ANDREW SUTTON
Who
he?
I am no
stickler over details, nor overly fussed over identity, status
or public reputation. As Mária
Hári used to say, such
things are an indifference. Well, almost.
If
anything I was therefore amused rather than offended when I saw
myself announced amongst the experts to a keynote address at the
seventh world Conductive Education Congress, to be held in Munich
next year:
Not by
the actual announcement, I hasten to add, but about how I am
credentialled there:
Dr. Andrew Sutton
School of Health and Population Sciences
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
University of Birmingham
A quick
on-line check tells me –
In
2004 Andrew spent one year at Imperial College as a Research
Assistant in the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour,
before returning to the Health Protection Agency in 2005 to resume
his previous role.
In
May 2007 Andrew left the Health Protection Agency and moved to the
University of Warwick to take a Research Fellow role which focused on
research into the transmission dynamics of Theileria Annulata an
often fatal tick-borne disease of cattle.
In
August 2010, Andrew joined the Health Economics Unit at the
University of Birmingham
This link
reveals that my namesake follows a respectable academic career in
medical research, far more wissenschaftlische than
I could ever have managed – just the sort of level of scientific
research that CE aspires to, albeit not in a field of immediate relevance.
Saying
'Sorry'
I have written to my namesake to apologise. I hope that he has not started
receiving funny emails from around the world, asking him unanswerable questions
The name
'Andrew Sutton' is dirt-common in the English-speaking world. It
could be fun to be mistaken for the celebrity chef at Disneyland in
Napa Rose, or the dance-teacher known as 'Smooth Savoy' who
specialises in something called Swing Dance. But it has never
happened. Maybe another time.
I have
also written to KIT, the conference organisers working on WC 8, to
reassure them that I am not in the least offended by this understandable error. Another quick internet search suggests that KIT
is a considerable, classy and slick operation:
KIT can work only with the information that it finds. I expect
that I come in under its radar.
Kafkaesque,
Orwellian?
This
question of identity presents a bit of a problem. This is a
world where who you are is defined very much in terms of what
you are, and 'what' here means what you do for a job, and where you
do it.
I have no
job, so how do I credential myself to fit among those keynote
speakers announced for WC 8?
Various
suggestions have been made: retired, pensioner, unemployed, amateur,
dilletante, gentleman, dabbler... I am honestly at a loss for
words.
Kafka?
Orwell? Neither really. Kurt Vonnegut, however, points a way to an
answer. through the moral to Mother Night –
We
are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful
about what we pretend to be.
about what we pretend to be.
So, I
have invented a job and this is what I shall pretend to be: General
Editor, Conductive Education Press. Maybe by the time of the Congress
next year it will be true.
I shall
have to be careful...
Labels: Conferences, Congress
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