I thought I’d write a post based around thoughts rather than events for once, which I realise can sometimes just be an excuse to be morose. I’m not, though. I do feel what I always feel the night before going back to Cambridge: a sense of impending dislocation and readjustment, not because I enjoy the term any less, but just because all of my routines and friendships have to be reorientated again. And then there’s the highly stressful thought of upcoming exams. So the superposition of dislocation and stress does create some melancholy, but it’s not primary melancholy but instead a secondary artefact of two separate emotions, if you see what I mean. (I’m sure you don’t, since I’m conceiving of emotions as waves in the A-Level Physics sense, which is neither a particularly normal or rhetorically helpful thing to do. But I’m going to run with just a little bit further, because I’m about to say that I’m focusing this melancholy wave onto the screen of nostalgia.)
My response is to focus this melancholy wave onto the screen of nostalgia. Well, not quite nostalgia. I’m not longing for the past exactly, but through the miracle of fastidious archiving I am in closer contact with it than might be wise. My e-mails, for example, go back to at least 2002. (You can mock this attention to holding on to data, but consider that at least I’ve never had to ask you for your phone number twice.) And obviously lots of snippets from the past are dreadfully boring, but they’re still captivatingly addictive to explore. Witness, for example, this slightly bizarre missive to the Labour party (why?!) from 2004. (I was 15 and should have been doing other things – deal with it.)
But will Labour ever return to the idea of real equality? Of taxing the rich to help the poor? Of stopping corporations have too much power? Public ownership? Are you still even socialist?
And then there are the things that never change. From almost exactly two years ago:
Sorry – I have tried to fiddle my calendar but in my one or two free days I really really do need to work. Scary how the Easter holidays disappear so fast
(One day, the exam cycle really will end and I shall be free! Might be dead by then, of course…)
Oh, and to all of those people who became entangled in my e-mail archives over the years and have never managed to escape… thank you 
So much to talk about! I shall start with Peggle ‘n’ Pizza, a rather grand tournament held on Easter Sunday to find the one true Peggle master. For posterity’s sake, let the record state that the winners of the group stages were Oliver and Saoirse, with Dominic and Amber coming second. Tense semi-finals then saw Oliver and Amber triumph, and in the grand final Oliver emerged victorious with a score of 19,045 to 11,850. (See, this is way more exciting than football!) Oliver thus went home with the ceremonial Easter bunny ears. Hurrah! But will he be able to defend them in the future from eager young upstarts? We shall see…
(And it was a lovely experience too, frequently interspersed with moments of surreal confusion for me at the sight of unlikely Peggle couples. I shall try and get around to putting more photos up on Facebook shortly, but in the meantime a small selection follows. Oh, and mega-thanks to Joshua for applying his sporting expertise and devising a system for scoring!)
The pitch
A match of mixed emotions…
Hard at work
Friendships come and go, but Peggle victory lasts forever
Triumph!
The next day Lucy and I embarked on another ‘pick a random Tube station’ adventure, which was a brave thing to do in the face of planned engineering works and wholly unplanned person-under-a-train disruption. Nonetheless, we made it to Langdon Park on the DLR before realising that, in the nicest possible way, there isn’t really a hell of a lot there. (Sorry.) But that’s fine, y’know, because we ended up back on the other side of London and at Westfield – a place that delights and offends in almost equal measure. (You think ‘delights’ is a bit strong for a shopping centre? Then you haven’t seen the milkshakes…) In the evening we finally made it to the fabulous Lexi to see Religulous. I enjoyed the film, sure, but then I was fairly likely to? This doesn’t stop me recognising that the arguments are deployed in a pretty shallow way, although I sympathise with the problem of challenging absurdity intelligently. But I would like to see a film that I could take religious people to that could actually make an impact – the cinematic equivalent of Ebon Musings with added sparkle. (Give it a browse – if nothing else then for the Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists, an essay which so starkly demonstrates the difference between belief and faith it’s, erm, a revelation 
)
In the meantime, however, I’m more than happy to play Scrabble and watch Twiglet Twilight with one of my favourite theists. Now – how much right do I have to pass judgement based solely on the film? It’s cheesy, without a doubt, and I’ve heard it discussed in feminist terms for so long that I can’t not be slightly irritated by Bella’s unconditional devotion. Having said all that, one has to respect an injection of the dark and deadly into teenage romance, since ‘getting killed’ is a far more pressing and interesting dilemma than ‘getting dumped’. So I don’t know. Ho hum. Sanna’s family also invited me along to Pub Rock, a wonderful merger of ‘play’ and ‘pub gig where you get to sing along to the joy that is the final counnntdowwwwn!’ which I enjoyed muchly. By the end the lines between fantasy and reality were so blurry that we all fled to avoid an ambiguous Q&A in which it would be terribly unclear whether we would be questioning actors or band members, or – for that matter – whether ‘we’ were an audience or just drinkers down the pub. (In fact, some part of me is slightly worried that I still haven’t closed all of the mental brackets.)
