that was the 2024 that was

January 1, 2025January 1, 20254 Comments

2024 sketches sm

And so 2024 is over, and 2025 has begun. I always find it odd that we celebrate the new year starting in January when January is often the worst month of the year, back to work, back to school, crappy weather, very short days, putting away all the festive stuff and start getting on with the grind. At least birthday season starts towards the end of the month in our family, and then before you know it Spring Break is here, but Januarys can be hard work, and this one, with its geopolitical shifts, is going to be a slog. Sometimes I do a lot of drawing in January, as a way to fight off the mental nature of this long gloomy month. I just started a new sketchbook at the close of 2024, and new sketchbooks are always filled with hope, though I know I’ll fill it with the same old stuff, drawings of Davis buildings with a tree in front of them. While I still have a lot of sketches yet to post, most of those from December, here is the annual sketch list for 2024. I put these together as I go along to keep track of how much I am drawing, and then do a comparison with previous years. It’s not exactly scientific; this year for example I started using the portrait format for two of my main sketchbooks, and that format takes up less space in this list, yet would often be the same amount or more of drawing as a longer format which can take up more space. Below is the comparison with all the years going back to 2013 (I am not going back and manually doing the previous years) but you can see, 2024 was perhaps my most productive year, certainly since the big year of 2019 (the last year I went to an Urban Sketching Symposium). I am hoping to go to the Symposium in 2025 in Poznań, Poland.

What happened this past year, art-wise? I had a series of sketches from over the years published in SacTown magazine, I was interviewed in a KDRT radio show with Bill Buchanan, I was also interviewed in the California Aggie in November, and I also appeared on the Robert Elms BBC London radio show, though that was not about my drawing and more about growing up in Burnt Oak. There was also an article in the UC Davis L&S Magazine about a fun project I did at work in the summer where I created an academic family tree for our Stats department, based on the London Underground map. I also had a couple of pieces displayed in the Pence Gallery in Davis. There was a good amount of travel; we started off the year in Maui, also visited Los Angeles (dinosaur sketching) and Riverside (conference, but stayed at the historic Mission Inn), and a family trip to the national parks of Zion and Bryce Canyon in Utah, as well as Las Vegas to watch the Beatles Love show. We went to London in the summer, and I went back again in the winter. We went to the south of France, to Aix and Nice, as well as a day out in Monaco. And of course, our 20th anniversary trip to Kaua’i which was amazing.

These were the sketchbooks I used in 2024, not counting stuff done outside of sketchbooks such as larger pieces:

SKETCHBOOK #54 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #27 – December 2024 to present – Davis…
SKETCHBOOK 53 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #26 – October 2024 to December 2024 – Kaua’i (Hawaii), Davis, London, Santa Rosa
SKETCHBOOK 52 – Portrait Watercolour Moleskine #2 – July 2024 to October 2024 – Half Moon Bay CA, Davis, Muir Woods, San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 51 – Portrait Watercolour Moleskine #1 – June 2024 to July 2024 – Davis, London, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Monaco, San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 50 – Landscape Watercolour Moleskine #25 – March 2024 to May 2024 – Riverside (CA), Davis, Zion (Utah), Bryce Canyon (Utah), Las Vegas (Nevada), San Francisco
SKETCHBOOK 49 – Landscape Moleskine #24 – December 2023 to March 2024 – Maui, Davis, Truckee, Sacramento, Los Angeles
Davis/UC Davis Summer 2024 Accordion Sketchbook – Seawhite of Brighton accordion sketchbook (medium) – July 2024
Small Moleskine 2024 – April-December 2024
Fabriano Venezia Small Sketchbook – April 2023-March 2024

So 2024 was quite active creatively, not including all the projects like the advent calendar, organizing sketchcrawls, and I’ve also been a lot busier with my guitars and ukuleles. Resolutions for 2025, well I really need to work on that long-awaited Davis book, let’s try to get that moving. A lot more writing, that’s always good. I probably don’t need to increase my drawing output, maybe relax a bit more, do some new things. Read more, a lot more. 2025 is going to be stressful enough, so make time for the creative and hopeful things, put the scrolling down, Happy New Year, stay safe.

