I'm really bored of being ill now. I am so bored I have just spent about an hour playing with Microsoft Money Manager. Another one of those subtle hints from OJ - along the same lines as the book he gave me a few months back titled "How to increase you self-esteem" - it's actually a good book, and the Money do-dah will be really good too, but that's not the point. Being ill in Oxford is crap.

I'm also pretty fed up with the Pope. I'm not anti-religion (far from it), nor am I at all anti-Catholic, so sorry if I offend all our Catholic readers, but I've had enough of knowing about his every movement. I know you all get to know I'm ill... but at least I don't provide you with the same commentary that BBC Online has been providing about the Pope...”Pope has acute respiratory insufficiency”; “Pope to have a tracheotomy”; Pope spent a night of tranquil rest and this morning he ate breakfast with a good appetite”; Pope waves from hospital window”; “Vatican upbeat about Pope’s health”; "Pope sleeps serenely". Pope this, Pope that. Goodness me, anyone would think he was important!

"Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll whether the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not"

Anthony and I have decided something rather uplifting regarding Finals. It's currently cold and snow is in the air. However, Finals will be taken in June when it is bound to be hot and sunny. That means they're ages away!

Ok, I'm ill and couldn't think of anything better to say. OJ has just been to M+S and bought me a trifle though :) I am bound to be on the fast track to recovery now.

125 of them. Oh yeah. They're fun. Real fun.

I am resting in bed with achy bones/muscles and a horrid chesty cough. Woe to me. I have taken fizzy vitamin C though, and Benilyn - and I haven't complained once. OJ being a very good doctor. Polar bears + purple cushion helping greatly! I've just watched "Howards End". How that film won Oscars is beyond me. Off to write an essay plan...

On a slightly happier note than my last post, go see today's Magical Adventures In Space. It's Zoidberg in disguise!

It is not for nothing that the senior bishops at the head of the Anglican Church are referred to as 'primates'.

Indeed, it seems that their glaring inability to strike a balance between the traditional Church ethos and the increasingly liberal wider community merely lends weight to the argument that the Church - if not Christianity as a whole - no longer fulfils its duty as a pillar of society.

I, for one, have little objection to the Church wishing not to encourage homosexuality, and particularly wishing not to have such individuals appointed to the bishopric. The Church is not twenty-first century liberal society, it is an institution spanning millennia; a good proportion, if not the majority, of its devotees hail from African nations with nothing like the comparative liberties of Britain. You cannot expect such an institution to unflinchingly adopt a set of morals held by a minority of its members. If this were the case, Moses, on descending from the mountain, would have given way to the idol-worshipping on the grounds that this was the way that society was going. Though I don't agree with the stance of the Church, I recognise that the Church exists to uphold a set of values which are simply out of date in this country and the USA - those same values remain entirely valid in many other nations, and it is not my place to begin irrationally judging entire nations based on those sets of values. It is thus not my place to judge the Church on them, either. The fundamental error of the Church is not in its opposition to homosexuality, much as it might be considered illiberal and even oppressive - it is a part of the fabric with which the Church itself has been woven.

No, the fundamental error of the Church is in the ordering of its priorities. The Anglican Communion website acts as the faithful repository of the resolutions of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, on which the argument of those primates who oppose the North Americans is based. We shall concentrate on Section One: Called to Full Humanity. The resolutions are, in number order:

1. Affirmation and Adoption of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
2. Religious Freedom and Tolerance
3. Justice for Women and Children
4. A Faithful Response to Aggression and War
...
8. Creation
9. Ecology
10. Human Sexuality
11. Nuclear Weapons

And so it goes on, to resolution 15. An acknowledgement of human rights is, rightly, top of the agenda, followed by a demand for tolerance (human rights plus tolerance sums to equal rights for gay men and women if you ask me but, as I said, this is not a twenty-first century liberal organisation).

Now what really gets me is the bottom end of that list. Number nine on the list is Ecology, by which the Conference records appear to infer climate change. It's a little low down the list, but seven years ago climate change had still not been recognised as it is today, and even now I doubt that many people grasp the full extent of the rollercoaster ride ahead.

Number ten discusses human sexuality, a resolution within which can be found the bullet points now being faithfully wielded by the traditionalist primates.

Number eleven discusses nuclear weapons. And so, once more, in order: Global Warming. Gay People. Nuclear Weapons. Or, slightly simplified: End Of Humanity. Gay People. Armageddon.

Now oddly enough, I can almost come up with an argument to suggest that homosexuality deserves that billing. Though I highly doubt that homosexuality threatens to become a popular enough activity to leave the world bereft of children, it might be argued that the spectre of HIV and AIDS has been unleashed partly by the homosexual community, and that this may in future come to challenge the survival of the species given its present, and harrowing, success rate.

However, I fail to believe that this is the grounds on which the Church has placed a discussion of sexuality in between two immediate threats to our continued existence as a species. Sexuality is in there because of the threat it poses to Christian beliefs, not because of the threat to humanity. As such it either goes to the top of the list if the Lambeth Conference is discussing problems of Christianity, or to the bottom of the list if they are discussing problems of humanity (below number 13, landmines, for God's sake, if you step on a gay guy he might well explode but only because of the damaged clothing).

This, to me, is symptomatic of a Church which is increasingly losing its way, divided as it is between a core of traditionalist nations and a separate core of increasingly liberal nations. I can see as many deep divisions between these two groups as initially existed to spark off the Reformation, and perhaps only once that process has been endured once more can the Church, or a version of it, return to fulfilling a role of leadership within society. Until its own house is in order, it is difficult for the population at large to pay much heed.

