tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365310412012-02-13T10:45:56.156ZRJRnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7641100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-63376435560573646622012-02-08T20:51:00.002Z2012-02-08T21:00:02.392Z

Format, the Pet Shop Boys' new album of B-sides, came out on Monday, and my copy arrived from Amazon today.  So far I have listened to the first three songs, and they are all brilliant.  Here is one of them, a very simple sad love song.  I don't think anyone does simple sad love songs like the Pet Shop Boys.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-58393085093666959072012-02-05T22:02:00.001Z2012-02-05T22:02:46.766Z

I like this new M.I.A. song, and the video involves stunts with not-flashy cars.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-39895640096694249252012-02-04T13:09:00.000Z2012-02-04T13:09:02.064Z

The London Underground works by everyone on it acting as though there is no one else anywhere near them, even when (or especially when) they are jammed together so tightly that there's no need to hold on to the rails because there's nowhere to fall over into.  Every now and then what seems like a group of people just trying to get from one place to another suddenly displays some striking act of

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-42786498059471289062012-02-03T22:15:00.001Z2012-02-03T22:23:29.231Z

I've definitely broken my resolution to spend an hour a week in a museum or other cultural institution.  But I'm not going to abandon it, just try to keep it when I can.  So this afternoon I went to the Wellcome Institute to see their exhibition Mexican Miracle Paintings.  These are little paintings given to churches in thanks for miracles or answered prayers: freedom from prison or an unjust

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-26433920638330798572012-02-01T21:34:00.001Z2012-02-01T21:34:23.679Z

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Summary of Lord Lyttleton's 'Advice to a Lady': Be plain in Dress and sober in your Diet; In short my Dearee, kiss me, and be quiet. Stooshe have released a single called Love Me which is a de-ruded version of their song F*ck Me.  They start off with simple word substitutions like "Your play's fine but I ain't got the time" but towards the end they run out of

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-32880376789817870422012-01-29T12:41:00.002Z2012-01-29T12:44:00.384Z

The number of things I'm failing to blog about gets larger and larger.  The second week of term was worse than the first, and in third week I started to feel like I was getting some control back until my laptop died.  My housemate/landlord has gone away for a month and it's wierd how much this is disconcerting me given that I lived alone in Cambridge for years.  But then, I had pets there.  I've

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-26936030113845477442012-01-18T10:05:00.002Z2012-01-18T10:05:24.885Z

I am sitting in a Robotics lecture right now being simultaneously amazed and freaked out by this robot, "Big Dog".  Watch when the man kicks it. They're currently envisaged as pack animals for soldiers, but I doubt we civilians will escape on the day when packs of them tire of their servitude and trample us all to death. There's also a Little Dog, if you're interested.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-71734330747366973502012-01-17T12:03:00.002Z2012-01-17T12:03:38.070Z

What is intelligence?  I don't know.  I think maybe we need as many words for it as the proverbial Eskimo has for snow.  Remembering things is intelligent.  Managing your life is intelligent.  Being able to make people understand you is intelligent.  Being able to train a dog, that's pretty intelligent.  I'm intelligent if you count having a PhD as being intelligent (and I think that is true for

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-59838853673067885672012-01-14T14:41:00.001Z2012-01-14T15:34:43.105Z

This week has been hectic for large reasons but also for small annoying ones: 1-- I bought some shampoo which turns out to smell of chicken coops.  It's the smell that wafts out when you open the little coop door in the evening, and the chickens are all there fluffed up in the darkness, and they peer at you beadily as if to say "What? We're roosting", so you shut the door again and leave them

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-14261824445992487562012-01-08T14:32:00.001Z2012-01-08T14:32:36.576Z

Aaaagh, I have an exam tomorrow, and another one the day after.  I haven't done any exams since 1997, and no non-humanities exams since 1994, back when many of my classmates hadn't yet started school.  C++ is tomorrow afternoon, and Prolog on Tuesday morning.  Doing well in them is out of my reach -- my hope is to achieve a respectable pass.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-65836361389064481102012-01-04T19:30:00.001Z2012-01-04T19:30:55.480Z

1. Why has Amazon just recommended to me a book called Tater's Bear, in a series which seems to be entitled "Siren Everlasting Classic ManLove: Erotic Alternative Paranormal Romance"?  When I went to "fix this recommendation" it turned out to be because I had previously purchased .... a Kindle.  I've heard it said that rudery would flourish in ebook form in the same way that polaroid cameras will

RJRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-1415617344483779122012-01-03T12:58:00.000Z2012-01-03T15:55:43.152Z

It's definitely true that people change people. The characters of the people you are friends with make a difference to what you're like, especially the friends of your youth.  When I think about how life would have been different if I had done Maths or CompSci as an undergraduate the thing that seems really crucial is that I wouldn't have met people who helped to shape my character.  Also it

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-9951766008887312011-12-31T18:00:00.000Z2011-12-31T23:28:15.453Z

