{"id":7075,"date":"2017-10-16T06:04:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T06:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7075"},"modified":"2017-10-16T06:04:44","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T06:04:44","slug":"stephen-sterling-and-the-gruffalo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2017\/10\/16\/stephen-sterling-and-the-gruffalo\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Sterling and the Gruffalo"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seemed a fair bet that the phrase:\u00a0Stephen Sterling and the Gruffalo<\/em> \u2013 has not been written very frequently if at all. \u00a0I thought to check, and the best that my (un-Google) search engine could come up with was:\u00a0Education for Sustainability by\u00a0Stephen Sterling, John Huckle ...<\/a>\u00a0 which brought a wry smile to my face.<\/p>\n

My putting them together is because they were, in very different ways, two highlights (one was actually a lowlight) of recent trips down 'the peninsular' \u00a0\u2013 which is how those of us quartered safely in Wiltshire think of the four counties to the south \/ south-west of us. \u00a0I made three visits in the space of 10 days which shows an unusual dedication to travel.<\/p>\n

The first was to go to Stephen's 'retirement do' in Plymouth which was in the grip of some mercifully-attenuated hurricane that had belted across the Atlantic. \u00a0It was wild 'n' wet outside, but the canap\u00e9s were fine, the wine was dry, and the Deputy-VC's speech of appreciation was brief, pertinent and well judged. \u00a0The university has emeritised Stephen and it hopes that he will continue to work with staff and management as they continue in their development as a sustainable university. \u00a0Stephen's response was more pointed, setting out the agenda of unfinished business that the university has if it\u00a0is to make a success of such development. \u00a0There are, of course, limits to what one Emeritus Professor can do without significant resource and tangible top-management support, including money. \u00a0It was a nice occasion and it was good to be there, even if it did mean an interminable, uncomfortable time on Last Great Western<\/em> whose stations get more poorly appointed the farther you are from London.<\/p>\n

I came across the Gruffalo in a Cornish wood c\/o the Forestry Commission's dalliance with Julia Donaldson. \u00a0There were various interpretation boards along the paths drawing attention to forest animals, including the G. \u00a0However, you had to use a Smart phone App to access some of the information \u2013 so much for communing with nature I thought, if impulses from a brumal wood are dependent on apps. \u00a0 To make matters worse, we were all being encouraged to look for red squirrels, the nearest of which must have been well over 100 miles away. \u00a0It was a spectacular walk in parts and there was a forest school in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

The third trip was to Dorset \u2013\u00a0profound England<\/em>. \u00a0It's always a pleasure to be there even if I do travel with some trepidation because of the squirearchy's predilection for locking up first-time offenders. \u00a0Anyway, the highlight was following an (obviously polluting) VW car whose owner had converted the rear VW badge into a Devil logo complete with horns, tail and trident. \u00a0I took this to be an admission that the poor bloke was stuck with a smelly heap of junk, and had concocted a DIY comment on the injustice of it all. \u00a0However, I later discovered that the kit is available (for any brand) on the web for a modest price. \u00a0It would look really good on my VW Electric Up!, but as that is one of the few VW cars that doesn't spew out noxious gases, it seems inappropriate. \u00a0I was in Dorset to visit the magnificent Etches<\/a> Collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But back to Stephen. \u00a0My wishes for a happy retirement is qualified only by the desire that he uses it to write ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seemed a fair bet that the phrase:\u00a0Stephen Sterling and the Gruffalo \u2013 has not been written very frequently if at all. \u00a0I thought to check, and the best that my (un-Google) search engine could come up with was:\u00a0Education for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}