Regular readers may recall I was holding back a post because I was waiting for a picture. The picture arrived and I look terrible in it. So I’m using a different one. That’s me in action during my complex analysis course. The original picture showed me shaking hands with our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Student Education, Prof Vivien Jones, at the annual Learning and Teaching Conference here at the University of Leeds. The story is that I’ve been recognized for my teaching. At the conference I was officially awarded a University Teaching Fellowship. This is the University’s scheme for Recognition and reward for excellence in teaching and support for student learning… These are quite prestigious within the university as only about 80 have been awarded in the last 10 years. Many thanks to those who helped me improve my application: Alison Voice, Margit Messmer, Charles Taylor, Samantha Pugh, Thomas Wagenknecht, and Kelvin...

Last month was the 2nd anniversary of my book How to Think Like a Mathematician. My heartfelt thanks to anyone who has bought a copy or emailed me with praise, suggestions, corrections or questions. The book is selling better than I expected and certainly better than people told me it would. In January of this year it had its highest Amazon.co.uk chart placing at position 403. The current monthly average is position 16,835. Not bad. As the world moves towards the ebook, I’ve started monitoring the Kindle chart. I was surprised how high it was placed in Amazon’s bestselling mathematics ebooks. For example, it is currently number 15, just below Euclid’s Elements! See the picture...