Frazzled

OK, First, I'm sorry I haven't blogged since Wednesday. Second, I'm sorry I just apologised to you all. I'm wary of the slippery slope to the point when I blog once a month to say "Sorry, sorry". So I made a kind of resolution never to apologise for lack of blog. The trouble is, I'm by nature a polite man. I'm English, you know, and as such a lack of manners is pretty close to Original Sin.

I, and all my Mansfield Physics brethren, had lunch at one of our tutors' houses. That is, the house of one of our tutors. (What?) As with so many Polite Meals, I didn't actualy leave until after four and I was the second to go. Now, my plan was to spend the afternoon looking at NGO careers and the like: you know, taking a gander at the glowing vista of my future and so on. Unfortunately, for the last hour that vista has been limited purely to next week.

Tomorrow, I have a tute, a People and Planet demonstration, an Amnesty International demonstration, and a meeting to go over the plans for Regional Conferences with the Oxford Access office. The rest of the week looks pretty similar.

So now what I'm doing is dowloading a whole load of Glowing Vista websites and burning them to CD: It'll keep me entertained this evening. As I've discussed before, I'm basically terrified of becoming a Management Consultant. This holiday I'm planning to go and knock on the door of Oxfam GBs office, and see if they'll let me alphebetise the files, or something. You know, Mighty Oaks, Little Acorns...

The question is, where am I going to find the time to ride the bus up to Banbury road?

So as far as this week goes, gentle readers, you can treat my output as being like that of a reticent rock band: I'll keep promising something "soon", and when it finally does come, it'll be a rushed cover of Hotel California. Or something.

Song in my head: "Under Covers" by Punishment Park

Four Paragraphs to Kevin Bacon

So I've delivered my talk. It wasn't earth-shattering, but it went alright. Maybe I'll type out a rough idea of the text here at some point. That'd be a treat for, maybe, two of you out there and a trudge for the rest of you- but hey, it's my blog and I'll expound if I want to. I shouldn't worry too much though- I've been promising to post all kinds of crazy stuff, haven't I?
Wait, what do you mean, "what talk"? It was my communication skills practical, on "the Public Understanding of Science". Wait, I think I can hear a million little sighs- I think they're saying "trudge"...

I feel slightly caught off-guard by apostrophes today.

I have registered another book with Bookcrossing: remember? For new readers this means, email me, and I'lll give you this book, no strings. The book in question is Tom Holt's novel "Overtime". If you like Terry Pratchett, or enjoyed Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you'll probably like this one, too.

So, the point of this post.

Kevin Bacon.

You'll be familiar with the idea that Kevin Bacon can be linked with any other actor in as few as seven links. For example, uh, Elijah Wood.

Elijah Wood was in The Faculty (1998) with Susan Willis
Susan Willis was in Mystic River (2003) with Kevin Bacon

You might have realised that to really be good at this name you need an encylopedic knowledge of films, and the ability to compute short paths really quickly. In other words, it helps if you're a computer.

OK, let's make it harder: Michael Palin.

Michael Palin was in Brazil (1985) with Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro was in Sleepers (1996) with Kevin Bacon

You can't beat the Oracle. Though it might take up hours of your time. I personally just spent quite a while trying to find people with a "Bacon Number" above two.

Damn you, Kevin Bacon!

Song in my head: "Bring it On" by Gomez

Unfortunate Urges

Sometimes a man justs feels the need to buy things.

As a result of this, I'm now buying the Strong Bad Sings CD. That's right, I've crossed the line from fan to Fan.

Ah, I see it's 11:50, and I have a tutorial at twelve. And I don't know where. Tune in next week to see how I resolve this situation...

Song in my head: "The Cracks" by Thea Gilmore

Mongooses and Shivian Montar Balaris

Well, dear readers, you may have noticed that I've been reticent recently. If you haven't, don't worry: it's my fault, not yours. I really ought to have been thinking serious thoughts about Spin Matrices, not making lengthy posts about, you know, Crewe. Anyway, I've handed that work in, so now I can forget all about it until the uncomfortable tutorial when Dr Johnston will forlorly ask "Did anyone get an answer here?".

