Drinks with the director

Most new PhD students within the CSC begin at the start of the academic year, and hence have just started their students. Since I’ve only been in the group for two months, I’ve been attending all the induction sessions organised for the newbies. Yesterday was a chance to have drinks with the CSC director, so we all congregated to the café after lectures. After heartily welcoming us all, he talked about how good our training would be, and how valuable the scientific skills we would learn would be in any future employment. “Of course, you’re all very important to us too…” he ended, “because you’ll be generating data”.

I left soon after to see a preview screening of 'Kinky Boots'. It's a film about an unwilling shoe factory owner (Charlie) whose business is failing. Following a drunken night in London he ends up in a drag quuen bar, where meets Simon/Lola. The women's boots that Lola wears can't bear a man's weight distribution, and the heels are constantly breaking. This gives Charlie the idea of scrapping making unprofitable men's shoes, and instead to begin making 'kinky boots' for cross-dressers. He recruits Lola up to his working-class Northamptonshire factory, and what follows is a tale of risk, challenging stereotypes and coming to terms with your identity. It's well made and I found it pretty original, but a reviewer on the Internet Movie Database has said it had many parallels to British movies such as 'Brassed Off' and 'Calender Girls'. I haven't seen either of these and would be very interested to hear what you think.