Fish tank at work

The university has jumped on the well-being bandwagon. We have a well-being champion now, and there is a miniature budget to do something to boost the School’s well-being. About a year and a half ago, I was involved in realising our first initiative; the School had bought a picnic bench, and I was one of the people turning it from flatpack into functioning bench. But we seem to get this money every year, so we were wondering what to do with it next. And one of my colleagues campaigned for a fish tank. And when the project got approved, he asked me if I was enthusiastic about it. Not really, was my answer. He was shocked! 

There were hurdles along the way! We wanted it in our coffee room, but that is on the second floor, and estates said that the floor wouldn't be strong enough hold the weight of the fish tank. I was surprised about this; robustly built humans exert more pressure on the floor, and that evidently goes well every day. Surely a fish tank that spreads its weight out over a larger area shouldn't be a problem? But the decision has been made. The fish tank had to be on the ground floor.

The first thing to appear, of course, was the tank. It had sand on the bottom and chunks of dead coral stacked up to provide some topography. And when that was all sorted, the fish appeared. I did enjoy checking for any new arrivals, put my heart wasn't really racing because of the little fish. But later, I heard that there was an anemone in there. That got my attention! The next time I walked past I had a look. And indeed, there was one hiding amongst the chunks of coral! That was fab.

Then an email was sent around, by the bloke who had campaigned for the fish tank. By coincidence, it was also the bloke who had won last year's cake competition. And he said that the first round of the competition was now over, but that week he would be making doughnuts to raise money for the fish tank. He wanted some soft-bodied corals in there, but there was no money anymore in the fish tank budget. And his doughnuts are famous! So that day I went to the coffee break, had a lovely doughnut, and gave generously.

Only two working days later I happened to walk past the fish tank again. And there were new creatures in there! That must have been the coral. I didn't expect them to arrive so soon. But now that thing has my attention. I didn't realise this type of invertebrate floats my boat a lot more than some admittedly very handsome little fish swimming around. But it's clear that that's the case! I'm happy now that we have this tank. I hope our little invertebrate friends will thrive in their new home. I think my well-being has been served well by this initiative, quite against expectation…

Handsome critter! Btw the human eye does not perceive the tank as this blue…

Another critter

Two fishes swim past a third handsome invertebrate 

The anemone gives acts de présènce

Fake references

Fake references shouldn't be a thing! Unfortunately, they are. I've had to call people in before, because they had non-existent references in their reference list. And generally, it turns out that the student in question had had an attack of bad time management, and basically panicked. And involved AI. Not a good idea! And given that it is marking time again, this is the time when that sort of thing might happen again. And it did.

In this case, I had to call two students in, and in both cases I had detected the issue myself. One student only had three references, and they were incomplete. And if it is just three, you might as well check. Especially as one of the references looked like something I should know about. But looking them up didn't work. And if it's a full reference, with journal, volume, issue, and page numbers, you can just look them up precisely where the student claims they are. But with just title, authors, year and journal, you can’t. I asked that student to send me the PDFs of the articles, in case they existed. Unfortunately I did not receive such PDFs.

In the other case, I just spotted a reference that surprised me. I know the author, and I thought the year was a bit early. Was he really already publishing about this topic in that year? So I had a Google. And nothing came up. They also were two articles by an author combination I hadn't seen before. I looked these up as well. Nothing. One of them was a complete reference, and then you can check these very page numbers in that very issue. And if it doesn’t match, you have conclusive proof that the reference is fake. I checked all the other references; the student had a lot more, and the majority fortunately existed. Four didn't.

I have no idea how often things like this slip under the radar! You can't possibly check all the references of all the assignments you mark. But we would normally mark assignments in our own field. And then you get this sort of things I had. An unusual year, an unusual combination of authors, an unusual topic, might all raise suspicion. I know I'm not the only one; I remember a colleague who had noticed that there was a reference to a paper of an author writing about a particular species of fish, and my colleague knew that this person did not actually study this fish. So I think we pick up quite a lot of this kind of things. But I will never know!

