thinking is the new black

I’ve been busy tinkering with my literature review 20,000 words and counting and gathering a little more interview material, before I begin the long lonely road that is ‘writing up’. I am actually really excited about finally writing the thesis and it’s hard to believe it could all be over in April.

Success at the two conferences I went to in July and it seems my paper on Steve Jobs has gone down well, and may very well be published online in September. MeCCSA was loads of fun, and great to meet other researchers and share all our woes. I have to say the cake selection was remarked on as much as the key-notes and plenary though. UWE certainly fed everyone very well. I consider myself some what of an expert on high tea, having championed the 4 O’Clock session at the Dorchester way before Kate Moss and her posse got in on it, & having recently sought out Angelina, just about one of the best patisseries in Paris, so I feel somewhat of an authority. A group of Finish academics who I had lunch with on the last day, asked me to take their group picture with the dessert plates and the conversation moved very swiftly from questions of epistemology to the marvels of chocolate fudge. I am cake crazy at the moment – just made a batch of lavender and orange and was eyeing up the Mario Testino tea room in Ship Street on Saturday. Perhaps when this is all over I shall open a trendy tea room called “The Public Sphere”, with Spark style notes on Habermas in the menu?

Anyway IAMCR –Paris. I am absolutely ga-ga over modernist architecture and all objects 1950’s so a high point for me was getting to be in the UNESCO building for 3 days. It was designed in 1958 by Marcel Breuer one of key Bauhaus gang and the inside is a cross between a giant ski-lodge and an urban cathedral (aka hideous / gorgeous). Unfortunately such was my awe that I spent most of the opening address, gazing wide eyed around the vast room, and fiddling with my head set, changing language channels, impressed by the interpreter booths, and thinking “gosh this is just like being in a film of being in the UN”.
During all the sessions there was an amazing mix of nationalities and it is a testament to the IAMCR that people travel from all over the world to attend, but special mention must go to the Spanish hombres – who were all dressed to kill in dazzling tailoring. They looked like wall street bankers or retired premier league footballers, golden tanned, sharply dressed and stood out against the usual academic corduroy aesthetic. I was also mesmerised during another session by a female speaker who had modelled her look on Jerry Springer it seems. She spoke for a full 20 minutes in a peculiarly measured tone, with absolutely no inflection or intonation in her voice . I suspected her at one point, of being an android dressed in a stolen bank clerks uniform due to the glowing man made fibres and high buttoned collar of her blouse. She scanned the room with her eyes at regular intervals like a light house beacon, so everyone in the audience received an equal amount of eye contact and punctuated her sentences with small duplicate hand gestures –lift hand up, wave slightly, speak, – sort of thing. Definitely a robot, or that is what happens when you do research for too long.