a night at the spurs

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024Leave a comment

While I was back in London, I unexpectedly went to see my beloved Tottenham play in the Europa League against AS Roma (another Italian team I like, who have had a weird season so far, but recently appointed Ranieri as their third coach of the year). I’ve only been to see one previous game at the new stadium, a friendly against Inter not long after it had opened, and that was over five years ago. This was the first competitive game I’ve been able to go to in about nine years. My brother was sick and couldn’t go, though my nephew did go with his friend, I didn’t go with them as they were sitting in a different part of the ground. I went early by myself (I think I’ve never been to a home game by myself before?), eating down my turkey dinner that Mum made for Thanksgiving and getting the tube to Seven Sisters. That long long walk up from there with the many thousands of others, I have not done that in at least ten years. The Roma fans were being chaperoned up there by a lot of police, that was interesting. I made it to the ground, it is so massive, and popped into the shop to get my son a half-half scarf, he also likes Roma back from our trip there years ago, though Spurs is our football love, and our football headache. My seat was high up in the north stand, very high, but I had a great central view overlooking all the action, so I sketched in my little Moleskine before kick-off. It was so exciting. I was there among all my fellow Spurs folk, and there were a lot of families, kids, older fans, a great mix. It’s easier to get tickets to the European games, but you need to have a Membership to go to Premier League games. It has been a really long time since I went to a European game at Spurs; the Cup-Winners Cup I think, back in 1991 vs Sparkasse Stockerau, the little Austrian team? They had a player called Helmut Flicker, which I thought was hilarious. I was there thinking, if we lived in London right now I would for sure try to get a season ticket, get to see a lot more games. Well, season tickets are very expensive, so maybe not, but I love it, I loved being at the Lane, I love being at the new ground, which is in the same place. Anyway, I didn’t sketch after kick-off as I wanted to pay attention to the match, and it was an extremely entertaining game. It’s Ange Postecoglou football isn’t it, it’s crazy stuff. From where I sat I could really see our shape for the first time, much better than on the limited TV screen. We don’t like going too wide, our wing-backs/full-backs really give a lot of space to their wide attackers. Both teams played full-on, there were so many goal attempts, disallowed goals, off-the-line clearances, it was nervy, and highly entertaining. We should have capitalized on our attacks, but in the end when we were 2-1 up, everyone around kept saying the game feels like a 2-2, and when Mats Hummels (who I had no idea was playing for Roma now, after those years at Dortmund) popped up and scored an equalizer, to be honest it felt like a fair result. My jetlag was kicking in, but I had the long long walk back to Seven Sisters yet to come, among the thousands leaving the stadium. It was a great night, I’m glad I went and can’t wait to go and watch another one sometime, hopefully with my son. Come on you Spurs!

flying there and flying back, again

December 30, 20243 Comments

Two more times up in the sky, going to London and back to San Francisco. The first flight was more comfortable, better legroom and an empty seat next to me, though I still struggled to get decent sleep. I always have to sketch on the flight, it does calm me, and gives me something to do. The entertainment system is good, though I rarely watch things on it, other than the flight map. I do watch stuff on my iPad, mostly I listen to my iPod, podcasts, audiobooks, music. I was re-listening to Fellowship of the Ring on the flight over. I hate these long flights, but they have to be done, since I can’t teleport. These days, I land at Heathrow and get the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, before taking the Northern Line up to Burnt Oak, it’s a long journey all in all. The flight back (below) I was really crammed in, a full flight with very little legroom. I chose to sit in the middle (nobody moving past me to get up, like at the window seat) but it really felt squashed. On this flight though I was able to bring back my old guitar from London, and it didn’t cost me any extra, and just went into the overhead bins above other people’s bags (it’s pretty thin). I still had to draw, and in fact these flights back are also an opportunity to catch up on the sketches I didn’t get finished during the trip. So I spent a lot of time drawing, squashing in my elbows. It was a long flight, I was thinking about all I’d done, people I’d seen, people I’d not been able to see. It was nice spending a bit more time with my Mum. Unfortunately my Dad was in hospital for most of the time I was back, wasn’t doing too well, so I’m glad I was able to be there, it’s difficult being so far away. I started watching a film called ‘Hampstead’ which my Mum had started watching a couple of days before, and it looked ok, but actually was really dull so I turned it off. I don’t remember what else I watched, some Drive to Survive. I started reading a new book I’d bought, written by an old friend from university whose book signing I’d been to. My bag was full of mince pies and other food goodies for Christmas; I could have brought so much more back if I had the room. Anyway, bookends to another trip back home.

