Happy Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone has had a fantastic day. I have eaten lots (mmm.. pheasant... mm... christmas pudding) and got many pairs of socks (which were wholly needed), lots of things to make me smell nice (because I smell), moisturiser (because Santa is jealous of how rugged I am) and a snooker cue (oooo!)

I attach a picture of our Christmas tree, a beautiful Fraser Fir from The Christmas Forest. It really is a beaut.

Update: 2nd Jan 2008 - The Tree STILL looks great! It's only dropped a few needles and has retained its shape (unlike Nords) even though it's infront of a radiator. I have watered it lovingly though. Hooray for Frasers!

Distributing stock with cannons - no one has really put much effort into this form of delivery - i think it has potential...

Trees and People

This is probably the longest I have ever gone without blogging. How's things I hear you cry? Well, currently I am selling trees (the Christmas Forest, Richmond) again - my 3rd year, and this year I have taken to the helm, and I must admit that it's been quite enjoyable. Generally the staff have seemed happy so far, and I've found it quite invigorating making decisions and being the guy everyone asks for help from. Don't think this means I'm planning a career as a suit, tie, briefcase and blackberry man, oh no. I couldn't stand such a life - anything involving being crammed onto a train like getting wide christmas trees through the 45cm diameter netting machine every day wouldn't suit me. But yes, trees have been sold.

I've often reached the point during this season where I've suddenly become amazed at the sheer size of the population of Richmond/London/the UK/the World. After a huge weekend where people have been queuing the whole length of the place, I think surely there can't be any more people who need Xmas trees - but of course there are. Like that time I was walking down the road and saw (and actually registered their presence for the 1st time) all the TV aerials on the roofs of houses and realised just how many houses there must be in the country (and subsequently how much money the BBC must make from TV licencing!).

These two pictures are of the Richmond Forest, sneakily taken from the back of a huge flat-back we'd filled with dead trees. Throwing trees onto the back of that lorry if TOUGH work - even dead trees - that weigh half of normal because they have no needles... I have a new level of respect for the warehouse people.

1 down, 8 to go.

And so the 1st term as a clinical vet student comes to a close. It's been good. Long, but good. There's been a lot of lectures, but they've been necessary (though some pretty boring, not pointing any fingers radiography and anaesthesia) and generally pretty interesting. I actually quite enjoyed parasitology - it seemed pretty relevant, which was really satisfying. We had a few healthy debates in animal welfare - including one on zoo animals. A surprising number seemed to be against them on welfare grounds - I couldn't help but observe that the vast majority of zoo animals are kept in much better conditions than the vast majority of farm animals. This was especially brought to my attention since working with Richard the hoof trimmer and seeing farms where a large percentage of their cows were lame with significant foot problems. Lameness is a massive problem in the dairy industry especially - it seems that the selective breeding of these animals for high milk yields, along with the massive metabolic burden put on their bodies by this level of milk production has adversely affected their foot condition. Diet also has a strong baring on lameness too. 25% of dairy cattle are treated for lameness every year, and 1% culled because of it.

Un-Recognition

Not the tracing fingers over once forgotten journeys
Memories freshly jogged.
Not the squinted and determined scrutiny of birthplaces
Work places and homes,
And not the futile hoarding of names and places
For Thursday’s Pub Quiz.
Just a myriad of colours, lines, shapes and textures
A jigsaw on a grand scale
And they all blur together as it spins inevitably, and tortuously
Across the floor.

It was dark when we left the vet school today. Wet and cold. Sniffle.

Broken cues

Broken cues - someone (I know who you are WM) has broken the cue in the bar, thus preventing the playing of pool, which is most upsetting - our practice today had to be cancelled.

Parasites anyone?

My goodness me - regular readers, if you are still checking this I bow down to you, for I have neglected the blog for far too long. I am now a clinical vet student don't ya know, and so have been having an inaugural number of lectures, which has been a shock to my system made fragile by last years slack timetable. I have learnt about alot of parasites - those you may have heard of (Ascaris, Toxocara) and those that may never have entered your wormy radar (Ostertagiosis anyone?). Parasitology is very simple: you can split the worms into 2 classes:
1) long wormy things.
2) short wormy things.
If you wish to go into more detail than this, things get very complicated, and of course there is that cut/off point between long and short that no-one can really work out, so I suppose there's a 3rd group:
3) medium sized wormy things that are neither long nor short
And then there are such GI parasites that aren't wormy...
4) Flukes.
And now we're getting into dangerous complicated territory. To tell the truth, our parasitology course has expanded to 137 pages of separation. Phew!

In rainbows.

There's a new radiohead album. Oh yeah - it finally arrived. I've been like a hare (not narcoleptic like the one in the fable) waiting patiently for the tortoise to finish the race - for over 3 years. Finally they've produced something, and it's beautiful. Plus you can pay as much for it as you want! Amazing!

PARTY!

We had a housewarming party, both to celebrate our moving into our funky new magnolia house of innuendo and also to warm it. We felt the number of bodies available would provide warmth for many weeks to come*. People began rolling in at about 8.30pm, and my room became cloakroom (as it's just by the front door) and also toilet (as it is ensuite and downstairs). Many people came, including Bethmo who adventured all the way down from Durham (on a train that took a million hours to get here) to see it, which was really great. Lots of Vicky's course peeps came, along with linguists, vets, friends of Mr Taylor and Mary and much hilarity was had by all.

Until it was gatecrashed that was. Some crayzeees came in off the street after giving some guests some cigarettes and proceeded to drink our wine, piss in my loo and generally get in the way until they left (Vicky pointed them in the direction of the door). Grr.


*Incidentally I wonder if there is an opening for using cows to heat houses? They could be connected up by pipes, and their methane (which would be at a decent average 38.5 degrees C) could be run through the house's central heating system. Just a thought. (Joke)

p.s. photo stolen from Becky VW's facebook page. My apologies. It is of the party.

How to #1

How to...

be a meat-eating fruitarian...

1) Find a goat, or other edible animal
2) Pick up goat
3) Climb up tree, holding goat.
4) Drop goat from tree.
5) Descend tree
6) Tuck in!

we have the internet in the house... a post will come. In the meantime - 14-9 to England, oh yeah.

September forgotten NOT!

I didn't actually post in september. At all. How crazy of me. Incase you're interested I did some hoof-trimming. Went round with a hoof trimmer I know through my Pa, and it was really interesting. They were lovely people, I saw loads of farms (including a farmer I worked with ages ago) and learnt alot. Hurrah!

Houses, Englings and Bronte

Hello!

Recent internet obsession - scrabulous.com and also its facebook ap. They're both great ways of playing scrabble online, and I've become a little obsessed. Best move so far, involved playing "RAPpERS" on the 1st go (70 ish points) and then making it "CRAPPERS" on the next move, getting a triple word and 54 points. Huzzah!

Last week was exciting. I went up to Cambridge for the day to see our new house. It looks about a million times better than it did when we went to look round before (and it still looked good then), probably because there was only me and my sister in there, as opposed to 13 people! It smells a little dusty, but apart from that should be amazing to live in! Me and Hannah had a good day in Cambridge carrying stuff to the house, finding out that the number 7 bus goes straight there, eating in a pub, hoovering (!), talking to lady about horses (?) and making videos on my camera. hehe Larks.

The following day I went to see Vicky (who is looking very well) in London. We went for cake and a drink in a pub around Leicester Square and nattered for an hour and a half before Vicky had to go and feed her family.

This week is Hannah's results week and, apart from that, not alot. I'm reading Jane Eyre (I read Jasper Fford's 'The Eyre Affair' last week, and feel like I should read the real thing) at the moment, and can't really put it down. It's an amazing book - I'm quite surprised really. I got a really old copy from Oxfam in Kingston (along with Wuthering Heights - they were the same print and I couldn't see them split up) - cost me £2.98 in total. Bargainusmaximus!

