The world according to Keith

Normal service has been resumed…

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 10:56:39 +0100

Apologies to anyone who has been trying to access my web site, blog or RSS feeds over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the site was off-line for a few days due hosting problems connected with Apple’s transition from its old .Mac service (pronounced ‘dot-mac’) to MobileMe, a new suite of web applications for Macintosh and iPhone users. For some reason this caused comments to stop working on my site followed by the entire site becoming unavailable due to problems with the www.keithwilson.org domain name I’m using. I was able to implement a temporary fix by having my domain redirect to a copy of my web site hosted at web.me.com, but this only worked for the top-level domain, causing any incoming links such as Google search results and RSS feeds to break. In any case, all the problems have since been resolved and the site should now be functioning as normal.

The timing of the outage was especially annoying as I had just managed to get one of the posts in my philosophy blog into the Philosophers’ Carnival, a bi-weekly collection of blogs for philosophers. Unfortunately, the lack of a working comments feature followed by the site going off-line meant that fewer people were able to read or respond to the post than I might have hoped, but it was nice to have one of my posts included anyway. (Coincidentally, the same edition of Philosophers’ Carnival was hosted by Megan Kime, a friend of a friend, whose blog was also featured.)

As a long time subscriber to Apple’s .Mac service, and an enthusiastic supporter of Apple Macs in general, I was disappointed to see Apple release a product that was so poorly tested, as well as the misleading way that it advertised its ability to ‘push’ e-mail, calendar and contact updates for virtually instant data synchronisation between phones, computers and the web. To be fair, this was partly due to the vast numbers of people signing up for Apple’s new iPhone, with or without MobileMe, but launching both products at the same time just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen—something that Apple itself has since admitted, apologising for the debacle by offering all subscribers an extra month’s free service. Their claims regarding the ‘push’ capabilities have also been scaled back until the company implements fully push-compatible desktop apps, hopefully via a future software update.

All in all, it was a timely reminder (if any were needed) that computers are all well and good when everything works properly, but are a major pain in the a*** when it doesn’t. That said, I’m reasonably happy with MobileMe now that everything is back up and running and look forward to some of the updates (e.g. support for sending large files by e-mail) coming down the pipeline. For that select band of people who own a Mac (or even a PC) and an iPhone, this service is a must, and I hope to be able to count myself amongst their number in the relatively near future (I’m just waiting for my local branch of Carphone Warehouse to receive stock of the 16Gb model, which looks like it will take another month or so—those things are selling like hot cakes!).

I will post some more updates as to what’s been going on here soon, but am currently engrossed in writing my masters dissertation on the philosophy of time-consciousness, which doesn’t leave much time for blogging. Suffice it to say that things are going to plan with my impending relocation to Warwickshire, where I will be starting my PhD at the end of September, which is all very exciting.

Trip to Loch Tay

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 18:38:49 +0100

Just after the end of my exams (well, theoretically, anyway — the actual end wasn’t until the following Monday after we ended up sitting one of the exams for a second time to answer additional questions were left out the original exam due to a departmental mess-up), Heike and I decided to head up to Perthshire for a little bit of R&R after what had been, for me at least, and by association for Heike too, an extremely busy time.

We hadn’t arranged anything in advance and more or less just jumped on a bus with the intention of heading for Loch Tay, which we had heard was nice and not too far away (thanks to Ingi for the recommendation!). We ended up staying the night in the village of Acharn on the banks of the Loch, where we found a small farmhouse bed and breakfast for just £20 each per night, which was half the price of neighbouring Kenmore. It was great to get away from all the stresses and strains of the past few months and to enjoy the peace and tranquility that comes from being in the wide open spaces of a more natural setting.

Although it took longer to get to Loch Tay by public transport than we expected, and we only stayed for one night, we thoroughly enjoyed the visit and did manage to stop off at a few places (Perth, Aberfeldy and Kenmore) along the way. I took some pictures of the Loch and surrounding area, where we went walking along the hillside, although I didn’t get a shot of the local Inn, which was claimed to be the oldest in Scotland (1572, if I remember correctly), where Robert Burns himself, impressed by the local scenery, had penned a verse on the wall in his own hand. Now you don’t get much more authentically Scottish than that!

All in all, it was definitely worth a visit, and highly recommended, especially if you have your own transport, in which case it’s much easier to get to.

The seven signs of ageing

Sat, 31 May 2008 14:18:51 +0100

Having reached the advanced age of 37 just over a month ago (yes, really!), I thought that I might jump-start my somewhat forlorn blog page with a few semi-humorous reflections on the effects of ageing. Those of you lucky enough to have already reached a similar or even more advanced level of decrepitude may recognise some of the following symptoms, whilst for those of you for whom 30 still seems a long way off — beware! it’ll come much sooner than you think! — here’s a little taster of what you’ve still got to look forward to (if you’re lucky!)…

Memory loss leading to general confusion
The first sign of ageing is undoubtedly the decline of one’s memory. Where you were previously able to reel off all kinds of facts and figures and had little need to keep for diaries or other such memory aids, you increasingly find yourself forgetting people’s names, even when reminded several times, which gets very embarrassing at parties, as well as other important details, such as your own age, which you now have to mentally double-check, or find yourself walking into rooms only to find that you have no idea why you went there. Whereas your brain used to soak up new information and experiences like a sponge, structured learning becomes increasingly difficult, with every new piece of information that you manage to force into your increasingly congested cranium seeming to squeeze out some of your old knowledge. All of this leads towards a sort of generalised state of confusion as you try to remember whether what that terribly important thing that you meant to do was, why it seemed important, and whether anything really matters anyway, leading me nicely onto my second point…

Disenfranchisement
To a younger, more idealistic you, the world seemed so full of opportunities and possibilities, and even though much of what went on in it could be better, there was at least the chance that things could change through personal, political or collective action. Now, having been knocked down a few times when your best endeavours didn’t turn out quite the way you’d hoped, you are content to carve out your own little niche within the world in which you can go about your business with relatively little disturbance from other people and the rest of society, whose aims and overall direction seem increasingly distant from your own. The culture in which you grew up, that once seemed like part of the familiar furniture of the world now either seems alien and strange, or has mutated almost beyond recognition in a manner that leads you to despair for the plight of future generations, including your own (virtual or actual) offspring. The only sensible response to this, short of dropping out of society altogether or joining some kind of cult, seems to be to disown the problems of the world and focus on the individual, and in particular yourself. Rather than seeing yourself as part of the solution, or of the problem for that matter, you start to see the whole goddamn mess as Somebody Else’s Problem and you really wish that they’d sort out soon before things get Really Bad (although with a bit of luck, you’ll be dead by the time that happens — see below). You’re not so much bitter and twisted as tired of banging your head against brick walls, and so acceptance and equanimity becomes the order of the day.

Hair loss/gain
Hair is a problem. You either have too much of it or not enough — and typically in all the wrong places. Your previously shapely torso begins to look decidedly woolly and requires regular cosmetic attention, whilst leg and arm hair becomes increasingly verdant even as your official hairline is receding. (I have been fairly lucky on the latter front so far, but there are definite signs of recession — and I’m not talking about the economy.) More alarmingly, your shoulders and back look like they may start to join in on the act, making waxing or laser treatment both seem like increasingly attractive options. Nose and ear-hair trimming will soon become a necessary part of your grooming regime, if it hasn’t done so already, and the purchase or gift of battery- or main-operated hair removal devices goes from being a luxury or a joke to being a thoughtful, if a trifle tactless, Christmas or birthday gift.

Expanding waistline
You used to be able to eat whatever you liked without putting on a pound, but sadly those days are behind you. Every superfluous calorie seems to cling to the ever expanding region that you used to call your stomach, but is now merely a belly, and appears to be quietly plotting to take over your entire body with its vast, wobbling mass. Occasional trips to the gym and other attempts to exercise only serve to stave off the inevitable, as once taut flesh becomes saggy and/or increasingly rotund. Every chocolate or sugary dessert, salty snack — which, incidentally, have become virtually irresistible — or pint of beer adds to your girth such that once-comfortable jeans become practically impossible to fasten, and you find yourself loosening your belt another notch to accommodate your wastline after a large meal. (Those of you who think this is funny, laugh while you can — believe me, it will catch up with you in the end!)

