Double-blind reviewing

As previously noted in this blog, the practice of double-blind refereeing is often compromised by authors who cite their own previous work in their draft papers submitted for review.

It is in the author's interest to maintain their anonymity, and the main reason for doing this is to protect unknown authors from being dismissed out of hand. It is easy enough for an author to cite his or her own work as "Anonymous, Year" and to enter "Reference omitted for purposes of refereeing, to be inserted in the event of acceptance", or similar, in the list of references. If authors choose deliberately to reveal their identity, there are many other ways that they can do this, so we do not expend a lot of editorial time on trying to overcome this. It is rarely such an obvious method of revealing an author's identity that surely it cannot be accidental?

Why do CM researchers continue to cite Egan and Latham Reports?

Opening a research paper with citations to Latham and Egan is probably not a good idea. These were government-sponsored reports, not research projects, and they need to be viewed very cautiously as they are now quite dated, and the political and economic landscape in the UK has moved on significantly since they were published. They do not represent the state of the art in terms of knowledge: indeed, they never have. If they were to be cited, they would need to be critiqued, although they have been endlessly, so there is not much point citing them as a reason for carrying out research into how construction work is procured and managed. Rather, researchers should seek out the best of the research that has been carried out (internationally) where this point has been tested and proved. A journal research paper is not the right forum to take up an outdated rallying call for UK industry improvement!

Have a look at them and see if you agree:

• Latham Report 1994
• Egan Report 1998

Poorly designed surveys

I am intrigued by the increasing flow of surveys that come across my desk. I wonder how many practitioners subscribe to academic construction research journals? Worse, how do you write up a survey when you have not defined a sampling frame? What would you state about the population, the sample and the return rate? I recall recently seeing one correspondent getting quite irate with people in his industry because not enough people had completed his survey.

One recent survey was sent to the CNBR list from a research student of smoe kind. It was an interesting case in point. His first question, to an international list of construction academics is: “Have you ever worked on a construction project outside of the United States?” It was clear from the context of this question that he identifies overseas as being outside the United States. But if I had never worked overseas, I would have to answer yes to this question, since I only worked on projects at home, in UK. So, having answered yes to this question, because I have worked on projects outside the United States, the next screen asks a whole load of questions with drop-down options that make little sense to me, but clearly make a great deal of sense to the researcher.

I particularly wondered about the question “Have you worked in any country which was affected by terrorism?” I guess that the UK has been affected by terrorism – but is this really what the researcher is looking for, given that his next question asks if my family travelled with my while I worked abroad? Very confusing. Until this point I was answering questions about working on sites in the UK, a country that has been affected by terrorism (as has the USA). Now, when I think about a question about taking my family with me while I worked abroad, I have to think about when my family came with me when I travelled as an academic to countries that were not affected by terrorism. In other words, all of the questions about my working abroad elicit answers that are nothing to do with the survey. So I aborted it.

I think it is important that before sending surveys out to mailing lists, students and researchers should be encouraged to think about the traditional steps in designing surveys. I wonder what we are teaching our students that leads them to make so many errors in the design of a simple survey. There are so many good books on this topic, but, for now, here are a couple of web resources to help researchers to get to grips with the basics of survey design:

• http://www.statpac.com/surveys/
• http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/info/312/surveys/217/guide_to_the_design_of_questionnaires
• http://sysurvey.com/tips/arsham.htm
  (This last one has a long list of useful links at the end)

The reason that I am going into this detail and posting these links is because so many surveys we receive in papers submitted to Construction Management and Economics are so badly designed that they contribute nothing to our collective knowledge. I frequently think that these poorly designed surveys do nothing other than confirm what the researcher thought in the first place, and as such they are simply a waste of paper.

I look forward to the day when we see fewer badly designed surveys...

Day 10 - Prüm to Reading

The bike was covered in thick frost when I went to stow my gear before breakfast. It was 07:00 and -2 degrees. I went for breakfast at 07:15 and had the usual cereals, bread, cheese and coffee. I used the mozzarella and tomato with a seeded brown roll to make a packed lunch, taking a banana, too, for something to eat in the tunnel. I set off at 07:45 in the chilly weather. It was a nice, compact and thriving town. They even have a Yamaha dealer as well as all the other usual shops, like agricultural supplies. I passed an interesting looking sculpture park. That might be worth checking out for a return trip. I could see from the smoking chimneys of Prüm that there was next to no wind. The sun was up and not a cloud in the sky.

The road was not an autobahn, and mostly single carriageway so not particularly fast. I said cheerio to yesterday's high speed, and enjoyed this traffic-free route via Malmedy and Liege. As the man at Mosel suggested at the end of my first day, this was much the better route. The journey was perfectly uneventful and I got to the tunnel three hours ahead of schedule. I was happy to be on the final stretch home, and enjoyed my picnic on the train.

The run from Dover to Reading was dull, being back on British motorways, but at least the motorways were not too congested. The satnav could not get any satellite reception pointing straight up, and I wondered if that was a consequence of the volcano cloud up in the jet stream. Certainly, it was OK pointing lower, towards the horizon. But it might have been a coincidence. There is not a cloud in the sky here, and the sun is shining, and I am properly warm for the first time since the day I arrived at Motovun. I was surprised how slow the urban traffic was compared to all the places I'd been. Having arrived home, at 14:10, here are the statistics of the trip: I covered 2,293 miles (3,696 km) with a maximum speed of 140 mph (225 kph), an average speed of 60 mph (96 kph) in 38 hours and 24 minutes of riding. Hmmm, I could have done it in a day and half if I didn't need to sleep or eat! I wonder where to go next time...

Day 9 - Ettlingen to Prüm

The ultimate purpose of this long journey was to meet Frank Schultmann and Andy Dainty in Ettlingen.  I added a few days before the meeting in order to make a trip to Motovun.  And just as I was on the way here yesterday for the meeting, I started getting text messages to tell me that because of a volcano eruption in Iceland, Andy was unable to fly to Germany for our meeting.  A bit ironic, because we ended up with Frank and me in his office connected to Andy via Skype!  But we managed to deal with all we needed to deal with, and then Frank and I went to lunch with one of Frank's colleagues.  We went to a Bavarian style restaurant in Karlsruhe, which was very interesting!

