"Is nothing sacred?!"

This cry went up in a class this week.

We were using Alice in Wonderland as a springboard text to discuss other things, but there was some serious objection to 'studying' (that is, rigorous questioning, finding out, and thinking about) a book that people had read as young (ish) children. The idea behind the objection, I think, was a horror that the original childhood impressions of the magical tale might be overwritten with the intrusion of adult eyes; the child's brain had been put in a sparkly pink box (or perhaps a more fitting slightly sinister one, given the weirdness of Alice) and was Not To Be Touched.

The Annotated Alice text exacerbated this problem - it's a fantastic and eclectic peering at Carroll's stories through every conceivable kind of eyes - the historical, the mathematical and physical, the cultural, the literary, the adult...But this was, it seemed, just too much information; too intrusive, too questioning, too learned and - God forbid! - perhaps even reading too much into the stories. Hang on a minute, isn't that the line Literature students (of all levels of experience and competence) walk along all the time? But because this text was in some way held sacred, because of childhood experience, the tolerence level dropped completely - 'You are not touching this text, this memory', Tolerence hissed, 'It's mine. My precious...' (Gollum was there too).

I have to admit I was irritated, because - when it comes to the study of Literature (and other things) - I do not think that anything should be protected from questioning. Nothing is sacred when it comes to academia (however microscopically tiny that academia might be). I'm here to ask questions, and to keep on answering them until something relents, or I realise it's a stupid question, or I die. I am not here to pussy-foot around people's fluffy constructions of what they think a book was about once. That is not at all interesting.

There is something intensely annoying about Arts students (in this sense, Literature, Music and Art) who will only go as far as - or are content to stop at - a feeling about something. I'm not denying that certain arts can make humans react in an emotional (or irrational, though I'm not using those two things synonymously) way, but I am saying that that is absolutely not what studying the arts is about. Or, if it is, I'm definitely doing the wrong thing. The absence of a desire to scrutinise is incomprehensible, to me, in people who are otherwise enviably bright. If they want to hold onto a cute idea of what certain texts are, it's perhaps questionable whether they're studying the right subject. Or maybe I'm studying the wrong one. Why not give Lolita or Bleak House to a kid, ask them what it's about, and leave it at that? Because that doesn't work. Et voila, nor does that attitude to Alice. Grow up - or at least be open to the possibility that there might be a giant rabbithole even in adult life.

Interventions

I wanted to write about the current situation in Burma at the moment, because it's frightening and big and all over the media. But it seems too big for me to get a handle on, so I'll take a more oblique look (that is, talk about something almost entirely different).

When things such as Burma's protests happen, something that comes up a lot is the idea of international intervention: just how much should the rest of the world do about something going on in another country? There are wars going on across the whole planet caused by one government's trying to intervene with another, or one group attempting to impose its idea of Right upon another. War is generally not a good thing, so we might say that extreme intervention (involving waging war) is Wrong (because it impacts too much upon people - civilians - who have no real power to change their country's situation). On the other hand, though, I do think that some things are just unacceptable and that a lack of intervention (of come kind) is reprehensible. Obviously this means I do not adhere to the belief that everyone should be able to do whatever the hell they like, regardless of the impact on other people - it's a possible standpoint but not, in my view, a valid one. I do, therefore, think that intervention (of some kind) is a necessity.

But when?

This is a bit twee, maybe, but that's not important. A very well-known poem by Martin Niemoller quietly highlights many problems:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Of those "many", though, the one that interests me is the end result of the lack of intervention. Not really the fact that eventually "They" will come and get "me" (that doesn't really factor anywhere in my thinking about this, probably because I'm fortunate enough never to have been victimised in the large-scale way this poem is concerned with), but the downward slope, caused by lack of intervention, leading to the victory of "They".

So take a smaller example. In the pub last night there was a young Polish woman working behind the bar and a (probably) drunken bloke walked in and started hurling abuse at her (I say "probably" drunk, because it explains his disproportionate behaviour - though obviously doesn't justify it). This abuse centred on three traits: (1) Her professionalism [refusal to serve him because he was already pissed, and very rude]; (2) Her sex; (3) Her non-Englishness. The disagreement about (1) I can understand (if not sympathise with) - he was drunk, prior to his arrival, and wanted more alcohol; the abuse relating to (2) was offensive but could perhaps be passed off as just a standard way to insult women - it annoyed me, but only because it was generally insulting (i.e. he was drunk, and expressing himself in the coarsest way possible. Fine). But when he got onto (3) I decided that was enough; probably because it was, by then, personal to the person he was attacking. It seems a bit odd that (3) provoked me into action, despite the fact that what I have in common with her is (2). I'm not sure why that is.
This was all happening extremely loudly and quite physically, in a pub that was in complete silence otherwise (his shouting saw to that). So, at the point (3) reared its head, I got up and asked him to leave - which he did (though probably not because I asked him - he could easily have knocked me out, I don't have the figure of a bouncer...), after calling me a "Medieval whore"*.
None of this made me angry. What made me angry was the group of business 'gentlemen' standing around the bar the whole time this was going on, and not one of them said a word. They stood, glasses in hand (and sober), watching in silence. That was it, that was their reaction; to watch it. The ignorant, drunk, yelling bloke was just that (a fairly harmless, though volatile, arsehole) but the silentwatching 'gentlemen' were, to me, morally disgusting and socially dangerous. On the bloke's exit from the pub one of the besuited businessmen made some cute placatory remark to him -- WHY? (I actually think the answer to this is that he was scared of being hit). I hope at least one or two of those blokes feels suitably embarrassed that they didn't step in, even when it was beginning to get physical.

Was I overreacting? Should I have stood and let it happen like the others? Did I take too much of a risk? (Probably, physically speaking). Am I right in being furious about the others' apathy/cowardice? Is self-preservation more important? I believe in freedom of expression...but does that belief extend to expressing yourself in such an offensive and disruptive way (I was, after all, trying to enjoy a nice evening in the pub!)? Do I have any right to get on my moral high-horse? (Probably not) Why did it bother me anyway?

Lots of questions.
As I said above, I think intervention (of some kind) a necessity; a necessity, that is, for retaining a sense of our own principles. There comes a point where everyone will make a stand (even if only for themselves, eventually), and it is that point, I think, that helps define us. It's not a linear thing, and not everyone's priorities will be in the same area, but it's where we say "no", isn't it, that makes us more than automatons? The point at which I say "no" isn't necessarily a Right one, but I'm reassured that I at least have one. I suspect Stanley Milgram would have had something to say about those gentlemen-in-suits...oh wait, he already said it: we're screwed, probably.

Of course it's a whole different can of worms to ask how we know if our principles/interventions are the Right ones. If we follow a principle of luxurious self-gratification we'd take a different tack to someone upholding the importance of the biological (reproductive) imperative, or a societal ideal of one kind or another. Who's to say which is the Right one? For now, I'd just like to think that everyone has some kind of guiding principle - that would be a start.

-----------
* "Medieval whore" did make me laugh (though not at the time, as I was wondering at that instant if he was actually going to hit me). It's probably the best drunken insult I've heard - and a surprising one, given the 'type' of bloke it seemed to be coming from. I would perhaps have preferred "dissembling luxurious drab" (Troilus & Cressida), but beggars can't be choosers!

Nonsenses, plural.

One annoyance:
Why can't politicians just answer the occasional question with a Yes or a No, if one of those will suffice? That party politics has obscured sense is quite evident when a question such as "Do you agree with this very common-sense and really quite true thing?" is answered with equivocation, evasion, and another question.
I wake up to the Today Programme, which is most definitely the best reportage around, but it also has the unusual ability to get me riled before 6.30am. Impressive.

On a completely different note:
You know it's a good beginning of term when the first academic emails you receive include instructions to (i) Read Lewis Carroll, and (ii) Write an essay on a subject that includes ducks in hats.
We have lift off!

In which single-word subjects cease.

It seems the best way to get through academic work (as well as being the best way for me to retain it), is to chat about it with people. Really, that's the only way anything gets anywhere. And it exercises the vocal chords, too -- going days without speaking to anyone does happen on occasion, but then re-entering the social world is something of a stressful experience.

Why say this now? Mainly because I've recently been exchanging emails with a couple of People Wot Read. I'd got a bit stuck with the Interminable Essay and my ideas were going round and round but not turning off anywhere, and they've really helped -- not because they know more about the subject (for once), but because they ask good questions. It's all about the questions. Questions from people who know more about it are scary, and serve their very handy purpose -- but that's for later; at the moment, to thrash an idea out in its preliminary stages, just 'innocent' questions often do the trick. More often than not it just seems to involve defining and refining the terms -- just as well, really, or I'd never make any sense.