A few nights ago I went out, subsidised by my college, to eat a curry. There were maybe 30 of us, enjoying a really quite nice evening at the Moonlight Tandoori. There's not much else to say about it really, except that I was able to use skills hard-won on the Deli counter in Waitrose Okehampton. I fluently discussed Lassi and Bhuna and Korma, noting that all our food would belong in the section of the curry counter that has green price labels and a picture of one single chilli. You know what, I really like curry.
Why subsidised, you ask? The meal was actually the Halfway Curry: as of this week, those on three-year courses are halfway to finishing their degree. I'm actually on a four-year course, but I kept my mouth shut. Except when I was shovelling curry in, of course.
In case you're wondering, yes, I should have been calculating eigenvalues then, too. What I actually did when the meal ended at around 11 was go back to Physicist Emmas' house and drink tea and eat doughnuts. She lives with President Coatsworth, an affable chap who is our JCR President. It was he who once described the game of Championship Manager as "spreadsheets for blokes".

Joke of the Day:
They: "Millwall* have won ten on the spin"
Me (aside): "So they have 21 eigenvalues?"

* I don't actually know if it was Millwal. The names of football teams, like the names of cars, are so much whalesong to me.

In slightly exciting news, today the Queen opened the new chemistry building behind Mansfield, which they've been building for some time and now rears up behind the college like an oil tanker behind a dhow, or something. I didn't go to see it- I was in lectures- though quite a few people did. I'm mildly republican, in my own way. I mean that in the Australian sense, not the American... as if you hadn't guessed. There's someone in our year who is a Jacobite- they're not just in History, you know.

Obscure joke of the day:
"Did you throw an egg with "For the little gentleman in black velvet" written on it, then?"
Scroll about halfway down this for an explanation.

We also have a member of the Arian heresy. Probably a few, actually, it's not as exotic as it sounds. Or, for that matter, as offensive.

Mongoose: It's a ferret with a name that's a cross between a monk and a goose. It eats snakes and eggs.

The world is a very strange place. Dr Dawkins uses the phrase "anaesthetic of familiarity" (I don't know if he coined it or quoted it), and that's a pretty illuminating phrase. We go about our days never thinking about how wonderful and bizairre the world is, with it's Arians and Jacobites and Mongooses. For example, I used to regularly read a comic strip aimed at neopagans written by a gay porn star from Carbondale, Illinois. At the time, this did not strike me as odd.

You know what? That's a great strip. I'm going to start reading it again.
It's a hobby, not a proffesion, you understand.

Oftentimes a slight shift in perspective can make the world look very shiny and new and green. For example, spend three minutes reading the Everything Belongs to Me FAQ. And try telling me you don't feel happier.

Song in my head: "I can learn" by White Stripes

So I guess I'm going to Crewe

My first link of the day: Bush in 30 seconds.

This page has 30-second videos opposing the leadership of President George. Some are really quite good- if Voltaire were alive, I think I know what he'd be doing.

So, I guess I'm going to Crewe. Why, you ask? In about three weeks the Oxford Access scheme will be to look approachable, hand out bookmarks, and say "You Too Can Apply To Oxford- I Did!" For those of you who don't know, I'm from a background so working class that we used to dream about having a crust of bread, perhaps on christmas day...

(Insert long "Three Yorkshiremen" sketch here)

... and we never could afford a new one.

Last year I did quite a lot of voluntary work with the scheme. It's a great way to go to obscure football grounds and spend a day trying to communicate one message:
"I know you think Oxford is for people with millions in the bank. So did I, but it really isn't. Here, have a bookmark". By doing all this, I managed to get myself on the "Privilige" list, and now sometimes get vouchers in return for my work. Just as I was sitting down to read this, I got an email from the office asking if I'd go to Crewe- they were really looking for people from there, you know, but being desperate decided to call on me too.

So I'm going to try to find Housemate Jo and talk about curry, but I have one tip for you all before I go:

If you want a power-trip, join the Amnesty urgent action register (or, for that matter, just go to the website) and start sending strongly-worded letters to despots. There's something very satisfying about scolding a Senior General.

Song in my head: "Getaway" by The Music

The Name's Kerry, John Kerry

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a big ol' ball of got-the-cold.