One of my three New Year's resolutions for 2011 was to keep track of what I read. I've done this using LibraryThing, which is quite a good system. So here is my personal set of book awards for 2011. Favourite all-round book of the year: A tie between these two, which are both humane, amusing, and intelligent: Moo by Jane Smiley Rameau's Niece by Cathleen Schine Moo is a great campus novel

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-22706141172885598132011-12-24T15:44:00.001Z2011-12-24T15:44:58.871Z

1. I forgot to post about things I read in November. I mostly enjoyed books by Elinor Lipman, who is gently funny, or sometimes not so gently in a Spark/Pym style. (E.g. The Ladies Man.) Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman was very enjoyable. Strictly speaking we ought to be further along in feminism than this by now, we shouldn't need someone to point out that equal treatment for men and women

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-14759160425599300792011-12-23T16:55:00.001Z2011-12-23T16:55:39.303Z

Popjustice's list of the top 45 singles of 2011 is out. (Have I mentioned that popjustice is great?) There were two great songs on it which I had missed. Here's Donkeyboy (who did Ambitions before Joe McElderry), City Boy, with quite a watchable video: And Selena Gomez, who deserves sympathy for being hated, did this excellent pop song, Love You Like a Love Song.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-70856121003508559642011-12-22T16:31:00.000Z2011-12-23T16:32:14.288Z

I met my brother's baby girl, my little niece. I suppose in the normal run of things one just doesn't encounter little babies very often. I was struck, just like I was by my nephew when he was tiny, how wierd new babies are. I can't remember what philosopher it was who said that we can never know what it's like to be a bat, but I could make a much better go at imagining a world defined by

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-48779925025249690042011-12-20T17:45:00.003Z2011-12-20T17:45:55.254Z

So it turns out that when I emended my mother's term "bip-bop" to hip-hop I was wrong and she really meant beat box. I think I might have guessed this if I had thought more carefully about the small likelihood of her substituting the labial plosive b for the glottal pseudo-fricative h, the fact that even Devon-dwelling grandmothers have probably heard the term hip-hop at some point, and the

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75273407848453109302011-12-20T00:00:00.000Z2011-12-20T00:00:07.436Z

Because my last post went all ecclesiastical I didn't quite feel up to posting at the end some other videos, especially this song, which I enjoy as music, but which is depressing if you listen too much to the lyrics, which seems to be just how things are these days (unless you're listening to a rapping vicar, in which case the other probably applies).  I quite like Andre 3000 as a talking cat.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29418211505693688822011-12-19T16:39:00.000Z2011-12-19T16:39:46.187Z

I'm back in Devon.  My mum collected me from Honiton and drove me back through the Blackdown Hills.  She tells me that they had a rapping vicar at church yesterday morning.  She said she was surprised at first but that when she listened she thought the lyrics were quite clever.  "He didn't call it rapping, though," she told me, "but bip-bop."  I asked if it was possible she meant hip-hop, and she

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75742931736716193382011-12-15T12:27:00.000Z2011-12-15T12:27:00.475Z

So here we are in the middle of week eleven, the last of term.  It's been very hard work, and I feel simultaneously relieved at the thought of a break, and very anxious at the idea that we have almost finished with one of just two teaching terms for the whole course.  I've been doing OK in coursework, but the courseworks are a tiny tiny piece of the total mark.  I got one back yesterday that

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-67283864983065823562011-12-04T15:03:00.001Z2011-12-04T15:40:29.865Z

When I was a student the first time round it was a relatively short time since most Cambridge colleges had started to admit women, a short enough time that no one in my year at Trinity was going to have a mother who also went to Trinity.  The gender balance of colleges and courses was something people were aware of in the way that they were also aware of the need for a balance of social and

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-7141374135922485822011-12-02T23:20:00.001Z2011-12-02T23:33:58.290Z

My niece was born this morning.  I am now twice the aunt I was!  It's very exciting.  I don't know how my little nephew will deal with being a big brother.  He's usually quite a nice kid -- he has an endearing habit when playing of stopping and handing the toy over to you, saying "your turn now" -- but I think any child would be challenged by the sudden arrival of a smaller more demanding sibling

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-51386203329380064422011-11-25T10:38:00.000Z2011-11-26T12:29:02.321Z

Here are some good things: 1. The 20th was stir-up Sunday. The full collect reads: Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may be by you plenteously rewarded through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Most Anglican collects come from late Antique Latin via Thomas Cranmer or one of his ilk, and in the sixteenth century they

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-82990530466283027822011-11-12T11:27:00.001Z2011-11-20T14:03:57.726Z

I'm panicking a bit about how I don't really understand Systems Architecture.  So I've got hold of the standard textbooks and am trying to get through them all this weekend.  Obviously the other thing I need is good music to keep me going while I read up on pagefiles and commit charge.  Here's Little Boots' new song, which I really like: Also, if like me you're a Community fan, and I don't get

