Category Archives: Portrait

Poster day

Tuesday 14th December 2021, 10.10am (day 3,764)

The last taught class of the first semester, and of 2021. The students show off the ideas they’ve been working on in groups over the last few weeks — including, here, 3-D printing being used to create replicas of famous artworks that people can then touch and interact with, which seems a reasonable idea to me. It was an engaging, interesting class, and one that if I had listened to my paranoid employer, I should have hoiked online at 12 hours’ notice. But I didn’t listen, and the life of everyone involved was all the better for it.

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The ‘Bistro de Paris’ (Manchester version)

Saturday 4th December 2021, 6.15pm (day 3,754)

Mithila and colleague, 4/12/21

On 4th December 2020, a year ago, I had my one and only day of face-to-face teaching in the whole of the academic year 2020-21. The students last year had a difficult time of it for reasons that were totally (taken) out of their control, but most of them made it through. Including Mithila, seen on the left here, who as a result of having finally received her results, invited me to have a mulled wine on her at the Christmas market. Cheers, and well done all. (And hi to the colleague too, who clearly wanted to be in on the photo as well.)

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Home, with friends

Thursday 2nd December 2021, 6.15pm (day 3,752)

It’s nice to travel, but it’s also welcome to come home. Mr Steve Grey makes at least his 10th appearance on this blog.

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Tammy of Saint FM

Wednesday 24th November 2021, 8.00am (day 3,744)

Tammy, radio woman, 24/11/21

Tammy is clearly the driving force behind St Helena’s radio station, Saint FM (I could give you the frequencies, but you’re not going to be able to pick it up right now unless you are on a boat somewhere in the nearby South Atlantic). I was an interviewee not just once, but twice today — the first very early, so apologies to Saint listeners if I sounded a bit fazed.

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Gareth and Jamie bring essential supplies

Monday 15th November 2021, 2.40pm (day 3,735)

Gareth and Jamie, 15/11/21

The tape marks the legal limit of my world. But I have suppliers who can transfer across it some essential supplies, not least a couple of six-packs of Windhoek beer, from Namibia. Thank you Gareth — who’s also, in the end, the reason I am here in the first place (more on this next week, probably) — and his other half, Jamie. Dear St Helena Government: I didn’t cross the tape.

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Birthday person

Tuesday 26th October 2021, 1.10pm (day 3,715)

Clare on birthday, 26/10/21

As this blog cycles (seemingly endlessly) around the calendar there are certain fixed points, and 26th October is one of them — Clare’s birthday. Here she is celebrating it with lunch in the White Lion — her parents, my in-laws, unseen to the left. Happy happies to her: I shall demur from reporting the exact number, but it’s several years fewer than me, anyway.

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Hebden Halloween fun

Saturday 23rd October 2021, 12.35pm (day 3,712)

Shoulder pumpkin, 23/10/21

These two certainly look like they’re having a jolly time on their respective Saturday lunchtimes in Hebden Bridge. But perhaps they just feel about Halloween much the same as I do — it’s intrusive and over-the-top, and we could probably do without it.

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Colleagues

Tuesday 12th October 2021, 2.50pm (day 3,701)

Ahmad and Dina, 12/10/21

These are the people I have come all the way to Toronto to work with — because we all decided, no, we are not going to sit and try to interact behind screens. We needed to work together. Ahmad on the left, Dina on the right. They look kinda happy about the prospect, as I was.

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Late lunch

Monday 4th October 2021, 2.50pm (day 3,693)

White Swan, 4/10/21

Do I spend too much time in bars and cafés? Maybe it’s whatever Mediterranean genes I have in me. I was working, honest. This is a photowhack — the only picture I took today.

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The new students get thinking

Friday 1st October 2021, 12.10pm (day 3,690)

Masked students, 1/10/21

I regret the fact that they all still feel the need to wear a mask. I regret that so many of them have not yet been able to arrive, thanks largely to airlines ripping them off and governments (worldwide) still using Covid as an excuse to be mean to foreigners. But I’m still glad they’re here. This is only the second day in more than 18 months — the first being 4th December 2020 — in which I’ve been able to hold a face-to-face class. There seemed to be some work going on at this point.

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