Talking to the cat is also good. He is very patient, and pretends to understand (or pretends not to -- not quite sure which). Though the fact his favourite toy is one of my old socks probably doesn't say much for his intelligence. Never mind; I was rather fond of that sock too.

Introductions

What is the purpose of an Introduction to a work of fiction?

I'm sure every editor has asked exactly that question before writing an intro (or before commissioning someone else to do so), but there certainly doesn't seem to have been an agreement anywhere. So it seems reasonable enough to ask it again. An introducing of something presumes -- doesn't it? -- that the thing being introduced, and the thing being introduced to have not met previously. Otherwise they'd be called "Reintroductions", or "Reminders". Reading decent editions of texts, though, often means being faced with (or outfaced by) a 'scholarly' introduction complete with obscure references to little things within the text, and a bamboozling array of facts (be they critical, historical, political, chronological or anything elseical). These very clever, very carefully researched critical essays are a great resource, but I don't think they serve well as introductions. They often don't make any sense whatsoever to readers coming to the text for the first time; which is surely self-defeating on the part of the introduction?

It very much depends on who is writing it. In the vast number of publications of the two editions I most frequently use (Oxford World's Classics, and Penguin) there is great variation in the apparent intentions, and end results, of the introductions. Some seem barely more than plot summaries (this is sometimes useful, because I am Not Good at remembering names of characters so it's a quick reminder; on the other hand, it doesn't tell you more than the text proper could); some are academic hard-ons (probably great fun for the writer, but a little uncomfortable for the audience); some get the balance better and provide information giving insight, but not so much that the all-important text itself is obscured behind academia so dense it causes all but the most trained eye to glaze over.

It must be a difficult balance to strike.
As I see it, an introduction should be like good gossip: more information than the original source can (or wants to) give you, but not so much sordid detail that you feel as if you're bitching unnecessarily.

Translations

This has nothing to do with Brian Friel's play of the same name.

I just noticed yesterday that I talk to myself, at great length, when I translate texts. This is embarrassing. Must remember not to do that in libraries.
And why? I don't chatter on when I'm doing other types of work. It's like the Medieval and Anglo-Saxon parts of my brain are situated somewhere outside my head, and I have to establish dialogue to use the informations therein. My floating languages brain. Strange.

Limax

Scattered things, from a bear of very little brain:

1) Limax means "slug". Somehow I find it very satisfying that such a strange little animal should have a Latin name (why I'm surprised, I don't know - but I've never wondered what that name was before). Next time I stand on one with bare feet (that is, me with bare feet, not the slug. It only has one foot), I shall exclaim: "Ghastly limax!" instead of the usual "Fucking slimeball". The study of slugs is "limacology". If I have a (dramatic) change of heart re: career, I might endeavour to become a limacologist. As it is, I'm heading more towards being "limaciform" [slug-like]. Fantastic word.

2) Fugues, fugues, fugues. I'm meant to be doing an English degree, right? Apparently this involves me teaching myself all that music theory again so I can attempt to form a coherent argument about a book. It is, of course, a good challenge and I'm enjoying it a lot. But I really wish I'd carried on with it earlier (ah, the joy of retrospect) - I only studied it up to the required level in order to continue with my practical instrumental exams...and that was when I was 12...Anyway, I've always hated playing fugues on the piano - have never been able to get my head (and fingers) round them when they're more than 3 parts. But playing with the theory is quite a different matter, and allows me to read brilliant books that aren't just about the music side of things (a Good Thing, because I am NOT doing a music degree!) . Particularly Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which makes much more sense now than it did 7 years ago. (A relief). Leading to...

3) ...fugues, seuguf, fugues...An inevitable result of my reading about and taking apart fugues again is a renewed attempt to play them. It's not proving much more successful than before, but I'm enjoying it more (certainly the result of the non-presence of Evil Piano Teacher).

4) Volunteering to make the committee T-shirts for College seemed like a good idea months ago. Two weeks before going back it is no longer such a great idea. Whoops! I like my design, but getting it onto the shirts [a] in time and [b] without making a huge mess is going to be a hassle.

5) A warning from the Hofstadter book above, which rings worryingly in relation to my Interminable Essay (of which, without doubt, more later - it's not submitted till April, so plenty of time for dithering and moaning about it): "It is of course important to try to maintain consistency, but when this effort forces you into a stupendously ugly theory, you know something is wrong." Quite. I shall keep an eye out for stupendous ugliness. Good way of putting it.

Intolerability?

I've been thinking about the concept of tolerance recently, or more specifically the point at which things should or could become intolerable. Not the kind of 'tolerance' Slavoj Zizek refers to in his comment that 'Tolerance makes everything boring, we need more conflict!'; though he does have some very interesting things to say about political [in]tolerance and what that action/non-action/non-engagement (of any kind) means in the real world. 'Why is the proposed remedy tolerance', he asks, 'rather than emancipation, political struggle, even armed struggle?' (for more, you could look at this PDF - from which the latter quotation is lifted - although reading any Zizek is worth it, and more often than not raises similar themes). That type of tolerance is of course implicit in any notion of intolerance or - particularly - intolerability, but it's tangential rather than central to my musings.

No, what I'm wondering is possibly more personal, and more concerned with one's actions once we decide something is (comparatively speaking) intolerable. How is the 'intolerable' defined? Turning to the OED:

1) That cannot be tolerated, borne, or put up with; unendurable, unbearable, insupportable, insufferable:
(a) Physically
(b) Mentally or morally

My interest is in sense (b) - that of the mentally/morally intolerable.
The danger with words like this is to slip into hyperbole or overstatement. Doubtless I will, because very little is genuinely 'intolerable' - most things are, however unpleasantly, put-upable-with. In the case of physical pain, most often we lose consciousness or go into a deeper state of unconsciousness still and die; in the case of mental, the extreme includes going mad (a type of unconsciousness, or at least a different consciousness) or committing suicide.

Assuming that there is little we can do about the real mental intolerabilities, chemicals running rampant through our bodies and brains to an extent which no drugs or reason can touch, and that really cause madness in the sufferer - in which case that might be argued to be 'tolerable in a different state', as the mind is forced to entirely change in order to accommodate said rampant chemical or state; though of course if a complete and unalterable change must be implemented that probably means the thing that causes it really is intolerable, as if we can't keep some semblance of ourselves amidst our reaction we aren't really managing very well to do much but breathe and be an annoyance in society. So. Assuming that is the case, it's the moral intolerabilities that are interesting.

Essentially what I'm asking is, at what point do we stand up and say "No" to something we find abhorrent? When, "Stop"? When is the line crossed between personally offensive and societally worrying? Does one of these matter more than another? Who gets to deem something 'societally worrying', anyway? The government? (Hopefully not, or suicide really is the only option given I can't will myself mad). As is often the case, what provoked this train of thought was something superficially quite mild (though, as always, it boils down to The State Of The World etc.): The News. Media. Reportage.

I cannot stand watching the news. It makes me feel physically sick. Everything about it: the way the newsreaders speak; inane/insulting/ignorant questions asked of the 'roving reporters' or commentators; the images it's deemed fitting to show to accompany the godawful scripts; the intrusion of reporters/photographers into the lives of normal (or even not-so-normal) people; the priorities of headlines down to items less 'newsworthy'; the very concept of newsworthiness. I can't remember the last time I managed to watch the news without walking out in disgust (and it's always walking out or turning off - changing channel is never an option because I'm always too riled). If the ridiculous scripts don't get to me first, the images do: I find them disgusting, morally. I hate the desperate scrabble to be closest to the scene of the latest bombing or war (can't it be reported safely away from the flying mortars?); to be the first to interview the surviving relatives of a "tragedy" (sometimes they really are tragedies, but on most occasions the word is used by the media the situation is not Tragic - get a sense of proportion) with insulting questions - "How do you feel about losing your entire family in the fire?", "What do you think about the Islamic terrorists who killed your father?"...to take the most shocking pictures of things we can imagine quite well ourselves, thank you very much.

This has gone on for years. I keep up to date with things current and political by reading newspapers because - just about - I can filter through the crap at my own pace, and am not too often out-faced by the appalling presentation of the horrific state of the world as 'glamorous'. The financial pages are quite calming, I find - numbers, ups and downs, games of business. (Though in the recent stock market mess those boundaries became uncomfortably blurred). So I flick between 'real news' and finance to stay sane. I also refuse to have a 'regular' paper, and consequently rotate the main broadsheets more or less regularly. If a tabloid is around, I'll flick through it to see what's being said, but I will never buy one - they have too much money for their crimes already. Listening to Radio 4's Today is good, as there's rarely one person saying their thing for too long, and even if they are there's often someone there to argue with them. This doesn't stop the stupid questions being asked, but it does provide more real balance than any visually-broadcast programme (all of which are shorter).