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-31413294385925674022011-11-08T22:00:00.001Z2011-11-08T22:00:48.445Z

I'm living a bit of a double life at the moment, but for once in a good way.  I got a bundle of offprints the other day and sent them out to the usual people.  As a result I've been in touch with quite a few people to whom I only talk intermittently but of whom I am fond, and I have lots of nice postcards from professors on my corkboard. In my other life as a computing student I am working very

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-81400624626306012792011-11-05T10:00:00.000Z2011-11-05T10:00:07.080Z

I didn't read much in October, unless you count books with titles like Problem-Solving in C++ and Structured Computer Organization.  I liked The Family Markowitz by Allegra Goodman, though I still think Intuition is my favourite of hers.  I also liked some short stories by Muriel Spark -- her particular sort of nastiness comes over well in short story form.  But the thing I enjoyed most was

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-11056774099924133222011-11-04T13:42:00.000Z2011-11-04T13:42:24.901Z

Now we've done some logic of the "Either Adam or Bill is a murderer, and if Bill is a murderer then..... etc" type, we've started doing some stuff about the basic logic that underlies the physical implementations of computers. For example, if you have an AND gate in a circuit then it has two inputs and one output. If both the inputs are true, or 1, which means that they have a small current

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-83376390388463973752011-10-30T10:12:00.001Z2011-10-30T16:52:32.722Z

The Occupy London camp is a wonderful place. I went down for a Sermon on the Steps event which involved several people from different faiths or none each talking for about five minutes. But one of the things I love about London is its occasional chaoticness -- people selling poems on the streets, that sort of thing -- and the camp is like that but all mixed in with a huge earnestness about

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-85038053303162314642011-10-29T10:38:00.000Z2011-10-29T10:38:19.936Z

1. My course! My MSc course is immensely cool. I am so enjoying being right at the edge of what I can do. I have found two people older than me now, a 36-year-old and a 40-year-old, so we can occasionally catch up and talk about ZX81s and such. A lot of the kids were still in primary school when I got my first degree. But actually they're a really nice bunch, and some of the ones who were

RJRnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-20375472278339402332011-10-18T10:04:00.000Z2011-10-18T10:04:19.290Z

1. I am making a small hostage to fortune here by stating that I am really looking forward to starting Logic Programming this afternoon. I enjoyed the logic I did over the summer, and Prolog is something I've been vaguely interested in for a while. However, everyone in the department speaks of logic in fearful tones so it may turn out that I'm being naive. 2. Looking instead to the past, this

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-37612664329857289542011-10-15T14:23:00.001Z2011-10-15T14:23:35.094Z

I feel very guilty for not going to help occupy The City today -- especially since Imperial is so cosy with big business. (It's like the Daily Telegraph to Cambridge's Graun.) @heardinlondon posted this brilliant picture from the steps of St Paul's: On the steps on St Paul's Outside St Paul's #OccupyLSX on Twitpic

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75378287649933979332011-10-13T21:23:00.000Z2011-10-13T21:23:36.082Z

Tomorrow is the last day of our intensive 2-week C++ course, and next week we start on systems architecture, logic programming, and such, as well as continuing C++ at a slightly slower pace. To mark the end of intensive C++ we will be given our first formal assignment. We get two weeks to complete it, and there are three lab sessions (when there will be TAs available to answer questions while

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-6448938318870943682011-10-12T09:02:00.000Z2011-10-12T09:02:28.188Z

My course is really hard work. I'd like to say "in other news" but that's all the news there is. Luckily I'm still getting the endorphin rush when I get things to work, and I'm getting through it at a steady pace -- not quickly but not getting stuck either. In this I'm reminding myself of every mature student I have ever taught. Earlier this week I was finding some of the other students a bit

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-20191081466286641572011-10-06T18:58:00.001Z2011-10-06T19:10:42.050Z

I'm a student again! I used to enjoy teaching a lot, but somehow it just feels right to be back on this side of the lectern. It seems like such a tremendous luxury to have intelligent knowledgeable people telling me things. On the first proper day of teaching I felt more completely out of my depth than at any time since the start of my undergraduate degree, but both times in a really

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75659549964025025962011-10-02T16:39:00.001Z2011-10-02T18:06:54.506Z

This Frankmusik song has the catchiest chorus ever. I also really like the video. (This is not how I think of Frankmusik.) Also Nicola Roberts' My Lucky Day has really grown on me. And I have completely changed my mind about Gary Barlow. Back after Take That split up I used to think of him as the epitome of talented but unappealing. But seeing him and Robbie reminiscing at Judge's Houses

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-48580956964846394832011-09-30T10:05:00.000Z2011-09-30T10:05:21.326Z

Mark Blackburn, super-excellent coin man, intelligent conversationalist, one of the best sort of scholars, has died at 58. I only just heard.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-34525510951508469642011-09-30T09:45:00.000Z2011-09-30T09:45:03.235Z

