Barton news

“Small and perfectly formed” is one quote on the cover of this deceptive book and it accurately sums up this little charmer.  Set in a small Italian town, this seems an everyday tale where nothing much happens.  Dino, the main character, works on the town roads, with his small gang, creating and repairing perfect stone block work.  His recreation is billiards in the local café/billiards hall, run by the legendary player Cirillo.  As a boy, Dino is set the task by Cirillo of getting the ball to return to the exact spot – every time.  He perseveres.  As a man, he is quietly married to Sophia and they live frugally with little income.  Into this routine of stonework, billiards and home, slowly change comes. First, the arrival of tarmac and the break-up of the road gang. That does bring change, but going to national billiards tournaments at Cirillo’s suggestion (he will not go) is another.  Dino, as a country hick, just does his thing and wins, but it...

Bruce Chatwin writes the introduction to this travel book, marking this book, written in 1933, as perhaps the best written travel book ever and bemoaning the loss of so many sights, smells and experiences to history.   Starting in Venice, this is the description of Byron’s journey to Oxiana, land of the River Oxus on the border between Afghanistan and Russia, with much time in Persia, today’s Iran.  He makes it on to India and ends back at home in Savernake, near where I went to school, where he cryptically hands his notes to his mother to see what she makes of it – yes, it was published!  What a joy this book is to read.  What writing!  His particular interest is in the ancient architecture of the lands he travels through.  Towers, tombs, triumphal arches, even old cities, as well as mosques and mausoleums are brought to life, some over 1000 years old.  Along the way, the vistas and people he meets and how they live are wonderfully described....

I fear our carbon footprint is growing. This trip, part work and part holiday, took eight flights to complete, but allowed us to see several parts of this diverse and fascinating country.  First up, was getting to Samsun, a city we will hear more of in the future on the northern Black Sea coast.  This was the venue for the 16 th European Weed Research Society Symposium at the Ondokuz Mayýs University.  Leaving Bristol early at 06:00 we passed through Amsterdam and Istanbul Atatürk (KLM, then Turkish Airlines) before being picked up with others for our hotel, arriving at 22:30 local time.  Do-Soon Kim from Seoul and Per Kudsk from Denmark were at Istanbul, both editors for Weed Research.  We were up early on Sunday morning as I was teaching a course from 09:00 to 17:00 on “How to write a paper for an international scientific Journal” ahead of the conference.  I had a good group of attendees from 11 countries and it was a successful interactive day.  T...

Hilary gave me this great present last year – 11 books through the year selected by Mr. B’s wonderful and award-winning bookshop in Bath - but I only started getting the books towards the end of 2012.  First book up, Fire Season by Philip Connors, is this fascinating description of times in the Gila National Forest on the Texas-Mexico border as a fire-watcher.  This is a no-road wilderness, something we can only dream of in the UK.  There are lyrical passages of life alone in the high mountains with Alice, his faithful dog, over the summers.  The characters he meets, the fire teams and some passing through on the long-distance hiking trail, are interesting and varied.  There is romance, with his wife, Martha, how they met and increasing tension as to how they can carry on living apart over the summers.  The unanswered question is will he have to return to the Wall Street Journal after ten years and do a “real” job again. Philip Connors has a great feel for...

Nearly 600 weed scientist from 50 countries met in Hangzhou, China over the week of 16 to 23 June 2012 for the 6 th International Weed Science Congress.  This meeting, led by the International Weed Science Society, was staged by the Chinese Weed Science Society. Our hosts organised a great venue and gave us a good conference, interesting excursions and fine opening and closing ceremonies.  As the Editor-in-Chief of Weed Research , it was an opportunity to see and be seen and present a face behind those decision letters, both rejection and acceptance, from Weed Research . The journal was well-represented, with nine Subject Editors present.  We were also able to meet and discuss some of the work of the Editorial Board, including paper handling times, something all authors are sensitive about.  As the E-i-C, I was also invited to observe a meeting to discuss the next East Asia Weed Science Congress, This was chaired by Dr Do-Soon Kim (Seoul), a member of our Edit...

Ecosystem function, ecosystem processes, ecosystem services, final ecosystem services, ecosystem goods, natural capital and biodiversity – all these terms are currently very popular in ecological and related circles, reflecting the improved links between science and policy.   These are important, as society considers its options for increased food production, the threats of climate change and the needs of species, habitat and landscape conservation.   A recent paper by Mace, Norris and Fitter (TREE, January 2012; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534711002424 , for those with academic access) gives a comprehensive review of the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services. Reading this paper and a series of in-depth research proposals on the subject over recent weeks confirms my suspicions that the area is complex and conceptually messy.   As scientists, we need to have our concepts sorted, preferably elegantly, before we can make headway ...

We are all back at work and well in to 2012, but just a word or two before more academic blogs follow - We had a lovely family Christmas - a great treat to have everyone home, so a big thank you for travelling from Scotland.  We thoroughly enjoyed having everyone home - Gareth and Sarah, Mike and Karen and star of the show, grandaughter Abbie - 14 months and crawling, a really happy soul, starting words.  She says "Hiya" to everyone - great fun in supermarkets! Hope you all have a wonderful 2012.