Good News for Novelists

Another arms race. Another Cold War. We can but hope.
If this story is vaguely reliable, then an assymetrcal counterbalance may be in the offing.

And the thing is, it doesn't even matter if this official's statement is true, or even if this official exists -- it's the possibility of MAD that's the important thing. Not only that, but this time we get the benefit of a Russian programme not suffering from post-WW2 Stalinist "we'll do anything rather than allow Mother Russia to be invaded again" syndrome. In fact, even if that little psychological peccadillo was still (as it seems not to be) in operation, the US's probable lack of interest in a Russian land invasion would render the point moot.

Boutique Terrorism

I'll tell you about the illuminating Saturday I spent at a conference in the Commonwealth Club in due course. In the meantime, why not have a look at this article on the Madrid bombings, written on the day they happened.

On the other hand this club reviewer for eXile is a bastard. Some examples:

"Dima took my hand and we entered Zona. It is nice that VIP people can enter through a separate area than the regular people – this is one complaint I have about even top clubs like Cabaret, where you have to enter the club with all the masses."
...
"I fined him $50 for speaking to me. He knows what our system of fines is in the Salnikov estate. The thing is that in Russia, if you let a driver or servant get familiar with you, they will take advantage of you."

It must be difficult to maintain an air of dignified arrogance when you're all caught up in the family apron strings like that.

Debate

Instead of writing anything lengthy about the THES-sponsored debate I attended, here's a link.

Frankly, neither speaker was very good. Wolpert had done no research and knew next to nothing about the subject (come on, Louis, Humanae Vitae? No?), while the Anglican Bishop of Oxford got distracted in answering Wolpert's points rather than debating the motion at hand.

Never mind.

Rilstone Rides Again

"When someone says 'I won't read commentaries: I will just read the Word of God' they usually mean 'I won't listen to what wiser and holier people than me have said about the Bible, I will draw my own, ignorant conclusions.' Very often, they turn out to mean 'I will believe whatever I believed anyway, and then claim scriptural authority for it'."

Sola scriptura. Rock'n'roll.

Oooh, That Can't Be Good

No, really. This is genuinely an unpleasant thing to have happen. I actually know this guy, too.

Fixed The Sidebar

Ha! Take that, Blogger template coding!

Parables and Things

Andrew Rilstone continues to be rather erudite about things. Here I quote a forum post in reply to someone going for the oh-so-classic argument of "Every time the Bible says something that's obviously stupid, you just say it's an allegory!" Because, yes, we're that stupid that we would go around doing so.

Anyway, Andrew's answer expanded to be a rather useful comment on reading the New Testament:

"It is certainly not an "allegory". If by "allegory" we mean "a story in which one thing stands for another", then you will find very few allegories in the teaching of Jesus. (The story of the sower is one: Jesus specifically says it is an allegory: "The sower soeth the word of God. That seed which fell apon stony ground are they that hear the word and do not recieve it" etc.)

Most of Jesus parables are more like "analogies": A is to B as X is to Y, in a particular respect. For example: you are to God as a sheep is to a shepherd; you are to God as a bad son is to a good father; you are to God as a lost coin is to a poor person who owned it.

Not infrequently, the fact the force of the teaching comes from the fact that there is no immediate similarity between the objects in the story and the things they refer to.

He also often uses the device of saying "If a bad person does X, how much more will God, who is good, do Y". ("If you, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, then how much more will your heavenly father give you what you ask for"?) So in a way, he is comparing God to a bad person; but he is not saying God is bad.

At one point, Jesus says "You don't know when your house is going to be burgled, so you lock it up every night. In the same way, you don't know when I'm coming back, so be prepared all the time." It would be crazy to read this as "being a Christian is like being a crime prevention officer" or "Jesus is a burglar" or "Jesus approves of burglary."

Somewhere else he says "If you go to a bad judge to plead your case, and he doesn't listen the first time, then you don't give up. So if you pray and God doesn't answer, don't give up either." Again, he is preaching a message about persistance: it would be silly to say "prayer is like litigation" or "God is an unjust judge" or "Jesus approved of unjust judges."

In the parable which mentions slavery, Jesus says: "If a man owes his boss a lot of money, and the boss cancels the debt; you'd expect the man to be equally generous with a collegue who owed him a small amount of money. In the same way, because God has forgiven you for the really bad things you have done, you should forgive your friends for the trivial things they have done to you." It's no more than a vivid illustration of the precept "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."

