Critic Cal

[Edited to add (31/03/2020): Two and a bit years since writing this, my unexpectedly drawn-out relationship with university has now, finally, for the time being at least, come to an end. But that part of the story is for another day.] I wrote recently about my  university days  – lessons learned (and unlearned), people met, struggles faced (or fled). Except of course, in spite of my undergraduate malaise, those days haven't technically finished yet ... I've just moved from one university to another, switched fields, raised my qualification level, and meandered recklessly into perpetual postdoctoralism. Still, change has this way of happening around me and at me in spite of my best efforts to avoid it. And this season is one of endings and new beginnings in the group where I work – including talk of an en masse removal from the uni building we've been based in since before I joined to some off-site offices just down the road. In nostalgic tribute, here is a poem –...

When The Snowden Revelations first broke in late May 2013, I couldn't help but notice his date of birth: June 21, 1983. A mere 20 days away from my own. Which means that we were both of us in the messy process of turning 30 when it happened. My experience of said process inclines me to conjecture that it may not have been altogether without bearing on his decision to go public. A costly act of selfless bravery, or a desperate bid for significance ahead of a conspicuous personal landmark? Or, if my own (far less internationally consequential) attempts at 'meaningful' adult life are anything to go by, a complex blend of both ...                 A CRITICAL AGE                 And it came to pass in his thirtieth year                 He found t...

No, not the Dining Cryptographers Problem (that sounds rather too much like the sort of thing I should be writing about, now that I'm officially 'writing up'). Rather, I refer to a recent outing with the wonderful research group that is nurturing me through my PhD, the experience of which struck me profoundly enough to depart slightly from my 'usual' themes and turn temporary restaurant critic. And so I give you: the 'all-you-can-eat' buffet. All the flavours of the world on one plate...and when you reach shiny ceramic - in that pause before you go up for more - a mirror to your soul. What a worthy service - forcing us to hold our appetites up against our actions, throwing into sharp relief a fundamental characteristic of the human condition: the stark contrast between what we want to do and what we do. Of course, we all have our different battles, and perhaps it is just me after all…but every time I set out with the intention to ignore the invited...