Chronic health problems
Whereas you used to occasionally get ill then make a full and rapid recovery, health problems increasingly seem to accumulate or linger for an irritatingly long period of time. Merely temporary inconveniences give way to permanent incapacities as time takes its toll on your previously reliable frame. For my own part, repetitive strain injury from too much computer use, tinnitus in both ears — a result of too much loud music coupled with a genetic predisposition towards hearing problems — plus increasingly poor hearing and eyesight, not to mention occasional depression, form part of the everyday landscape of my existence, although I count myself reasonably lucky not to have anything more serious to deal with. For others, acute aches and pains in their joints, bones or backs make everyday tasks difficult or painful, and I am increasingly impressed at the ability of many old people, for whom walking down the road to the local shop presents a real challenge, to go about their daily business with fortitude, patience and dignity. A lesson for us all I think.

Prone to emotional episodes
Perhaps it’s just me, but I increasingly find myself becoming dewy-eyed at moments of emotional significance. This could occur during a film, soppy or otherwise, when saying goodbye to friends or colleagues that I am unlikely to see again (although you learn after a while that ‘goodbye’ rarely means for ever), or in one of those ‘self’-moments where you suddenly become aware of the finitude of life, and hence of the preciousness of each and every moment (see? there I go again!). Nostalgia becomes increasingly prevalent, and you enjoy reminiscing with friends about all the good times you had, even though you’ve heard the same stories many times before, and many of them probably weren’t quite as idyllic as they now seem in retrospect. Powerful memories evoked by a sound, sight or smell can sometimes take you by surprise, causing you to stop and think of people and places from long ago, whose significance is known only to yourself, and to those dear to you, and which will finally pass with you to the grave. Savour and enjoy it, my friends, as time is all too brief, as the final of sign of ageing attests…

Death
Less a sign of ageing than of its cessation, death is something that must come to us all in the end (NEWSFLASH: you are not indestructible!). However, here I’m not so much talking about the event of your own death, but that of those around you. As you get older, the death of family members, friends, and even well-known TV personalities or local celebrities familiar to you from your youth brings you face to face with the inevitable realisation that at some point, you yourself are going to die. Quite apart from this sobering thought, and the heartache that all of the above brings, you notice that everybody else is starting to look so terribly old. Surely, you think, I can’t have aged that much? There is a sense that someone somewhere is playing an incredibly cruel trick, and that at some point they will jump out from behind a lamppost shrieking ‘Haha, fooled you!’ and everything will go back to ‘normal’, i.e. how you always remember things having been. Unfortunately, however, there is no trick, no lamppost, and no ‘normal’, and you’re just going to have to come to terms with the fact that life is, after all, a limited commodity, and that time will eventually win its battle against everything that is you, consigning your being to that elusive and ephemeral realm: the past. Those who find this thought depressing may console themselves with the fact that it has not done so already, and so there is still a chance to make the best of it.

Well, those are my seven signs of ageing. Fortunately, things may not be as bad as they seem since it is possible to stave off at least some of the above, whilst others may seem a small price to pay for the miracle of continued existence. I have, however, already started thinking about a follow up entry concerning how to combat the seven signs of ageing, so watch this space!

* Actually, this is a lie. The first picture was taken almost exactly two years ago and the second about 18 months later, but hey, who’s counting?

Life in St Andrews

Sun, 7 Oct 2007 17:59:14 +0100

I haven’t had much time for blogging lately so, to cut a long story short, I’ve recently (actually not so recently, but I started writing this ages ago!) moved to St Andrews and started studying for the M.Litt. (that’s ‘Master of Letters’) in philosophy. Just for fun, I thought I’d jot down a quick list of some of the things I like — and a few that I don’t — about the city and the university so far. So, in no particular order, here goes…

Things that I like about St Andrews:
Everyone is very friendly
It’s quiet, but not too quiet, if you know what I mean
It’s by the sea
It’s in Scotland — home at last!
Our flat is only five minutes walk from the philosophy department
The town centre is small enough to walk around in 10 minutes
It’s very international (although with a predominance of English and Americans, it has to be said)
Postgraduates can take books out of the library for a whole year! :-p
The pubs stay open until at least 1am (this is normal throughout most of the civilised world, I know, but after living in England for the last 17 years, it’s a breath of fresh air!)
Coffee shops are open until 11pm (well, BeanScene and Taste are, anyway)
There are (unlike some places I could mention) refreshingly few hen parties and stag nights!
The tap water tastes good (by which I mean of nothing in particular)
I see at least two people I know every time I leave the house
There are tons of interesting seminars, workshops and talks to go to
Everybody shops at Tesco
The cold

Things that I don’t like about St Andrews:
Golf
Did I mention the cold?
There are so few actual Scots here that I feel like a foreigner :-(
It’s not very good for shopping (although this could be considered a good point since there is less opportunity to spend money, unless you count Amazon, of course…)
The departmental library’s eschewal of the use of any kind of modern technology in place of card index files. Oh well, at least they don’t crash very often (?)
The supermarket isn’t that great and they are often run of stock (damn students…)
I’m so damn busy I don’t have nearly enough time to all the stuff I’d like

As you can see, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I’m sure I’ll think of some more soon, but all in all life is pretty good. If only I didn’t have to do any actual work, it would be almost perfect! ;-)

House hunting in St Andrews

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100

A couple of weeks ago, Heike and I travelled up to St Andrews (is ‘St’ supposed to have a dot after it or not? I’m never sure…) to find somewhere to live for the next year. Despite stories of doom and gloom from just about everyone who lives, has lived or knows someone who has lived in St Andrews telling us that it was impossible to find anything at this time of year for a reasonable price, etc. etc., we managed to find a great two bedroom flat on South Street1 that is ideal for our requirements. Well, almost ideal in that it is already furnished, and we have all of our own furniture, but unfurnished houses for rental in St Andrews are like hens’ teeth since the place is almost exclusively geared up for the student market, so we’re just going to have to sell, store and/or rearrange our existing furniture around what’s already there (anyone interested in some second-hand shelves, a wardrobe or a very nice but slightly temperamental Sony telly?).

Actually finding the flat involved a couple of days of traipsing around St Andrews (not an altogether unpleasant task, since it’s such a lovely place), lots of phone calls, plus as an unexpected trip to Perthshire, which I will explain later. We had timed our visit to coincide with an interview Heike had at the University for a part-time job in the Access and Recruitment department, so some of the train fares and accommodation were already paid for, and we were able to upgrade our room in the very friendly and comfortable Cameron House to a double for the very modest sum of £11. Unfortunately, the University also interviewed 20 other people for the job and Heike didn’t get it in the end, but at least it gave her the opportunity of an expenses paid trip to St Andrews (hmmmmm, am I getting tightfisted in my old age? on second thoughts, don’t answer that!).

Although we had done a lot of preparation beforehand by searching the University’s accommodation web site and ringing round a number of letting agents, many of the properties we had hoped to see had either gone or, with August being right in the middle of the summer holidays, the landlords had still not responded by the time we got there. Fortunately, the B&B we were staying in had a Wi-Fi internet connection, and so I was able to check e-mail and the web, and the combination of this and possessing a mobile phone made the search a lot easier than in previous years. That said, we still had our fair share of problems. We viewed a range of places from fairly dismal house-sharing arrangements to luxury three bedroom apartments, with corresponding prices to boot. The going rate for a one bedroom flat in St Andrews is about £525 to £575 per month (which is what we’re currently paying for our flat in the centre of York), or about £600 to £650 per month for two bedroom or semi-detached (which is what we’re paying for the new place). This obviously varies depending upon how close you are to the town centre, where rents in excess of £750 are not unusual, although well out of our budget. When added to the council tax, which works out at around £115 per month, minus the 25% discount for students), that adds up to a lot of wonga, so I’m really hoping that my funding from the AHRC comes through OK…

Whilst up in St Andrews, I also took the opportunity to drop in and visit the Philosophy Department, which I had previously only seen in passing. It is based in a grand old building (see above) overlooking the sea from the top of a steep cliff on the Scores. Amusingly, it’s divided into two separate departments: the Department of Moral Philosophy, which covers ethics, aesthetics, politics, and so on, and the Department of Metaphysics, which comprises of pretty much everything else, each of which has its own shiny blue nameplate adjacent to the relevant entrance. This reflects the ancient Scottish division of philosophy into values- and non-values based disciplines, although choosing which doorway to enter by was a bit of an Alice in Wonderland moment (although needless to say I went in through the metaphysics entrance!). In fact, both doors open out into a common hallway and reception area, although apparently the only way to get between the two buildings used to be through a doorway in the basement. Perhaps it would still be that way if the doors were marked Analytic and Continental Philosophy, I’m not sure… In any case, when I dropped by, most of the staff were away on leave but I was fortunate enough to bump into Katherine Hawley, whose work on the adverbial theory of time I had already encountered while writing an extended essay on Heidegger. She was very friendly, helpful and approachable — everything I was hoping for from a St Andrews faculty member — and we had a good chat about the course and St Andrews in general, giving me an excellent first impression of the University and Department in general. (I may well be taking her course in metaphysics in the spring term, so this bodes well for the future!)