And from the irony department: today's "On This Day" section on the BBC News front page: Charles and Diana to marry.

I've been known to criticise Phil Collins a bit recently. I thought his latest album, Testify, was god-awful, for a start, and the man's personality increasingly grates a bit. But you know what? I think I might just lay off, because hey, when people take a swipe at you in public, that's not very nice. Especially if they do it because of Phil.

Only in Oxford would a rowing regatta actually be going ahead... in the snow.

One of the joys about working extra hard one day is that the next day becomes rather pleasantly less full. I still have plenty of work, of course: it never ends. But I am a day ahead of schedule, having managed to condense thirty years of postmodernist thought into six hours of reading (the most informative part being OUP’s “A Very Short Introduction”), and a 1500 word essay. Now that is good work.

Postmodernism is something that I’ve managed to avoid until now. I do remember one teacher mentioning it offhand at school when I was 12, but my reaction then was similar to the one I maintain now – ignorance. It reared its ugly head again in the first of this term’s “Sources of History” lectures, where Dr Martin Conway, a postmodernist to his core, drolly dismissed 150 years worth of history. Although he was amusing, I thought my lecture notes were more so, especially when we got to the part about the perceived existence of evidence, and fact. This reminded me of the first Matrix film, where Neo is confronted by some ugly small child doing a Uri Geller impression, who tells him that “There is no spoon.” Since then, I’ve been unable to give postmodernism the thought it (I suppose) deserves. But I doubt that it’s any great loss to the wider world.

In other news, it’s snowing here in Oxford. Having been threatening to come down in drifts in the last few days, we woke up this morning to see a nice layer outside, and flakes are dropping as I type. It’s just three months too late, really. Lincoln does look lovely in the snow, though, especially the library with its traditional black metal fence, and lamppost outside the Mitre. Let’s hope it doesn’t warm up later on, or worse, start raining.

Finally, I think it only fair to mention to continuing exploits of our mutual friend Anthony, and his attempts to find a girlfriend. (The deadline, I seem to remember, is now by 9th Week of Trinity, which is about as final as you can get.) Already Anthony has written off to a pretty young thing he say modelling in Country Life, who also happens to Honourable before her name. More impressive, however, is his new pursuit of Paris Hilton. Having never heard of her until yesterday, he proceeded to Google her for more information. And if he still has his university internet access after following those links, I’ll be very surprised indeed. I will post updates as they come.

It’s back, therefore, to doing some odd jobs such as emailing people, tidying my pinboard and creating the bibliography for my thesis. I have a meeting today with my supervisor on the first draft I handed in last Monday, which should be interesting. But the work that will result from the meeting (of which I know there will be plenty) can wait until tomorrow. Today is a day for doing small but satisfying tasks in the comfort of my room, with the radiator on, Radio 2 in the background, snow falling outside, and the knowledge that it doesn’t really matter if I spend an hour looking at random stuff on the internet. If I finish the work in time, I might manage to get a haircut. But it’s cold outside, and I’m not sure that it’s really the best route to go down.

I'm having a really ditsy day. Remember my "serious" post? Well, I actually forgot to include the discussion that was going to make it "serious". As Ollie described the post... "it was like five normal Amy posts, all strung together, and losing the plot half-way through each paragraph" (like the mis-spelling of "fetish" and referring to OJ as "toner"). Some things don't change. What I was going to discuss was the Law Society's proposals to scrap the LPC course and change the overall route to training. I think their proposals are fundamentally flawed, but I can't be bothered to comment now in depth, so I shall leave you to read the article for yourself here. Ok, so no you can’t read it here, because it’s on the Times Online “restricted access” section of their website. Oh well, go read a copy of the Times.

“Amy, write a serious post? That’ll be the day”, was the remark from OJ this morning when I mentioned that perhaps it was time for me to write a post longer than five lines. Humph. I haven’t written anything of any substance for a while for a couple of reasons. First, I haven’t had much to say. Second, I’ve been extremely busy – I worked till past 10pm on Saturday night – that’s unheard of (although perhaps I’d best get used to it).

So what to say? Well, OJ and I are currently having a debate about how much I owe him for his printer toner. We’ve always agreed that I’d contribute to the toner, since I use his printer all the time now (my useless excuse for a printer hasn’t been seen in College since last Trinity when it nearly went the same way as the stapler and got thrown across the room). Now, the toner costs £56 and the current toner has lasted OJ for two years. Let’s estimate that in the last year the toner has done 2/3 of the printing, then I will have contributed to 1/3 of its usage. That’s about £18. In addition to the toner, there is the paper. I’ve purchased most of the paper in the past year, and if we assume that OJ has used half of it, then we’ll call my share of the cost a “maintenance/wear” price. I still owe about £18. OJ was trying to get me to pay £26. I think our latest bargain is that I owe £18, plus a pack of envelopes (I do keep stealing his envelopes, so that’s fair). However, perhaps £17 + envelopes would be better? Incidentally, I don’t mind about how much to pay, it’s the principle of the matter which is at stake here. S**t. Is this further evidence of my stationary fettish? (or perhaps my stubborness...)