a hundred years of burnt oak tube station

December 28, 20242 Comments

A few weeks ago I was back in London for a quick visit to see my Mum and my Dad, but of course managed to get a fair bit of sketching and exploring in as well. I also had to draw Burnt Oak Station, which I didn’t sketch last time I was back, even though I had that little walk around Burnt Oak that was on the radio, starting out at the tube station. What I had forgotten was that 2024 is the actual centenary of the station being built. Back in 1924 there was an extension of the Northern Line into what they were calling ‘Metroland’, according to all the old posters, and these areas that were previously fields and small settlements, your Edgwares and Hendons and Stanmores, all became part of this large suburbia of an ever expanding London, full of nice terraced houses, or orange brick council housing estates such as the Watling Estate where I grew up (as did my Mum). Burnt Oak Station is a good starting point because you could say that the Burnt Oak we know started here. Well, we were all told at school that it started with the Romans, who used to burn an oak tree to mark boundaries of areas, and yes, it kind of did. The long Roman Road, Watling Street, arguably the most important of roads in Britannia, runs right through it up on a ridgeway and gave birth to the settlements around here (Red Hill was the village up there; I’m from neighbouring Orange Hill), now known as the Edgware Road, or Burnt Oak Broadway as it comes through this area. Burnt Oak Station is down from that on the street which was named Watling Avenue, and so some of the signs inside the station still read ‘Burnt Oak (Watling)’. Locals call that street ‘the Watling’. It’s changed a lot over the years. I was back in the iconic library at the corner of Orange Hill and the Watling, and was shocked to hear that it would be knocked down and replaced with a modern building full of luxury flats. I mean, FFS. Oh, but they will build another library around the corner in Barnfield, so oh that’s ok then. (Why can’t the flats go in Barnfield and keep the historic pyramid shaped library there?) Behind the station is a dingy car park and an old market area, I don’t know if the market is still on but it we used to go there when I was a kid. It was always full of rats when the market was closed. Anyway, that is going to be developed into loads more private flats, another whole development. I’m not sure the are can handle so many more residents, and these aren’t going to be cheap. Having seen Colindale become an endless sea of new tall buildings full of expensive flats, especially over the old Police training centre you could see from the tube, with very little making it feel like an area with community, I worry the same could end up happening to Burnt Oak. All the old pubs are gone. I had a dream that they knocked down Burnt Oak station and replaced it with something big and modern (like they are doing with Colindale now, to handle all its new volume of users), and that will probably end up happening. But I’ll enjoy it while it still looks like itself. One thing I remember from years ago, when coming up the Northern Line you could usually tell which station you were at if you couldn’t see the sign, each station along this way was painted a different colour – Hendon Central was light blue, Colindale was yellow, Burnt Oak was red. They changed that years ago, and mode those three paint in a cream and dark green paint job. Now they announce the stations anyway, and the big roundel signs are pretty visible. Lot of memories here, good and bad, but growing up this was the exit point to a more interesting world, as well as the familiar entryway back home. There’s nothing like that moment when, having travelled five thousand miles across the world, my train pulls in and I go up those little stairs again, knowing I’m just minutes away from getting to my Mum’s house for a nice cup of tea. Happy 100th birthday, Burnt Oak tube!

