Kon-tikka (‘Allo ‘Oslo Part II)

This is the second part of my work trip to Oslo, on the one day I had to be a tourist.

Having been rather tired out by the conference, I slept for nearly 11 hours, and didn’t make too much effort to get out early. It was also rather cold and a bit damp, which didn’t give me a huge amount of vigour. But, by about 10:00, I was ready to sally forth. My sally took me a few hundred metres to the cathedral. Which is really quite small, but does have a very nice painted roof inside. It’s all very understated, as you might expect from a Scandinavian religious structure.

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The cathedral, outside and in.

I then wandered down towards Akershus fortress, intending to look around, but I’d neglected to consider that it was the last Sunday before the 11th November – what we’d call Remembrance Sunday in the UK – and, the fortress being a military base among other things, there were a lot of soldiers standing around and some important events going on, so I felt rather as if I were trespassing and retraced my steps. I headed down to the waterfront and walked along until I came to the opera house, over whose roof you can clamber, giving you great views over the city. I then headed back to the hotel to warm up and do some admin,

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  Looking towards the opera house (on the left)

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  Looking back from the opera house roof

I then met up with Thomas, my colleague, and we headed over to the Fram Museum and the Kon-tiki Museum to the west of the city centre. This required us taking a bus, which was very simple, once we’d found the right stop outside the main station. The Fram Museum is the Norwegian museum of polar exploration – the Fram was Fridtjof Nansen’s ship in which he drifted round the Arctic Ocean having got deliberately trapped in the sea ice – and includes both the Fram itself, as well as the Gjoa, Amundsen’s ship in which he became the first man to transit the North-west passage by boat[1]. As in, the actual ships are there, and you can go inside them. It’s quite cool. And there’s plenty of history about Polar exploration, North and South, Norwegian and otherwise. If you’re interested in the history of the Poles and/or the history of exploration, or just want to gurn at some heroic men doing manly things[2], it’s very much worth visiting.

The Kon-tiki Museum rather follows through on this theme: it’s sort of a shrine to the man, the myth, the legend that is Thor Heyerdahl[3]. It is genuinely interesting to see the preserved originals of both Kon-tiki and Ra II, and Heyerdahl’s achievements are undoubtedly impressive[4]. However, I don’t think I quite agree with the unadulterated adulation of the man. The theory behind Kon-tiki – that native Polynesians and South Americans could have reached each other’s lands and had some cultural exchange – was controversial, but there was always some good evidence that it was plausible[5]. And Heyerdahl demonstrated it was possible brilliantly. He also did much good archaeological work on Easter Island and in Africa. But the theory behind Ra and Ra II – that, because reed boats were used on the Nile and Lake Titicaca, there must have been some ancient-world cultural exchange between North Africa and the Americas, with the Egyptians sailing a reed boat across the Atlantic – is a bit mad. Sure, Heyerdahl did manage to sail a reed boat across the Atlantic, on the second try, but, given Titicaca is on the western side of South America and Egypt is on the eastern side of North Africa, and that neither of the local civilisations ever got anywhere near the Atlantic, it feels rather more likely that both sets of people found out bunches of reeds float and, having lots of reeds lying around, thought they’d be good for making boats. In the same way that medieval Western Europeans built castles out of stone and so did people in East Asia, because it turns out stone is good for building castles out of and neither civilisation was exclusively peopled by idiots, not because some Franks went to China, or some Chinese came to France and told the uninventive locals that it was a good idea. I did enjoy the museum, don’t get me wrong, but be aware it’s something of a biased source.

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  Kon-tiki

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  The Polar bear boarding crew

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  Gjoa

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  Fram – sufficiently big that it was difficult to take a good photo of.

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  Ra II. Ra I sank rather (raft-er? Ra-ther? The puns are endless).

Thomas and I then had a very late and large lunch at an Indian restaurant, which turned out to be very good. Poppadoms were complimentary, which was good, and the mango lassi was decent, while the main course was very nice. However, marks were dropped for the lack of hot towels and mints or other sweeties provided with the bill. Still, having gone in on the assumption that an Indian restaurant in Norway might not be that great, I was very pleasantly surprised.

After that, we parted ways for the rest of the afternoon, and then reconvened for dinner, which ended up being at a South Indian restaurant, a lot of things being shut on a Sunday evening in Oslo. But it was very good, even if not ideal after our lunch choice.

[1] Yes, Amundsen was already a Polar pro well before he went anywhere near the South Pole.

[2] I really think, of all the Heroic Age Polar explorers, Nansen managed to look the most heroic in his publicity shots. I’m not saying I approve of this hyper-masculine imperial style, but, wow, the man looked the part.

[3] At least in the opinion of the museum.