Toner aside, work is going quite well. I’m becoming rather annoyed with “revision” classes. In many ways they are like a lecture – they are either really interesting and useful or totally pointless and dull, and the person delivering them either has an infectious enthusiasm, or you just sit there, daydreaming and image lying in your bed asleep. Needless to say, I have about 5hrs of classes this week. It’s quite hard to balance revision with my main subject though and in retrospect I probably haven’t dedicated enough time to the latter this term. Progress in Company Law is going well though – despite the really annoying fact that both of my tutorial partners haven’t handed their essays in until after the tutorial (an essay/problem question is due in for the tutorial). Consequently, they write their essays once we’ve gone through the topics and worked through the difficult areas, and their essays are obliviously smoother and receive better grades than mine. This is extremely vexing because I know damn well that if I wrote the essay after the tutorial as well, then I would probably get a higher grade than they do. The tutor isn’t saying much at the moment, but I think it is something that he is bound to bring up in Rector’s Collections (end of term reports) against them – and I doubt they’ll get off lightly. Perhaps there is justice in the world after all. Having said that, I did have a brief moment of Finals/Schools fear yesterday, which was only cured by a brisk walk around Oxford – Queens Lane, Rose Lane, ChCh Meadow etc – with Anthony. It was snowing as we returned to College, which was lovely. The snow hasn’t really settled though – it’s too warm – but there is a little dusting of white on a few of the rooftops and spires. Also, I’m still worried about OJ and his monkey.

In other news, there was drama on Turl St this morning as the “rising bollard” rose whilst a vehicle was going over it. It looks as though the bollard ripped the underneath of the engine and consequently there was oil all over the street (plus a very angry van driver).

OJ has also taken to wearing more shirts. This is great – shirts are much better than one of his ill-fitting t-shirts (especially the red “White House” one). However, I have only just realised why he has started wearing so many shirts… he no longer has to iron them. We have this agreement that he does the washing (i. I can’t reach the College tumble driers and ii. I am useless about remembering to take the washing out of the machine, transfer it to the drier etc – OJ, in all his anality, is naturally much better at this!), and I do the ironing. So, if I do the ironing, he can wear as many shirts as he wants to. Oh well, he’s worth it.

What else? I’ve been listening to Classic FM for most of this term. I think it is the first time I have ever consistently listened to one particular radio station and I am finally getting to know who the presenters are, at what time the different shows are etc. It’s a very strange feeling.

Lastly, I had my 20 week check-up at the Hospital a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember whether I mentioned this or not. It went really well, and I’ve certainly made vast improvements from when I walked into Prof Fairburn’s office in tears about a year ago. However, there are times when I do have my bad moments – the cold weather doesn’t help, all I want to do is eat stodgey foods. Last night I had a bad moment that took me totally by surprise. I was looking at some pictures of a Ballet, and suddenly I started scrutinising the female bodies, comparing them to my own, and needless to say I wept. This didn’t last for long, and I was able to talk my feelings through with OJ and move on. What it did highlight is that there are still so many “triggers” out there, often in the most unexpected places (although when you think about it, perhaps looking a bunch of skinny ballet dancers isn’t so unexpected) and I guess I still need to take care, especially with the so-called “stress” of Finals coming up. Praise be to hugs.

See, I can be just as boring as OJ.

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but I’ve recently hit the crunch. This happens once, or if you’re unlucky, twice a term when suddenly all your deadlines are within two or three days of each other, and you really, really have to get the work done with absolutely no faffing. None. Zip. Well, maybe some. Anyway, today I handed in the first draft of my thesis, all 11,849 words of it, and a draft funding statement and form. I’ll start with the thesis. Writing the first 3000 words of it was pretty easy, as I was adapting my thesis proposal and the historiographic overview that I had written previously. It was the actual analysis of my research that took the time to write. Now that I am a third year, I write much more slowly than I did in my first year, but I can deal with writing for deadlines much better. So instead of being able to rack it up in two or three days, which I daresay Ollie will, I’ve been plodding along over the last six days at about 1500 to 2500 words a day, depending on how good a day it is. 3000 to 6000 went slowly. 6000 to 9000 went very quickly. 9000 to 10000 was OK. 10000 to 11849 was like torture. The important thing is that the monkey is now off my back, although there is still vast amounts of editing to do. (A typical footnote: “Find reference to this.” And there are 126 of them.). I meet with my supervisor on Wednesday to go through it all, which should be interesting.

Between now and then, however, I have an essay on postmodernism and history to do. Postmodernism, as all my PPE friends have pointed out, isn’t really something that can be covered in one essay, or in my case, 6 hours of reading and a reliance on Google and the OUP’s “A Very Short Introduction” series. Nevertheless, I shall battle on. There is interesting stuff in there, but anything with Derrida and Foucault guarantees pseudo-philosophical rubbish, which cunningly manifests itself in very long and incomprehensible journal articles. Snowballs will be thrown if I answer a question on postmodernism in Finals (or should that be Schools?).

Speaking of snowballs, it’s meant to be snowing here sometime soon (perhaps on Wednesday). At the moment, there are some flakes, but it’s all a bit sleety, it being still to warm and wet to really snow properly. A further downside is that Lincoln’s award-winning lawns, currently suffering from some form of airborne virus, look as though they have grown spores. It’s not a pleasant look.

Perhaps the most exciting news of the day, after handing in my drafts, was that an enterprising Lincoln fresher managed to put Brasenose up for sale on eBay. You can see my take on it at Oxblog (Yes, I am a stressed history finalist. Well, as stressed as a historian can be.), who caught onto the story when bidding passed £15 million. Alas, eBay have now withdrawn the item, but it seems as though the war between Lincoln and Brasenose has taken a further step away from peace. Although it is worth remembering that technically, we do own them, and presumably all the rahs who live inside.

