Keith Bradnam Keith Bradnam

45 Things You May Not Know About Keith Bradnam

On the occasion of my 45th birthday I thought it was time for a listicle to end all listicles:

  1. I have run more this year than in any other year of my life (123.3 miles so far).
  2. I don't own any jeans and haven't worn jeans for about 20 years.
  3. I have written two albums as part of the RPM music challenge — written and recorded entirely within the month of February).
  4. I have written one novel as part of National Novel Writing Month (NanoWriMo) — written entirely within the month of November.
  5. When I was about 13, I once called a teacher a Nazi over the school PA system. It was intended as a joke. Nobody found it funny.
  6. My left arm is slightly longer than my right one and fingers on my left hand are notably longer than those on the right hand.
  7. When it comes to shaving or brushing my teeth, I am ambidextrous.
  8. I have cried at the ending of Cool Runnings (Disney Jamaican bobsleigh movie).
  9. I have cried watching Neighbours.
  10. Until I was about 16 I thought that approximately meant 'exactly' (this caused much confusion in maths lessons).
  11. I have watched — in chronological order — every episode of M*A*S*H, every episode of Seinfeld, and every episode of every Star Trek series.
  12. At age 15 I came very close to applying to join the Royal Air Force as an electrical engineer.
  13. I have logged my weight in a spreadsheet nearly every day since July 2009.
  14. My iTunes library contains 12,816 tracks and I have rated 12,795 of them.
  15. The first band that I ever paid to see was Doctor and the Medics.
  16. At university I frequently dyed my hair: 'Paprika' & 'Copper Mahogany' were popular colours.
  17. To check whether my son is paying attention, I frequently insert the word 'sausages' into random places when reading bedtime stories.
  18. I manage 11 different Twitter accounts (most, but not all, are active).
  19. I once spent an entire year giving up a different thing each month (alcohol, meat, TV, credit cards, etc.)
  20. I am fairly uncomfortable about the idea of fancy dress parties.
  21. I'm confident that I know more lyrics to Come on Eileen than 99.9% of the UK population.
  22. My superhero power — such that it is — is being able to identify songs only by hearing faint, and muffled, bass lines that penetrate the walls from neighbouring buildings.
  23. I (almost) never swear.
  24. My first paid job was washing dishes at around the age of 13.
  25. I still feel awkward at almost all social gatherings.
  26. At university I won an award for 'worst dressed person' from my hall of residence.
  27. One of my least favourite things in the world is to attempt any form of DIY or home repairs. This is the easiest way to see the 'dark side' of my personality.
  28. I started using spreadsheets for fun in 1990.
  29. I once was mistakenly beaten up for 'being gay' outside a toilet in Cambridge.
  30. I invented the concept of a Mexican Tweet-off — one of the world's least successful attempts at making something go viral on Twitter (three people stand in a triangle, take a picture of each other at exactly the same time and race to be the first to have their picture appear on Twitter.)
  31. I once had a video that I made feature on the YouTube home page.
  32. I once wrote to Coca-Cola to protest at their — geographically incorrect — depiction of a polar bear and penguin within the same winter-based scene.
  33. Awkward attempts at humour: I once used to frequent an online chatroom community using a user name of 'TheManWhoSaysNo' — the only response I would give to any conversation was 'No'.
  34. The first piece of recorded music that I purchased was Snot Rap by Kenny Everett (as Sid Snot). In my defence, I was only 12 at the time.
  35. I find the concept of 'Terms and conditions may apply' incredibly funny and frequently make reference to this in various forms of written content. I find it funny because it can just be used to hide any amount of bad news or unwanted side effects: 'Inappropriate use of this product may cause rashes, swellings, or premature death'.
  36. I have an encyclopaedic — and entirely useless — knowledge of jingles and catchphrases from 70s and 80s TV advertisements (We hope it's chips, Make room for the mushrooms, Meat not mince).
  37. I mostly choose to not play computer games as I easily become incredibly addicted to them.
  38. In the early 1990s I (needlessly) starting making a card-based index of records and songs by Gladys Knight and the Pips.
  39. There is one film that I have seen at the cinema which I enjoyed so much that I went and watched it again the following day. That film was The Usual Suspects.
  40. Of all form of arts and entertainment, I hold Radio 4's The Archers in the highest regard.
  41. While I am proud to have co-authored a book — about Unix and the programming language Perl — I am even prouder to have worked jokes into the index.
  42. I have once performed stand-up comedy at a Science Showoff event (my routine was titled The Seasonality of Death).
  43. This is Spinal Tap is probably all-time favourite movie.
  44. Who's Next by The Who remains my all-time favourite album.
  45. I still feel that I'm waiting to work out what I want to do when I grow up.
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Keith Bradnam Keith Bradnam

Talking about death and not dying on stage: Keith does Science Showoff!

