Rock Star Paul Young encounters the Stars @ ESO

I am sick, at home. Stomach not working as originally designed. Therefore I find some time to blog. These last days have been very busy with the organization of the ESO Observing Programmes Committee, the board that selects the scientific projects that make to the ESO telescopes, including the VLT. I’ll tell you more about that; for the time being it suffices to say that we have received 969 valid proposals for the next semester, with all what this entails…
Today I finished the review of a PhD Thesis from the Australian National University. A very good one, a pleasure to read. It is nice to see these young researchers, emerging from the masses, with brilliant ideas. They are still naive enough (in the most positive sense) to tell us old farts that there is a lot more to learn. Amazing… at the end I was full of enthusiasm, ready to go back to my projects, which only yesterday seemed the most boring and inconclusive ones…

Paul Simon and myself at ESO (photo by Simon Lowery).

Last week I met the rock star Paul Simon. Do not ask me how and why. It just happened. Well, a friend of Paul ...