Nick Gibbins

Dispatches from the War on Clutter

Since we had our loft boarded and smartened up a few years back, we’ve been merrily using it to store away the things that we don’t need from day to day, or which don’t belong in the library. Unfortunately, it’s starting to get a bit full in there (what with ‘s sewing stuff, my tools, Xmas decorations, the ‘s baby clothes, our suitcases, and so on), so we’ve been planning on putting some of Mr Kamprad’s fine modular shelving solutions up there (specifically the GORM range). Now, I could just have gone up there with a tape measure and an… Read More »Dispatches from the War on Clutter

How I spent my Sunday afternoon…

…by Nicky Gibbins, aged 36 and 23/24ths. One kitchen roll tube, some white card, some grey card, some red and orange tissue paper, and an awful lot of glue. (and that’s the only opportunity I’ll get to play with it, since the is most clear that it is now “my rocket”)

A different class of fool

I wonder whose idea it was to get together a bunch of undergraduate friends and brand each other with a branding iron fashioned from a coat-hanger. A branding iron, moreover, with the initials of their hall of residence. I know that I got up to some damnfool stuff as an undergraduate, but this is really quite special. There’s more at the BBC and in the Exeter student rag [PDF]. “Rootez C Block 4 Life” (and yes, I know I owe a few posts – one on my trip to California over the summer, a Pete Fenelon Memorial Top Five, and… Read More »A different class of fool

Lawn Order

Had a good night out last night – and I went to see The Proclaimers at the Guildhall (while lovely auntie stayed in to make sure that the wasn’t going to trash the house). On the drive back, we were just past the Shooting Star on Bevois Valley when a rather-the-worse-for-wear bloke started to amble into the road in front of us. I sounded the horn and braked. He, on the other hand, stood in the middle of the road with his arms spread to block our passage. Fine. I braked to a halt and beeped him again. He dropped… Read More »Lawn Order

Working on the chain gang

So this is how it goes. We live in a 1930s mid-terrace built by the Swaythling Housing Society to a Herbert Collins design. This is not a “Collins House” – it was built as social housing, and was subsidised with the profits from Collins’ more up-market developments. It is clearly of a lower build quality (the cement render hides some rough cinderblock brickwork) and smaller dimensions than the posh houses on Orchards Way (as will attest), but the design is good, and some aspects of the build are remarkably good. One of the good points is the downstairs floor. The… Read More »Working on the chain gang

Three Law Compliance

The is generally a good lad, but he often gets a little excited or frustrated, and when he does he has a regrettable tendency to hit people. We’ve just been moving some of his toys back into the living room, into the wheeled boxes that I’d built with a little bit of IKEA bricolage, and he ended up running around with one of his old toy boxes on his head while shouting “robot!” And then he hit me. Not a hard blow, and not one borne of malice, but the sort of roughhousing that we’re trying to get him to… Read More »Three Law Compliance

His parents’ child

The and I were slightly late picking up from her weekend desk duty this lunchtime. Why? He was watching something on the television, and refused to leave until he saw the end. Nothing special about that, you might say, but what had captivated this particular two year was Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man. When we collected , he then regaled her with an description of the chase through Vienna’s sewers. Attaboy, kid.

Academic roundup

The season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and academic upheaval is upon us. Freshers’ Week is almost over, so I’m gearing up for the final course leaders’ induction talk tomorrow. Meanwhile, some PhD students are leaving and others are joining. I said goodbye to Albert this morning, who has finished his corrections and is now heading back to Hong Kong (and thence to Japan for a job with NTT Research). Very cool work on collective semantics which has garnered quite a bit of interest from the community, most recently this piece in the Communications of the ACM. I have a new… Read More »Academic roundup