It's the last day of September and I am fretting about some electrical works the details of which I will not bore you with here. So I thought I'd take some time out to blog about some of the more noteworthy books I've read in September. 1. Reamde, Neal Stephenson. I'm a big fan of Stephenson, and I loved this book. But I was a bit wierded-out by the way it didn't seem to be about anything.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-9050175843342456632011-09-28T11:06:00.000Z2011-09-28T11:06:50.565Z

PS Bill Bailey is in a bunker surrounded by rats.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-12079577248089254302011-09-28T10:57:00.000Z2011-09-28T10:57:13.640Z

1. I moved to London! This was despite the best efforts of a nasty cough which my Dad picked up in China. He was lured at short notice to an international conference on biodiversity, the organisers having suddenly noticed that their international conference had only one overseas participant. So they panicked and asked my Dad and a few other people including a Norwegian who is one of his oldest

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-52788752490516039642011-09-22T12:47:00.000Z2011-09-22T12:47:33.167Z

After a couple of difficult weeks when I removed at least one massive spider from my room most nights, I now haven't seen any for several days. Last night I was bitten twice on my arm by insects. I do know I deserve this.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-30122350650505801662011-09-15T16:54:00.000Z2011-09-15T16:54:07.219Z

Last night I evicted a massive spider from my bedroom in my parents' house. Just now I removed four -- four! -- from the collar of a coat that lives in the same room. I spent most of the day ignoring them, trying to be the bigger person, like Uncle Toby and his philosophy that there's enough room in this world for us and invetebrates. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't stop thinking about them

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-44135329289338168582011-09-14T20:03:00.002Z2011-09-15T13:54:34.886Z

This week I have been missing a) the internet b) my mum. My mother has gone on holiday for the first time in something like fifteen years, and is only rarely reachable by phone. At my little Exeter house, where I'm trying to get things up to scratch so I can let it out when I move to London, I'm double stymied by not being able to ask either google or my mother questions about basic DIY.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-4940587887773728902011-09-02T12:44:00.000Z2011-09-02T12:44:14.281Z

I was writing a reply to a comment made by Anna (from Step by Step to the Classics) on my last post when two things happened. 1, for some reason blogger won't let me leave the comment and 2, the comment got ridiculously long (which may be the cause of 1). So I thought I'd post it as an actual blog entry. It's mostly completely unsolicited advice about PhD and post-doctoral work. Since some of

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29875275033426852192011-09-01T19:15:00.000Z2011-09-01T19:40:00.258Z

1. I've sold my little flat in Cambridge and am buying a little house in Exeter. I haven't let myself get excited about this hitherto because apparently at the moment roughly one in three house sales are collapsing without getting anywhere, but now we've exchanged and my buyer can't pull out. (Or at least he can, but he'd forfeit the deposit, which would be a consolation of sorts.) So now I'm

RJRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-61885068227424592592011-08-16T15:47:00.000Z2011-08-16T15:47:16.696Z

1. When my PhD supervisor left Cambridge he was given a farewell party in the English Faculty (under the auspices of which the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic resides, in much the same way that Winnie-the-Pooh lived under the name of Sanders). At that occasion he gave a speech in which he was very rude indeed about the English Faculty. It was one of those speeches which is quite

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-56660468740805175482011-08-09T15:07:00.000Z2011-08-09T15:07:37.683Z

Off of kottke.org, a slow-motion owl:

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-89173363030681601652011-08-01T23:06:00.001Z2011-08-01T23:07:02.524Z

... is a sub-heading in a book I am reading about the programming language C++. It contains no philosophical insights as such. (Unless you think that treating 1 (or any other number) as true and 0 or null as false implies agreement with the Augustinian vision of evil as parasitic on the good, having no independent existence.) Anyway I thought I'd comment on a few good books I read in July. 1.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-72933965855595406102011-07-29T13:34:00.000Z2011-07-29T13:34:35.972Z

I have a cold, and I'm at that early stage in the cold where the world seems overwhelmingly doomed by every kind of stupidity and nastiness. This morning I decided that all politicians, journalists, charming young men, and estate agents should for their own good be cryogenically frozen until such time as we come up with a cure for being a massive wanker. And I also cried about the US deficit.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-38590575334547489032011-07-26T19:23:00.000Z2011-07-26T19:23:00.670Z

Here as promised is some video of the new baby alpacas. This afternoon all of them went up to the shade at the far end of the paddock by the pheasant pens. You'll see that my camera copes indifferently well with sudden changes from darkness to sunlight. When the young ones are a bit older they'll go with their mothers to the main female herd up the road.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-60787612163970963962011-07-25T21:45:00.000Z2011-07-25T21:45:49.761Z