I had checked out of the hotel in the morning, after breakfast, so when Frank dropped me back, all I had to do was get my gear on and hit the road.  It was 14:30 and I had 308km to cover, about 3 hours of riding.  I was soon on the A5 again, headed northeast to the A6 which was more in the right direction, to the west.  There were copious roadworks again, in between blasts of speed, but it was not possible to get much speed up because of the Friday afternoon traffic, which was heavier than usual.  However, when I turned on to the A62, I found an autobahn that ran across hilltops, with loads of bends and bridges, almost no traffic, and mile after mile of unrestricted speed!  It was awesome opening up the bike across here.  There was loads of empty road, and I had learned to keep the windscreen lowered, and crouch down over the tank, which put more weight over the front wheel. Perhaps the lowered windshield provided a better aerodynamic as well, but it meant that I did not suffer from the bike weaving at top speed, and I was able to maintain 130mph plus or minus 10 for long stretches, except when there was a proper speed limit on occasional stretches that had slow moving traffic.  One interesting thing was slowing down on bridges that sprang across impossibly wide valleys at high altitude; slowing down for crosswinds, rather than for traffic.  Some of the bends had good visibility and smooth enough surfaces to take them at 120 mph.  And on the straights I was touching 140 mph frequently.  This was the longest sustained high speed I had done in one go, and I made the most of it, because it will be a long time before I get another chance to do this.

I arrived in Prüm at 17:30 as the satnav predicted, and it found the parking around the back, for which they gave me a key to raise the barrier.  I got internet passwords, and when they told me breakfast was 08:00 to 10:00, I grimaced, and they offered me 07:15 instead, which will enable me to get an earlyish start for a long run tomorrow, 638 km and about 8 hours - quite a run, but the channel tunnel will give me rest as i cross to England.  I must say, I am really looking forward to getting home again after all this!

Day 8 - Matrei to Ettlingen

Today was another 630km marathon. I set off from Matrei after a nice light breakfast with Olivia to chat to.  Despite the beer last night, she was up being conversational and friendly.  She got me some coffee and made sure I had everything I wanted.  The bread was made by her mother, and was very fresh.It was clear after all our talking that this was not a good place to be young.  It must be very frustrating living here.  After breakfast, I managed contribute to last night's beer and eggs and settled up.  Then I stowed everything on to the bike and wished my hosts all the best, promising to back with the family next time we are passing this way.  I had a lot of road to cover and was keen to get on.  After five or ten minutes riding through Matrei, I got to the main road and felt the power of the bike as it surged up the hills and made overtakes simple.

Lienz was slow again, going through endless road junctions with badly-phased lights.  Once I got through Lienz, the road was more fun, with nice bends and plenty of opportunities for easy overtakes.  The traffic became heavier and slower, and the route to the motorway was already familiar to me, but it was easier to see the other views in this direction, that I was craning my neck to see on the way down.  I was headed for Kufstein, and thinking that this was a bad road to choose.  Next time, I must avoid this.  It went through a lovely valley, with town after town, but as a result, the speed limits were urban, and the traffic was difficult.  but once I made the motorway, it was easier, and after crossing the border into Germany I was once more able to open up the bike for the unrestricted stretches of the autobahn.  There were many places were I could cruise along safely at speeds well over 100 mph, occasionally nudging 130.

I passed by Hotel Amroesel in Flintsbach am Inn, and remembered what a nice relaxing time I'd had there, walking up the hill and meeting the bouldering boy.  Then the traffic slowed to a halt and I filtered slowly between the lorries on the right and the cars on the left, perfectly segregated.  Some cars were across the lanes in their queuing, but the soon moved out the way when they saw me.  The motorway ahead was completely closed, for no apparent reason, and we were sent into the rural hinterland with no hint as to which direction, so I just followed a big truck, assuming he would be looking for the best route to the next junction.  He was.  After crossing the Inn, the route passsed through many villages, such as Nussdorf, and through a really attractive town with lots of old architecture on a hill, Neubeuern.  Soon after that, we joined the A8 to Munich, which is what I was headed for all along, and the detour was over, thankfully (overtakes were not possible with such slow roads and heacy traffic).  So, occasional bursts of speed again, interspersed with crawling at 80 kph through the extensive road works that seem to go on for ever.

I was getting really cold by now, and stopped near Munich to get warm and have a coffee.  I was amazed to find seven text messages that had come in while I was riding.  Andy, whom I was meeting in Karlsruhe with Frank, was not able to get here after all because all flights were cancelled due to volcanic ash in the air!  Apparently, something in Iceland is spewing ash into the air and it is dangerous to fly through it.  The irony was immense, since the meeting between the three of us was why I was making this journey in the first place.  Ah well, I was having a good break from work, and there was still a ton of stuff that Frank and I can discuss.  Plus, we can get Andy on Skype to join in.  Having warmed up in the shop at the services, I went back to my bike to get some of the food left over from last night, and nodded at another biker, on a Hayabusa, who had just rolled up.  With his cigarette smoke drifting my way, he came and joined me on the bench, and we exchanged travel stories and so on.  He had jsut set off and was on his way to somewhere 500 km north of here to see his girlfriend.  He drives this road (A8) 2-3 times a week for his job, a truck driver.  Then it turned out that his main job was a policemen, working in the despatch room, handling emergency calls.  He's been diving in Rovinj, not far from Motovun, and planned to go to Scapa Flow in Orkney, where I once went for a holiday, so was had plenty to talk about.  he had one more cigarette, then went on his way, and I had another espresso and went on my way, blasting along the unrestricted sections of autobahn whenever the opportunity arose.