So anyway, I recently went to see Kitchen Stories (or, as it's more properly known, Salmer fra kjøkkenet). Think of all those films you've ever seen about a meteor hitting earth, or Vietnam, or Dracula, or Americans being brave in a general sense. Kitchen Stories is nothing like that. It's about a Swedish kitchen design company doing research in rural Norway in the 50s. It's fantastic. There are no explosions, the whole cast are middle-aged and elderly nordic men, and there's about ten minutes of dialouge in the first hour. I'm not being sarcastic, it's a really engrossing film.

The talk of Americans Being Brave brings to mind a converstaion I was having with my housemates the other day, concerning the likely candidates for our next Prime Minister. (Relax, pundits: It'll be Mr Blair again). Anyway, we were discussing the differences between the British Prime Minister and the American President.

Prime Ministers wear bad ties and administrate things. Presidents Lead The World.

The main aspect of this is that no British person would ever comment on whether or not a ministerial candidate had served in the army. The British army occupy islands that most people have forgotten about and get killed by friendly fire in places we thought were stabilised. We don't rate military service. Perhaps it's because we're a small island whos main interests lie on tiny islands, but the military isn't a big thing.

American presidents are meant to be male, white, blond, with good teeth and braod shoulders. That's because they're typifying the American Culture. Britian has had a female Prime Minister, and it's had ethnic minority Prime Ministers, but they all wore bad ties.

Of course, while Americans have their President, we have, um, the Queen. I suppose.

No, the British Hero is not in Whitehall.

He's James Bond.

Song in my head: "Same Boy You've Always Known" by the White Stripes.

One Day In The Life Of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

I once read a book called "Chernobyl" by Frederick Pohl. I think it's technically fiction, but it's well-researched fiction. Anyway. In that, there is a joke. Not a very good joke, but a tired, over-told joke: "Why wouldn't a two-party system workin Poland? Because if there was an opposition, they'd be so popular it'd be a one-party system again." Poland isn't like that any more, but apprently Burma is.

I've just been to an Amnesty speaker event about Burma. You know what, it was great. Any of you reading this in Oxford, think about going along to one of these events. There's another one in two weeks, concerning the arms trade. I'm about ready to go on home, but I'll leave you with this: there was an election in Burma 16 years ago: the single biggest opposition party won 80% of the parliamentary seats. These MPs-elect are mostly under arrest now, as is the leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The military were in power before, and are now. There have been no elections since. It's a pretty dire picture we're getting: Soviet Russia at it's worst minus the rockets, missiles, ample food and luxuries and party atmosphere.

Here's the funny bit though, funny in the same way the joke about Poland is funny- or maybe darker:

The Burman military dictatorship goes by the name of the State Peace and Development Council.

Song in my head: "Sweet Adeline" by Elliot Smith

I was going to talk about Kitchen Stories, but it seemed out of place: maybe tomorrow.

You must save as .cwk

Today's been a difficult day. Mostly this is because I don't know what the entropy of an oscilator is, and I really ought to. My malaise has also been piqued by just thinking "I'll just hit 'Close Window' now" and accidentally hitting 'Quit the prgram and throw away anything you were writing, it can't have been that important'.

Anyway, I know what you're thinking. "Nathan's not the creative type: He's going to write about Valentines day". Well, dear reader, you'd probably be right if I had more than 12 minutes before a tute. That's all you ever hear out of me, isn't it?

I've been recently mostly editing a Multimap gif to show the location of B&Bs near my house. This is because my parents are thinking of visiting the city, and our house was built to cut the cost on concrete, not put up guests.

Scratch "would probably be right" and put "will probably be right". The depth of my creativity is lower than you might think.

Song in my head: "Numb" by Linkin Park

Just like on the Left Bank, or something

I really have to be going.

Apart from the usual indolence, I've been uploading photos to the Control Arms website- due to the awe-inspiring pixel count of my camera, most of them had to be ruthlessly cropped and washed and so forth. Nonetheless, there they are, on the Million Faces petition.

So now what I'm going to do is cycle up to St Annes and pidge the letters I got signed- about 40 in all, which isn't bad. There's a small but non-zero chance that because of the work I've done this week, someone will live who would otherwise would have died. Everyone who signed their name has made it that little bit harder for people to get away with human rights abuses.