The other worry with visual news is our desensitisation to those images, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (War, Famine, Pestilence & Death). When I watched the news regularly (I stomached it between the ages of about 14 and 17), I simply got used to it. Now, it repulses me - physically and morally - because I'm not used to it (and, now, refuse to get used to it), and probably because the boundaries of acceptability have also changed. I don't want to feel comfortable looking at these things; I don't want them to be in my face until I shrug and say "that's life" or "oh look there's another war"; I don't ever want to see those images on the screen, belittled already by stupid or badly-advised commentators and reporters, and to have a disinterest - caused by familiarity - enough to simply flick over the channel to watch something more interesting or entertaining.

The media, reportage, 'News', is something that makes me really and constantly angry. About other things - about education (a subject close to my heart, mind and irritation), religion, politics, people - about these things I get a wee bit cross, I might rant a bit and let off steam, I might occasionally let out a yell of frustration. But mostly these things annoy me because what they are (at any given time) doesn't make sense, or people aren't thinking practically or sensibly (ever the logician...). Few things anger me without fail, and I rarely fail to see the good in things. Except in this case (and maybe one other, but that's not coming into the equation here). I find this situation intolerable - I cannot accept it, I can't live with it, I can't get out of my head the staggeringly detrimental effect it must be having in so many ways. An immediate reaction is to avoid it, to avoid The News (particularly visual, remember) - but this isn't a solution; it's a bit like hiding under a bed when things are going wrong, as you remove yourself from the problem but don't remove the problem itself.

And I can't find a way away from that anger (or, for any length of time, its cause). I can't commit myself to changing the system, because to do that would necessarily mean getting actively involved with it - something I simply can't do. It's not like it's one-sided reporting I'm so against, so I can't set up a rival organisation in an attempt to squash it. My inclination, always, is to tolerate everything within reason, and when the edge of reason arrives to take positive steps to change the situation causing (or containing) the intolerable. Very often this is a practical solution, and remarkably easy to implement (on a small scale. I've not yet figured out how to stop people killing each other on a worldwide stage...). But with this I'm stuck: I can't tolerate it because I find it so unutterably wrong, but I can't find a way to solve the problem.
Which means, I suppose, that I'll have to live with its intolerability (that, or suicide). But that itself is tolerating it, isn't it? Or is anger, constant anger, enough to count as a stand against the intolerable? And is it our moral duty (in whatever sense you want to interpret that - I have my own way, you will have yours) to remove ourselves from the influence of that we find intolerable, or to stop it? If the former, suicide looks an attractive (theoretical) option; but I'm always inclined towards the latter - changing things that are wrong (I live in hope, you see...). But what if I believe I can't change that particular thing (assuming that's realism talking, not pessimism - a constant debate, that)?

It's all circular, curious and infuriating. Maybe the ultimate defence mechanism is to slide into a stupor of not caring (or a stupor of ineffective but self-righteous anger, naturally!)? Then nothing is intolerable except the immediately personal, in which case there is no 'moral duty' to do anything, and one may slip quietly into unconsciousness through madness or suicide.
I don't know.

Gaps

Well, it appears what happens when Crumpetty gets really busy is...gaps. Big ones. Expect more. Never mind. Some things:

1) Attempting to read Rubin's The Hollow Crown was once more not successful (tried last year, too), and I'll probably give up. It's is not the best book about the Middle Ages, and made me a bit cross. Facts have a habit of being incredibly boring and unmemorable unless extremely carefully (and skilfully) presented, and that's unfortunately what happens in this book. I'm not one to shirk a challenge (unless it involves roller-coasters or shellfish), but I've decided there are better books about similar things. Such as...

2) ...Alison Weir's biography of Isabella, which is excellent. Weir has written a lot - on the bookshelves her output volume visually compares to that of Antonia Fraser (and they both write on very similar things, which might make for interesting comparison some time). Weir constructs biography and pieces together history very cleverly, and although her texts are laden with facts (with even brief endnotes coming close to 100 pages) the writing never feels heavy, confusing or dull. She weaves a good story; and although liberties are taken to bend [lack of] evidence to her will, it's not too annoying. I've just got hold of Eleanor of Aquitaine, too, and look forward to reading it. She's very recently branched out into historical fiction for the first time, with Innocent Traitor, centred around Lady Jane Grey - there's a possibility this might soon(ish) become a TV drama, so watch this space!

3) A week in very soggy Cambridge, hidden in cosy libraries and quiet spots. With endless thanks to LJJ for being a wonderful work companion, even (especially?) when we haven't a clue what each other is talking about! Some work needed a bit of a kick-start and that seemed a good place to do it. Lots of fun, and I managed to have An Idea - which so far has been resilient to crushing. It's probably only a matter of time until the Inevitable Problem occurs, but there is hope! A little grouse, though: people who write in library books. Little marks/comments/pictures in margins are fine, but one reader (and it was one) scribbled his (and it was most definitely a 'his') way through two entire volumes of a biography I was trying to read - this amounted to about 900 pages of MESS. Some paragraphs were unreadable because of his enthusiasm. Enough already.

4) I've come across an author who manages, quite uncannily, to write frighteningly relevant texts. The sentences seem to encapsulate everything that matters, and everything that doesn't. Not going to say who it is, or which books, because that would reveal more about my way of thinking about the world and myself than I will ever admit. I am curious to know if I feel the same way about the books in twenty years...Is this simply indicative of where I'm at now? Or what I fundamentally am? Presumably if the effect is indelible I'll remember to revisit the words to find out.

Justifiable

Work-avoidance is at its best served warm and justifiable - and as one of those lucky people who is interested in almost anything, justification is generally close to hand. Two things keeping me from being Little Miss Efficient today (whilst simultaneously teaching me some genuinely useful things):

1) Practicing reading Early-Modern scripts and manuscripts online. This is one of the most thoughtfully and effectively presented websites I've seen - it's fantastic! The idea is that one might learn and practice reading ye olde handwritings and scribal scratchings by following an impeccably designed and managed set of 'lessons', in which texts of differing complexities are transcribed. The site is maintained by Andrew Zurcher, who knows his and everyone else's stuff - an invaluable site for all Spenser nuts is also maintained by him (without which my Renaissance reading would [have] be[en] all the more anaemic). The handwriting site is an example of how the 'net can and should be put to best effect. That and YouTube, obviously.

2) First there was Pepys, now there's Roger Morrice. Well, not so much "now" as "there was also" - he's well dead. But a compatriot diary to Pepys' is very welcome; he's cited so much that it's good to have another text to go to, similar in form but different in content. This is fairly exciting, given I can already spend hours buried in a volume of Ypesp. It's always 'relevant', because I'm always reading something from the period (or thereabouts) - perfect procrastination, and with bonus educational benefits. A bit more information: here. When Newnham Library acquires the Morrice, that much less Real Work will get done - probably ought to pre-empt that by working now. Probably...

Miscalculation

It took me two days rather than one to get to the end of Richard III's reign - but what's one more day when this project has run a week over already? Actually, I'm not quite going to stop yet - though I've finished the 'learning' part of things for now - next stop is Miri Rubin's The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the late Middle Ages. Nothing like a bit of immediate consolidation...or it might be procrastination, but I'm not really sure what from, given that my dissertation's going to have its very own University Library Time next week! All this reading is highly relevant to the Medieval Lit Paper we'll be doing next term, but it feels like I'm indulging my fascination with hi-stories (or, in later periods, His-Tories) rather than Proper Books. Still, more than enough time for that, always.

What's got me gripped about this whole thing is the variation in reports of the period (say, mid-13th century till end of the 15th). There are inevitably big gaps in evidence, and so much of what we 'know' is formed by propaganda of the various factions - like the stories about Isabella (Edward II's queen), or Margaret of Anjou (Henry VI's queen), or Joan of Arc. It's not all about the women - Richard III is a weird and wonderful case in point there, and Henry V - but the woman are particularly interesting because they don't often speak for themselves. There are some letters - about which I know very little, and I've no idea how much they say - but the overwhelming majority of the Middle Ages is written by men. The same can be said for later periods, but far less so - from the 16th century aristocratic women start writing and existing (and sponsoring) much more, and though there are serious limitations those women have at least gained a kind of retrospective freedom: we can hear them. Some might have been respected by their contemporaries (Magdalene Herbert, for example - the poet George Herbert's mother, famous in her own right), but many were ignored or ridiculed or excluded (Margaret Cavendish might take some or all of those titles). The difference being that, however they were perceived at the time, their written words have given them a posterity and a chance at being re-evaluated by subsequent generations. The persons of Medieval women are much quieter, and much more dependent on their contemporary menfolk for their reputations. Never a good idea.

