It’s quite tricksy writing things for this, you know? So, what’s been going on? I notice that in my last post I was hopeful I’d be getting started on something concrete. Well, I have done, and finished it as well, so anything you would like to know about the divisibility of characteristic classes of bundles of non-orientable surfaces, I’m the person to ask. I would elaborate, but there’s a short note about it in the pipeline and I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. Probably appearing on the ArXiV before long.

This of course occupied much of the preceeding few months, but I’ve been doing a few other things too. In particular, I’m getting quite interested in hardcore stable homotopy theory, with formal groups, MU, and all that story. Not things that are obviously or immediately applicable to problems I’ll be working on, but very interesting and clever stuff. It’s best to do this broad learning now I think, because when I’m stuck into a problem I have little mind-space for anything else.

So I’m not going back to Marbella this Easter, as I’m saving up my precious scraps of holiday for the summer, as all the world assures me Oxford is a dull place of a summer. I’ll be going to Marbella for a while, possibly accompanied by this child and this man:

So I’m definitely going to Strasbourg in May now, so do let me know anyone else who is.

Well, a bit of excitement at home last night. I think we had an attempted breakin. I was just going to go to bed, and I was in the kitchen getting a drink when I heard a sharp knock at the back door. We never use it, so this was very odd. I turned all the lights off (thinking that I know the layout of the house and whoever is there probably doesn’t) and waited around the corner to jump whoever came in, but I just heard a few more noises and then nothing. Then I thought I was just being silly and carried away, so I carried on getting ready for bed, and just went to check the back door before I went to sleep. It was unlocked. Hmmmm, I thought, now I’m kinda scared because maybe there’s someone already in the house. I got one of my brother’s golf clubs, turned all the lights off and called him to ask about the back door, and he said he was sure he’d closed it the last time he’d used it. He was only down the road so he came up and got himself a golf club too, and we went around the back of the house. We were quietly walking down the back when my brother said he heard someone run around to the other side of the house, so we ran around that way too and my brother suddenly thought he was in a Guy Ritchie film and started doing a bit of shouting in his east end accent. We could hear a bit of movement in the bushes behind the house, but it was probably nothing.

Anyway, we come back in saying it was probably nothing and we’re just getting spooked, and my brother goes to bed. I’m just getting ready to as well, and I hear something out the back through my window, so I turn my light off and stand there looking out the back (because I could see a bit with the moon, but you wouldn’t have been able to see me in my room). I hear a few noises and thought I saw something moving off to one side, then the noise at the back door happens again. I go to wake my brother up and probably scare him half to death because it’s pitch black. I didn’t want to turn the lights on, it feels spooky knowing people can see in the windows but you can’t see out. He tries to call one of his bruiser friends but there’s no luck, so I get a golf club (yet again) and quietly move around the house to see if I can hear anything. The noise at the back door happened again and just as I’m going back into my brother’s room, there’s another noise on the roof, which as we’re now completely wound up sounds exactly like a tile breaking as someone steps on it. Anyway, my brother calls the police and we sit there in the pitch black both holding golf clubs and waiting. A while passes and we see a light come from the kitchen, where the back door leads to. We rush it with our golf clubs but there’s nothing there, and we see another light at the front so deduce that it’s the police (you’d think they’d let you know it’s them, but maybe they don’t want to let the crims know).

My brother opens the hole in the door and sees it’s the police, and they’re saying “Are you the proprietor?” and he walks out with his hands up in the air, in just his boxers, saying “I’m the son, I’m the son!” This made me laugh, as now six policemen waving guns (welcome to the continent, where the police are armed and keen for practice) were there I could see the ridiculous side. They had a look around and couldn’t see anything, and I went out to look at the lock on the back door but couldn’t see anything amiss. They got our details (and unloaded their guns, some sort of protocol I suppose. One of them said “If we found someone here tonight we’d leave him like a colander. It’s a good thing you’re doing some building, we could put him in the concrete.” Policia Local: brutality with a smile) and went on their way. Now me and my brother were quite happy again, and joking about him walking out with his hands up in his boxers, about how funny it would be if that’s all a neighbour saw of the night’s proceedings! A normal night then.

This is going to be slightly uncomfortable for people who just want to know what I’ve been doing this summer, but this post is going to be about Quillen’s Plus construction. Why? Because I was trying to remember the details when I was having dinner in Bar Uno the other night, and couldn’t quite get it all out. Also I want to test out my new renderer, which incidentally looks a bit bad as it is giving images to put on a white background, and has to be recompiled to change that, and I don’t have shell access yet. Incidentally, after looking up the bible, as mine was too heavy to bring over from Oxford, I notice the Allen Hatcher/Terri Hatcher Google war is being dominated by the topologist. Good stuff. (more…)