Finally, my draft funding statement. That actually went surprisingly well, it being the last of 17 application forms I have filled in since October. As everyone who is going through the process knows, there are very few well designed applications out there. It is just about manageable if one fills in by hand, but the current trend is for your answers to be typewritten. The problems here are endless and drive me mad. First of all, most of the forms that are sent out electronically are saved as a PDF. Now, the point of the PDF, and I’ll say this in capitals for any administrators out there, IS THAT THEY CANNOT BE EDITED IN READER, AND STUDENTS CAN’T AFFORD ACROBAT STANDARD! And typewriters are hard to find these days. To be fair, one of the advantages of PDFs is that they can be configured for electronic form filling, which will guarantee the font and size as the organisation wishes. Alas, the only place to have done this so far – successfully, I might add – is Princeton. So there’s another reason to praise the place.

If not sent by PDF, then forms invariably come in Word files. This does have the advantage that one can edit them. But this also means that the form itself gets altered, because no-one knows how to use tables and to keep their position locked. Having lots of spaces and then underlining them does create a very nice form if printed, but it is useless if you are trying to type in the same space. I cannot being to say how annoying this is, especially if you have to change to font for your answers as requested. Again, to be fair, the funding form is actually quite good. The award for the worst form, however, goes straight to the Fulbright Commission, for their postgraduate award form. Perhaps I’m still bitter that they didn’t give me an award. I don’t particularly care anymore. Their form is the worst piece of computer text design I have seen. Ever. Typing one letter threw the whole form into a frenzy, despite strict instructions informing us that changing the layout of the form would mean it would not be considered. I spent twice as long making sure the format was correct as I did actually answering the questions. It was an incredibly frustrating process. The person who designed it clearly didn’t have the first clue about how to create a well designed, easy to use form. This is particularly evident if, like me, you permanently keep the formatting tabs on in Word (a throwback to my youth; my Dad always has them on, and they are incredibly useful). Words can’t do justice to the anger I feel at the Fulbright form.

And with that out of my system (because I’ve been keeping it in for a long time), and a long post written, it is back to washing up mugs and a teapot, and off to read BBC History. At least now the monkey is gone, I have a bit of free time…

Hunter S. Thompson has died, apparently of suicide by a bullet to the head, at his home in Colorado. Remembered best for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson wrote his 'Hey Rube' column for the regular ESPN Page 2 section. Click here to read his last article, where shotguns feature perhaps a little too heavily with hindsight.

Further to my post here, I have decided to write a letter to M+S. I am hoping for a letter + £5 voucher...

For those of you with little music taste, and I take that to be the vast majority of known readers, I present details of two things to buy tomorrow, when the week's selection of new singles is released:

1. Kaiser Chiefs: Oh My God
This is the same track I harped on about getting as a single last year - that first release is now worth a small fortune, and now the Chiefs, having gained in popularity, are re-releasing it with some new B-sides. Copies will still be quite limited though, so get down to your store quick to get hold of one. The track itself is a gorgeous shout-out-loud-chorus anthem and is damn good fun live. The Chiefs' album, Employment, is out next month.

2. Maximo Park: Apply Some Pressure
I'm not sure which of these two bands is currently the more obscure, but on balance it's probably Maximo Park. I must confess I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this front, but new single Apply Some Pressure is very good indeed, starting a little edgily before proceeding into a sequence of smooth chords and soaring chorus. Their website, particularly the diary, retains the local-band-keeping-their-mates-updated feel which I prize quite highly with bands - it's nice to know that bands remember they're still just bands in the end, even if they are off all over the world.

Speaking of being off all over the world, if you really do like both these singles, you can catch Kaiser Chiefs and Maximo Park in Los Angeles, on the same bill, in mid-March.

I don't normally experience moments where my jaw drops at something online. There are plenty of amusing things on the internet, plenty of very informative things, plenty of downright amazing things, but very few things which can genuinely make me sit and stare in awe.

An MSN Search advert has just had that effect. I was browsing The Guardian online, and a pop-up ad emerged which did a neat little animation, ending with the animation turning into an MSN Search box. In that box appeared the words 'Sporting Memorabilia'. My jaw slammed into the ground.

Either a) MSN has pre-programmed the ad to show the term 'Sporting Memorabilia' in the advert, which is serendipitous in the extreme, or b) the advert is somehow mining my computer for information on things I search for the most (and it'll be 'Sporting Memorabilia' because I regularly check search engines to see how our company is performing in the rankings). Whichever of the two it is, I'm impressed.

I am often deeply scared, and dismayed, by communities of bloggers. It seems to me that all too often it descends into a circle of trackbacks from one to another and back again, each rewarding the other for their latest pithy insight, that everyone gets an artificially inflated ego and believes themselves to be the Word of America or whichever such nation they may represent (I pick on America purely because, primarily, blogs I happen across originate there).

Additionally, everyone always gets blogged down in a mess of opinion, theory and current affairs, to the point where you wonder what anyone derives from the process except RSI and a few more enemies.

So putting two and two together, blogging is a world where everyone links back to everyone else's articles on profoundly boring questions of politics. And then, having followed one boring weblog to another boring weblog to another, I found this. Gold.