A pretty good book for a starting point is Mark Ormrod's The Kings and Queens of England. Each of the royal Houses constitutes a chapter, and each chapter is taken by a different academic. There is some pronoun confusion (is she the sister of him, or of him? Or the daughter of him?), which often happens when a writer knows far more about the subject than their reader. Ho hum - only a minor annoyance, and the gaps have been filled in from elsewhere. It's a densely written book, which is good for saving trees, but less good for a nice casual reading book - not a beach-read, unless you have an elephantine (or professorial) memory!

Lineage

Internet silence the last few days (a habit likely to continue in the run-up to Term and beyond), because I've been head-down in books about Medieval history - I've got as far as the Wars of the Roses and have to concentrate very hard for long stretches of text in order not to be utterly confused. Mainly because everyone's bloody called "Henry". At least in the Old Testament most people have different names (for a while, at least) - difficult, but different. The most you can hope for in the Middle Ages is that the eldest sons die so the next king's called something different. I'm really mainly focusing on the Houses of Plantagenet, Lancaster & York, but that's more than enough to go on for the time being - as it is I have post-it notes everywhere saying things like:

HENRY IV = HENRY BOLINGBROKE, EARL OF DERBY, RICHARD II's COUSIN. Opposed by HENRY PERCY = 'HOTSPUR', EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND's SON, not to be confused with HENRY (V), PRINCE OF WALES...

...and so it goes on. Before the Henrys there were the first gaggle of Edwards; and after the Henrys more Edwards. For the purposes of this exercise I'll probably stop after Richard III - more than that won't stay in my head for long, so I'll come back to the Tudors in a few months. It's all good fun, though - finally I'm understanding what the Hundred Years War was all about (insofar as it was 'about' anything), though if I read one more time about it stopping and then restarting again I might just call it quits at Ninety Years and be in denial about the last decade or so. Who's going to notice? (Me, sadly). The only thing that doesn't seem to be improving at all is my spelling of Welsh names - I have to check every time, because I keep confusing the Welsh phonetics with the English phonetics, it's like half-knowing a language and then not being able to progress. The whole process is taking far longer than I'd planned for, though, as I'd intended to be doing this for about three days and it's already taken just over a week. I will finish tomorrow. Problem is, when I get my head into something like this I can't usually extract it until a reasonable stopping point rears up, which can become inconvenient. Still, I'm learning a lot, which can only ever be a good thing. Even if it does mean an echoing "Henry Henry Henry Henry" taking the place of tinnitus in my brain.

If there were more time I'd revisit the wonderful Histories of The Bard, if only because another factor of confusion is his fictionalization of things like Henry V's youth, and the turning of historical John Oldcastle into fictional Falstaff. And that's just one of the plays! The Histories are fantastic, and revisit them I will - although it might not be able to happen until it has to, for revision purposes.

Loosely connected to the Henrys (real and artistic) is the subject of Joan of Arc, another figure history has managed simultaneously to immortalise and almost obliterate with fictions and superstitions and - of course - politics. There's a highly recommended staging of Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan at the National Theatre (Olivier Theatre) at the moment (until September 4th), which I'd dearly love to see but probably won't be able to. The cast has some impressive names but, more importantly, Anne-Marie Duff apparently makes a convincing Joan (despite the 'Chair Thing' she appears to do - you can see it in the clip if you follow the link above). Inevitably, and probably quite properly, parallels are drawn in related essays and reviews (including those in the official programme) between martyrdom and terrorism - I'm not sure whether that is pointless or important.

[On the subject of stages and shows, it seems the British Muesum's Chinese Terracotta Army exhibition has already sold 30,000 advance tickets - if you want to go, book now!]

I've ordered Alison Weir's well-reviewed book about Edward II's formidable wife, Isabella, and intend to read it on the train to and from Cambridge next week - I'm going up to get some serious work done (it has to happen some time, wonderful though this freelance education is), and it should be some good light(ish) reading, but just related enough to what I should be doing to assuage the guilt necessarily concomitant to prescribed reading lists - victory!

Extension

Is it just me, or does the idea of carting dead animals infected with Foot 'n' Mouth Disease across the country - from their farms in Surrey to the incineration point in Somerset - seem counterintuitive? It's not the most instinctive way to control the spread of a virus! I'm sure they know what they're doing, it just seems a little odd. As does the irony that the outbreak possibly derives from the Pirbright laboratories, in which scientists develop vaccines for such diseases. Ooops. Their little motto is painfully wrong at the moment, too - "Good science, Useful science"...ahem, Deadly Science...
If it were seven years since the last outbreak I'd go on about Biblical pestilence again, but it was only six so I won't. (I don't really think it's a plague sent by God - though what do I know? - but as I briefly mentioned yesterday that's what I was reading about. Tangential point of interest: in Leviticus 14:44, simple mildew is described as "fretting leprosy", so if there's any green mould climbing your walls your house has a plague. I like the idea of building surveyors looking for brick-leprosy instead of damp rot, there's something as dramatic as house prices about it).

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And the Education rant of the day. The front page of today's Telegraph finally reports what we knew was on its way, the changing (again) of the A Level system. The fundamentals of what's being said are: the current system doesn't stretch the brightest students; new-style exams will cover 4 units instead of the current 6 (more depth, less breadth); an A* grade will be introduced for results above 90%; students will be expected to complete an 'extended project' (like in the International Baccalaureate). There is more to the new system than simply this, but it gets complicated (and detailed) very quickly, so I'll keep it at this for now. These changes are set to come in from 2008.
Much of what's being done is okay, or at least it's well-intentioned (often just the best of a bad job, though), and of course there is no perfect system for everybody - particularly not in a culture obsessed with everybody achieving according to the same standards. (1) They are right in saying that the system as is doesn't stretch the brightest students, and at the moment they are left to challenge themselves or Lady Luck finds them a fantastic teacher/mentor who prevents them from going off the rails with boredom and introduces them to new ideas. (2) Although the intention is to encourage greater depth in doing just 4 units, I suspect that by studying fewer subjects there will be far less accessible cross-referencing, which will ultimately lead to anaemic thinking and examination responses. The consequence will be, I think, increasingly narrow-minded, bored and unaware students. (3) The introduction of an 'A*' we've seen before, and it's an integral part of the GCSE system now. I'd argue for harsher marking and an upping of expectations, rather than the weak filtering that the A* will cause. Stop pussy-footing around the issue and pretending that everyone should be allowed to get A's and above. Make A's more difficult to achieve.

Finally, (4) the International Bacalaureate-like 'extended project', which is where I start gnashing my teeth. Instead of sliding along trying not to look like they're aware of the IB, why don't the Educationy governmenty people just introduce the IB into our mainstream schools? If that sounds like a wild idea to you, get a life. It seems like an incredibly straightforward option, and I have no idea why people aren't taking it. Maybe the same mindset as holding onto the Pound Sterling, though with little historical interest nor economic problems. The A Level system is a broken cobbled-together mishmash of diktat after diktat, respected by few and struggled against by hundreds of thousands of students every year. It is a mess, and unfixable without major alterations - alterations policy-makers are not willing, or not able, to effect. So it's broke, and we can't fix it. The IB, on the other hand, is continuing to have great success and is well-respected across the globe, and schools in Britain are increasingly adopting it as an alternative - or sole - curriculum. It's really good. It's not perfect, but it works. It challenges the most talented students, a fact indicated by the offers Oxford and Cambridge give IB students every year: marked out ouf 45, the standard offer from these two universities is between 38 and 42 points, with the Higher Level subjects requiring between 7,6,6 and 7,7,7. Compare this to A Level offers, which are almost always AAA or more.

The IB covers a broader range of subjects in greater depth. It doesn't sacrifice breadth for hoped-for 'depth' (cf: imminent changes in A Level system) - they study more. It's challenging for the most able students; respected and recognised world-wide; the government wouldn't be able to embarrassedly fix results because our examinations scripts would be sent all over the place for marking. It would require teachers to completely revamp their syllabuses and methods, but if the sweeping changes claimed by this 'new' system are really that sweeping then teachers are going to have a hellish settling-down period anyway, so why not go the whole hog with a system that has been tried and tested? They'd have far more fun teaching it. From what I've seen of IB students, they are quite simply better educated - that to me screams volumes, and it's not just because they all seem to have gone to private schools of one kind or another.

IB, please, Education Balls.

(I did A Levels, by the way).

Babel

Radio 4 was on in the background this afternoon, as it is whenever I'm trying to pretend that I'm not doing a really boring task (though I'm not yet so old that I listen to the Archers - when I hear that theme tune the 'OFF' knob gets turned. Fiercely). There was a little piece on PM ('Tough on news, tough on the causes of news'...) which caught my ears. It was about learning languages at school (which is no longer compulsory, though I'm willing to bet that will change in the next few years); apparently the vast majority of people remember an average of just 7 words from these lessons. I'm not sure after how long away from the classroom these statistics were gathered, whether a year or a decade, but it seems a bit pants.

