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Lord, obviously this is all getting to me more than I thought, I almost cried thinking about your house, especially the big scruffy kitchen. I love big scruffy kitchens. Am I expecting too much? I don't see why I should have to live with either a) media twats who don't cook and have super hi-tech kitchens with empty cupboards or b) people who want to live in complete filth with 2-ring hobs. Boo.

from piginawig :

Want silly online age quiz!

from antipodean :

Wonderful journal you have here. Just thought I'd let you know. I hope the vocational-related gloom has since dissipated and the way is a little clearer.

from snailpetal :

Because academe is an incestuous, polyamorous, screwed-up little world? Because you've been burned so many times? Either try celibacy or dating non-academics, I reckon.

from weymouth66 :

Try LBC 1152 AM or BBC London Live (94.9 FM) - both have curmudgeonly presenters and are often interesting listening.

from refusal :

Wow, we clearly operate on different intellectual levels (with me significantly lower); that would be Pete Doherty the junkie/musician/boyfriend of Kate Moss, not Peter Doherty the immunologist, who is doubtless a far more worthy individual with a much shorter criminal record.

from janthina :

thanks for that. specially the second bit. we have decided instead to become a real-tennis (jeudepaumening?) and swimmning star and forget all about less worthy leisure pursuits (that is, if suitable quantities of antiemetic, antipyretic, antiinflammatory and stimulant drugs can be found to let us survive long enough on the court to be beaten to a pulp by the likes of good king Hal V)

from piginawig :

Where by "comparable" we mean "more than approximately none", of course.

from piginawig :

A bright side, slightly onlookingfor: if you were a male of comparable levels of introversion, eccentricity and asperger's you would generally not even get laid before being spurned. (Don't ask me how I know, I just know.)

from piginawig :

Trevlig resa!

from piginawig :

Yes it bloody would.

from piginawig :

There is no sn� in Londonland, either. I am most disappointed, although the �l and the company and the food are vair nice.

from snailpetal :

Excellent! Going to see the Magic Flute on March 3rd - with Sir Charles Mackerras...also going to see Manon in February :)

from piginawig :

Hurra!

from snailpetal :

Do you want to do Plum Puds? We have 110 rowers and are desperately in need of coxes (after last year's little impaling incident, novice coxes are not allowed) Go on...it's on the 19th December and Sheena is organising

from jennyj :

PS what a spaz. Re below, was obv not a 'mental' note but an actual paper note. And I meant, a note of the development of the idea.

from jennyj :

Yes, Adam Smith ... in an old diary I scribbled down 'Hobbes - Hume - Smith - Darwin - Dawkins' as a mental note. But this book was all about Darwin. I always find Darwin heartbreaking to look at, especially as an old man where he looks so sad. Which he was, because he too was deeply religious and had to try hard to reconcile what he had discovered with the idea of a God and creation. But other people managed to find evolution compatible with creation and - oops, I have started to have The (one-way) Conversation in your notes. Sorry.

from piginawig :

Disciplinary Top Trumps! A favourite at High Tables everywhere!

from piginawig :

My field doesn't rely on novelties in data; we play other games instead.

from harvestbird :

the thing I saw happening in my thesis-writing days (which I like now to think of as an extended exercise in auto-cynicalisation) was supervisors referring to students' research in their own publication in a way which often marginalised and eclipsed that research. What are the humanities, I wonder at times, except an exercise in appropriating or being appropriated?

from snailpetal :

Sorry...it's been too long...tomorrow's my last day in shipping...and some random drunk bloke upstairs seems to be doing an impression of a muezzin or similar. Anyway - masses of politics at the club involving Our Great Leader (now deposed) aka Piers. Write soon, if you can, to my yahoo account ([email protected]) and take care. Lots of it xxx

from piginawig :

Your father's a Fra�lein Dr?

from harvestbird :

yay!

from piginawig :

Hurra!

from piginawig :

"Clustering in temporal distributions: a comparative study of amorous post-docs and London omnibuses", isn't it? (You ought to get yourself a proper guestbladet, you know. When things calm down a bit, that it.)

from piginawig :

Lycka till, with either and both questnings!

from piginawig :

The only thing to say about Public Understandnings is that they don't, which is why it can be safely left to the bishop-baiter Richard "All Dawk" Dawkins. But I liked Blokey that came here, even if he was full of it, so I'll wait (at no extra expenditure of effort) and see.

from piginawig :