By the end of the first day of our house hunting, Heike and I found out about a refurbished one bedroom flat that was just coming onto the market. At only £525 per month it was a steal, and it had yet to be furnished, which suited us down to the ground. After some discussion with the letting agent, we arranged to drop into the office first thing the following morning to fill out an application and have an informal interview with the manager, who we were told like to vet all prospective tenants, but wasn’t available for an interview that day. The only other people to have seen the flat hadn’t got back to them for two weeks, so we thought we were pretty safe and so left the place in high spirits, having thought we had found the perfect place for us to live. Little did we know that whilst we were viewing the flat, or possibly shortly afterwards, the manager had interviewed one of the people who had previously seen the flat and accepted their application there and then. We didn’t find out about this until I phoned the office first thing the next morning, when I was told that the flat had already been let to a German PhD student who was flying back home that day and so needed a quick decision. Needless to say, we were absolutely gutted — not to mention extremely annoyed about having been completely misinformed by the letting agents. Coupled with the fact that we hadn’t heard back from the University regarding Heike’s job interview, our high spirits gave way to a decidedly gloomy outlook and, as if on cue, the sunny weather gave way to clouds and rain.

Having lost out on what seemed like the perfect flat by not going after it aggressively enough, we resolved to hang onto anything else within our price range that came along with both hands, since not finding anything would mean having to start all over the following week when housing supply and demand would be even less in our favour. Fortunately, we managed to find several suitable alternatives, although all furnished, and quite a bit more expensive than the original £525 per month. In the end it came down to a choice between the two bedroom flat in South Street that we finally decided to go with, which was great but expensive, and an equally nice one bedroom flat on one of the main roads going into St Andrews, owned by a terribly nice local chap named Donald. He told us that he thought he had already let the flat the previous day, but received an unexpected call that very morning saying that the girl who was interested in it had pulled out and decided to take another flat at the last minute. On further discussion, it turned out that she was also from Germany and taking a PhD at the University, which seemed too much of coincidence to be anything other than the very same person who had gazumped us out of the other flat! Even more strangely, her name and description matched that of a girl I used to go out with when I lived in Kingston, leading Heike to suggest that perhaps she was stalking me!

After much soul searching, haggling and negotiation we decided to plump for the flat in South Street, mainly because it would give us more space to pursue our various creative activities (me: music and philosophy, Heike: art), and was both quieter and more centrally located, despite the additional cost. However, there was still an additional hurdle to cross, which was that the landlords, who live well over an hour’s drive from St Andrews in St Fillans, Perthshire, wanted to meet with us before making a final decision. Since we were only in Scotland for a few days, the rest of which we had hoped to spend in Kelty with my Dad, we decided to move quickly. Having already lost out on the other place, we offered to drive up to St Fillans — a beautiful place on the shore of Loch Earn2 — that very evening to seal the deal, so to speak. (In actual fact, we were chauffeured in my Dad’s shiny new Toyota Prius, which is very nice — and quite fascinating in terms of its dual-fuel hybrid engine.) We finally arrived at about 7 o’clock in the evening and were able to make a suitably good impression that they decided to let us the flat for slightly less than the advertised price, and to remove a few items of furniture to help us fit in all our stuff. So, with the proviso that we have yet to receive the actual contract (although I’m assured that this is in progress and on its way from the solicitors), it looks like we now have somewhere to stay for the next year or so — possibly more if I decide and/or am able to stay in St Andrews to do my PhD.

All in all, it was a worthwhile, if a little nerve-wracking, trip. Heike is currently applying for some other jobs at the University, including an application for casual administrative work and is hopeful that she’ll find something, even if only on a temporary basis while she finds her feet. In the meantime, we still have to organise the rest of the move, although since our new contract doesn’t start until October, and I need to be there the week beforehand, this will involve me going up there a week earlier and then coming back to York to drive the van containing all our stuff to St Andrews a week or two later. In any case, we both formed a very good impression of St Andrews while we were there, and it’s much easier to imagine ourselves living there now that we have something concrete to look forward to — although the idea of taking a postgraduate degree still seems a little unreal to me, I must admit! However, in just a few weeks that idea will be turning into reality, and I’m very much looking forward to finding out where it leads, so wish me luck and watch this space for news of how it all turns out…

The end of an era

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:43:59 +0100

Well, after three years of surprisingly hard work, which have turned out to be something of an intellectual and emotional roller-coaster, as well as a lot of fun too, the time is rapidly approaching when I’ll be leaving York for good. Having finished my studies in June and graduated in July, it’s time to move on, and in October I’m starting on a one-year Masters (an M.Litt., to be precise) in philosophy at the University of St. Andrews in my home county of Fife. I must say that I have rather mixed feelings, as I’ve had a really good time here and made so many new friends. Having said that, almost everyone I know in York has either gone home for the summer or back home after graduation, and it does feel like it’s time for a change. Three years is about the longest time I’ve spent in any one place since I left Scotland some 17 years ago, and I’m getting itchy feet.

Looking back over the past few years, I find it both amazing that it has gone so quickly, and at how much has changed and happened in such a short space of time. When I started out down this road, I was still a more or less full-time IT professional with an interest in thinking and philosophy, and a hunger to learn more and expand my horizons into a new and different area. Now, I’m a soon-to-be-postgraduate student with plans to study for at least the next four years (!), and hopefully to find an academic job at the end of it (!!). Although I still keep my hand in with the programming work, what once seemed so comfortable and familiar is now a temporary summer job, rather than my main focus, which is now upon furthering my studies and overall philosophical outlook. It all feels very different, although I must say that I feel more at home with my new identity than with the old, which always contained an element of dissatisfaction and discomfort, despite its obvious — and some not so obvious — advantages.

The thing I will miss most of all (and in truth, am doing so already) is all the great people that I have met in York. As a student who is just a bit older than your average undergraduate (“Did you take a year out?” “Yes, I took 15 years out, actually!”), I found it a bit difficult at first to fit in. However, as time went by (as a philosopher, I hate that phrase because if there’s one thing that time doesn’t do it is to go anywhere, but that’s besides the point…) and I got to know more people, both from within my year and outside it, I began to feel much more a part of the strange and diverse community that is a modern University. Even the lecturers, with their own individual obsessions and eccentricities, seemed more a part of some weird kind of extended family, rather than a formal teacher–student relationship, and the friendliness and approachability of the philosophy staff in York has been a major benefit of studying there, as well as something that has helped me immensely in my intellectual and personal development.

Something else that made my time at the York more of a pleasure than a chore was starting the Philosophy Society at the beginning of my second year. Having found out that there was nothing like this in the first year, and missing the informality of heated discussions about the purpose of philosophy or the latest theory of perception at the college bar, I decided to take up the course administrator’s suggestion that I should start one (thanks Marysia!). This quickly snowballed into a major undertaking, and we were soon attracting 40 or 50 people to our events — pretty good for a small University like York — many of which I will remember as some of the most exciting and memorable times that I had at University. What was great about the Society was that not only did you get to invite and listen to some wonderful philosophers talk about their own work, but that those of us who attended regularly or were on the committee became (well, in most cases, anyway!) best of friends who I’m sure will continue to keep in touch long after the course has finished. In retrospect, I’m at least as pleased about my involvement with the Society as I am with getting my degree, and I’m sure that the new committee will continue to take it from strength to strength.

By the time of graduation, the rest of the degree already seemed like a distant memory. There are no lectures or seminars in the final term at York. It’s just a mad rush to try and get all your essays finished on time, along with a few exams thrown in to keep you on your toes. After that, there is the interminable waiting for results where you start to think “If only I had spent a bit more time on that essay” or “Yup, I’ve definitely bolloxed it all up!”. However, despite my misgivings (or paranoia? take your pick), I must have done something right as I was awarded a starred First, and later found out that I’d received the top marks in my year. I only found out about the Distinction a week before graduation as it had to be confirmed by University Senate, and so was mighty pleased (as well as more than a little surprised as I thought it was 50:50 as to whether I would even get a First, although some of my friends seemed to think that it was a foregone conclusion).