I am writing this while using the operating system Linux, specifically the "distro" (I think that's short for distribution) known as Ubuntu. It's hard to say why this is thrilling me. I've installed it alongside my Windows installation so I can choose which to use at start-up. In the meantime, here is a bobcat sitting on a 40-foot cactus. He looks very cool, but also a lot like the little

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-25796916401351283502011-07-22T14:28:00.000Z2011-07-22T14:28:32.296Z

This makes me feel really really sad: http://www.geekosystem.com/parrot-parents-name-babies/

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-27351160847516478262011-07-22T09:23:00.001Z2011-07-22T09:23:49.003Z

This is rather nice: (off Kottke, via Adrian)

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29273034884665741272011-07-15T10:31:00.000Z2011-07-15T10:31:33.739Z

I do so love xkcd. Today's is just brilliant. All three winners of the inaugural Google Science Fair were girls. It's just an Onion headline, alas: Vatican Reverses Stance On Gay Marriage After Meeting Tony And Craig The other day I got an e-mail with quite a good subject line: I made a popstars circle and I suppose they both automatically add whoever adds them. What are the kids up to these

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-7018694106528246732011-07-13T14:52:00.000Z2011-07-13T14:52:47.182Z

Mum named this baby alpaca Kinetic because he doesn't often stop moving. Watch as he bounds up to me insouciantly and stops to smell a flower before wandering off again. Even if you set the bar very high for dorables he is certainly one of them.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-44961649573475354852011-07-12T19:33:00.001Z2011-07-12T19:34:19.555Z

Today on the train I read Rhoda Janzen's Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, a memoir about the author's return to stay with her family after a traumatic divorce and car accident. I enjoyed it very much -- I had to concentrate not to chuckle like a fool or get too teary and freak out the person sitting opposite me on the train. The author's voice reminds me of some of my friends', and it's

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-19543639132887388332011-07-12T07:50:00.000Z2011-07-12T07:50:17.659Z

Most Cambridge fellows are not at all like the stereotype. One or two are, and they're either quite funny or utterly deplorable, depending on your mood and degree of involvement with them. But estate agents! I am fully prepared to start finding estate agents really really amusing just as soon as I have exchanged contracts. They are amazingly consistent at messing things up and then explaining

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-73714080512487630662011-07-11T20:06:00.000Z2011-07-11T20:06:12.642Z

1. I joined Google+. It's mildly irritating in the same way as Facebook. Does this bode well for its future? I have no idea. I loved Google Wave, and look what happened to that. 2. There's a new Waitrose just down the road from my flat. Delicious microwave meals and patronising semi-assembled recipes in boxes ahoy! It's probably a good thing I don't live here any more. My Granny used to

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-26230644454475638742011-07-09T20:12:00.000Z2011-07-09T20:12:22.844Z

I'm away for a few days, but I've had sad news from Devon: my mother tells me that Kenelm was not improving, and they had him put to sleep yesterday. I was sort of expecting this. Although he was very sweet, and tried hard, watching him struggle was only really justifiable if there was a chance his struggling would get him somewhere eventually. They've put Dorcas back into the main herd, where

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-11951782514117382882011-07-06T20:14:00.000Z2011-07-06T20:14:32.715Z

Kenelm had got out into the rain so I went out to put him back in the shelter, and filmed him for a few moments with Dorcas.  She wasn't quite sure what I was there for.  Watch her check him over after he makes a little squeaky hum noise about 6 seconds in. He's a sweetheart, I do hope he gets on OK.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75201295941561538152011-07-06T17:01:00.000Z2011-07-06T17:01:50.685Z

Kenelm is still with us, and I'm beginning to hope that he perhaps might make it after all.  He still can't quite stand up properly, but he does manage to lurch a few steps at a time, and he seems to be getting a little bit better over time.  This morning my parents took him off to the vet for a consultation, rather expecting that they wouldn't bring him back.  But the vet thinks it's worth

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-79773575003008274132011-07-05T10:21:00.000Z2011-07-05T10:21:05.719Z

Dorcas has got her baby Kenelm back, and it was very touching to see.  I don't suppose she'd been waiting by the gate all night, but she was there in the morning.  He's still not able to stand up but otherwise he's quite perky.  I don't give much for his chances, really, but at least he's still around now.  The thing that speaks most for him is that my mother has not given up on him yet.  She's

RJRnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-15674364217620975612011-07-04T19:13:00.000Z2011-07-04T19:13:08.306Z

Unfortunately little Kenelm has not managed to stand up, let alone suckle.  My mother thinks there's some problem with one of his hind legs.  He's gone off to the vet's with a bottle of plasma (which is spun from alpaca blood, and is a sort of baby alpaca buck-you-uppo), but to be honest, it's not looking likely that he's going to thrive.  It's very sad whenever a baby alpaca dies but the bit I

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-91918877200282643262011-07-04T11:26:00.001Z2011-07-04T11:34:34.239Z

