Diary Index

Monday 10th September, 2001

16:23h

This entry comes to you from the lecture theater of the European Muscle Conference in Pavia, Italy. The university buildings seem quite old, and are pretty in a completely different way from the spires of Oxford. See Pavia section of the photography pages for a few views of this city.

There is a social dinner tonight, which should be nice. Then M's talk is tomorrow. After this conference, we'll be setting off for a few days of camping around Italy.

This brings me to my big news. Soon after we return from Italy, I'll be setting off to start a Computing Conversion MSc at Oxford Brookes University. So, I'll be starting over again, for the second time - though this course is only 1 year long. This should hopefully turn me into Arthur Bullard, BA (Oxon), MSc (Brookes), and slightly better qualified to carry on with a career in computing or biocomputing.

Thursday 13th September, 2001

23:28h

Another entry from inside a tent - this time for the night we're camping after the conference, in a campsite very close to the sea - curiously enough, named "Campsite an den Meer" - clearly visited by a lot of Germans.

The food we had while eating out in the evening after the conference was excellent - especially the meal we had on the last night.

The news which no-one can escape this week is the bombing of the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon by persons unknown. From first hearing about it in the coffee break of the meeting, to obtaining mirrored copies of the downed news websites from OxIRC people, to seeing video footage from every conceivable angle that night on CNN in our hotel, this has been a shocking experience, viewed almost live on TV.

I feel a very great impact, however, comes from the first still photographs of the aftermath I have seen - black and white ones in yesterday's Telegraph. These capture in a single moment the twisted wreckage of buildings, and the expressions on people's faces.

That's it for tonight - about to start watching Hannibal on DVD.

Friday 28th September, 2001

10:19am

This is my first entry after enrolling at Oxford Brookes to do a 1 year Computing MSc course. So I sit typing this in the Wheatley Campus computer room, having driven out today to an introductory lecture, which I then found out was actually in Headington, 8 miles away. The problem, which several other people had, was caused by room numbers both in the Turing building here, and the Tong building in Headington, beginning with T. Oops.

Ah well, gives me time to sit here and use the free internet, and wibble into this diary.

I went to see the film AI last week with Phil, Andrew and Malcolm. It's a good film, and one I wouldn't mind seeing again in the cinema. Spielberg's direction in this film has a few nice Kubrick touches. Quite a long film, but worth seeing.

I also have a second car now, to prevent the Morris from being driven into the ground by commuting to Wheatley every day (and, I suppose, to work after I finish). It's a 1996 Rover 100 Knightsbridge. Very nice to drive. Expect a photo in the cars section before long.