When even someone like Matt – who, in a former life, rather mocked this blog! – mentions a recent drying up of my posts appearing in his ‘news feed’ (see, they all give in eventually 
) you know it’s time to scribble something. And I have a nice little gap of 20 minutes or so in-between Special Subject (‘gobbet practice’ – now doesn’t that lend itself nicely to confusion…) and supervision, so here we are. Truth be told I started a post a couple of days ago but abandoned it because it seemed too political, and this is an audience-aware blog (TM) which tries to avoid being too dull. Sometimes.
(Btw, reading Tash’s PWG post this morning was the most heart-warming thing ever! 
)
Have seen a bit more of Promise this term than we usually get around to: I’ve now got yet another person to Caius Hall, at least! The novelty’s worn off for most, naturally… Lucy’s coming tomorrow evening (yay!), and I think we’ll head for Pizza Express instead 
But basically, I have little to write about because I am genuinely committed to a work-heavy patch between now and finals 
Have written 40+ sides of notes on reading for my first two essays alone, which is by far the most I’ve ever done, even compared to political thought last year. (Well, I started well last year, but drifted off track notes-wise – which I am totally determined not to do this time. Even if it is impossibly-bonkers German idealism.)
Um… someone left a gospel of St Mark’s in my pigeon hole? Well, I mean, I wasn’t singled out – everyone got one – but the guy had taken the time to handwrite individual post-it notes for each of us. Was absolutely planning to leave The God Delusion and a friendly note in his pigeon hole in return, but sadly someone else beat me to it, so instead I will have to content myself by considering my answers to the following questions which came on an accompanying postcard:
What does God know about sex? Everything! (And I really mean everything…)
Is Jesus the only way to God? Yes.
Why does God let us suffer? Free-will. And mysterious divine plan.
How could a loving God send anyone to hell? Hell is ‘separation from God’! (Alternatively: who’s going to stop him, eh?)
Will being good get me to heaven? No. Perhaps if you were a noble pagan. But not now, no way.
I think I win. Supervision time!
I know, I know, I’ve been really lax in blogging, and have clearly been overtaken in both quantity and quality of output by Tasha’s sterling efforts on this front. In my defence, I have – always – got an awful lot of reading to do. It’s funny, because there’s a real trade-off with doing political thought papers: on the one hand, when it comes to actually planning and writing my weekly essay it’s a lot easier, as you don’t have to roam so widely, but at the same time I do an awful lot more reading and note-taking than I usually manage over the week. Still, this isn’t a complaint – I do love it really
Had a really lovely T&S evening last weekend, in which we were all surprised (and much impressed) by Andrew’s new-found cocktail making abilities. (They were, and I tell no lie, delicious.) What was odd, and frankly what I didn’t deserve, was to wake up in the middle of the night afterwards with eighteenth century discourse trapped in my drunken brain. Seriously. Rather than saying “hmm, go get some water” to myself, I ended up musing internally in elaborate prose about whether quenching my thirst was an ‘ultimate end’ in itself or not, which now seems like the wrong side of mental. Still, worth it for the cocktails. Tonight Sophie and I went for a relaxed marital* pub-confab, which is another thing which forms a very worthy companion to working all day, and is much appreciated, partly because Sophie has an uncanny ability to memorise all of my London-based friends and keep track of their news as well as Cambridge gossip, so it’s almost like mentally popping back home. (Hmm – there’s that ‘mental’ word again. Worrying, worrying.)
(*You remember we’re college husband and wife, right? This isn’t needlessly confusing? Great!)
And now for the big end of blog diversion which you don’t have to read:
Socrates. You’ve heard of him, surely. A Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century BCE. He taught Plato, who went on to teach Aristotle. A bunch of writing from these last two DWEMs survives to the present day.
But is it too harsh to wish that it hadn’t? Because the fact is: there were others. Leucippus. Democritus. Epicurus. We don’t have much of their stuff, but we do know that they all advocated a materalist atomism which was way ahead of their times. Can you imagine how the course of history could have been different if they had ended up representing classical thought, rather than the intellectual sophists and dead-ends which we did get? You might say that it wouldn’t have mattered much in comparison to armies, conquests and empires. But I like to think we could have at least done it all better
Ladies and gentlemen, from a chilly Cambridge attic bedroom, I wish you a good evening. My plan is to blog, quickly and quietly, before retiring to a still-considerably-cold bed. Tomorrow morning brings a mock exam for HAP – ‘Historical Argument and Practice’ – which is the seemingly obligatory part of any course where everything goes tediously meta, and questions run the gambit from “But, really, why?” to “So what?” and “Oh, right. Discuss.”. But never mind. If I really can’t think of anything to write, and bear in mind we have three hours to come up with a single answer, I might just resort to composing limericks or something. It’s a mock.