When I lived in Cambridge, the sun on the Cam always gave me a reflex stress reaction.  Beautiful weather meant I should be revising, or marking things, or just that the year was ending sooner than it felt like it should, plus suddenly there would be irritating undergraduates wandering the streets in black tie without shame, and I had to put all that extra effort into not hating them.  Devon has

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-84405089567093459482011-06-30T22:44:00.000Z2011-06-30T22:44:59.776Z

I didn't post about what I'd read in May, mostly because I didn't read a lot in May, but also because I was too lazy.  I've read rather more in June, though I am still only halfway through The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose.  It's quite interesting but it moves quickly, so I only really get what he's talking about if it's something I've encountered before, and he makes some great things, for

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-3185123939066498532011-06-29T11:27:00.000Z2011-06-29T11:27:19.009Z

Imagine a teenage girl without much money who has run out of things to read, browsing the shelves of the sort of charity shop where they sell paperbacks cheaply (not Oxfam).  She spots a book called The Deptford Trilogy and likes the cover, or the blurb, or the fact that it's a lot of book for not much money.  She buys it, reads it, and starts a life-long appreciation for Robertson Davies, an

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-4628331049071047232011-06-26T18:26:00.002Z2011-06-26T18:27:22.639Z

This video (off of Boing Boing) shows a 3D printer which is entirely solar powered, and sits in the desert printing sand into glass. This sixteenth-century mechanical monk is disturbing. This song called Magic has quite a magical video (off of popjustice):

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-51770855703519267502011-06-24T12:17:00.000Z2011-06-24T12:17:59.074Z

Also does anyone know what's going on in the Britney video where the driver pours milk all over his head?  Is that a thing now?  If it's something rude please tell me euphemistically, or in Latin.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-83538892126690879322011-06-23T14:45:00.000Z2011-06-23T14:45:34.757Z

1. Maybe I should have a tumblr not a blog.  If I had a tumblr not a blog then this paragraph could be an entire entry instead of needing bulking out with videos.  But if I had a tumblr not a blog then this paragraph would not exist!  Therefore I have no need of a tumblr.  QED. 2. This person is going to tell us all about Plato's views on the holiness of objects... or is he?  Watch the video,

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-46570049647089838642011-06-17T21:15:00.000Z2011-06-17T21:15:34.679Z

I found E. F. Benson's Dodo when it was deaccessioned from my local library. I think I was about 14 or 15. I really liked it and for a while it was one of my favourite books. It's the sort of thing that people are often sneery about now, but it was a big sensation in its day, not least because it was supposedly based on Margot Tennant, soon to be Lady Asquith. E. F. Benson went on to write

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-74642677373823501352011-06-15T23:52:00.000Z2011-06-15T23:52:00.953Z

There is nothing I know more like heaven than walking through Devon footpaths and country lanes on a warm breezy day in mid-June.  I took some photos and videos this morning as I walked down to Uffculme. My mother asked me to count the female alpaca herd on the way.  They will soon number 23 and she wanted me to check that hadn't happened yet.  Here they all are having come down to meet me in

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-31385828843445099172011-06-15T19:42:00.000Z2011-06-15T19:42:49.183Z

The singer Joss Stone lives in our village, in the house where she grew up.  It's at the other end of the village from us, a little way out on the road to Honiton.  You may have seen this Guardian article saying that the police have arrested some people who are alleged to have been planning to attack or perhaps kidnap her.  At first I thought Well done those alert neighbours!  Then I read in the

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29687670067852269412011-06-14T10:03:00.000Z2011-06-14T10:03:40.012Z

1. I tasted all the beers at the Ashill Beer Festival except for those which had sold out by the time I got to them, fifteen out of the possible nineteen.  My favourite was Forge Brewery's Litehouse.  Now I am all beer-festivalled out. 2. I'm not in a position to get a dog but if I were I would ask for one from a litter of Labrador-Poodle crosses being born today in North Devon.  The breeder's

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29795507813344236702011-06-12T00:26:00.002Z2011-06-12T00:26:00.862Z

I went back to the beer festival with my brother and sister-in-law.  Everybody seemed to be there, even the lady who won't say the Peace in church but just sits with her arms crossed staring at the floor while everyone else shakes hands. The Thorvertones showed us that you can get away with covers pretty well if you just go up there and do them with confidence in your own style, and they rocked

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-7865815792526921552011-06-11T20:07:00.002Z2011-06-11T23:10:35.869Z

Butcombe Gold, 4.4% Eddystone, 4.3% We took my little nephew down to the beer festival, and he had an amazing time pointing at the drummer (he plays drums himself, on his dad's drumkit) and then dancing around like a mad thing.  It was his first ever festival.  He begged bits of pork from his indulgent Grandad's roastie bap and danced round in circles until he fell over. He looked like he

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-56557164305479798462011-06-11T12:02:00.000Z2011-06-11T12:02:54.619Z