Also this morning, I went to a meeting of Oxford People and Planet- they're discussing what to do in Fairtrade Fortnight, which will be from the 1st of March. Looks like I might do a thing or two in that... But then, 7th week looks a bit mad as it is. Anyway, there were about 7 of us (the other 6 being committed memebers, not first-time attenders like me). It was fun- the meeting happened in a cafe: we sat around a table with diaries and information sheets. Quite frankly, it was cool.

For Oxford readers, you'll find out what we have planned soon.

Song in my head: "Shining Light" by Ash

Free Gift Inside

I feel euphoric today. This happens sometimes, when I see a great view, or think about the possibilities open to me. When all's said and done, it's not bad being a state-supported scholar in science at a world-class university. Coming after recent StrongSad (flash link) posts, you might conclude that I wouldn't win the All-Comers Five-Hundred Metres Mental Health Stakes, and maybe you're right. The turth is, though, that I'm pretty happy and fulfilled for the majority of the time. There's a fairly small range of things that really upset me, and it's unfortunate that I happened to be exploring one of them quite thoroughly recently.

In real news, I'm, registering two new book on Bookcrossing. These are Serjeant Musgraves' Dance, and Longitude by Dava Sobell. For those of you who haven't read the last time I blogged about Bookcrossing, the idea is this: You register your books on the website, and stick a label on them with their number. Then you either give them away or leave them somewhere you think they'll be found. The new owner also goes to the website, taps in the numbers, and can see who has had the book since it was registered. They pass on the book when they finish with it, and in due course you can track the whole life story of the book.
That link again.
What this means for you, dear reader, is that if you want either of the above books, then you can have them. Just hit the "email" sidebar, and I'll post them to you, no strings attached. Consider it a free gift for reading my blog. For the reviews I wrote of them (circa 50 words on each, I'm afraid), click here.

Wow, I have to be going.

Song in my head: "You are My Joy" by The Reindeer Section

Cower in fear at the power I wield as a webcounter owner

Someone's actually reading this right now.

I'm just going to go and cower at the realisation that people I don't intimately know may actually read this.

Good night, whoever you are.

Why do you say goodbye, I say Hello?

Mine damer og herrer, today will be another short post on account of I'm dog-tired. So here's the news in brief.

I've just filled in a lengthy application form for Oxford and Cambridge Regional Conferences, which are run by the Widening Access scheme. Basically, Oxford has a reputation for a place where gown-wearing aristocrats sip champagne from crystal glasses and say "Yah". My job would be to stand on a stall and tell people it's not like that at all, though if you are getting full fee remission you get given money to keep, and that's not something to be sneezed at. In all seriousness, when I came up I actually expected people to say "You went to a comprehensive?" as if I'd told them I got my A-levels by impressing a cocaine kingpin with my tumbling as a street urchin in Saigon. I did, indeed, go to a college where teenage pregancy was high, petty crime was high, and ambitions to leave the county were high. I feel like I'm being vaugely unfair (or maybe I mean litigious), so I should point out that people who do well there tend to do very well. Those who didn't get arrested or pregnant were mostly aimed at upper-middle universities like Bath, Bristol and Warwick.

So foruten det, jeg have been mostly getting mere excited about the prospect of going to Norway. Last summer, three friends and I went to Italy, and it was the best holiday of my life. True, it meant three months of describing cheese, recommending cheese, and telling people xactly how much cheese they had bought, but it was worth it. We saw the Colloseum, we visited the Vatican, we rode trains, we fed figs to wrasse in the Mediterranean, we ended up at a town called Sestri Levante and explained why we thought we were going to Milan. We complained about the food in Venice, we asked for Aqua Rubinetto in every restaurant and never got any,and we had the time of our life.

Now, ever since I went to Norway with my parents and grandparents I've had a hankerin' to go back. For some people it's plam trees and warm sandy beaches: For me, it's fjords, mountains, and a climate based on mist. All this was brought back to the fore by a website I discovered. It has the best name ever: Norway the Poor Way.

Did I say brief? Oof.

Song in my head: "Steel Sky" by Naalsund/ Walseth, who seem to have gone by-the-by

This application is not responding

OK.

OK.

OK.

This is the third time I've tried to post today.

