So confused...

I'm in a library at Oxford, in a silent study area, across from someone loudly eating a sandwich, next to someone rolling his own cigarette, by a few people talking...I'm just not sure exactly what happened/which dimensional portal I walked through on the way here. 

Too Good

Apparently, the band "The Doors" started as an opening act for a band called "Them"

So you could legitimately say "The Doors opened for Them", and it would be punny.

Tehehe.

*crack*

So...much...Russian...

Gasp

As a metic student who gets full, free health care, I find this absolutely shocking. 

On like nine levels. But we won't go there. 

Just seriously? Private deportation of sick people? 

Gah!

Naming

Just as whether or not men can open doors for women throws a lot of progressives into a tizzy, what to about last names is an unresolved question. 

As this guy points out, it still seems pretty unheard of for men to take their wife's last name. Hyphenation seems a popular option, but the double-barreled names (while sometimes super awesome, especially in England) can be unwieldy and sometimes pretentious-sounding. At any rate, it's very much a short-term solution; is the next generation to use four? And the magic of doubling means it pretty quickly gets über-ridiculous. Sometimes a woman simply keeps her own name, and the children take either the father's or mother's name. Sometimes they split the children up by gender. Some people have other creative solutions: I had one friend with three children in the family, and three last names: father's (first husband), mother's, and father's (2nd husband). 

I don't think any of it really gets to the heart of the problem, though. Even if a women keeps her "own" name, it's still just her father's name; you haven't escaped from what some find problematic about the old system, namely, that as the woman moves from her father's to her husband's household, she switches their names...as an object rather than agent. So what is to be done? 

I quite like the Russian system of naming (maybe cause its orderedness would have ruled out the mess I've got when ID is necessary). There is a first, given name. Then there is a last, family name. And the middle name is a Patrynomic - based on the name of your father. Now, obviously, this doesn't solve any of the previous issues, as the family name comes from your father as well as the patrynomic...but it might give us a hint. 

You could  just switch the a matrynomic and a patryomic, and abandon the family name altogether. Or, you could have a sort of hybrid system:

Give each child a first (given) name. This is their actual name, that people will call them. 

Children take their family name from their parents. 

So children have two names. 

When you get married, the couple chooses a new name to be their family name. 

So they then have three names: Given name, parent's family name (as middle name), new family name. 

When/if they have their own children, the children take the new family name, and their given names...and so on.

Obviously this has lots of problems: just off the top of my head, there's the loss of continuity (family names don't go down through the generations) and it obviously substantially privileges marriage which some people may not like. But given that the people for who this is an issue are ones who are torn between their progressive values and the charms of tradition, the latter may not be such an issue. And the former is sort of the problem expressed as a positive, as it stands the male line keeps the name through the ages and the female just disappears all the time. 

Anyhoo, I don't expect that anyone would actually do this, but I kinda like it --> especially that it gives the opportunity to actively found a new family with a new identity. 

Oh, and you could follow the Russian practice of identifying people by their first & second names in formal settings , so that you don't have a problem with names changing over a lifetime (i.e. your name since childhood stays your work name, even if you take a new family name). 

P.S. Nobody freak out, I realise I'm the only one keeping my family name going and I have no intention to drop it...

Cooking Failure and Success

recent cookings: 

Pancakes seem like a pretty safe bet. Aside from the time I forgot to put the eggs whites in, they seem to turn out pretty well. And people seem pleasantly surprised anytime it's not just white flour, milk and egg. I made them with jogurt for people after the election, and they seemed to be a hit (everyone certainly wanted seconds...) and I got envious looks as I made them in the house today. 

Recipes not necessarily so much with the safe. I made one last week for a "cajun black-eyed peas soup" from a book that's usually good, but this was definitely fail. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't really good (maybe didn't use enough of the hot spices?) and it made way more than expected so I had to eat it all week.

In contrast, tonight I made a tomato soup by combining elements from a few recipes, and although it looked worrying half-way through, it's definitely delish...especially with a blob of sour cream. So success! And happy, well-fed Teddy.

More hotness from the Obama Team

After a fantastic and just plain correct victory speech, Obama didn't even take a day off. 

His chief of staff pick seems to signal a willingness to fight to get the change agenda through - and recognises that crisis is also opportunity that must not go to waste. 

And now this - change.gov, which looks a lot like the campaign site except this time its about follow-through and getting the transition up and running in a way people can understand and participate in. 

Hot. Want for Canada. Can't have. But good for world.

