Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts

Monday, July 24, 2023

Portsmouth, Salisbury, and the Isle of Wight--photos

 

where we stayed in Portsmouth

Portsmouth harbor area 

the Bridge Tavern and the famous Spinnaker Tower to the right


Portsmouth harbor area

the HMS Warrior in Portsmouth Harbor 

Salisbury Cathedral

Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight

scenic view on the Isle of Wight


the Isle of Wight has its own white cliffs

scenic view on the Isle of Wight


scenic view on the Isle of Wight


Friday, July 21, 2023

Traveling along the southeast coast of England

We've always wanted to tour the southeast coast of England after having watched some tv shows that detailed different train trips along this coast, and decided to do the trip by car rather than train at the beginning of July. We planned it such that once we arrived in Portsmouth, we would travel along the coastal roads (basically route 259) to Brighton and Dover. Our start point was Oslo; we took the overnight car ferry from Oslo to Kiel, drove westward through Germany into the Netherlands (Holland) to Rotterdam, where we took the overnight car ferry from Hook of Holland (Stena Brittanica) to Harwich UK. From there we drove to Portsmouth where we stayed at the Red Lion inn/pub for three nights. We then drove onward to Brighton, where we stayed at the King's Hotel for two nights, and then we drove along the coastal road to Hastings where we stopped at the First In, Last Out pub for lunch. We then drove onward to Dover where we stayed at the Royal Oak inn/pub for two nights. Our trip back to Norway was via the Eurotunnel in Folkestone and then a long drive through Germany up to Kiel, where we took the overnight car ferry back to Oslo. 

We explored Portsmouth the first day we were there; our hotel location was right across the street from the bus connection to the downtown. Portsmouth is an old port city with a long naval history; it has been a major Royal Navy dockyard and base since the 12th century, and is known for the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. We walked quite a bit around the downtown part of the city, as we always do when we come to new places, and then headed out toward the harbor area, where we ate lunch and walked along the harbor boardwalk. The ferries that travel to the Isle of Wight leave from this area, and we decided to take the catamaran out to the Isle of Wight on one of the days we were there. The Isle of Wight is such a beautiful place, well-worth visiting; we took a bus tour around a good portion of the island. On another day, we took a trip to Salisbury to see the old cathedral there, and then to Bath so that we could visit the Roman Baths (I've seen them but my husband had not). Unfortunately the city was inundated with tourists and the wait to get into the baths was around two hours, so we opted not to do the tour. But it was a gorgeous day in England so we weren't that disappointed. 

We then drove on to Brighton, where we stayed for two nights. The day we arrived, we walked for miles around the city, along the beachfront and then into the city itself. My husband took a swim in the ocean; the water was fairly warm. The beach is not composed of sand, but of fine water-worn pebbles. Unfortunately, it was extremely painful to walk on them (at least for me) as I discovered when I walked down to the water's edge, so I ended up sitting on the beach watching my husband swim. We ate lunch and dinner at Pinello's restaurant (very good Italian food), a restaurant very near the hotel. The following day we took a bus tour around the city, which was smart because it rained that day and we were inside the bus when the torrential rains hit. But they didn't last long and when we got off the bus we walked along the Brighton Palace Pier, which is a type of amusement park on the pier, with arcades, shops, casinos, rides, cafes and deck chairs. Fun to see, but mostly for the younger crowd. Again we ate dinner at Pinello's and met a young couple (Darren and Jasmine) and their three children. It was nice to talk to them and we traded contact info on the off chance that they visit Oslo at some point. 

The following day we drove along the coastal road to Hastings where we had a great pub lunch at the First In, Last Out pub (of Foyle's War fame according to my husband). We then drove on to Dover where we stayed two nights. The first day we walked around the area of Dover where the hotel was; there was a very lovely park/garden nearby called Kearsney Parks/Russell Gardens that we spent some time in walking around. The following day we visited Dover Castle and the White Cliffs of Dover, both of which were impressive in their own ways. 

I will post some photos of our trip in my next post. We very much enjoyed this trip and look forward to returning to England in a few years to visit Cornwall and the southwest coast. 