As I got closer to Karlsruhe, I was nearly worried about being late to meet Frank, but I texted him to tell him that I would not be there until at least 17:30, so that I could add one and a half hours to my journey by taking a detour to have another play on Schwarzwoldhochstrasse, the B500 from Freudenstadt to Baden-Baden.  This time it was much clearer and although there were stretches with snow lying either side of the road, the temperature was well above zero, and the views across the Rhine Valley that I glimpsed were stunning.  There were stretches where I had to take it easy because of mud on the road, but most of the 24 miles of high speed bends and gradients were even more awesome than last time, with the weather being better.  Look at that bend in the picture, right at the beginning of the run.  Long, clear and fast.  They're mostly like that.  Later that evening, Frank told me that on some summer weekends, the route gets very popular with bikers, many of whom kill themselves on the bends.  To avoid too many casualties, the road is simply closed on saturdays and Sundays.  That would have been frustrating for anyone who drove a long way to see it.

I made the hotel in Ettlingen, a suburb of Karlsruhe bank on time at 17:15.  As I was checking in, Frank turned up too.  I parked the bike in their underground carpark, sorted myself out, and then walked to his house with him, less than a kilometre away.  Xenia had prepared us a wonderful dinner, and the house was more like mansion!  They had designed it themselves and it was a really spacious, attractive house with masses of space and loads of rooms.  The view across the Rhine valley was pretty special.  After dinner, Frank and I went to a pub in Ettlingen, Vogel, where they brewed their own beer.  Good stuff, too!  This had been an excellent end to a day that started of OK, but just kept getting better!

Day 7 - Motovun to Matrei

It was raining at the start of the day, and I spent the first hour on emails and reviewing a conference paper. By the time I'd had some breakfast and packed my stuff, Ranko was up and we went to the Hotel Kastel for a final coffee. We chatted about this and that, and I noted that there was almost no one around on the streets, and we returned to the house. I stowed my gear on the bike, manoevered it out from the space between the houses, and with the rain now dried up, I was off on the road again, headed North. The wet roads made me a lot more cautious about my speed, and I was approaching bends very cautioualy indeed. I knew the route home by now, or so I thought. At the boundary with Slovenia, I showed them my passport, but they did nto ask me to remove my helmet, just checked the validity of the passport. At the Slovenian border, 2.5 km further on, they waved me through, as I slowed. Somewhere between Gračišće and Crni Kal, I missed a right hand turn towards Ljubljana, and after ten minutes realised I was off track, so turned round and found the right road. I soon made it to the Italian border, and apart from some road works, it was all very straightforward.

I stopped for petrol and a snack at lunch time, then pressed on, making the winding roads up to Plöckenpass within an hour, to play on some of my favourite hair-pin bends.  But it was a bit wet after the rain, and still a bit of drizzle. Worse, the temperature hovered between -1 and 1 so I was worried about how the tyres would grip on this surface, so I rode up the roads like a novice, going in slow, and not accelerating too much out of the bends.  The last thing I wanted to do up here was drop the bike on a sharp bend.  Coming down the other side of the mountains, the roads were easier, as the temperature was a little higher, but it was awfully cold all the same.  I was thankful for the heated handlebar grips, and I worked out that I was quite comfortable around 7 degrees, but chilly below that, and when it was around zero, I really felt it.  However, it was not too cold to keep going!  The occasional light showers continued, so the road was not suitable for pushing hard into the bends, and every so often there was a bus or a lorry coming around the corner from the other direction occupying the whole road. I was glad not to be in a car!

Finally, at about 15:30, bang on schedule, I arrived at the guest house in Matrei-in-Osttirrol, the Ruggenthalerhof. I was welcomed in English by Olivia, who introduced me to her 5 year-old neice and the two of them showed my to my room, where her mum, Anna, was just finishing making it ready. It was a nice big room, with soafe, table and chairs, a balcony and so on. It felt more like a suite. They told me when breakfast was, and I asked about dinner. Apparently, there was a pizzeria open in Matrei, but probably nothing else, and there were a couple of other places to go. I decided to jump back on the bike and visit the Spar shop near the main road about 5 km back, from where I got some things that I could eat and drink in the room. When I got back, Olivia asked if I wanted some coffee, and I was quick to accept. I chucked my shopping in the room, as well as the bike gear, and joined her and Amelie in the breakfast room, where she made me a coffee, and practiced her English with me. After the coffee, she offered me a beer, and she joined me, and we continued to chat. Anna joined us, and we talked about all sorts of things. They got out some Schnapps made in this valley, and I tried two types, the first one was a bit too primitive, Williams Birne (Pear Schnapps) and the second one was very nice, which was made with Apples and Pears.  Anna pointed out to me that the Preglet label on this one was a protected trade mark, and only Schnapps made in this locality could bear this label.  I was not sure about which one was made by Anna's uncle, but at least one of them was.  Then Anna surprised me by offering me something to eat. She prepared some fried eggs on toast for me. I wasn't sure if I should have been embarrassed, because they didn't eat, since it was now too late for them to be eating. After this, Olivia and I compared our favourite music by playing each other the first 10-15 seconds of songs on our phones and we chatted about movies as well, until about 9:30, then that was the end of the evening. I was struck by her enthusiasm for all sorts of things and the lack of social opportunity in a remote place like this.  She was clearly wishing for a more interesting social life and, perhaps, sense of purpose. But she seemed stuck in a lifestyle that she would not have chosen. I guessed that this was how life was for large numbers of young people in similar situations.

It was a remarkable evening, all told, and I really felt like one of the family, having also met her brother and her uncle while we were there. Looking at the stuff I bought from the supermarket, I decided that this would make a good lunch tomorrow, instead!

Day 6 - Motovun

The last full day if my stay was a rainy day. We were confined to the house in the morning and went to the Pizzeria for a salad at lunchtime. Having checked out my phrase nook, I was able to greet Mishko with "Užasno vrijme, zar ne?", to which he responded, "ne". (The weather's bad, isn't it? No!) Mishko, who prepared the food, joined us for a chat while we ate. It was interesting observing that the banter between tables and betwern staff and customers alike probably wouldn't happen in England.

