no doubt people in other kinds of job too).

At the start of this morning’s Panopto lecture I realised that there are still 4 weeks left of this Semester before the Christmas break. I was a bit surprised by that as this term seems to have lasted a decade already. The time certainly hasn’t zoomed by. Still, at least I’ve more-or-less kept up with my planned schedule of lectures in both of my modules without slipping. I may even be able to finish lectures to my 2nd year Vector Calculus in time to do a bit of revision in the final week.

That’s not to say other things haven’t slipped. The greatly increased time for teaching needed to move everything online hasn’t left much time for research or anything else. I keep meaning to work in the evenings to deal with outstanding things but mostly I find once I’ve done the necessary admin and teaching stuff all I can do is sleep. It seems that I’ll have to work over Christmas to finish off the backlog. Given that I didn’t have a holiday this summer that’s not ideal, but it’s unlikely I’ll be going anywhere over the “festive” season owing to Coronavirus restrictions so I might as well make the best of it.

We don’t have much idea how things will work out next Semester. The politicians seem to be wanting universities to have more on-campus teaching in the New Year. They also want to end the current restrictions to end before Christmas. In fact the current regime is suppose to end on December 2nd, which is next week, and cases are still running around 400 per day. I don’t think they can do both of these and for the Covid-19 situation to remain under any semblance of control. I think the likeliest scenario is that cases surge over the next few weeks and the Christmas break and we have to go back into full restrictions in January or February.

There is however the prospect of a vaccine or vaccines being available fairly early next year so maybe the end of this is in sight. I really hope we can get back to campus normality at some point in 2021. I do feel very sad about the effect all these restrictions has been having on the students. It’s not just having to have remote lectures. I think having a lecturer in the same room is an advantage, but the loss of it is not the worst issue. We encourage our students to work with each other in their learning, and I’m sure students learn at least as much from each other as they do from the lecturer. Peer group learning is more difficult when your peers are sitting in separate locations most of the time.

Earlier today I found myself using the phrase “getting back to normal” in connection with plans for next teaching year. Then I realise that we staff know what we mean by “normal” but our first-year students don’t. I have a feeling that may might find it more difficult to adjust to the old normal than they did to the new one.

And in any case many of our students in all years did not take up accommodation in Maynooth at the start of this year because of the remote teaching. Even if we did on campus lectures or tutorials next term, I suspect many will stay at home anyway to avoid substantial cost of rented accommodation. We will therefore have to continue making material available online whatever happens.

Anyway, what may or may not happen next Semester is to a large extent out of my hands so I won’t be making any firm decisions on what approach I will be taking until much closer to the start of Semester 2 In the meantime the goal is to fight the exhaustion and try get through to the end of term in one piece.

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Eye on Burlington House

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on October 27, 2020 by telescoper

Having been forewarned of this story as soon as my copy of Private Eye arrived (this morning, owing to the Bank Holiday weekend) I headed straight to this:

It sounds rather alarming for the Royal Astronomical Society, which is currently accommodated in Burlington House in Piccadilly, but I do remember something similar being in the air not too long ago when I was a Member of RAS Council. The Government of the time threatened to increased rents and everyone involved with the RAS, including its Fellows, was a bit worried but an agreement was struck. Presumably now the leases are up for negotiation again?

It’s worth pointing out a few inaccuracies in the Eye piece.

  1.  “..the six Learned Societies complacently assumed they would continue to pay a peppercorn rent forever”. This is untrue as the rents have been renegotiated before (see above).
  2.  “The Royal Academy is still relatively flush….but the other five are effectively broke”. I don’t know anything about the others but I’d be very surprised if the Royal Society of Chemistry is “effectively broke” given the income from its academic publishing wing. It also has sizeable industrial income, as does the Geological Society. The Royal Astronomical Society has sizeable reserves in the form of a portfolio of long-term investments built up over the 200 years of its existence but it tends not to use them to fund expenditure; its main cash flow is provided again by academic publishing, especially Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This year – the bicentenary of its foundation – is a bit of an exception because it has dipped into reserves to fund a series of celebratory outreach activities.
  3. The description of “vast clubbable tearooms” is inaccurate too. The RAS occupies rather cramped accommodation in one corner of Burlington house. There is a Fellows’ Room but it is rather small. There are staff offices, a (small) lecture theatre and an important historical library. There are also the President’s Apartments (which I have of course never seen).

I wouldn’t put it past this particular Government to kick out the Learned Societies and outsource Burlington House to Serco but even if this does happen, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  In my view the RAS needs to shake off the fusty image that its current accommodation in what looks like an old museum tends to perpetuate.  It has always been the case that most of the regulars at the monthly Open Meetings in Burlington House are based in or near London, which means many Fellows don’t get the chance to be involved. Would it really be all that bad for the Royal Astronomical Society had to move? They may have to overhaul their finances anyway if their publishing revenues dry up…

Why not use the opportunity to move the Society out of London altogether to a place with a strong astronomical connection, Bath for example, although that would admittedly make it difficult to get to the Athenaeum in time for dinner…

And if “commercial rates” are going to be the thing for Government-owned buildings, shouldn’t the occupant of 10 Downing Street be charged for his accommodation?

 

 

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