christmas under the tree

December 27, 2024Leave a comment

These little fellows are sat at the foot of our little Christmas tree this year, and I just had to draw them. This sketchbook is nearly over (yes, I still have to post my London sketches) but Christmas isn’t. Well, I get the feeling from a lot of Americans that it is, because it’s past December 25th, but that’s only Christmas Day. At Target today while buying discounted wrapping paper for next year I heard someone say to their kid, “no, Christmas is over now”. Today, for me as a Brit anyway, was Boxing Day, laziest day of the year. I keep the decorations up until January 6th, though as far as British tradition held when I was a kid, Christmas lasted for those exact two weeks of TV listings in the Radio Times; once it’s January 2nd, forget it, party’s over folks. But they (and the TV Times, and other papers with good listings, even really awful papers like the Mail would have good TV listings at Christmas time) would always list the days as “Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Friday, etc, same with New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. So this day when people ask me what day Christmas Day is on, I say “Christmas Day”, because I figured we just didn’t use the actual name of the weekday for it, because the Radio Times didn’t. Still, I was glad to see Christmas Day fall upon a Wednesday this year, it feels somehow fair. Although on the Saturday before Christmas, I threw my back out and was largely unable to move too much for many days. I was in the kitchen making cranberry sauce, which I had never done before. I had the idea when I was deciding to make a special drink called a ‘White Christmas’, which I’d seen online, basically Prosecco with white cranberry juice (the one I used also had some peach), a sprig of rosemary and some cranberries. I had a lot of cranberries left over so I looked up recipes for cranberry sauce; there are hundreds, all different, some with loads of ingredients like rum and cinnamon sticks, some with hardly any. I chose one with perhaps a bit too much orange in it, and I squeezed the juice out of it myself. Once I’d made it, I put it in the fridge for a couple of days before tasting it, I was a bit afraid. It turned out ok, a bit tart and fruity, so we had some canned cranberry sauce as well, which was much milder. Anyway, after being down on the floor looking for various pots and pans in the cupboards, I somehow pulled my back, and this got worse over the next few days, even affecting my ankle and foot, meaning I spent most of Sunday and Monday lying flat in bed. In fact I drew this sketch when I woke up super early, unable to get back asleep, so I hobbled downstairs and drew these guys. Christmas Eve is traditionally the day for just our family, when we have my beloved Christmas turkey roast dinner. We go over to my wife’s family on Christmas Day itself and eat crab for dinner. At home though I get my parsnips (this year roasted with carrots and they were amazing) and different stuffings (both British Paxo and the American stovetop kind), turkey and crispy roast spuds, and of course I eschew brussels sprouts because I can’t stand them. This year though I made Yorkshire puddings for the first time ever, and they came out great. Achievement finally unlocked, why was I so afraid of messing that up. My wife made the turkey and it was fantastic. Though for all the bits I was cooking, I was bent over in the kitchen in agony and had to keep sitting down every few minutes, barely able to stand, but it all worked out deliciously. I was still pretty stiff on Christmas Day, but as the day wore on the back issue finally wore off, and by Boxing Day I was fine walking about Target. No mate, it’s still Christmas yet, not while there are mince pies left to be eaten, and I still have a lot I brought back from London. I’m in denial that 2025 has to start at all, if I’m honest. As I write it’s 3:30am and I’ve been unable to get back to sleep. Enjoy the festive season while it’s here folks, and to all a good night (or a good morning).