To see how I fared, I drew up a vocab list from memory in the three languages I studied at skool four to six years ago (French, German & Latin). German wasn't bad - 120 words (mostly nouns); French was more embarrassing with just under 60 (mostly verbs); Latin was...worse. That doesn't translate to a working reading knowledge of the languages, though - I'm better at translating Latin than either of the others (and still use it, increasingly - though need to be far more competent than I am. Something to work on), and I can read French more proficiently than German (LJJ can do my translation!). Weirdly, my grammatical understanding is fine in all three languages. So what's more important, being able to conjure words from nowhere, or being able to understand them when they're presented? I'd like to see the results of a test done to discover how many words people understand, as well as simply recall.

Wanted to write more about ML learning and teaching, but the neighbouring football club has some VERY LOUD (and dire) MUSIC playing, and it's proving too taxing to think in English let alone any other language!

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On a completely different subject, I'm listening to Newsnight at the moment and have learnt there's been an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in Surrey (just the one farm at the moment). I feel sorry for Gordon Brown, who has only just gone on holiday with his family - he has to come back because of some cows, bless him. Wonder where the virus came from this time? After spending a chunk of the day reading about Biblical pestilence, this is a bit weird.

Codswallop (ii)

For a more eloquent comment on the TV 'issues' at the moment, take a look at today's blog of ever-aware Prof. Mary Beard. She makes the point far better than I did, obviously!

Antiquity

There was an article in the Telegraph Magazine last Saturday that got me excited - the Terracotta Army is coming to London! Well, maybe not all the thousands of figures, but some. The British Museum is hosting the exhibition, The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army , for several months so there's plenty of time for us to go and see it...several times, perhaps...
(13th September -- 6th April)

On the subject of up-coming exhibitions, there's one on Millais' works at the Tate Britain to look forward to. It's a shame the 'promoting' image is his Mariana painting, though - I can't see it without thinking of the poem to which it is a tribute. Tennyson's text was entirely ruined for me by an awful rendition experienced in a lecture in 2005 - the (slightly varying) refrain of:

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!

is haunting now, and in all the wrong ways. Thanks go to Mr Lecturing Man, not.
Otherwise, so long as no-one recites that poem at the exhibition, it promises to be a good one.
(26th September -- 13th January)

One I'd recommend for its variety is the Work, Rest & Play exhibit at the National Gallery. I saw this one when it was in Bristol, and it was a curious collection. Something for everyone and quite a funky subject, really. I hope they put it all in a single lot of rooms, though - in Bristol it was housed all over the place, and I missed a bit of it.
(On till 14th October)

Hooray for living somewhere within easy reach of London again! Three cheers for that.

Codswallop (i)

All this fuss about TV deceiving its viewers - most recently the ITV Alzheimer's documentary, and before that Blue Peter; A Year With the Queen; Gordon Ramsay's fish non-catching incident, and Bear Grylls' hotel adventures. There have been others.

But I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Well, I do, but I don't understand why it's happening now. We've been fed utter rubbish by the multifarious media for...for all time, really. From the 'best' news-givers to trashy tevelision we're fed lies, half-truths, one-sides and meaningless noises, so why start kicking up about it now? And why not about more important things like the utter bollocks that certain politicians get away with spouting? Maybe it's a good and pointed thing, we're beginning to comment on things like integrity, honesty and fairness...but whether this is extended to include the stuff that really matters remains to be seen - it is, however, a start; better than nowt.

Counterpoint

Yesterday I wrote briefly about Karl Jenkins' Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary and The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, and I woke up this morning with the instrumental and percussive bit from the very beginning of Armed Man going round in my head. Tum ti tum tum titty tum, tum ti tum tum...(repeat ad nauseam, then stick it in the last movement sped up and with a single semitone's difference on one note, et voila! there is difference!). It has to be said that each of Jenkins' motifs in this piece are probably repeated four times more than is strictly necessary, which sometimes means that a change is a huge relief, rather than a natural or surprising progression. That's a shame because this music shouldn't be allowed to get boring, it's too good.

In a curious but desperate bid to get these Ohrwurms to cut it out for a while, I've been listening to his Requiem on and off all day. Never heard it before, not sure why. There are elements of it I don't find interesting - the bits that sound like Enya, for a start - and it's a bit 'bitty', unlike Armed Man which, though the movements contrast, hangs together convincingly. What I do like about this Requiem, though, is - again, like with Songs of Sanctuary - the merging of musical and lyrical traditions from all over the place. Jenkins is a listener as well as a writer and he refreshingly listens to anything and everything, hooray. Particularly effective is the interspersal of Japanese haikus amongst the traditional Latin lyrics of the Mass; this is more striking in textual than harmonic form, because the prominance of melodic lines can too often negate words and syntax (in all music, not just this). The contrast is beautiful, and the haikus add helium to the heaviness of the classical liturgy. I'm not going to get away without examples.

Take this, the Confutatis (a staple part of the Requiem progression, cf: Mozart, Dvorak, Verdi...) reads thus:

Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis, voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis: gere curam mei finis.
(When the damned are cast away and consigned to the searing flames, call me to be with the blessed. Bowed down in supplication I be to Thee, my heart as though ground to ashes: help me in my final hour).

Lots of that gets stodgy, linguistically and thematically. So immediately after this Jenkins inserts a haiku by Issho (I won't bother with the Japanese, though the helpfully-supplied English translation in the sleeve notes doesn't adhere to the haiku structure):

From deep in my heart
how beautiful are
the snowclouds in the west.

Isn't that great? And another. The Lacrimosa, again a staple part of Requiems of all time (mistyped "staple" as "stale" then, which also works) -

Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus: huic ergo parce, Deus.
Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.
Amen.
(On this day full of tears, when from the ashes arises guilty man to be judged: oh Lord, have mercy upon him. Gentle Lord Jesus, Grant them rest. Amen) -

is followed by a haiku by Hokusai:

Now as a spirit,
I shall roam
the summer fields.

There are five of the little Japanese nuggets in all. The contrast between the inexpressible bigness of the Mass subjects and the little chinks of moment in the haikus is an innovative experiment, and I like it. I'm not so convinced that elements of the composition work melodically (Rutter's Requiem is a more successful composition, I think), but these textual details are something always worth noting with Jenkins - he cares about what is being said, and in what way, and to whom. Take Armed Man for another instance. Within it lies several languages (French, Arabic, Greek, Latin and English) and a richness of lyric taken from the Bible, Rudyard Kipling, Dryden, Swift, the Mahabharata, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and Tennyson's In Memoriam. So in the middle of scripture and Islamic calls to prayer, we have Lancelot and Guinevere chatting to each other! This is why I like Jenkins, because he listens to what other people have said, and he thinks it matters to the world.

Incongruities

Travelling activities, and other present participles.

1) Listening to Mozart's Requiem (find it here) very loudly in a dingy, eerily deserted, bomb-threatened railway station miles from where I wanted to be on Friday evening. Weird experience. It was entirely coincidental, but the soundtrack of the armed policemen doing their 'thing' was the Lacrimosa - if you know it, you'll know why I wanted the gun-wielding men to move in slow motion. It would have worked quite well, as a film edit. Thanks ABP & CEH for coming to rescue me from the station, at no little inconvenience to themselves!

2) Reading Twain's Adam and Eve on the train. It would have been the right length for the journey, but the three hours stuck in aforementioned station messed up the timing. It's published in a few different forms, but I was reading this one. I do like this wee piece, particularly the first couple of sections - as quiet, irreverent but loving observation, it's something fun and real. Do take a look, it is touching and very short. Funny what can be done with three chapters of Genesis, and the comparison of the way other people treat the same subject isn't a waste of time - Twain versus Milton, anyone?

3) Reading Simon Armitage's translation/rendering of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on the return journey. This is a brilliant rendition of an already brilliant poem. Just like Heaney and his Beowulf, Armitage strikes a wonderful balance between the feel of the original text and his own distinctive poetic voice. His use of language to allow images is as gleeful as the source, and reading this is an easy pleasure. This text is a viable alternative Christmas story, if you get fed up of A Christmas Carol, The Night Before Christmas and Handel's Messiah.