Much much much more fun is my actual paper this term, which is a continuation of the history of political thought from last year. This week is Hume, who is awesome, although I am slightly concerned that the rest of the term is going to be a downward spiral from this initial height. (It’s hard to improve on ‘no metaphysics’, since just writing it again but in a bigger, jazzier font is bound to be subject to diminishing returns. Maybe in <marquee>…*) Anyway! All this has lead to a grand moment of self-discovery tonight, wherein I realised that my answer of “I don’t know, I don’t have any plans…” to questions about the future is basically a lie. I do have plans – lots of plans! – only they’re based around reading rather than careering. So, here is my commitment: when I leave uni, I am going to make time to read (a) even more philosophy, (b) Very Short Introductions to sciencey things and (c) great fiction. Inbetween, if I have time, I might get a job. How’s that?
(If only I could read on trains, my life would be pretty much complete!)
*Note to self: It’s probably best not to write jokes which combine both philosophy and HTML, since the potential target audience reading this blog is basically Alex Trafford. And maybe Bill Thompson.
Short of time? Next year, don’t bother to read the blog… you can always wait for the grand and over-stuffed review of the year.
January
Traditions, traditions! SexFest ’09 may have innovated by ditching pillows for balloons this year but was otherwise its usual big, bold and thoroughly mad self. The month it inaugurated, however, was unusually bumpy and stressful: Themes & Sources nearly gave all of us at uni a collective nervous breakdown, whilst Lucy and I broke up… but more of this later, in a happier month. And there were still plenty of good things, naturally! Like meeting Niamh for the first time, gathering around the radio to listen to Obama’s inauguration, Tash coming to visit and see Milk, starting political thought (yes, really ), luring others into coming to Caius formal and [drumroll, please] joining Twitter!
February
In amongst the snow, Lucy and I got back together 
so all was well again! (Plus I ended up trying to read Aquinas on a packed train trudging across the country.) Meanwhile in February, I was shadowed around Cambridge by an eager Sixth Former in a reversed echo of three years earlier, Oliver received his EMPEROR t-shirt (don’t ask) and we all saw the feel-good Slumdog Millionaire, plus enjoyed the second History Society dinner. Oh, and Thomas Hobbes and I like totally clicked. 
2009: full of good food and great people
March
So many lovely March evenings: Peggle and music with Abbi, vanilla tea and absurdist theatre with Sona, Crisis Control and Darkplace with Lucy, Watchmen with everybody. As term ended I finally got round to doing a lot of things I should have done much earlier, like go swimming with Abi in the pool right opposite where we lived, pin down Bill Thompson for lunch and fall in love with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Once home there was just about time to chill out in the Blues Bar – and let loose a new and improved Feed Mix on the world – before Lucy and I were off a procession of carefully timed trains to the Yorkshire countryside and the picturesque Crakehall Watermill! Whereupon, on the final day of March, I fulfilled my central aim in life by visiting a cheese factory.
April
We continued to Leeds – eating (slow) pizzas with Andy, visiting the best ‘art’ gallery ever and enjoying The Tempest – before coming home in time for me to make Robert’s warm, cosy and well-catered dinner party. In April we also crowned Oliver champion as my dream of Peggle ‘n’ Pizza became a reality, whilst I rode the DLR, got round to visiting the Lexi, took the plunge in watching Twilight and ended up quite unexpectedly immersed in a piece of pub-based theatre one night with Sanna’s family. Once term started, however, it was back to the rather less relaxed world of revision, not-doing-revision-when-you-were-supposed-to and talking-about-both.
May
In May I saw what was possibly my film of the year, In The Loop, and got more in the real-life loop vis-à-vis the ever-wonderful Sophie. There was also waffle consumption with Sanna, State of Play, middle-class Monopoly with Kat, and what was possibly my runner-up film of the year, Star Trek. Twice . Andrew’s politics dinner brought the opportunity to ask Cornelius about ‘happiness lessons’; Space Mutiny (the film of my life) brought the dastardly Kalgan and his wicked plots, whilst my mum just about reached middle-age, @billt talked code and I was executed by a pair of stormtroopers. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, exams began…
June
…and ended, early on in June, thereby ending History Part I. (Helping us all stay alive to this point, incidentally, was the irreplaceable, irrepressible and quite incredible Heather.) One of the coolest of the many things that came next in celebration mode was seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot: awesome, naturally, but lovely also just for seeing Helen Hudspith again. And then, after the birthday meals, after my acquisition of London Underground underwear, a geeky geometry t-shirt, a Nic Parkes mug and a damn cool hat, after short films and buskers at the Lexi, Karoo Moose with Abbi at the Tricycle, Auto-Tune the News and – indeed – Part I results (2:1!) we set off for the Best Week Of 2009… Newquay!