The first time, I was called to lunch, and my incompetance with Blogger lead to me not saving my work in progress properly. I had Quorn in the end, it wasn't bad.
Then, just now, I had drafted a new version, just like the original except more surly and tactiturn. Then, technological disaster happened. I was, in point of fact, also trying to use Java applets of the now-famous Blind Watchmaker program. I think that may have called for so much bandwidth that it was the veritable equivalent of trying to get a chunky magazine through a letterbox: Just Not A Good Idea. Oh, Java, when will you learn? Thinking about it, though, maybe it didn't help that I was listening to high-res streaming dutch radio... (That's a lot less lewd/ illegal than it sounds).

So anyway, this blog was about Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett. Basically all I've achieved so far today is to read a few hundred-odd pages. That said, it's not a waste- Pratchett is easily my favourite fiction author. Although it probably won't interest you, my personal favourites are Jingo, Feet of Clay and (now) Night Watch.

Holden Caulfield said that the test of a good book was that when you finished it, you wished the author was a great friend of yours that you could call up any time. That is, indeed, how I feel about Mr Pratchett. In fact, if I were to throw a Living Heroes of My Bookshelf, he'd be sat between Bill Bryson and Richard Dawkins.

Shock news!

I have just found some Pratchett short stories online. I once read "Theatre of Cruelty" this way, and was looking for the link to give to y'all. The question is, though... is it ethical to read them? Of course, I'm going to: He's very well off and frankly, he won't earn anything more off me if I don't read them- indeed, it'll make me more of a fan, I'd imagine. Therefore it'll be a victimless crime and a victimless crime, in my opinion, is not a crime at all.

I've been planning to discuss this, and how it relates to music, for a while, so perhaps that'll be in a blog later this week. Stay tuned.

Song in my head: "All the Little Angels"

Aplogy, and talk about hair

I've been watching Strong Bad in the time I set aside to blog, so this is a token post in the interests of continuity.

First off, I want to apologise to the world for my last few posts. I'm actually considering deleting them, which I have the power to do. Suffice to say I am back to my normal self.
I'm reminded of something Christopher Isherwood said in Goodbye to Berlin, about how writers are people who are willing to share their innermost thoughts with as many peopleas want to read them. I'm actually quite reserved on a person to person scale... odd, isn't it?

(Yeah, that's it. There's no insight here).

So my plan now is to go along to the old JCR meeting (Junior Common Room, that is, student council) then go home and maybe have a hair cut. I admit it, I cut my own hair. This is because I go for a style that can be completely expressed in millimetres, and because I'm stingy with money. You can buy a pair of shears for roughly the same price as a proper haircut. The question is, where do you draw the line between saving money and looking like a scruff? As a scientist, a student, and a man, I feel the answer is towards the sruff end of the spectrum.

If my hair is negelected, it grows outwards from my hair perfectly radially, until it starts to look like an amateur 3-D halo and then, if nothing is done, a caucasian straight-hair Afro. I need a hair cut now- in about two weeks, my hair will reach "the critical length" when it can no longer support it's own weight. When this happens a whole side of my head seems to collapse in as if my brain is dissolving, which can be quite embarresing in social situations.

On a related topic, I also need a shave, but that's my default state of being. Because I buy rubbish razors (cash/sruff contiuum again) I get an "Aragorn" shave: I start with a three-day beard, and end up with two-day stubble. And maybe some cosmetic battle scars.

Is that the time???

Song in my head: "Beautiful World" by Caliko

Antidote

I believe that happiness is possible in the human condition through human actions.

I believe that reason and experiment are a reliable path to truth.

I believe that supernatural and divine explanations of the world are superflous.

I believe that almost all sane human beings, whatever they claim to believe, will spend their lives maximising the happiness of themselves and others. Any controversial claims they make then can be examined, and discussed in a spirit of fraternity.

I believe that intelectual honesty and autonomy must be protected at all costs.

I believe informed democracy, and when possible consensus, is the best form of governement.

I believe in the freedom of thought and expression, on a personal as well as a civil level.

I believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, free inquiry in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.

I beleive in acheiving the most that I can in the one life I have.

The final antidotes to the last post (which won't make sense if you haven't read it):
"It doesn't need to happen again".
Many will disagree with me as to why, but the vast majority of people will never go to the lengths that I talked about before. Most will admit to believeing a contradiction before they admit to believing what their holy boooks say is how I described it. That is as it should be. My last post was unproductive, and couldn't really have had any positive outcome- had I been a more self-controlled person, I'd have deleted it. We might hope that no-one reads that post before this one.