4) Listening to Karl Jenkins' Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary whilst unpacking, washing up and generally being domestic. Jenkins is often regarded as something of a 'chocolate box' composer, and I have some sympathy with that (having sung and played some of his work, repeatedly); but this is a CD worth listening to. It's a fusion (no, don't run away from that word) of 'classical' western music forms (structures), and 'ethnic' (primarily African) harmony and vocal technique. It's very listenable to, which I suspect is why lots of classical music snobs object to it. It's peaceful (a good start, given the title!), but not soporific. Something very different is his The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace - best heard live, in a BIG enclosed building like a cathedral, this is moving and pertinent and awful and hopeful. It has chocolate box moments, but I think it's one of the most important pieces of music written in our time. If there's a big version of it going on in a cathedral (or similar) near you, don't miss the opportunity.

5) Leaving a sunflower in a vase after it should really be there. There was a sunflower on my desk last week, making me smile, and I left it there over the weekend. It has died (predictably), but a curious thing has happened to its stem: all the fibrous exterior has loosened so it's like a big brush, and there's a gooey gelatinous core that's slowly dissolving away. No idea what it is, or why it's happened (other than water over-saturation, which is obvious enough), but it's not something I've seen before!

Triumph!

Excellent, I've just worked out how to make weirdly-formatted posts sort themselves out! Well, it's only taken a month! (And it did take me 20 minutes of fiddling to figure it - but no more!)

Begetting

"Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim."

And so on. Today, for no sane reason, I've been cobbling together the family trees in Genesis; or family tree, really, as Adam'n'Eve are so traceable. As mum very helpfully asked, "Hasn't someone done all that already? Isn't it on the Internet?"...well, yes, they have and yes it probably is, but that's not really the point. The real reason I decided to spend hours doing it is because I realised the names of Someone who begat Someone who begat Someone who married Someonette, daughter of Someone brother of Reginald, just weren't sinking in. The words were being read, but their meaning/relationships weren't registering. A bit like George Bush reading "And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us" (if you're going to pray it, at least pretend to mean it). What better way to really read something than record its every detail? So I set to with a big bit of paper, and the cat chasing my pen. There are a lot of names in Genesis (which is why it took hours!).

As with everything worth reading, the closer you look the more there is to see. One thing, when you really read the names properly (rather than scanning over them as "As..z" and "Tog..ah" - and I don't believe I'm the only one who cheats with the name-reading), the verse becomes less litany more poetry. It's well-established that the King James is good writing, but it's quite another thing to find out why - and it's not enough just to be told, I gotta figure it out. Today is the first time I've not found the repetition tedious, it's the first time I've read every letter of every name; and no matter how many times I've read Genesis before, this might as well have been the first time. At last! The names of the earliest period are great. Classrooms now might be full of Lukes, Matthews, Johns, Marks and Jameses (and the occasional Darth Vader or Addidas) but, really, the Old Testament names are the best, aren't they? Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Caphtorim and Arphaxad! Or, for the inner-city comp feel perhaps Uz, Huz, Buz (I'm not making these up!), Hul, Mash and Nimrod.

It's impossible to draw a neat family tree when people are marrying their brothers' daughters and 'knowing' their wives' handmaids, though, so the big piece of paper has a bunch of lines and scribbles all over it probably only legible to me (though where the cat intervened even I can't make too much sense of it). Tomorrow will be typing-up day, before I forget what goes where. Weekend away with the girls starts tomorrow, and I'll be taking Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve to re-read on the train - it's about the right length for the journey and topical.

The Interfering Cat, once he'd had enough and flopped:

Loitering

Though being away from University does suck quite a lot, one thing has made all these months entirely worth it - the space and time to re-read. Of course I'm looking forward to going back (9 weeks and 3 days, though I'm not counting...), but being able to read and re-read has been a luxury for which I'm thankful - Tripos seems to give no quarter, normally. People don't usually believe me when they find out the incalculably vast majority of my 'Literature' reading has been done in the last two years (since starting my course), but it's true - I read fiction until I was about 13, and then read mainly Philosophy, History and Politics, as well as Biology and Physics (lots of Physics) until my university interviews loomed four years later, which point seemed timely to start reading fiction again. (In case you're confused, English wasn't quite my intended career path until just before the university applications had to be finished). I'm not at all bothered by this fact, though it's very often apparent that I'm not as well read as most other Englings, because the historical/political/philosophical background always comes in handy. But it's a fact nevertheless.

With Tripos put aside for a while, then, reading could commence. All that funky sideways stuff that comes up in the course of the Papers but which never gets read because there just isn't time. Making up for lost time. I'm helped and hindered by an insatiable curiosity, with which I got tangled in Frontispiece (June). I've just been able to read anything and everything, and for once really follow up any 'Further Reading' recommendations in the backs of books. It's exciting, really. Exciting and infuriating (despite having unintended time, there still isn't enough of it to get through everything. Obviously). So I've been able to re-read the fairytales I should have been read when I was wee (I never was read them, but got round to doing it myself a few years later - but it means that Cinderella and Ugly Duckling and their ilk aren't part of my unconscious. That may well be for the better - I'm not scared of midnight, nor hopeful about ugliness); and I've been able to read more Beckett. Much more Rushdie and Eco, at last. And lots of the things so many people think are fundamental (and they are, in a way, but they weren't my building-blocks), like the Just So Stories, which I'm sure are much more interesting when read after Conrad, rather than when 6 years old - or at least that's my excuse, now. There have been some new discoveries, too: Auden and Dryden, amongst others. Reading (and the all-important re-reading) more texts by already-discovered and loved authors, in such abundance, is an unexpected treat I won't soon forget.

This might sound like I'm saying goodbye to that luxury, and I suppose in a way I am as Tripos is beginning to get its hooks back into me, and there's a dissertation that needs writing and - more pressingly - reading for. I love Tripos: without it I wouldn't have had such a want to read and read and read; but space away from it has somehow brought it, and what it stands for, closer.

Here seems as good a place as any to list some texts. These are my life-changers so far (though most good books have a very real impact, these have somehow significantly changed my thinking rather than just adding to it). If you don't like lists, look away now - I just feel like writing one! In no particular order:

• A Room of One's Own, Woolf -- I've read this enough that now I just open it and read it whenever I'm restless or frustrated. It's calming and motivating, and really very funny. I love it for my being able to get something new from it every time. Every Newnhamite should be given a copy of it when they join the College. Maybe I'll start that tradition...
• Paradise Lost, Milton -- It's beautiful, multi-dimensional, infinitely contentious and my 'Desert Island Book'. I can't get over how near-perfect the poetry is, and how vital almost every word. First read it in 6th Form, and it's another of those I can always open and enjoy.
• The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford -- Encountered this, as a two-page extract, in a 1st yr class. I was too curious to let it lie, so read it and againandagainandagain...This wonderful writer is now the subject of my dissertation, but I really need to get past the "This dude does dead good" stage of the argument!
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Winterson -- The themes of this mattered first, and it was only later I realised how well the thing is written. This one was read when I was about 12, and it couldn't have been better timed. It was lent to me by someone who knew me better than I did, then.
• The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie -- The beginning of my interest in Literature, rather than just books. It's almost certainly this that got me doing English at Newnham, so I'm all for the man's Knighthood.
• The Qur'an -- I read this for the first time a couple of months ago. It'll stay with me. Though I wish I could read Arabic...
• The Henrys (IV, V & VI), Shakespeare -- Pre-University I was scared of what Shakey stood for, and avoided him. Faced with a whole term of his writing in 2006 I decided to just jump right in with the plays that frightened me most and see what happened, and I fell in love. These plays are what did it for me.
• Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard --The beginning of a new world, when I was 13.
• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot -- I've always struggled with poetry; I love taking it apart and seeing how it works, but I don't often feel it. This is probably the first poem that grabbed something sinewy inside me and pulled until I had to give in.

Good books leave themselves in you somehow. Some deposit themselves as whispers of quotations that catch you unawares (like J. Alfred Prufrock); others as tableaus stuck in monochrome (The Handmaid's Tale, particularly, did this. I re-read it yesterday and re-visited all the old pictures, amending some too). Some of them niggle like an Ohrwurm, like this irritating song by 'Peter, Bjorn & John' (I challenge you to listen to it all the way through and then not whistle it...) - Fear and Trembling did this to me. Others draw you back to them with an invisible piece of thread they tied round you at first reading - Room of One's Own always tempts me from the bookshelf. Known books never disappoint, never betray; they change, as we do, but that's okay, that's layering rather than abandonment.

Implete

Call this a cop-out, if you like, but I'll defend it.

Not going to write anything of my own today, much, but am going to link to Jeanette Winterson's homepage. Go and read her Column; the whole thing, if you've lots of time, or just dib in and out and in again. I re-(re-re-)read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit yesterday, and remembered why I've always loved Winterson's writing. Just because it is. It's new, always, and it's funny - really funny, the kind that stays with you for its truthful observation. After the recent Harry Potter doings, reading genuinely fantastic LITERATURE (all capitalized, all!) like this is like eating vegetables I've grown myself, instead of unidentifiable pre-packaged gunge. Back to real books for a while now. Though the enjoyment of reading something easy and readable and storyful after battling with Serious Things was nice, the relief of going back to that struggle is tremendous. Back at home. It's like breathing again, is reading something enduring.