Tom

On Thursday

Stables, Simpson and Frosts.

I've spent the week at the local stables - the same place I was at last year. It's a It was good fun again, the people there are all lovely, and the horses are all so laid back and relaxed that it's a joy to work with them. We also had visits from the vet and farrier, so I tagged along with them while they were there, spending the rest of my time doing the standard vet student tasks of mucking out, grooming and tacking up. 11 weeks done now - just 1 week of farm experience to do!

In other news, I went to the cinema on Wednesday to see The Simpson's movie. I went with Hannah and Mum and Dad - it was a nice family evening out. The film is good, very funny, just like a modern Simpsons episode by 83 minutes long. The entire storyline does focus on the family which means some of the other characters are forgotten about, but I suppose they had to do that. It is the only movie they've made, and it is called "The Simpsons". However, I think the telly program always benifited from the many well known characters. Still a very good film though! We went on a Wednesday, which meant we got one ticket free (text "film" to 241), but it meant the queue in the Rotunda was huge - stretching out almost to Pizza Express! Rahul said he was going to be in the cinema at the same time (we drew 3-3 at snooker that very day), but I didn't see him. I did see Jfro though, which was cool - haven't seen him properly for ages - we'll have to arrange a drink. Fancy it Jamie?

Radio Shmadio

Last night I decided to take my minidisc player for a little outing (it has been neglected recently) across London to be used during my journey to Rahul's birthday thingie in London. Unfortunately, having exhausted my minidisc on the journey home, I found myself listening to London LBC Radio, for my old minidisc has an FM function. This LBC is a station of moaning. If you've had a particularly tough day, have read the paper (most likely the Express, or Mail) and despaired for the "way the country is going" a couple of times, then this is the station for you. I base this on 1 brief 15 minute listening on the bus on the way home at gone midnight, but it basically involved people ringing up moaning, and, more annoyingly, the DJ agreeing with everything they say, no matter how ridiculous and unfounded their ramblings. Particularly one fellow's argument , "I can't believe they're not giving out killer's names if they're under 18 to protect them. When I was under 18 I was in the army, and was trained to kill", annoyed me. I'm not entirely sure how he managed to link the two statements anyway, but the point I wish to raise is just what a good example of the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude such as that brought up by A Passage to India or Vernon God Little this is. The names of these "killers" are not given, because it is possible that they are, in fact, not killers, and if they are, we have a law system much better placed to deal with them than some vengeful member of the public who will be benefited by a name. In fact, I am often unsure of why the accused are named at all, regardless of age, unless, of course, they are on the run and may pose a risk to the public. I'm sure there will be someone reading this who will have a better idea of what I'm rambling on about - please leave a comment if you do!

In other news, Rahul's birthday was good fun. The food was pretty tasty (though I couldn't finish my main course - I blame the Tetleys Ally bought me) and the place was nice, if a little cramped and over-hot! A little shout out to Mr Todd, who has revealed his frequenting of this site to me. Keep on reading my man, and if you fancy it, leave me a comment to say hi! I hope you've recovered well from last night's shenanigans.

We are not built to cope with all the sadness in the World

"They both regretted the death, but they were middle-aged men who had invested their emotions elsewhere, and outbursts of grief could not be expected from them over slight acquaintances. It's only one's own dead who matter. If for a moment the sense of communion in sorrow came to them, it passed. How indeed is it possible for one human being to be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals and plants and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand she retreats to the permanent lines which habit or chance have dictated and suffers there."

EM Forster, A Passage to India, p219.

A Passage To India

Before I start, I should just give a small warning that this post may give away some of the storyline. However, I would suggest that this book should not be read so much for the intrigue of what happens to Aziz, but for the people and politics surrounds that story. It sounds like a bold and pretentious statement, but in fact the main story framework is extremely small - it is its telling that I found most fascinating.

Aziz is an Indian doctor working in Chandrapore. From the beginning of the book he sparks a friendship with Mrs Moore and Miss Quested, two English ladies, and eventually invites them an some other friends on a trip to the Marabar Caves. During this trip, Aziz and Miss Quested become separated from the rest of the group, and the result is that Aziz is accused of assaulting Adela, who appears to run from the caves. From the moment of his arrest the affairs of Aziz are never mentioned - you have no idea of what has been happening to him, except through the biased words of the Anglo-Indians, who never once mention his name - he is always "the prisoner". This is just an example of the guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude of authority in this book. As soon as the trial falls apart, Aziz is mentioned by name again as if nothing has happened, and he re-enters the story. "From the moment of his arrest he was done for… he had despaired, not through cowardice, but because he knew that an English-woman's word would always outweigh his own." p208.

It's a fascinating insight to the years of Colonial India, and exposes the racism inherent in the system. As I read the book I was filled with a constant feeling of respect for Aziz - it's the way it's written. Because you see all that happens - you are aware of Aziz's innocence and intentions all along, all the prejudice around him is shocking. Perhaps also as he speaks perfect English, and, being a book, you do not really have any idea of the colour of his skin it feels even more shocking. I wonder if this book changed any opinions in the 20s?

Books...

This holiday, I have done much reading, which has been something I have been looking forward to doing ever since exams got to within 4 months away. I list...

• Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre. A pretty good read. Set in southern texas you follow the expoits of an incredibly unlucky and persecuted individual, Vernon Little. He has been witness to a mass murder at a local school, and as the only friend of the dead killer, he becomes a scape goat for the local police intent on "cause and effect". 3/5
  
• The Player of Games by Ian Banks. One of his culture novels, the first I've read. It took some getting into; his writing style is horrible - very punchy sentences, with poorly worded, forced dialogues. However, the story was quite a good idea, and if you can get past the writing and the fact that the characters names are clearly produced by Mr Banks luring his cat across his keyboard (Chiark-Gevantsa Jernau Morat Gurgeh dam Hassease indeed!), it's quite good. Basically, Jernau is a game player, he plays all, and he usually wins all in impressive style. He is taken away to the empire of Azad, where their game, Azad, is so complex that your positioning in a tournament determines your status in Azad society. 3.5/5
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. You all know what these are, and I love them. They're so well written - very few other books have presented the same interweaving and gripping story lines that the entire HP series have. Perhaps it's because there's around 3000 pages of character history, but the character developments are fantastic. An easy read, but well worth it. Not wanting to give anything away, the ending is great. I may have shed a tear or two... 5/5
• The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. The story slowly ducks and weaves, but it's the writing that really pulls you along in this book. It's written from 4 perspectives - three 1st person and one 3rd person. Leo Gursky writes with stacattoed, regularly punctuated sentences, and writes about his days trying to make himself noticed at the end of his life. He'll go into starbucks and order coffee loudly, and then proceed to deliberately spill it. He's written a book, but it was never published - it was given to a friend to look after when world war II began, and he hasn't seen it since. His only love, Alma emigrated from Poland during the war, while pregnant with Leo's only son. Another Alma writes exceptionally for a 15 year old - always questioning, always reasoning, and her brother "Bird" writes his own confused thoughts in his diary, which I suppose is his own was of expressing love. Their mother is translating The History of Love, a book by the main character in the 3rd person piece, Zvi... as the story unravels the stories begin to link together in breathtaking style. I really enjoyed this book, and will no doubt read it again and again. 5/5

Cornwall - Train Japes.

And so Tom travelled to deepest Cornwall. The train journey was a long one (the longest I've ever made), and took me from Paddington to Truro (via Plymouth). I was surrounded by prepubescent school children who, between the sugar rushes that followed mad dashes to the buffet car, were trying to convince each other that as we rushed across the coastal rail, the large expanse of cool blue water outside the window was not the sea.
"It's not the sea you know, it's just a lake," one would say.
"It so is the sea," a small confused voice would reply.
"It's not! It's a lake"
"It's not! It's the sea"
"No, lake!"
"Mr BARKER!!" the little voice would exclaim. "Is that the sea?"
"Of course it is the sea," the much maligned Mr Barker would reply. Ah, if only we all had an authority figure like Mr Barker to make everything right.

