Egad, it’s cold and wintry at the moment — at least by British standards — but it won’t go the whole hog and snow, which would at least give something outside to photograph other than this chilly gloom. The ‘fire room’ at the Railway is one of the warmest places I know which is why many of us congregate there after doing whatever it is we’ve done in the day. Like Navvy here, a regular visitor.
So, this is Peter Hook. Bass player with Joy Division (who then became New Order), the greatest rock band ever to walk the surface of the Earth. Playing in my home town. I could walk home afterwards. it was….. worth seeing.
The Raspberry Pi is a small computer which one can buy for £25 and is targeted at kids who can use it to learn programming. That’s it visible bottom right of centre, with all the wires connecting it up to the keyboard and monitor so you can see what you are doing on it — Mandy and Sarah Jane here were using it to compose a version of ‘Jingle Bells’ as it happens. It’s nice to get a shot of people being this engaged in a class…
Well, sometimes I have been known to work for my crust. My colleagues appear by now to be competing to make an appearance on this blog, Georgia complained audibly today that she’d never been on it — whereas Boris has, once before (in November 2011, a picture I still like). So there you go G — you made it…
Moscow was the destination of yesterday’s flight. I came here to attend this event, a forum involving some of the world’s greatest and most innovative educational thinkers, plus me. And this little darling, in the arm of her father Pavel, one of the organisers. What is she pointing at? The red rectangle which appears to be growing out of his arm? More likely the other delegate’s lunch. Don’t get used to pictures of Moscow — I’m flying home again tomorrow, though I am back here in two weeks.
The biannual trip to the tooth doctor is usually good for a pic — if only because it’s a well-lit activity. This is at least the second time Joe has been pictured mid-examination and I think I got one of myself in once, too. The next visit is in March, if you notice this kind of thing.
There is nothing to admire technically or aesthetically about this picture but this is one of those occasions where it makes it onto this blog because it truly encapsulates the day and tells a story. Back at the turn of the millennium I wrote my PhD on the work of this guy, Jürgen Habermas, who I — and a lot of other people — would say is the world’s greatest living political theorist. Largely through coincidence he was giving a public lecture in Stavanger this week when I happened to be here, so I got the chance, after all this time, not just to hear him talk but meet him and question him on his work. The musical equivalent (for me) would be to, say, have turned up somewhere random and found Ian Curtis or Jello Biafra giving a gig (and the former has been dead for 34 years). And another thing — Habermas is 85 years old but is also a brilliant advert for never ever retiring, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone his age who’s so hale and mentally alert, and also still obviously gives a crap about everything. Yes, we can say that today, I met one of the heroes of my life and was certainly not disappointed. Not bad for a Thursday.
Today was Joe’s last day at Riverside, his primary school. You may do things differently in your country but this is a significant transition point for us. And here are the rest of his cohort. I like the animation in this picture, a sense of the joy of today, as well as its deeper meaning. Good luck to all of them.
Another nice reason to come to Nairobi is the presence of some of my distance learning students, including Alessandra, pictured here on the right, doing her stuff for her company, the Cultural Video Foundation — check out their web site, they do some amazing stuff. Here she is interviewing a local artist for another project. And yes, that is an old double-decker London bus in the background.
Being 42 