After lunch we returned to the house, drank a bit, emailed a bit, chatted a bit and nibbled some seriously good cheese. The weather cleared up, so we had a stroll around the city walls and chatted to everyone we met. Then to Benjamin's for dinner, risotto with truffles. After dinner we were fortunate enough to be invited to sit at the back of the Italian Community Hall while the local group of a capella singers (Klapa Motovun) rehearsed. Eight of them, sounding like 20, with beautiful voices singing four-part harmony. It was a mixture of traditional and modern pieces sung with tremendous skill, conducted by a young musician who was clearly very talented and lead by Tomitsa, a very powerful and passionate tenor. The sound was extremely good. They were clearly proficient, experienced and very well-matched to each other, socially as well as musically. It was a rare thrill to observe their skills and the good-natured banter between them. Their pleasure in singing was very uplifting.

This traditional style of singing is not from this region, but Dalmatia and they sang local songs, some Russian, merging with a more modern "pop" idiom. The tradition in this region is quite different, and probably nowhere near as popular or of such instant appeal as this.

Afterwards we went for more drinks in the Pizzeria bar and regaled each other with various tales about languages and travelling. I'd been able to say farewell to Lubici, Yvonna, Eike and Mishko. Once more, and more than before, I was going to miss these people. Then Rank and I returned to the house and chatted about writers like Pamuk, Eco, Dostoevsky, Borges and so on, as well as great movies like Once Upon a Time in the West, Apocalypse Now, Sin City and a load of others. This kept is going until way too late. But I shall not be in a tearing hurry tomorrow...

Day 3 - Rosenheim to Motovun

The hotel in Flintsbach am Inn had turned out fine, despite the initial formality of my reception. I only saw one other person there during my stay. The young lady who was on reception, served the meal, the drinks, dealt with the music, did the breakfast the following day, and the check-out. But there was evidence of at least 8 other guests staying, judging by the places set for breakfast, each table with the room numbers labelled and the specific number of place settings depending on which room it was. She said that some guests were quiet and that was that.
The breakfast was good, fresh bread and so on, and I took an apple and a banana for a snack later in the day. I set off at 08:30, slightly later than anticipated, but I only had 430 km to do today, unlike yesterday's big push of 670 km. I expected to arrive in Motovun at about 15:00, but was not sure about the satnav's estimate of my time because it didn't contain the maps for Slovenia and Croatia. So I texted Ranko to tell him to expect me at 17:00, and this would give me a margin of error in case of two things. First I might get lost, second I wanted time to enjoy the alps.

As I left Flintsbach behind me, I was straight on to the autobahn again, with the river Inn alongside me, marking the boundary between Austria and Germany. It was strange looking to the left and to the right seeing farms, small towns and churches, all in the same style and arranged consistently, yet to the left was Austria and to the right was Germany. If it were not for a map, I would have no idea that I was looking at two different countries as I rode along this valley. After a few miles, the road crossed the river, and I had to stop at what used to be a national boundary and buy a special vignette that is supposed to be some kind of road toll for using highways. The charge for a 10-day motorcycle vignette is 4.5 Euros. It was a bit annoying that the last two times I had been through Austria, despite being dressed in bike gear and carrying a helmet, they had sold me a car vignette for twice the price. This time, I'd specifically asked for a motorbike vignette. Since I'd stopped anyway, I decided to fill up the fuel tank as well, and then I was on my way once more, into Austria, headed towards Lienz (not Linz, which is what people here assume I am trying to say every time I mention Lienz, which is in Tyrol). I have stayed at Lienz a couple of times before, and really liked it there because it is so close to the alps. As I progressed, the hills were getting higher, the mountains of the alps were more visible, and air was clean and fresh. The sun was shining and the temperature was dropping as I gained altitude. I suddenly remembered that I had chosen ths route to pass through Matrei-in-Ostirrol, because I have booked my first night there on my return trip. It was a good choice, because this is an incredibly beautiful valley. But I was enjoying the roads too much to stop and take pictures. I did stop a little later as the skies clouded over and the temperature dropped. I saw a good lay-by and pulled over. It was just beginning to snow and the temperature was down to 4°C. I felt a real chill off the bike, being exposed to the cold wind. It made me realize how protective the fairing and screen on the bike really were. I took a picture of the scenery, bike in foreground, and was keen to get back on the bike, to be a bit more protected from the elements.

The road was going through awesome scenery as the elevation increased, until I came across the Felbertauern tunnel after some nice fast riding. This is a 5.3km tunnel that gets through some big mountains. I entered it making a mental note that the speed limit was 80 kph, and as I accelerated into it, I kept glancing at the speed display on the satnav, which indicated about 54 kph. I accelerated to 80 mph before I remembered that the satnav didn't get a signal in the tunnel, and I sheepishly slowed to the proper speed. The tunnel finished with a dangeroud sharp left hand bend, but there are plenty of warnings to slow to 30 kph. Then I was at a toll barrier, thinking that my vignette would get me through, but, no, I had to pay 8 euros toll, which meant removing the gloves and finding which pocket had the wallet. I pulled over after paying to get my gloves back on properly, and saw that there was a tunnel museum here, so I dismounted and had a look at its locked doors, seeing only a few photos through the entrance. So I took a few photos as was off again.

