Tofulate
25/7/2009
It's not a verb I'd come across before, but it seems to involve adding extra words to a video - most often by adding subtitles with a phonetic interpretation of another language (or indeed of this language, incomprehesibly delivered), but sometimes by taking out the original audio and adding your literal interpretation of the video. I think the very best so far, though, is this praise song:
All together now: "there is a nude Czar in my mouth"... And just to show that it's not only those hip and happening new songs that work, there's Songs of Praise old-stylee too.
800 years
23/7/2009
is a hell of a thing to be a part of. To be honest, the exact start of what you could call a "university" at cambridge is murky, but the 1209 date has some logic to it - it's as fair a date as any, and gives us something to peg ourselves onto. So this year is the 800th anniversary of my university...
It's a pretty big deal in all sorts of ways, but one of the elements of life that seems to reflect that history best is our choirs. As I've said before, a college choir is something I'm immensely lucky to be a part of, and I'm very proud of the one or two of Robinson (along with a few others ;-)) who popped over to London last night to put on a prom. Get your listening ears on, and clock onto that.
Tanzania in words
16/7/2009
It's taken me almost exactly a year to get my diaries from Tanzania onto a computer. If you want to brave them (they do go on a bit ;-)) I've added them as normal news updates, so they start here with the few I'd managed to upload from out there, then work up that page, then to "next month" and so on. It feels very silly that it's taken me longer to put my words up than it's taken Tom to actually go back to Yamba, but there it is... Missing it all over again, of course.
Cornwall
8/7/2009
If you read this post to yourself in a Cornish accent, it will add to your general enjoyment of life, and my sense of satisfaction :-)
I've been down to the last county in England for a few days, with some friends from College. Cleverly, of course, I forgot to take my camera, so none of the escapades, or indeed a couple of gorgeous bits of scenery, are recorded (I'm particularly sad I couldn't photograph the sea last night, when the full moon shone through a small break in the clouds to pick out a small patch of the purple night in silver). Despite that small problem, it's been wonderful fun. The visit to the monkey sanctuary only reinforced our desire to have a monkey in our lives, though the sanctuary folk were very clear that keeping them as pets around the house is a bad idea. The plan now involves persuading college to convert one of the gardens to a monkey sanctuary, and getting 5 or 6 to keep each other entertained ;-)
Last night's beach barbeque was also a highlight - and I felt like a proper man when we actually made ourselves a real bonfire with nothing but matches and the wood we could scavenge from the beach itself. Well, OK, we used a bit of cardboard that the disposable barbeque had come in to start it, but still... As an added bonus, I don't seem to have got salmonella from the chicken I cooked on the fire, either, so all in all it can be judged a success. It did remind me how much I miss being around the sea, though.