The basics of Humanism aren't something extra. It's what everyone has.

Song in my head: "Imagine" by John Lennon

Evangelism and Godless Woe

So I'm back from lectures. And since I probably won't post at the weekend, here's what I've been cryptically hinting at.

Warning: the rest of this post makes for extremely unpleasant reading. I'm going to follow it up with an antidode, but you'll find some bitter gall here. I advise you not to read it. It was written as a personal catharsis more than anything else.

The First Crushing Observation:

There are no gods. There is no justice or love in the world except for what humans make. The universe is a huge seething machine with no discernable design or purpose, and we seem to be the accidental organic froth on an insignificant cogwheel. Even the word "insignificant" is meaningless here, because it's only us who see significance in anything.

But in fact, this isn't all that bad. The first time people really grasp it, it is like a glacier carving out a sharp mountain gorge in their brain. When you're used to it, though, it becomes a source of wonder, even joy. Glaciers are uncompromising, but they are also beautiful. And when you're faced with the parochial and tawdry myths that others offer, you're positively glad they're false. But that's when the second crushing truth comes in.

The Second Crushing Observation:
There are no gods to blame.

If you phrased the First Observation as "everything good about religion is a human invention", you'd phrase the second as "everything bad about religion is a human invention." And my, isn't there a lot of that to go around. When Agamenmom sacrificed his daughter, it was to placate imaginary gods. When David presented Saul with 200 foreskins to buy his daughter, he did it to satisfy the whimsy of a deranged king. When the Knights Templar were raping women in the forecourt of the temple in Jersualem, they did it for the glory of a make-believe story. When Tomas de Torquemada probed defendants eyes with needles, he did it because voices in his head told him to. When the townspeople of Salem, Mass. hung many of their number, they did so to protect themselves from a threat that never existed at the instigation of a prophet that probably never existed.

So what, you might say. That was the brutal and ignorant past. That's true, but the beliefs are still there today. In the 90s a US Presidential candidate made it his election promise that he would root out all the Muslims, Hindus and Atheists from public office and he got a lot of votes. I have almost got into an argument with a freind over the carachter of Martin Luther, a man whom is quoted with the following:

What shall we do with...the Jews?...set fire to their synagogues or schools and bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.
Quoted here

He also, for the record, preached that Copernicus was a fool and a liar. And yet there are people today who regard this man (who once said that there were more demons per capita in Prussia than anywhere else in the world) as an elightened messenger of a supremely benevolent being. To suggest that he may have been mentally ill is a good way to make enemies, but that's all it will acheive. Faith is inpenetrable. It has to be, or the sheer absurdity would have driven most religions into extinction before now.

Imagaine you opened your newspapers tomorrow and found that a senior churchman had said that he though atheists deserved to be given a lethal injection. Can you imagine it? Now imagine he'd said that was also true of other unbelievers, Hindus, Muslims, Jews. Now imagine he said that was also true of infants whose parents were unbelievers (except those that had converted to Anglicanism, of course). Now imagaine he'd said the injection should be slow-acting, so that it lead to the maximum pain acheivable for up to five months. Now imagine he's said that they should be hunted down in the most distressing manner possible, perhaps by masked men in helicopters. Now imagine he'd said that when the poor wrethes died, they should be burned, so the righteous could spit and stamp on their ashes.

Such a man would be declared insane, and evil beyond belief. We would ask how he ever got into the church. I would answer, that if simply multiplied his statements by infinity, he'd be paraphrasing the catechism. For those of you with Scripture to hand, try Revelation 9.

This is what Sunday School is about.

It is near impossible for a sane human being to imagine anything on par with what the church has done in history. Not even those accused of witchcraft were thought to do anything even on par with what the accusers believed their God did.

This is the main reason I don't like being evangelised to. "Glad Tidings of Great Joy" does not ring true.

Further Whine

What I really want is to discuss the two crushing truths with you people. My thinking is that if I unburden myself to the loyal fanbase of Myself and people from Santa Cruz that I've acquired, I can break out of this spell of mild depression. The question is, do I have time?

At the moment I'm making posters in Word (I know, I'm sorry). These are to promote my role as college Amnesty International Rep, and encourage people to take part in next weeks' campaiging. Then, at ten, I have to go to lectures to progress in a subject I love studying.