Riding through Lienz was odd. I had never seen it crowded with cars and pedestrians before. I think it must have been so busy because it was a Saturday. I filtered past lots of queues of traffic, and was not sure whether this was permitted in Austria, but this way I was soon out of the town and heading upwards and onwards. The road to Plöckenpasse was open and clear, with good runs of speed. I missed a right turn, because I was having such fun lining up the bends and setting up smooth accelerations, that I had to turn round and go back 2 km. This was the first batch of hairpins and I passed a car on the straight and got into the rhythm of accerating out of a bend, braking into the next one, lining up the entry, seeing the apex point, looking up and over my shoulder at the the line, and then accelerating hard out of it, braking into the next one. Each time I was getting the entries better, braking into the bend, rather than too early, which I had been doing, and getting the tires to bite before accelerating, as well as getting the widest line by going for the apex. Again and again, hairpin after hairpin, all the time getting higher up the mountain. The road straightened became a little less bendy until the old boundary crossing into Italy at the top of the pass. On the way down, the weather was better, it was warmer, and the bends sharper and mroe frequent. Many of these stretches had a half tunnel over them, with an open structure on the outside where the sunlight streamed in. Some were complete tunnels, and totally dark inside. After the brilliance of the sunshine it was unnerving to be plunged into darkness for a few seconds, then out into the light again.

After the excitement of the mountains, the roads through the foothills went from village to village, with fast stretches in between. Then I got to the motorway about 2 pm and stopped at the service area for my fruit and water, and a proper espresso - one euro. Glass of water to go with it, no messing around, no fuss. The Italians know what do with coffee! I texted Ranko to give him a new estimated arrival time of 16:00, sure I would make it before then.

The Italian motorway took me to the Slovenian border, an easy crossing now that they are in the EU. From the border, I headed for Kozina, and managed to avoid the highway, particularly because i had not bought the vignette that Slovenia now likes to sell to the tourists who are passing through. I found my way through the route, with only a couple of wrong turns. I could buy the maps for my satnav for this region, but they are about £100 for this region, and I figured it was not worth buying maps of the entire Balkans and Eastern Europe just to get through a bit of Slovenia to Buzet.

After Kozina, to Crni Kal, then to the border with Croatia, where they seemed to be asking for passports and IDs from cars in front. I took off my gloves and got me passport out, but them woman with the uniform blanked me and turned to talk to the guards. I waited a bit then she turned back and waved me through in a very disinterested manner. Clearly, they only talk to Slavs at this border. Off I went to head for Buzet.

The last run from Buzet to Motovun was easy and fast. These roads are very smooth, with some very straight stretches that are wide and clear with no side turnings. The two cars in front of me were gassing it, and try as I might, I could get nowhere near them. My clock indicated 150 mph, but the satnav had it as 140 mph, and that's the fastest I've been on this bike. By now, I had learned to get my head down at speed, and the weaving didn't happen. It might have helped that there were no crosswinds, either. I was slowing down well in advance of any bends or turnings, which is perhaps why I could not catch up with the cars, but they were really moving.

I made it to Motovun in the sunshine, and wound my way up the hill, on an atrociously surfaced road that is in dire need of rebuilding. The guy at the entrance to the town who turns back traffic from the cobbled streets waved me through with a smile. And I picked my way up the steep narrow streets, bumping over the cobbles, through the town gate to the lower square, which has tables both sides for the coffee bars, and there was Ranko who was getting me a large cold beer. All the tourists watched as I bounced to a halt next to the table, and settled down to a nice cold pint and a chat, and I presented him with a bottle of ultra-hot chilli sauce. For the first, time, I had arrived earlier than I'd given Ranko to expect, to I was quite pleased with having navigated through Slovenia and Croatia without the satnav to guide me. So, by way of celebration, we chatted and caught up with each other's news till well after midnight, with the help of a few beers, of course.

In all I had covered 1863 km (1158 miles) in 19 hrs and 24 minutes of moving time, 23 hours and 20 minutes of travel time including stops. Maximum speed was 225 kph (140 mph) and overall moving average 96 kph (60 mph). Now I need a rest for a few days before doing it all again on the way back...

Day 2 - Cochem to Rosenheim

The first thing to do was to get fuel. I have often run the tank down until the dashboard is warning me that I am low on fuel. But this was not one of those times. I was just close to empty, but not empty. I was really surprised to squeeze 18 litres into the tank, 16 litres being the previous record. This lead me to check in the manual to see what the tank capacity was and it is supposed to be 25 litres. Clearly, I need to be more ambitious about how far I can go on reserve.
After paying for the fuel, I made my way up the side of the valley to leave the Rhine behind me. The morning mist was thinning, the sun was shining in my face as I headed south, and the roads were excellent. There is a really nice winding road with great hairpins going up from Bruttig-Frankel to Mösdorf. After a happy few miles of whizzing round bends and over hills, I got back to the autobahn and headed south to Baden-Baden for the B500, Shwarzwoldhochstrasse.

The B500 was everything that I'd expected and more. Because of the hills that I was climbing, it was getting colder, down to about 6° again. And the clouds were low, as the hill rose to meet them. Then, as I finally got on to the stretch I had head so much about, I was surprised to see snow lying all over the place, but it was not fresh snow, and there was not enough to ski on, despite the preponderance of ski lifts and ski hotels in the area. The road was just perfect: massive long sweeping bends that could be taken at 90-100 mph. I've never ridden anything like this before. The road had no potholes, the bends had excellent visibility, they did not tighten as you went around them, when I encountered a bus or lorry, it was always at the beginning of a straight stretch ready for a good overtake without missing a beat, or perhaps this was because the forward visibility was so good, I could time it that way - the slow traffic probably occurs on bends, too, but being able to see and anticipate made the overtakes safe and well-planned (as they always should be). This road made me very happy indeed, and I look forward to doing it in the sunshine one day, rather than this drizzling mist. I hope I can get some photos on the way back.

After that, the autobahn was a little bit dull. The A8 had the most enormous roadworks and contra-flows that went on for a long time. The bits without roadworks were relatively short, but that might be because they were without speed limits, too, and it was exhilarating to be riding legally at speeds around 120-130 mph. The straight road and fast moving traffic was in marked contrast to the UK version of motorways. There is something quite different about the habits and expectations of drivers on the autobahn. Of course, moving at this speed meant that I was frequently slowing down as I approached any other vehicle, and was anticipating anyone moving out for an overtake. All too soon, another long drag of roadworks slowed the traffic to 120 kph or less.

