Modernizing

There have been two big distractions from blogging over the last month. Well, there have been three if you count the political chaos here in the UK, and the unnerving sense that things really are falling apart in a dangerously nasty way. But I have nothing to add on that, except perhaps a recommendation of Chris Grey’s long-running Brexit blog, in the unlikely event that you are interested in finding informed writing on the ongoing shitshow here yet haven’t come across this truly admirable weekly commentary.

But back to local distractions. One is having major building work done, a loft extension, and some other modernizing of the house. And I have no horror stories to report. All is going very well, it seems; our builders have been/are continuing to be terrific, and everything looks as if it is going to turn out even better than we hoped. But still, despite that … Three months of fairly continuous disturbance, albeit mostly at quite a low level, have been strangely unsettling — considerably more so than is rational, no doubt for deep reasons of having your space invaded. Weekends have been cherished oases of peace. However, after two solid weeks, the plasterers finished on Friday. So from here on, there won’t be the same levels of dirt and dust to contend with. There’s still a lot of upheaval in the house but I’ve ceremoniously taken down the dustsheets from all over the books in my miniature study, and a more cheering semi-normality returns  … Only another two months, on and off, to go …

The other distraction has been the dratted IFL2. Yes, I did get a full version in to CUP by the beginning of August. But — long story — the Press have decided that they don’t like the layout I thought we’d agreed, so I’ve been recasting the logic book into the same format as my Gödel book which they also published, Computer Modernizing the text. But of course, it isn’t as simple as changing the LaTeX font command in the preamble. Oh no! For a start, lots of proofs that can’t be split over pages now need to be relocated, nudged up and down by rewriting surrounding text. And other text needs to be rewritten to stop chapters now ending a few lines onto a new page. And so on. And so forth. You really don’t want to know the ins and outs. Partly I’ve been grinding my teeth in frustration. But partly I’ve been forced to do some close re-re-reading, and this has led to some significant improvements in clarity and even a late rearrangement of some material. So it’s not at all been wasted time. But I’ll be pleased when this is all done. And oh my days, how boring is indexing?

So Brexit, building and book has for a while meant no blogging energy. But I’m now going to try to pick up the threads … Onwards!