Anus Horribilis – my Winterval message

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Well, it’s been basically a rubbish year.

We’ve said goodbye to too many people: David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yeltsin, Elie Wiesel, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn, Fidel Castro, Eric (my cousin’s partner) and John Glenn spring to mind. But the death that has affected me the most is the loss of my father in October. Here’s how it went, according to Facebook: Continue reading →

Stranger in a strange(ly digital) land

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Understanding Digital Policy was the title of an unconference I was at this week. (It was at an outpost of the University of Liverpool in central London – hence the title and illustration for this post.)

Although it was billed as covering

  • How is policy shaping the uptake and use of Digital Media and Technologies?
  • How are Digital Media and Technologies shaping policy making and policy implementation?

it went much further than that, into how will and how should policy be shaped, and what research should be done. This was at least in part due to the organiser, Simeon Yates, leading the the ESRC Ways of Being in a Digital Age team, and so being highly influential on research directions.

You can jump straight to my personal reactions if you want, but here’s how the day progressed. Firstly, we found interesting and/or kindred spirits by writing our own ‘about-me’s, looking at each others’ and deciding who we wanted to work with. Continue reading →

Splitting the difference

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Until now, I’ve had one Twitter handle for both my research and my personal tweets, namely @myceliumme_CC. This handle was also used to auto-tweet both from this personal blog and my research blog. It’s now time to split these streams:

  • If you’re interested in my research, please note that @myceliumme_CC is about to become @Bruce_research.
  • If you’re interested in what I do away from work, please follow the brand-new @BruceRyan_rants.

There’s nothing to stop you following both!

Update

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It’s been an interesting few weeks, to say the very least. The day after we arrived back from holiday (2nd October), my brother phoned to say that our dad was seriously ill and that Elly and I should come south as soon as possible. We got there that evening, to learn that he is terminally ill. The following Friday he was admitted to hospital, then discharged after a few days into a nursing home. I’ve written – and will continue to write – about this on Facebook.

Elly had to come back to Scotland about a week after we arrived, while I got back here on Wednesday 19th October. I’d done all I could to ensure that dad is comfortable, and to try to ensure that the rest of the family are as OK as can be under the circumstances. I need to record here how excellent the rest of the family, including Elly, have been.

I spent Thursday catching up on personal admin, then spent Friday at Napier preparing for the project I’d been due to start on 10th October. I’ll write about this in my research blog, while my senior colleagues and I will put weekly updates on our Community, Knowledge, Connections blog. Just now I’m catching up on personal administrivia while awaiting news from Worcester. All of my own blogs auto-tweet links, so you could follow me on Twitter.