A protest about being given a Friday afternoon lecture slot (don’t worry guys — it’s not every week)? The payoff from that Student Disintegrator Ray that I have been secretly developing? No, I just sent them out to take some photos of stuff. All part of the thinking process…
Professor Ernest Rutherford, originally from New Zealand, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908 even before he conducted, with Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, the famous experiment where a bunch of alpha particles were fired at a sheet of gold and some of them bounced back, which Rutherford allegedly said was like firing a missile at a sheet of tissue paper and having it come back and hit you. From this was established the existence of the atomic nucleus, not to mention the original Geiger counter. For this reason Prof Rutherford is one of those former ‘Employees of the Month’ that the University of Manchester likes to big up. But in this case, why not? (Incidentally the room in which this experiment took place is still there, although no longer a laboratory — last time I looked it could be booked as a meeting room.)
In the last of my taught classes last year, it took about three-quarters of an hour (or felt like it did) for all the students to get their shots with teacher that then go onto social media, somewhere. (And, see also 2022’s version of same.). As I am, essentially, a grumpy man, I insisted that this year I would do it on everyone’s behalf. Apologies to those whom I have eclipsed.
There have been very few shots of my 4,858 so far which have been taken using the self-timer, but there have been some: any of the astronomical efforts (e.g. this shot of Jupiter and its moons, of which I’m still quite proud) will have used it. But I’m sure this is the first where I’ve used the timer to take a photo of myself, with or without others, and used it as the daily picture. So there you are, this is what I look like when I’m not taking a photo.
Conferences are not the most exciting arena photographically, but at least this photo proves I am here to work — or at least, to listen to the outcomes of other people’s work.
I am not often to be found at work after 5pm — not ‘in the office’ anyway — and heaven forbid that uni’s now seemingly random system of allocating timetable slots gives me a 5-6pm class next year, or any other year. I can feel the ennui even when spying on them from across the corner of the Ellen Wilkinson Building.
Another one of those shots that is basically an attempt to achieve some kind of perfect symmetry. Of course we are all imperfect beings so once again I cannot quite achieve it. I did wonder about asking the bloke at the back to move one seat to his left but perhaps he is the essential element that sets off everything else. Taken about fifteen minutes before our group presented at the conference — a few more people than him did turn up, honestly.
It’s the last class of the semester, and the done thing among students now is “get a photo of themselves with the lecturer” at this point. I acknowledge this but it did require leaving at least 20 minutes at the end of the session so the ceremony could take place: what you see here is the queue after at least half of them had already had their time. I was feeling like a cardboard cut-out of myself by this point, although not an unhappy one. Here I said, ‘right, I’m taking a photo of all you lot while you wait to take a photo of me’… and this is the result.
The Beyer Building‘s exterior has featured before. It was constructed in 1887, meaning this lecture theatre basically reflects assumptions about pedagogy from 135 years ago. And it looks pretty much the same as lecture theatres still do, only with many fewer plug sockets. Alex awaits my talk at 9:30; there were a few other people in the room by the time I started (honestly).
A trip away to Indonesia might seem to offer a wealth of photo opportunities, but it’s a work trip — and the more that I do this kind of thing the more I realise that universities look much the same the world over. A Monday morning class, a decent turnout — but no one ever breaks the golden rule: Thou Shalt Not Sit In The Front Row.
The first class of the year, which as it usually is, is with newly appointed Manchester staff and not students. Which is why it was not quite so hard to get them talking to each other. I am pretty sure there are 42 people on this shot, fitting nicely with the (long-outdated) title of the blog… and that without too much cropping (OK, I did a bit).