back at the avid reader bookshop

December 23, 2024Leave a comment

Here’s the other sketch I did downtown last week, actually over the course of a couple of days because I was a bit cold (and busy) the first day, so went back and finished it off, adding some paint. It was busy downtown, there were lots of last few-days-before-Christmas shoppers, and groups of teenagers roaming about after the last day of school finished early, all the lads looking similar with that same haircut the teenage boys have now, you’ve seen it, the one with the fluffy looking hair and short sides. It was cold out, I had to go inside a few shops just to warm up, and buy more things. In Newsbeat for example I went in and got another little Jellycat (one of those cute stuffed toys, they import them from Britain), and it was packed, everyone in line was buying a different Jellycat. Good to see though. It’s nice to see downtown busy and healthy, and it’s shops like this we need, not more boba tea cafes or frozen yoghurt shops or chain restaurants, and not that I don’t use them myself, but I don’t want more of them replacing the useful shops. This is the popular Avid Reader bookshop (I have a number of bookshops in my sketchbook now, did some more in London) which is a great place to pick up Christmas gifts, books as well as other things. As I’ve mentioned before this was the very first place I worked in America, back when Alzada ran the bookshop (she sold the store just before Covid, and she died a few years ago), and I always enjoyed my experiences there, working part-time as the book-keeper and staying on even after I got my full-time job at UC Davis, right up to when my son was born. I used to like working in the evenings when there would be book events, I’d be upstairs working on the invoices, I did that same job in London at a bookshop, one that was a little less successful in the end, as it closed less than a couple of years after I moved to California after a few decades in business; it’s been a tough time for bookshops, so it’s great when we have one that is doing alright, and is a real fixture for the local community. I’ve even given a couple of talks here myself about urban sketching (one of them being a book talk for Gabi Campanario’s first book in which I was featured), and I did an ArtAbout exhibit in here as well, a long time ago now. It’s fairly different inside now than when I worked there, a lot more products on sale, but the outside still feels the same with that familiar old sign. So I stood on the street and sketched and thought about books. I really need to write a new one myself, maybe in 2025.

tis the season

December 23, 20243 Comments

Before I post all my London drawings, here are a couple of festive sketches from downtown Davis. There is always a bit of a contest for the best dressed window in the downtown shops and I think the one above, at Bella Luna on F St, might be the best one. It’s not really just a window, it spills out into the street and around the tree outside as well, it’s quite a jolly sight as you approach it. I had to stand just off the sidewalk and in between two cars to sketch it, well the outline anyway, I am not standing in between two cars to sketch for too long. I went back on the sidewalk to keep drawing, and then added the colour later on because it was getting a bit cold, and it was my lunchtime. Anyway, Christmas is nearly here, all the shopping both downtown and online has been done, the mince pies are already being eaten and all the Christmas tv and movies are being watched. Spurs are being very generous with all the goals we are giving away (and scoring too), but I hope Santa can bring us some fit players down the chimney. The weather is gloomy and damp, and that’s totally fine, this time of year. I have made cranberry sauce for the first time in my life and it’s on the fridge, but I’m too scared to actually eat any of it in case it’s really bad, so we have a can of it ready to go. We usually have our roast turkey dinner on Christmas Eve, since my wife’s family usually have crab on Christmas Day. I am even going to try to make Yorkshire Puddings this year, never made them before, let’s see what happens there. And I’ve somehow done my back in, which has been fun today. It’s raining outside, and Christmas episodes of Friends are on TV now. Below, a quick sketch I did of the tree in E Street Plaza, I was going to make it all colourful but you know, it was cold and I decided I couldn’t be bothered to colour it in. Not seen in the foreground were those Hump Bikes, parked with various Uber Eats or whatever delivery drivers milling about waiting for orders so they can zoom off silently on the sidewalk and in the bike lanes. The clock was giving the wrong time, it was late afternoon on Friday, we’d closed up early and I was doing a bit more late shopping before heading home. I’ve drawn the festive tree before in other years, and I don’t know, I don’t enjoy drawing Christmas trees if I’m honest. Love Christmas, hate drawing the trees if I can avoid it. Yet I like drawing trees. Well ok I don’t mind drawing Christmas trees. I guess I’ve drawn a lot of trees this year, and what I enjoy most is usually the trunk. Anyway, back to the mince pies and the bad back…

all about the fall

December 20, 2024December 20, 2024Leave a comment

Part Two of the autumnal study of Davis in November. It’s a pleasure walking and running around town at this time of year. It’s like walking through a box of paints, so it’s exciting for people like me who carry boxes of paints around with them. Above, the street next to mine, on Veteran’s Day, all the bins still lined up outside. The blue house on the left, we used to live there over ten years ago. The big tree on the right is still standing, though some of its buddies down the street fell in the storms a couple of years ago. In fact the top of this tree also fell off, a few years ago, thankfully causing no injury. It’s always a worry, these big tree limbs coming down. I love the way the smaller trees bring a lot of colour to our little neighbourhood though.

