Among the Academics

I'm reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island loaned to me by Ian and Judith. It's raised some doubts in my mind about my own idea for this blog, the problem being, that Bryson has so well described specific incidents of the kind I imagined I would experience and then write about. But unlike Bryson, whose ear for nuance of language is astounding, I realize I'm no Mencken. Well, my own observations are, of course, my own.

There's certainly an undeniable quaintness of language in overheard conversations and in everyday encounters and that quaintness. It is undoubtedly a significant part of the appeal of Britain to Americans. How the quaint usages of common language permeate the culture and manifest themselves in polite behavior is the thing that Bryson is so adept at describing.

I certainly don't mean to romanticize, there are obviously whole parts of the society that could not remotely be described as quaint. I'm thinking of, for one example, the dark depiction of heroin addiction in Edinburgh in the film Trainspotting. Somewhat contradicting myself I'll point out that the title of the film refers to the quaint and uniquely British hobby of trainspotting which consists of collecting serial numbers off locomotives in the hopes (I imagine) of seeing them all. So even the dark view of heroin addiction portrayed in Trainspotting has its own quaintness.

Regarding trainspotting, when I was twelve years old I traveled with my grandparents on a British ship. I met an English boy on the ship whose hobby was planespotting. It's the close cousin of trainspotting. I was dumbfounded by his extensive catalogs listing the registered tail numbers of commercial aircraft. We went to the Athens airport in Greece together (with his parents) and he was absolutely thrilled to collect the Playboy jet which had a black bunny symbol painted on the tail in addition to the number. Heady stuff for 12 year olds. I briefly imagined my own my future as a planespotter and recorded the tail number for myself. It is hard to describe, but there was a sense of ownership that came with having that number tucked away in my pocket. I quit my new found hobby later that day when I discovered I'd lost the scrap of paper I'd written the number on.

A rawer example of a darker side of British culture is Bill Buford's account of the violent world of soccer hooliganism in his book Among the Thugs. I witnessed an example of "laddism" in Cupar on a drizzly Saturday afternoon in my first week here. On the footpath that runs out of the town center along the Eden, I passed a rowdy group of drunken adolescent boys (there were maybe eight or ten of them) two of whom pissed on the path in front of me as I approached . And although they were surely harmless, they did put me on my guard.

But still, to the American ear planted (so to speak) among the academics, there is an undeniable quaintness of speech and a sense of civility, politeness and a generally all round display of good manners that is very appealing.

And so it begins ...

Well ... here I am at the University of St Andrews in Fife Scotland as a visiting Professor of Computer Science, on sabbatical leave from the University of Wyoming. I've linked to my St Andrews web page in my profile and you can link to the University and Department from there including a link to the research project I am affiliated with here. I'm working with Ian Gent and Roy Dyckhoff .

I'd (of course) planned on trying to keep notes since I arrived, and (of course) I am behind having arrived on January 22. I will at least try to do something. I hope to keep track of rather more personal items here; occasional notes from an American living in Scotland kind of thing. But right now, I need to get off to the office -- I'm scheduled to give a talk on Friday that I have not started to prepared yet.

More soon ... I hope.