I have to get my signature on a document witnessed.  The document specifies that the witness must have known me for at least two years, mustn't be retired or related to me, and must be in one of these professions: solicitor, bank manager, financial advisor, police officer, doctor or qualified nurse, head teacher, member of the clergy, accountant, vet, dentist, magistrate, or ranking officer in

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-91649317308633172682011-06-10T21:08:00.001Z2011-06-10T21:08:00.419Z

Forge Litehouse, 4.3% Teignworthy Old Moggie, 4.4% One of the ways in which this village is great is its annual beer festival. There can't be many villages this small that have one. It's on all this weekend in the village hall, a few minutes' walk away, and one of the alpacas' fields has been turned into a carpark for the occasion. It started at about 6pm, and the sound of samba drums lured

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-69859090737392034542011-06-01T10:45:00.000Z2011-06-01T10:45:14.528Z

We live on the surface of a massive rock that's spinning through space:

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-74962148922873376992011-05-31T19:42:00.000Z2011-05-31T19:42:04.618Z

I'm going to be an aunt again!  Or the same aunt but twice.  Hurray!  I wonder how small nephew will react to a sibling?

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29875531792174521182011-05-28T15:29:00.000Z2011-05-28T15:29:00.135Z

1. I had to renew my Exeter Cathedral card.  The postcode of the cathedral is EX1 1HS.  Someone must have done that deliberately. 2. Is it wrong to feel a little put off a solicitor because their phone number ends in 666, given that a solicitor is a type of lawyer?  Yes, it is, so I went with that solicitor anyway. 3. I'm not a fan of Bruno Mars.  I find it annoying how his songs get stuck in

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-23478151223432269612011-05-26T14:50:00.000Z2011-05-26T14:50:31.068Z

Lady Gaga's new album is very excellent.  The best song is Scheiße (or ScheiBe as my ipod will have it): She can't speak German, but she fakes it pretty convincingly. If you'd prefer something not quite as hyperactive here's Bloody Mary: I don't remember Jesus saying anything about dancing with your hands above your head, but I'm prepared to be corrected. There are lots of other great songs,

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-71235231906664844322011-05-24T20:55:00.000Z2011-05-24T20:55:09.364Z

Here's female brown champion Jemima after shearing: She's so little under all that fluff! And here's some video of some of the females in their pen after shearing. They're very keen to get back to their field, which is why they're making those agitated humming noises. Jemima's on the right.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-86998423425740899992011-05-24T15:10:00.000Z2011-05-24T15:10:10.525Z

Here are a few shearing photos. Suddenly the alpacas all look like supermodels, with lollipop heads on spindly bodies and long legs with clumpy feet. The hotstepper They're better off without their thick winter coats, but while some of them are calm about it all a few of them shriek like they're being murdered. I was told there would be cake One Before and several Afters in the

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-72338139667926246882011-05-24T11:56:00.000Z2011-05-24T11:56:35.372Z

I'm sorry, the last post celebrating Jemima's show triumphs should have been titled Brown Girl in the Ring. Here are some fabulous outfits to make up for it:

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-84730250441629880032011-05-24T10:33:00.000Z2011-05-24T10:33:20.874Z

Last August I blogged about the traumatic experience of a difficult alpaca birth that started when I was the only person around. Luckily first my dad and then a real vet arrived to do all the greasing up and little Jemima and her mother both survived. I put up video of some of her first steps. And now look at her! Here she is at the Devon County Show last week, where she won her class, the

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75894528874112767052011-05-22T10:06:00.000Z2011-05-22T10:31:06.498Z

1. I love how cutting-edge technology keeps getting used for quite trivial things. First there were those many odd gadgets in the Innovations catalogue which claimed to have been developed by NASA, as if the point of the moon missions had been to develop pens that worked upside down and really comfortable pillows. Total surveillance became possible, and the concept of Big Brother turned from a

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-42462960183086236542011-05-19T11:54:00.000Z2011-05-19T11:54:57.422Z

1. Fans of Manchester United or some other football team are trying to get Paul Hardcastle's 19 to number one to celebrate their 19th title or something. But this is an angry song about the slaughter of young men in Vietnam and the terrible time the survivors had when trying to return to normal life. It's not really a victory anthem. I think this summarises my problem with sport. 2. Here is a

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-21156426268964406792011-05-18T12:40:00.000Z2011-05-18T12:40:15.587Z

As she gets into the territory of the difficult second (if you don't count Monster and Remix), whether you still like Lady Gaga probably depends on whether you liked her wholeheartedly or reluctantly to start off with. I love mainstream pop, and I still think she's great. She has a new album out on Monday, and on the last two Mondays she has released tracks from it as teasers. I quite liked

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-26284219090364181742011-05-14T20:58:00.001Z2011-05-14T21:00:58.757Z

When lecturing on codicology, or digitisation, or both, I have occasionally pointed out that the new Domesday survey done by schools in 1986, the nine-hundredth anniversary of the original, was unreadable within a decade or two, while the original manuscripts sit safely in the Public Record Office (OK, the National Archives), just as legible as ever. But they did a big project to get the 1986