Yes, I'm reduced to only semi-comprehensible non-sentences. 

P.S. OMGWYSIWIG this is amazing: america serves...they're really serious about public service

P.P.S. OMGLGBTQBBQ it just gets better -- most extensive nondiscrimination policy I've ever seen: details here but basically, the disabled and queer get more than just a shout-out in the victory speech

Confidence Intervals

Our society seems to basically work on a 95% confidence interval - anything outside two standard deviations from the norm might as well not exist. And I don't just mean that this is the confidence interval that we use when we have to pick confidence intervals. I mean that we think in these terms about pretty much everything, whether we are conscious of it or not. When we make statements about what is or is not, or will or not happen, this is what we actually mean. The 2.5% outside of this doesn't have any meaning or existence - or might as well not. 

Partly this is necessary - building up knowledge is, of course, principally an activity of tolerating the limits of our confidence in that knowledge. But where it become a problem is when we start talking about people. There, our epistemic habits (of working with the 95% interval) clash with our moral commitments to treat all people - or rather each person - with equal concern and respect. Suddenly, the mental tools we're so used to using don't have any way to keep up; they can't deliver what we morally need them too. I'm not sure we've come to grips with this. 

A lot of academic research does, in fact, take place about people outside the confidence interval. Certainly much critical work is precise an attempt to bring them in. But it very much seems to be an exercise of "oh, and what about ____". Until we can manage to overcome or foundations in the 95%, it's going to remain a sideshow. 

Judging the Wind

When you learn to sail, they teach you a whole bunch of ways to judge the wind: you can look at flags, low clouds, smoke, wind indicators on other boats, the waves, judge the different feelings on your cheeks, all sorts of things...and then, as you go along, you just sort of develop an awareness (at least when you're on/by the water) of where the wind is coming from. It stumps being and/or for all of these things, and becomes a sort of back-of-your mind awareness based on all of them.

I think I use something similar when I'm cycling to judge the general traffic condition, which is why I'm finding it so hard here. There are just the obvious differences - other side of the road, different signs, etc. - from what I'm used to. But there's also a lot of information you don't get: people don't really signal or act in any predictable ways. And then there's the conflicting information you get from people just not obeying the laws, driving on the wrong side, swerving out into your lane, parking in the bike line, and jumping out in the middle of the street. 

So over all, the back of your mind just ends up very confused and if you listen to it you get a start as you look up and there's a car hurtling towards you in your lane. Which makes biking a mental workout as well as a physical one. 

New British Coins

I got the funniest coin in my change the other day (it's a 5p piece): it looks almost as if it had been stamped wrong, because the design doesn't fit properly (its cut off all around). But that's the intention - it seems its part of an entire set that they're bringing out this year; the pound coin has the full royal arms on it, and then the rest of the coins each have a portion, arranged like so. 

I think its super cool - the coins look very interesting and distinctive, so I'll definitely be looking out for others in change.

Just as a place to put this...

really good article about food, written as a memo to the next president...I may want to come back this. 

Oxford Makes You Old

This is not new, but I've just remembered:

Some of my classmates here are getting gray hairs. And no, not the ones who are much older, two of the guys my age. 

Craziness! I expected the OMG my classmates are getting married, I'm getting old...but not the we're going gray we must be gettting old...

Fingers crossed...

"We walk through the door and we close it behind us and the simplicity of it is dazzling. That's how it happens."

Here's hoping. 

C-c-c-c-cold

Oct 27: the fleece blanket is back. Admittedly, I had to use it in June last year but that's just cause England sucks and there was no heating available for a bit (and it was cold and damp). The prospect of living with this thing around my shoulders for the next 8 months is not exactly making me happy.

On a funny note, they call radiators here "central heating." 

ha. ha. ha. 

P.S. After writing that, I looked it up and they are correct. But seriously - forced air you know, works and stuff.

P.P.S. Concern has been expressed for my wellbeing. I am fine, cuz I haz mah blankit. But seriously England, why choose inferior heating technologies? Why?

Unfairness

It's not quite uphill both ways - but having to cycle into a strong headwind in no less than 3 directions on my daily bike commute seems like one of those things that just shouldn't be allowed.

On the plus side, I feel like the co-op's fair trade tropical juice deserves a shout-out for being delicious, and preventing low-blood-sugar headaches, and for letting you enjoy all of this while being pleased at doing your miniscule bit to help out poor farmers.

