Category: NEWS
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Einaudi: Coming to Birmingham
I was chatting to a friend about music and I mentioned that I’d love to see Einaudi, an amazing classical composer who happens to be the most streamed of all time. As the thought occurred to me, I thought I’d better check for tour dates. Sure enough, he’s coming to my home city next month.…
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Home town tourist
A beautiful day in tragically unloved Birmingham. We have a cat café, world class architecture, a beautiful Botanical Gardens, big fish, a parrot, and a network of canals that make all bar Venice envious. We have the best restaurant scene in the UK outside London and we’ve even got a big mechanical bull called Ozzy.…
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The Great Consolidation is underway!
The last few years have been a leap forward by necessity, although the speed of it has inevitably led to a sense of chaos. I’m now at the point where every key space needs to be consolidated because the organisation has not keep pace with the change. As a small but important first step I’ve…
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New wheels
Very happy to have my first decent off-road bike and my first Specialized. As with Cannondale and BMC it’s no ordinary bike manufacturer, they build machines with personality and soul. The Status 140 is already a cult item, referred to as “the most fun you can have on two wheels” in one review. I feel…
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Long in the works
Over the course of a month (which speaks to how slow moving and bureaucratic my life is) I have purchased, picked up, figured out and attached roof bars and a bike rack to my car. I love active breaks: biking, trekking, kayaking (note: I have owned my own kayak for 2 years and have not…
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Office Winter Wonderland
We caught a snow shower on Tuesday, much of it coming down during my drive into work on Birmingham University campus. It looked beautiful so I grabbed a couple of pics. Even on my worst days (which are few and far between) I feel very lucky to work in such a picture-esque place.
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First post-Covid Conference: ILPC
I’ve had a conceptual paper accepted for the International Labour Process Conference (ILPC) in Glasgow in April. The last time I attended ILPC was in Buenos Aires in 2018, another continent and indeed another epoch of humanity. My paper is about mobster behaviour and mob mentalities amongst management and managerial actors. Our expectation of civility…
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2023’s shaping up
After 5 years intensely dominated by home improvement, career development, personal development and external chaos (Brexshit, endless Tory-induced nightmares, Covid-19 and now stagflation), I am looking to make a small return to holidays abroad next year. I have therefore booked a modest holiday in Majorca, mindful that the only way is up for prices in…
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Two weeks on from the operation
Despite limited mobility in the last 2 weeks I have still lost over 6lbs. I’m not entirely sure how, my diet hasn’t been any more disciplined (nor any worse mind you), and my calorie burn is well down on before. Maybe I have simply turned my body into a calorie burning machine over summer, and…
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Dr James’ Good News (2): Living to tell the tale
OK it might have only been a hernia operation rather than say, brain surgery, but it’s not entirely trivial. It is after all open surgery under general anesthetic, a full day in hospital with strict rules on what you cannot do before and after. For instance, I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than…
Dr Martin James 