Who's been sleeping in my porridge?

Has anyone else noticed that we have a new transport minister?

And that since we've had a new transport minister, the following have been announced:

• serious consideration of a high speed rail network, whose self-confessed aim is to end domestic flights;
• the world's largest trial of electric cars, to see if the things actually work in a consumer context;
• plans to (temporarily) re-nationalise part of the railways[1].

So who is this new (possibly) paragon of transport-ministerly virtue? Why a former fellow (and student) of Nuffield of course. Duh.

Now all he needs to do is to heed the call for a "carbon reduction fund", giving local councils resources to put into improving public transport and encouraging cycling and walking. Perhaps he actually will.

Not that I have any sense of political time-scales. Would all of this have had to be in the offing before he took over?

[1] Not that I'm saying full re-nationalisation is a good idea or what I'm in favour of. Just that the way in which they were privatised was rubbish, and that not letting private firms get away with reneging on their deals is generally a good thing.

I've spent most of the afternoon with a stupid grin on my face, cause I've been revising "unemployment" and the models are so damn cool!!

Erm. I really shouldn't be enjoying revision, less than a week before my exams, should I?

Fear not. Normal grouchy service will be resumed tomorrow.

What am I doing tomorrow? Welfare + public, general equilibrium and social choice? Well, getting through all three will be physically impossible, but don't I love all of them too?!

Gah. Well, doing a second graduate degree is unspeakably decadent, and there's no point in being decadent unless you enjoy it.

Apparently CycleStreets does, or will soon, provide a map service for cyclists so you can put in your start and end points and it will guide you along cycle-friendly routes, with street-level pictures.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but sounds nice.

I can't be bothered to sort out a thumbnail, so you'll have to make do with a linky. Follow the linky! It's very funny.

[Shamelessly stolen from someone's facebook post. I am unsure of perfect netiquette for people I know both by their real name and also pseudonym, so will pass vacantly on.]

1. Sleep in till at least 10:30; don't get up till 11.
2. Huge cooked breakfast!
4. Note that Sunday coincides with an (as forecast!) perfect early summer's day, and so head out to wander the countryside on your bike.
5. Bring partner.
6. Not really mind when partner heads home to work after an hour, cause you're actually happy in your own company.
7. Meander through a series of perfect stone-built English country villages, set in gentle and very green rolling country.
8. Keep going.
9. Keep going.
10. Head off the map with Oxford on, to the next one up.
11. Actually have that map with you too.
12. Decide to speed up once you're homeward bound, as you're not actually sure when it gets dark
13. Be surprisingly fit (not on an absolute scale, just in comparison with what you expect of yourself).
14. Only think in passing about revision and plans for the next weeks, without any stress or panic. Look forward to the next subject on the list, one of your favourites.
15. When running out of steam, eat half a sack of sultanas.
16. Pick up steam again.
17. Be correct in your most optimistic estimates about when it gets dark, and so get home in glorious sunlight.
18. Conclude have cycled 57 miles - not great for 7 hours, but not a bad total given that you haven't been out much this year yet and aren't actually all that tired or sore.
19. Cook awesome Sunday dinner.
20. Early night.

G'night.

Is it still terribly cool to be able to offer them round your friends, or is that so last month?

I am now officially 1/3 of the way through making revision notes!! Go me!!

A not-entirely-speedy start was made with some foundations of microeconomics, but time was saved on the subjects where the lecture's notes were so good and concise I really didn't need to put any more work in. However, it was necessary to regroup and reform plans once it became clear that revising the whole of `growth' in 4 days is physically impossible.

The upshot actually is that I am falling behind schedule and will have no bally time to read the revision notes at this rate. Erm.

Still, chin up; I love this subject, I'm enjoying getting a chance to go through it all and get the details and stick it all together, and am doing a reasonable job of ignoring the reason why I have to have the entirety of this course jammed into my head by mid-June.