Release

from the film "A Knight's Tale":

William: It's not in me to withdraw.

Prince Edward: No. Nor me. Though it happens.

I have - probably left over from all that "character-building" early education - a severe aversion to giving up on things, or withdrawing from anything. Thus, when I had to consider whether to drop a course this week, it led to some intense agonisation. Never mind that it was a course surplus to requirements, never mind that it was crazy amounts of unnecessary work, never mind that trying to get it done probably contributed to me getting sick, never mind that it was preventing me from making progress on my thesis, never mind that I wasn't even really all that interested after being to the first class: I couldn't give up, could I? 

Well, after losing some sleep and probably giving myself a headache (and definitely an incredibly tense jaw), I did give up. And it feels great. 

I sent off the irreversible e-mail a little while ago, and since then I can literally feel my shoulders relaxing with the removal of the figurative weight. Sometimes, I think I just need to learn to let go. 

Maybe even learn not to take on so much in the first place ;)

The West

I've always had an irrational preference for the direction West. I'm not sure exactly where it came from - perhaps from Tolkien's valorisation of the West, or from living in the "West beyond the West", or the west half of a city, or what...

But now I have a good reason. I'm currently living east of where I spend my days, and it's entirely the wrong direction to commute. Heading west in the morning and east in the evening means my back is to all the natural goodness...if you live west of where you work, then you're facing the sunrise/sunset for the whole commute. 

On the plus side, tonight's sky was gorgeous and yesterday there was an amazing moon. Almost full (Waning Gibbous, actually, if anyone cares). And I got glimpses of both. 

Safe Harbour

This is a really good idea:

http://www.safeharbour.ca/

A Story of Soup

Today was soup day.

Some friends went today to a neat restaurant that cooks different dishes every day (just a few), home-cooking style. Which is normally yummy and fantastic. Today, however, they were out of soup...but said it would just be a couple of minutes. We said we'd wait. 

Half an hour later, there was finally soup, but it wasn't the carrot & lentil on the menu. It was...well, it was green. Beyond that I'm not sure. The consensus was that it was "what have we got in the kitchen to make soup with" soup. See, we figure that their standard answer when they run out of soup is "it will be a few minutes," and then people pick something else rather than wait. When we called their bluff, they had to throw something together...herbs, water and some thickening agent, as far as we could tell. And it took half an hour because they had to make it from scratch. 

It was delicious, by the way. Just not sure if it had, you know, nutritional content.

So I decided for take 2 at supper - I still don't have my dishes so I can't cook properly, but the grocery store had ready-made soups. And, special for October, they have a halloween soup: pumpkin and haricot. And it's delicious! And it's pumpkin, which sort of makes up for no thanksgiving. Soooo all in all, I count that a win. 

Trouble is, I keep forgetting in between spoonfuls that it's pumpkin. And it looks like butternut squash, so then that's what I expect, and I keep being surprised by the taste. My tongue is confusing my brain...

English Saturday, +/-

+ 1 for crunchy fall leaves

- 1 for "no service on the Jubilee line"

+ 1 for gorgeous weather

- 1 for cruel and petty bus driver

+ 1 for having my spices back

+ 1 for voices from home

______________________

all in all, I think I came out ahead...

Translation

I'm finding it shockingly hard to get back into academic langauge. After a summer of talking to people not wrapped in the linguistic cloak of academia - whether they be NGO workers, union activists, civil servants, or what have you - it would have been bad enough. But after another month of working on press releases, talking points, and campaign speeches, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage.

After all that time of keeping things simple - and I mean really simple - a lot of what I'm reading now just sounds unecessarily complex and obscure. For instance:

"The subjective and intersubjective sense of taboo-ness is one of the factors that makes the tradition of nuclear non-use a taboo rather than simply a norm."

I think that sentence has a reasonable meaning, but its unclear whether or not it matters. And this is just the IR course - I'm not sure what I'd do with critical theory right now.

Waking Up

Vis-à-vis my last post:

"But a leading social scientist, speaking for background, suggested yesterday that Canadians see in Mr. Harper a Robespierre-type character, the French revolutionary leader who at first was embraced by the people for his unflappability, control and appearance of towering moral rectitude and then rejected by them for the same reasons."
- Michael Valpy, Globe and Mail

Maybe I'm not the only one to think that perceived strength and certitude isn't everything.
And maybe our reign of less-than-terror is coming to an end.

Fingers crossed.