Downtown now, and this is the Fast (and Easy) Mart on the corner of B and 2nd. ‘Lamplighter Terrace’ it’s called, apparently. The trees get colourful here, and it’s always a fun thing to sketch with those funny jazz musician sculptures stationed above it.

I drew this one on Russell Boulevard, and it was a far more colourful scene than what I actually painted. I added in the yellow and a little red while I was there, thinking I could just add the rest later but I didn’t, and yet it makes it stand out more, and the mind fills in the rest. There were more reds, oranges, both dark and light greens, browns. A lot of this are looks like this, leafy fraternity and sorority houses.

I drew this one above while stood on Hutchison on the UC Davis campus looking towards the arts complex. The building itself is painted a light blue and really stood out against the colours, but again it looked better unpainted. I walked past there yesterday; the trees are no longer bright, or are leafless, but there are other changes; the building on the right now has a big bold lettering saying “Maria Manetti Shrem Art Hall”, while the free-standing signage on the left with the blue colouring has been updated to a snazzy blue and turquoise gradient with “Maria Manetti Shrem Art Hall” on it. All along here and right down past the Pitzer the signage on the lamp-posts has ben updated with a similar design, as this has been rebranded as the Maria Manetti Shrem Arts District. Maria Manetti Shrem gave a very very sizeable donation to support the arts on campus, in fact the largest single gift ever given (read about it here); she and her husband Jan Shrem, who passed away just this year, were the primary founding donors for the amazing Manetti Shrem Musuem of Art, you may remember my sketches of it as it being built (see my tag manetti-shrem-museum), and the opening weekend eight years ago which I documented. I’ll go back and sketch a bit more down there some time.

The sketch above I drew in largely the same spot and on the same day as the previous one, stood behind the Shields Library. Those trees that were very colourful a month ago are dull and wintery now.

Above, the UC Davis Silo, which I’ve drawn many times, and barely drew this time. I was focused on those very bright trees. In fact it started raining a little, so I stood beneath a tree as if that made some difference. I wish the Silo’s tower still had all that green covering, but it looks blank and bare now.

And finally, the colourful trees outside the DJUSD offices, the ‘Susan B. Anthony Administrative Center’. You can catch a reflection of me sketching from across the street if you look hard enough. Thsi was on Saturday November 23rd, the day of the annual Turkey Trot, and my legs were sore because I had just run my first ever 10k. In fact it started from very close to this spot. I was up in the morning and down here jogging about a little in preparation, wearing my Spurs shirt to represent (Spurs were playing Man. City that day too), and I thought, I must sketch these later. Davis was very much in full autumnal bloom, though it was raining a bit. I had done a few six mile runs to prepare for the 10k, going from imperial to metric in the blink of an eye. Actually it was a big deal for me, felt like an achievement unlocked. I want to do more, but after my London trip and the mince-pie infested Christmas I intend to have, I might just go back to 5k runs again until I’m ready. Still, it was my best 10k time ever, and I kept a steady pace throughout. It did pour down with rain in the middle section, making it hard to see out of my glasses, but I like running in the rain. It stopped long before I reached the finish line. As I ran across, my son called out to me to let me know Spurs were already 2-0 up against City, so we rushed home to watch the rest of the match with some donuts. Tottenham won 4-0, away from home, so that was a very good day. Later that afternoon, once my family had flown down to Disney (no way I was doing that after my 10k), I went down B Street to sketch this, before having an early dinner and heading home to watch the Formula 1. I was flying to London a couple of days later, so this was Fall’s final fling, until next year.