The graduation event itself was a strange affair. It was great to see everybody again, but it was so hectic, and the weather wasn’t exactly the best. In traditional British style, we were packed indoors in the middle of summer with the rain pouring down outside, all feeling rather sweaty in all our academic finery (hence why I appear somewhat shiny in the above picture!). I decided — somewhat against my better judgement — to embrace my Scottishness and hire a kilt for the event, which prompted a wry remark from the Vice-Chancellor when I shook his hand on stage (“You’re not Scottish by any chance, are you?” — witty), as well as a few rather strange looks from some of my lecturers. Still, it made for some interesting photos to show the grandkids. ;-)

I actually rather enjoyed the ceremony, despite all the waiting around and clapping. It brought a sense of finality and completion to the whole experience, and it was great to be finally handed that piece of paper that said I had the BA which I’d been working and studying towards for so long — about bloody time too! Perhaps the best part was the sense of camaraderie that came from having slogged your guts out for the past three years alongside thirty or so other people who were on the same course, and all being sat there wearing silly hats and gowns, feeling like little kids that had finally been given an ice cream after a long, hot walk in the sun. All in all, it was a good day, and a chance to share reminiscences and say farewells to everybody, many of whom I may well never meet again (except on Facebook, of course!). Perhaps my only regret about my time as an undergraduate is not having spent more time getting to know people and just hanging out in between lectures (which are few and far between at the best of times!). There was always some essay to be finished, or event to be organised, but in any case I think I had my fair share of student life one way or the other.

And now, after having spent the last few months recovering from the past three years of intense activity, and trying to regain some sense of normality, I’m now preparing to do it all over again in St. Andrews, only this time as a postgraduate. It’s a scary and exciting prospect, and one I’m very much looking forward — including the idea of returning to Scotland, even if it only turns out to be for the year, as who knows where I will end up doing my PhD. Still, I’ll always have a fond place in my heart for York, and all the good times that I’ve had here and the friends that I made, many of whom I am sure will go onto do great things. It’s a terrific luxury and a privilege to be able to study a subject like philosophy at University, and I’m very glad that I’ve had the opportunity to do so. Having worked in industry for many years, I’m all the more aware of how special and unusual the experience of full-time study is, and have tried to get as much out of it as I can (even though there were times were I came close to chucking it all in, although I guess everyone feels like that at some point). In any case, it’s started me off in a whole different direction, and one that I hope will lead to a more interesting, and ultimately more fulfilling, career doing something that I love. And what more can one ask of a place than that?

Kurt Vonnegut: author, thinker, human being

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:56:50 +0100

It was with great sadness that I read in the news this morning that one of my favourite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, had died. He died in hospital of brain injuries sustained during a fall several weeks ago in his Manhattan home. He was 84. Not a bad innings for someone who was a heavy smoker (Pall Mall untipped cigarettes) for most of his life — an activity he regarded as a ‘classy way of committing suicide’. Vonnegut also escaped death on several previous occasions, most notably during the allied bombing of Dresden in 1945 where he was held prisoner of war (an experience that led to him writing perhaps his most famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five), once self-inflicted (he struggled with depression, and once quipped that his suicide had been a ‘botched job’ — unlike that of his mother, who killed herself on Mother’s Day in 1944), and most recently when a fire broke out at his home in January 2000 and he was taken to hospital with serious smoke inhalation injuries. Tragically, the fire also destroyed his personal archives, which must have been a source of great dismay both to him and his many thousands of fans around the world.

But it is not for his death that Kurt Vonnegut will be remembered, but for his life, his extraordinary wit, intelligence, and great compassion for his fellow human beings. My own first experience of Vonnegut was from reading The Sirens of Titan as a child. It made a deep impression on me at the time, partly because of its strange science-fictional setting and characters, including a man who appears at regular intervals in different parts of the universe due to being trapped in some kind of time warp (a chrono-synclastic confabulum), but also because of its pathos, even though I don’t think I understood too much of it at the time. Upon rereading the book several years ago I was so moved by it that I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried for a full hour towards the end (which is not something that I’m given to doing regularly, especially about a book). It just seemed to sum up the absolute meaninglessness, and yet infinite potential of human existence in a way that no other author I’ve read before or since has been able to do.

The other Vonnegut novel that I come back to time and time again is Cat’s Cradle, which remains to this day one of my favourite books. It tells the story of the end of civilisation at the hands of a seemingly innocuous technological invention (or rather the people that wield it) called Ice-9 that turns water to ice at room temperature, the snag being that it doesn’t just act upon water in the immediate vicinity, but all of the water that it touches in a kind of unstoppable chain reaction (putting some Ice-9 to your lips, for example, would freeze you rock solid). It is a biting satire on the nature of technology, religion and human desire, and one of the most brilliant books that I’ve ever read. Its portrayal of the character of Bokonon, an enigmatic Buddha-like figure who founds a religion on the premise that everything contained within it is a complete lie, is one of the most memorable and striking fictitious creations I can think of, and references to the resulting religion of ‘Bokonism’ recur throughout Vonnegut’s work (I too consider myself a Bokonist, as my Facebook page will attest).

It’s very hard to classify Kurt Vonnegut’s work as it constantly dips in and out of different genres, including science fiction, which was a label he vehemently rejected. For me, it strikes the perfect balance between imagination and believability, the latter mainly as a result of its incredibly vivid and often tragically flawed characters, several of whom are self-consciously modelled on Vonnegut himself. More than anything, what strikes you about his novels (as well as the man himself) is the degree to which he cared. Not just about his characters — well, most of them, anyway — but about the fate of humanity in general. He had seen first-hand during the Second World War the terrible depths to which people could sink, and desperately and consistently wanted to warn us of the dangers that we are all rushing headlong towards. But his style was never one of high-handed preaching and moralising, but rather gently, and sometimes forcefully, reminding us of our common humanity and shared responsibilities towards one another, and to the world that we inhabit. Vonnegut realised that it is a complicated and at times terrible place, but also that it’s all we’ve got, and we damned well better look after it — and each other — if we’re to make life bearable and maybe even a little bit happier for all of us who live here.

By a curious coincidence — or perhaps not? — the age at which Vonnegut died is the same as that of his fictional alter ego, Kilgore Trout (apparently based upon the real-life science fiction author, Theodore Sturgeon). Like many others, I am deeply saddened by the loss of this incredibly caring, creative, visionary and above all profoundly human individuals. I always felt that what troubled Kurt Vonnegut was that he felt everything so very deeply, and in a sense it was this heightened sense of empathy that brought so much life and beauty to his work. In many ways, I think that he was an example of what it is possible for a mere mortal to become, and his great sensitivity and moral conviction are an inspiration and a challenge to us all. The world needs more Kurt Vonneguts and, with the passing of this one, today became a slightly less meaningful and beautiful place.

Or, as the Trafalmadorians say, “so it goes”.

Decisions, decisions

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:08:20 +0000

Well, the time has finally come for me to decide where I’ll be doing my Masters degree, and it’s not an easy decision! After applying to five different Universities (partly to make sure I got into at least one of them, and partly because I couldn’t make my mind up), I have received offers from Edinburgh, Warwick and the joint programme at St. Andrews and Stirling (SASP). I’m still waiting to hear back from UCL, but had more or less decided against this one anyway, partly for personal reasons (I have no desire to live in London) and partly because it’s a two year programme, which would leave me totally dependent on receiving government funding. With a one year course I am at least able to fund myself through a Masters before applying for AHRC funding for the following three years of my PhD, although that’s by no means guaranteed.

Disappointingly, my first choice (Oxford), didn’t even offer me a place, which is a great pity as I would have loved to go there and it was the only place that really ticked all of the boxes in terms of academic life, personal factors and work opportunities for Heike. It was ironic really because I wasn’t sure whether I even wanted to go there in the first place, but after spending what seemed like an age putting together what I thought was a really good application, including essays, CV, personal statement, references etc., I had really started set my heart on it and it was a bit of a blow not to get in. That said, I always knew it would be difficult — I think they receive about 800 applications for just 20 places per year — and I know of several other excellent candidates who weren’t offered a place, so the competition must have been particularly fierce this year. Still, it hit me quite hard and has made the decision of where to go insetad all the more difficult.