Here is the map of our travels: 










Saturday, December 6, 2014

How a scientist's worth is measured in academia

I promised myself that I wouldn’t post too many work-related pieces anymore, mostly because there’s so little about modern workplaces these days that is positive in my estimation. Most of the posts would just be depressing. You might think that 'noble' academia would be somewhat better than non-academic workplaces that are simply out to make a profit, but you'd be wrong. After reading this article online yesterday, I simply had to comment on it, as depressing as it is. It is a tragic real-life story of a gifted scientist in England named Stefan Grimm who simply couldn’t take the pressure of the ‘business of science’ anymore and committed suicide (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/imperial-college-professor-stefan-grimm-was-given-grant-income-target/2017369.article; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2861588/Professor-dead-cash-row-Cancer-scientist-said-told-fellow-academics-chiefs-treated-like-s.html). Before he did, he wrote an email to his colleagues telling them about what had happened to him and how his workplace had treated him. This incident took place in England, but I can assure you that the ‘business of science’ in Norway is no different. Universities and research institutes treat their scientists in much the same way; the only difference is that universities here cannot fire their scientists for not hauling in huge amounts of grant money, because scientists are unionized and that affords them some protection. But if they could, universities and research institutes would fire scientists without money because they are a drain on the workplace; it doesn’t matter if they have years of expertise, if they are professors and can teach, or even if they write articles and publish frequently. This country is no different than any other westernized capitalistic country in the world when it comes to worshiping money, even if it likes to think otherwise about itself.

For those of you who romanticize the world of academic scientific research, this article should rid you of any notion that there is anything idealistic or even noble about academic research these days. There isn’t. Firstly, it’s BIG BUSINESS now, and it’s been big business for a while. Money is the operative word. Those who make it to the top and gain power, those who are ‘successful’, are those who drag in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in grant awards. In other words, your funding is ALL that matters; it defines your worth in your workplace—period, and if you don’t get funding, you are worth nothing to your workplace. Even if you got funding five or ten years ago, not one person who sits in a leadership position cares about that or even cares enough to remember that; the ONLY thing that matters is: did you get funding this year, this month, this week? And did you get a lot of funding? What is the innovative potential of your work and can it make us money? Are you patenting your work? Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with the idea that a workplace should benefit financially from the research of its employees if their work leads to a profitable drug or treatment, for example. But it’s gotten way out of hand in reality.

Secondly, there is subtle AGE DISCRIMINATION being practiced. I know scientists who were once productive, with small research groups working on interesting topics, who no longer get research funding. Why does funding suddenly dry up? It’s certainly not a gradual change; rather it is an abrupt one. Why do good scientists who once got decent funding, no longer get any funding whatsoever? One possible reason is that they are now middle-aged (late forties/early fifties for most of us; but in Norway, you are old at 53, and I can find many articles that corroborate this). These middle-aged scientists no longer get any financial support whatsoever, not from external granting agencies nor from their universities or research institutes. They get their salaries and that’s it. It borders on idiocy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you don’t get funded, you don’t get students. Without students, you have zero chance of getting substantial research done. Without research data, there are no publications, and without publications, you have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a grant award. After several years of this vicious circle, management steps in and tells you that it’s your fault you don’t get money, when in reality it’s not. In many cases it is age discrimination, albeit subtle. It could never be overt; think of the lawsuits. You simply reached the magic age at which point you are old and no longer ‘worth funding’. The problem of course is that you cannot retire with a good pension at 53 years of age. So you hang around your workplace hoping your luck will change. Everyone involved knows it won’t. It goes from bad to worse. Years go by with the same results; there are no publications and now management wants to know why there has been no progression in your work. What can you say? It’s merely survival of the fittest; you’ve seen the nature programs where the young males attack the old ones for control of the tribe or the harems. The same occurs in academia; once you’re labeled as old, you’re finished. You are punished for growing old.