I seemed to have been followed around by the smell of cheap bacon. I foolishly went to burger king at Paddington, and the kid opposite me bought a bacon bap... man it smelt bad. Plus, on the train from Paddington I was sat next to an old lady who also smelt like bacon. As I expected, when I saw Alex in Truro she put these "olfactory hallucinations" down to the only possible cause - brain tumour. Humm.. hopefully not! Thankfully the smell left later that afternoon! Phew!

Truro was lovely, we stopped for a quick cream tea in a little tea shop with incredibly high ceilings with hanging baskets with honed, pointed bases precariously dangling from it. Eep!

I'm sorry it's been so long. As the time since my last post stretched out, so did the amount of stuff I'd done, and so the inclination to write got less and less! Since I last posted, well, loads of stuff has happened. I've graduated (I now have a BA!) with a 2.1, which I am delighted about, and have left Cambridge for another long summer holiday.
Then, family holiday to Centre Parcs which involved much golf (some very poor rounds, and also some half decent rounds) along with swimming, badminton, squash, barbecues, snooker, kayaking, pedaloing and lots of cycling. Was really good fun. Then, home for a few days, during which I tried to organise my last two weeks of farm experience (and failed), and then I toddled off to Cornwall, which is where I'll start catching up the posts. My apologies.

eeek.. it's been a month. Update coming soon, I promise.

I'm a graduate! A boy with a BA. Woah. We had an amazing day, somehow it hardly rained at all, which, considering the recent way the weather's been, was very lucky! We had photos, rehersals, canapes, champagne - the whole shabang. I spent the day wearing a shirt, jacket, gown and hood, which eventually became incredibly heavy on my shoulders - it was a surprising relief to take them off! We all lined up in senate house, and when it eventually got to me I knelt down, had something mumbled to me in latin, and was then Tom Ward BA! Hah!

#Marillion, Marillion, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Marillion.#

Marillion are the best band in the world, and yesterday they came to Cambridge. They did a little signing session, and played a few songs (See it Like a Baby, 80 Days (which I really didn't expect) and The Answering Machine) in the HMV in Lions Yard. I was stood at the back listening to the Answering Machine and did a little double-take as I realised the person standing behind me was Mark Kelly*! He had turned up a little late, but signed my CD none-the-less. I managed to get my CD signed by all the guys and had a little chat with Mr H about The Cooper Temple Clause split-up (I was wearing my TCTC T-shirt). It was incredibly weird seeing these guys who have had such a huge influence on my life in the last 5 years in the flesh, and realising they are real people (though a little objectified by the signing-session). When I walked into HMV they were playing Marillion on the PR, there were Marillion CDs everywhere and everyone was wearing Marillion T-shirts. Having spent the last 5 years spotting every little reference to them that I can it was like sensory overload!!

*Marillion Keyboardist and Sample Man

Then, in the evening they played at the Junction, supported by Kingrat (who were pretty good, a little datedly prog, but ok). They played a huge two hour setlist: Splintering Heart | The Other Half | You're Gone | Thankyou Whoever You Are | Ocean Cloud | Fantastic Place | The Last Century for Man | Somewhere Else | The Wound | Between You and Me | King, and then as an encore: Easter | Garden Party | Neverland (a 26 ish min encore!).

It was amazing to hear Garden Party live, an homage to the prog days, chosen by H due to the fact that it's a Cambridge University piss-take:

#Champagne corks are firing at the sun again | Swooping swallows chased by violins again | Straafed by Strauss they sulk in crumbling eaves again ... | Please don't lie upon the grass | Unless accompanied by a fellow | (May I be so bold as to perhaps suggest Othello)#

It was written before I was born, and is typically Fish, but good fun in Cambridge. They also played Ocean Cloud, which was great lice - I've often wondered how they'd play it live. It's always amazing seeing those 5 guys make such an incredible and full sound. H is an amazing leading guy and put on a proper good show, even climbing over the gear during the encore. King was incredible, I completely lost myself in the ending, and Between You and Me was amazing live. All in all, a fantastic gig. I left with an incredible buzz and a sadness that so few people get to experience Marillion... jeez, I sound like an evangelist!

xxx

BBQ!

The pictures from the barbecue are up on flickr (click here), and a couple are on facebook too. It was an amazing night - everyone seemed to have fun, no-one got set on fire, and hopefully all the sausages were properly cooked. Unfortunately Sainsburys barbecues are useless, the first one didn't get very hot, and the second one failed to light - the paper burnt, but none of the coals caught, despite Bethmo, Alex and my best efforts (including pouring on half a box of matches, and some dried grass). However, I made a commando trip to Sainsburys (on Andrew's bike, which is pretty nice to ride, though the gears were broken) and got a 3rd one which was amazing.
We ate, drank and were merry, plus Bethmo brought a frisbee which we played until it got so dark that decapitation was a real worry.
We also drank my birthday bubbly. It's a little late I know but it was nice to have a celebration now the worry of exams is passed.

Passive Smoking

I have just been playing snooker, and despite having probably lopped a week off my life expectancy and come back smelling like an ashtray, I won 4-1. Well, the 2nd frame was a travesty given that I only won by a point and that was only because Rahul gave away 20 points in unlucky fouls, so 3-1. Still a decent victory though, and I did get a 17 point break (Red-Black-Red-Black-Red) and a 15 point break (Red-Blue-Red-Black).

Excitingly, not too long before the snooker hall will have to become non-smoking. Just over 2 weeks till ban-day!

Through a last-minute email, I played Cricket this afternoon for Clare. Unfortunately there was a severe lack of players, but a few people were drafted in by the captain to play. Unfortunately they spent the majority of their time taking in Sri Lankan, so the team spirit was not really there, but it was a good game, and we had a fantastic day for it. It's the perfect thing to be doing in the sunshine! I scored a cracking 10 runs, and wicket kept. It took me a few overs to get into keeping, given that I haven't done it since my days playing for the 3rd XI with Tiffin, but eventually I got the hang of it.

The evening was spent making a quick dinner and then heading down to the bar. Alex and Vicky discovered Cranberry Mojitos, and I drank J2O. It was nice to have an abstenance evening, and we had the bar pretty much entirely to ourself. It was nice to have a chat with the bar staff, play a game of pool and laze around on the sofas for 2 hours.

Tom

p.s. Tomorrows is barbeques days!

Finals Almost Over

It's Thursday, and I've been free for 50hours and 24 minutes. Alex is in her final exam (must think statistical thoughts!) and will be finished in an hour and a half, Ella will be finished in two hours, and then this evening we have formal. Tom finished on Tuesday afternoon and arrived home with tonnes of M&S biscuits (not just biscuits) and with the phrase "I love English". This is a good sign that a) he has made the right decision moving from Physics to English and b) that the exam went ok! My daughter Vicky has finished her exams and is currently languishing in the bosom of her family back home in Somerset, Louisa is nearly done (tomorrow) and her exam yesterday on the Kuran went ok - she had some funny anecdotes of exciting points she made. The Englings Vicky, Iona and Erika finished last week, as did Reece and Bethmo finishes tomorrow.

The summary can be generalised as "Cumulatively exams are almost at 100% completed". Hurrah!

So, what have I been doing for the last few days? Well, reading mostly! I've finished "The Dawkins Delusion", which was well worth reading, probably before you an embark on "The God Delusion". See my brief review below. I've also just bought "Can a Darwinist be a Christian: The Relationship between science and religion" by Michael Ruse. The journey to understanding begins!

The Dawkins Delusion

The Dawkins Delusion - by Alistair McGrath and Joanna Collicutt McGrath.