In the end, it basically comes down to a choice between three factors. Firstly, the quality and content of the course. I always wanted to take a general Masters in philosophy as I feel it’s too soon to specialise and I wanted to have at least a few subjects that I could teach at undergraduate level in future, as it makes me a more attractive candidate for an academic job. This counted in favour of the St. Andrews/Stirling M.Litt. but against Warwick, whose MAs specialise in one particular area (e.g. Philosophy of Mind, Continental Philosophy, etc. — it’s a pity that they don’t offer a combined MA, as they have such an excellent department that it would have been perfect!). On the other hand, my research interests tend towards philosophy of mind (even though I find a lot of the contemporary stuff quite depressing as it seems to take entirely the wrong approach and consequently becomes bogged down in all the wrong problems — give me Merleau-Ponty or Wittgenstein any day!), and Warwick or UCL would undoubtedly be the best place to do this, whereas St. Andrews is more geared towards philosophy of language and logic (another of my favourite subjects!?). Edinburgh is kind of a middle ground, as they do a lot of philosophy of mind, especially of the embedded variety, but don’t have the same reputation as the other two, and I was less keen on their Masters programme (which, bizarrely, is an MSc, rather than an MA — since when did philosophy become a science?!). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are the personal factors, such as what it would be like as a place to live. When there are two of you to think about, this becomes all the more difficult because you need to find a place where you can both be happy without the other person feeling like they are just tagging along. Plus, it’s important to my girlfriend that she is able to find a suitable job for both personal and financial reasons.

After spending several weeks agonising over it, Heike and I decided that St. Andrews would be the best place. We both liked the idea of going back to Scotland, especially given that St. Andrews is such a beautiful place — despite the local obsession with golf! The main worry was whether Heike would be able to find a job there, although Dundee is well within commuting distance, and now that she’s passed her driving test, this could easily be an option. My other concern was whether this would restrict my choice of dissertation topics, not because there is no-one doing philosophy of mind there (Stirling and St. Andrews both have several possible supervisors), but because I’ve been told I would be unlikely to get PhD funding for research in this area because it’s not one of the top places in the UK for philosophy of mind. That said, I’m not really dead set on a particular topic. I just wanted to leave my options open, and if the worst comes to the worst I can always apply elsewhere for a PhD, although that would mean another move, which wouldn’t be ideal by any means.

Heike is also concerned about the fact that St. Andrews is quite a small place and she wants to make sure that she can find some work that she will be able build upon in the future. After spending two years doing temporary admin work at the University and just having taken up a part time job in something much more interesting, she’s reluctant to have to start all over again, especially if it means moving again in another years time because I want to do my PhD elsewhere! But then again, neither of us wants to live apart for another year, especially at such a distance, so it’s a really difficult decision to make. It’s made all the more annoying by the fact that what’s pushing me elsewhere aren’t the most important things, but stuff like the AHRC funding deadline and the reputation of the various Universities, which seems to be a major factor in employability afterwards (alongside who you’ve worked with and what your research was in). If all Universities were equal and I could go wherever I wanted then I guess we would come to a very different decision, but not living in an ideal world, it’s all down to find the right compromise.

Having weighed up all the evidence, St. Andrews definitely seems to be the best option, although my enthusiasm for the course is somewhat tempered by worries about how well this will work out for us personally. Perhaps Edinburgh would have been a better in some respects, as it’s a bigger city with more job opportunities for Heike, but then maybe I would feel different about this in a few years time, and even Heike was unsure about the idea of living there. Perhaps I should have just bitten the bullet and gone to London (assuming that they are going to offer me a place, that is), which is probably what I would have done ten years ago if I was single (in fact, I did!), or stayed in York, which would undoubtedly have been easier, although I do feel the need to move on and get some exposure to different ideas and approaches. There was a time when making such decisions was easy — I just picked the place where I wanted to go and went for it. Simple! I guess that once you get older you become aware of a lot of the potential pitfalls and problems in advance, and want to avoid making the same mistakes twice, but it can become hard to separate these sort of (very understandable) concerns from making a positive decision to go for what you want and make the best of it, which I think, in the end, is what life is all about.

Anyway, after much soul searching, I have accepted the offer of a place at St. Andrews and am very much looking forward to it. Even my research proposal (which is primarily in philosophy of language) sounds pretty interesting, and I’m very much looking forward to taking long walks along the beach in the summer (and winter!), as well as rediscovering my home county of Fife. After 16 years of living away from Scotland, it’s nice to finally be returning home and, as you can see from the above picture, it’s not such a bad place to be going back to!

My travels so far…

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 09:23:59 +0000

I recently discovered* this web site, which generates a map of all the countries that you’ve ever visited. The above picture represents the extent of my travels so far. Pretty good coverage of Europe (23%), but as far as the rest of the world goes, very much restricted to English speaking countries, mainly due to my having visited family and friends in Canada and Australia. I once went on a business trip to America and was nearly prevented from entering the country at immigration. I dunno, I must have looked really dodgy or something…
Although I’d consider myself reasonably well travelled, I have travelled to just 5% of countries worldwide. Even this is cheating a bit, as I’ve only ever been to the Spanish and Greek islands, and never to the mainland except in passing, and I was only in Italy for one day when I visited Venice on a family holiday to the former Yugoslavian state of Serbia.

Possible destinations for future trips include: France (again), Switzerland, Iceland and hopefully New Zealand, although I have no idea how or when I’ll manage to get there on a student budget! Ah well, I can but dream…
(*with a little bit of help from Sarah Bodle. ;-)

In between sizes

Sat, 3 Mar 2007 16:20:44 +0000

Why is it that you can only buy jeans in even sizes? And shirts and jackets only come in standard, rather than long? And why are so few pairs of shoes available in half sizes these days? You would think in this age of technological breakthroughs that it would be possible to buy a pair of trousers that actually fit, but no! We are expected to conform to the arbitrarily chosen categories of mass-produced clothing companies… this is certainly not my idea of progress!

Unfortunately, I am cursed with being in between sizes for just about everything. Jeans are a particular problem as I cannot comfortably fit into a 32” waist any more (not so much because of my belly, which has admittedly expanded somewhat over the last few years, but because — how can I put this politely? — my arse is too ‘well proportioned’). 34” jeans are far too big and won’t stay up without some serious belt action, which is fine until they ask you to remove the belt when going through airport security scanners and your trousers just about fall down! 33”, on the other hand, would be damn near perfect, but the only place I can find that stock these is Gap, who I’m not overly fond of (partly for ethical reasons, partly for style — or lack thereof).

In the jacket or jumper department, I’m a 38” chest, which is technically a medium, but I always have to buy a large size because I’m tall and need the extra length in the arms, which means that the fit is a little too baggy. I’m also a 9½ shoe size, which is just about impossible to find these days, and so I have to choose between squeezing my feet into a size 9 or getting blisters from shoes that are comfortable when not walking but too big, meaning that they rub annoyingly at the heels. (Plus, it’s very hard to find non-leather shoes of any kind that fit, let alone in half sizes.) And don’t even get me started on condoms! (I’ll leave the details of that one to your imagination, but let’s just say that men, like just about everything else in life, come in a range of sizes — if you’ll excuse the pun! — and that the regular fit just ain’t too comfortable! Then there’s the whole decreased sensation thing… You ladies just don’t know what we have to deal with down there! Bring on the male pill is what I say…)

I’m not saying that this issue is confined to men either. Far from it. I mean, what is it with women’s dress sizes? If you have anything that even vaguely diverges from standard proportions (hips, waist, bust, shoulders) then you’re absolutely stuffed! I really don’t see why shops can’t carry a wider range of shapes and sizes. I mean, statistically, there have got to be the same number of people that are 33” and a 35” waists as there are that are 32” and 34”, so why can’t you buy clothes in both? Two inches is a big difference in sizes, as any woman will tell you (sorry — I can’t seem to get the condom example out of my head!). And what about clothes for skinny people and those of slightly plumper dimensions? I mean, it’s hardly rocket science, is it?!

Student cooking

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 08:35:38 +0000

My girlfriend and I normally do our weekly shop at Sainsbury’s but due to essay deadline pressure (EDP) and other unusual factors, managed to put off going to the shops by a whole additional week without starving. Actually, we did make it to Budgens (our local corner shop, which is, unsurprisingly, just around the corner) to buy some milk and bananas, but other than that we got by with whatever leftovers were in the cupboard and/or freezer. Student cooking at its finest!

Once we ran out of frozen food we were forced to make some pretty strange dietary choices. One of these was the above pasta dish, which was surprisingly tasty considering that it consisted of just pasta, fried onions and yellow peppers, salad cream (!), paprika and some leftover coriander to finish. It was actually based on a pasta salad that my ex used to make with tuna and sweetcorn, but since I’m now a vegetarian and Heike doesn’t like sweetcorn I thought I would try to make it as a hot dish instead. It turned out OK, with quite a sweet taste and the coriander gave it a nice twist, even though I would never in a million years have thought of putting those ingredients together otherwise. Ah well, I guess it beats beans on toast, or spaghetti with tomato sauce, which is what got Heike through most of her degree!