At one point, the traffic had slowed to a complete halt. It was approaching the junction with the A8, the main road to München. The cars and lorries had clearly been stationary for some time because their engines were off and people were getting out for a chat and a leg stretch and a head scratch. Bizarrely, they had pulled to the edges of the carriageway, leaving a really wide space, big enough for a truck, so that I could pootle along past the envious motorists. I had to go really slowly, though, as so many people were getting out. I thought that an emergency vehicle must have come through as they slowed, forcing them all to the edges of the road, leaving this lovely space for me to filter through. After a few miles, the traffic started to move, and people hurriedly dashed back to their vehicles to start them up. And shortly after joining the congested and busy A8, I could see on the hard shoulder police cars and other cars, as the police tried to sort out what had happened. The congestion was just he queue clearing itself, and off we all went as before, lurching between roadworks.

By about 2 pm I was getting quite peckish, and pretty tired, so I stopped at a service station and had a sandwich and a coffee. I was trying to skip lunch, in order to make good progress, but realised that I was not going to arrive at my destination until about 16:00 and with 680km to do today, I needed to keep up my energy levels and concentration.

After many more miles of autobahn, I finally got to the hotel, finding it was still in Germany after all, and not Austria. The border is near, but runs along the river Inn, before the road crosses it a few kilometres south of here. I rolled up to the front door, and a handwritten sign with a “P” on it said “hintern haus”, which I recognised as meaning park around the back. I did so, and there was no way into the hotel from the car park, so then I had to walk back around to the front. I should have unloaded first, parked later.

This was a slightly larger hotel, a bit more formal than the last one, and I registered at reception and got my room key, moved my bags in, then went for a walk up the nearest hill to get a good look at the locality. I am in the foothills of the alps; there is no snow on the nearby hills, but plenty on the distant peaks. I am intrigued by the churches and crosses placed at the summits of the nearby hills. It is beautiful here.

On the way down the mountain, a boy in his early twenties caught up with me, walking more quickly. He had what looked like a mattress on his back. We walked together and chatted. He'd been "bouldering" on the mountain. Basically, this involves placing the mattress on the floor below a boulder which is anything from 1m to 6m in size, then climbing up the boulder. You place the mattress on the floor below you. If you slip, you land on it, thus protecting your knees. Perhaps it lost something in the translation to English. He was very enthusiastic about it, though, and very interested in my camera because he has used a Canon 1D for his work, a much bigger and more professional model, but not his own, and too big to take scrambling over boulders. He was interested in getting a 7D like mine. At least, he seemed to be quite knowledgeable about all that kind of stuff, and it was nice to chat to someone after a day of solitary biking.

After my walk, I was hungry and thirsty. In the bar/café/restaurant, they had a log fire burning and music playing. English pop songs from the seventies: dreadful. I survived six songs before caving in. When the waitress brought my meal, I felt compelled to grumble about the awful music. She couldn't find anything else, so she put the radio on instead. Half music, half sports spiel, in Austrian. Ice Hockey special, and Rosenheim have a chance to get into the championship league! Exciting stuff, eh? At least it made me feel like I was outside UK, which was the main thing. Anyway, after my pizza and salad (the only vegetarian option, again!) and a few beers, I was ready for some sleep.

I was up at 05:00 again the next day, and ready for a leisurely ride to Motovun, across the Austrian and Italian alps. Only 430 km to ride today, so it should be a lot less tiring, and there is a chance that I might not be too late arriving. However, there are a lot of mountain roads to play on this morning…

Day 1 - Reading to Cochem

The tunnel crossing was booked for 8:20, which required check-in by 7:50 am.  Although I thought I'd left in plenty of time, at 06:00, it didn't turn out that way.  The sun was just rising as I left home, and the blue skies augured well for the journey.  Although the temperature was about 6°C It was uncomplicated, and the route was mostly free of queuing traffic, but this was  an ordinary week-day morning and there were many places with slow moving traffic due to road-works.  It must have been this that extended my journey time, because I checked-in at 7:51, and the nice machine told me that I was to late and had missed my booked train, so I was allocated the next available one which was at 08:21.  I still don't understand how this works, given that there are three trains per hour, but, as always, I was immediately directed to the train, avoiding the terminal building and waiting time that other vehicles are generally subjected to.  I was slotted on at the back of the train, unusually the only bike, and there was one empty carriage behind me.  The crossing was as straightforward as ever, and I advanced the time on my phone and satnav by an hour, wrote a few text messages and checked the security of the bags on the bike, and we arrived in Calais on schedule at nearly 10 am.

The journey to Brussels through France and Belgium was unremarkable, but I stopped for coffee to ease the discomfort in my knee, which has been getting weak lately.  I must exercise it more.  As I had filled the tank in England at Maidstone (Junction 8, M20), I didn't need petrol again until Rotselaar in Belgium, about half way.  This was perfect as it lasted until my destination, which had a petrol station practically next door to it.

The route I had chosen to get to Bruttig-Fankel was nearly on motorways, which were busy, and pretty dull to drive on.  The sun disappeared behind clouds in the middle of Belgium, and it started to drizzle.  For the last four hours of riding, it had rained constantly, though lightly.  My new Hein Gericke gear kept me nice and dry, but once the rain started, it did get cold, even though the temperature was now around 11-12°C.  I was quite tired and cold by the time I arrived at the hotel, about 16:00.  But the welcome from Klumke and Matt de Bruyn was wonderful.  Almost the first thing Klumke asked me, after welcoming me was, "would you like a coffee, or a beer?"  Beer it was, and I was surprised to find it was Bitburger.  In fact, because of the way I had found the hotel, I had not realised we were so close to Nürburgring until I passed signs for it not far back, and to get here came right through Cochem, which is a short way up the road.  I was here in October with my friends when we stayed at Adenau and hired Nürburgring for the day.  I had done eleven laps of it and earned the right to put the sticker on my bike!  Well, here I was again, so I lost no time in texting my pals to tell them I was drinking Bitburger near Cochem.  They were envious!