I must admit that this was a very good read. McGrath gives a fair and well argued critique of a book he describes as "often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids, suitably overstated to acheive maximum impact, and loosely arranged to suggest they constitute an argument". He essentially portrays Dawkins as an "Athiest Fundamentalist" who's main aim is not to pass on the message of evolution to the uninitiated, but to wipe out all world religion. One of my favourite quotes sums up how McGrath views Dawkin's world view:

"Here is Ruse's comment on what happened next:

'When John Paul II wrote a letter endorsing Darwinism, Richard Dawkins' response was simply that the Pope was a hypocrite, that he could not be genuine... Dawkins himself simply preferred an honest fundamentalist.'

Ruse's comment immediately helps us understand what is going on. If Dawkins' agenda was to encourage Christians to accept biological evolution, the Pope's statement would have been welcomed... Dawkins is unable to accept that the Pope - or presumably any Christian - could accept evolution."

It appears that Dawkins is a character who shares many attributes with fundamentalist Christians and is in fact doing more damage to the atheist/Darwinian cause than any creationist. In my opinion, and I have held this view for some time, he does genuinely believe that evolution is the be all and end all of life on earth: "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” (A River Out of Eden, Dawkins 1995). However, until reading this book, I pretty much agreed with him - though I was willing to compromise for religion. Having read this book my eyes have been opened even further to the possibility of a God. One of the most important revelations (as well as the aforementioned "Real Magic" was that many scientists are religious. And, in the words of Gould "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with atheism"). Religious belief is not infantile, or stupid.

Thus, I must agree with McGrath. While Dawkins' books on the natural sciences are well argued, clear and enlightening, it appears that The God Delusion is a departure from his usual well argued, scientific, evidence based writing. Now, I have not read The God Delusion, but having read this critique I'm not sure I want to. Dawkins arguments seem to lack depth and carefully researched arguments - many of his points rely on long-defunct Christian theology, in short, if you do read the God Delusion, read The Dawkins Delusion as well - at least give religion a fair shot. McGrath has the advantageous position of an ex-atheist Christian trained in molecular biophysics and also theology. Read the book, and make your own mind up. In my mind, Dawkins has lost alot of respect.

How much is religion "blind faith" and how much of it is reasoned?

The AMAZING Sheep

It is done! The photo of the finished sheep is on flickr.

So that's it then! After two months of preparation, they're done. Not really out in a blaze of glory, the essay I wrote on Mod4 was very poor, but hopefully my Mod3 essays will make up for it. It still hasn't really sunk in that I've finished. I finished my exam and was met by Rich and Dan outside (with a bottle of champagne), and then skipped back to Braeside with Alex via sainsburies. Then, much beer and hamburgers later I've tidied my room, done some washing and made a new monkey picture - such are the labours of my day. I'm slighly confused - surely there must be some work to do!?

All in all, the exams went ok. I wrote 12 essays, 62 pages of writing in 12 hours. My poor wrist is knackered after the exertion. Some essays were bad (generally the DevBio ones), others were pretty good (Hurrah for fetuses!). But, most importantly they're done! Results in about 2 weeks!

There are a couple of things for me to catch up blog-wise. There are photos of the rise of the sheep of furry-whiteness (which if you're really lucky, and I'm not too drunk might even be animated), and similar photos for the grow your own pet egg dinosaur thing. Explanation to come soon.

Anway, that's me free! I'm gonna look after Alex for two days, she finishes on Thursday, and then it's off to Formal on Thursday evening, and hopefully horribly downhill from there! Yay!

Yours Relievedly, Tom.

3 down, 1 to go. So close

Real Magic

Nnrgh - I can't sleep. Winding down time with a bit of a conundrum - I'm not eloquent on the subject, but here's the way it seems.

My fear is thus: If one assumes there is a "god", for want of a better term, then all I have spent the last 3 years learning about is pointless.

Why? If one assumes there is a "god", then all the glorious feats of science and biology that I am confronted with, baffled with, and amazed by are nothing but simple creations to him. It's not this apparent simplicity that upsets me, more the "magic". It' s all here by magic. Our hugely complex physiology is all there by magic, the brain... magic... he did it. Oh... How dull.

Here comes the revelation (I'm sure it's been said before a million times, a million ways, but it's a personal realisation that has got me thinking properly for the first time about this subject). Maybe it is "magic", but, magic that functions in a way we can describe - science. It is incredible, but explainable. Where does this leave God? There's no reason why there shouldn't be a God. Science can explain a lot extremely well (the expression patterns of Engrailed in the Drosophila parasegments to take a poignant example), but surely a point will be reached where we just cannot explain some things - they'll be outside our field of understanding? Is such a wangling in of God into scientific understanding just an "easy way out" for the religious? I'm no longer sure that it is. Many scientist are religious, and they are certainly not "deluded fools" as Dawkins would have you believe.

Why God? this is my main problem now. I've leaped over the "Science and God are mutually exclusive" boundary (that, incidentally, Dawkins still seems to be stuck behind), but why bother with believing in something so unbelievable, why bother with "Church" (though of course, by church I mean any sort of religious ritual)? I'm working through these parts slowly... but it's an interesting journey. This "real magic" point really has excited me, but I'm still nowhere near anything but agnostic.

Any (constructive - no knee-jerks) ideas are welcomed.

Experimental Design

Experimental design questions. They've not mentioned them all term, but a few turned up on our sample exam paper (and a few is a significant amount when you have to write 3 essays out of only 6 titles - just read about what interests you indeed! Pfff!), and I haven't got a clue about how to answer them. I went along to Sidney today for a chat with some other people doing this module (which apparently is not being run next year - it seems we are the 1st, and last to do the making babies module), and we spoke about a few ideas for some practice questions. Unfortunately, they have all done experimental projects (in fact, I think only 2 out of the 11 people doing Mod4 did theory projects, me included), and so as a result they know loads about experimental procedures. Apparently grafting experiments cannot be done in Zebrafish as they're not robust enough - do it in chicks instead. These questions seem a little biased towards those who did experimental projects. Now I find out!

Anyway - that's what's bugging me at the moment, and is the reason I can't sleep... maybe writing it down will have helped. Goodnight!

currently listening, Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius. Ahhhh.. better.

I'm glad to see that this blog is No.1 on a Google search for "mitten man". I was worried it actually meant something!


currently listening, The Cure - Bloodflowers. Probably not the most relaxing thing for trying to get to sleep, but a really good album none-the-less

Somatic Recombination

"If only my brain could be somatically recombined - then I'd know all my stuff" Alex

Squash.

Hello again! T'is me, Tomthevet. Who'd have expected such a face on here, this blog of sorts... The work continues... who'd have thought that 'n'all!? I've taken to saying "Right!" in an important directing sort of a way, to try to motivate myself into getting up out of the tea-chair and into the work-chair. T'is tough. I've kinda reached the stage where I've been revising for so long that I don't know what I do and don't know. It's about as confusing as a confusing thing on confusing pills walking on confused stilts in the worlds shortest confused person championships.

I played squash with Andrew this morning. We went down to the court at about 8.30am, and played for just over an hour. It was good fun, nice to be able to get out some pent-up aggression and adrenaline on a little-black ball. I feel quite calm now (though I have just woken up from a wee nap). En plus, I must work on fetal growth. What does insulin really do?

21!!

I am now 21. My brain cells are 21. My essence is 21. How old! And so, I am now a MAN. I have to be MANLY and OLD and MATURE. Apparently. According to these "age-based stereotypes". Well, hear this peeps, I'm probably gonna stay the same. For a few years more anyway :).

I had a good day. It is exam term, but I managed to avoid work for pretty much the whole day. We all went for a picnic in the sun at lunchtime to mark the day, and will certainly have an uber party after the exams have finished. Unfortunately the Englings had their 1st exam the following day, so there were stressy-exam vibes, but that's the way it is. It was good to have everyone there in the sunshine. Plus there are more cakes in Braeside kitchen now than any human could eat.

