The Musings of a Red Dalek

What I owe my mitochondria #5203*

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 18:16:03 +0000

There was a little stress to begin with, last night, as a crowd of historians began gathering in chilly conditions for the annual Caius History Society Dinner whilst I paced around declaring that I would only require two further things in life to be happy forever after: a photographer and a Radio 4 controller. Within minutes, however, they had duly both arrived and everything was set for a wonderful evening. The food was delicious, Mark's speech was excellent - although having heard some of the feedback which Radio 4 gets direct from the controller's mouth, I don't think the frequently hilarious Feedback will ever hold quite the same allure again - and our Part II DoS, Emma Hunter, delivered a happy dose of embarrassment to many of us by pulling quotes direct from our personal statements. (Beware, children! They may well come back to haunt you years later!) I left the after-party sometime after 2am, although it was very much still going strong for some, feeling very pleased and content that this mini-feat of organisation had come off alright on the night. (And only a little sad that it would be my last time going to one of these... ) So... hurrah for you all!

Hmm, now to get back to all of that work I've been neglecting...

*Yes yes, I realise this isn't literally true, but it's the spirit of maternal inheritance which counts. Oh, and the number isn't arbitrary either...

Humans are just strange, mmk?

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:07:24 +0000

As you might expect, I'm really not a huge fan of the 1980s. The 1980s equals Regan, Thatcher and the painful final seasons of the long-running 'Cold War' series, which had long ago jumped the shark and was now resorting to frankly implausible twists to keep us interested. (Yeah yeah, maybe we can shoot their missiles out of the sky with our own magic missiles from Star Wars, whatever. Like that would work.) In fact, since correlation always equals causation, I'd argue that I was born in 1989 - immediately saw that something was terribly wrong - and thus the immeasurably superior 1990s was born.

However, one thing which is hard to deny is that 1980s music videos had the property of being 'not crap' in a way which was never really regained:

I was thinking about this whilst watching the marvellous Krush (above) and reading the recent slew of reports about the exposure of children to sexual imagery and accompanying damage. And if only to make the point...

Videos old and new

But as Krush demonstrate, we would all benefit if our culture adopted a bit more of the outrageously silly in favour of the blandly sexual. Because one of the problems here is that we're all acting as if subjects such as 'body image' should be centre stage in everyone's lives, whether that be in our desires or in our critiques of other people's desires. This misses a central point: 'body image' is boring. Talking about the exact dimensions of waists, whether photoshopped or otherwise, is the equivalent of trainspotting fat. We have to do it now, undoubtedly - I'm not arguing that we hush ourselves up - but we should at least have the good grace to do it with a collective sigh of reluctance that our precious living time is being wasted by such po-faced seriousness.

Fact: humans are inherently ridiculous. Mad apes with delusions of universal grandeur, we're also basically pretty ugly when you think about it. (Mm - blood, bone, muscles, fat and insufficient body hair! Intelligent design fail.) Sexuality is a cheap hack to get us to reproduce, and of course we play along, but to talk about the media as projecting 'unobtainable' images of 'perfection' is absurd. We're so very far from perfection it isn't funny, but if you really wanted to project images of at least 'some genuine improvement' in a human being you wouldn't concern yourself with the tedium of body shape. You'd photoshop a creature that didn't require advanced medical intervention to be born without a scarily high chance of dying, was immune to the charms of Jeremy Kyle and could get basic percentages right. Models would be pictured reading books at the speed of light whilst simultaneously playing Twister without falling over. In space.

We can't do this, obviously. (At least not at the moment. I hold out hope for the future. C'mon, genetic engineering and/or cybernetics!) But in the meantime, we could at least derive some genuine enjoyment from our innate rubbishness rather than strutting about and pouting. It's fun to hop around in baggy jumpers and baseball caps - it's also a sign of intellectual self-awareness that human beings, far from being divine receptacles of holy reason, are charmingly absurd. Pretending that we should spend all of our time trying to be sexually attractive, on the other hand, is terrifically insecure. Relax, humanity. We're not going to lose the urge to procreate any time soon, and there's no need to fool ourselves into thinking that we need to make a special effort about it. It'll only be disappointing in the end.

Some loose ends and short takes

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:02:01 +0000

- As promised, my Varsity interview with Ken is now online. Though you've probably seen it already, what with Twitter and Facebook and whatnot

- Shark Attack 3 is by far the greatest bad film I've seen since Space Mutiny. A must see. (Cheers, Simon.)

- I realised I never elaborated any further on Secret Project X from a couple of posts ago. Well, I hope this illuminates:

Oliver's Interactive Adventure

I Am Geek

- Dear Newnham college: I don't understand you. Why made it hard for people to leave the building at night? Aren't you trying to keep people out? But on the other hand, speaking purely theroetically, surely it wouldn't be that hard to forge a note from someone in the college in order to be let out? And anyway, what are you going to do - make us sleep on the floor?

- (I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about Sunday night, because this was the night that I beat Andrew in a race. Yes. It happened! Mr. Tillin would be so proud of me! )

- Happy anniversary, Ling!