There are certainly passages in the Bible where it is unclear if you should take them "literally" or "metaphorically". And there are passages where the meaning is very obscure. This isn't one of them.

Jesus told his disciples that they should be "like doves". Do you think he meant that they ought to lay eggs?"


I went to a debate on ethics and religion last night at the National Portrait Gallery, which I'll write something about in a while. The speakers were the Bishop of Oxford (apparently, there's a Bishop of Oxford now) and Louis Wolpert, who is... some guy.

Aaaarrrrr!

We may joke about pirates and consider it all a good jape, but it is still a very serious problem. not the least of it is this - if your trans-oceanic transport gets hijacked, the company won't tell your family, or in fact, anyone, because shipping companies are very keen on promoting the idea that shipping is safe. One of my friends who works at sea on long-distance tugs has been hijacked a number of times.

There's a weekly update on this sort of thing here, maintained in an office in Malaysia (the Straits of Malacca are particularly dangerous - even a brilliant, well-equipped coastguard couldn't patrol them adequately, and Indonesia doesn't have one anyway).

For example:

13.03.2004 at 1620 LT in position 04:51.2N - 098:19.5E, off east coast of Aceh, Malacca straits.
Eight pirates armed with machine guns in a fishing boat attempted to board a tanker at underway. Ship increased speed, raised alarm and took evasive manoeuvres. Pirates fired at the tanker causing damage to navigation lights, accommodation and starboard side lifeboat. After 15 minutes, pirates aborted the attempt and fled.

All Power to The Hypnotoad

Theory.org.uk's handy course generator

So this is how UCL get their prospectus together so quickly each year.

The Weight of a Hummingbird?

Saw 21 Grams with L on Monday night, down at the ever-pleasant Ritzy. Of course, we'd actually been planning to see Infernal Affairs but things went wrong. now, this was not entirely L's fault, blame herself though she may. Yes, she looked at the wrong issue of Time Out.. On the other hand, I didn't check any listings at all, instead being content to saunter down to Brixton High Street like I owned the place.

So, 21 Grams. Is it good? Yes, it's a good 90-minute movie. Unfortunately, it's almost three hours long. It starts off well, with scenes disjointed in time that leave you genuinely interested to find out what the central event to all these moments could be. When you find out, though, you're only half way through the film. This means that everything you see after that is something you already knew had happened.

There are one or two minor twists, but nothing worth waiting for. Most pathetic was the "surprise" pregnancy right at the end. Didn't see that one coming. As L said afterwards, "Ooh, how wonderfully life-affirming!"

So, if you liked Amores Perros, you have no taste. And also you might like this. Maybe. but then again, maybe not, because it's basically exactly the same thing.

For those who judge films on this sort of thing, you may find it a redeeming quality that Naomi Watts gets her kit off quite extensively. But then again, you could just watch Mulholland Drive for that, with the advantage that David Lynch's film doesn't also subject you to the sight of a naked, vomiting Sean Penn (though, mercifully, even 21 Grams doesn't go for both simultaneously), nor does it make you fall asleep.

So Very Bored

I'm actually prepared to do the Friday Five

1. What was the last song you heard?
Surfing With The Alien, by Joe Satriani

2. What were the last two movies you saw?
At the cinema: It's All About Love, The Last Samurai
On DVD: Annie Hall, Once Upon A Time In Mexico

3. What were the last three things you purchased?
Not including groceries: A toy for my godson, VietCong: Purple Haze for the PC, Private Eye
Including groceries: 2 pints of semi-skimmed milk, a box of Shreddies, 1 loaf of medium-sliced bread

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?
Post a parcel, see my brother's band play, send off a job application, read "A Short History of Shanghai"

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?
Sue, Sara, Natasha (at work), a shop assistant (in a shop), Adam (this morning)

Not A Great Day

After a riotous end to the WFRP campaign at Gamesoc, I'd stayed over at Kirsty's in Highbury. This was because I was on literally the last Tube, with the cleaners out in force, and couldn't head south any more. Being far too drunk to have any truck with night buses, I decided the best thing was just to turn up and say "Can I sleep on your sofa?"