When I go home, I'll be working on an article for my college Alternatitve Prospectus, which is exactly the sort of challenge I crave.

In fact, the only down note so far today at all has been that I've been slightly evangelised to. This relates intimately to the first and second truths, but I'm now worried that if I start telling you all I have to say on that topic, we're looking at an extended and intimate gush. I'm sure you'd all rather be spared that, at least for the minute... perhaps paradoxically, I'll have to be in a much more self-possesed frame of mind before I'll be able to give you any halfway coherent arguments.

I've just realised what a whinebag I am at the moment. In fact, I'm not even sure I want to leave you with such a sour note all weekend...

Song in my head: "By Myself" by Linkin Park

The Unbearable Darkness of Life

... oh, I'm so goth.

That's totally misleading, though. Yes, I am still finding the whole career prospect depressing. A few years ago I worked a summer in Little Chef, a kind of motorway restaurant- like a greasy-spoon truck stop, but without the convivial charm. All the time I was there it felt like I had cut an artery and was watching my life drip messily into the cheap carpet for £3.60 per drop. My eyes went from woodsy green to a bleak grey, they really did. And I'm not talking about some kind of mysterious eleven grey, I'm talking about a Industrial Cleaner and Microwaved Food grey. This isn't how I want my future to be. The trouble is that Oxford is a place where you still find upper-middle-class Victorian attitudes to work and money... people who expected to take over the family business, the mercantile aristocracy that we all thought got wiped out by WWI. (Tip: they're still around, it's just that now they can use air travel to make it even easier to dodge taxation). I once heard someone talk about "the ABC of Oxbridge careers: Accountancy, Banking and Management Consultancy".

Crushing.

I think I could be happy addding up for a lviing, but I'd need to be adding up for a reason, rather than just "because I get paid if I do". In my dreams, I'd live in a world with no money... yes, I'm a Castles in the Clouds Socialist.

To a lesser extent I'm depressed by the First and Second Crushing Truths- readers of Bertrand Russel may know what I'm talking about: everyone else will have to wait for me to explain in a future post.

Now I'm going to a tute: Then I;m going to watch Father Ted and eat chocolate and stroke a rabbit, or something.

Song in my head: "Aisha" by Death in Vegas

Hope Springs Eternal

Housemate Mariko is organising a summer internship. I find this somewhat depressing. If I'm lucky, I'm going to live for another 22,000 days. That is, there's an unknown but definite clock that is ticking down to the day when my heart stops, the wonderful electrochemical dance in my brain runs down, and I cease to be. I don't want to spend an appreciable slice of my 22,000 days being an accountant. When careers people talk of the thrill of brokering a deal for millions of pounds, I see millions of pounds being spent on baked beans and petrol. I want to make a difference to the world, but it rather looks as if the demands of supplying myself with baked beans and petrol are going to put a limit on that.

There is hope though: the university careers service is having an "Alternative careers and volunteering" day in a few weeks. So I'm going to postpone despair until then, at the least. And there's always my dream of getting Richard Dawkins' job...

Song in my head: "Oh" by Sleater Kinney

Subversive Chic

As we speak I am burning a CDRW, mostly with musics available for free download from Sleater Kinney. I first heard these people through the rather eclectic "Peace not War" CD. That was one of the few I really liked, so I looked them up, and bingo. So that's what I'll be doing tonight.

Ah. Part of what I'll be doing tonight- I'm also down to go to hear Alice Ukoko speak at the Oxford Amnesty group about human rights in Nigeria. Nigeria, incidentally really ought to be the jewel in Africa's crown- they have oil, iron, a good climate for farming...

On a similar kind of topic, I got to take part in a demonstration today. I'm not normally the banner waving type, and indeed it wasn't really like that- People and Planet, a mildly socialist/environmentalist group with branches in various uiniversitites were having a tug of war between people in hats representing Kraft, Nestle et al and some poor sap representing the third world on the other side. I was there in a Stand and Gawp capacity, but then they asked if anyone in the crowd bought fairtrade branded goods: I did, so I got to join in pulling over an allegorical cartel of coffee corporations. It felt good. I may become more involved with P&P.