Oh, come on...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:45:22 +0000

Repentant Woods sorry for affairs

I thought trivial news was at least supposed to have the element of surprise?

Jubilant Woods really enjoyed himself

The multifarious goodness of chatting

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:21:25 +0000

One of life's oddities: this evening, I got to interview Ken Livingstone.

OK, backtrack. So there I was a couple of weeks ago in Special Subject class when the girl opposite me (hey, Emma!) leaned forward over the table and asked if I'd volunteered on Ken's last election campaign. Which came rather out of the blue for me, but of course Emma had chatted a while ago to my former DoS, who'd gossiped what she knew about the other people in the class. And of course, my former DoS knew I'd volunteered on Ken's campaign because I, too, like to chat. And Emma's an editor of the student newspaper Varsity, and was wondering if I'd fancy doing a quick interview with Ken when he came to speak to the Union Society...?

Well, naturally I would, thank you! And it's all the easier because my contact at the Union turns out to be a guy (hey, James!) who sat next to me at the Peterhouse Politics Society dinner last year. (We chatted about Ken.) And oh, now Ken's here and I'm able to give him a copy of the interview from the last time I did this - a decade ago. (Don't we all look younger in the photo!) I was ten, and yet here I am now asking him basically the exact same question about running for the mayoralty with or without the Labour party.

The moral: life is strange, fun and ever so slightly cyclical. And you make it better by idle chatter

Anyway - since it is Varsity's interview, I shall refrain from blogging the content until I can link to the online version. (Don't expect great revelations, obviously. He's an old pro at this. But hopefully it should still be a good read...)

A priori is a bit rubbish, really. This post is resolutely a posteriori.

Mon, 8 Feb 2010 17:50:11 +0000

Bad blogger blah blah blah. Let's move on: or back, rather to the weekend before last! A weekend in which Lucy and I once again fell in with the Emma crowd (and it really was the Emma crowd this time) by going to their formal hall on Sunday. This was... a strange experience. It was lovely to be invited, and they did serve finer potatoes than anything Caius has ever managed. (~~Less~~ Fewer points for the meat, but that's a different story.) But what was very odd was one of the porters, who - donned in sunglasses even through indoor sunglasses are near-universally ridiculous - spent his time roaming from one table to another and telling people off. Largely for talking.

"We have your names!" Well, erm, actually you don't - I believe Simon put me down on the guest list as 'Dominic Livingstone'. And Lucy goes to Sussex, who are unlikely to care much. But that's not the point! Still, it has given me a renewed warm glow towards Caius... they may loose your cheques and serve you questionable chicken burgers, but at least they never shout at you because 'I can hear you laughing'.

(Then we went off, drank lots and ate from the Van of Life. Twas good.)

I think this stands as one of the more successful photos of the night...

Not pictured: my brief attempt at this

Other things! Um - I gave up three hours of my life in aid of Science, further motivated only very slightly by the promise of �25 (volunteer bias - yes, we know, this is what happens when you decide it's 'unethical' to experiment on people by kidnapping them). As a psychological experiment it wasn't hugely excitingly, largely consisting of simple visual tests - like, did you see the flash happen on the left or the right of the screen? - but then again I eschewed the advertisement of a more game-theoryish psychological experiment, where you'd have to try and win your money, on the basis that I would probably get screwed over by hard-nosed economists!

I'd also like to show off my now-completed Secret Project X, or 'Oliver's birthday present', but I can't quite yet, so it'll have to wait for next time. So, 2012ish, perhaps?

(Postscript: the philosophy library is one of my new favourite places in the world. This probably won't last, though: my productivity goes up in little spikes with the novelty of finding a new place to work before settling back down again. Hence Simon and I deciding that we were going to embark on a roving library tour...)

(Postscript the second: stop spamming my blog, spammers! I don't want to learn how to play the guitar, and neither do I want 'cheap phentermine'. I don't even know what phentermine is. [Looks it up.] An 'appetite suppressant'?! Pur-lease. The really cheap way of suppressing your appetite is through eating cheap food.

(How amusing if Laura, Lucy and Gavin met up?)

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:12:12 +0000

When even someone like Matt - who, in a former life, rather mocked this blog! - mentions a recent drying up of my posts appearing in his 'news feed' (see, they all give in eventually ) you know it's time to scribble something. And I have a nice little gap of 20 minutes or so in-between Special Subject ('gobbet practice' - now doesn't that lend itself nicely to confusion...) and supervision, so here we are. Truth be told I started a post a couple of days ago but abandoned it because it seemed too political, and this is an audience-aware blog (TM) which tries to avoid being too dull. Sometimes.

(Btw, reading Tash's PWG post this morning was the most heart-warming thing ever! )

Have seen a bit more of Promise this term than we usually get around to: I've now got yet another person to Caius Hall, at least! The novelty's worn off for most, naturally... Lucy's coming tomorrow evening (yay!), and I think we'll head for Pizza Express instead But basically, I have little to write about because I am genuinely committed to a work-heavy patch between now and finals Have written 40+ sides of notes on reading for my first two essays alone, which is by far the most I've ever done, even compared to political thought last year. (Well, I started well last year, but drifted off track notes-wise - which I am totally determined not to do this time. Even if it is impossibly-bonkers German idealism.)