Erm, this was meant to be a brief post and I seem to have gibbered on. I need to learn not to do that. I hear concision is a desirable attribute in essays. Oops.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/the-tragedy-of-climate-commons/

A parable that happens also to be true.

ION, I have got a (*ahem* nother) internship for the summer, putting together a meta-analysis on the costs of inaction on climate change. The words you are looking for are "unbelievably awesome".

Oh and incidentally, it's round the corner from where my sister works. One of these days, my luck is going to run out...

Aha! In my dreamwidth account I can set up my own rss feeds - only possible with paid accounts on lj, I believe. Thus I can get myself to actually follow, the blogs I ought (and want) to be reading. (Yes I have a newsreader client set up but I could never make it a daily habit like livejournal). That's nice. That's a sufficient reason to bother changing.

I will continue crossposting (as I am doing now), but people who read this who aren't actually on livejournal might want to point yourselves at http://half-of-monty.dreamwidth.org/ instead. Oh and you can even create an "open ID" and comment with that, should you feel inclined, though I'll still enable anonymous comments.

Yes, thanks to emily_shore / naraht I am now also available on dreamwidth.

Funny thing this. On the one hand, open source of yay! And community-driven general ethos of cool! And integrable competition of non-monopoly!

But on the other hand... I'm a bit unnerved by quite how much the whole layout is like livejournal. I now note that this is because the code is based heavily on the livejournal code... which is also mostly open source. Plus, I rather like the way I've laid my journal, and I can't be bothered to replicate it right now.

Integrable competition still good though, and I will explore the other options soon. Especially as I have ditched the eight days of happiness meme - sorry about that, but it was either going to be deadly dull or turn into me bragging about how awesome my life is, again; nobody really needs to know.

Post about something that made you happy today, and for the next seven days.

Argh, actually I'm a little bundle of nerves about an interview in half an hour, plus pilates today was very hard (I swear I am getting better, but the course is progressing much faster than I am) so I actually feel like a ball of beaten up nerves, rather than a glowing beacon of happiness. But I'm unlikely to have time to post later, so will have to go with...

New trousers! New, beautifully tailored, crease down the front, lightweight, wool blend, smart trousers!

I actually bought them back in the January sales, but they then turned out to be slightly loose round the waist so they fell down and were too long, and the effect of smart trousers is somewhat diminished if the heels are all worn off. But last night, I finally got round to sorting them out.

Actually, doing a spot of sewing last night with the Longpigs on loud was a much bigger brighter pocket of happiness. Ah, for doing things with my hands while singing along to old songs! But that was yesterday.

Post about something that made you happy today, and for the next seven days.

Working. Genuinely, working. Getting stuck in and worrying at a model and not glossing over the unclear bits but finding books or working it out for myself, and then making dense notes. Wandering out to buy biscuits and feeling like I'm on a different planet. Remembering what it feels like to be away with the fairies in the work zone.

Not that I'm working desperately hard - this stuff isn't difficult, there's just a lot of it and it's rather fiddly, and you need to slot a lot of things in together in the right order. This is more about mental space than productivity. I haven't been here for a while, and it's good to be back.

I love the way it's still broad daylight at 6,7pm. I love the way the light is still streaming into the library by dinnertime.

Midsummer is fabulous, but I think this time of year is the best, as it still surprises me every day.

I remain convince that GMT is a silly idea. But it does have the extraordinary consequence of being daily surprised by daylight at this time of year, so perhaps that's a price worth paying.

( Oh, go on then, have a pointless meme ) But only cause I rather like the answer.

I have an internship with a Climate Change NGO in Washington DC for the Summer!

Not UNEP. I didn't get that one. Someone else.

The president of the company seems extremely nice and enthusiastic and friendly and they're involved with some very interesting-sounding projects. And want to introduce me to lots of important wonderful people. And it's all going to be lovely.