Matt knocked me up a lovely pizza with spinach and tomato and cheese on it, while I supped draft Bitburger and chatted to Klumke in the bar (her name is a nickname that means little clog in Dutch, as she is quite small).  There were various people in the bar, one German man who had worked on the trawlers from Penzance and the oil rigs off Aberdeen.  He had spent a lot of time living and working in UK and his kids had been born in Scotland.  Divorced now, he does odd jobs around the place, but holds out no hope of getting a full-time job again.  He was up and down a lot during the conversation as he seemed to be advising or helping with some building work here to install a bathroom in one of the rooms, a job that was behind schedule as someone is supposed to be staying in that room tomorrow!  It won't be ready. He asked about my route here and suggested a much better one for next time - from Brussels ring road, head towards Luxembourg, on E40 (A3), stick to E40 around the edge of Liege, then the E42 (A27) towards Malmedy, Wittlich, Cochem. Much less traffic and good roads, apparenetly.

After dinner (which was thankfully quite early, as I was really hungry), I walked around the village and took some photographs.  On returning to my room I was very tired, so I thought I would have a rest for a moment before returning to the bar and the conversations there, but I instantly fell asleep until my phone made a noise.  So I got into bed at 20:45 and slept solidly until 05:30 the next morning.  This place is brilliantly quiet at night, not a sound.  I heard the birds waking up one by one, and then got up myself and redistributed my luggage in the panniers and top box.  I was ready for my breakfast at 07:00 and had a few more nice chats with Klumke and Mat.  It wasn't like coming to a hotel, more like visiting friends.   I must make a note in the online booking pages about what a good place this is to stay!

I packed up and loaded up and was ready to go at 08:00 on schedule.

Finding out what is being published

There are some very useful resources for researchers that will inform you about what is being published in journals and conferences that you are interested in.

Zetoc Alert - provides access to the contents tables of the British Library's collection of 20,000 journals and 16,000 conference proceedings publihsed each year.

Current Contents - provides access to leading scholarly journals (I think all the ISI-listed journals) and about 7,000 websites.

Informaworld - provides access to all the Taylor & Francis and Informa journals and periodicals.

In each case, you can choose which journals you are interested in and you will automatically receive an alert the moment they publish an article. This is a good way of keeping track of what is being published, as it comes out.

Rhythmic ripples

As part of a two-day research meeting, we took part in a workshop. It involved everyone, each in a solitary way. We each had to pour ourselves a glass of water, but not the glasses that most of us were already drinking from. Smaller tumblers were issued. We were asked not to drink the water straight away, but to "experience" the glass of water... like a meditation. We had to spend five minutes experiencing the glass of water. So I suspended my disbelief and cynicism, and reached out my hand to grasp my glass gently, without picking it up. I could see rhythmic ripples on the surface, very small, some of which may have been my pulse. Interlaced with this was another rhythm, perhaps caused by my neighbour tapping his foot. Bigger, less rhythmic ripples occurred from time to time as another neighbour adjusted his position. I saw the ceiling lights reflected on the surface, and refracted below the surface, reflecting off the inside of the glass. There were 28 different points of light, in groups of two or three, on the surface. Below the surface there were 58. Then the five minutes were up and I'd not yet taken a sip. Too slow, me.

The next part of the workshop involved running your tongue over all of your teeth, inside and out, all surfaces of the teeth that could be reached with the tongue. I cannot now recall how long that went on for. We were given a piece of A4 drawing paper and a pencil. Then we had to close our eyes, put the pencil on the paper, and envision our mouths. We then signed consent forms for our drawings to be used as part of a research project on art in healthcare. That was our workshop experience. Puzzling, eh?

On the ephemeral nature of buildings

Obviously, the urban environment has a certain permanence to it. "Bricks and mortar", "as safe as houses", "concrete reality", are example of phrases that reassure us that the buildings are erected for decades, if not centuries. There are indications for designers and planners that buildings have life spans of upwards of 50 years. The land upon which we build is even more permanent, and the buildings that we add to land, if they are in the right location, make the land valuable (even permission to build will add this value to land). So it is clear that buildings have a certain degree of longevity and permanence, and that people engage with them for the long-term, right? Well, perhaps. I have not checked this for a while, but I recall that the average length of occupation of a dwelling in the UK was about seven years. In other words, on the average, people move house every seven years -- nothing permanent about that then.

I also heard a similar statistic for offices. There is a constant churn in the office market, not only in moving but also in refurbishing. In fact, fully half of the UK construction market is activity other than new building. One thing that really brought this home to me was the UK's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in which public sector buildings were procured using private sector finance (largely from the banks). The basic idea is that a bank puts up the money for building a facility, then the private sector is paid a monthly or annual fee for operating the facility, from which they can repay the loan. This method of procuring public sector infrastructure has been very popular, and one unintended consequence is that the consortia who build such a facility, and operate it, sell it on to other operators. There is a healthy secondary market in completed PFI facilities, whereby an operator can buy the thing and run it. So, the idea of engaging the supply-side in long-term commitment has only resulted in yet another short-term engagement, as I am coming to expect with the construction sector.

So I have come to the conclusion that far from being permanent things, buildings are ephemeral. I don't mean the structure or the land. I mean our relationship with a building and the way that we define it and use it. Can we say that every part of the urban environment that we relate to is a constantly changing and ephemeral interpretation that is only temporarily ascribed to it? Does this help us to relate to the urban environment, or to interpret it?

Orchestras

On Saturday, I got a call from one of the orchestras I play with occasionally. I was invited to an orchestral workshop all day on Sunday, and had the great pleasure of working through Tchaikovsky's 1st Symphony, which was unknown to me until then. That was a good day out, and a welcome break from the pressures of work, although quite tiring. Now, I am trying to remember the various commitments to orchestras that are lined up over the next few weeks, and this is as good a place as any to keep a list:

• Reading Youth Orchestra: Sunday 21 March - Rossini: Tancredi Overture, Saint-Saens: Cello Concerto No. 1 (Soloist: Oliver Howell, RYO Principal), Haydn: Symphony no. 104 (London Symphony) - Venue: Christ Church, Henley-on-Thames.
  