You may have noticed the massive 3D "21" in the right corner of this post. Alex gave me my presents in sculpture form - Suffice to say I was somewhat impressed, though it didn't last too long - I got many exciting things (including an Aston Martin!!). Vicky and Erika gave me cool presents too, including a "Magic Sheep" and a "Growing Pet Hatch 'Em", both of which involve growing and will feature on this blog in the coming days. Oh, and socks... I ALWAYS need socks.

Looking up

Things are looking up slightly. It was really sunny today, and I slept in so was actually awake all day - it's definitely the best way to get the most out of revision. Also, Marillion are doing a signing-session in the HMV in Cambridge on the day of their gig. Hurrah!! 5pm. Don't let me forget. ANYONE.

I went to a Chalk-talk yesterday lunchtime, my 2nd talk/lecture thing all term, and also my second in a week. It's only when you start revising that you realise how much you hate some things, and how interesting other things are. The talk was really interesting and linked a few lectures we'd had in Mod 9, which will be pretty helpful in an essay.

Nnnrgh - work. It keeps on coming. On the plus side I have two pigeon hole packages. Oooo

2001 A Space Odyssey

Just watched "2001 A Space Odyssey" in Tom's room. It's Kubrick so Iona's doing it for her exams, but Iona's literature and visual culture paper is a good excuse for us to still get to watch a few films in exam term. It's very good. Very slow, tense and beautiful, but slightly un-understandable (are you supposed to?) and is full of strange references to the human body (sperm, uterine lining, egg, fetus, CNS etc).

Olfactory Ensheathing Cells.

Yesterday was spent mostly in the midst of an extensive amount of Neural Degeneration. Why won't CNS neurones regenerate when PNS ones will, and what can we do to stop this? And, I read about some very interesting cell types, the olfactory-ensheathing-cell. The injured CNS provides an inhibitory environment to axon regeneration, but the OECs may be able to ensheath the axons and provide a permissive environment for axon growth by integrating with astrocytes in the brain. It's all quite exciting. In mouse studies they've helped axons regenerate across a cut spinal cord and led to some functional improvement. Clinical trials have started so watch this space for developments.

Plans

In other news, a last-minute "I can't be bothered to cook" turned into an exodus to Nando's last night, though, as it was closed, we ended up at Wagamama. They've just opened one in Cambridge, and it's really nice. Classic Wagamama food, but a nice view over Emma college too! It was nice to escape the work for 2 hours, and plan what exciting things we're going to do after the exams.

• Go to London
• Go punting to Granchester (of course!)
• Possibly a 3-legged shared gallon challenge. :)

It's my birthday on Wednesday! How exciting.

Tom

Exams.

I haven't blogged for a while - my apologies! The work has got huge, and a massive apathy-fear-thing kinda took over. BUT, I've made a revision plan now and I have more of a concept of how long I've got before the exams. Hopefully I can follow it through and remember the stuff I did first in just under 2 weeks time (this time in 2 weeks I'll be in my 2nd exam). I've got diagrams of signalling in gastrulation on my wall, so, fingers crossed it'll stick.

In other news, it has pretty much rained solidly for about 3 weeks (look out for headines of "Wettest May Ever"), which I suppose is good for the sake of the reservoirs, though less so for us. Yesterday was sunny though, so the world has been re-happied.

Pff... here goes another day.

Dev Bio Saviour.

I'm posting this for anyone who may happen to study developmental biology at any point. It will seem daunting, it will seem nigh-on impossible, with genes rushing about all over the place. I hope this post will help you. I hope it'll end up on google, like most of my pages do and will direct you to this book in your time of need. PDN dev bio, Cambridge... here you go...

Instant Notes, Developmental Biology

you may think pfff instant notes, what an undetailed waste of time. Nope. This book will clarify everything - in fact, I'm regretting ever going to lectures. Instead I should have just read this book time and time again. It's really brilliant.

Jenga

"A slipped disc is just God playing Jenga with your spine." Me

Knowedge (sic)

"Knowing that you know what you know is almost as important as knowing what you know." Me

Chutzpah (KHʊt'spə) - what a word. Look it up.

Busybusy

Have somehow not blogged for 2 or 3 days, despite this being exam term. I have been pretty busy the last 2 days with this and that, and trying to cram work into every moment in between doing stuff, eating or drinking tea/coffee. Plus it's been bloody freezing (as mentioned in my previous post) and it's going to be the same all week. How depressing!

Sunday night was Open Mic Night (photos). Alex was pretty nervous all day but calmed down while the guy before us was playing, while I did the complete reverse. Hehe. We played "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Proof" by I Am Kloot, and "The Fear" by Travis. It went pretty well, and Sam (who was running the CAMS (Clare Alternative Music Society night) apparently enjoyed CYHSY even though he's a great fan of theirs, and the 1st year medic I met at the Medic's dinner who said "Proof" was her favourite song on the I am Kloot album also seemed to enjoy our rendition. Hurrah! It was good fun!

Yesterday was a pretty full day, so much so that I did no work! OOer. I'll have to have a purge today. Mary came round for coffee in the morning and we sat in the kitchen chatting to her from 10am until gone noon. I then rang Rahul (who was still in bed) at almost 1pm to get him up and out to snooker, and we went to WT's for a few hours. We played 5 games, drank 4 pints (in total, not each) and he pipped me to the post 3-2 on the last black. Nnnrgh. For some reason we got a free pitcher of beer when we got the table, so, not to turn down a bargain, we happily obliged. "It's a little early" I said. "It's never too early" she replied... Fair enough!

We then went to our 1st "Improver's" dancing class in the evening, which was pretty hard. We'd missed last weeks lesson, so we had to catch up the Rumba and the "hestitation" in the quick-step, which was really hard to get our heads around. Still, good fun though, and we got take-away icecream on the way home (at 10pm - hooray for La Margherita). Then, we had coffee in the kitchen with Iona, and I discovered Horlicks... a strange malty concoction that should probably be avoided at all costs, but somehow tasted slightly pleasant. Don't think I'll be drinking it again though. I also somehow got on to the topic of "gene knockouts" and tried to explain the "cre-lox" system for knocking out genes in specific tissues... I wasn't wholly successful, but that was mostly due to my poor explanatory skills. I left in where devils fear to tread... should have gone for something more simple like mRNAi or oligonucleotides. Nevermind!

Adieu,

Tom

Am in the computer room printing - the pleasant and healthy whirr of the colony printer stack behind me, and finally, some warmth. Braeside has been freezing over the last few days. The weather has taken a decided turn for the worst, and the heating has been turned off. I've been wearing a stupid number of layers for May! If it's gonna be cold, why won't it rain! We need the water.

I went to the Clare MedSoc Dinner last night, as all medics are essentially honourary vets, we allow them to name their Soc after themselves. Bless'em. It was pretty good fun, I sat next to a first year and a 2nd year medic, and chatted to them about... well... stuff, as you do, and enjoyed the 4 course lavish meal with "free drinks" as supplied by the fellows. Which was really good! I guess there aren't many places you could go and get a 4 course meal with pre-dinner champagne, wine on-tap, and port afterwards for the measly price of £20 really!

Happy Birthday Blog

Five days ago, it was this blog's 2nd birthday! I guess this exciting redesign can be a part of the birthday celebrations.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMTHEVET.BLOGSPOT.COM

addendum...

It has been brought to my attention by a Mr Greg that my pictured monkey is, infact, agnathic, being neither prognathic or in the possession of any jaw bones. However, the original quote (referring to one "Tomthevet") stands as "A prognathic mitten-man", for reasons unknown (excepting a slight overstudying of primate-skulls).

I hope that has cleared up some confusion.

Tom (A prognathic mitten man)
and "Chimpy" (An agnathic knitted-chimp).

p.s. This is Post No. 250! Wow.

