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January 2021

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This gets to the heart of what many people seem not quite to get, even when I explain. The government rules are totally insufficient to protect the vulnerable. An immunology doctor said to me: ignore what the rules say you can do - you must /not/ contract this virus. https://x.com/mssinenomine/status/1355306348670459907

The JCIV document puts this well, noting that "Individuals considered extremely clinically vulnerable have been shielding for much of the pandemic. This means that available data is likely to underestimate the risk in this group."

The worst cases I have seen - not at my university, I should note (they have been good on this) - have been when HR depts have threatened vulnerable people who say it is not safe to return to work, citing government guidelines.

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Urgh. Google just recommended me an article in "The Critic" which, from what I can see, seems to be a culture war arm of the Con Party purporting to be about arts & culture.

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Hey! Can anyone help me please? I'm trying to identify what this type of plug is called so I can get a UK adapter. It says "type c", "AC120V", "4w", and "60hz" on it. It has 2 pins with holes in.

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I had an interesting discussion earlier with someone I respect very much but that demonstrates the complexities of delayed vaccine doses. They were arguing that, really, the vulnerable should be given full doses immediately before a population-wide rollout. Seemingly a good plan.

However, it's more complicated than that, from my own experience. I have secondary immunodeficiency, so my body produces a very weak antibody response. The vaccine is *not* likely to work very well for me. I need population-wide immunity for safety. Hence, it's tricky.

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Poor user experiences of our time: Blackboard Collaborate's "share" icon looks like "leave session" to me.

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This is good! Although it's less good that I will remain at severe risk of dying until... late April.

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In other news, I had research leave approved by my School/dept! I'll still be doing COPIM stuff but Autumn and Spring should give me a chance to get stuck in to other projects. Really grateful for this opportunity (which I've never had before, actually!)

I've had quite a lot of funded projects but never had our "statutory" research leave entitlement, at Birkbeck or at Lincoln. Well, that's about to change! Hurrah!

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Taught Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (twice) this evening. Really pleased that students noticed the narratorial misidentification of Joyce as "Brit lit" and some great readings of the last line "College has taught me this".

What did College teach the narrator?

* To quote Jane Eyre?
* Not to go for coffee with recently divorced older men?
* Not to fall into insinuated intertextual plot tropes...?

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The virtual waiting area for my video hospital appointment has recorded birdsong (and an annoying "hold" voice that lets me know I am on hold every 20 seconds).

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Just taken this little horror for a walk this AM as teaching from 6-9pm and have to pace myself. A lovely day -- it looks as though Spring is arriving...

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Really pleased to say that it looks as though my whole back catalogue of books will be OA in the not-too-distant future. _Password_ is just going through at the moment :)

Signed the contract for this this AM!

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My MA teaching this week is Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs. Lots on history, situation, class. Some lovely narrative inflections that cast doubt on narrator's representation of place (Joyce as "Brit lit").

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One of the best questions I had last week on PGR training was: "is it possible to have the good bits of academia without the admin and other rubbish?"

I didn't have a great answer.

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Thank you everyone for the kind words about our pet today. It feels indulgent at a time when so many are suffering so much to mourn small lives, but they are lives too.

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Oh no. One of our lovely guinea pigs died. I know it's trivial in this time of global suffering but quite upset by this.

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I put a block on my work emails over the weekend in an attempt to ensure some kind of work-life balance. All that has happened, really, is that I feel ultra-nervous about opening my inbox this AM and facing the undoubted carnage therein...

... and, actually, I felt a sense of nervousness all weekend about not knowing what was going on! I am bad at breaks.

... and there are, indeed, 163 new emails to which I must tend.

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The Janeway anonymization detector that I am writing now looks for author names in the document itself

Now detecting a set of English-language phrases that indicate document compromise. Will broaden this to allow editors to define the phrases.

Some nice indicators

... and we now tell authors what we know so they can correct

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I know we're all keen on seeing downward trending graphs at the moment but this is the first 4 weeks of my resolutions (I started before Jan 1st) to up the exercise, down the drinking, and eat better. Heading in the right direction!