Fortunately, we managed to make it to Sainsbury’s yesterday and after just about breaking our backs carrying everything back from the supermarket, the cupboards are well stocked once again ready for the next deadline crisis…

Ten things I hate about being a student…

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:30:30 +0000

Here are the ten things that I hate most about being a student, and ten things that I love about it (in no particular order):

Always having work to do. It never stops!
Having little or no structure to my day (week, month…).
Feeling completely useless and unproductive most of the time.
The way that holidays often seem to end up being more work than term-time.
Not having enough free time to do other things that I enjoy, like making music.
Being clueless about stuff. (Yes, I know this is kind of a precondition for learning something, but I don’t like it all the same.)
Constantly being tested and having to perform, or ‘jump through hoops’.
Getting into trouble by not following rules that nobody has explained to you.
Having to study during the evenings and weekends, which are the only times that I get to spend with my girlfriend when she isn’t working.
Not having a regular income. That sucks!

Ten things I love about being a student are:

Being able to go into town during the day when everyone else is working.
Sitting around drinking coffee and chatting with friends in the bar at lunchtime or between lectures.
Not having to deal with office politics.
Having the opportunity to sit around and learn about philosophy all day!
Getting inside the heads of some of the world’s greatest thinkers, which helps me to see the world in a completely different way.
Not being responsible for anyone or anything else except your own learning.
The feeling of community that comes from being on campus with a load of other people who are in pretty much the same situation.
Spending time with people who are younger than myself. They are so much more optimistic and full of ideas and energy! It reminds me of myself a few year ago…
Being able to get discounted train travel, clothes, computers, etc. ;-)
Meeting so many lovely and interesting people!

To be honest, I think that If I’d known in advance exactly what being a student was really like, I don’t think I would have given up my job to come to University, although having done so, I certainly don’t regret it (well, not most of the time anyway!). In many ways I wish I’d done it a lot sooner after leaving school rather than waiting until now, both because it would have made the whole experience a lot easier (personally and intellectually, although that’s easy to say in retrospect) and because the University system has changed a lot in the last few years, and not necessarily for the better.

That said, I have learned a hell of a lot, both about my chosen subject and myself, which in the end is what it’s all about I guess… Being a student certainly doesn’t make for an easy life though, and any of you working folks are still in any doubt about that, then try going back to being a student yourself. I’ll think you’ll find that the reality is quite different from what you might imagine!

Say hello to ‘wee me’

Mon, 2 Oct 2006 10:57:20 +0100

Whilst avoiding writing my philosophy essay the other day I stumbled across this web site. Called ‘WeeWorld’ (wee being Scottish for small — just thought I should make that clear from the outset!), it’s a brilliantly designed site that enables you to create a little cartoon version of yourself that you can use in e-mails, as an avatar in online messaging programs or download to your mobile phone.

As you can see from the pictures above, the results are very cute, and probably the closest most of us will ever come to appearing in Southpark or The Simpsons. The process of creating a ‘WeeMe’ is quite straightforward and only takes a few minutes, although you will need to register a user name and password first to do so. You start off by choosing basic attributes like your gender, the shape of your face, plus skin and eye colour, before moving on to dress and accessorise your little avatar. Finally, you add extras to signify your favourite sports or hobbies and choose a suitable environment for your character. There must be literally millions of possible combinations, so every WeeMe is quite unique. If you choose one of the web site or messaging options, the image displayed will even update automatically each time you change your WeeMe.

In a fit of procrastination I created the above pictures which are, reading from left to right, WeeMe at Stonehenge, me on the moon (this is my favourite and my current mobile phone wallpaper), me busking in London circa 1995, an intellectual looking WeeMe, my wee self on a naturist beach in Croatia (no jokes please!), me at University, wee Heike (ever the artist), and an uncomfortable looking WeeMe that is about to be eaten by a shark. OK, maybe I got a bit carried away on that last one…

The site has lots of cool stuff to explore with games (including a rather bizarre one called Pogo for Panties where you hop up and down on a pogo stick trying to collect skimpy underwear whilst eating pies and avoiding the smelly Y-fronts and socks — I kid you not!), animated greetings cards, and you can even order T-shirts, mugs and other merchandise featuring your WeeMe and a slogan of your choice. It’s a brilliant idea, and I’m sure will be very successful as the Glasgow based company that came up with the site has just been bought by AOL.

Anyway, check it out for yourself at weeworld.com, and if you do create your own WeeMe (or should that be WeeYou?) don’t forget to e-mail me a copy or post it as a comment to this blog entry. I’d love to see what you all look like in cartoon form!

Ode to The West Wing

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:01:17 +0100

I love The West Wing. There, I’ve said it. Yes, it’s cheesy. Yes, it’s sentimental American drivel. Yes, it’s a bit geeky, but I love it despite (or perhaps because of) all that. Why? Well, the dialogue is spectacularly well written, and more than a bit funny (especially the first series, which I’m watching at the moment — some of the lines are just laugh out loud hilarious). It’s like the MTV of political drama with days and hours of events condensed into just a few short minutes; entire conversations summed up in a few quickfire remarks. It has just the right blend of humour, gravitas and irony for my (admittedly deeply cynical) tastes, mixing stories of global significance with office in-jokes and credible (well, I think so anyway) character based humour. But is it this that makes it such captivating Sunday night viewing? In a word, no.

Perhaps then it is the idea that the guy in the White House, the so-called ‘leader of the free world’, is not just some moron whose only qualification for the job is that he happens to be the son of another guy who just happened to be president as a result of having previously been the right-hand man of a former Hollywood actor-turned-politician (so much for meritocracy in the land of the brave!), but a Harvard educated professor with a Nobel prize in economics to his name? Now there’s a thought. Wouldn’t it be great if those who served in high office actually had some idea of what to do with it, or even (dare I say it) some relevant qualifications for the job? Of course, that opens up a whole can of worms, but as we all know, such people generally wouldn’t last two minutes under intense media scrutiny, fuelled and funded by (who else?) everyone who reads a newspaper, watches or listens to the news. I mean, if we didn’t care about people’s dirty laundry then the media wouldn’t flaunt it to the world, right? Sadly, the idea of an intellectual in the White House in this day and age is just the wet dream of most liberal minded Hollywood-loving democrats, including those who write scripts for programmes to be broadcast on NBC (sorry, Aaron), and bears little resemblance to current reality (although perhaps this is the point of the programme; wouldn’t it be great if we chose someone like this to lead our nations instead of the current bunch of monkeys?).

Another appealing element of the show is the way that the whole of government seems to be run by a handful of speechwriters and unelected officials (although perhaps there is more truth to this claim than we know or would care to believe). The sense of camaraderie, the intense, overwhelming commitment to one’s work that comes from knowing that what you are doing is probably the most important thing that you’ll do in your entire life, the staying up long into the night, or even the next day, just to make sure that something gets done right. It’s heady, intoxicating stuff. These people actually care and they’re doing it because they believe they can make a real difference to the world and those around them, and not just for their own narrow-minded political benefit. Oh, if only the real world were so cut and dried, so noble and patriotic!

And finally we begin to see what genre The West Wing really is. It’s not a political drama, although it is political and it is dramatic. It’s not a fast-paced character-based ensemble piece about life behind the scenes in American politics, although it is nominally all of those things. No, The West Wing is an adult fairy story that enables us to feel good about the people who we put in charge of our supposed democracies, even if just for a little while. Maybe, just maybe (or if we’re feeling a bit brave and live overseas) it invites us to question whether what goes on in the upper echelons of the US government really matches up to our expectations (and fantasies) of it, but at the end of the day it’s a fairy story, plain and simple.

However, like all feel-good pastimes — reading trashy novels, eating chocolate or chicken soup (although I don’t do that any more now that I’m vegetarian), or having sex — I don’t really care why I like it, I just do. And if it makes me happy to believe that the world is like that, even if it’s just for the scant one hour a week while I’m inhabiting the fictional world of The West Wing, then so be it. Long live President Bartlett and all who serve under him: the finest president America never had! Yes, he made one or two mistakes in his time but he was a man of the highest moral calibre, and his heart was always in the right place. And in the end, isn’t that what we want from our politicians? You know, I think if I was American I’d even vote for him — and who knows, after Reagan and Schwarzenegger, maybe Sheen would be in with a running chance? In the meantime, I’ll just keep watching The West Wing and pretend that everything is all right with the world. As long as the Good People are in charge then they won’t let the Bad Men get me and we can all sleep safe and sound in our rose-tinted beds.