Stem Cells, Cafes and Facebook

Today... Alex's dissertation was collected - her supervisor hasn't really filled in much so she's a little confused as to what exactly is wanted, but hopefully she'll see him soon and get a better idea. I was quite impressed with it personally. I'm trying to bash my way through a lecture on stem cells which is less than riveting and filled with beautiful pointless sentences like "VEGF maintains Flk-1 and PECAM1+ sheets from day 1.5". Wow. I can honestly say I'm impressed. I'm going to run downstairs now and tell everyone in the kitchen what a wonderful insight into the world of developmental biology I'm having. This was supposed to be interesting. nrrrgh.

In other news, it's been freezing today! Alex and me went to Cafe Rouge for dinner and we nearly froze on the way down there. The food was amazing though. I had beef bourgignon (mmmmm) and Alex had chicken in white wine sauce. I then had creme broule (whatever else!) and Alex had a chocolate crepe (so French, so tasty!) and then coffees and things. Was really cool.

Am also playing snooker with rahul on Monday... no doubt I'll thrash him again like last time. I'm enjoying his facebook status at the moment "Rahul is facing four weeks of unadulterated lie-ins." Mine is "Tom is unable to understand why no-one likes Marillion".

Other highlights include "Lizzi is terrified. Google "lizzi edwards" with the speech marks and the first ELEVEN results are actually her... shit." Mmm... someone's bragging a tad! "Vicky is lacking in judgement after compressing her head" - I assume after the tiny child's crown she wore to the bop, and "Greg is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it".

I really don't want to so this stem cell rubbish. Can you tell??

Tom

currently listening, Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 1.

Banners!

As you can probably seen, my blog has just risen about 900 points in the beauty and general eye-pleasing imageyness scale™ . Allow me to demonstrate:

0 (black screen)
10 (Cambridge bioanth website)
100 (My old blog)
1000 (My new blog)

I found out how to randomise banner images (see this link) and made some pretty pictures involving PG-tips monkey. Yes, not only am I advertising an admittedly quite poor tea company, I'm also showing off my monkey - who is damned cool. And also, the random "prognathic mitten-man" makes ever so slightly more sense when there's a knitted (like mittens) monkey (usually prognathic, though this one less so) on the front page in numerous situations vaguely relevant to my life. Expect many more as the exams get nearer and as I venture further afield with the monkey. There are 4 so far... press F5 or click here to refresh the page and see them all.

Hope you enjoy!

Tom

Weebl and Bob

What day is it now? Thursday google desktop tells me - how convenient! Ah, weebl and bob... CSI edition...

Weebl: "Lo boberto consuarlez"
Bob: "Lo Justice shades"
Weebl: "It look like this baker has been shot"
Bob: "twelve times in the face"
Weebl: "a real *puts on shades*... baker's dozen"
The Who: "Yeeeaaaah (+ guitars)" key intro.
Bob: "but a baker's dozen is thirteen!"
Weebl: "unlucky... for some"
The Who: "Yeeeaaaah (+ guitars)"
Bob: "where that music coming from!?"

Just so good. Watch it

Sunshine!!

The sunshine is beautiful. I sat outside with Iona, Tom and Louisa for about 4 hours on Monday, revising as best we could in the glorious sunshine. Even in April, sitting directly in the sun is tough - we found ourselves shuffling around with the tree's shadow. Alex and Vicky auditioned for 5 1/2 hours over two days, and had a lot of auditionees - we'll have to wait for the results to see who gets selected! They're due a week of sleep pretty soon!

In other news, we went to formal last night, in celebration of Ella's birthday much past, but missed. The food was awful, but we all had good fun. Ella was properly chuffed with her presents (A space hopper, a murder mystery, a purse, some earrings, some chocolates and 2 DVDs - we split off into boys and girls for her shopping, guess who got what...). I've put some photos on flickr.

c u r r e n t l y

Currently reading: The Dawkins Delusion: a critique of The God Delusion - should be pretty interesting.
Currently working on: Limb Bud Development
Currently listeninging to: Interior Lulu by Marillion - an epic track from their 2000ish album Marillion.com. Not an easy one to get into if you've never heard Marillion before, but beautiful none-the-less

Photos

I've joined flickr as an attempt to make my photos more easily available online, as blogger is often a little unsure of which photos it'll keep, and not everyone has access to facebook. My URL is http://www.flickr.com/photos/recognisetheview/ with the username recognisetheview if you just want to search for me from the main page. All the pic resize to 800 pixels, so if you want a BIG original copy, then just email me!

Enjoy!

I've just finished going through Module 3, and am not far off making lecture notes for the other 3 modules. Getting there...

Last Friday was the "What you wanted to be when you were younger" bop, which was really really good fun - probably one of the best bops for a while. Vicky, Iona, Erika and me went shopping (yes, I was a girl for the afternoon) for costumes, and I picked up a hard-hat from an army surplus store for £7. I need more use out of it, so no-doubt next year whenever I do any sort of DIY I'll be putting on my hard-hat. "You need a plug rewiring? Of course, I'll just go and get my hard-hat".

One never can be too careful.

But yargh, bop was good fun and photos (with my exciting new camera!) are available on flickr.

Cambridge

I have returned, and spent much of my time back in Cambridgeland putting finishing touches to my dissertation. It's now all handed in and completed, so it's in the lap of the Gods now. It was nice to see it all bound up and posh-looking, all 23 pages of it. Iona, Vicky and Erika all handed theirs in today, so we're all going out to Dojos to celebrate, hopefully followed by a bar trip.

In other news, I broke my cafetiere! The glass bit now has a tasty hole right in the bottom. No full on (non instant) coffee for me until I can get a new one and I can see me needing it in the coming weeks. The only question now is where to find one!?

__________________
Update: I now have a cafetiere - £7 (-70p student discount = £6.30) from Whittards. I got it from the scary lady. It took all my guts to ask her to go and get them.

I wanna feel alive, gas up the 4-wheel drive.

Good evening all. I haven't posted ALL holiday - which is a bit lame really. First thing's first - there's a new Marillion album, so I'd better get a review out the way.

Marillion - Somewhere Else.
After the first few listens I was, how shall I put it... shocked... and somewhat apalled. H's voice has a real habit of sounding terrible when he's singing something you're not used to. His melodies seem random, and his voice seems droll. But after a few listens it sounds incredible! You realise why he's singing why he is, and how it sits with the rest of the song. Because they have a tendency to make such epic songs, you need to know what's coming to enjoy the rest of the song. That's why I love them so much - every minute of (almost) every song is building up to something big, small, poignant, whatever. Just magical music.
My hilights from the new album are the opening track (The Other Half), Most Toys (which has a radioheadesque guitar line running all the way through it), The Last Century for Man, which builds up beautifully similarly to King (if you know Marillion!) and has the best few seconds on the whole album ("I wanna feel alive, GAS UP THE 4-WHEEL DRIVE). Oh, and A Voice from the Past (which I hated at first), is perfect. Perfect guitar solo, perfect vocals. Glorious.

This album is probably the biggest grower since Marbles!

I've also recently bought the new Maximo Park album, and the new Bloc Party album, and both are pretty good. Somehow none of the songs hold me like Marillion though! I'm going to see them in Cambridge in June! Hurrah!

Finished Gormenghast

It was a really good series.

Well, the 1st 2 books anyway.

It's dark, it's beautifully written, and even in the page-after-page where the castle just undergoes it's painful and unceasing monotony, it's worth reading, and still holds you. And of course, when something does begin happening there's no way you can put it down. The last book is strange, and such a huge leap away from the first two, that I found it a little strange. Titus leaves the castle, and finds a magical land with cars, and flying space-ships. All a little weird and unexpected for my tastes. However, if you get the chance, read them. It's well worth it.

Pub Golf.. FORE!

