Pictures!!!
We
start this small sampling with my departure for the New World. This is outside my parents place in Richmond, Surrey. My bag is loaded on the car, and I’m about to be taken to the airport to go to Montreal where I worked for Air Canada for the summer of 1979, before going on to MIT. To my left are my sister Sarah and my step-mother Lee. My brother Simon, who is now in the popular music business and looks decidedly less diminutive is to my right.
When we got to the airport there was quite a scene at check-in since
I had seven pieces of excess baggage and was travelling on a free employee
ticket. That was nothing, however, compared to the 500 kilos — mostly
books and papers — I airfreighted to Sydney..! I don’t believe The Queen
travels light. Why should I? By the way, if you want to see my travel photos, you’ll have to ask Sarah at the end of this page.
While we’re in the mood for nostalgia, here’s your hero collecting his
doctorate in 1991. Yes, that’s quite a pile of degrees in the background,
because at MIT’s graduation everyone is handed their diploma in person in
one ceremony. It would make quite a good hack for Harvard to come along
and do a little shuffling and see what happens — they could do with
some revenge for the various hacks MIT has played on them, but then
Harvard is Harvard and wouldn't be up to such a thing (don’t take that
as a challenge!)
I’m not sure if “nostalgia” is quite the right word for 109 Windsor St., Apt. 2, the really rather nasty but cheap apartment where I lived while getting my Ph.D . This is at one of my mad-hatters tea-parties, with lots of people from MIT’s student newspaper, The Tech in attendance — they’ll go
anywhere for free food!
Here’s a meeting of Jonathan’s-fanclub at our regular Boston rendez-vous
for visits during the time I was living outside Boston, an Indian emporium in Central Square, Cambridge. I keep on
forgetting the name of the restaurant — including right now — which
invariably causes confusion since there are five or six Indian places in the
square.
Here’s the toastmaster in action at The Tech’s
1995 annual banquet. I specially flew in from London to ensure that the Loyal
Toast to Her Majesty was correctly delivered. You can’t trust the natives in
the disobedient colonies.
The Tech was one of my regular hanging out places during my Ph.D.
time at MIT. With lavish banquets, free weekly pizza, ice cream and occasional
Chinese food it's a great place for students on a budget... It also happens
to be one of the best student newspapers I’ve seen anywhere. I still
regularly read my twice weekly subscription, and continue to be a member of the Advisory Board.
These characters are a bunch of my students from UCLA on top of Mount
Lowe. This is the most fun class I’ve ever taught: the students were
extremely bright as well as energetic.
What were we doing on the top of Mt. Lowe, over two hours extremely
hot hiking on a Sunday afternoon?
Well, I’d told them their assignment was due there!
They were doing a paper on why the Pacific Electric railway had
gone out of existence, and there is some fascinating railway
memorabilia on the top of the mountain, which had been the
destination of the most famous of the P. E.’s lines. The view
from up there is also phenomenal, and the messy sprawl of Los Angeles down
below tells the story of why the railways could no longer serve Angelenos' needs
and were to be displaced by automotive transportation...
Family scene to the right: my brother Simon is sitting next to your hero,
with my sister Sarah, her sig. other Neil, M & D completing the scene.
Sarah, pictured again to the left, has one of those looks on her face.
So you’ll have to ask her nicely if you want to be taken to the travel
photos section...