At one stage a police car came, sirens blazing, and stopped nearby. It caused a tiny, inadmissable shiver of subversive joy to run through us all before it became apparent they were just turning around, even they baffled by Oxfords' traffic restrictions. (This is the only city I've been to where the turn-off from the motorway has a sign saying "Motorists are advised not to enter the city".)

So that was pretty much my day. I do have topics to post about- really, I do- but it's a matter of finding an hour or so to sit down and write about them, vous savez. It's so tempting to tell you all the tawdry details of my life instead.

If I'm living in the Ablethorpe building (college apartment block, known as "Dale") next year, I will have free ISDN and consequently my laptop will never be disconnected from the internet. My blogging habit is only likely to get worse. I might not be, though- the draw to determine who lives where is tonight.

Anyway, I'd best go home. Housemate Jenny is cooking some kind of pie with wine in it.

Song in my head: "Make Trade Fair" by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Desmond Tutu (really)

"Orchid" is not a euphemism

The Good news: This morning I got a checque for £500, coutesy of Oxford University, as my parents earn below the threshold for full fee remission. I could just kiss those turn-of-the-century socialists if they weren't too busy turning in their grave. Actually, I don't want to express an opinion here, because it's a topic I'm under-informed on, though my views could be described as left-wing- I'm most concerned by the threat to the independance of the admissions offices- I don't want to see universities admitting moronic millionaires just to balance the books. Well, much as I like the alliteration in that sentence, the real issue is whether geniuses who are the children of third-world immigrant shepherds end up getting a ,Tesco Blue-Stripe education.

So anyway. Bad news:
This morning, after a weekend of disuse, my bike lock had it's coefficient of friction go from "a bit stiff" to "absaloutely bloody rock-solid". Liberal use of cooking oil dealt with this crisis, but I'd still have preferred not to find out about it 15 minutes before my first lecture.

Today's title was inspired by this Penny Arcade cartoon, and also the fact that Mansfield College had a mean saturday night on account of the Orchid Ball. I'll give you a link that is almost certainly obsolete by the time you click it: www.mansfieldcollegeball.com/. If you interpret "orchid" as it's meaning in the original Greek, well, let's just say that "Orchid ball" is tautologous.

The English Dictionary: a shocking secret on every page.

So I went to my first ever ball. Photos happened, but I'm not planning to put them anywhere you can see them, you voyeur. Suffice to say I was wearing black polyester as befits a man. Basically, for those who havn't had much expereience with formal dress, I can say that the aim for women is to make sure they look different from all the other women present. For men, the aim is to make sure they look exactly the same as all the other men present. So anyway, in the proud tradition of men everywhere, I was sitting on the sofa eating a sandwhich while my female housemates flustered about applying paint and putting contact lenses in. John Hegley would not approve. Anyway, a consequence of this effect was that I got to play "Calm in the storm" when the taxi arrived five minutes early.

The ticket included 8 free drinks- two beers, two cocktails, three spirits and a glass of champagne. I only claimed three of these in the end, which marks a restarint typical of post-A-Level Nathan. However, it would appear that my pre-A-level life has given me a respectable innoculation as compared to certain other housemates.

I sense I'm on thin ice here, so let he hurridly say that no-one embarraesed themselves: nonetheless, enunciation and behaviour on sunday morning gave the perceptive clues about some people's tolerance for alcahol.

Anyway, our quad (lawn) had a marquee on it which housed a succession of live bands. Some were from the "If we play it so loud they can't hear, they'll think it was good" school of thought. It's like serving drinks so fantastically cold you can't taste them to disguise the taste of e-numbers. I'm looking at you, Fosters. Anyway, I did actually quite enjoy "The Red Roots", who I can't track down. I think they were actually friends of friends of a student here. I also liked the Bollywood Brass Band. Bizarre, but it's the kind of music that makes you feel cool and global, as well as being kind of groovy. It's a brass band, which is kind of Pensioner, but it's Bollywood, so that's OK. I'm thinking of getting a CD of theirs. That, or perhaps I'll just download more bhangra and world fusion in my periodic MP3 raids (all legal: a future blog will explain).

My goodness, I've been here a long time. Oh, Distraction, have mercy on me. I really can't think of anything else to say about the ball.

There was also candyfloss, which was cool.

Song in my head: "My Descent into Madness" by Eels