At last I’ve finally reformatted and published the original texts of my researches into audio technologies. These were originally written a goodly number of years ago and, if you read them, you’ll find no small number of errors and anachronisms. (Do please note that the “publication” dates shown at the bottom of each item are the dates on which they were published to the site and not the dates upon which they were written.) This is intentional since I intend to show how these texts are revisited and recreated in the light of new knowledge and changes in my approach to writing. The idea is to read the revised versions in the context of the originals.

The work will take quite some time: the originals took over a year to research and around four months to write: the original text in total amounts to a little short of 40,000 words in its’ original form and I intend to revisit the whole thing word by word. Progress will often be slow but progress there will be because, after this, there will be no more; my academic activity will end.

It may seem odd to announce the end of something by declaring a beginning but this is, I think, appropriate not least since it reflects a change in my attitudes and my faith in the present state of academe. So much has become compromised by the financial opportunism of our so-called “managers” who see universities as either being successful profit centres - or failures. In the present climate, there is, it seems, no longer any place for the liberal approach to higher education in which I believe and to which I have been committed for most of my professional life. So, in compromising my academic style into one that expresses more than the merely factual, I’m indulging in a final tilt at a windmill. I think everyone is allowed that indulgence once in their career so, with only a year left in mine, it seems high time to kick over the traces, cock a snoot at the Management and have some creative fun with ideas and words.

Why not come along for the ride ? Everyone’s welcome.