Goodnight, and sweet dreams!

What’s your text name?

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 18:42:59 +0100

I’ve been amusing myself lately by giving people nicknames based on the first (or most amusing) word that comes up when typing their name using predictive text on my mobile. My own text name (as I have decided to call it) is ‘Legs’, which has something of a ring to it and is relatively appropriate considering that I’m slightly on the tall side at just under 6’2”. (Sorry about the somewhat random photo, by the way — it was the closest thing I could find in my photo library to a picture of my legs!)

Other amusing names include my friend Chris, who shall henceforth be known as ‘Aircraft’, my brother Craig, aka ‘Archive’, and with my parents, ‘Griping’ and ‘Eating’ (!). My own personal favourites are Lani and Simon, who my phone has a habit of referring to by the amusing and curiously fitting names of ‘Kangnung’ and ‘Phnom’, respectively. (Yes, I know, these aren’t even words, but I don’t think anyone told my mobile that…)

What’s even better is that your text name even changes from time to time as the phone begins to learn which words you type most often (clever little buggers, aren’t they?). Occasionally it actually manages to learn the real name, but more often than not it’s something even more irrelevant and random — and I’m all for randomness!

So, what’s your text name? :-)

It’s Lords reform day (again)

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:08 +0100

Is it really a year since I last blogged on this subject? At the time it seemed like a topic that was gaining momentum — at least in the press, if not the country at large. A new political consensus was emerging centring around the notion of a predominantly elected second chamber with the authority and mandate to effectively scrutinise and revise legislation. What happened, and why on Earth have we been left waiting for so long?

After the regional assembly and EU constitution debacles (although the latter was admittedly not caused by the UK), the government seems to have put its constitutional reform agenda on the back-burner. This leaves it — rather conveniently, you might say — with a mainly appointed House of Lords, lacking in the moral or political authority to carry out its proper function, and without any clear path towards reform in the near future. The latest rumblings are that Jack Straw is intending to put forward a proposal that would allow the remaining hereditary peers to continue in their positions until they, quite literally, die off, meaning that the reforms would not be complete until 2050 or even later, combined with a 50% elected house. Does this sound like a coherent, well thought out policy for the 21st century, or an under-ambitious, outdated and hastily cobbled together compromise that is unlikely to please anyone? In my view, both of the aforementioned constitutional reforms failed precisely because they didn’t go far enough. Their vision was too narrow and there was a lack of democratic accountability. Consequently, they were seen as mere rubber stamping exercises designed to enshrine the status quo. This, quite unsurprisingly, failed to engage the public and failed to gain sufficient support to become a political reality.

Now I’m not suggesting that Lords reform is ever going to become sexy or engaging in the way that, say, pub opening hours or anti-smoking legislation are. However, I believe that we get the form of government that we deserve (and deserve the form of government that we get), and the sheer weight of public apathy on this issue has to be at least partly to blame for the lack of direction and progress on this issue. Even before the so-called cash for peerages scandal, the House of Lords was often seen as a bit of an irrelevance at best, and a laughing stock at worst. Whilst there may not have been any actual criminal negligence taking place, everyone understands that political honours are handed out as rewards for service to one’s country (or to one’s party), and that there is a huge amount of cronyism in the system despite recent efforts to make the nomination process more transparent (fancy a virtual peerage, anyone?). In fact, the efforts to improve transparency merely seem to underline the ridiculousness of the system. Consequently, the Lords seems an outdated irrelevance, populated by politicians of yesteryear and party backers, half of whom it seems can hardly stay awake, if they even bother to turn up at all. No wonder the public are apathetic about the issue if this is the perception created by the current system of lifetime appointments and hereditary peerages. To understand why the issue is still important, we need to take a step back and examine at the reason why we even need a second chamber of parliament in the first place.

I have no intention of rehearsing all the arguments for the various forms of reform that have been proposed in the past. These are all well documented elsewhere. However, there is still a need for a secondary revising chamber if we are to have clear, well drafted and carefully thought through legislation — something that has a direct and sizeable effect on all of our lives. Implemented properly, this process helps to ensure that the laws which are passed are both effective in achieving their desired aim and, perhaps even more importantly, cannot be abused by unscrupulous governments wishing to extend or abuse their powers. I’ve heard several recent examples of legislation being used to achieve prosecutions for crimes that it was never intended to cater for, and I have to say that it makes me distinctly uneasy…

My own preference would be for a largely (80% or more) elected chamber with STV (single transferable vote) and a fixed term of office, with one third of its members being elected at any one time to ensure continuity. The remaining members would be appointed by an independent commission (no party nominations) on the basis of merit, or in order to bring in specific legal and professional skills (doctors, teachers, etc.). I see no reason why ministers of the church should receive preferential treatment in this regard, and in this age of multiculturalism, find the present arrangements to be bordering on institutional racism (or whatever the equivalent term would be for religious beliefs). I’d even like to see a small number of seats set aside for true so-called ‘people’s peers’ who would be chosen by lot, or selected by the aforementioned commission on the basis of contribution to their local communities, although would be just the icing on the cake.

The important thing is that it be made clear what the second chamber is actually for and for those individuals serving in it to be made democratically accountable for the important job that they do. As long as the present system of honours and appointments is allowed to continue then this will always obscure the real purpose of the institution, which is to revise and scrutinise legislation, and the whole country will feel the effects in terms of increasingly centralised government power and poorly drafted legislation. We need a clean break from the past and a strong signal that Britain, a country which often boasts that it is the oldest surviving democracy, has a system of government that is fit for the 21st century and beyond. The best way to achieve this is to move to a largely elected chamber as soon as is practicably possible, and to ditch the moniker of ‘House of Lords’ all together (although judging by the current rate of progress deciding upon a new name could take as long as the rest of the reforms put together). All this will only happen as a result of pressure from concerned individuals and groups like Charter 88 and the New Politics Network, of whose Elect the Lords campaign this blog forms a part. Don’t just think about it, write to your MP and make it happen.

Holiday in Croatia, Part Two: Mljet

Sun, 6 Aug 2006 14:50:02 +0100

The second part of our holiday was on the island of Mljet (pronounced ‘mlyet’ — a single syllable that rhymes with ‘set’). Mljet is just over two hours by ferry from Dubrovnik along the coast. The island is quite remote and quite sparsely populated with just a few villages and fishing ports. At the north end lies a large national park covering both land and sea, and housing some of Mljet’s most beautiful landscape (it’s apparently one of the greenest islands in the Adriatic and almost completely covered by trees). There are also several saltwater lakes, including one that contains a tiny island — an island within an island, if you will — with a monastery and church on it. If you visit Mljet for the day (which is what most people do as boat trips to the island are plentiful), this is where you’ll probably end up. It’s quite idyllic, but to really get a feel for the island you need to travel around a little more.

After the hour’s bus journey from Sobra, where the ferry arrives, to Pomena on the far Northwest tip of Mljet where we were staying, we arrived tired and sweaty to find the above view from our bedroom window. It was simply stunning! With just a few small islets between us and the distant Croatian cost it felt like being at the edge of the world, and sitting on the balcony watching the sun go down on that first evening in Mljet was one of the highlights of the whole holiday. Pomena itself is just a small village with one hotel and a few restaurants lined up along the harbour, plus some other accommodation scattered across the bay. The water here, like everywhere else in the Adriatic, is unbelievably clear — so much so that at times the boats almost appear to float on thin air! There are also many fish of all different colours, shapes and sizes that can be seen swimming about in the bay and lakes, some of which end up on tables of hungry diners!