Met Matt et al. in Surbiton for a number of people's birthday's (Matt and Matt infact!). We played Pub golf all the way to Kingston. Lalalalala. I got hole 1 (Guinness) in 2, that's 2- par. Oh yeah - hardcore me! Then I didn't play the next round, but lied to Dan (who was scoring), or the next round (but lied again)...

Then we all gave up cos everyone was FAR to drunk to carry on (though no hangover for Tom! I know my limit now. Woooo!) and spent an hour or so in The Mill (which had NO drinks. I had to get Gabriel his 4th choice. FOURTH! jeez!) and then went on to McCluskies, and danced to shite music till the night was done. Was pretty good fun all told!

Pic stolen from Natalie. Sorry, and Ta!

Alex's visit

Alex visited - we went into London to see Vicky, and had the classic Wagamama lunch, with the less classic Haagen Daas dessert - the service in that place is terrifyingly personal. Just give me my food and leave! We also ate LOADS of Pret (darling Pret) a mange, bought numerous textiles commodities in Kingston (for Alex is once-again making her own ball-dress!), had chinese takeaway, watched programs about GIANT SQUID. mmm... invertebratey, and generally enjoyed having a couple of days together and without work.

Today I had my last ever lecture in Downing Site. After three years, and a fair few hundred lectures in there it's all done! Can't believe it's the end of my EIGHTH term in Cambridge - it really has flown by. I'm stupidly relieved that I'm not leaving after this year though!

Lots of work done Saturday... many notes made, more lectures understood - all good.

Emma bar that evening. Had scary 9 foot sofa. No-one danced. Was a bit lame. Saw Rich though. Came back to Reece's. Had gardies with Bethmo. Saw the Royal Tenembaums. Was bon. Went to bed at 3am. Sleeeeepy. So slept till 1pm. Lots of work done again. Adventure up Histon Road and scary back streets. DINNNNER

Want house? Get house.

We have a house! We spent this afternoon wandering around the Chesterton region sneaking around cute little terraces trying to find somewhere to live. We saw 3 houses in total, and paid a deposit on the first one we saw. It was really lovely - a great sitting room, big kitchen, side covered outside bit, off-street parking, and 6 bedrooms, 3 of which are en-suite. The rooms are small (presumably the house is made to only have 2 bedrooms!), but it'll do the job, and with the lounge we won't need much space in our rooms. The 2nd house was nice (bigger bedrooms) but the lounge was in the basement - felt like walking into a dungeon. The third house was newly revamped, but unfortunately was ALL corridors - the kitchen was a tight galley, and there was no living room (just a breakfast bar). All in all, a good choice was made. Now all we have to do is set about planning how to "make our mark". Get out the spray paints and skull-and-cross-bone stensils!

bathtub 2

Today the bathtub made it to its final home - the english faculty. One excited drama-studio fellow helped us lug it down the stairs, and the world was happy.

in Cambridge, there is a bathtub...

In Cambridge, there is a bathtub...

It was thrust into the world many moons ago with a hiss of smouldering iron and clank of moulds. For a numer of years its history has remained elusive. No-one is really sure where it lived (though presumably in someone's bathroom) or what its purpose was (some suspect it was used as a bath). However, it was eventually picked up by the Cambridge ADC theatre who required it for a play, and it played the role of 250lb* cast-iron bathtub expertly; like no actor could have done**. However, its weight and unstoppable bid for the crown of King-of-all-rustedness led the prospect of its final days being lived out in the pouring rain with nought but a prop-filled skip for company. Its number was up, until a play was written. A play so perfect that it required a bath.

THIS bath.

Like greenpeace to an oil spil the directors of this play flocked to the bath's side with friends and taxis in tow to bring it to its rightful place back on the centre stage. After much scooping, de-watering, turning, seat arrangement, huffing and also puffing, it was positioned on the back seat of a taxi and transported to that so illustrious of Cambridge colleges, Clare. Here it was unloaded by a team of handsome muscle-men*** and was given its own room complete with central heating. So royal was this bath that mere "acting-removal-person" plebs were left to walk or cycle to Clare while the bath rode in its carriage of expense.

And so it was a happy day for the bathtub. Soon, oh so soon, it shall have its golden day once more, soaking up the applause in the English faculty like those goading sponges and their soap-water.


* estimate
** (the phrase "no human could play that part" springs to mind, but no doubt Andrew could have had a good bash)
*** Me, Vicky's friend Joel and a Taxi Driver. So awe-inspired by the life-story of this bath was the driver that NO questions were asked. And why would they be!?

The Ent last night was really good fun. We danced pretty much continuously (with the odd drinks break) from 10 till 12.30 when it closed. It was an indie/alternative set, so we got to hear such classic wonderments as the Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Maximo Park, and, really impressively, Doves (Pounding). Really good fun.

TDL SAVED!

In other important news. TUDOR DRIVE LIBRARY HAS BEEN SAVED! See the article in the Surrey Comet:

How to avoid lions, bears and catch up vaguelly on what I've been doing.

It's been a while again. I was being so post-worthy last month, and this month it has just died.

"Could you rinse a lion if it charged at you?" Apparently this is the best tactic should a lion be attempting to take-down your LIFE in a big field, try and rinse it. The best way to do this is to SHOUT and RUN and WAVE YOUR ARMS. Freak it out, just like you would a small cat in the road that has just stolen your chicken fillets. Just so you know. Don't try this at home (lions don't really go in suburban London), OR with bears. They get "scratchy".

So now you know.

In other news, I had a formal with Tiffin friends and Uni friends, which was really good fun. Rahul and me beat the buttery staff at pool, and Chris told us all about facebook. ALL about facebook. He really is the king of that place, though merely through total-man-hours-spent. Natalie is going to London to be a REAL LIFE DOCTOR, Andrew is cool, and Joe is the May Ball President! Hardcore!

Also, we went to see Tom perform at West Road with his quartet. He played Schubert, though not after we'd watched a concert pianist playing many a piece, each interspursed with violent, AROBTTH inducing bows. He was good, just bowed. ALOT.

Tonight is my "daughter's" birthday, so we're going to TeriAki (mmm noodley goodness - in other news a Wagamama is opening in Cambridge. Finally!), which should be really good fun. There's then an indie/alt Dj in the cellars, so no doubt we shall toddle down there.

Sorry for it being so long, hope you enjoy the album spinny chart below:

"An Essay Bastard: The illegitimate offspring of my brain." Alex

Spinny Album Chart

The soundtrack to my life.

Courtesy of Jenjen,
How to make the soundtrack to your life…
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle/random
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

• Opening Credits: Sunday, David Bowie
• Waking Up: Vegetable, Radiohead (ahem!)
• First Day At School: A Whisper, Coldplay
• Falling In Love: Sebastian, Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel (blimey!)
• Fight Song: The Hardest Button to Button, The White Stripes (amazing!)
• Breaking Up: It Ain't Necessarily So, Nicola Benedetti
• Prom: Gleaming Auction, Snow Patrol
• Life: Oh You Pretty Things!, David Bowie (so true...)
• Mental Breakdown: Paper Lies, Marillion (clearly I'll break down over money)
• Driving: Packing for the Crash, Tom McRae (scary... this is completely random...)
• Flashback: Billets Doux, Django Reinhardt
• Getting back together: Script for a Jester's Tear, Marillion
• Losing your virginity: Aftermath, REM
• Wedding: The Fountain of Salamacis, Genesis
• Birth of Child: The Hindu Times, Oasis
• Final Battle: You Fool Noone, Deep Purple
• Death Scene: No Cars Go, The Arcade Fire (aw)
• Funeral Song: Cave, Muse
• End Credits: Shine it All Around, Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation

I have never heard anyone so excited about pyrex bowls as I did today.

More later.

Or maybe I'll just leave it like that actually, seems quite magical.