Now Valentines Day is over the shops, are filled with Mother's Day and Easter cards and gifts. They both fall early this year (for reasons discussed/discovered (!) in an earlier post). I will be at home for Mothering Sunday this year, albeit briefly, and whilst we've never really celebrated it at home (perhaps the product of being an only child?), I always buy my Mother a card and/or token gift. I was in M&S this morning and they had a display of Easter/Mother's Day items... chocolate Easter eggs, chocolate chicks, fluffy rabbits etc. They were also selling, for the grand price of 99p, mini sponge cakes - little cakes about 2" high with colourful icing and a flower on top. This would be great for my Mother as a light-hearted pressie to go with her card, so I purchased it. Only when I got back to College did I realise that the Display Until/Best Before date is 26th Feb. Now, Mother's Day is 6th March, and Easter Sunday is 27th March - what is the point of having these cakes on sale if they need to be eaten before the former of these two dates, let alone the latter? I can't see many people buying them for themselves (although they do look quite yummy) - they are displayed as Easter gifts! It is extremely strange. I'm just hoping I can successfully remove the label and then I shall give it to my Mother regardless... 9 days is hardly going to matter is it?

*shock* The smarties tube is to be replaced by a hexagonal packet!

I dreamt last night that we went a day without posting on Dayorama. The sense of loss and shame which accompanied this revelation was quite harrowing. It can never be allowed to happen.

On a related note, my dreams keep on getting more and more realistic, to the point where I really am struggling to realise that I'm in a dream (I used to know all the time - once I got bored of one dream and imagined a big black door with a neon green 'Exit' sign, walked through it and woke up). I can't remember if I've related the tale of when I accidentally flew to Luxembourg leaving my dad's kids in a supermarket inside Heathrow airport, but even when the plane took off backwards, at no stage did any alarm bells ring in my mind to the effect that this might not be real.

This either means that my dreams are getting too realistic, or, on a more positive note, life is getting more dreamlike. Today's plan was to sleep, get up, apply for a job as a teacher, play football, do a little work, play a gig, and sleep again. Now you'll excuse me for perhaps lacking a real cutting edge in my ambition, but that's the kind of daily plan I'd happily repeat forever. Groundhog Day, do thy worst.

Post number 500.

The guy sitting in front of me in my lecture today was typing his notes on his laptop. Typing notes is fine, but he was actually inserting footnotes as he went along. If the lecturer was discussing X, and then said "X can be linked to Y", then he'd put the latter statement into the footnotes. That's just being over-enthusiastic. He was also typing "I love you" messages to his girlfriend who was sitting next to him, also with her laptop. She replied "thank you, you too". Clearly the C21st version of passing notes at the back of the class! (I know I shouldn't really have been looking, but it was hard not too, honest guv.)

There's a reasonable well-known ditty which goes somthing like this:

The more you study, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why study?

This can quite easily be adapted to the way I feel about Finals right now:

The more you study, the more you realise you have to know. The more you realise you have to know, the more you panic. The more you panic, the harder it is to study. So why study?

I'm having a really great day of study... but the list of things to do just keeps on growing...

I do hate to make a post with a BBC News Online article as a reference, but I cannot help but admire the British reaction to certain events. An earthquake has apparently hit North Wales overnight, reaching 3.1 on the Richter Scale - trivial by global standards but one of the stronger tremors the UK could hope to experience.

So to the reaction of the locals affected by the quake. Concern for property? Thankful that it wasn't worse? Intrigued at the science? Step forward Trevor Taylor of Llanfairfechan: "My parrots went absolutely nuts."

“It’s a black fly in your chardonnay”; “It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late”; “It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid”; “A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break”; and “It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife”. Just some of the wonderful lyrics from Alanis Morissette’s Ironic. Perhaps if the song was written today it would include lines such as “It’s a ‘please click here’ warning on your computer when your mouse doesn’t work” or something like that. Earlier this evening I checked my gmail account and I was informed that “there was a problem with my browser’s interface” and was invited to “click to fix the problem”. I duly clicked and I was informed by a rather amusing message that “grrr. A pop-up blocker was preventing pop-up’s on this website and would I temporarily disable it”. I use google’s pop-up blocker.

Edit: Cheaper than this eh?

Happy Valentines Day!

OJ gave me the most perfect present this morning: Naturally, the shower water in the Mitre is rather temperamental e.g. often freezing cold. So by the time that OJ has had a shower in the morning, bearing in mind he is like a water buffalo and takes absolutely ages to shower and shave, there is often precious little warm water left for me. I’m gradually getting used to this, however it was so so cold this morning that I am not sure I could have coped with walking out of the shower with ice-cold hair and shivering (like I usually do). Aware of this, OJ made sure that he turned the water temperature down in the shower whilst he was shaving, thus leaving me plenty of hot water and meaning that I could have a blissfully warm shower. Thank you!

And in relation to Ollie's three credentials, I think I would go for:

1. Always do your best;
2. Always be punctual;
3. Always be supportive.

My phone has been at odds with the network for the past day and a half or so - between the middle of Saturday afternoon and around 9pm this evening, no phone call or text message got through. I found this out when Aaron confronted me on MSN demanding to know why I had not replied to any of the four texts he had sent, and then when my friend Laura subsequently tested my phone by texting it, nothing got through.

The problem eventually solved itself, so that by 9pm, a barrage of texts came flowing through. It's amazing what you can miss in a day - in around 24 hours, arrangements for two events were either broadcast or changed, and two old friends got in touch with a view to an immediate reply. The sense of frustration when I realised my phone wasn't working is testament to just how vital the damn thing is now - if any plans change and my phone isn't working, I'm none the wiser yet the people sending out the changes don't know I've not received them.

