I was in Edinburgh for the Festival between 11 and 15 August. Amongst many shows I saw, I caught up with a group of Brasenose undergraduate leavers on 14 August who were watching James Akka in an interesting late-night play called Redacted Arachnid. He put in a strong performance.
We are thrilled that Professor Eamonn Gaffney, Tutorial Fellow in Applied Mathematics, has received a Recognition of Distinction from the University and that our alum Ravi Gurumurthy has become the Chief Executive of NESTA, having just finished as Head of Innovation at the International Rescue Council in New York (where I had tea with him in July).
Whilst walking on Hadrian’s Wall in August, Suzanne and I were in the Roman Army Museum when we saw our own Professor Chris Timpson with his family. We also visited the wonderful Vindolanda exhibition which has multiple Brasenose connections since two generations of Birley who set it up came to the College. Professor Alan Bowman, my predecessor, deciphered and translated all the writing-tablets there and is presently working on new discoveries.
We are delighted that Sarah Jackson will be giving our Equality Lecture on 13 November at 5.30 pm in the Amersi Foundation Lecture Room. Sarah has just stepped down as Chief Executive of the pressure group Working Families She is going to speak on family and equality issues including how women’s place at work has changed since the 1970s, the drivers for this – social, demographic, business, government. I have heard her speak and am sure we are in for an excellent evening.
On holiday I have been reading Seth Abramson’s Proof of Collusion about Russia and Trump; The Club by Joshua Robinson; Democracy Hacked by Martin Moore; The Big Four by J Gow and C Kells; Collapse by Jared Diamond; and White Working Class by Julian Gest..