Um... someone left a gospel of St Mark's in my pigeon hole? Well, I mean, I wasn't singled out - everyone got one - but the guy had taken the time to handwrite individual post-it notes for each of us. Was absolutely planning to leave The God Delusion and a friendly note in his pigeon hole in return, but sadly someone else beat me to it, so instead I will have to content myself by considering my answers to the following questions which came on an accompanying postcard:

What does God know about sex? Everything! (And I really mean everything...)
Is Jesus the only way to God? Yes.
Why does God let us suffer? Free-will. And mysterious divine plan.
How could a loving God send anyone to hell? Hell is 'separation from God'! (Alternatively: who's going to stop him, eh?)
Will being good get me to heaven? No. Perhaps if you were a noble pagan. But not now, no way.

I think I win. Supervision time!

Didhngijrndnvjdnfvvcdkgvwajhnjmfghbv. d.

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:51:05 +0000

I know, I know, I've been really lax in blogging, and have clearly been overtaken in both quantity and quality of output by Tasha's sterling efforts on this front. In my defence, I have - always - got an awful lot of reading to do. It's funny, because there's a real trade-off with doing political thought papers: on the one hand, when it comes to actually planning and writing my weekly essay it's a lot easier, as you don't have to roam so widely, but at the same time I do an awful lot more reading and note-taking than I usually manage over the week. Still, this isn't a complaint - I do love it really

Had a really lovely T&S evening last weekend, in which we were all surprised (and much impressed) by Andrew's new-found cocktail making abilities. (They were, and I tell no lie, delicious.) What was odd, and frankly what I didn't deserve, was to wake up in the middle of the night afterwards with eighteenth century discourse trapped in my drunken brain. Seriously. Rather than saying "hmm, go get some water" to myself, I ended up musing internally in elaborate prose about whether quenching my thirst was an 'ultimate end' in itself or not, which now seems like the wrong side of mental. Still, worth it for the cocktails. Tonight Sophie and I went for a relaxed marital* pub-confab, which is another thing which forms a very worthy companion to working all day, and is much appreciated, partly because Sophie has an uncanny ability to memorise all of my London-based friends and keep track of their news as well as Cambridge gossip, so it's almost like mentally popping back home. (Hmm - there's that 'mental' word again. Worrying, worrying.)

(*You remember we're college husband and wife, right? This isn't needlessly confusing? Great!)

And now for the big end of blog diversion which you don't have to read:

Socrates. You've heard of him, surely. A Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century BCE. He taught Plato, who went on to teach Aristotle. A bunch of writing from these last two DWEMs survives to the present day.

But is it too harsh to wish that it hadn't? Because the fact is: there were others. Leucippus. Democritus. Epicurus. We don't have much of their stuff, but we do know that they all advocated a materalist atomism which was way ahead of their times. Can you imagine how the course of history could have been different if they had ended up representing classical thought, rather than the intellectual sophists and dead-ends which we did get? You might say that it wouldn't have mattered much in comparison to armies, conquests and empires. But I like to think we could have at least done it all better

Official: reading is good

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:49:18 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, from a chilly Cambridge attic bedroom, I wish you a good evening. My plan is to blog, quickly and quietly, before retiring to a still-considerably-cold bed. Tomorrow morning brings a mock exam for HAP - 'Historical Argument and Practice' - which is the seemingly obligatory part of any course where everything goes tediously meta, and questions run the gambit from "But, really, why?" to "So what?" and "Oh, right. Discuss.". But never mind. If I really can't think of anything to write, and bear in mind we have three hours to come up with a single answer, I might just resort to composing limericks or something. It's a mock.

Much much much more fun is my actual paper this term, which is a continuation of the history of political thought from last year. This week is Hume, who is awesome, although I am slightly concerned that the rest of the term is going to be a downward spiral from this initial height. (It's hard to improve on 'no metaphysics', since just writing it again but in a bigger, jazzier font is bound to be subject to diminishing returns. Maybe in ...*) Anyway! All this has lead to a grand moment of self-discovery tonight, wherein I realised that my answer of "I don't know, I don't have any plans..." to questions about the future is basically a lie. I do have plans - lots of plans! - only they're based around reading rather than careering. So, here is my commitment: when I leave uni, I am going to make time to read (a) even more philosophy, (b) Very Short Introductions to sciencey things and (c) great fiction. Inbetween, if I have time, I might get a job. How's that?

(If only I could read on trains, my life would be pretty much complete!)

*Note to self: It's probably best not to write jokes which combine both philosophy and HTML, since the potential target audience reading this blog is basically Alex Trafford. And maybe Bill Thompson.

Fun in the Snow

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 18:17:40 +0000

Saoirse and Sean with Snow Saoirse and Snow Sean

Sanna; me!