Nick Gibbins

I live in Southampton. I am a postdoc researcher in academia. I earn somewhere in the region of £25K. I do not own a house. The thought of buying a house at today’s inflated prices fills me with terror, quite frankly. As a consequence, the ramblings of idiots like this are apt to provoke apoplexy in me. How on earth can he be earning £45K, live in shared accommodation, and yet have only £5K in savings? There’s plenty there for mortgage payments and a pension – what on earth does he spend the money on? How can he have failed… Read More »

Took yesterday off work because the marvellous was in Bath for the day, and I’ve seen far, far too little of her over the last few years. Spent the day being a native guide with , and showed and her Texan friends around the city. I hope that it made some sense, and that the cold wasn’t too much. Took them to the revamped Cadbury’s Cafe (now Cadbury’s Cocoahouse) in Bath, which was rather better than it had been before. Decided to go for the manly drink, so had something that called itself “cocoa liquor”, resembled a cocoa-based espresso, and… Read More »What I did on my holiday

No, this isn’t an attempt to help exorcise her earworms; if I thought it would help, I would have suggested The Tokens singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight, but I suspect that they’re weaker than the awesome combination of the Princess Di version of Candle in the Wind and T’Pau’s China in your Hand that she’s currently infected with. I would certainly never suggest that she tried singing some terrible anthrax-like (the bacillum, not the band) Disney dirge. But I digress… Instead, this is one of those “My god! I’ve just glimpsed the True Nature of the universe…and it’s all joined… Read More »It’s a small world after all…

Just had a phone call from the head of department at Manchester – I didn’t get the lectureship. He said that it was a “two horse race” between myself and the internal candidate (Sean), and that it had been extremely close (they’d originally wanted to get the decision out last Friday, but had to deliberate further until today). Surprisingly, I’m not at all bitter about this. Sean’s a bloody strong candidate (and, to be brutally honest, a stronger candidate than myself) and in many ways is the natural for the post. Time to start preparing for the Edinburgh interview next… Read More »One down, one to go

and I won’t be at the Flo this evening, since I’ve got my formal interview at Manchester tomorrow where I’ll be facing a nine-person panel. Gulp!

Waaa! I’ve just managed to drop and break the handle off my favourite mug (hefty big white item with blue chinoiserie carp) which I’ve had for almost the last ten years. This mug served me well at Nokia, in Edinburgh and throughout my time here at Southampton. I know that I could epoxy the handle back on so that it would last a good few years more (providing I don’t run it through a dishwasher and treat it kindly), but it might not be the same. Perhaps I should just retire it and put it out to pasture as a… Read More »Sic transit gloria mug

I do believe that I’m coming down with a cold. My, what exquisite timing.

Almost every academic conference and journal that I’ve submitted my work to has required that a different style to be applied to my paper. This is less trouble than it might sound, since I use LaTeX to typeset my documents, and it does most of the work for me. The exception to this rule, however, is the Web conference, which requires an XHTML version of the paper in addition to the PDF, and by XHTML I mean a version that adheres to their particular use of element class names (for linked CSS stylesheets) and is valid XML. Unfortunately, no existing… Read More »Jumping through hoops