As you might expect, I’m really not a huge fan of the 1980s. The 1980s equals Reagan, Thatcher and the painful final seasons of the long-running ‘Cold War’ series, which had long ago jumped the shark and was now resorting to frankly implausible twists to keep us interested. (Yeah yeah, maybe we can shoot their missiles out of the sky with our own magic missiles from Star Wars, whatever. Like that would work.) In fact, since correlation always equals causation, I’d argue that I was born in 1989 – immediately saw that something was terribly wrong – and thus the immeasurably superior 1990s was born.
However, one thing which is hard to deny is that 1980s music videos had the property of being ‘not crap’ in a way which was never really regained:
I was thinking about this whilst watching the marvellous Krush (above) and reading the recent slew of reports about the exposure of children to sexual imagery and accompanying damage. And if only to make the point…
Videos old and new
Fact: humans are inherently ridiculous. Mad apes with delusions of universal grandeur, we’re also basically pretty ugly when you think about it. (Mm – blood, bone, muscles, fat and insufficient body hair! Intelligent design fail.) Sexuality is a cheap hack to get us to reproduce, and of course we play along, but to talk about the media as projecting ‘unobtainable’ images of ‘perfection’ is absurd. We’re so very far from perfection it isn’t funny, but if you really wanted to project images of at least ‘some genuine improvement’ in a human being you wouldn’t concern yourself with the tedium of body shape. You’d photoshop a creature that didn’t require advanced medical intervention to be born without a scarily high chance of dying, was immune to the charms of Jeremy Kyle and could get basic percentages right. Models would be pictured reading books at the speed of light whilst simultaneously playing Twister without falling over. In space.
We can’t do this, obviously. (At least not at the moment. I hold out hope for the future. C’mon, genetic engineering and/or cybernetics!) But in the meantime, we could at least derive some genuine enjoyment from our innate rubbishness rather than strutting about and pouting. It’s fun to hop around in baggy jumpers and baseball caps – it’s also a sign of intellectual self-awareness that human beings, far from being divine receptacles of holy reason, are charmingly absurd. Pretending that we should spend all of our time trying to be sexually attractive, on the other hand, is terrifically insecure. Relax, humanity. We’re not going to lose the urge to procreate any time soon, and there’s no need to fool ourselves into thinking that we need to make a special effort about it. It’ll only be disappointing in the end.
– As promised, my Varsity interview with Ken is now online. Though you’ve probably seen it already, what with Twitter and Facebook and whatnot 
– Shark Attack 3 is by far the greatest bad film I’ve seen since Space Mutiny. A must see. (Cheers, Simon.)
– I realised I never elaborated any further on Secret Project X from a couple of posts ago. Well, I hope this illuminates:
Oliver’s Interactive Adventure
– Dear Newnham college: I don’t understand you. Why made it hard for people to leave the building at night? Aren’t you trying to keep people out? But on the other hand, speaking purely theroetically, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to forge a note from someone in the college in order to be let out? And anyway, what are you going to do – make us sleep on the floor?
– (I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about Sunday night, because this was the night that I beat Andrew in a race. Yes. It happened! Mr. Tillin would be so proud of me! 
)
– Happy anniversary, Ling! 
Repentant Woods sorry for affairs
I thought trivial news was at least supposed to have the element of surprise?
Jubilant Woods really enjoyed himself
One of life’s oddities: this evening, I got to interview Ken Livingstone.
OK, backtrack. So there I was a couple of weeks ago in Special Subject class when the girl opposite me (hey, Emma!) leaned forward over the table and asked if I’d volunteered on Ken’s last election campaign. Which came rather out of the blue for me, but of course Emma had chatted a while ago to my former DoS, who’d gossiped what she knew about the other people in the class. And of course, my former DoS knew I’d volunteered on Ken’s campaign because I, too, like to chat. And Emma’s an editor of the student newspaper Varsity, and was wondering if I’d fancy doing a quick interview with Ken when he came to speak to the Union Society…?
Well, naturally I would, thank you! And it’s all the easier because my contact at the Union turns out to be a guy (hey, James!) who sat next to me at the Peterhouse Politics Society dinner last year. (We chatted about Ken.) And oh, now Ken’s here and I’m able to give him a copy of the interview from the last time I did this – a decade ago. (Don’t we all look younger in the photo!) I was ten, and yet here I am now asking him basically the exact same question about running for the mayoralty with or without the Labour party.
The moral: life is strange, fun and ever so slightly cyclical. And you make it better by idle chatter
Anyway – since it is Varsity‘s interview, I shall refrain from blogging the content until I can link to the online version. (Don’t expect great revelations, obviously. He’s an old pro at this. But hopefully it should still be a good read…)
Bad blogger blah blah blah. Let’s move on: or back, rather to the weekend before last! A weekend in which Lucy and I once again fell in with the Emma crowd (and it really was the Emma crowd this time) by going to their formal hall on Sunday. This was… a strange experience. It was lovely to be invited, and they did serve finer potatoes than anything Caius has ever managed. (Less Fewer points for the meat, but that’s a different story.) But what was very odd was one of the porters, who – donned in sunglasses even through indoor sunglasses are near-universally ridiculous – spent his time roaming from one table to another and telling people off. Largely for talking.
“We have your names!” Well, erm, actually you don’t – I believe Simon put me down on the guest list as ‘Dominic Livingstone’. And Lucy goes to Sussex, who are unlikely to care much. But that’s not the point! Still, it has given me a renewed warm glow towards Caius… they may loose your cheques and serve you questionable chicken burgers, but at least they never shout at you because ‘I can hear you laughing’. 
(Then we went off, drank lots and ate from the Van of Life. Twas good.)
I think this stands as one of the more successful photos of the night…
Not pictured: my brief attempt at this
I’d also like to show off my now-completed Secret Project X, or ‘Oliver’s birthday present’, but I can’t quite yet, so it’ll have to wait for next time. So, 2012ish, perhaps?
(Postscript: the philosophy library is one of my new favourite places in the world. This probably won’t last, though: my productivity goes up in little spikes with the novelty of finding a new place to work before settling back down again. Hence Simon and I deciding that we were going to embark on a roving library tour…)
(Postscript the second: stop spamming my blog, spammers! I don’t want to learn how to play the guitar, and neither do I want ‘cheap phentermine’. I don’t even know what phentermine is. [Looks it up.] An ‘appetite suppressant’?! Pur-lease. The really cheap way of suppressing your appetite is through eating cheap food.
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