Well I never know? Well, I could of course do a test, and select a large number of assignments at random to check if all the references exist. If you check enough of them, you will get a statistically robust result. But this sounds like so much work! The idea is interesting, though. And it will be interesting to see if there is any pattern in what goes undetected. Hm! I might be onto something. I wish I felt I had the time to do this sort of thing. Because it is genuinely interesting to get an idea of the scale of this problem. And get a few clues on what we could do about it…

Last big teaching day of 2024

In one of my modules, we do student presentations. And that has to happen at the tail end of term. So quite often, it’s the last big thing. And big it got! There have been years with fewer than 20 students, and then it’s quite doable. This year we had loads. And then it’s such a long day! I had had to make the individual presentations shorter to fit it all in one day. 

The students uploaded their slides the Friday before. I just had time to make a schedule before I had to head for Main Campus. The presentations were on Monday!

It fit, especially given that I suspected there would be no-shows. There were quite some non-submitters. And there were two students who were allowed to record, and one who was not available on the Monday and presented the week before. 

There also tends to be an issue with the room. I remember one stone cold room, and last year a room with fine temperature but only wooden benches. This year we had a cold windowless room. Will we ever be comfortable? 

This year it went well. The level of the presentations was high, time keeping was generally very good too, and the students asked loads of questions. The students only had 7 mins each, but some had teamed up in twos and threes so they had 14 or 21 minutes for their group, and could go a bit more into depth. We had 26 students presenting overall. 

The non-submitters all failed to show up. But I later noticed that most of those were inconsistently registered. There is the module website where they submit their assignments, and the overall website with the module overviews, and they didn’t agree. So that’s a relief! A bit confusing that I now don’t know who is in my module, but probably, most of these absent people were absent because they were not actually on the module. A good reason! 

The only teaching I now still have is the presentations of my freshers! And then it’s done for 2024…

A transatlantic cable on the US shore in 1925; there were quite many talks about submarine cables

 

Another bike ride for exercise; fog edition

I'm still not running! So I still depend on my bike for exercise. And on my birthday I had been busy with other things, so the day after I decided to do the usual ride to the surge pond. And it was mild weather! But also quite cloudy.

I quite happily biked to the gate I had to lift my bike over. And then I had it for the reservoir taking the right turn to the surge pond. And then I quite quickly ended up with my head in the clouds. Which was okay! It is a bit of a pity you don't get to see the spectacular views, but there is something atmospheric about a foggy landscape.

In an hour I got to the surge pond. And after a bit of water drinking I turned around and went back. And going back is always quite quick!

The surge pond

No view; just fog

Some ruins near the road 

Ducking underneath the clouds again

Two weeks earlier I had taken my mountain bike out but I hadn't quite enjoyed that as much. (Not sure why I didn't blog about this but I clearly didn't.) It is December, the landscape is completely waterlogged. You spend too much time trying to not fall on your face in the slippery mud, and not enough making your heart and lungs work. So I think I will be dependent on my commuter bike for exercise for now. But that's OK! This is a nice ride, and I'm sure I can think of a few others. I still haven't done the full loop through Ogwen Valley and Peris Pass! That should get my blood flowing too…

Birthday walk and dinner

Sue and Dean were around on my birthday, and they were happy to do something. They knew Nick was not going to be available in the evening. And they suggested a walk and then dinner at their place. That sounded fab!

Not long after Nick left I got on my bike and biked to their place. And we pretty much immediately got into the car to make the most of the remaining daylight. We were going to do Cwm Idwal. A classic walk! We have done it for New Year's Eve as well.

It was slightly gloomy weather, with a fairly cold breeze, but we have seen a lot worse. And it was atmospheric! And by the time we reached the far end of the walk the light was very beautifully low. And we started to see little lights on the hillside. There were clearly several people out there on much more adventurous hikes than we were!

The start of the walk

Birthday selfie

Fading light; Picture by Dean

Light almost gone when we get to the gate! Picture by Dean

It was dark by the time we were back at the visitor centre. And when we got home I parked myself on the sofa. I hoped to radiate an atmosphere of harmlessness! The resident cats are notoriously shy, but I have had interaction with them before, and I was hoping that it would happen again. But my efforts initially spectacularly failed. The cats clearly thought I was terrifying.

We had a drink and some nibbles, and then sat down for dinner. Dinner was fab! And festooned with cake. And then we went back to the living room.