Week 4

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Two good bits of music news this week. New track out v soon on limited edition tici taci CD and remix for charity release - supporting Shelter - accepted and forthcoming...

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Does anybody know why the semaphore signs for the more frequently used letters do not seem to be the most immediately obvious/easy?

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As promised, it's Saturday morning hacking on Janeway for me. After a brief frustration with Docker, I'm building in the metadata scrubber https://github.com/BirkbeckCTP/janeway/issues/1810

Metadata: detected!



Can now handle PDFs, too

Sadly, we're not going to be able to handle old-school .doc files and we can now detect that based on MimeType

Added a dump function so you can see all metadata

OK, so here's what I've got!

Click "Erase metadata" ...

The last step has been wiring it into the submission system, ensuring that new manuscripts are passed through and automatically cleaned

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On an emergency cover for a colleague, it's in with the Friday night teaching for me

Meta teaching.

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This morning I have finished writing an article-length study on which we began work in 2017. It's been a major undertaking but it will go off out the door for submission today! Hurrah!

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"Ministers are setting out plans to improve vocational education, saying it is an 'illusion' that degrees are the only route to success."

As usual, I'll believe this when 50% of ministers don't want their children to go to university.

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On healthcare economics and valuing lives

This week opened with the distressing news that Lord Sumption, supposedly someone whose judgement is entirely sound, having been a Supreme Court justice, had told a cancer sufferer live on air that her life was less valuable than others. Pretty disgusting stuff that, to me, seems to show a type of…

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I imagine it's a totally unoriginal complaint, but on the slim occasions when I need to use Windows for some work and it does this, I remember why I avoid it at almost every turn.

I AM OK FOR YOU TO STAY MESSY

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British Airways emailed me saying my air miles were about to expire and I thought: "that's bloomin' cheeky, I'm hardly going anywhere during the pandemic, am I?". Then realised that there is, in very small print on their site, a way you can spend it on champagne...

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I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little bit excited about being called for my vaccine this week.

*phone on loud*

even if it doesn't work as well for me...

I think I was a little ambiguous here. I haven't yet been called, it's just that we're now into my group...

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At some point soon I am going to open this Ardbeg Uigeadail and I'm looking forward to it already.

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Can anyone please recommend me a good starting point for reading on the function of phoneticised dialect in fiction? (I am particularly interested in the power dynamics of authorial condescension across any class, race, gender, disability, or other identity axes.)

sorry, I should have specified: I mean literary critical articles/books that examine how this trope works

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Today's furore re. orphan works exception being lost has _direct relevance_ for an @openlibhums conversation today. Tracing authors of back issues articles in order to make them open and we can no longer rely on orphan status.

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Spent the end of today preparing a lecture, which was a much needed intellectual break from the many hours of admin this week. Now time for a cycle, then it's the weekend! (of marking essays...)

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The tl;dr version from the hospital for patients with primary or secondary immunodeficiency (me!) came through today. It's basically: it's unclear whether it will work well as you'll theoretically only have T-cell immunity, but get any jab you are offered.

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A more exciting book purchase this week than the DeLillo, about which I've heard bad things, is @RichardJeanSo's Redlining Culture, about which I've heard only good...

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Thanks US conference for assigning participants based at a London institution to present at... 11pm.

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Today's craft creation from Mrs Eve was painting up this cupboard and putting on a fabric backing

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Since everyone seemed to enjoy the knitted moosehead so much - joy in out dark times! - here's another of Helen's creations. A mole!

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The Telegraph praises "resourceful people [who] have been able to take advantage" of leftover vaccination doses.

Goes on to say: "I called the hospital 54 times until they put me on the vaccine waiting list".

This person used up 54 phone-calls worth of NHS administrative time.

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On a workshop this AM and out came a painfully salient point. We have legal deposit for preservation of all our academic books. It's absolutely unusable at the moment because everything is shut.

@melissaterras @pmgooding

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Very pleased to have been able to divert the royalty payments from Close Reading with Computers to @VersusArthritis

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We watched the National Theatre at Home Cherry Orchard this evening. Cheery viewing for our times.

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It's OK, though - I suspect Matt Hancock is, at this moment, outsourcing the vaccine rollout to his friend whose only business experience was once running a burger van.

