In Which I take Wee Jaunt South and Am Inducted

So the first step to this Ph D thing is to get inducted. For UHI (University of the  Highlands and Islands) students this means a trek to Inverness. Sadly Inverness and I have history. So now we have this agreement going.  I undertake never to go there, and Inverness promises to leave me alone. If however, I am ever so misguided as to set foot in the place it reserves the right to mess me about. Generally then I avoid it like the plague. But avoiding induction wasn't an option, so off to Inverness I went. Ferry, coach, walk. Small suitcase. Two days.

It's lucky I'm used to being in a minority that's all I can say. I wasn't the only mature student there, but I was the oldest. And I was the only Humanities student. Every new speaker who came in asked us to give our name, college and subject of study in turn. It has to be said we all got very bored with hearing these details about one another over and over again. When the person telling us all about the importance of networking worked round to me and I said my research topic was a poet, she looked as though I had held something very smelly indeed under her nose, and quavered 'How diverse', before turning rapidly to the boy beside me. ( Water Quality Measurement in Restored Peatlands before you ask ). The marine scientists definitley had the rest of us outnumbered.

The induction itself was like the infamous Curate's Egg; excellent in parts. The highlight was definitely the chap who came to tell us how to write our thesis. Lots of good advice, delivered with a sense of humour, and as his first degree was in Linguistics and English he could at least understand why someone might want to write about a poet, rather than seabed sediment. The lowlight was a toss up between the aforementined networking lady who, in addition to being sniffy about humanities TALKED VERY LOUDLY, and the management trainer who came to talk to us about managing our supervisors. He had a whole afternoon allotted to him, but didn't say anything that anyone with a modicum of common sense and rudimentary good manners couldn't have worked out for themselves. And assuming that you couldn't have worked it out for yourself, it certainly shouldn't have taken him longer than 30 minutes to pass on.

They gave out several goodies; pens galore, a car sticker (?), and a computer mouse, which has the advantage of giving off an eerie glow in the dark, and the disadvantage of not actually working very well. Last year they were dishing our pen drives apparently and I could certainly have found a home for one of those. Then again,  it was Inverness. I was never going to get a working gadget.

But , dear reader, should you ever find yourself in Inverness I can recommend two places to eat: Riva and No 27 . Good food, reasonably priced,  and a special mention for the pannacotta at No 27. 

Next time, Inverness takes revenge, and I am ambivalent about a manifestation of Nordic Noir....