At some point I went into the kitchen to get another drink, and one of the cats was there too. This time she seemed to be so distracted by the fact that that is where food is served, that he didn't run away. She even briefly let me pet her! Success!

Altogether it was a lovely birthday! 49 now. Next year will be a big birthday. But let's not think about that quite yet!

Finally, a Penrhyn castle (birthday) date

I had never gone and properly visited Penrhyn castle. I had been there; there is a Parkrun there, and I have run that a few times. And once we went to have a coffee afterwards in the café. But that's it! And I felt I should go and see it. In a way, it is a hated building; it was built with the profits from slave labour on a Jamaican sugar plantation, and owned by the family who were hideous to the local quarrymen. It was also the owners of the estate who inspired the Great Strike, the longest industrial dispute in British history. I have heard several people say they think it should be razed to the ground. But I don't think so; you can't blame the castle for this. You might as well turn it to your advantage now it's here anyway!

I had intended to go and see it with Tim. And we were going to do that after a run. Then that was the run during which he broke his ankle. So we never went! And I was a bit superstitious after that; would Nick break his ankle if we would try to get to the castle? But that is of course an irrational thought.

He came to visit me the day before my birthday. On the actual birthday, he had a Christmas celebration with the dojo his son goes to, so in order to be there a bit during my birthday weekend, he came the Friday evening. And he was a true romantic flowers and chocolate. Unfortunately, he was rather under the weather. So I figured an indoor activity for the Saturday would be a good idea, and the castle was open, so we went! After a birthday breakfast with a present. A book with walks in Shropshire! We'll make good use of that.

When we got to the castle we first saw a few Parkrunners leave just when we entered. I found that a bit sad. I want to be a runner! But my time will come. 

The castle

We walked up to the castle and went in. We had a look at the larder, and then came into the kitchen. And there are a lady approached us. It was Janet! From the climbing club! It turned out she was a volunteer there, and guided tourists. And she didn't have a group, so she took us on. That was fab!

The kitchen

We got a tour of some of the parts of the castle that were meant for entertaining, and some of them that were private quarters. It was not as if the latter were not opulent! But there was a difference in the levels thereof. 

Janet told us a lot about the history of the castle, and the provenance of the materials used, and the life of one particular lady who had lived there: Alice Douglas Pennant. She showed us two places where she had scratched her name into the glass with a diamond ring! Quite an act of rebellion, but now a lovely historical artefact. 

Dining room

Staircase

When Janet was done, we did the traditional loop fairly swiftly and then went to have a coffee in the café. And a nosy in the miniature secondhand bookshop. And then we are good to go back again. After all, Nick would have to leave fairly soon. 

I was glad I had finally seen the castle! And Nick loved it so much he said he actually wanted to go back some other time to see more. And we were so lucky to bump into Janet! A lovely birthday surprise. Couldn't have gone better!

History of physical oceanography in Bangor

We normally have a Friday lunch seminar. It is either internal or external people telling about their research. I go if I'm not otherwise engaged, by e.g. teaching. It's quite nice to listen to talks about things that are a bit outside your own area of expertise.

This week was a special one; it was actually a public lecture by Tom, one of our professors in physical oceanography. And he was going to talk about the history of that subject within our university, which by now spans 60 years.

He started out with Jack Darbyshire, a local and very clever lad, who was involved in predicting waves within the context of the D-day landings. He seems to have been the first appointee in this subject in the brand new School of Ocean Sciences. 

He also spoke of the first research vessel that we had, and what research people did with it. And he mentioned another early researcher, John Simpson, that we seem to have headhunted from Liverpool right after his PhD, and who would stay on to become first professor and then head of school. He has long since retired, but is still active! And I noticed he was actually attending this talk online.

A whole parade of faces came past, including my old line manager James. And a lot of people who are still here. It was a genuinely entertaining and informative talk. I will even forgive Tom for calling benthic foraminifera (that were mentioned within the context of James) phytoplankton. They are neither phyto nor plankton!

He ended this with mentioning another local and very clever lad, my office neighbour Iestyn, who we recruited a few years ago now. We had come full circle!

I hope that in another 60 years’ time, the situation will be such that someone will again be doing a seminar like that. We have survived so far; made that long continue!

Tom standing by his opening slide. By coincidence, the backlit head in the foreground belongs to Iestyn