steamboats

Leaving Southampton early this morning, after yesterday’s excellent defense by James Dolwick of his excellent ANT’ish thesis on early steamboat history. It was as interesting a doctoral thesis as I’ve ever seen, and will no doubt be an influential book in the near future. I was the external examiner on this thesis, and was very glad for the opportunity.

What I’m not so glad about is the shortness of this trip to the UK, just 52 hours in total. But office work beckons back in Cairo.