Adam J Taylor

Postcards from Lucerne

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:50:00 +0000

Postcards from Lucerne

"Little did I realise that the only reason why anyone listens to Front Row is that it comes on after..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:38:00 +0000

“Little did I realise that the only reason why anyone listens to Front Row is that it comes on after the Archers and the listener has forgotten to switch the radio off in time!”

- The Archers, my story of ridicule and belonging - Blottr

Zürich, looking east from the Lindenhof

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:35:31 +0000

Zürich, looking east from the Lindenhof

Postcards from Zürich

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:33:00 +0000

Postcards from Zürich

Josh Ritter — Why Featured on the forthcoming six-track...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Josh 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 the atrium of...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:45:39 +0000

It’s always great to hear the grand piano in the atrium of the med school being played.

"Around this time, I was summoned to London to meet C. P. Snow, the author of the classic series of..."

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:07:00 +0000

“Around this time, I was summoned to London to meet C. P. Snow, the author of the classic series of novels Strangers and Brothers, who was also a non-executive director of English Electric and who wished to meet a number of people still employed by the company who had been through the various training schemes; my appointment fell during his lunch break and I was interviewed as he consumed his sandwiches. I use the word “interview” advisedly because he was seeking answers to a series of questions and cut me short when I started to discuss something with him. I didn’t think much of him, although I have always enjoyed his books.”

- My grandfather on meeting C. P. Snow

It was a beautiful day to escape the doldrums of a Sunday in the...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:08:00 +0000

It was a beautiful day to escape the doldrums of a Sunday in the lab and stomp around the lake on campus with a friend. The relative scarcity of snow always makes it such a joy.

"Most of the rest, when one had tried to probe for what books they had read, would modestly confess,..."

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:03:00 +0000

“Most of the rest, when one had tried to probe for what books they had read, would modestly confess, ‘Well, I’ve tried a bit of Dickens’, rather as though Dickens were an extraordinary esoteric, tangled and dubiously rewarding writer, something like Ranier Maria Rilke.”

- 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, identical in race,..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:26:00 +0000

“For constantly I felt I was moving among two groups—comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same income, who in intellectual, moral and psychological climate had so little in common that instead of going from Burlington House or South Kensington to Chelsea, one might have crossed an ocean”

- C. P. Snow in his opening to The Two Cultures. Apt, having spent the evening at Burlington House

Candlemas

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:00:05 +0000

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

Lady, when I behold the roses sprouting, Which clad in damask mantles deck the arbours, And...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:20:00 +0000

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)

A little Martin Luther King, Jr. Day appropriate West Wing....

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:33:00 +0000

A little Martin Luther King, Jr. Day appropriate West Wing. Aimee Mann sings a beautiful version of James Taylor’s Shed a Little Light.

"Great love affairs start with Champagne."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:18:57 +0000

“Great love affairs start with Champagne.”

- Honore de Balzac (via caryrandolph)

Viviana Durante taking her curtain call at the end of Kenneth...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:38:41 +0000

Viviana Durante taking her curtain call at the end of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. Photo © David Secombe 1994. (via The London Column)

Escape to Attenborough Nature Reserve this afternoon.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:08:00 +0000

Escape to Attenborough Nature Reserve this afternoon.

Heading to Zurich in February!

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:21:34 +0000

Heading to Zurich in February!

English Pronunciation

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:46:44 +0000

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.

The bells of St James’, Audlem, ringing in 2012.

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:56:00 +0000

The bells of St James’, Audlem, ringing in 2012.

Josh Ritter — Empty Hearts Singing don’t let me...

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:36:30 +0000

Josh Ritter — Empty Hearts

Singing don’t let me into this year with an empty heart
With an empty heart
Don’t let me into this year with an empty heart

I may enter this year with an empty heart. I can only hope and pray that it I don’t leave it so.