May 2012
2 posts
The Adagio Espressivo from Beethoven’s...
April 2012
14 posts
“Do you remember the line in the Psalm – “Thy word is a lantern unto my feet” –...”
– Educationalist George Lyward. Featured in this evening’s Great Lives on BBC Radio 4.
2 tags
The history of reprogramming 3.0 →
Alexey Bersenev summarises the history of induced direct reprogramming (or transdifferentiation) by defined factors in vivo..
2 tags
Oh, child of delight! Oh, glorious hero!
Thou foolish lord of loftiest deeds!
Laughing must I love thee,
laughing welcome my blindness,
laughing let us be lost,
with laughter go down to death!
— Brünnhilde, Siegfried Act III.
Poster session 2032 →
“Paper‽”
It was good that the restaurant wasn’t quiet, so the postdoc’s interrobang didn’t distract the other tables nearby.
“That’s right. When we first went to Neuroscience, you had to print your poster on this big sheet of paper.”
Better Posters imagines the conference posters session of the future. “Easier, but not necessarily better” is a concluding line that rings...
Tim Morris on Doctoral Training →
Tim, a fellow member of the EPSRC DTC in Regenerative Medicine, writes an interesting commentary on his experience of doctoral training, in response to an article in Nature by Daniel Cressy.
Oh, you lovers everywhere,
who are parted and troubled,
or near and discordant,
go quickly to him who waits.
on the hilltops of your souls,
for there you will find peace, and your hidden love.
Let Christ always be
the third person at the feast,
the white passion at the bridal,
the constant companion on the road.
He is the ultimate answer,
and even now
is...
March 2012
9 posts
Camile Saint-Saëns. Romance in F major, Op. 36....
Francis Poulenc. Les chemins de l’amour
...
“Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me,...”
– John Keats writing to Fanny Brawne, 3 July, 1819.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the...
WatchThe Storm, from Act II of Rossini’s La Cenerentola
Having missed out on my Glyndebourne pilgrimage last summer, I wasn’t going to let this year escape. Hence the frenetic button pressing this morning in the rush for G<30 scheme tickets. As such, I am very much looking forward to putting on the dinner jacket, constructing an extravagant picnic, and enjoying the sunset over the...
WatchThe installation of David Mach’s powerful Die Harder in the sanctuary of Southwark Cathedral for Lent. It’s an amazing piece.
It was very moving to hear the wonderful girls choir at Southwark sing Evensong in front of it this evening Their Salvator Mundi (Tallis) was incredible.
WatchHillary Hahn and Josh Ritter play together back in 2008, recorded for NPR.
Girl in the War, Thin Blue Flame, Bone of Song, Paganini’s Cantabile.
“Science and art both teach you that you’ll never know really very much of...”
– Josh Ritter
February 2012
14 posts
“Little did I realise that the only reason why anyone listens to Front Row is...”
– The Archers, my story of ridicule and belonging - Blottr
WatchZürich, looking east from the Lindenhof
WatchJosh Ritter — Why
Featured on the forthcoming six-track EP Bringing in the Darlings (via Paste)
It’s always great to hear the grand piano in...
“Around this time, I was summoned to London to meet C. P. Snow, the author of the...”
– My grandfather on meeting C. P. Snow
“Most of the rest, when one had tried to probe for what books they had read,...”
– C. P. Snow in The Two Cultures on interviewing 40,000 or so scientists and engineers in the years during and after WWII. Particulaty noteworthy, as my maternal grandfather was one of that group.
“For constantly I felt I was moving among two groups—comparable in intelligence,...”
– C. P. Snow in his opening to The Two Cultures. Apt, having spent the evening at Burlington House
Candlemas
With certitude
Simeon opened
ancient arms
to infant light.
Decades
before the cross, the tomb
and the new life,
he knew
new life.
What depth
of faith he drew on,
turning illumined
towards deep night.
— Denise Levertov
January 2012
7 posts
Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting,
Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours,
And then behold your lips, where sweet love harbours,
My eyes present me with a double doubting.
For, viewing both alike, hardly my mind supposes
Whether the roses be your lips, or your lips the roses.
— John Wilbye (1575-1638)
“Great love affairs start with Champagne.”
– Honore de Balzac (via caryrandolph)
WatchEscape to Attenborough Nature Reserve this afternoon.
English Pronunciation →
A quite fiendish poem by G. Nolst Trenité on the vagaries of English pronunciation.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
December 2011
8 posts
The bells of St James’, Audlem, ringing in...
Josh Ritter — Empty Hearts
Singing...
WatchOur friendly bovine1 neighbours.
or is that cowine, Tim. ↩
WatchSidmouth, east of the Town Beach. Christmas Day, 2011.