Well, I never read fiction, and I try not to read Engleesh much, but there's all the _Swallows and Amazons_ series (you're younger than I was when I started them) or Sapir's delightful _Language_ or Dickens or Hardy, and I've heard good things about Anna Karenina. Or, oh yes, Vikram Seth's _The Golden Gate_, that's vair vair nice.

from pollymagoo :

I just checked Amazon, and apparently they were reissued in 2000 and if I wanted I could buy the whole set. But which is first? And am I ready for this level of commitment?

from piginawig :

Time to "go to the library", wink wink.

from piginawig :

It took me more than three attempts before I realised "macheted leg stump" probably wasn't meant to be a cricket reference... Once you've got a nice PhD, I think you should select a toy-boy from the pool of the freshly postgradual. They can hardly rebuff a Dr Fellow, can they?

from harvestbird :

huzzah! I cheered when I read today's entry--here's to fierce diplomacy. (Also wondering whether the Christmas raygun will actually be in the shape of a gun, because that would be kind of cool.) Thinking of you xx HB.

from pollymagoo :

attractive, not attractibe.

from pollymagoo :

My sauna is on the side of the pool at the council baths, so it maybe bears more resemblance to the hairy helicopter pilot experience than to the hott Swedish/Danish high temperature boozefest experience. Which is not a bad thing. In general I prefer not to go bright red and mottled around people who are genetically about 5000 times more attractibe than I am.

from piginawig :

I got fed up with thinknings last night and amused myself with a bockle of wine and a baritone ukulele ("guitar"). Hours of fun guaranteed!

from piginawig :

Numeracy. D'oh!

from piginawig :

I don't think Medawar would have claimed that basic literacy was of sod-all use to the proles, so whatever your tax return example is a counter-example to, I don't think it's to what he meant. Speculating carelessly, I would imagine he had had too much of the Oxbridge aestheticisme for brekkers that day, anyway, and was likely to be distinguishing the Glorious and Noble Pursuit of Knowledge (science) from grubbing around with applications (mere technology, engineering, at best).

from refusal :

I live in a town full of nice bright people, sunshine, beauty, etc, and I take pride in being miserable and antisocial. Well, obviously I don't take pride, but I don't give a damn either. If surroundings controlled your mood, then I know plenty of places that would be neck-deep in corpses, but since they're not, I conclude it's as easy to feel apathetic in a nice place as in hell, if not easier.

from mattmusic :

Hi, my name is matt, and I was wondering if you would like to talk to me. I am 17. and live in England. Im into music and movies. hope to hear from you soon. Matt

from snailpetal :

Urrrgh - my head! Went coxing this morning with a bunch of Kiwi guys who are doing an 100k row up the Caledonian Channel, climbing Ben Nevis and running to John O'Groats. Not for charity: for fun. NUTTERS! Stephen is engaging in domestic activity (yawn) and I should be researching for FHM interview tomorrow but feel like climbing into bed. My (very minor) cancer op is on the 8th September. I'm not all that fussed about it, but don't like the idea of general anaesthetic. Je suis control freak! Write back soon, y'all.

from weymouth66 :

Love the Molesworth reference! Does 'support the 'pies' mean you're a football fan? If so, do you support Newcastle or Notts County? Love and best wishes, Jess xx

from piginawig :

Point the super space ray gun (6d at grabber & grabbers) at the doctors and demand the skinny on this stuff or else. (I'll be taking one next time, for sure.)

from snailpetal :

You want me to come up & feed you? I get paid on the 25th and so I can probably skip up to Tabland on the weekend and you can show me the black swan and things. Let me know. Until then, I am in skintsville, but can always email or call you.

from readersguide :

Hey -- My mother just had lymphoma. I think there are a million different types, but the type she had responded really well to treatment. Chemo was done in 5 months, and she actually started feeling better almost immediately. It's still kind of a lot (do you have people to cook for you?) but I think you can get through it without having to go home. Best to allow yourself some time to rest, though. (Is that possible? I think it has to be.) best wishes --Chris

from snailpetal :

Sheesh. Bad luck, hen. Guess the news about Mister Baldwin didn't make your day then. When do you find out about treatment options? Guess it proves that you didn't have Weill's back in the day. Have you been reading The Tideway Slug lately?

from refusal :

You might have to fatten your spiders up. I don't think British spiders are big and juicy enough for cooking with; they're all leg and most people prefer the breast meat. On the other hand, witches used to eat them. Don't they eat swans in Cambridge colleges? Do they have special swan farms in East Anglia? Or do they just head out in their punts and get thwacking? Unrelatedly, I think even in the most exulted and educated company these days people think it's a badge of sophistication and breadth of learning to discuss Big Brother and Busted rather than educated things, not that I move/speak in such sophisticated circles.

