So on Friday afternoon during the rain, and after dashing home from work to do a hurried packing of a bag, I made a dash for the airport. It was quite a nerve-wracking trip because the rain meant that two of the three freeways I needed to use were not moving very well (in fact, the middle one was almost stationary for a while), and after losing a lot of time there, calling my airline and finding out that the flight was of course going to leave bang on time, I got to the check-in desk (after sitting on a frustratingly slow bus from the parking lot that dutifully stopped at six other terminals before mine) with -1 minutes to go before the flight was officially closed. There were no other flights out that day, and so it would have been a disaster to miss the flight. As it was, some combination of (1) my asking on the phone that a note be put in the record of my flight that I was on my way, and (2) the presence of two other (unapologetically late) annoying Europeans besides me holding up the line, I got onto the ten hour flight to London.
So after a quick stop in London to say hello to my sister, have a look at Bromptons, Routemaster buses, etc…..here I am in Dublin, Ireland….one of the main places where you can get the best pints of Guinness on the planet. I’m using the wireless access provided by the head offices of one of Ireland’s main funding agencies, which gives you a clue as to the cover reason for my being here….. I’m part of a panel reviewing the grants for funding. We sit in a room with a long table over two days and deliberate solemnly over proposals from a huge range of physics areas. We all wrote reviews of selected proposals earlier in the year, and now we get to read each other’s reviews, argue a bit over the physics and other relevant details, and come up with our recommendations. It’s actually a lot of fun, since I just love reading about physics from all sorts of areas, whether related to my own area, or not. Both experts in the particular fields and non-experts get to make intelligent comments (there’s lots of give and take) on all proposals, and so one gets to learn a lot about what’s going on in the big wide world of physics, while making a valuable contribution to the scientific community as a whole.
It’s just another of those things that we do as part of our job as academics plugged into an international community (and on which we report to you from time to time).
The other perks? Well……. later tonight, I’m going to sit down with a pint of Guinness, properly poured (i.e., slowly), for a change, with a perfect creamy head and full body. Oh yes….. It makes the jet-lag I’ll have at both ends of the trip (I have to jump back on a plane pretty soon for a ten hour trip back in order to get back to my classes, etc), the missing of the Oscars, all worth it.
-cvj
March 6th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Is this an IRCSET or an SFI review? Anyhow, if you’ve got some time to spare, I recommend Fagans in Drumcondra (get the No. 11 bus from O’Connell Street). I’ve always liked the Guinness there and they serve the best steak in Dublin. Enjoy!
March 6th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Hi damtp dweller…. not sure if I’m supposed to say which agency, so I’ll decline to state. Thanks for the recommendation… I’ll see if I can make it there….. I’m sort of guessing that any pub I go into will have a beter pint of guinness than I can get almost anywhere….
Cheers,
-cvj
March 6th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I spent a few days in Dublin this summer while on vacation in Ireland. Even though neither of us likes beer, my fiance and I felt like we should go order “a pint of Guinness”. But we ended up not doing so, so have a pint for us!
We did find a lovely Nepalese restaurant, though.
March 6th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Ok…. I’ll force myself to have one for each of you…. So two extra and a regularly scheduled one for me….. Lovely.
Anyone else I can have one for? I still have tomorrow night…..
-cvj
March 6th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
If it’s SFI you’re consulting for, say hi to Eoin O’Sullivan for me.
March 6th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Have one for the all the “GAELIC ANCESTORS.”
March 6th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
It should be noted that the Scottish Gaels were actually descendants of Gaelic emigrants to Scotland. The word ‘Scotus’ is Latin for ‘Irishman’. Scottish settlers who moved to Ireland (and especially Ulster) may already have been of Gaelic Irish descent
The Scottish Might have a difference of opinion?:) To the ancestors anyway.:)
March 6th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Oh, how I love a properly poured pint of Guinness. Have one for me, too!
March 6th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Go on the Guinness brewery tour, down near Heuston Station. Get a pint from the source, and enjoy it in a top floor glass bar overlooking the city.
March 9th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
[...] Yesterday after returning from Dublin, I dumped off my luggage, freshened up and went out to the first public reading of the play I told you about in an earlier post (link here). The one I wrote with playwright Oliver Mayer, from the USC School of Theatre. [...]
October 25th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
[...] Guinness will be involved, I imagine (yeah!), although it will not be the primary focus. (The pint in the photo to the right is from a previous trip.) [...]
October 27th, 2006 at 4:53 am
[...] Day two of the panel work. Locked in a room again, looking at proposals. Yesterday we deliberated over who passed to the next stage, and who did not – a painful process at times. Today there’s a final part of the process to be performed. We are writing feedback to each applicant to give a little guidance on their proposals for the future. This is an important service to perform, as you can imagine by simply putting yourself in the shoes of the person applying for the grant. In a room full of international people, all with some pride in their wordsmithing abilities, jointly crafting sentences that reflect the salient points of the panel’s deliberations is often an amusing task. Last time I did this (earlier this year) I learned a good algorithm for getting right the use of “that” vs “which” – useful when writing with eight hour jetlag. I probably should have known it before. In addition, I’ve learned several arcane uses of hyphens, “however”, and other modifiers, but I’m sure I’ll forget those. [...]
February 27th, 2007 at 12:20 am
[...] I was in Dublin and London again. Dublin mainly on a work mission, London on the way back for non-work. I was having panel deliberations once again on a range of physics topics pertaining to reviewing and recommending (sometimes) grant proposals for one of Ireland’s funding agencies. As I mentioned before (here and here), it is a truly fascinating process, and one that I think works very well overall. I come back from these things having learned a lot of interesting physics issues, and on balance am energized about physics on the whole due to the excellent discussions and arguments we have. Some of the panel members return to the task a number of times, and its rather nice to meet them again in exactly the same circumstances. It’s like we’ve been through some major experience together (a hostage-taking, prisoners of war, lost in space, trapped on desert island….) and this point of commonality makes us pleased to see each other. Everything is set up the same way every time, we know what our job is and we come in, lock ourselves away early in the morning, and brainstorm solidly until almost dinner time, pausing only to have a short lunch together in a nearby room, and for two brief coffee breaks. [...]