[4] They’re very much in that 19th-century exploration spirit, except they happened in the mid-20th century. Heyerdahl got a theory in his head, determined to prove it, and wasn’t going to let his complete lack of relevant experience get in the way, because, hey, he was charismatic, passionate, mad and handsome, qualities that can make up for any amount of experience, apparently. Oh, and stupendously lucky. That really helps.

[5] For instance, sweet potato being used in both cultures and being called the same thing – kumara. Modern genetic studies have shown a small amount of overlap between the two human populations as well, so it’s undoubtedly true that there was some exchange across the eastern Pacific.

People, People Everywhere! (‘Allo ‘Oslo Part I)

For the first time in over two years, I found myself going to an in-person conference. Yes, an IN-PERSON conference. It felt worryingly normal and I was very much looking forward to the experience. In this case, I was going to the International Glaciological Society (IGS) Nordic Branch conference[1] in Oslo[2]. This would also be my first time in a plane for a couple of years, which was an experience I was less looking forward to. Can’t say I’ve missed airports a great deal….

But, I wasn’t just going for the conference. This ran for two days, 4th-6th November[3]. Then I had a day off on the 7th November, before I was teaching at a beginner course for the model I use professionally on the 8th-9th November. So I was spending a whole week in Oslo and was really hoping that it wouldn’t rain the whole time…. And also that I didn’t run out of money, given Norwegian prices[4]. So, this post will focus on the conference, the second part will deal with whatever I got up to as a tourist on my day off, and the third will cover the teaching.

First off, though, I had to get to Oslo. I was travelling alone unexpectedly as one other person from my institute that was going was ill, so I had to get the TGV to Paris, switch to the RER to get to Charles de Gaulle airport, and then fly to Oslo. This started rather badly, with my TGV being delayed half an hour because of a broken-down train, and also because I realised I’d forgotten to pack an adaptor for my UK phone charger, which was annoying. However, the train made good time, and I only got to Gare de Lyon 15 minutes late and the RER was quicker than I expected, so I ended up at the airport at about the time I’d thought I would. The airport was actually quite pleasant too – normally, I hate airports – but it being mostly empty made it rather less horrible. I breezed through security, bought an overpriced adaptor – needs must – and found myself hanging around the gate for 45 minutes before we boarded. Only at this point did anyone check my vaccination status – I felt there were more people than usual who were checking my boarding pass at various points in the airport, but I’ve not been through Charles de Gaulle before and it may have been business as usual. After that, the flight was entirely normal, except for the masks, and I landed at Oslo 15 minutes behind schedule, because there had been a delay in loading the plane[5]. While walking through the airport to the train platform to get into Oslo, I realised that no one was wearing masks. NO. ONE. I had arrived in a land where covid didn’t exist, apparently. I joyfully took mine off, because I’d been wearing it for 9 hours straight at that point, and had the novel experience of sitting on public transport for half an hour whilst being able to breathe. Sure, I felt guilty about it, but it felt so good.

Once I got to Oslo, I very quickly checked in to my hotel, where I had a very small, but cheap room[6], and headed over to the conference icebreaker. I might have preferred to just have a quiet night after having already had a long day, but I did quite want to see who else was around and take advantage of the free drink and food, given I needed to get dinner somewhere. So I hopped on to the metro – very straightforward – and hopped off again a few stops later, whence it was a short walk to the icebreaker venue.

About three hours later, I was very full with very nice food[7], and had had a very nice time meeting people in person and feeling as if life was temporarily back to normal, pretty much. So, I was glad I went. I rolled back to my hotel with one of my colleagues, with whom I was running the course that I’ll describe in Part III, and somewhat slept.

The next day was the first actual day of the conference. I’d looked at the programme and thought it was probably the less-interesting day of the two, but I still really enjoyed it. Just being at a conference not on Zoom was great, and the talks were actually pretty interesting. The theme of abundant good food continued through the coffee breaks and lunch, which I was very happy with[8], and the day finished with an engaging poster session and the conference dinner. Which was also delicious. I did, however, rather fail to sleep overnight, which wasn’t ideal – I always seem to be too hot in hotel rooms – so the second day started a bit slowly. Not least because I hadn’t brought an adaptor for my electric shaver. I’d thought about it, but hotels always have shaver plugs, right? Wrong. This one doesn’t. And I’d neglected to charge my shaver up before leaving, so I needed a plug for it. And the hotel didn’t have any spare adaptors. It looked as if I was going to have a hairy week…[9]. However, I perked up a bit once I’d got out of the hotel and managed to deliver my talk fairly well, I think. Once the day had finished, a small group of us went to a nearby pub and then hung around for the remainder of the afternoon and into dinner, which was rather chaotic, because trying to find somewhere to eat at short notice on a Saturday evening in a large city with 10 people is a bit difficult. But, we were saved by the local knowledge of the group members who lived in Oslo, and it all ended well. I also saw the world’s scariest baby in some stained glass in the university….

