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There are two markets fairly near my flat – one huge one, under the train tracks near the centre of town, which is about 10 mins bike away, and one medium one in the other direction that’s about 5 mins cycle. My Sunday morning routine involves visiting one or the other, and I’ve been mostly going to the nearer one. It has fewer “artisanal sausage and expensive olive” stalls, and more “north african men standing behind a huge pile of unattractive bras” stalls. And the vegetables are really cheap and tasty in both. That’s 9€66 of healthy fruit and vegetables (and a kettle).

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Yesterday I was in London for W-tech, the UK’s biggest ever event for women in technology. It was fantastic. The day had a mix of panel sessions, networking opportunities, displays, demos, recruiters, and of course talks. I was running around most of the day as I chaired 2 sessions, gave a talk in another, and even managed a quick G&T with the parents… But I still managed to soak up a lot of the atmosphere and chat to people from BCSWomen and all over. I was really pleased with my talk – I’m used to talking to academics and it was hard to pitch itRead More →

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Music night involves bands playing for free all over France. These guys, who are apparently Welsh, were on in the Irish pub, in Grenoble… and played one of my favourite songs ever. They were much better than the audio on my camera makes them sound. I stopped at the pub on a whim. I’d been out walking, and thought that a guinness would be nice after some hours of hilly countryside hearty healthiness. I sat down, exhausted, and it was lovely to hear them break into one of my favourite songs ever.

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Some things I’m going to find it hard to get used to, #2 in a series of N… The politeness. People in the street say “Bonjour!”, whenever you sit down to eat strangers wish you “Bon Appetit”, you get greeted when you enter a shop and they bid you farewell when you leave, groups of teenage lads shake hands when they meet each other. It’s all rather nice. The temperature. Note to self: curry might last a day or so when left in the pan in Leeds, but here, a day on the stove top is a recipe for interesting furry growth. Oops. I wasRead More →

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Number 2 in a series of N… (Snigger) Actually, as I am sure everyone knows, the Shag is a kind of dance, and the Shag Café (snigger) is a restaurant, bar, cafe and dancehall. It is somewhat strangely situated in the middle of a light industrial estate, out in the suburbs. I was convinced I was lost until I saw a guy getting his dancing shoes out of the boot of his car, and then I figured I must be in the right sort of area. Nestled between chemical companies, tech firms and industrial bakeries, there it was. A large metal shed, with the welcomingRead More →

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For our upcoming ITiCSE talk (details and paper download here) we asked a bunch of women computer scientists a load of questions. At the end of the questionnaire we asked “What’s the best bit about computing?”, and “What’s the worst bit about computing?”. I’ve collated all the answers to these questions and turned it into an animated gif, shown below: I love the way that some things come out both best and worst (and it’s fascinating how many times “programming” comes up in both categories). Because I am a proper geek, I made the gif by writing a hacky perl program. So if you haveRead More →

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Last weekend I went out on the bike to check out some of the countryside around Grenoble. Grenoble’s got two big rivers – the Drac and the Isère – and on Saturday I went up the Drac for a while (only getting lost three times). To start with I followed the cycle path from by the Intermarché at Seyssins, which runs along the banks of the river and then ends up in a retail park (Comboire, a big park of shed like shops, coincidentally where I bought my bike from). This path is really rather beautiful – river, mountains, no traffic… Then there was aRead More →

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I’ve been having some fun reading about the French take on the expenses scandal. Libération ran a piece on Saturday (March 30) on whether the same sort of thing could happen in France, with the obligatory section on moats (les douves), duck houses (une ile à canards construite au milieu d’un étang) and that old favourite les films X of Jacqui Smith. French MPs can claim for obvious stuff like photocopying, taxis, restaurant bills, website costs (which are high if you run les podcasts), and a whole host of things associated with residences in constituencies and staying in Paris. And as in the UK, FrenchRead More →