There's a lot of her writing on the website - articles as well as the column. Go read. And her books. And then again.

Schemes

There are loads of organisations and initiatives around at the moment, set up to encourage everyone to simultaneously read the same book, or from a set list. It's a peculiar phenomenon, and I'm not really sure what to think. Maybe more on that another time.

At the beginning of this year the Small Island Read took place. As part of the commemorative events taking place marking the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, it's predictable that the allocated book will have something to do with Black/White relations - and it does. The Black/White tangle is looked at in a refreshingly sideways way, though, which was a nice discovery; it would have been so easy to shove something like To Kill a Mockingbird in people's faces or, I don't know, Alice Walker (two birds, one stone - Black America and women - score). But the book chosen was Small Island by Andrea Levy.

Small Island follows four people - two black, two white - through a part of their lives. Based around the Second World War, the narrative is chronologically mixed and - because coincidence and connections are inevitable - parts of each characters' stories are told by other characters. It's simple, but quite clever. I was expecting a rehash of the ol' Black-Americans-struggling-against-White-Americans tale which, though important, has been done. Levy, though, writes about something different: she takes on the two islands of Jamaica and Britain (well, England). Only small sections of the book involve Americans, for which I'm thankful. Between the four primary characters we catch glimpses of Jamaican upbringing, England's Home Front, British involvement in India, and the effect of a steady influx of 'foreigners' into England. It's a new twist on the story it's so easy to think we know all about, and a good one. The writing is mostly fresh and original, and when it does get stodgy or predictable Levy is quick to move it on. She leaves quite a lot unwritten (particularly emotions, motives and thoughts), and whereas in some books this just makes the characters flat and unconvincing, Levy says enough to keep them alive - it's up to us to try to work them out, which suits me fine; that is, the right things are left unsaid. The ending is too neatly tied, and for that reason (I think) I found the final fifth of the book irritating - there was too much striving for a rounded end, too many resolutions and unlikely changes of heart. But so few books have fantastic endings that it hardly matters much to the whole. The book is good, surprising, sufficiently challenging and also pertinent. If you can do a Jamaican accent in your head (or aloud), all the better!

Surprises

NO plot-spoilers in this blog.

The new Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hallows is surprising. Not so much the plot, which is what I've loved Rowling for up till now, but the writing itself. Okay, so the details of the plot are complicated and it takes some concentration to figure out what on earth's going on; but more excitingly, the way the plot is conveyed is completely different to the other books. It's densely packed, there aren't all that many superfluous clauses, and there is subtlety. It's only just over 600 pages long, but took me a good 12 hours to read (compare that to the almost-800 page 5th book, which took about 7 hours). For the first time, I think, Rowling demanded concentration and effort on the part of the reader, and it was such a better book for that - hooray! Not going so far as to say it's 'literary', it's not; but as a first toe-dip into reading tricky books, it's got something. I'm also emotionally drained having got through it. Which is probably a bit sad, but indicative - not every book can do that.

She uses a lot of ellipses, and virtually no semi-colons (I should learn from that latter). Ellipses are funny things. I use them a lot, because I'm lazy. The time for elliptical experiment has gone (cf: Ulysses and, say, Ford Madox Ford's Parades End), and it's generally it's my feeling that they shouldn't be used too much, unless they are doing something other than simply filling a space where the writer should in fact be writing words (that's how I use them, which is Bad). So Rowling uses too many ellipses, she uses them as much as Ford, but with a lesser effect. A small problem in a really good book, though. In Deathly Hallows, Rowling has demonstrated not just that she's a fantastic story-teller with an incredible imagination (that's been proved before), but that she is capable of writing concisely, delicately and densely to say her stuff. A good note to end on.

Apparently around half of Bloomsbury's revenue is Potter-related (according to the Guardian) - what on earth are they going to do in the coming years? Some investment in another type of book would be welcome - come on Bloomsbury, put some of your millions into 'unpopular' writers and make them popular.

Cartography

I was born in 28, brought up in 154, go to university in 209, and my last holiday was in 160. What? They're the reference numbers of Ordnance Survey maps, one of my favourite set of objects in the world. Maps are beautiful. Staring at them for ages; studying their contours and colours; seeing the real geography in my mind from the information on the flat page; planning walking, running or cycling routes; finding perfect picnic spots. A good map is the world in miniature and symbols, and getting lost in them is a perfect way to forget reality for a while.

Most of my Cambridge-based exploring so far has been deliberately accidental: I've set off, on foot or bike, and just moved around the area. Almost always ending up happily lost, and quite honestly I never know where I've been. It doesn't matter, really. But it's annoying when I find something nice but can't go back there because "There" doesn't have a name or direction. Worse, I'm directionally useless in cities and towns. Put me in a wood or on a hill and I'm normally fine: towns are a mystery. Deciding enough was enough and that next year will involve Proper Exploration, buying the OS map for the Cambridge area seemed a good plan. Anyone who regularly uses maps, though, will know that this was a stupid thing to set out to do. In the OS world, there is rarely a single map for somewhere - with the same regularity as falling toast landing butter-side down, the place you're interested in exploring (from) is on the edge of a map. And hwaet! this venture landed butter-side down. Exploring the Cambridge surroundings requires three maps - three! That's two more than is convenient! Going to Ely needs maps 209 and 226; same goes for Newmarket and Mildenhall. Huntingdon requires 225. How annoying is that?

Still, I suppose it means more lovely maps to look at. Not that Cambridge affords the most aesthetic interest, given there are no hills...

Conkers

Ed Balls is continuing to impress me. And I haven't yet learnt not to be sarcastic.
Actually, in fairness to the poor bloke, it's probably just that he's now officially a Useless Politician dealing with something with which he has little experience, forced to answer fantastically inane questions posed by ever more ludicrous media representatives. So despite all the inevitable words against "him" that I'll write (and say), I do feel sorry for the chap and am aware it's not all his fault, and that there is lots of good work going on, unreported, somewhere. But he has such a good name to ridicule...so unto the breach.

Balls has recently demonstrated his suitability for his post (as Minister for Children, Skools & Families) by stating that childhood should be a "time for learning and exploring" - profound and groundbreaking stuff. Remember that this man is mainly qualified for his post because he is "father of three" (this fact crops up every time his credentials are needed. Ruth Kelly has more kids - I think that means she was a better Minister, or something). He goes further and demonstrates a naivety that would be laughable if it weren't tragic: "My assumption," he says, "is that if it snows, kids go out and build snowmen and have snowball fights, that in October kids go out and play with conkers, that they play with marbles". Okay, he's probably right with the snow; conkers would be on the agenda if schools allowed kids to play with them (many don't) - but marbles?! When was the last time a (normal) child played with marbles? Balls is supposed to be one of the 'young and in-touch' members of government, not one who reminisces about childhood games of marbles.

Although Balls says some silly things, the context from which the above is taken is less cause for despair. Essentially he is calling for an end to pampered, pandered and stifled children, and a return to fun, less structured, rough-and-tumble childhood (of a kind that involves neither knives nor drugs). One of the results of our compensation culture is the banning of things like conkers, snowball fights and violent tag (well, just tag, but we all know it turns violent. The only time I've been punched properly in the face was in a primary school game - and the assailant wasn't even a Horrid Smelly Boy. There was gushing blood. What larks!). This has led to the most boring playgrounds ever, and Balls is now joining groups such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (a comic misnomer) in calling for a return of common sense and fun. Between them there's an effort to get children outside, running about and - probably, hopefully - breaking a few bones doing exciting things like climbing trees; which is something I very much believe is good. Clearly my (hypothetical) children are going to have a great time - "There you go, kids, there's a field. Go and kick each other around for a bit. Don't be late for tea!"

What made me think about this 'issue', though, aside from the contrasting common sense and utter lunacy involved on either side of the argument (insofar as there is one), is the fact the government doesn't seem to be talking to itself. As ever. In May (*before Balls was in his post*, I hasten to add) there were reports of the newest shiny government Academy in Peterborough (still under construction, I think), which is being built without a playground. It's difficult to get a genuine idea of what's really going on, as all media coverage of it was incredibly one-sided (anti-academy, obviously), and I really suspect that, even more so than usual, we were not getting the full story. That makes the situation impossible to properly evaluate. The government thinking that a school without a playground was a good idea, however, is a cause for concern. Point of info: they are intending no substantial break-times, and a 30-minute lunch break; school hours would be 8.45am till after 4pm (for older pupils). The arguments put forward for why this model is preferable seem to run thus:

1) 2,200 pupils (11-18) would be uncontrollable running around at break times & lunch.
2) Only "organised physical activity" is worthwhile, so any running & playing will take place in designated Physical Education lessons.
3) "Research has shown that if children concentrate on lessons throughout the day, then their work improves." (So no substantial breaks)
4) "Pupils won't need to let off steam because they will not be bored."
5) "We have taken away an uncontrollable space to prevent bullying and truancy."
6) The intention is to treat pupils as responsible 'employees' - and there's no playtime for bankers or lawyers...