Scary baby.

So, overall, I’d had a really good conference and it had reminded me what I liked about the IGS: everyone’s interested in the same things and it’s small enough that you can get a real community feel. I just hope we don’t go back to online conferences in the coming months….

[1] The two active branches in Europe are currently the British and Nordic branches. Everyone in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and so on seems to not realise they could set up a closer meeting. There is, apparently, a ‘West Alpine’ branch, according to the IGS website, but as far as I can tell it’s dead, fallen off the tree, and ended up in some farmer’s log store.

[2] Because Oslo in early November is definitely a top destination. It’s certainly not cold, dark and damp. Nooooo.

[3] Alert readers will notice this means that yes, the conference ran on a Saturday. I think this is because there was a Svalbard science meeting earlier in the week that forced the organisers to hold the conference later in the week. I was still annoyed, though.

[4] I did have funding for the trip, but, obviously, it worked on the ‘pay upfront, get reimbursed’ model. And because it was in euros from my institute in France, that meant I had to pay for everything on my euro card, which has transaction fees for paying in other currencies. My sterling card doesn’t have this, but I didn’t want to have to think about the resulting currency manipulation of expenses that I’d have to do, so was really hoping that the fees weren’t too bad and that I’d be able to claim them back too.

[5] The captain came on the intercom to say this was entirely normal at Charles de Gaulle. Which sounds very French and also mystifying as to why no one’s sorted it out yet.

[6] I was only allowed to spend a maximum of 90 euros a night on a hotel. This doesn’t go very far in Oslo, so I’d gone for a small room in a reasonable hotel, with breakfast included, rather than the alternative.

[7] I let myself go a bit, if I’m honest. I ate a worryingly large amount of food, which I very rarely do, but I was enjoying myself, it felt a bit like a holiday, and the food was both plentiful and very nice, so I just gave in and attacked the buffet for all it was worth.

[8] I could genuinely do with putting on a bit of weight, in case anyone thinks I’ve turned into a glutton. Right now, I’m very much interested in eating more food.

[9] OK, I could have gone and bought a manual razor and some shaving foam, but I didn’t really want to. Incidentally, I now have a beard.

The Running Man

In a move that many of you will probably find surprising[1], I signed up a month ago to compete in the 27th edition of the 10 km de la Bastille in Grenoble. This is a 10 km foot race where you run up to the Bastille[2] and back down again, for 430 m of positive ascent in total. Historically, I have cordially disliked any sort of long-distance running and I don’t think I’ve done any since I was about 16 and escaped from the mandatory cross-country race at school. However, my girlfriend does like running and, having done a little bit with her, it seems that a) I don’t actively hate it any more and b) I’m surprisingly fairly good at it. So we both signed up to do the race. This required me to purchase a head torch, because the start is at 18:00, sunset is about 18:45, and you’re running around on a mountain, so they won’t let you even start without one. This comprised practically all of my preparation – I did run 5 km on the flat a few days beforehand, but I ended up pretty much just showing up and seeing what would happen[3].

So, what did happen? Well, the good news first: it turns out I’m fit enough to run about 400 m upwards over 5 km without pegging out. I managed to do the initial flat bit and then run up to the Bastille without stopping[4]. The bad news: my knees, however, are not fit enough to run 10 km with a lot of uphill and downhill without stopping. When I got to the top of the Bastille, my left knee was feeling quite sore. There was a refreshment stop at the Bastille, and once I set off running after that to do the flattish loop we had to do before going back down, I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Most of this loop was on a very narrow and quite uneven woodland path, which a wounded knee made rather difficult to navigate. So I fell over the edge of the path and heavily bruised my left thigh[5] and probably hurt my knee a bit more. After this, I found it very difficult to keep running. I mostly managed it on the path, as much so as to avoid holding up everyone behind me as anything else, but once we came back to the Bastille and had to start descending properly, I really couldn’t. I could maybe run or go downhill, but both was putting way too much pressure on my knee. So I walked back down.

I finished with a surprisingly decent time, all things considered, and the race was well-organised and had a really good atmosphere – there were helpful signs, encouraging stewards at every possible wrong turning, and people were clearly having fun. In retrospect, I quite enjoyed the first half[6], though, at the time, the rather painful and disappointing second half made me feel quite miserable. I’m proud I managed to run upwards, at the very least. It was also a fun thing to do as a couple, even if we didn’t run together, and I’m glad I gave it a go. I’m not sure if I’ll do another one anytime soon, but it’s good to know I can do them if I want to. If I do do one, though, I’ll make sure I’m a bit better-trained so that I can make it all the way round before my body gives out. So yes, maybe running isn’t all that bad.