A few weeks ago I performed a short stand-up comedy set as part of Science Showoff, a regular series of events which are billed as 'chaotic cabaret for science lovers'. Science Showoff is the wonderful brainchild of Steve Cross, who is to science and comedy what peanut butter and jelly is to sandwiches (well, American ones anyway). The idea is to make science fun, entertaining, and (hopefully), funny.

I love presenting and I've always considered myself to be someone who puts a lot of humour in my presentations and I always try hard to make my talks engaging. So Science Showoff seemed like a logical thing for me to do. However, there is a big difference between a science presentation with hints of comedy and a comedic presentation with hints of science.

In addition to having presented at a variety of levels (from lab meetings up to to international conferences) I've also played several gigs in various bands. So I'm not particularly nervous about the idea of getting up in front of strangers. Initially, the idea of performing stand-up comedy didn't really faze me at all, but as the date of the gig came closer, I felt much more anxious than I was expecting to feel.

The most challenging aspect of Science Showoff is that, as a newcomer, you get a 9 minute slot. This goes by very quickly and if you want to tell some sort of story with a beginning, middle, and end, there is very little room for making on-the-fly alterations.

I found myself rehearsing my material in more detail than I have for most presentations that I have given. There is very little room for 'chaff' in a 9 minutes! My original version of my talk probably ran to about 30 minutes and I had to just keep cutting more and more material to hone it down (maybe they'll end up as deleted scenes on the DVD version).

I feel I made things harder for myself by deliberately choosing a topic which initially might seem bereft of any humour potential. My title was: 'Seasonality of Death'. When I first volunteered for this, I knew that I would be doing a slide-driven presentation but I dramatically cut back on how many slides I would normally present and I chose slides that were strong on visuals and kept text large and legible.

The result of my efforts is included below. I'm pleased with how I did, especially with respect to the timing of all of my content. I'd certainly consider doing this again if the opportunity arose and I think it is a great exercise in making you think about all aspects of your presentation skills.

Thanks again to Steve Cross for the opportunity.

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Keith Bradnam Keith Bradnam

My new job: Imaginatively Communicating Research

When I arrived at the UC Davis Genome Center in January 2005, I started a job as a postdoctoral researcher. Over time, I became an Assistant– and then an Associate Project Scientist. Throughout my 11 years at UC Davis, my primary focus was on research science: using bioinformatics approaches to investigate a variety of genomics projects.

However, my job titles became a poor reflection of what I actually ended up spending my most of my time doing. Increasingly I spent time managing & organising projects, training & mentoring people, and communicating about science. As I detailed in my exit seminar, there were many different hats that I ended up wearing:

Science communication came to dominate my activities at UC Davis and I also realised that a) I really enjoy this (more than research science!) and b) it's something that I am good at. Away from work, I decided to write more about science on my ACGT blog (333 posts since June 2012), I helped create a web comic devoted to science outreach (The Take-Home Message), and I found some time to teach courses on using Twitter for a local non-profit.

We have known that we were going to leave Davis and return to the UK for quite a while and so I made the decision that it was time to make all of these secondary activities the primary focus of my new job. For the last few months I focused on looking for work in the fields of science outreach and communication. This also involved switching my computer's spell checker back to British English as 11 years is long enough to 'go native'.

So today I can (finally) reveal my new job which — at the time of writing — I will be starting in about one hour's time! My new role will see me become the Digital Strategy Manager for the Institute of Cancer Research. The ICR is one of the world's leading cancer research organisations and was ranked first in the Times Higher Education league table of university research quality.

The ICR has been driving forward cancer research for over 100 years. Aside from the varied research programs, the ICR trains several hundred PhD students, works with industry to develop new drugs, and — as a charitable organisation — has a variety of fund-raising programs and campaigns. This multifaceted nature is something that presents many challenges for how the ICR has to communicate their work to all of the different stakeholders. This challenge was one of the reasons why I was attracted to this role.

There's an irony that my wife has just left a cancer research institute in Davis and now I am starting work at one in London. I'm sure I'll have many questions for her in the coming weeks! I look forward to learning a new vocabulary of cancer related terminology, and will try my best to learn how to pronounce names like 'abiraterone'.