Being on an island, you were never very far from the sea, and it was a good job too as the sun was so hot during the day that you just had to jump in the water every few hours to keep cool. Although there was a roped off area for swimming immediately opposite the hotel, we soon found the path to the lakes, which were a few minutes walk away through some trees, and a spectacular location to just float in the water and enjoy the sunshine. Being slightly isolated from the sea, the water temperature was relatively warm and you could quite happily spend a few hours swimming around in them without feeling cold. (You could even go skinny-dipping without fear of being caught, and in some parts it seemed as if every other person was naked — probably Germans! ;-)

When we weren’t swimming in the water we were walking around the island (you can also hire bikes, although it is quite hilly, or the little ‘Mini Brum’ cars, including a bizarre furry one that is made up with tail and whiskers to look like a cat!). One feature of Croatia that nothing can quite prepare you for is the sheer volume of the cicadas, both in terms of their numbers and loudness. These large and quite ugly insects sit in the trees (although you can’t usually see them because they are well camouflaged) and from sunrise to sunset make such a din you just wouldn’t believe! Even one of them is quite loud and the combined cacophony is akin to a hundred car alarms all going off simultaneously. So much for peace and quiet — I ended up wearing a pair of earplugs just to shut out the noise! We also discovered several other forms of indigenous life, including lots of grasshoppers, which jumped out of your way when you walked, and an indescribably strange (and disturbingly large) green stripey insect, almost the length of my hand, that was intent on sticking a long pointy spike emerging from its rear into the ground. Scary…

For the most part, we ate our evening meals at the place we were staying, the hotel Galija (pronounced ‘Galeeah’), which offered a fantastic spread of grilled freshly caught fish (for Heike) cooked in garlic and herbs, spaghetti with home made tomato sauce (for me) plus salad, bread, chips and vegetables, followed by ice cream if you could manage it (which was a struggle, but we somehow we invariably did!). Not bad for €12 per head. (The official Croatian currency is actually the Kuna, but many places will accept Euro too.) I don’t know if it was the heat, but I didn’t really feel the need for three square meals a day and so ended up snacking on the few things that could be picked up at the local shop — fresh fruit, biscuits and paprika flavoured crisps, which I could happily live off.

On our last full day in Mljet we swam across the bay to the small island you can see on the right-hand side of the photo with the aid of an inflatable sun lounger, as well as walking to Polače (‘Pollatchuh’), another fishing village on other side of the island. It was quite a climb to get there, but the views were amazing, and it really felt like we were close to paradise as we turned the brow of the hill and saw the blue-green colour of the sea. (As a bonus, there was a bakery there, so we bought some fresh pastries to enjoy on the trip home.)

The bus back to the ferry at Sobra left at the ungodly hour of 6am the following day, just after sunrise, and the walk that had taken us about two hours the day before seemed to take about five minutes. The ferry to Dubrovnik was uneventful, although I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a tear in my eye as I watched the bright green stripe of Mljet disappear into the haze as we headed back along the coast. It is such an idyllic place, and the sights of the lakes, the crystal clear water and the sun going down over the bay will stay with me to my dying day. It’s hard to describe just what makes it so special, and you can’t really capture it in photographs either, but there was really something quite magical about that place and I would definitely recommend anyone who goes to Croatia to visit it, or one of its sister islands. There is a unique atmosphere that isn’t quite like anywhere else I’ve been before, and I can suddenly understand why the Croatian people fought so long and hard to defend their country and their heritage from the other powers in the region.

All in all, it was an excellent holiday, and I would love to return to Croatia or one of the other former Yugoslav republics to see more of this part of the world one day. It effortlessly combines the beauty of the south of France or Italy with the history and culture of Greece, and has a very Mediterranean attitude to life in general in that nothing is done in too much of a hurry, or needs to be just so — something that can get a little frustrating when trying to book a holiday there! However, the people are friendly, the food is good (unless you’re a vegetarian!) and the scenery is amazing and quite unspoiled. If you’re looking for a break, or would just like to go somewhere a bit different, I’d highly recommend it!

UPDATE: more pictures of the holiday can be found in my photo album.

Holiday in Croatia, Part One: Dubrovnik

Sun, 6 Aug 2006 07:46:47 +0100

I recently returned from a week’s holiday in Croatia where myself and my girlfriend had a great time visiting the Southern Dalmatian city of Dubrovnik and the island of Mljet. We organised everything pretty much at the last minute, booking flights and accommodation via the internet, with a three-day stay in Dubrovnik and the remainder of our time on the island, which contains a large national park. For anyone who doesn’t know, Croatia is one of the former Yugoslav Republic, occupying a narrow strip of land along the coast of the Adriatic, plus a broader inland region that contains the capital city, Zagreb. It has many Roman and Italian influences and is bathed by cool, clear waters that make for great swimming and diving, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The first thing that struck me upon arriving in Dubrovnik was the heat. Despite the guidebooks’ claim of an average summer temperatures of about 25ªC, it was much hotter than this, even at night, whilst the daytime temperatures were generally in excess of 35ªC in the shade. Phew! We arrived in the evening and it was like a furnace and incredibly humid too (advice to potential travellers: when visiting Croatia during the summer, get a room with air conditioning!). However, all this was quickly forgotten when we took a walk down to the old city (pictured above) to check out the local nightlife.

Dubrovnik is quite simply an incredible place. All the buildings and streets are made of stone (in fact, the streets are polished marble), and walking into it is like stepping back 500 years or more in time. The old city is well fortified with huge walls surrounding the city centre and old port area. Within this lies a criss-crossing maze of stone streets, alleyways and churches, with huge flights of steps taking you up or down the surprisingly precipitous inclines. At night, and to some extent during the day as well, the city is abuzz with restaurants, cafés and music, particularly during July and August when the city is host to a large arts festival that draws people from all over the continent. Overhead, flocks of swallows are a regular sight, constantly darting in and out of holes in the city walls, and the overall impression is one of a magical, timeless place that has changed little since the middle ages (in fact it has been largely rebuilt several times due to earthquakes and military conflict, but it doesn’t show!). I found it very reminiscent of my mental picture of Plato’s Republic, Kallipolis (‘city of beauty’) and the ancient Greek city states, although perhaps this was just my philosophical education getting the better of me!

On the first morning of our stay we enjoyed a generous Croatian breakfast of bread, cold meat, home made cheese, yoghurt, fresh fruit, pastries — it just never seemed to stop! In fact, the proprietor made us laugh by asking, after already having covered the table with the above delicacies, what we wanted for breakfast! He was apparently going to cook us some ham and eggs, but we were already stuffed to the gunnels… We decided to take a trip out to the nearby island of Lokrum, which is a beautiful unspoilt location just off the coast, and clearly visible from the city. By this time is was already sweltering and so we relished the chance to jump in the sea at the first available opportunity, which just happened a local naturist beach, marked FKK, which stands for Freie Körper Kultur in German, or ‘free body culture’. Not being ones to miss out on a chance to get our kit off, we duly stripped off and jumped in for a cooling twenty minute swim, much to the amusement (not to say interest!) of passing tour boats, who had a tendency to stare just a little too obviously, and even took the odd photo, which was most definitely against the rules!

This was the first time either of us had visited a naturist beach and it was a slightly odd but actually rather enjoyable and liberating experience. Once we had got over the initial awkwardness, I was struck by how completely normal and natural it seemed to be, given the surroundings and temperature. Although to some extent, everybody does look at everybody else, it was more out of curiosity than voyeurism (although no doubt, there was a little bit of that going on too!). It made me wonder why everyone is so uptight about revealing their body in public on ‘normal’ beaches, as it really isn’t anything to get worked up about! (On a personal note, I found that getting into the water, which was relatively cold, it has to be said, was somewhat more dignified than getting out due to the inevitable shrinkage that occurs — although any embarrassment caused was quickly reversed by the warming effects of the sun! ;-)

In any case, we spend a pleasant day exploring the island, more or less fully clothed, although I did manage to get sunburn on my shoulders and back despite using factor 25 sunscreen (I later upgraded to factor 50). The next day we went for a walk around the city walls, which afford breathtaking views of the city and coastline if you can stand the heat, not to mention the climb, which is quite steep at times. In the evenings, we went into the old city to eat by the harbour or in one of the street cafés, which serve good and affordable food centring around freshly caught fish, lobster, squid and crab. Unfortunately, Croatia is not the best place for vegetarian food and so I found myself eating lots of cheese and salad which, while tasty, became a bit monotonous after a while. Heike got a nasty surprise with some strange tentacled creatures that appeared in her seafood risotto, helpfully entitled ‘fruits of the sea’, no doubt translated from the Italian frutti del mare. The pasta and ice cream (which we ate a lot of!) is also excellent, but perhaps this is to be expected for a country so close to and influenced by Italy.

On the final day, we took in some more sights of the old city, including the impressive Jesuit cathedral and tranquil Franciscan monastery, and swam in the sea after finding a secluded cove at the bottom of a steep path that lead down the cliffs below our accommodation. It took forever to get to but was well worth the effort as it was almost deserted and offered fantastic views of Dubrovnik, Lokrum and the various luxury liners (basically floating hotel blocks) parked nearby. After a brief panic about when and where we were going to catch the ferry, and whether we would make it back in time for our return flight (which we did), we headed to the port of Gruž to embark upon the second, very different part of our Croatian adventure on the island of Mljet.

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