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-84593245217120899892011-05-09T23:37:00.000Z2011-05-09T23:37:44.442Z

1) My nephew! He's coming up for two and a half now, but he still thinks I'm funny, which is good. The other day I met up with him and his parents by the canal in Exeter. He saw me from quite a way away and ran up to me so I picked him up, and then he looked at me all seriously and said "Rat gone", with the air of one stating a regrettable fact. I'm pretty impressed he still remembers about

RJRnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-89055794937209082652011-05-04T18:47:00.000Z2011-05-04T18:47:15.237Z

Here is a TV phone-interview with the man who inadvertently live-tweeted the Bin Laden raid. Slick CNN lady irritates tweeter by asking if he knew Osama bin Laden was living near his town, a question that is somewhere on the spectrum from very stupid to very insulting. Polite tweeterman later gets his revenge by explaining that he never watches TV and gets all his news from the Internet.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-18651704303387626912011-05-03T22:12:00.000Z2011-05-03T22:12:25.753Z

Hurray for the Germans, who have made this sensible ball-catching and coffee-making robot. This makes a nice contrast with Japanese robots, which seem mostly designed to freak people out. Here is a new thing where you can snog a device controlled by someone else's tongue, possibly the recorded tongue of a celebrity! The designers are hoping in the future to extend the simulation with real

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-9904815935688271102011-05-03T15:50:00.000Z2011-05-03T15:50:18.877Z

Here's the new Calvin Harris single. I really like it -- popjustice pointed out that the breakdown sounds like someone actually having a breakdown. But why is Calvin Harris, who presumably has access to the original, uploading to YouTube a rough rip from Annie Mac's radio show? Is it because he's really really cool?

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-68261265913379621402011-05-03T12:46:00.000Z2011-05-03T12:46:23.313Z

I've been avoiding the coverage of the Bin Laden thing on the whole, but this Boing Boing story about how many American teenagers have no idea who Bin Laden was is quite compelling. I suppose you're lucky with teenagers if they notice someone who's walking on the same pavement as them, let alone someone who's declared war on their country. You can vote here for your favourite American Civil War

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-6283101187281308802011-05-01T11:02:00.000Z2011-05-01T11:02:26.031Z

March and April have both been dominated by Lent reading, which is slow, though I actually didn't manage to get through as much of Augustine on the Psalms as I had hoped. Also some of what I read this month was a bit meh. But books I really enjoyed in April include: Jo Walton's Small Change trilogy: Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half A Crown. If you think of the 1930s country house set two things

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-24269878143195412492011-04-27T17:03:00.000Z2011-04-27T17:03:35.988Z

All small children are strange, and I wasn't less strange than most. When I was about eight I went through a phase of worrying that, if God woke me up in the night and asked me what I most wanted, like he did with Solomon, I would be too confused to say "wisdom" and would instead say "chocolate... no, no, wisdom!" but it would be too late and God would give me loads of chocolate but very little

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-85465394215934054602011-04-24T15:03:00.003Z2011-04-24T15:09:31.266Z

Look, if you've robbed a liquor store and shot the cashier and the police are stumped, you're a fool to yourself if you then get a detailed picture of the crime scene tattoo'd on your chest. The difference between city life and country life. Look at the young elk! This was filmed by David Neils, and he has more on his website, http://www.offthepavement.org.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-33743472758483528892011-04-21T13:41:00.002Z2011-04-21T14:05:55.649Z

Have you got an excellent aunt in your life? I mean one of those sensible, intelligent, practical aunts, more of a Dahlia than an Agatha? Perhaps said aunt is coming up for a birthday, or you'd like to express your appreciation of her qualities in some tangible, easily postable form? Perhaps recovery from a minor operation is forcing her to slow down her usual activities and convalescence is

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-61929496890410805892011-04-20T14:17:00.000Z2011-04-20T14:17:52.420Z

I do love Kickstarter. If you haven't come across it yet, it's basically a way for people who have a cool idea to ask for people to invest in it. They make a video explaining what they're proposing to do, and give a list of options for investing, ranging from cheap to expensive. (The expensive one very often includes a meal out "if you're in the Bay area".) Usually your pledge equates to

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-27712056550715078722011-04-18T13:08:00.000Z2011-04-18T13:08:17.123Z

I really like this: The real thing is not going to top it.

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-37245464632489792502011-04-14T12:26:00.001Z2011-04-15T09:54:05.930Z

I might even watch Eurovision this year, which makes me suspect that people who usually watch it won't like it so much. The UK has finally decided to make some sort of effort by getting our song sung by an actual pop group, though admittedly one that split up six years ago. Here's Sweden's entry, which is great. It's not actually by Bodies Without Organs (BWO) but it sounds quite like them,

RJRnoreply@blogger.com0