P.S. the day after the race, the Sunday, I could barely walk, as my left leg from my groin down to my knee was just painful. This was a bit unfortunate, given I was spending the day at a friend’s who lived half an hour away, so I was having to negotiate a lot of public transport. The following day, back at work, the knee was pretty much fine – stairs were still a bit difficult – but it was the bruising higher up that was making things uncomfortable. This gradually cleared up over the next few days, but let’s say it wasn’t the most comfortable week of my life.

[1] God knows, it surprised me.

[2] The fort on a hill overlooking the city centre.

[3] My opinion of running as an activity may have improved significantly, but I’m never going to be mad-keen on it, I think. One short-ish run a week for the purposes of exercise, I can get behind, but I’m not very interested in becoming a marathon runner, say, or putting in huge amounts of time.

[4] Except where narrow parts of the route forced me into queueing. But that was really only the last bit before getting out on to the top of the Bastille. Most of it was fine.

[5] I didn’t realise this at the time. It became obvious later.

[6] Except the start itself, where I was mostly trying to avoid getting run over by all the faster people behind me.

It Is Ended!

Finally, the third paper from my PhD, being a somewhat re-worked version of the final chapter of my thesis, is published. This means that, at long long last, my PhD is actually over! Sure, I graduated almost a year ago now, but I’ve had this hanging over me and I’ve had to constantly keep going back to it, so it’s still felt very present in my life. Now, however, I’m free[1]! Well, sort of – I expect the model I developed is going to keep coming back to haunt me forever, especially given I still use it, but I might at least not be applying it to Store Glacier too many more times[2].

This time, the publication process wasn’t too bad. For the first time ever, I got a full set of helpful reviews from the first round of review[3] – i.e. the reviewers both genuinely engaged with the paper and offered helpful suggestions on how to make it better[4] – which required a little bit more work. The editor then sent the revisions back to the same reviewers, who suggested a further set of very minor changes, and then the paper was accepted. There was some minor administrative confusion over who was paying what for the publication charges, because I essentially did the work whilst still at Cambridge, even though I’m now in Grenoble, but that got sorted out by a single minorly stroppy email.

So that’s good. I’m very relieved to have the paper out of the way. Not least because it means I can finally retire my senescent crashy PhD laptop that is my only way to access MS Word, which is what the paper was written in[5]. But it does throw up a larger problem in academia: project overhang. This is a widely recognised feature of academic posts at a postdoc level. Because it always takes a while for projects to get off the ground, and you’re working short-term-ish contracts, what you usually end up doing is finishing off your work for the last project whilst being employed on a new project. There’s always a backlog of papers to write and publish, in other words. It’s very rare, for example, that you get to the end of your PhD with all the material you include in the thesis already published in some form, so, as I’ve found out, your first postdoc often includes a significant portion of PhD-clean-up work. My second postdoc, assuming such a thing happens, will almost certainly start with me finishing stuff off from this postdoc.

Generally speaking, PIs are aware of this – they were postdocs too, once – and don’t mind it, but if you get a hardline PI that insists that you do work for them because they’re paying you, it can really make your life difficult. In a sort of ‘What am I doing this weekend? Oh that’s right, writing that paper, as I’ve been doing for the last three months of weekends’ way of making your life difficult. The pressure on academic resources and funding, though, is such that grants very rarely include any funding for time at the end for everyone to get their shit together and write everything up. They always seem to magically suppose the papers happen at the same time as the data collection and analysis, which is, obviously, mad. But including time on grants for writing papers – or having grants specifically for writing papers – is the only way this problem goes away. Otherwise, postdoc life remains a permanent series of academic hangovers that can really stress you out if things go badly.

But, hey, I am, temporarily at least, free of such a hangover! Maybe I’ll focus on my actual job now….

[1] In a strictly limited sense of being free of the PhD. I remain constrained by society, human nature and my own personality in all the usual ways.

[2] The shape of the mesh haunts my dreams.

[3] It is held to be a truism that one of the reviewers – Reviewer 2 if there are two, Reviewer 3 if there are three – on any glaciological paper will, for no apparent reason, intensely dislike the paper and, possibly, you. Many times, they will appear to be commenting on a different paper entirely, because they manage to misconstrue every major point and just don’t seem to understand what you’ve written. Reviewer 1 is usually on your side and reads the paper you think you wrote, but something always seems to go wrong with Reviewer 2.

[4] You’re not reading this unless my audience reach is way larger than I thought, but thank you Anonymous Reviewer 1 and 2!

[5] I was buggered if I was going to reformat the entire paper in LibreOffice, Google Docs or Latex.