What's in a name ...

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2.

Sitting here waiting for Cath to work through her packing routine before leaving Brisbane and heading off. The few hours before all trips always follow the same routine; the stress levels rise perceptively,  there is a brief lurch towards the divorce courts and then, finally, everything turns out well. So while I wait for the inevitable course of events to unfold,  I thought would ruminate very briefly on the blog’s name.

During my first year of postgraduate study at Oxford, I invited my (then) supervisor to a formal meal at my college, St. Edmund Hall. After the meal we were entertained by a fellow student (a rather intense mathematician as I recall) playing one of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances on the piano. After the piece, my supervisor leaned over to me and remarked casually that the performance could best be described as “often wrong, never in doubt”. 

The memory of this interchange still strikes a chord with me. If I were to characterize my time at Oxford and indeed my entire academic career in a single phrase, it would be “often wrong, always in doubt”. So choosing to replace “always” with “seldom” in the name of the blog represents a conscious choice and a massive step forward.