Well this is nice. Today Occam’s Typewriter opens a new cornershop, so to speak, at the Guardian. For me, this closes a social media circle that started over four years ago because I can trace my entry to the scientific blogosphere to the time I heard someone called Jennifer Rohn talking about ‘Lablit’ – literature threaded with science and scientists – on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast.
Earlier this week I had an interesting email from Jesse Shore, President of Australian Science Communicators, about a blog post I wrote back in 2010. Jesse has kindly agreed to let me post our brief correspondence so I’ll let him take up the story. To which I replied: To which Jesse came back: I very much agree with him: something to build on for sure.
On a grey day back in October I made my way along Albemarle Street to the Royal Institution for the filming of DemoJam, a lively and light-hearted program of science produced by Jonathan Sanderson and the rest of the gang at StoryCog for the new RI channel.
This week I got to visit a part of London that is for me a hallowed place – the offices of The Guardian newspaper. I was participating in a workshop for the people who had been short-listed for the Wellcome Science Writing Prize, which is sponsored by the Guardian , and so made my way to its large glass headquarters behind Kings Cross.
This is shameless, shameless self-promotion but I was interviewed back in May by Carl Carruthers for his Meet a Scientist Monday podcast, which has gone live today. The interview was long enough ago for me — being of advanced years — to have forgotten what I’d said, so I’ve just had a listen.
Last night, having rounded off a busy week with a day of manual labour helping to repair my mother-in-law’s kitchen floor, I retired to bed early with the newspaper. Saturday’s Guardian , if you want to know. It was delightful. I hadn’t taken the time to read the paper for ages and was pleased to rediscover that singular pleasure. Unfortunately, it’s a pleasure that is unlikely to endure.
Today sees the release of my new film: I’m a Scientist . It’s about scientists. Please take a look either here, or on the web-site that I have created specially for it*. The film was a long time coming.
The job of a newspaper columnist is to agitate and George Monbiot did exactly that last week with a furious rant in The Guardian about academic publishers.
Today sees the release of the new trailer of my latest and most ambitious film project. In doing so I am following the sound advice of Richard Hamming and forcing my own hand. With the trailer now on public view, I will definitely have to finish the film. The video started life in the midst of bloody battle — when I was a participant in the online competition I’m a scientist, Get me out of here back in June last year.
In UK scientific circles and the wider realm of academia impact has been around for a while now. Grant forms incorporate large blank spaces in which applicants are required to outline their plans for ensuring that the work they hope to do will have impact.