Movements

Thanks to Blogger deciding to scrap their FTP service, this blog is now located at http://blog.2ubh.com/, rather than the old 2ubh.com/view/ address. If you're still at the old place, you should be redirected automatically - if not, or you don't want to wait, click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.2ubh.com/atom.xml.

I'm also on the move myself - I'm now working full-time at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, currently heading communications for the new Nuclear AMRC. The freelance work is therefore at an end, apart from maybe the odd piece. Thanks to everyone who has commissioned work from me over the years.

This site will undergo a bit of a rethink, but this blog will continue in some form.

A new position

As of this month, I'm working part-time at the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, with the grand title of European Communications Manager. I'll be working across the centre's European research projects, helping write funding proposals and manage the various international academic and industrial partners, through to disseminating and publicising the research once it's done.

I've been involved with the centre since its founding in 2001 - first writing about what they do for Yorkshire Business Insider and other publications, and more recently working on a few projects with them on a freelance basis. The centre's grown hugely over that time, and is now recognised as a world leader in its field of very clever metal-bashing (and, increasingly, composite-bashing). Of course, that's carrying on a long and noble tradition for Sheffield (even though the centre itself is located just over the border in Rotherham). I'm very happy to be helping, in some small way, to secure a high-tech future for my native city.

It's probably a good sign, then, that the AMRC appeared very briefly on BBC4's excellent Synth Britannia programme last week - to the unmistakable soundtrack of '4JG' (yes, a tribute to JG Ballard) by The Future (a short-lived early incarnation of The Human League).

Given that the main building here is called 'The Factory of the Future', it's a great visual/musical pun - I wonder if the production team actually realised that?

Anyway, it's a part-time position, and I'll still be writing and working freelance for the rest of the time - and, from a financial point of view, a monthly income will be a welcome stabiliser to the rock'n'roll revenues of a freelance life, particularly in the current media market. I'm currently deep in a lengthy feature for Corporate Financier on that perennial topic of finance for innovative start-up businesses and university spin-outs. My Clean Ventures site will also continue and, of course, I'll still be adding pics and ponderings here as and when. Stay tuned.

At last the 2007 show

Happy new year, folks. I've started with a long-overdue update on the main site, with a few new additions to the features archive.

The major one is the series of features on solar energy technology and venture capital I wrote for Cleantech Magazine from late 2007 to spring 2008. These were more recently republished in an updated, collected form in the magazine's Infocus supplement, from which I offer my features on the next generation of solar (PDF, 450kb).
The next issue of Cleantech will include another article by myself, reviewing the cleantech VC market over 2008 and looking forward to what the new year may bring. For more on this subject, of course, see my other blog Clean Ventures.

I've also put up a year-old feature I wrote for Private Equity International's Annual Review, casting my eye over trends in the European mid-market in 2007. I'm about to start on the equivalent feature for this year's review - I suspect I'll be hearing some interesting views on what's been happening...

Also, another piece for the ICAEW's Corporate Financier from late 2007, looking at company sales in the wake of the credit crunch (PDF, 620kb). All seems a while ago now, really, but some of the advice therein should still hold. The very attentive might also note that I've added a page with another Corporate Financier feature on technology sector M&A - this was previously linked to a PDF of the feature at the ICAEW's site which has now vanished into the ether, and of which I foolishly didn't keep a copy.

Anyway, that's the old news. More on new projects soon.

New reviews

Just added three new pieces to the Reviews section of the main site:
The Artist and the Mathematician by Amir Aczel;
New Theories of Everything by John Barrow; and
Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres.
All three are pop science of various flavours (as the titles suggest, variously covering maths, statistics and, well, pretty much everything) which I've reviewed for the Fortean Times in recent months, all of which are interesting if flawed. I've also just submitted another review, of David Toomey's The New Time Travellers which is highly recommended for anyone with a passing interest in real-life adventures in time and space.

Clean Ventures blog

I've just launched a new blog, Clean Ventures, focusing specifically on clean technologies and cleantech venture capital. There's a number of US blogs on a similar theme of course, but I'll be doing it from a UK and European perspective. I'll be documenting VC deals in cleantech companies, new research and analysis on the sector, and policy news of interest; pointing to emerging technologies, companies and services; and exploring issues such as the possible investment bubble in listed cleantech businesses, and what that might mean for companies and investors. It's starting out quite modestly, but I'm aiming to introduce new services and content as things develop.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed an increasing number of posts on cleantech and related concerns in recent months. If you've found these interesting, I hope you find the new blog to be a welcome addition to your personal blogosphere - and if you've not been that interested, it's also good news as there'll be less of that here.