Now, here's an example from an online walkthrough. These are text documents which guide players through tricky sections of games (if not more complex games, like Final Fantasy or Zelda, in their entirety). They point out hidden features, solve cryptic puzzles when players find themselves stuck, and generally provide every available clue towards the completion of the game they literally walk players through. Here is one quote from a selected online walkthrough:

"Then read the book of runes on the third bookshelf from the left (write down the symbol and its meaning, you'll need it later on)."

It occurred to me earlier this evening that life, when you look back at it, reads a lot like these walkthroughs. The nominations for Exeter College's JCR President, 2005-2006, closed at midnight between Sunday and Monday. Earlier this evening it was decided that the current field of nominees was below par, and that the only option available was to nominate the college cat, Stevie.

The college has never before owned a cat so there can be no rules prohibiting the participation of a cat in the presidential race; furthermore, the cat can replace R.O.N. (re-open nominations) as the vote of no confidence in the other candidates (C.A.T. standing for "clearly all terrible"). The cat, if elected, can claim the title of Honorary President; the subsequently elected human will take the office of Acting President, which will present the holder of office with an amusing question or two at interview when asked to explain why the CV states "Acting President" and not "President".

Now, the walkthrough element occurs with the process of nominating the cat. Nominations closed at midnight and the decision to nominate the cat was taken at 8pm, necessitating some fairly swift action. The cat was nowhere to be found and its nominal owner, the Junior Dean, was out, so it was nominated in its absence (presumably allowed, remember there are no rules pertaining to cats) and seconded by the prerequisite ten students, myself included. Its catifesto is being drawn up as I type.

However, the final hurdle to nomination was that a photo of the nominee must be included with all submissions. The cat and the cat's owner were unavailable, so this would have scuppered the entire operation, but for the fact that the night before, I had wandered into the JCR following dinner at Gee's and found the cat sitting in there alone. We had shared a tender moment or two - me stroking the cat, the cat swishing its tail in a motion no doubt intended to remind me it was in there alone for a reason - and then I had decided to take a photo with my camera phone. Thus, a day later, I had one photo on my phone, and it was a photo of the very cat we intended to nominate. I emailed it to myself from the phone, printed it out, cut it to shape and the nomination was complete. So the walkthrough may have read:

"Then take a photo of the cat at the back of the JCR (you'll need it later on)."

I leave you, and conclude this lengthy post, with a question which you may like to answer in the comments. If you were to take a holiday from your body for, say, a week or two, and were leaving someone else to take charge - i.e. they inhabit your body for the time your mind is away - what three instructions would you give them to preserve your character? For example, mine would be:

1. Take pride in your appearance;
2. Always try to make people smile;
3. Always be supportive.

What would yours be?

As a silly 21st gift, my parents purchased 21 lottery scratch cards. I won £2. That's pretty poor odds. As Sue pointed out, I should have one a £2 and a £1. I could have won £42,000 in theory. Ah well. I decided to cut my losses, - following the advice of Kipling in the poem "If"... "If you can make one heap of all your winnings; And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss; And lose, and start again at your beginnings; And never breath a word about your loss..." - and I cashed the £2 for another two scratch cards. I didn't win a thing (yes, I know, I am now ignoring Kipling and I am speaking about my loss).

I am not a regular player of the lottery, but I have always assumed that there were many outlets where you could purchase tickets - at home I know the two local convenience stores have machines, as do most garages. However, in Oxford OJ and I could only find three retailers - a small newsagents, the Post Office, and Sainsbury. This really surprised me - WHSmith are no longer a retailer, and yet I remember going shopping in Canterbury several years ago when people would queue 20-deep in WHSmith to purchase their lottery tickets (the desperation of the Kentish population). Perhaps this is a good thing - the popularity of the lottery has certainly declined, so hopefully less people are throwing their money down the drain. At the same time, for the people who do still play, their odds of winning will be much greater than they were 9-10years ago. In addition, the money spent is still enough to allow monetary grants to charity.

I don’t know where any of this is getting me, but despite my £50 win over Christmas, after this weekend, I shall certainly be less enthusiastic to purchase a scratch card in future!

The Dears finished their UK tour at the Zodiac in Oxford earlier tonight, and it must be said that it was an excellent, excellent show. Fronted by the charismatic and charming Murray Lightburn, who led the crowd in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday for drummer George Donoso, the Canadian six-piece played a selection of tracks from their album No Cities Left, as well as one or two new numbers. I should know, I got hold of a copy of their set list and almost stole their tambourine - in the end my convictions got the better of me and I asked politely for it, only to have it immediately removed out of reach.

The evening also illustrated the benefits of turning up early, as opening support act Pure Reason Revolution were particularly special, although downloads of their music are proving tantalisingly difficult to find (there was one on NME.com but the link is broken).

In other good-band-release-good-music news, my band's CDs are now ready to be shipped. I only have about 20 to despatch at the moment, and they cost £2 each, although I'm keeping two back for eBay once supplies run out (perhaps I might even flog it on Oxford's very own eBay, Boso). You can also get stickers, which I must say look very fine indeed. If you would like a CD, you can send me £2 to ollie@goalsnetwork.com via PayPal, or email me at the same address to sort out some other means of payment; you'll need to email me anyway to tell me your address, and whether you'd like the cover with the cliff on it, or the cover with the desert road on it.

