No post since 14 February - what have I been doing all these weeks ? Well, I've been to the Hockney exhibition 4 times (and will go again next week). My RA Friends subscription has been great value this year and I've been able to take lots of friends and everyone has liked it. My favourite picture is this one:

I've spent time supervising students which has really been a pleasure as I have a bright bunch at the moment. Departmental admin stuff has absorbed more time, as has entertaining visiting speakers, all of whom were really good. An excellent workshop on writing bids run by Mike Wallace and Alison Wray gave me much food for thought  and will improve my reviewing as well as my bid writing.

I've worked hard on chapter 6 and begun on chapter 7. A long silence from my co-author ended when I received the draft of chapter 4 and she says she's almost finished chapter 3. I have some time in the coming week which I'd like to use putting it all together but I also want to finish the "Be careful what you wish for" paper so that I can submit it for a conference by the end of the week. The reading pile grows and grows - several useful chats with Thom identifying parallels between the private and public sectors in accountability issues have led me to more interesting work to explore.

My application for promotion to level 2 on the professorial scale was successful but the pay rise is paltry compared to the salaries of my peers elsewhere so I am still considering putting myself and my REFable outputs on eBay.

I had a letter published in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-bankers-pay-7561652.html
(scroll down)

This seems to have attracted some lunatic anti-feminist men who think my views support their prejudices, which is a bit scary, as well as a typewritten letter (long time since I've seen one of those) from an elderly lady, which seems to have no relevance to the topic.

I went to the ICSA conference but arrived late - fog led to the A40 being closed after an accident so I was stuck on the bus for 3 hours - and left early because of the ferocious aircon in the conference room. A very useful update on EU corporate governance developments made the trip worthwhile, though.

The weather has brightened up and Beanie the cat finally seems to be recovering from a very lengthy illness.
Much travel ahead: the trip to Vancouver in August is booked, as well as the weekend in Copenhagen in June and the Brussels workshop in May. I'll be at the BAFA conference in Brighton in April and it looks as if the research methods workshop will go ahead the following week.  

Onward and upward...