Einstein no-no

I've felt obliged to add a special note to one of the most popular pages on the main 2ubh site, a feature I wrote two years ago entitled 'The other side of Albert Einstein'. The note reads as follows:

This article is consistently the most visited on this site. It was commissioned by Physics World as part of a special issue celebrating the start of the International Year of Physics in 2005. The year was also known as Einstein Year, marking as it did the centenary of of his groundbreaking work in Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and special relativity.
The brief was to examine the various myths and accusations which have been levelled at Einstein. Of these, perhaps the most pernicious is that Einstein was a fraud. As noted below, this accusation is particularly prevalent among racists who can't accept a liberal Jewish genius.
It's slightly annoying, then, to find that this article has been selectively referenced and linked to by a number of right-wing and neo-nazi sites, so as to suggest that it supports their idiotic ideas. It doesn't in any way.
I'll simplify the basic message of the article for anyone with such an agenda: Einstein was certainly a genius, but he was in other ways a typically flawed human being. You, on the other hand, are an idiot. Now grow the fuck up.
To everyone else, I hope you enjoy the article.
- TC

It's sad that it had to be said, really.

All tagged up

I've recently moved over to the new version of Blogger, which promises various new features and improvements. The main one is the addition of category labels, which I'd been considering moving over to Wordpress for - so a wise addition by the Google chaps. I've completed the laborious process of adding categories to all the posts so far, so you can easily find my witterings on your particular area of interest. So far, the categories (and number of posts to date) are:
economics (43) - interesting research, and thoughts on theory and practice
regional (18) - regional development and regeneration
VC (11) - venture capital, plus other aspects of corporate finance and investment
technology (12) - the innovation making a difference, with an emphasis on environmental and clean tech
science (6) - theoretical innovation and research
Yorkshire (28) - news and oddments from god's own country
journalism (17) - notes on my own trade, and criticism of other people's
photos (15) - eyecatching architecture, art and oddness from hither and yon
site (11) - noting updates and changes to this blog and the main 2ubh site
odds (26) - everything that doesn't fit into the above, and a few things that do but which have a particular fortean or Ballardian bent

The one feature I'd still like to see from Blogger is some more options on comments control - I don't want anonymous comments, but the only way to bar them seems to be to allow Blogger-registered users only. A setting, as I've seen on other sites, to just require an email address or some other ID would be preferable.

Freelancing pains

Perhaps the most infuriating thing about freelancing is the irregular nature of the workflow. Basically, it seems to exhibit marked bunching behaviour - either you've got next to nowt to do for weeks on end, or you're rushing to complete four jobs at once and having to turn down desirable commissions because you just won't have the time to do them justice.

Today, for instance, I've had to turn down two potential commissions worth a healthy few grand total, because I just wouldn't be able to fit them in alongside work I've already committed to, university commitments, and all the usual Yuletide rushing about. It's always painful to turn stuff down (particularly because the profoundly post hoc nature of freelance payment means you're often at your most broke when you're busiest, and most particularly because I had to put the car in for some costly and unforeseen work today), but I'd be letting myself and my clients down more if I took a commission only to turn in rushed and bodged work.

On the upside, I've taken my first commission from a new client who found me via this blog. I know a few journalists (not least in the local NUJ) who are more or less hostile to blogs, but I think this shows their value to freelances as a way of marketing yourself and your work.

Also on a cheery note, last night we saw Northern Broadsides's excellent production of 'A Man with Two Gaffers' (aka Goldoni's 'A Servant of Two Masters', in a new translation by Blake Morrison) down at Dean Clough. Hugely entertaining stuff - if not quite a pantomime, it wasn't far off, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Site tweaking

I've overhauled the core features pages of the main 2ubh site. Rather than having links to dozens of my old articles in a continuous list, I've divvied them up into four (occasionally overlapping) categories - corporate finance; regional development; science and technology; and odds and ends - each with its own sub-menu page. This should, I hope, make it easier for browsers and potential commissioners to find the kinds of article they're interested in. Let me know if it doesn't.

I've also added another recent book review from the Fortean Times to the reviews page, of Clifford D Conner's fascinating A People's History of Science.

New additions

I've just added to the main site a couple of features and reviews published in the past few months.

In features:
another in-depth piece for Corporate Financier, looking at the increasing use of formal advisory boards by corporate finance firms. Who advises the advisors? What do they offer the firm and its clients, and what exactly do they do?
and, for Real Business, a look at the real world of business angels in the wake of the success of the Dragons' Den TV series. I modestly reckon this is as good an introduction as any for entrepreneurs wanting to tap this sort of funding, with practical advice from people who've successfully gone that route and from the angels themselves.