Thirdly, if you are not designated as the absolute BEST OF THE BEST, CREAM OF THE CROP, you are finished in research these days before you even get started. Academic research science is beyond elitist at this point; it’s more like trying to make it through the proverbial eye of the needle. Almost no one manages that. Young people do their PhDs and then move on to something else; few to none are offered a post-doc position in any given research organization (http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/may/23/so-many-phd-students-so-few-jobs). One or two may end up as the 'chosen ones', the ones that management deems worthy enough to bet on. The reason given is that they are the brightest of the bunch, but often it’s nepotism in action—those that move upward are often simply those who are management’s favorites. They are the ones who are granted the academic career opportunities. They join the networks that management has laid out for them; all involved know that this is the key to gaining grant funding, since colleagues in those networks often work in positions that have enough clout to ensure that those networks get funding. They may not review the actual grant applications, but they have a say in the final prioritization of grant applications that have been recommended for funding by external reviewers. 
  
Finally, many universities now take on far too many PhD students, knowing full well that there are no careers for them in academic science, and knowing full well that they cannot offer them any sort of job future. It’s irresponsible behavior. But there’s money involved, so that makes it ok in the eyes of the universities. PhD students come with a specific sum of money for consumables and small expenses, and additionally, if you are the primary adviser, you get a tidy sum of money for having been an adviser, once the student is finished. Additionally, more students means more hands in the lab to do the research work. Who is going to turn that down? And who is going to be honest enough about the lack of academic career opportunities to tell potential PhD students to consider another profession because there are no jobs for them once they're finished? I do it as a senior researcher, but very few others do. I've said it before but it bears repeating; there are better, healthier and yes, nobler ways of earning a living and making yourself useful to society. Find them. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. This is the email that Stefan Grimm wrote to his colleagues before he committed suicide, including the link to the article that published it. 

Begin forwarded message:
From: Stefan Grimm <professorstefangrimm@gmail.com>
Date: 21 October 2014 23:41:03 BST
To:
Subject: How Professors are treated at Imperial College
Dear all,
If anyone is interested how Professors are treated at Imperial College: Here is my story.
On May 30th ’13 my boss, Prof Martin Wilkins, came into my office together with his PA and ask me what grants I had. After I enumerated them I was told that this was not enough and that I had to leave the College within one year – “max” as he said. He made it clear that he was acting on behalf of Prof Gavin Screaton, the then head of the Department of Medicine, and told me that I would have a meeting with him soon to be sacked. Without any further comment he left my office. It was only then that I realized that he did not even have the courtesy to close the door of my office when he delivered this message. When I turned around the corner I saw a student who seems to have overheard the conversation looking at me in utter horror.
Prof Wilkins had nothing better to do than immediately inform my colleagues in the Section that he had just sacked me.
Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?
All my grant writing stopped afterwards, as I was waiting for the meeting to get sacked by Prof Screaton. This meeting, however, never took place.
In March ’14 I then received the ultimatum email below. 200,000 pounds research income every year is required. Very interesting. I was never informed about this before and cannot remember that this is part of my contract with the College. Especially interesting is the fact that the required 200,000.- pounds could potentially also be covered by smaller grants but in my case a programme grant was expected.
Our 135,000.- pounds from the University of Dammam? Doesn’t count. I have to say that it was a lovely situation to submit grant applications for your own survival with such a deadline. We all know what a lottery grant applications are.
There was talk that the Department had accepted to be in dept for some time and would compensate this through more teaching. So I thought that I would survive. But the email below indicates otherwise. I got this after the student for whom I “have plans” received the official admission to the College as a PhD student. He waited so long to work in our group and I will never be able to tell him that this should now not happen. What these guys don’t know is that they destroy lives. Well, they certainly destroyed mine.
The reality is that these career scientists up in the hierarchy of this organization only look at figures to judge their colleagues, be it impact factors or grant income. After all, how can you convince your Department head that you are working on something exciting if he not even attends the regular Departmental seminars? The aim is only to keep up the finances of their Departments for their own career advancement.
These formidable leaders are playing an interesting game: They hire scientists from other countries to submit the work that they did abroad under completely different conditions for the Research Assessment that is supposed to gauge the performance of British universities. Afterwards they leave them alone to either perform with grants or being kicked out. Even if your work is submitted to this Research Assessment and brings in money for the university, you are targeted if your grant income is deemed insufficient. Those submitted to the research assessment hence support those colleagues who are unproductive but have grants. Grant income is all that counts here, not scientific output.
We had four papers with original data this year so far, in Cell Death and Differentiation, Oncogene, Journal of Cell Science and, as I informed Prof Wilkins this week, one accepted with the EMBO Journal. I was also the editor of a book and wrote two reviews. Doesn’t count.
This leads to a interesting spin to the old saying “publish or perish”. Here it is “publish and perish”.
Did I regret coming to this place? I enormously enjoyed interacting with my science colleagues here, but like many of them, I fell into the trap of confusing the reputation of science here with the present reality. This is not a university anymore but a business with very few up in the hierarchy, like our formidable duo, profiteering and the rest of us are milked for money, be it professors for their grant income or students who pay 100.- pounds just to extend their write-up status.
If anyone believes that I feel what my excellent coworkers and I have accomplished here over the years is inferior to other work, is wrong. With our apoptosis genes and the concept of Anticancer Genes we have developed something that is probably much more exciting than most other projects, including those that are heavily supported by grants.
Was I perhaps too lazy? My boss smugly told me that I was actually the one professor on the whole campus who had submitted the highest number of grant applications. Well, they were probably simply not good enough.
I am by far not the only one who is targeted by those formidable guys. These colleagues only keep quiet out of shame about their situation. Which is wrong. As we all know hitting the sweet spot in bioscience is simply a matter of luck, both for grant applications and publications.
Why does a Professor have to be treated like that?
One of my colleagues here at the College whom I told my story looked at me, there was a silence, and then said: “Yes, they treat us like sh*t”.
Best regards,
Stefan Grimm


