Old and New

There's an old riddle about a town with two barbershops - one barber has a great haircut, the other's is terrible. Who do you go to? The guy with the terrible haircut, of course, as the barbers must cut one another's hair. 

This isn't quite the same, but I think it might be a generally useful rule of thumb that if there are pretty old buildings and ugly new buildings, you probably don't actually want to be in the pretty old ones. You want to be in the ugly but functional new one next to the ugly old one, so that you can sit in comfort looking at the prettiness of the new one, rather than freezing in the gloom staring at a concrete monstrosity. 

On a related note, props to Lord Rothemere and Vere Harmsworth, whoever you are, for creating the only place I know in Oxford that is reliably quiet, warm, and sufficiently well lit to actually get work done. I guess they save enough energy on the compact flourescent bulbs and motion-censor stack lights that they can put little space heaters next to each study carrel (oh, and the having individual study carrels? also good work...) Oh, and building yourself next to Mansfield gardens, which are pretty.