And in reviews, a couple more pop science books reviewed for the Fortean Times - Joseph Silk's The Infinite Cosmos, and Are we alone? The Stanley Kubrick Extraterrestrial-Intelligence Interviews. Both, sadly, rather disappointing. Next up for review is Clifford Connor's intriguing-sounding A People's History of Science.

Summer break

I'm off for a couple of weeks, diving and loafing around the Maltese island of Gozo (reputedly the island where Ulysses was bewitched by Calypso and held captive for seven years). Assuming I escape that fate, I should be back home and open for work from Tuesday 27 June.

Spring break

I'll be away for the next week, tramping the hills round Loch Ness. Normal service will be resumed straight after Easter - if you need to get in touch, drop us an email and I'll get back to you asap.

New additions

A few additions to the main 2ubh site:
In Features, my investigation for Corporate Financier into the performance so far of the government-backed Regional Venture Capital Funds. The basic verdict is they're a nice idea, but... a good deal more government intervention at this end of the market is likely to be needed before the commercial investors are convinced that the sub-£1m market is a worthwhile place to put their money.
This was the feature shortlisted for the BVCA Private Equity & Venture Capital Journalist Of The Year Awards 2005. I'm currently working on another feature for Corporate Financier on the role of advisory boards in corporate finance firms - what do they do, and do they offer anything more than glamour by association?

And in Reviews, another couple from the Fortean Times: a comparison of the two recent biographies of the iconoclastic astronomer Fred Hoyle; and a sceptical verdict on the much-hyped Freakonomics. I note of the latter that 'much of this Freakonomics is already becoming the conventional wisdom, and ripe for overturning in turn' - the Economist this week has a provacative account of what it calls an embarrassing hole in the evidence for Levitt's most (in)famous theory.
Latest tome to arrive from the FT is 'Are we alone? The Stanley Kubrick extra-terrestrial intelligence interviews', a collection of transcripted interviews with leading scientists of the late 1960s, commissioned for Kubrick's 2001 but dropped from the finished film. Parts of these were included in a contemporary 'Making of 2001' book that I recently exhumed from the local secondhand book cave, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

Back to reality

I'm now back from a quite fantastic honeymoon in Bali and Singapore, fit for new challenges (quite apart from those of married life, of course). First up, I begin an MA in Economics and Finance at Sheffield University on a part-time basis. I'm also taking responsibility as editor of Growing Business Yorkshire, a new expanded regional supplement of the best-selling magazine (actually, not quite yet - the Yorkshire launch has been put on indefinite hold). There'll also be the usual variety of new commissions for other titles.

Recently published work includes a feature on the private equity buyout market in the UK Midlands, 'Glum in Brum', for the very nicely re-designed Real Deals (8 September issue); a piece on the Regional Venture Capital Funds for the ICAEW's Corporate Financier; a review of that Freakonomics book for Fortean Times; and a selection of photographs - mostly of architecture, either futuristic and delapidated, in Yorkshire, London and Moscow - in JG Ballard: Conversations, a long-awaited collection of interviews with the great writer from Re/Search Publications.

A hiatus

I'll be shutting down operations for the next few weeks, as I'm getting married and heading off to more exotic climes on honeymoon. Normal service will be resumed at the end of September.

Best wishes to all,

Tim

New features

A few new additions to the main 2ubh site:

In features, a link to a Nature technology feature first published in April. This is, I think, the fourth in-depth tech feature I've written for them - this time on protein purification technology, an area being driven by the increasing demand for proteomic research by the pharma industry.
Upcoming features to watch out for include a review of the UK Midlands buyouts market for Real Deals, and a critical look at the Regional Venture Capital Funds for Corporate Financier. I've also put up an earlier article on the latter, from Yorkshire Business Insider in summer 2003.

In reviews, a couple of recent short book reviews published in the Fortean Times. Arthur I Miller's 'Empire of the Stars' is recommended, Jenny Randles' 'Breaking the Time Barrier' rather less so.
Appearing soon in FT is my review of the two new biographies of astronomer and author Fred Hoyle. I'm also working on reviews of the much-hyped 'Freakonomics', and John Gribbins' new tome on the founding of the Royal Society.

Hello

This is a test version of a new blog, to cover various stuff that I write about - economics, business, regional development (especially here in Yorkshire), science, technology, and anything else that catches my fancy. The title's borrowed from JK Galbraith's recent slim volume, 'The Economics of Innocent Fraud', and may well change.