Among the new requests, with very short deadlines:
A message from the editor of the journal I've been associated with for many years asking for a letter which can be sent to academics in Australia and New Zealand who are being encouraged to support the upgrading of the journal in the ANZ journal rankings. This has to be on headed notepaper. Now, I had a copy of the letter template on my PC and it must be somewhere among the files transferred to the Mac but I don't know what it was called and even the excellent Mac search feature couldn't find it. and after some time searching fruitlessly I realised that in any case the template I had saved probably predated the most recent rebranding. A quick attempt to search the university website drew a blank so i made a note to seek expert help at work on Friday.
A request from colleagues in France to review and advise on an abstract for a paper they plan to submit next week for a conference in England in the autumn. The topic is not one that I know much about but I want to be helpful: they are charming people who work at the French business school with which we have an ongoing link and they are former practitioners who are trying to develop stronger research profiles. But it's not my area so I decide to ask a colleague who knows more about it if he can give them some feedback, and hope that he will reply quickly to my email request. (He did, this morning, and he will. Result.
A further email relating to a request for information for a web page for potential doctoral students. The research component of the Faculty web site is an ongoing saga: the university web page structure has been designed in a way that makes it very difficult to make logical links that would make navigation easy and we have a variety of audiences to address so the same information has to be presented in different ways. To respond to this request I need to collect information from several people so I send off further requests. One colleague replies almost immediately, bless her. The others will interpret "as soon as possible" in their own way.
And from Another University a request to review some papers for REF purposes. I was anticipating this and the five papers look interesting but I know they need the feedback quickly so these have to go to the top of the reading pile.
And a request to examine a PhD at a university in the north of the country (do I want to examine a PhD that has only a very peripheral connection to my areas of interest so would probably require a lot of work, in a place a long way away where I know no-one? This invitation does not appear to offer any of the possible incentives that compensate for the derisory fee examiners receive: the chance to learn something from an interesting thesis, to visit a pleasant place and catch up with old chums)
And the papers for next week's ICAEW research advisory board meeting, more weekend reading.
This morning I attended my last research leads meeting. The chair made very kind remarks about this and it was a good meeting which generated some interesting ideas. And while I was in the meeting my inbox filled up with more requests, some of which seem impossible (how can I give approval for something about which no information is provided?) But I did remember to ask for advice on accessing the headed notepaper so now I need to write that letter...
I arrived home to find the NOOK I won in a prize draw on Twitter had arrived. After this and the book token from the Guardian I hoped that the third win might be a big won so I bought a Euromillions ticket on Tuesday. Sadly, no luck.
Thanks to my two readers for their encouraging feedback. And to one for this:
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