Shy of Retiring

Despite my having vowed not to run another half marathon, my son persuaded me. It wasn't so much that I couldn't, as that I didn't want to run another. The distance is a bit far for me to enjoy now, and I have taken to throwing away run medals and t-shirts (not because I am a great runner but because after a lot of years you accrue a lot of technical t's just for taking part). But James has more recently taken up running, and has built up to that distance through dogged hard work and persistence while I sort of idled a bit. This one was the Denbies Bacchus Half Marathon. At first it sounded mad to me - Denbies is a vineyard, and at each water station they also offer a wine tasting. Now I have proved through experiment that I can drink and run: a few ill-judged long training runs in summer heat drove me to call it at the pub, and more recently my small run group tried a gentile jog along the canal to a pub and back. But even so, the idea of a half marathon fueled b...

There is a movement among some academics to celebrate the bad reviews - the ones that led to rejected papers - because the good reviews simply confirm us, but the bad ones make us think. I got a bad review for one of my eBooks - The Art of DSP  which is in fact one of my best books (in my own opinion). A really angry review, actually. Apart from taking issue with a typo (which I have since corrected) the reviewer took issue with my saying: "we need to admit how little mathematics we have that is practically useful" which I admit is a deliberately challenging statement. So the reviewer said: I am stunned by that statement and offended at this arrogant insult to my intelligence Fair enough. We are all entitled to our opinion, and this is not the first time in my career that I have been told in no uncertain times that I am wrong. It is interesting, by the way, how much passion math can invoke. I admit to being sometimes 'stunned' - but I am long past bei...