On Sat 25th April, at 7:30pm, in Lincoln College Oakeshott Room, all the P.G. Wodehouse joy in the world can be yours.

All the joy, that is, if you can bear the sight of me - for I am only offstage for about half a page.

Yes, I have attained the Light Entertainment pinnacle of playing Bertie Wooster. Come one, come all, and marvel at the number of lines that I have learnt. Try not to notice the few that I forget.

Anyway, it's a lovely script, and all the other chaps in it are really marvellously good. Good Show, Jeeves!

Yes, I know, I'm not here, I'm revising. But I just have to brag: in my role as a part-time research assistant, I am being paid to read Nicholas Stern's new book A blueprint for a safer planet. And I have been lent an advance printout copy and everything. See how unfeasibly awesome my job is!

Yes, I know, other people have jobs where they do awesome things on a regular basis. But a large part of the fun of this is, that I never quite know when I'm going to get called and asked to do something cool.

And the book is actually out now, which somewhat takes the shine off the advance printout copy, but it's still very very shiny.

and also looks quite long and I have to read it by Monday and I wasn't actually going to take the weekend off revision and I have another internship interview tomorrow so I should somewhat find out what that NGO does and did I mention that I'm behind with revision cause I've been away for the last 3 weeks? What the hell am I doing on the internet? To the library!

Hello. I have been away, travelling to Morocco (and back) by train. It was amazing. Lucky me.

I have finals in TWO MONTHS OMG ETC. I am going to spend much less time around here from now on. Maybe none. So if you want to talk to me, email/call me? If you are my friend you can get my contact details from my info page.

Tarra.

Concentrating solar thermal electricity generation is great. It's (reaonsably) cheap, (reasonably) quick to build, and gloriously green. Most importantly, it's really really pretty and shiny. (Actually, it doesn't all look like that. But some of it does. See the pretty!)

This is mainly a technology to use in areas of high solar intensity - but the power could be transmitted back here, using a high voltage direct current grid. More details. And, er, did I mention how shiny it is?

So that is all old news, that I've probably told you before. The new bit is that there's an early day motion coming up in parliament in support of this, and you could write to your MP and ask them to sign it. If, y'know, you agreed that it's a really shiny worthwhile promising technology. So if you wanted to write your own letter you could follow these instructions and if you were perfectly happy with the letter that Friends of the Earth have already written you could just go there and send a copy of that. If you fancied, you know.

( The early day motion )

In other news: had awesome evening with pavanne and her really interesting friends in the weird world of London renewable energy businesswomen (weird in that they appear to have jobs and salaries and be able to afford nice flats...), may be resolving the supervisor/thesis wibble, and shall be Bertie Wooster bright and early tomorrow morning in an old people's home or two.

I know an awful lot of my lines, and a fair few of other people's. I really don't think its fair to blame me if I forget one or two of my lines, though. There are so very many of them.

As dr_biscuit has just pointed out, interviews often entail questions of a fairly standard form: "give an example of how you have demonstrated attribute x". My last interview had three of these, and nothing else. It is thus wise to prepare answers to these questions. So shall we put our heads together, chaps, and draw up a list? I will add them as they're suggested.

So the question is: "Give an example of a situation in which you...

• worked in a team (more specific)?
• showed attention to detail
• had to revise your plans
• coped with a difficult / stressful situation
• solved a problem in a novel and creative way
• showed initiative / proactivity
• Leadership qualities
• have improved an existing practice or procedure
• objected to company ideas/polciy and how did you reconcile this
• acted independently
• had responsiblity for others
• worked to a time schedule
• had to meet a high demand
• achieved a great success and what was your input
• had to deal with a complaint
• potentially dangerous situation
• where you had your best/worst achievement
• have had to take an expected step down/step up in responsiblity
• acted beyond the 'call of duty'
• had to tell a customer/ stakeholder/ someone you had to please that you could not do as they asked

Awesome chaps, keep them coming!