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Classic postcards of Cambridge and Cambridge University

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my father was stationed in England during WWII. I recently sorted through correspondence and photos belonging to my late parents and found a set of 'twelve hand coloured postcards of the latest local views' of Cambridge, a city my father visited in January 1944. I scanned them in and am posting them here. He wrote on the back of one of the postcards that he had 'seen all these places'. There are two different messages from the Prime Minister of England that alternate on the back sides of these postcards. The first is "This is a time for everyone to stand together, and hold firm!"; the second is "Let us all strive without failing in faith or in duty". Words of inspiration from Winston Churchill, who was the prime minister (the second of three) during the war.














Friday, July 12, 2013

A poem by William Wordsworth


I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 


(written in 1804 by William Wordsworth, when he had seen the daffodils blooming around Ullswater Lake in the Lake District)

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A walk around Derwentwater Lake

The eight-mile walk around Derwentwater Lake in the Lake District took us about four hours to complete, with a few stops along the way to rest, appreciate the beautiful landscape, watch the ducks, take photos, and consult the guide book. I didn't want to hurry my way through this lovely walk. We started out at the Derwentwater Marina and continued counterclockwise around the lake, ending at the Theatre by the Lake (for a good idea of the walk route, scroll down to see the map: http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/171987/Derwentwater-LUG-2012.pdf).

Derwentwater marina





mossy tree roots--look like green feet





Derwentwater cruise on a Keswick launch 











For more information about Derwentwater Lake, you can visit: http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/visiting/placestogo/explorederwentwater. And for information about the Keswick launch cruise, go to: http://www.keswick-launch.co.uk/

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The magic of Keswick and the Lake District

After leaving Cambridge, we drove north and then west to the Lake District of England--into Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Coleridge country. A sense of magic pervades this part of England; it’s the feel of the place--unstable weather, hilly landscapes and mountains, pristine lakes, shifting clouds, the greenery, the sunlight and the way it infuses the colors of the hills and the sky with a certain vibrancy and crispness. The drive into the Lake District is a pastoral scene unto itself; gray stone farmhouses dot the landscape here and there, and sheep abound.