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The BBC on risk of NHS collapse: "It's a situation that health services around the world are facing".

Except it isn't. Many nations with comparable population sizes opted to eradicate the virus, not simply to avoid their healthcare systems being overwhelmed.

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Can anyone please recommend me good people on contemporary Beowulf adaptations? We have a submission that needs peer review and are struggling to find someone...

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Appalled at the virus stats in the UK and our incompetent response vs, say, Vietnam. Astounded by events in the US, watching with horror. I wish it were possible, as Candide might have it, merely to cultivate my own garden.

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I've almost finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but the problem this evening is holding such a heavy novel with such inflammation in my hands. Brings new meaning to the phrase "a painful read".

It's still incredibly good.

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I wanted to reduce my drinking to 3x nights per week and think I have come up with the perfect schedule. Hint: it's not "limit it to weekends".

Monday: you need it
Wednesday: you want it
Friday: you've earned it

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Awoken this morning with my rheumatoid arthritis flaring. Lots of people struggle to understand that autoimmune conditions like RA ebb and flow without discernible cause. Yesterday I cycled 20 miles. This morning I can't use my right hand due to excruciating pain. So it goes.

Right foot, too, it seems

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Well, I'll just stay home, not go anywhere, and not see anyone. As it has been for almost a year now.

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At a grim time, I a distracting myself by preparing my first-ever lecture on the novel that led me into academia. I would go on to write undergraduate, masters, and doctoral theses - and a book - on Pynchon, but I have never lectured on him until this term!

and I'm listening to ABBA while I do it.

@JulietEve

I vividly remember Sam Halliday teaching me this novel as an undergraduate in 2007. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sed/staff/hallidays.html



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“Play the game” is the advice oft dispensed to Ph.D. students who want academic jobs. Publish in the right places and don’t waste your time with extraneous activities. But what if the game is rotten and intellectually bankrupt? https://excursions-journal.sussex.ac.uk/index.php/excursions/article/view/298/239

What if playing the game isn’t even enough? What if you get before an academic hiring panel and it turns out that everyone else had also just played the game?

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Just seen guidance issued to primary school governors, instructed to open the school and to "increase the perception of safety".

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Had to read it twice when I got a home insurance renewal quotation from @BritishGas that was actually cheaper than last year's, without having to phone them, threaten to leave etc.

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113 emails over the Xmas break is not too bad, I guess, but it's going to take me a little while to handle them...

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A note, relevant for the pandemic: most people prescribed biological immunosuppressants in rheumatology or gastroenterology are *not* adequately told how immunocompromised they are. I nearly died of pneumonia a few years ago & immunology fell off their chairs when I was referred.

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You really do not need a Ph.D. in literary criticism to interpret our PM's statements.

'Boris Johnson said there was "no doubt in my mind that schools are safe".'

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It's great that the one person in the country who is supposed actually to *know* for certain what future laws will be couches this in probabilistic terms.

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I have submitted the Warez book

I have, today, submitted the manuscript of my book, currently titled Warez: The Economic Aesthetics and Alternative Reality Games of the Topsite Scene to the publisher! It's been a monumental effort over the winter break to get this finished and ready to go after a tricky workload spell owing to a…

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Reading Peer Review is published today!

On the same day as I submitted my next book manuscript, I am pleased to be able to say that Reading Peer Review, my 7th academic book, has been published by Cambridge University Press. The book is open access and available at CUP or in BIROn.

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I understand that informed people are divided over the debate on delaying second vaccine dose and there isn't consensus. What I dislike about it, though, is that it's the most vulnerable people's lives that are being gambled on, albeit in an effort to protect them. So difficult.

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Love how a Telegraph's editor's response to being accused of publishing misinformation is: "we publish a range of views".

Perhaps they should consider not publishing the ones that advocate for 1000s of deaths on the basis of contrarian sentiment from people who know nothing.

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Finished the penultimate draft of my ninth book this morning! Have just pressed "go" on the final bibliography generation in Zotero and can now safely go for a three-hour cycle or something while it processes.

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Almost at the second draft of the book. Currently writing about Fastlink and Operation Higher Education.