L.D.Durbin just pointed out that you can listen to the Varjak EP on LastFM. Didnt know they had finally put it up…

(and those who emailed me, I hope to get to the post office sometime this week).

Been quiet around here… I contracted some old fashioned, hardcore food poisoning and its taken me two weeks to even approximate towards normal. Grrrrr. Lots to catch up on.

I spent a lot of time over the past week aimlessly surfing the web from my sickbed, catching up on blogs and feeds and news. I’d love to share with you some hidden gems I discovered, but to be honest… a lot of the information overflow was just a little bit…. Meh. Celebrities I have never heard of (there seem to be more and more to fill the voids in internet content), cliched writing, and Gies a job I can do that artwork. Which probably says something about me – I probably need to retreat from the interwebs, knuckle down for a few weeks to make up for lost time, and you know, pick up an academic book or something once in a while, now my brain is cranking up again.

But still. Some fun things along the way if you fancy wasting some time:
Lady Gaga as architectural cipher,
When the heroes from your teenage years totally disappoint,
Why change perfection (and gies a job I could do better),
A wealth of design info,
a fun start to the day,
know your onions,
when crafts go bad,
big in japan.

And now, cold turkey from random interweb travails. I have an overview journal paper, chapters to edit, and courses to plan (including the start of lecture writing for next term…) this week. Rationed interwebs! Rationed twitter! Rationed f’book! Nose: Grindstone!

I would write *sigh*, but the truth is I’m glad to be back.

meant to post this ages ago – taken at Shepreth Wildlife Park, near Cambridge.

So, everyone knows that there’s not much money in academic publishing, right? Well, not for the authors, anyway. You write a book, and if you are lucky get it published by a good publishing house, and are thankful for the rewards it brings you in tenure/promotion, but dont expect it to be the next Harry Potter. Short run single author monographs have a different purpose in the world than that, and mostly end up on library shelves, if on any shelves at all. The contract you sign means that the books have to sell enough to pay for themselves being made, before you see any money back at all. So, we dont do it for the money, right? (But try explaining that to non-academics. “yes, I worked 4 years on my thesis, and another 2 years on turning it into a book, and no, I’m not getting paid….”)

I’m really proud of my two books (see right): and I love to see them on my bookcase. I once had the pleasure of seeing someone on the tube reading Image to Interpretation! (Well, I did know them, and we were on the way to the same academic conference, but still). I’m also proud, in this day and age when we keep hearing tales that academic publishing is going down the dumper, that I managed to crank out a couple of physical books (and three more are hopefully on the way, although edited collections, in the next year) before it becomes harder and harder to do so.

But this week, through the snail mail, oh wonder of wonders. A royalty cheque! From OUP! For the sales of Image to Interpretation over the past two years, which has now sold enough to net me…

£23.91!

I want to buy something I can enjoy and or/ keep with this. Perhaps a reference book – but which one? perhaps a nice bottle of something. So, dear blog reader, anything to suggest?

I’ll be on BBC Radio 6 at 8.50! sitting here at my computer waiting for the call…

So tomorrow morning (weds 29th July), guess what? guess what? I’m going to be interviewed on BBC 6 Music, between 9 and 10am, on the Shaun Keaveny show, about the wonders and delights of working in a shed. Seriously! How random is that? You can probably listen again, should you want to…

In case you wondered what it looked like, here is a picture of my lovely shed.

For a few years there, I did a lot of music. I was in various bands, played piano in bars, and recorded various things. From 1998-2004ish I mostly worked with my mate Thom Falls, on a project we called Varjak. We released our first 4 track EP at the start of 2002 on our own “voxel” label.

I’m still proud of it – got some good reviews, sold enough to cover costs, nice to have pulled something together. Electronica, with melancholy vocals. I dont know if they are the kind of songs I’d write now, but as a point in time – its a good record of where we were at. We’ve still got an album’s worth of material kicking around that needs tidied up. Life (house moves, proper jobs, partners, babies) kind of got in the way – and its probably time to think of revisiting it – or just revisiting music – all again. After all, we have the darkroom studio at home, and its just a time and energy thing that is stopping me…. (“just” a time and energy thing!).

I dont need to tell you how much the music industry has changed in the past 10 years. We wouldnt bother pressing up a cd now (although, how much fun? mastering a cd and going to the plant to get it pressed up? holding it in your hand?). I’m pleased to say I’ve finally got my act in gear, and Varjak: So Called Science is now available on emusic for cheap purchase online (and should be coming to other online music stores soon).

But I’m still left with a couple of boxes of CDs under the bed, and lets face it, they aint going anywhere. So here’s the deal – if you email me (m dot terras at ucl dot ac dot uk) with the subject line “CD please!” and give me your address, I’ll pop one in the post to you, whilst supplies last! Cant say fairer than that!

Crikey. I had better think of dusting off the varjak website at some point too. Ach, that can wait.

Last week was a busy one. I know that some folks check in here to see what academics do – so here’s what I did.

• Monday – in my lovely shed at hame, writing, editing, catching up with email, catching up with admin. Started my next paper which is due in for the Arts Libraries Journal regarding emergent issues and digitisation.
• Tuesday – Much of the same. In the shed. Making the camera ready copy for the book based on the DHQ edition, and working on editing the two volumes that I’m doing with Brent Nelson from Saskatoon, on digitising medieval material and textual culture.
• Wednesday -off to Oxford Uni, to meet with various members of the team from the e-Science and Ancient Documents project.
• Thursday – off to Roman Silchester, to hang out at the archaeological dig and catch up with things regarding the VERA project. The sun did shine, but no treasure was to be found that day, alas.
• Friday – off to Antwerp. Work and play that one, to catch up on the TEI By Example project, and see Edward Vanhoutte and family, and have a good gossip about various digital humanities things.

So there you have it. This week I am in my shed the entire week, so hope to make good progress on all three books and write two journal papers. There is not much routine round here to speak of, so when weeks like this happen once or twice a year, its full steam ahead…

Regarding the post below – just got a letter in from the Advertising Standards Authority. As I suspected, not within their purview. But they very helpfully suggested trading standards addresses I should contact. Will continue to keep you posted!