I heartily enjoyed Amy's dinner last night. It was a beautiful little restaurant, Je T'Aime, with the most fabulous French waiters and even a brand new menu to celebrate our arrival on the premises. The food was delicious, the wine imbibed with much vigour and the ambience tranquil yet mellow, hearty yet calm. And then Arthur Miller died.

Our world is peppered with disturbing trends, by which I am not solely referring to bling. Take, for example, the disturbing trend towards a revival of racism at football grounds, going by media coverage at any rate; perhaps the trend towards reporting sailing records ahead of the return of dead troops from Iraq; the trend which is taking us into a new wave of religious bigotry and violence.

No trend is more disturbing than that of MSN Messenger, which with the beta release of its seventh incarnation continues to plumb new and murky depths of commercialisation. The original MSN (by which, for more techy people, I refer to anything up to version 4.8) was serene, sedate, seductive - neat little emoticons and all the basic functionality you needed. This is, after all, an instant messenging service, whose primary responsibility is to transmit messages in an instant. The added capacity for sending files was useful but was, in essence, just a slightly quicker alternative to emailing the same file (and half the time the file sharing service broke down so we had to resort to email anyway).

The introduction of tabs was the point where I started to get a little narked. MSN has, for a while, had a little advert at the bottom of the main contacts window, and to this I do not object. The service obviously needs funding from somewhere, and with the courts of the globe doing their utmost to financially penalise a big company for making solid, reliable software that everyone uses, I can allow Microsoft a small box for advertisements. But the tabs were where I drew the line. They are ugly, they are intrusive, and they offer daft services like MSN Dating or MSN Alerts (ever used them? Course you haven't). MSN Money? MSN Mobile? And let us not forget the ubiquitous Ebay. Can we choose our tabs? No. Are they remotely relevant to the vast majority? No. They are a useless feature.

The next step was for the tabs to carry services which now cost money where they previously had not. Take, as an example, emoticons. No longer are emoticons a cheerful way to add expression to a conversation using a limited set of basic emotions such as laughter, tears or anger; now, for a small fee, you can have your choice of emotion, and be seen to have exclusive emoticons that other lesser beings simply can't afford to express themselves with. Or you can design your own WeeMee, a kind of display picture for the chronically unimaginative, provided you text a code to MSN, for a small fee.

So the commercialisation of MSN was well under way by version 6.2, the latest version to have been officially released. Now, having just installed the beta for version 7, I find this disease has spread further and now threatens the very beating heart of MSN, individual conversation windows themselves. At the bottom of each window is a little advert offering to take you to BlueMountain, where a promised land of emoticon packs awaits you. Under the Tools menu you can now find a section on 'Billing Information', never a good sign for a service that has been free for over half a decade. Emoticons, those cheerful little sprites, are now commercial vehicles allowing freedom of expression only at personal cost. Display pictures, inaugurated a version or two ago and allowing the user to upload a small image (be it a photo or a drawing etc) with which to identify themselves, are now just another piece of content for which to be charged. I've only just noticed that there's a little image of a wrapped present in each conversation window which, when clicked, tempts you with a new pack of emoticons. It's truly sickening.

I might also add that the new features with which MSN 7 could reasonably claim to justify its existence are, in a word, useless. Open a window with a contact now and you'll be presented with the last few lines of your previous conversation with them, which rather than being helpful is just confusing, particularly if your last chat was over a week ago, in which case you're unlikely to have much memory of what it was about. If your last chat with that contact was about something highly sensitive, and you got rid of the window precisely to avoid anyone seeing it, you're going to have to be bloody careful the next time you start a conversation with that individual.

There's also added hassle, like Winks and Nudges. These two little diamonds mean that rather than setting yourself to "Away" and being left in peace to chat to just one or two contacts, you can now be subjected to a barrage of audio-visual effects from more impatient 'friends'. This was a feature of Yahoo! Messenger which frustrated me to the point of tears, and I'm deeply disappointed that MSN have found it necessary to include it. Previously I had thought of MSN as the classier, more refined neighbour of Yahoo!, offering a service for users who wished to converse and not par-tay. Now it seems that MSN, too, have elected to pander to the lowest common denominator, and that is a shame.

One of us is very old today. Apparently, 21 makes you a full grown up. Scary.

Ok, so I haven't procrastinated all week - honest, I've been working like a little Trojan. However, OJ was being silly earlier and after a discussion about Schweppes (reference intended), he said I couldn't "handle the truth" (he's away in London on the evening of Valentines Day). All very silly, 'you had to be there' humour, but nevertheless, here is my ode to Schweppes. If you haven't watched a "Few Good Men", then it won't be funny at all. If you have watched said film, then it may be vaguely funny...

"OJ, we live in a world which has fizzy drinks, and those fizzy drinks have to be guarded by men with ice cubes. Who’s going to do it? You? I have a greater responsibility to this fridge than you can possibly drink. You weep for the traditional lemonade, and you curse the cheap value packs. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that the life of Schweppes, whilst difficult, probably saves lives. And my existence, whilst bubbly and undrinkable to you, saves lives. You don’t want the truth. Because deep down in places you don’t want to talk about at parties, you want Schweppes in that fridge. You need it there. We use words like quality, colour and fizz… we use these words as the bottlerack to a life spent defending drink. You use ‘em as a corkscrew. I have neither the time, nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who drinks and socialises with the very beverage that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I’d prefer it if you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a recipe book and make Schweppes yourself. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to drink. "

The actual script is:

"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me there. We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to."