About sixteen million tourists visit the Lake District each year; July and August are presumably the busiest months since most people have summer vacation then. We visited the Lake District the week before summer vacation officially started for most of Britain, which enhanced the experience for me because we did not have to deal with masses of people at all junctures. On our eight-mile walk around Derwentwater Lake, we met perhaps a total of twenty other walkers during the four hours it took us to complete the walk, which suited me just fine. I liked the feeling of having the lake almost to ourselves. There is a wildness here that feels untamable; it emanates from the geographic nature of the land. I liked the feeling of undisturbed nature about me, of wandering down to the water’s edge and looking out over the vast expanse of lake, of stopping to listen to the wind blowing through the trees, of just being a small part of it.

It’s hard not to love a place that has small towns with names like Bowness-on-Windermere, Ambleside, Grasmere, or lakes with names like Buttermere, Ullswater, Derwentwater, Windermere, or mountains called Helvellyn, Scafell and Skiddaw. We stayed three nights at the Lairbeck Hotel (run by Malcolm and Jennifer Hutchinson) located on Vicarage Hill road in the town of Keswick (the ‘w’ is not pronounced), a short walk from the town center. The Lairbeck is a lovely Victorian country house hotel that enchanted me from the moment I walked through its front doors and into the vestibule (http://www.lairbeckhotel-keswick.co.uk/homepage.html). Jennifer greeted us and showed us to our room, the School Room, which had a window seat with a view that overlooked the beautifully-kept garden. A window seat! Anyone who knows me knows that I always wanted my own room with a window seat when I was a child. Our stay here was pleasant and relaxing, with friendly hosts and a great breakfast in the dining room with a garden view to look forward to each morning.


scenic view from the front of the Lairbeck Hotel






The Cumbrian market town of Keswick is a find in all ways, with lovely scenic views and a variety of interesting boutiques, pubs, cafes and architecturally-interesting houses. And of course the meals at several different pubs; the food was consistently excellent (in our opinion). The first night we ate at The Inn at Keswick (http://theinnkeswick.co.uk/) in the town center; I had the Cumberland sausage and mash, and my husband had the lamb hot pot.The following nights we ate at the Pheasant Inn at Keswick (http://www.pheasantinnkeswick.co.uk/), right down the road from our hotel. I tried the Lakeland beef and Cumberland ale pie, and my husband ate the Fish Pie—both were excellent, in addition to the variety of beers available. The homemade tomato soup was also excellent.




We were not in Keswick long enough to do all the walking tours I would have liked to do (only two days), but we did manage the Derwentwater Lake walk as I mentioned above, which took us about four hours (I'll post photos from this walk in my next post). Besides this walk, we drove down to Bowness-on-Windermere on one rainy afternoon and through the towns of Ambleside and Grasmere (home to William Wordsworth). We did not manage a visit to Dove Cottage where Wordsworth, his wife, and his sister lived, although we did visit The World of Beatrix Potter attraction in Bowness-on-Windermere. This was not her actual home though; she lived at Hill Top farm in Near Sawrey, Hawkshead, Ambleside; on a future trip to the Lake District, Hill Top farm and Dove Cottage will be two of the first stops. Beatrix Potter was an impressive woman; world-famous author of children’s books and a wonderful artist, but also an astute businesswoman, who owned fourteen farms and four thousand acres of land in the Lake District, which she willed to the National Trust when she died. It’s not hard to understand why this area enchanted so many writers, poets and artists. I definitely want to return here and explore it some more. 

On our way to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where we took the ferry to Amsterdam for our return trip home, we drove through the outer edges of the Westernhope and Middlehope Moors, in the area near Stanhope, a small town located on the north east side of Weardale. This was a rather unexpected detour, as our GPS somehow pushed us in this direction in its quest to get us to Newcastle via the fastest route. Driving over the moors was breathtaking but also a bit spooky. You could see for miles--desolate and rough land that stretches out forever in all directions. Not another car to be seen for miles. If you broke down out there, you could probably wait for hours for help. Again, there were many sheep out grazing on the moors, and some of them had come right up to the edge of the road, which made driving rather hazardous at times; my husband found it stressful. Driving this stretch of road in the dark would not be something I would like to do. We made it in one piece (and without a car breakdown) to Newcastle and reached our ferry on time. Now at home a few days later, the magic of the entire trip remains with me, happily so.

The surreal world we live in

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