Nuance

from the Globe and Mail: 

"The Tories plan to frame Mr. Harper as a minivan-driving hockey dad from the suburbs and chief rival Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion as an elitist professor who has difficulty articulating a vision, making decisions and relating to Canadians." (empahsis mine)

I know this may sound odd, but I think I want a leader who has difficulty making decisions. I'm not denying that decisions need to be made, but the issues that national leaders have to face are just plain difficult. Any who finds making decisions about them easy probably isn't thinking about them hard enough. And there's only so much guts feeling we can handle. 

Motivations

“At some point in the eighties a group of academics went to see P.W. Botha to tell him that things could not go on as they were. After listening to all of them, Botha stood up and said: ‘My dear Professors – you can come here with all your clever arguments and academic learning, but I, P.W. Botha, governs from a guts feeling.’
‘It’s the “s” that made me leave the National Party,’ one of them said afterwards.”

If I end up in politics, it may be for this reason. Not because they're ideologically wrong (although they are), but because they're idiots and they're wrong and they're running my country.

Curious - but you kinda gotta love it

From a BBC story on the Indian Parliament: 

"Members of parliament have been summoned from their sick beds and even prison cells to take part in the vote."

"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."

"Never again?"

"Well, not so much. They don't let you."

A Pleasant Surprise

Today was much better than I thought it was going to be. The rain was a hassle (I need to start wearing rain pants to class, I think), but the day had redeeming qualities. For one, the dryer actually worked (ish, it took an extra pound over normal but at least my clothes are dry and not all over my room like last time). For another, class was really good an interesting and helped straighten out something for the exam that I've been confused about since November. And this is a class that is, at best, very hit-and-miss, so that was very nice. And I feel like I'm making more progress with studying, which is greatly reassuring. So all in all not bad. 

A thought: does it make any real sense to say that you own yourself? Or that you should? My feeling is that, while a lot of people take this basically for granted, its simply the wrong terminology. Sure, we're upset at the notion that others might own you (that is, we don't heart slavery) but that doesn't mean you need to; it doesn't mean you need to think of yourself as property at all. And I think that talking about self-ownership gets us into lots of bad places we'd rather not be. 

Cost and Difficulty

Looks like today is going to be fully of laundry, studying and rain. All of my favourite things. Hurrah.

Mumblegrumblemumblegrumble.

The studying isn't so bad, if I think about it. I mean, obviously its not bad compared to anything actually bad (like war) or genuinely hard (like...um...let's go with climbing a mountain). But it's also just not really bad or hard at all. So why do I mind so much? And why more than I used to?

I think studying actually has become easier over time: I'm better at it, and concentrating takes less effort than, say, in grade 4. The real change for the worse is, I think, in the opportunity cost of studiyng. So in grade 4 school sort of changed over and we just did revision for three weeks. And I don't think I would have been allowed to do anything else if I just shirked the studying. Whereas here, exciting Oxford stuff is still going around and I have to miss it all - the opportunity cost of studying is now not seeing eights week, not going to garden shows, not seeing special lectures, etc. Which is very frustrating. 

Especially when I see the studying as less worthwhile. The only reason I have to study for this exam is to do well on it. I don't expect to retain any of what I'm learning at this point, and I don't expect to use any of it if I do. It's about debates I'm not interested in, and what I am learning is who said what. Sighz. Ah well, less than a week to go. 

More Weather

Before I start, yes, I have thoughts other than weather and triviality. However, academia is taken up all my profundity at the moment - so the blog remains for the preservation of ephemera. Is that even possible? Who knows...

So yes - weather. It's like November! Or, November as I think of it...cold, pouring with rain, and lots of wind. It's very bizarre and hugely messes with my sense of time. It makes me think it's not then end of third term, but first. It also makes me think it's 5pm when it gets dark - rather than 9:30. So subconsciously confused!

Rain rain go away...

Memory Weather

The weather here is driving me absolutely crazy. It's warm, but overcast. For some reason, that reminds me very strongly of early summer while I was in undergrad - lazy days with not much to do and plenty of time to do it in. This is senseless, because I know the weather was frequently like this in Vancouver when I was studying for exams in school, yet somehow all it evokes is wandering around pocket parks in Vancouver or heading down to Jericho or Kits for a bit of early sailing. It even smells lik Vancouver. It's really bizarre, and disorienting, and NOT good for me getting any work done. Sigh. Why is it that Oxford being beautiful just makes me miss Vancouver more? 