• Crowthorne Symphony Orchestra: Saturday 27 March - Malcolm Arnold: Little Suite No. 1, Chabrier: España, Max Bruch: Kol Nidrei (Soloist: Jennie Brown), Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 - Venue: The Old Gym, Wellington College, Crowthorne
  
• Langtree Sinfonia: Sunday 9th May 2010 - Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela, Schumann: Piano concerto (Soloist: Nils Franke), Schumann: 3rd Symphony - Venue: Dorchester Abbey
  

You'd be most welcome to pop along and see any of these performances. There will probably be tickets on sale at the door. Let me know if you want to come and listen!

Cacography

A referee for a paper in the journal that I edit used an unfamiliar word to describe the quality of a particularly problematic paper that we are dealing with: cacography. I was immediately intrigued by this word, appearing in this context, "The paper is not presented well with errors of typographies and cacographies...". A quick bit of internet searching reveals that this is a word with strong pedigree, deriving from the Greek kakos meaning bad and graphos meaning writing. The prefix is not connected with the Old English word cack which means excrement (a word that we used to use in its correct sense when we were kids, I was pleased to learn!) According to Michael Quinion, cacography seems to have emerged at the end of the 16th century in the sense of bad spelling, around the time that personal choices for spelling were becoming less acceptable with the development of standardized approaches due to the new technology of printing. In this sense, cacography was seen as the opposite of orthography which was the term for correct spelling. Subsequently, it came also to refer to bad handwriting, as an opposite of calligraphy, which refers to fine writing. My correspondent was using it to refer to poor sentence composition, as opposed to mere spelling mistakes. What a fine word.

Google Wave

I was invited into Google Wave today by a colleague. It loks neat, with some nice friendly videos to introduce the service (meaning I cannot really see the intros on the train or in the lounge at home, where others are sitting).

I am not sure I am ready for this. I am already maintaining profiles in Google Blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, Academia.edu and the University profile webpage, not to mention the Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard) where every programme and course that I teach on gives me a space for my personal profile... Most importantly, I want to keep my academic CV up to date in order to respond promptly to requests for information about recent activities.

All of these profiles are completely exclusive and independent of each other. And I am successfully using blogs for research supervision and research collaboration, so I do not feel that there is a problem to which Google Wave offers a solution. I want to wait until there is a bit more cross-platform integration. Is there any sign of some intelligent interfaces between all of these different services so that each can take structured information from the other? Isn't that what meta-tags were supposed to enable?

Multiple journal submissions

It is interesting how much there is to learn about publishing that appears not to be passed on by PhD supervisors to their students. Today I dealt with a problem author whose paper to Construction Management and Economics was not only 70% longer that the maximum we allow, but was also, as it turned out, very similar to another paper by the same author that I had dealt with only the day before. The similarities were obvious when I looked at them so close together, but it turned out that he had submitted three papers over a month or so, all drawing from his PhD, all far too long, and only differing in terms of the focus of the cases being presented in each paper. Each repeated the same mistakes as the other (not taking a critical stance in reviewing the literature and lacking in a certain punchiness to the conclusions).

When I challenged the author about cranking out so many papers from the same PhD, he pointed out that he had a further six papers in various states of progress, all reaching the same conclusion, but based on different case studies. I pointed out that this was not good academic practice and that we only wanted one paper that fell within our word limits. The author was very attentive to what I was saying, and it was clear that this was all new to him, having only recently completed his PhD. He suggested, respectfully, that maybe the published Instructions for Authors should make this point clear.

The problem with that suggestion is that the Instructions for Authors (IfA) are not meant to form general advisory page about the protocols of academic publishing, a topic about which much has been written in the past. Rather, the IfA are intended to highlight journal-specific matters. Moreover, we tend to see advice about general academic conduct as a primary responsibility of PhD supervisors, who usually make sure that they enlighten their PhD students about a much wider range of issues than multiple submissions. I have tried to make the general principles of authorship clear in publications of my own, in the past, for example:

Hughes, W.P. (2008) Getting your research published in refereed journals. In: Knight, A. and Ruddock, L. (eds). Advanced Research Methods in the Built Environment. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 193-206. ISBN: 9781405161107.


But of course, I am not the only person who writes such papers, and it is quite important for new academics to learn about a whole range of issues relating to developing a career as a professional academic. And finely slicing a piece of research into a disproportionately large number of papers is only one of many pitfalls for the budding academic.

Corporate Christmas Cards

I have always found corporate Christmas cards to be something of an irritation, especially when the signatures are printed into the card, and from a range of people some of whom are known to me, but most of whom are not. It seems a particularly meaningless gesture. What is happening this year, as firms cut back on their expenditure, is that all sorts of people are sending electronic greetings cards instead. Often to "Dear All". All sorts of twee images and animations, often with sickeningly trite Christmas music. What compels this kind of corporate behaviour? It would be much nicer not to get these things cluttering up the inbox and in-tray. Bah, humbug.

More snow

I had a pleasant walk home from the University - it took about two hours. Very nice to see the beautiful scenery in the snow. It beats me why anyone would have tried driving in it! This evening, we went for another walk to have another look at the traffic chaos. It was amazing to see the feats of stupidity that the motorists indulged in, sliding and slipping all over the place, even though they'd been told by all the passers-by that the road was completely closed! St Peter's Hill was amazing, abandoned cars, lorries and buses all over the place. Priest Hill had a No 22 bus crashed and jammed right across the road, at right angles to the traffic flow. All the other abandoned vehicles I saw had merely skidded and been left where they landed, without serious collision. Everything was wonderfully chaotic and the people were being so kind to each other, it gave me a rosy glow. Apart from the nutters who could not believe that the roads were impassable. Oh, what fun...