Being out and about is very pleasant, very interesting and very tiring. I always collect a pocketful of business cards (I wonder if anyone has researched business card design?) but establishing new relationships requires follow up emails and while I'm out and about my inbox fills up rapidly. Even the ability to deal with email on my phone makes little difference, other than raising my awareness of all the catching up I shall have to do when I get back to base, since I often can't easily access the information I need to answer queries raised.
So Thursday morning was spent catching up with Wednesday's emails, following up with new contacts and trying to complete the reading for Friday's meeting. Back on the bus to London after an early lunch and, as on Wednesday, transferring onto the tube at Hillingdon proved to be a good idea - it seems that there have been traffic problems on the A40 all week. At Chartered Accountants Hall, a meeting with my part-time PhD student to check progress on completion of her registration paperwork and to catch up with her working life in internal audit in financial services. She has also been elected deputy president of her professional association which will keep her busy but provide lots of opportunities for finding interview subjects. She seems to have people around her who are very supportive of her doctoral studies which will be a great help to her. We are both addicted to stationery so as usual we compared notes on notebooks and pens.
A chat with the ICAEW research manager about Friday's meeting which could be complicated and then off to the IT Faculty annual lecture which one of my colleagues helped to organise. He has become something of an expert on open data and was concerned that there seemed to be no accountants considering its implications so I suggested that he talked to ICAEW who responded very enthusiastically and decided to make it the topic of their annual lecture, asking him to suggest a speaker. The very lively and charismatic Rufus Pollock gave an excellent overview of the subject and we were then given a very pleasant dinner. I caught up with people I had last seen at conferences in far-flung places like Venice and Segovia and met some of the faculty members. Back to the splendid Hoxton hotel for the night.
Up early and back to ICAEW, stopping at the cheap bookshop in Moorgate en route to search for bargains - they had some very interesting but huge coffee table type books greatly discounted but too heavy to carry home on the bus. Resisted popping over the road to Hotel Chocolat for free samples - even with my great liking for chocolate, I can't eat it at 8.30 am!
Checked email in the Business Centre (it's very convenient to be able to do this but I do still miss the old Members and Guests room with its big sofas and old men dozing in corners...) Students with queries: one who is not enjoying his course and wants to change but doesn't say what he isn't enjoying or what he wants to change to; another who seems to want to go back to his home country as soon as his exams have finished in December - no problem with that except that his English is so poor that it is difficult to be sure that this is really his query; and a Masters student telling me that he has a medical resit for his dissertation which is puzzling. I spend some time trying to track down the appropriate rules that could have led to this but have no success on the university web site and eventually forward the message to a colleague who may know more. A flurry of discussion about agenda items for next weeks research leaders' meeting reveals some unexpected issues and possible misinformation but no time to dig further. A couple of useful chats with passing technical staff who I haven't seen for some time before the start of the research board meeting which is lengthy, as usual, but not as difficult as I had anticipated.
A fascinating discussion about the future of accounting as an academic subject: the view from a post-1992 university is rather different and I think quite surprising to colleagues from the other side of the fence where they are only just catching up with some of the issues we have faced for a long time, such as the need to recruit staff wit a professional background who may not have a PhD. Of course they don't know about the annual research methods workshop designed many years ago to meet the needs of such people - well, one of the members present did because he had been a keynote speaker one year but I found myself shuddering at the thought of any of the others taking on that role...
Lunch included crème brulee in tiny glasses but no spoons to eat it with: it had a runny consistency and I was entertained by watching how people dealt with this. Difficult to eat custard with a fork so some of them drank it. An interesting gossip afterwards and then off home. Too tired to head for the bus to Victoria so took a very extravagant taxi - the traffic was heavy so the fare was high but if I travelled to London by train the total travel cost would still be far in excess of the bus and taxi fare combined so I feel justified. I think ICAEW get good value from their expenditure on me but I do find myself occasionally donning my member's hat and wondering about this. (I've asked other staff who are also members whether they too experience this conflict but they look at me as if I'm mad...)
Back home to entertain an overnight guest, a colleague who lives some distance away and has to be on campus very early on Saturday for an open day. Husband produces an excellent meal.
Spend the weekend catching up with domestic chores. The highlight was Saturday night - went to see Hot Club of Cowtown, fantastic as usual. First saw them at the Old Bag Factory in Goshen, Indiana in 2007 ( a memorable evening in more ways than one: darkness in Amish country makes unlit buggies a driving hazard unlike any other...). See them at http://youtu.be/Jr8My5Uo0gE
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