I like my mint tea in the green cup

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what we really value in our lives - and what we aim for, and how (or if) that works out for us. Mostly without conclusion, largely to do with class and thesis, but a bit for myself. 

Anyhoo, as I said - not much in the way of conclusion. But as I emerge from several days of fighting sickness-induced depression, I realised that some bizarrely simple things make me more pleased than they probably should. I made a list like that a long time ago: "Things that make me happy (more than they should)" but somewhere in the many computer disasters it's gone, sadly. This time it was just one that reminded me. I have two mugs here: identical, save that one is green and the other blue. And I really like it when I managed to do mint tea in the green mug and darker things like black tea and hot chocolate in the blue one. It doesn't always work out that way without doing dishes even more often than I already do, but when it does it makes me feel all nice. And considering that mint tea probably makes that list indpendent of the cup it is in, pretty good all around. 

P.S. Yes, I know, the blog never gets out of the trivial. It does say preface right there in the title...promise big, deliver later ;)

Weird Weather

HOW DO I MISS ALL THE SNOW??!?!?!?!?

Seriously, could one have predicted that I would miss snowy Oxford by being home for Easter and then miss snowy home by being back in Oxford at the END of April? 

Return to Oxford (and its delightful insanity)

So, today is deadline day. Oxford, in all its wisdom (or at least my corner of it) has decreed that everything will be due at once, that is, will be due at noon on the friday of nought week of the term after the course was taken. So that meant that I had four essays due today. And not only that I had multiple essays, but that everyone in the department (if not more than that) had essays due today. So an important day for things like, oh, say, printers to be operational. 

At this point you can probably guess. I had been up for 20 minutes when a classmate (who's also in my college) called to wonder how I was planning to print - he had just been to the college computer room only to find out that it was closed for the day. Why today? It's unclear. Higher purpose? Mysterious ways? Simple sadism? We'll never no. 

Un-fussed, the two of us proceeded to the vaunted Bodleian Library - surely they who possess a copy of every book published in Britain could print our essays for us. And indeed they could...but, only with great difficulty. We had to acquire a photocopy card (fortunately my classmate had one), top it up with prodigious amounts of British change, then print our files off a workstation. All this makes sense from...well...any other library printing I've ever seen. Here comes the crazy bit - the printouts then come out of a printer behind the desk. We count the pages by hand, and report the total to the staff, who then do all the math (with pencil and paper) to find the total charge (over 8 pounds each!). Then, we hand over the card and they work some magic with it. Oh, and halfway through the paper ran out and the staff were utterly flummoxed as to what to do. Once they figured out that it had run out, they searched fruitlessly for paper. Including - for real - lifting up books and looking under them. Why? It's unclear...maybe in case a single sheet was hiding there? After calling technical services, they finally succeeding in locating the paper - that was as far as I could tell next to the printer the whole time. Sigh. It was clearly the largest printing they had ever had to do.

Anyhow, we did in fact get the printing - all 122 pages (for me) - done, and the essays handed in. And fortunately I print infrequently enough that this can be pleasantly hilarious, not downright maddening. 

Seriously though. How does this place not collapse around their ears?

On a lighter note:

From Joseph Raz, on Incommensurability (he's an Oxford prof, which may be the only reason I find this funny):

"I value a walk in the park this afternoon more than reading a book at home. But one can successively change the odds, making the park a little windier, the book accompanied by a glass of port, until one would say that neither is better than the other."

Aside from being (to me) rather amusing, I think this may sum up a lot of what I find problematic about the other world that is the Oxford ivory tower.

Whoa...

So...I just read an article for my last week of core MPhil courses that I had to read at the very beginning of my core Honours BA course...which has a weird symetry all of its own.

The even stranger part is how much it may have unconsciously shaped my thinking, since I didn't really remember it super well or think it had a big influence. But it really sums up a lot of things I think I now agree with about ethics, after running around in circles about it for a term. Which makes me think either my education has caused me to come to the same conclusions about some things as Isaiah Berlin did (acceptable...) or I've wasted a lot of time in the interim.

Oh, and the article is Part VIII of Two Concepts of Liberty, entitled "The One and the Many"

Mugabe

Things Mugabe has called his opponents in the latest election cycle:

- prostitutes (many times)

- witches

- charlatans

- traitors

- two-headed creatures

- frogs

See, this is the sort of level of political discourse we should be demanding from our leaders. 

Oh, and I only really feel to write a post this dumb because it's Leap Day, so nothing is real. 