A question which has always confused me (I am sure I was told the reason once at Primary School, and I knew it was something to do with the moon), however this article goes some way to explaining why we get to eat pancakes today and have to give something up for 40days tomorrow. I am not sure what I shall do yet...

Note the following:
a) the stupidly small desk that College have provided;
b) the "in" and "out" boxes, complete with "pending" area (see sign);
c) the fact that I have clearly flipped.

Editor's note: Yes, yes she has.

A further illness update. I'm over most of the worst part, after 5 days, but I'm still not 100%. Today I went out to pick up some more medicine and also some food. Whilst queuing in Boots to pay, Amy spotted the Slim Fast milkshakes positioned strategically next to the checkouts. It turns out they’re there for a reason. No one who has had them before would ever have them again…would they? Amy has been very good over the last few days trying to look after me at my most grumpy and stubborn, and was only concerned that I was getting enough vitamins and nutrients. So she offered me the choice of flavours, and lo, before I knew what was happening, I, a Wooding, was paying for an all in one chocolate Slim-Fast milkshake.

(I’d like to point out at this point that I was non compos mentis. I was paying for the second time because I forgot that you could buy other goods at the pharmacy desk. I’d previously forgotten to make Ollie a photocopy of some notes – don’t worry, it’s all sorted – and was generally on a bit of a downer. There’s no way I would usually let a Slim-Fast product past my radar.)

So we were eating dinner and all happy and cheerful, until I caught sight of the can of Slim-Fast. I approached it with a relatively open mind, shook it well, and let Amy open it (in case I had shaken it too well). She offered to have a first sip, so I let her take it. Boy, did that face change fast. After half a second a scowl presented itself, along with the kind of noises I had been making in the last few days. Hardly what you would call a good premonition. Bravely, I swigged a sip. And it came back out within a second. What a disgusting taste! It was like trying to swallow mud, tempered with a bad dark chocolate. To be more generous, it was more like a protein shake – understandable, given the amount of protein, carbs and god knows what else was in there – and I never really like those either. The rest was quickly disposed of down the sink, where it is probably sticking to the pipes and is likely to reappear in my shower tomorrow morning, since they’re both linked, and this is the Mitre.

What a great start for the new headmaster eh?

The BBC have finally upgraded their online radio player. Not only does it actually work now (it used to die after about 30 seconds on the Oxford network), it sounds better, looks better and now has every show on it, rather than selected ones. Hurrah!

...a member of Lincoln's Hockey team. It’s not just me who writes typos… the Lincoln Hockey team have just taken delivery of their hoodies… they say “Chapmions” on the front.

The fact that OJ has been ill over the past few days has confirmed my decision to become a lawyer – I am much better at making arguments and screwing people over rather than playing Florence Nightingale. I think I did really well looking after OJ… up until about 3hrs ago, and then the initial novelty of being able to look after him, clean his room, send his emails, trek to Sainsbury’s, respond to his stubbornness etc finally wore off! It’s not that I don’t care… it’s just that, well… Clearly OJ should only get 24hr flu in future, rather than 72hr! However, this whole debacle has confirmed one other thing – I am rather useless without OJ. Hard to admit, but I had no one to hug (I resorted to dinner with Ollie last night, with the requirement of a hug – sure enough, I got one in Turl St, but it just ended embarrassingly – Chris called during the hug, Ollie’s phone vibrated on a particular area of my anatomy… enough said) and also there was no one to help me with the complicated cross-word clues or to sort through all my LPC forms – it took me so long yesterday and I got very confused what to do… OJ would have sorted it all for me. I even went and bought the wrong light bulb for my desk-lamp. Clearly I was never designed to be the "lady with the lamp".

Meh. The flu is horrible. Eugh.

Woo! I heard today that I have been accepted by the Inns of Court Law School to do my LPC... alumni include Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, Herbert Asquith and a number of other distinguished individuals. This is obviously exciting news... the more amusing side of the story is that the Inns of Court is part of City University... so if Ollie got accepted at City for the Masters Degree he has applied for, fate would have it that technically we would be at the same University... heaven help us.

As someone who touched Ollie, OJ and I's lives, I think it is right that we pay tribute to Ivan Noble, the BBC jounalist who died from a long battle with Cancer yesterday aged 37. His online diary was an amazing read - he was certainly an incredible man with such inner strengh and determination. A collection of his diaries will be published this year, all proceeds going to charity.

Pinch and punch and all that jazz.

I thought I’d try to be clever and compare the new MSN Search Engine – launched in full today – with Google. The easiest way seemed to be to put Ollie Willaims into the search, and see if he came top again/what links MSN came up with. Ollie isn’t first using MSN, although it does bring up quite a variety of links on the first page – football, Dayorama, floating dog etc. I didn’t really go beyond this cursory glance before moving onto OJ Wooding. Surprisingly his users.ox.ac.uk doesn’t feature on the first page, even though it is the first hit on Google. There are plenty of other references – academic, sporting etc. However the last link took my eye: “Oxbridge Admissions”. This is a website designed to help those who are applying to Oxbridge by providing friendly links, profiles from students about their interview experience etc – the usual stuff. I read OJ’s and chuckled… and then glanced up to the rest of the Lincoln and there was “Amy”. I read it, and thought “this is me”. Now, I don’t remember writing this at all – although I’ve certainly written the stuff (the typos, if anything give this away). Could someone please tell me when I submitted information onto this website?! As for a comparison between MSN/Google… I actually feature in page 1 of MSN rather than being about page 3 of Google (aye aye). As for any other remarks... I’m in too much shock to comment.