My new role puts my science research career behind me and formalises my new journey into the world of science communication. I look forward to helping bring you news about the great research, training, and other activities that occurs at the ICR. I plan to continue blogging about science in my free time, and will continue my 101 questions with a bioinformatician series on my ACGT blog. I imagine that the blog content will evolve somewhat and maybe I will find myself writing about the challenges (and rewards) of being a science communicator!

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Goodbye Davis, Hello London!

It's been an incredibly hectic couple of months as we have made a big transition in our lives and have left Davis, California to return back to the UK to take up new jobs in London. For almost 11 years we have enjoyed our jobs at UC Davis and the reason we ended up staying so long was partly due to all of the great friends that we made there (the sunshine and opportunities for travel also helped).

Selling our home, our cars, and most of our worldly possessions was not exactly what I would call a relaxing way to end our time in America. Especially when this came on top of saying so many goodbyes to our Davis friends, finishing up our work-related projects, and making plans for everything else that needed to be done.

We just managed to finish everything before we headed to SFO for our flight home (many thanks to my friend, and former boss Ian Korf for driving us to the airport). Our last week in Davis was spent in a hotel living out of our suitcases and we will be living in somewhat of a spartan manner until the possessions that we didn't sell arrive via a container ship.

Arriving in London has also been a busy and frantic time. Arriving on Christmas Eve, our 2.5 year old took most of a week until he adjusted to his new time zone (on Christmas Day he woke up at 2:00 am and was very much awake for the next 7 hours). I'm glad that I've kept one active bank account in the UK…this has helped things somewhat. However, it turns out that it is hard to sort many things out unless you have a printed utility bill that confirms that you live at a specific address. In any case we have sorted out the essentials: internet, mobile phones, and a doctor (I think I have those in the right order).

We've visited the UK for most of the years we lived in Davis, but it is very different to be back here again as residents. We admittedly have become somewhat Americanised. Not just in our tendencies to use American words, phrases, and spellings…but also in our perception of various things. Just as everything in America seemed so much BIGGER when we first moved there, now everything in the UK seems so much smaller. Washing machines — to pick one example — seem impossibly tiny and toy-like.

A few other thoughts on life in the UK after 11 years away:

  • Byron Burger restaurants seem to be everywhere (at least in London)
  • Supermarkets here have a pitiful selection of peanut butter…
  • …but they have sausage rolls, biscuits, and crisps, not to mention many more items that we have missed
  • British beer and pubs are wonderful
  • Tea consumption has been greatly increased, coffee consumption has been greatly reduced
  • Supermarkets don't open for 24 hours a day, 364.5 days of the year (USA grocery stores sometimes take half a day off for Thanksgiving)
  • Sunday trading hours seem particularly strange
  • Davis is a lot smaller than London…I am walking a lot more!
  • Lots of high street shops here now offer WiFi for their customers…this seems odd
  • There is a lot more choice in certain sectors compared to California/USA, e.g. energy and mobile phone providers
  • Brown sauce! Only in the UK would we name a condiment based on its colour.
  • I have missed buildings made out of stone!
  • I have missed really old buildings!
  • No refill on sodas…this just seems so wrong now.
  • I like the ease of using Oyster cards to get around everywhere in London
  • London Underground stations are not very buggy/pram friendly
  • Property prices in London seem crazy (rents listed by the week rather than month)
  • The EU law about websites notifying you about cookies gets tedious really quickly
  • Prices in shops reflect the actual price you will pay…no city + state sales taxes to be added on
  • Chip and PIN everywhere seems so unusual when you are used to signing for things (with no-one ever checking your signature)
  • It seems so wrong that I have to wait until the evening to listen to the Archers!

I start my new job tomorrow…more on that in another post!

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Keith Bradnam Keith Bradnam

Slides and video from my exit seminar [Link]

Over on my ACGT blog, I've included slides and videos from my exit seminar today at UC Davis. I enjoyed the opportunity to say goodbye in an informal and (hopefully) entertaining presentation.

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Keith Bradnam is leaving the building: come to my informal 'exit seminar' on 20th November

The UC Davis Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility, home to the Genome Center.

The UC Davis Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility, home to the Genome Center.

Next week is my last week at the UC Davis Genome Center. After almost 11 years, I will be saying goodbye as our family makes plans to return to the UK at the end of December. I will be giving a highly informal, and hopefully entertaining, exit seminar…the title is as follows:

Assemblathon to Zykovich: an A-Z that reflects a decade at the UC Davis Genome Center

All are welcome. There will be cakes!

Friday 20th November, 10:00 am in the GBSF auditorium (room 1005)

 

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