beer and sketching after a long, long week

December 20, 2024December 19, 2024Leave a comment

After I was done with day two of the conference, finishing at about 8pm and exhausted, I walked downtown to grab some dinner and a couple of beers. Despite being tired I really needed to work out all the energy of that long long week into my sketchbook. I popped into the University of Beer, in a spot in the corner with a view that I have drawn before many years ago (2013), not long after it had opened. See below. I remember that afternoon, a hot day, and I was eager to practice my perspective sketching. Those older guys on the left were talking about Davis in the old days, the old bars that used to be there on G Street. They still had the long section of frost upon which you could put your glass to keep it chilled, but that seems to be gone now. And no more iPads with menus on! That seemed like a futuristic innovation back then but is apparently part of the dustbin of history now. To read the menu these days, you need to point your phone at a QR code, which means I have to read on my phone which is much smaller. So I’m sitting there looking over the rim of my glasses, even though I have varifocals, squinting to try and understand the ridiculous names all these beers have, looking for a nice normal amber ale. Back in the old days they only served beer too, but now they have all sorts of drinks, which is probably better for business to be honest, but the beer list is still long.

I ordered a beer and started drawing fast. I can draw quickly when it all starts coming out. As I drew, they started setting up for their Saturday night karaoke. It was pretty busy, that is a popular night out there I guess. People started singing, I didn’t always recognize the songs. I wasn’t tempted to have a go myself. I don’t mind a karaoke, historically, but I always like a stage. These ones where you are just in the corner by the door at the same level as people walking about would make me feel a bit odd. Not for me guv. Anyway, it was getting a bit loud, and I’d drawn very quickly and drunk my beer very slowly, but I wasn’t ready for the walk home just yet so popped by De Vere’s – sorry, not De Vere’s, it’s Bull’n’Mouth now, De Vere’s is in the past. I don’t go out much any more. They don’t do Smithwicks in there these days, and no Guinness, I think they are moving away from the Irishness of the predecessor pub. I drew a couple of quick sketches over a Bavarian beer, and made the long walk home for a long sleep. November was a long month.

sketching our annual stats conference, 2024

December 19, 2024December 19, 2024Leave a comment

Last month our department held its annual conference, this year title ‘Statistics in the Age of AI’. The conference is held in the memory of Peter Hall, one of the great professors of Statistics who passed away almost nine years ago now. This year we had many interesting speakers from around the country, plus several of our alumni came back to talk about the topic and about their own experiences working in Stats/Data Science in modern industry. We are of course in the Age of AI, and a lot of what was presented went way over my head. Despite all the years of being exposed to top-level statisticians, none of it has rubbed off on me, I’m none the wiser about any of it. I stopped learning maths at school at the age of 16, when I worked hard to get a ‘C’ at GCSE, which was the top grade available to those in my level two class. Yes it was a bit strange thinking back that a C was the highest grade available to me but I made my choice. I was in the top class for maths, but I was not very strong at it, I found the work confusing and frankly pointless, and I really didn’t like my teacher who scared me witless. So rather than go into my GCSE years struggling in the top set with the risk of being moved down, I requested to be moved into the second set, which would not only be a lot more manageable in terms of workload but the teacher was so much nicer, and I really learned a lot. The tradeoff was that I would not be able to get an A or B in the final grade. Since I was worried I’d get a D anyway, this didn’t bother me. I was usually top or among the top in that class (I was a bit like Burnley or Southampton or Sheffield United when they are in the Championship) and still remember working really hard at it, going to Edgware Library to study after school. When I got my C, which was a pass, I was well pleased and I put my calculator down and said, this is good enough. We don’t have to study maths beyond that age in England if we don’t want to, so I never did, let alone statistics. None of this really has anything to do with this conference other than I didn’t understand much of what was being said, but my job was to make sure the whole thing ran smoothly, so I was there all day from open to very late close, often by myself but I relied very much on the hard work of other staff too, lots of great teamwork, and keeping busy kept my mind off the world. I even got to present my poster of the faculty family tree I put together in the summer. It was nice to meet and greet people and make sure they were well fed. I wasn’t going to sketch as well but in those quieter moments I can’t help myself. So here are a few sketches of people enjoying what turned out to be a really nice event.