Life Less Ordinary

You are abnormal. 

Kind of a slap in the face, huh?

Try this:

You are extraordinary. 

Better?

Think about it.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Quote of the day: "But who knows what the hell else is going on deep in the soul of a carrot?"

And I will start writing actual posts instead of just linking things, at some point, I promise.

So much awesome:

seriously, just look...

and I thought there was never any good news in the world. 

p.s.

also I think I need to learn to write properly.

this may involve Orwell and a typewriter.

The Day the Music Died

Today, apparently. 

In better news, the next President of Serbia will not be from a party whose leader is currently on trial for war crimes. Huzzah!

Also, I know I'm late on this one, but if you haven't seen The Lives of Others, do so. 

People are nice, too!

The tone here has been way too depressing for a bit, so I thought I'd just note that people can be really very nice sometimes too, and that that can make a big difference. I'll just note three recent examples:

1) My classmate, who put in a huge amount of effort to put together a party for the rest of us to try and make sure we get to know each other as people, rather than just as fellow students. It was super nice of her AND it worked, which is awesome.

2) Ultimate at Oxford - apparently, an integral part of the games is not just being friendly in the actual competition, but then getting together and playing summer camp-style icebreakerish games afterwards. While this involves getting muddy in the winter, it is friendly and awesome and happy-making. 

3) Nice people at the grocery store (which, by the way, seems to be gradually getting in more fair trade stuff...woot!) who have nice and friendly conversations with you at the grocery check-out and brighten up your day and welcome you to Oxford when your day isn't going great because carrying groceries is hard when you busted your shoulder playing ultimate. 

So all in all, yay people! recently...

Really? Are you sure that's your example?

So I was reading what is otherwise a very interesting article by one David Sussman entitled "What's wrong with torture" when I hit this passage:

"Consider a case where the police confront a very obese man who is trying to suffocate another by sitting on his chest. Like the terrorist, the fat man is defenseless before the police, who can wound or even kill him easily. Yet if the fat man dies or loses consciousness, the police lack the strength to shift him off his victim. Only the fat man can end his attack, even though he does not now need to do anything further in order for it to succeed. Here it seems that the police might well be justified in menacing the fat man or twisting his arm (or threatening to kill him) in order to get him to derail a set of events that he has intentionally set in motion, even though he no longer has to actively contribute anything to it. The terrorist relies on a bomb's mechanism to accomplish his goal, the fat man on his weight, and it is hard to see how this difference of method could be of any great moral significance."

Really? Why? Why on earth? Who are these people who call themselves moral philosophers? What strange and bizarre world have I stumbled into?

The key comes in the last sentence - the crazy fat man example is there to show us why it might be considered plausible that you could coerce a terrorist who has been captured but has planted a bomb into telling us where it is. So the fat man example is supposed to be so clear and so persuasive that it helps develop the other point by analogy. 

Again...why? Why why why? Is there anything about the fat man example that's more plausible, more convincing? No! Then why on earth, given its utter irrelevance and the obvious relevance of the other example at hand (the captured terrorist bomb-planter) wander off into bizarre, unrealistic, and possibly (although I'm unsure on this) offensive hypothetical crazy-examples? Why why why!?!

Ok I'm done. Sorry, for anyone who actually reads this...its not so much intended for consumption as for venting purposes. 

In more interesting news - well, not all news, but still more interesting, if also more depressing:

- garbage gyre

- why I feel the society I come from is a little ill around the edges - it would be cheaper to take care of people, and still we don't do it

Sometimes, I really love Oxford

I was going to run to Mesopotamia today, but it was flooded. 

For reals. Good thing I live in a tower.

No accounting for taste

I just went to see what I thought was a fabulous new play. It's called "Yet tell my name again to me" (good title, no? from Tennyson apparently...) and is about Harriet Taylor and J.S. Mill's early love life. And it was truly a student play - not only acted and directed by students, but written by one as well. I thought the writing was great, the acting definitely fine considering, and overall made for an enjoyable and really thought-provoking evening. 

Apparently I was in a minority...the people in the row in front of me couldn't stop giggling at the (rather serious) end of the first act, and the people to my left didn't come back after intermission. They said something about it being a bit too much, and voting with their feet, and left...

Sigh. 

I think it's brave to write a play, and put it on. And especially a play about something like this. And more than that, I thought the brave effort paid off into a really very good play. I'm not sure what people expect out of this sort of thing, but I am sure I expect more out of people.