from refusal :

You won't be laughing when I paint my swans pink and teach them to sing I'm A Gnu. Which will happen soon.

from piginawig :

Your spleen so does not look big in that. (Sympathy, sympathy.)

from snailpetal :

Epstein-Barr? Seriously? Poor thing...and in practise, that means? xx

from refusal :

You could probably have said a burette is a machine that goes "burr" and I'd have believed you and been none the wiser. I think if you spell barette correctly, you get barrettes like these: http://www.goodhairdays.com/boutique-style-brass-barrettes.htm (this will I hope further confuse anyone who's monitoring my web access at work.)

from refusal :

Thank you for the "what is a burette" information. I'll be sure to buy some for all my measuring needs. I know a barette is something to do with hair, but I couldn't explain the difference between a bar(r)ette, a hair slide, a hair grip, and other unnameable things. Also, can you send your black swan up north? I want to test if it's more or less visible to predators than a white swan.

from piginawig :

Hoorah for Fenland Poly and ducks, although not necessarily in that order.

from piginawig :

Hoorah for Fenland Poly and ducks, although not necessarily in that order.

from fusco :

your gbook note could be the answer to the troubling problem of how to actually get photos without endangering myself or others. I shall just have to carry a camera everywhere in the hope of being stuck in traffic jams near my favourite tyre burns, though traffic queuing over them could be a obstructive. i don't think about this much, really truly.

from fusco :

don't get me wrong, i love london and can't imagine living anywhere else, i just do a good impression of a fragile little twit sometimes. photos? strictly for hols only, it's a long story (not unlike this note) but taking pics is a real chore for me, so I have the hassle for special occasions only. hope the unwellness turns out to be something simple - i'm thinking allergy to large textbooks.

from snailpetal :

arrrrgh. feel better soon. i have 'flu' but between you and me, brit 4+ have to qualify stupidly early and i can't spare the holiday time. well done for the thesis and all my pseudopod crossed xx

from harvestbird :

waving flags, blowing airhorn etc for you over the coming week[s]. Will see you on the other side with your thesis submission receipt.

from harvestbird :

a couple of months ago a trio of students asked me how old I was. When I replied with the twenty-nine year old truth, they said, "oh, we thought you were thirty-two", but then reassured me it's cool to look older.

from janthina :

answering that might be incriminating. and that would be a bad idea, in the light of today's little skirmishe between the microscopist in question and someone else

from annak :

what's an URST though? unrelieved sexual tension? am confused ...

from piginawig :

Why is your tes being forsworn in Shoppingharbour?

from pollymagoo :

But. One bit of the Radio 4 programming I did like was the anecdote of one Mr Derek Day, who wrote his first initial and surname on his kit bag in white paint on the day before the planned invasion. Senior officers who spotted him were understandably alarmed, accused him of spying, interrogated him for several hours and, in the end, called his mum and asked her to describe her son and confirm that he was, indeed, called D Day.

from fusco :

ah, but logical thought is merely *one* way of thinking, and is terribly implicated in the western patriarchal hegemony, and why science is often seen as a masculine and the arts by comparison as feminine. she thinks.

from tet :

Not so much a prediliction as a way of anonomastically redacting deixis. There. Did you buy that?

from fusco :

*heh* it's merely an art i'm cultivating, but i'll still accept donations of hunter valley reds. if i'm all happy next week will it change to donations of champagne?

from pollymagoo :

'compof'd' hahaha.

from fusco :

actually, there's zero cultural reference, i just liked the sound it makes (possibly stupid reason given it's a written not spoken name) and i used to use it as a nom de plume many moons ago, as Fusco McCloud. But now i'm worried about football-type inferences in it...

from fusco :

*heh heh*

from snailpetal :

SPUNK??? oh g*selle - you're GROSS!

from fusco :

hmm, not sure how to take the 'deficit of life' comment, despite its accuracy...

from refusal :

Hi, I did read G�del Escher Bach a few years ago, which is very entertaining, though I've not read any of Hofstadter's more academic books (I've no idea if they're any good, now I think of it). Your diary is very interesting (which always sounds like an insult but shouldn't be). I certainly think there should be more discussions of formal logic in diary entries, but sadly logic was the one aspect of philosophy which totally passed me by.

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