You lucky people, you
If we weren’t in the show starting right away
We’d be in the audience too
Abbi, Tash, Joshua, Sanna, Saoirse, Robert, me
And so finally coming right up to date (almost): the dinner party tradition returned on Sunday as the above group of miscreants and ruffians assembled at Rob(ert)’s with enough food to throw an impromptu wedding. (We didn’t, though. Just to be clear.) Robert then added his own drinks menu to the event, with delicious mojito and sangria, and was the perfect host. As Saoirse and I talked about on the way home, each one of these parties has a slightly different feel and by the end – with Tash and Abbi having departed early – it all felt very cosy and friendly. No uproarious drinking, although enough to make a game of ‘I have never…’ worthwhile. *feels all warm and fuzzy*
Not an entirely successful group photo, but close enough!
Also: there have now been enough of these events that I have bucketloads of photos… more than enough to make something interesting with. Hmm – should maybe wait until the summer, though!
Hold me closer tiny dancer (hold me closer, just hold me closer)
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen (Lay me down)
You had a busy day today (hold me close, hold me close)
(Thanks, Nic! Bought the album today…)
Particularly in light of the numerous ‘Leeds?!’ reactions I had to my holiday plans, let me start off by saying how impressed I was by the city. Admittedly, yeah, we stayed confined to the centre, but that was still enough to really rate what they’ve done with the streets. I’ve said for ages that cities can be made so much nicer by aggressively stripping out the cars, but it only takes two minutes strolling down wide, clean, beautifully pedestrianised streets of Leeds to know how true this really is. True, it is a little shopping focused, but not entirely, and it nevertheless very clearly illustrates the pressing need for change elsewhere. There’s no chance of such progress in London under Boris, of course, but once he’s been dispensed with we should start looking very seriously at which parts of central London can be rid entirely of private vehicles whilst maintaining decent public transport networks.
Not the greatest photo ever, but note the big wide streets?
Anyway! On Thursday night Lucy and I were delighted to meet up with a certain Andrew Kings and eat out to Pizza Express, who very thoughtfully gave us plenty of time to chat before bringing us any food. (Some kind of conspiracy?) We did end up with free dough balls, though, which is almost as good as free cheese. And it was so lovely to see Andy again after about 0.69 x 10^2 years! (HH – you are so on the list for next time.) Feast your eyes:
Me and Andy!
Friday was our turbo-tourist day, during which we ended up at the most fascinating exhibition on social order, ‘Rank’, at the Leeds Art Gallery. Aside from being genuinely interesting, it also felt pleasingly like a very pleasant form of exam revision; in any case, I’m sure I’ll be able to drop it in to my next DoS meeting. In the evening we culminated this rather cultural day with a performance of The Tempest at The Grand. I haven’t read the play, and Shakespeare can sometimes be rather difficult to follow in these cases, but as it turned out it was both easily accessible and very entertaining. The RSC were giving it all a rather clever African and colonialist theme, which I thought worked very well, raising questions about your sympathies without being too heavy-handed about it all.
(Not both for Lucy, no)
(There is a story about the above photo, by the way. Although we laugh about accent stuff most of the time, when buying these ice-creams I have to admit that I couldn’t quite follow every single word the guy said. That’s how we ended up with ice-creams with everything on: when in doubt, just say ‘yes’ and hope it turns out well.)
And then on Saturday we headed back home, after seeing The Young Victoria in the morning, a film which I will spare much comment aside from the fact that I was perhaps the only person in the world disappointed that we never reached the repeal of the Corn Laws. And thus concludes our Easter holiday in Yorkshire… aside from one, very important thing. Books! Obviously, us geeks try and fill gaps with reading, so I finished off Book Club’s 100 Years of Solitude before moving on to Valis and Animal Farm. The last one, I feel, has probably lost most of its power given that I felt I knew exactly what was about to happen at most points… the effects of history, I suppose. But it was Valis with which I really struggled – for most of the week – and I’m certain that this was not quite the best Philip K. Dick novel for me. (William Blake gave me enough trouble: I just don’t do mystic.) So, suggestions please: what’s his best work?
Up next: return of the dinner party…
I just wanted to take a moment to talk about Building Partnerships, which was one of the key themes at the dominicself.co.uk AGM this year. What, you didn’t make it? Well, luckily, the key slide is reproduced below. Essentially, in these difficult economic times, it’s important that liquidity can be maintained. Specifically, tea liquidity. But that requires mugs – no no, not readers – of the tea-containing kind. And this is where you come in.
Building Partnerships with nicparkes.com
You can read more about the competition from Nic himself, but the important thing is to keep on clicking through
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