These arguments are untenable and completely dismissible. Why?

1) 2,200 pupils might be a lot, but it's not substantially huger than other big schools that manage quite well. Presumably with the necessary increase of staff (and with the vast sums of money these academies apparently have at their disposal), there will be enough people around to control the rampaging teenagers. Anyone who has stepped into a school recently (one that's not been primed for The Inspectors or Important Visitors, that is!) will know that the vast majority of 11-18 yr olds don't run around. A few do. But most mill about, sit in favourite corners, retreat to their classrooms and eat sandwiches, do homework that should have been handed in yesterday, go to detention, stand outside the gates having a fag, go to orchestral rehearsals or clubs...
"So they don't need playgrounds after all!", you might cry - well, yes, they do. For those times when the teenagers stop putting on a strop show and just want to be daft - there's a lot of that in skools (when staff aren't looking). So, there will not be an uncontrollable rabble rioting around the grounds.

2) Everyone knows that designated P.E. lessons only exist to be skived, for half the pupils. For very few they might provide access to sport they wouldn't otherwise do - this is a minority. For the rest, the sporty ones, P.E. is wholly inadequate and a waste of time; because of curriculum pressures (yep, there's a P.E. curriculum) most of the lessons are spent listening to teachers explain the rules, or practicing underarm throwing or balancing techniques or something useless. Very little running around is done. Those who are that way inclined have to find other time and places to do sport - it doesn't always happen in P.E. lessons. To argue that only the "organised" activities are worthwhile, then, is to raise the question "For whom?". (And, again, anyone who's been near a playground will know that there are plenty of kids organising games at lunchtime, involving tearing round the place and jumping on friends. It works).

3) "Research has shown that if children concentrate on lessons throughout the day, then their work improves." Horrendously, this was said by Dr Alan McMurdo, the principal of the academy. Firstly, well, yes - obviously concentration improves work; we don't need a Doctorate to figure that out. But concentration isn't at its best in a full, unbroken day's work! This is madness. Dr McMurdo doesn't come across as the most brilliant potential principal, as demonstrated (again) by this:

4) "Pupils won't need to let off steam because they will not be bored." This indicates a befuddling lack of awareness of what teenagers are like on the part of McMurdo, and the comment is so insanely off the mark that I can't imagine many people not questioning it. How is a school (it's still a school, no matter what fancy name it has) intending to keep 2,200 pupils from boredom? That's not going to happen, ever. Of course some teachers are fantastic and some lessons riveting - but most aren't, and there aren't many people who can get through a school day without day dreaming at some point. Be realistic, you stupid man! What on earth makes him think that his school and his staff (and his pupils) will be so much better than those in the rest of the country? Barking.

5) "We have taken away an uncontrollable space to prevent bullying and truancy." (Miles Delap, managing the project). Outwardly true. Bullying, however, is not going to stop because the playground has gone - it will simply move; and there are more effective ways of tackling it than just removing the spaces. There will always be a toilet/behind-the-bikesheds equivalent, and although environment plays a part, attitude is more the problem. Toilets and playgrounds do not cause bullying. Truancy, hmm - I'm sure there are other places to play truant than in the playground. I used the library. Most normal kids use somewhere out of the school grounds.

6) School pupils are not employees, and they are not adults. They are not in a business workplace - they are at school. There are differences. Treating (particularly young) kids indiscriminately as adults does not make them adults. And it completely goes against what Balls is now campaigning for: the return of childhood.

Sometimes it feels like the world has gone potty.

To end, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents stating more profundities, this: "Of course, we don't want exposure to risks where children are likely to die or be permanently injured". I feel safe in the hands of these people.

*******
*Balls quotations and conkers stuff from a Guardian article, 18/07/07
**Academy information was reported in May (link to a Telegraph article, from which quotations were taken). I've not seen anything updating this, though I'll have a search around to see if anyone is making any sense yet.
***Linking to articles on the internet has been an interesting learning curve - though I read all the major broadsheets (and occasionally tabloids) in steady rotation (I don't trust any of them), the Telegraph seems the best to link to. It's got the most searchable database, and more often than not has better pictures. Shame about the political bias, but never mind.

Repetition

Unfortunately I anticipate that this won't be the last of Harry Potter on this blog, as he's sure to get a mention once the final book is out; but I wanted to post this, a Guardian article by Lezard, who merrily trashes J. K. Rowling's writing. I don't have a problem with what he says about her writing style and lack of subtlety (he makes the point about her discourse markers better than I did in the Preparatory blog the other day) - she isn't literarily inventive, and her books will never be anything more acclaimed than a children's literature phenomenon (aside from the unprecedented media hype, which is a subject in its own right).

What Lezard doesn't say, however, is more irksome: he doesn't mention the fantastic story-telling that is involved in her books. The almost complete world Rowling has created isn't acknowledged, and that, I think, is unfair. What we think of as 'Literature' (note capitalisation...) has its roots in simple story telling. Take the Anglo-Saxon stuff, for example - stories, it's all tales and myths and legends; passed through the oral/aural tradition for yonks before being put into the text forms we know today (Beowulf, Battle of Maldon, Dream of the Rood, amongst them). Not only are they just stories (almost always with a moral point, in one way or another), but they are stories consisting of formulaic phrases, recycled bits put together in different orders. In this light, the repetitious formulas it's possible to find in Rowling's story telling becomes a bit more forgivable. Come on Lezard, lighten up: lie back and enjoy the ride. Or at least stop treating Rowling's writing as if she's claiming to be the next Virginia Woolf - she's not.

Tweetension

Call this "twee" or "pretension", or what you like, but it plays on my mind a lot --

Henry Ford said: "Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right".

In most situations I almost entirely agree with this (obviously not all. I've tried very hard to fly like Superman - to the extent of wearing my knickers on the outside of my trousers - but it ain't happening. And yes, there are more sensible examples. Work them out). My believing the sentiment above inexplicably annoys lots of people (and no, I do not go around quoting it - it's just a philosophy I follow, so the attitude becomes obvious even if the quotation itself remains hidden). But it seems to make a lot of sense. First off, "I can't do it" is a phrase (and, often, attitude) heard all the time, and it's almost never true - almost always it is a pathetic excuse for either being a lazy sod, or giving up as soon as the going gets slightly difficult. That's annoying. Secondly, as suggested in that last, continually thinking "I can't do it" has an alarming tendency to morph into an actual inability - and that's just destructive.

Of course I'm not ruling out the incomprehensibly massive part that luck has to play in every 'journey to success' (or whatever awful marketing phrase you might choose). But to be twee and pretentious (if you like) again - "The more you practice, the luckier you get". Luck remains, though. The utterance "God willing" is an important one, and whether you call it God's will or luck, it's still there.

Believing you can is definitely not enhanced by other people saying "Of course you can, you'll be fine". Really, it doesn't help. Weird, that. Ending there - busy week, short thoughts.

Wadding

Two things. Both have been in the papers today.

1) Mad Man swimming at North Pole. That says it all, really. He is insane - who voluntarily throws themselves into unnaturally fluid water (think about it...it's the North Pole and it's less than 0 degrees. The water should be very, very hard)? And then deliberately stays in it for 20 minutes? Am I missing something here?! Anyway, he did grand and lives to, well, probably he'll do something like it again. But I did like his saying this: “It’s a triumph and a tragedy – a triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions, but a tragedy that it is now possible to swim at the North Pole.” The possibility that the ice at the Pole could be non-existent in summer by the time I'm middle-aged is frightening. Not cool enough. (I'm sure I'll do a Green Rant on here at some point. Not now, though, you'll be glad to hear).

2) Organ Donation. Our Chief Medical Officer says that organ donation after death should work on an opt-out system (at the moment it's opt-in). I agree. Entirely. I would not be agreeing if the move were towards indiscriminate giving of organs - but so long as the opt-out availability is consistently well advertised, I fully support it. Dying people need organs; dead people have organs that could stop the dying people from becoming dead people. I really don't see much to discuss. (At least the Organ Donor Register now properly exists, rather than relying on carrying a Donor Card and their families being present to agree...). If you are not a donor, and would like to consider it (or, better, sign up!), visit the site here.

Hmm, well, that was a bit of shameless advertising! Ne'er mind.