Comic Tales of Criminal Insanity

Porters with concerned looks wandering around Braeside have just reminded me of the "prolific burglar" who's imminent release from prison we were warned about. This prompted much increased security measures (not a bad thing), and CCTV photos being circulated, and so I put in a maintenance request to have a lock put on one of my windows (the one without a lock). When the maintenance man turned up the next morning with a yale lock and a confused look on his face, I had to bite my lip. None-the-less he soon realised what I wanted, and I am now secure.

A week later, said prolific burglar is back in custody. AFTER A WEEK OUT OF PRISON. How.. just how can you do that? Either he is a klepto of the highest order, or just REALLY good at leaving clues........

SAVE TUDOR DRIVE LIBRARY

Have just been on the phone to my sister, and I have been given insider news (that I am now going to share with the whole of the internet) that it is proposed that Tudor Drive Library will be closed in the next few months as part of "money saving" cuts courtesy of our wonderful local council (Kingston this is, not Cambridge). So we say goodbye to the local library I have used all of my life, and goodbye to the ladies at the desk who have been there for as long, if not longer. And, goodbye to my poor sister who will be made redundant at 18. Hah.

Intriguingly, the entire library was extended, refurbished and had a new roof fitted only two (possibly fewer) years ago. Surely it would be stupid (not to mention and immense waste of capital investment) to close it, along with the fact that a huge number of local people rely on it. It is an invaluable resource for both young people, for whom it's convenience to an estate which is otherwise isolated (relatively) from local resources, and for old people who cannot walk the few miles to the nearest library.

I'm not talking closure on a rural scale here - it's not like we live in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere where the nearest library is 8 miles away, but it's the principle of the thing. It's so well used, and closing it is going to enrage alot of people. Surely a better money saving idea would be to close each of the libraries in Kingston for one extra day a week - thus reducing wage and running costs?

Save Tudor Drive Library.

Daily blogs - what is happening!

I seem to be blogging daily! This is clearly because I am not doing enough work. Well, actually, as my lectures still haven't really got going, and one of my courses is exactly the same as one I did last term, I'm feeling quite lazy. Thankfully it's giving me time to concentrate on my dissertation, which is proving very interesting. Hence the heron - I've just been finding out how they hunt fish underwater despite the refractive distortion of the water surface... I'm going to see my supervisor next week, so I may well start writing up soon! 0 words, 6000 to go.

We had another pool match yesterday, but unfortunately lost 5-4 again. HOWEVER, Matt unfortunately knocked the cue on the white when taking what would have been a winning shot on the 8th game, and our (nameless) opponents jumped on it and demanded a foul. How unnecessary.
Bethmo, Emily and the other inhabitants of Wilflete had a party last night, so we popped over and showed our faces for a bit - played "What's the worst thing that could happen to your friends", which was surprisingly entertaining for a game with possibly the most depressing title ever invented. It included people getting stuck at the age of 10, going blind, going on big-brother and marrying Jade Goody, getting stuck in an Eden project bubble, performing religious faux pas while saving cows and the country splitting in half. Was quite eye-opening.

Marillion - Somewhere else #1

Post number one (of which there will probably be many) about the new marillion album . It's available for preorder at www.townsend-records.co.uk/marillion. For £11.99 + a free DVD. Yaaargh!

12:58 - just preordered mine. Roll on Easter Monday!

"It's nice to see a natsci... over there... leaving," were the words Alextheboy used to sum up our formal last night. Surely tongue-in-cheek and slightly confused - no doubt he didn't expect to give a speech on Tom, Reece and Iona's birthdays, but when none of them would stand up after a round of "Happy Birthday", the onus fell first to Alexthegirl to say something, followed by Vicky, and then, not to be out-done, Alex. He was, of course, refering to TomT's englingness, despite two years as a natsci. Was pretty funny.

Formal was nice - the food was amazing (Fish-cakes to start. Really tasty fish cakes. Then we had some delicious beef for main, and a white chocolate and amaretto chocolate cream cake for pudding. Wow!)

Oh, and I wore the pig cuff-links that Hannah got me for Christmas, and amazing they looked too!

no news ever turned up re. the power cut. My curiosity rages. Curiosity also fed by J.Fro's little poser..

There's some exciting stuff going down in Cambridge today. I got to my lecture at 9am, and was turned away due to a powercut. It turns out that the whole of the sciences site (a Big site) is down. Rumour says a psycho digger maybe to blame. Hopefully some more news will come in later. The plus side is no lectures! Huzzah! Unfortunately the snow melted quickly at about 10.30 when the sun came out, and so it was not a fabled all-the-schools-closed "snow day". Nevermind.

The sky is a strange hue of peach, and the world is white. What a lovely morning. I don't mind the cold, or the fact that I'm up at 8am anymore.

Freezing my nagits off.

Man it's cold. I'm doing washing so all my windows are open (to stop my room becoming wetter than the eden-project on a day when the sprinklers get stuck on) which means it's freezing. Luckily, Alex is wonderful, has constructed a draft excluder for her door, and is letting me camp out in her room, and letting me steal her internet (for Kingfisher research (apparently they have 2 foveas) and for blogging. ahem).

Brrr.

How I wish I could speak German: Free Translation:"The eye of the kingfisher (Alcedo attis attis) possesses a temporal, very eccentric lain Fovea next to the nasal central pit of the retina. Accordingly we find a lens of the form of a lying egg whose sharpener is on the other side of pole of the temporal Fovea. Also the Ciliarkörper correspondingly asymmetrically is constructed. The form of the lens is stipulated through the edge bulge. It is to be supposed that the unusual lenses form serves in addition to sketch in the immersing of the bird after fish prey on the temporal Foveen a binokulares picture if through omission of the breach power of the cornea in the water the picture becomes on the central Fovea fuzzy. The building of the central Fovea shows an especially intense differentiation of the layers."

Slowslowquickquickslow

Yes, last night I danced. Like I have never danced before - in a way that could not only be recognised as dancing, but could also be quantified step-by-step. Alex and I went to the University Dance Club beginners' ballroom class, and danced the cha-cha, waltz and jive. We danced so well that I infact dreamt that I was being shunned for dancing so appallingly in clubs or at bops. But, it was only a dream, and I shall carry on dancing stupidly, BUT with a hazy knowledge of a little bit of ballroom. It was really good fun, but got progressively harder as we went on. I'm bad at leading, and the Jive, despite being full of easy steps for the man was probably the hardest to lead, and that confused me. Aside from that, and a little toe crushing in the Waltz, we were really good!

YAAY!

c u r r e n t l y l i s t e n i n g t o

The Cooper Temple Clause - Make This Your Own.
The band released this album in its entirety for streaming on the NME website a few days ago, and upon first listening it was awful. The thrashy-synthed, slightly angry TCTC that I had grown to love seemed to be dead. The songs seemed poppy, badly produced and dull. However, having taken the plunge and, against my better judgement, bought the album anyway out of loyalty, it's actually not too bad! The album is much better produced than either the previous releases of the songs, or the NME stream, and, while it contains a few duff songs, the majority are still recogniseably TCTC.
The song "All I See is You", is amazing. It starts with the quiet rolling eerie noises I loved from their first album (e.g. the track 555-4823), and ends with Panzer Attack guitars and shouty singing - so unmistakeably TCTC. I could not describe how happy this made me. #AAAAIII will fiiind a waaaaaaay to youuuu#. It even ends resonantly like Talking to a Brick Wall, My favourite song they have done.
Even the songs that start poorly (like Connect) do eventually build into something, which has calmed my worries of a "Four Day Hombre" style album. They've made use of the other singers in the band, which in my opinion is a bad thing (Ben Gautrey just sounds like TCTC), and songs like Isn't it Strange and Take Comfort suffer for this, though they tease with All I See is You by starting with another singer but ending with some classic Ben.
Overall, this album is much more of a success than I ever expected. £9 well spent!