Anyway, I spent a listless day at work yesterday before returning home by about seven o'clock.
I was cheered by the prospect of wrapping my godson's 4th birthday present (which is a rather neat motorised bus thing - it whizzes round a changeable track built into large jigsaw pieces that snap together to make the track). Then I made the mistake of turning on the news, to find Jon Snow broadcasting from Madrid.

I'd been vaguely aware of something happening, through vague mentions on the web during the day, but now there I was, drinking my tea and sitting alone in the house watching the report from Spain. It wasn't good.

Eventually, though, the others got home and we all watched the first new episode of Black Books. Which, needless to say, was excellent.

Judaean Revolt

So, I was reading the Times Higher earlier, and one of the headlines was "Animal zealots target Oxford".

My immediate thought was, of course, "then retreat to fortress on Animal Massada".

Friday Night's Alright for Quizzing

On Friday there was a charity pub quiz on behalf of Fair Trade Fortnight. Let's just say our team won and leave it at that. However, after the triumphant distribution of chocolate, things went a little wrong. More drinking occurred. Darts was played.

We moved on, in classic SOAS style, to a hotel bar that was open late. Luckily, some people from the British Council were actually staying there, so we could drink legitimately. At approximately 1 a.m. I texted Paul to mention that there was a Chinese-American girl who closely resembled a Chinese-American girl of our mutual acquaintance. Both these individuals are, as the saying goes, so hot you could fry eggs on them.

I received the following (and I quote) in reply: "Do it do it:*.dual"
Some of you may be wondering what the 'dual' means. What it means is that Paul has a new phone, and he hasn't programmed the word 'fuck' into it yet.
As for whatever the 'do it' meant, I was in far too advanced a state of inebriation to manage anything other than polite conversation. Though I may have mocked Manchester.

Unnerving

Someone just phoned up from outside the offices (from a photo research company, in fact) and asked to speak to me specifically. That's never happened before.

Creepy.

Also, Stephen has posted something new to Not All Of what Follows Is True.

Alan Partridge Moment

This morning on GMTV. Cut to reporter on outside broadcast, walking through a load of parked cars.

Reporter: Ein...zwei...drei...vier...funf.... oh, hello. The reason I'm counting in German, is because these are all German cars. In fact, they're the famous Trabant!

It's Nearly Three O'Clock

What are the chances of me doing any actual work before now and the end of the day? Pretty slim, I'd say. Still, there's always WFRP to look forward to tonight.

I get a feeling WFRP may end soon, at which point I'm thinking I may push for UA and/or the dreaded Shanghai Playtest.

This Is Me Breathing

In a moment of idleness, I took the "Are you living in a Ken Loach film?" quiz at guardian.co.uk, and this was my result:

"Not quite. While your life bears some vague similarities to a Ken Loach production, it's altogether too noisy, extrovert, posturing and (dare we say it) American to qualify for the kitchen-sink treatment. Instead, your biopic will be directed by some New York indie director and set primarily in Brooklyn. Those currently auditioning to play you include Ben Stiller, John Cusack, Chloe Sevigny and Christine Keener."


John Cusack? Result!

Minor Factual Error

Ahem. It turns out that the HESA was amended so that universities can charge self-determined tuition fees to 35% of enrolments rather than the originally proposed 50%.

So, it sucks 15% less than I claimed it did. Terribly sorry.

Clown Convention

I started reading JENNIFER GOVERNMENT by Max Barry this morning. And I thought that was making me cynical. Then I got to work.

Reading the Australian government's Higher Education Support Act was, frankly, depressing. Largely because it proved that what some of the Aussie universities have been getting up to is utterly, hideously legal.

So what's the deal? Good question. Glad you asked. What happens is this: there's no upper limit on the fees that can be charged to full fee-paying students (as opposed to gvernment-supported students on the Higher Education Contributory Scheme (HECS)). Universities are now also allowed to charge up to 50% of enrolments in a given class full fees (as opposed to 25% before). So, they whack the full fees up as high as the market will stand -- you're looking at around AUS$15,000 a year -- and fill up half of the student numbers at that rate by offering significantly lower grade requirement to full tuition payers than for government-supported students. If you're unlucky enough to be rich but still getting lower marks than that clever poor kid you never let hang around with you at school, you can just buy your place at university.

But that's okay, right? Because the only reason anyone ever goes to university is so that they can earn more from their job once they graduate. Right? Right?