Newquay!
July
So yes. After Newquay, July heralded an emotionally intense week of Torchwood, the weird and wonderful Psychoville, a trip to St Paul’s with bonus marvelling at glass lifts with Sanna, sights-we-never-expected-to-see in Brüno and Saoirse’s birthday pic-a-nic. I extended the goodness of mango beer to Owen, had perplexingly bizarre phone conversations from the top of a night bus, partied to ABBA hits at Lucy’s dinner and – very excitingly – made a pilgrimage to Cadbury World. Oh, and I won the Themes & Sources essay prize! Get in
August
Another aquarium visit was organised for the beginning of August, having been such a big hit in Newquay, before mum, Katie, Lucy and I spent a couple of days in Liverpool: home of the world’s prettiest church (or not). It ain’t summer without a theme park, however – here’s to you, Drayton Manor! – or a family summer holiday, the latter provided by Devon which also gave us a tall(ish) waterfall, scary looking sheep and the opportunity for me to understand at least 50% more references online by watching Fight Club. I also saw The Tempest, again, but with a more-awesome Caliban, and wrote my most popular blog post of the year in statistical terms (by miles) just by being a bit sarky to James Murdoch. But you don’t have to do anything very fancy to have a great time… in fact, one of my fondest memories from the summer is lying on the golf course one night in Queen’s Park, catching up with Matthew and looking up at the stars.
September
September was music month, at least by my rather limited standards. Not only did Abbi gift me tickets for not one but two gigs – Jack’s Mannequin and Twin Atlantic – but there was also Sanna’s melodious chrismation. (Sealed!) No singing in Troilus and Cressida that I remember, but that was also really, really good. Meantime, never far from food and drink, I assisted Lucy in the preparation of a delicious brunch for Abbi and her mum, got totally outclassed by dinner party host extraordinaire Andy, lunched with Philippa, snacked with Nic & Nick2 and went all over the place in the hunt for plentiful food and drink on the day of Saoirse’s rather mobile gathering. But I’m not just a consumer: I also gave blood for the first time in September, too!
October
I got a wonderful chance in early October to relive A-Level English with Ms. Rupchand and Mr. Buchanan, before it was finally time to head back to uni to begin my third and final (!) year. Having admired Lucy’s new house in Brighton I was similarly delighted with my own living arrangements, which finally put me right in the centre of town. And then it was back to work, often in my snug new Caius hoodie, albeit with plenty of distractions and interludes: the wit and wisdom of Ben Stein, the wonder of Windows 7, Merlin and True Blood, swapping halls with Simon, Chris and other Emmanuel folk, swapping blog writing duties with Sanna, Lucy coming to cook us all up a storm, the discovery of the fabled Enchanted Lands of Friendship as well as Katie coming to visit! And the perfect way to enjoy Halloween? Why, Buffy’s Once More, With Feeling, of course.
Some things go knock in the night…
November
The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus came and went as a little ethereal delight; Trinity, on the other hand, could have staggered for a great deal longer if Owen and I hadn’t seen sense and pulled the plug after two episodes. November was NaNoWriMo month, of course, which meant a new slice of Abbi’s heartbreaking novel each morning to read. (More heartbreak was to come with the death of Mr. Bruul, incidentally.) There were also fireworks (but no fairground rides) with Oliver and Abi, a great night in various pubs with Lucy, Simon, Chris, Rob and more and lots of Flight of the Conchords and tea with Owen. I fought (and beat) the Evil Beep Of Doom, rufffed it up at Tom’s birthday party and finally got to a Superhall and a Footlights panto as well as producing my absolute life’s masterwork in Sophie’s birthday video, which was also celebrated with an extravagantly generous meal. Oh, and let’s not forget Caroline’s CUCA dinner 
December
Home, for a suitably relaxing Christmas! Well, that’s what I might have thought, although it soon transpired that my parents had morphed into crime-fighting action heroes with the scars to prove it. I can’t compete, naturally, but I can bake a chocolate cake (alright, with led by Lucy), enjoy mango beer with Sophie and neglect work in favour of parties (Secret Vegetarian Festive etc. etc.), pub gigs (snowy snowy Archway), one utterly inexplicable festive something at the Globe and, of course, Christmas itself! Geeky though it might be, let it be noted for the record that December also saw the end of Windows XP in this house: we live in the future, now Oh, and talking of which, Katie has very kindly agreed to show me the entirity of the magnificent Battlestar Galactica over the course of the next year…
Wishing everyone a quite fantastic 2010
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
