MAY WEEK
29/6/2009
Cambridge life is rarely on quite one-to-one terms with reality, so it shouldn't be too surprising that May Week is in June. Or indeed that it's roughly ten days long. Mine began with a mounting excitement as I saw Robinson May Ball being built around college - to be honest, probably the most exciting side of it for the techie geek in me was following all the 63amp cables (that's Big Power) round, working out where it all goes... I realised that much of what excites me about theatre teching, and indeed part of what excites me about greenbelt, has an analogue on the production side of a May Ball. I may find it hard to resist having a go at that next year.
Once the ball itself started, though, I was just caught up in it. From the glass of pink champagne that they served as I arrived to the morning paper we were given as we left, everywhere held new excitements. I felt rather like an 8 year-old, rushing from one new stimulus to another. Why has my life until now held such an absence of chocolate fountains? And my first ball pit for ever such a long time. Fireworks that excited me more than they have since the first time I saw them, and were undoubtedly the most impressive I'd ever seen. DJ Yoda, who may have a stupid name but played a superb set with some absolutely top tunes. Right the way through to Molly and the Johnsons, who managed to keep people on their feet even at 5am, when the sun had clearly risen and we all felt a bit disorientated. On reflection, I realised this was another time to feel really very proud of my college - we can put on a Ball that lacks nothing that one should expect, but which costs £75 - £30 less than any of the other colleges can manage to produce one for (and half the price of, for instance, Magdalene, who's only draw is a stricter dress-code).
Despite all these wonderful diversions, though, undoubtedly the best thing about Robinson ball was that, with the exception of the ADC mob and a few theologians, almost everyone I like spending time with in Cambridge was there. I could spend an hour dancing to DJ Yoda with my Robinson fresher friends, before listening to Collegium Regale with choir friends, stopping in between to laugh at Joachim's post-impalement adventures in the ball pit (long story). A week later I worked at Corpus' Ball, and on the surface it should have been just as good - perhaps better - but the lack of ubiqutous friends* (and, perhaps, the ability to drink), it just couldn't compare, as far as I was concerned. Admittedly, Robinson was so perfect that others may struggle to ever live up to it, I can only wait and see.
Two days later came Suicide Sunday (apparently so-called because in the ancient past results were announced then; it now takes a little longer, and the only potentially-suicidal aspect of the day is the quantity imbibed by certain drinking societies). Mine was rather more sedate, with the morning spent with theatre types (although I had to miss the ADC and the SoD garden parties, I could at least get to the ETG/CAST one), followed by the last choral evensong of the year and the choir garden party. From their a hard-core of the choir wandered up to New Hall for their garden party, which (since they don't have a ball) they Do Properly. A wonderful afternoon of sun, summery music, food, drink and friends, and an evening watching silly films. I'd never fully recognised quite how racist Bedknobs and Broomsticks is, though :-(.
In effect, that was the pattern for the week - and perhaps it would be silly to recount it too many times. Further highlights, tho, included watching Johns and Queens fireworks synchronised to try to outdo each other, each one slightly better than the last, from an excellent viewing spot at the corner of the UL, and a spot of work for the production company that put together the Tit Hall June event - the first time I've been paid for techie work, and it'll fund much of May Week. Then the week ended with results (for which, see below...). All in all, pretty content ;-)
*Not to downplay the value of Alex and Joachim, of course ;-)
Exam season
29/6/2009
I felt pretty weird going into these exams. On the one hand, they were to be the first taste of Cambridge exams, which has to be a pretty big deal, and I couldn't be confident of a safe result without much effort. But on the other, there was a feeling that being mediocre was OK - the female parent has helpfully insisted at regular intervals that it was perfectly OK to get a 2.i, so for the first time I didn't feel the need to challenge myself to be the best I know. I had the Cambridge ideal to refer to - these are the cleverest people in the country, so there's no need for me to try to keep pace with the best of them. But on the gripping hand* that desire is hard to drop, and besides I felt like I'd revised peculiarly badly - it was very frustrating to just stare at the pages and feel nothing go in, particularly since so much of Cambridge revision is actually the first time you look at something (since when you write an essay you concentrate on one thread in a particular core text, and when it comes to the exam it might well not be that thread which is picked up on).
So ultimately I didn't know what to expect of them. I knew my supervisors reports mostly said I should be looking at a 2.i, some saying I could get a first if I pushed myself. But I didn't know what it felt like to write a 2.i exam - if I think I've done really well, is that the standard of a first? Or is that a 2.i? Or, given that this is Cambridge, a 2.ii? Of course, at this stage it doesn't matter unduly - these results don't count towards my final degree, so all I really have to do is scrape enough marks to stop the university chucking me out (which is apparently pretty hard to fail to do). I did want to do as well as I could on the philosophy paper, though, since the plan was to take 3 papers from the theology faculty and one from philosophy next year - and there's no official way to do this, so I'd have to rely on impressing people with my philosophical prowess ;-)
First up was sociology, which I really didn't give two figs about. Felt fine, I guessed it'd be a 2.i, so was perfectly happy with that. Next, tho, was the one that mattered, philosophy. From this safe distance it's hard to bring back the feelings in my head as I left that exam, but perhaps the best taste I can give is to quote the email I sent to the mother just afterwards:
FUCK SHIT FUCKING SHITTING FUCK
that is all
Fortunately I had a weekend off to recover my mental state before the New Testament paper, and in what looked like a very good omen both the readings in Chapel on the Sunday evening before the exam were taken from the set texts (the "Nazareth manifesto" in Luke 4 and a bit of the Pentecost story in Acts 2). As it turned out, neither of those bits of the set texts actually came up, but it felt pretty good nonetheless - I could answer fairly standard essay questions on Luke's inclusion of the poor, and his attitude to Rome throughout Luke and Acts - so the fact that the detailed commentary question was on a section of Acts that I didn't know much about didn't bother me hugely. Greek the next day was largely OK, but had the worrying flaw that I couldn't make head or tail of what John was saying at the beginning of his first letter... I'm pretty sure it wasn't really a sentence at all :-P That just left the Christology paper, which had possibly the most wonderfully friendly exam question I've ever seen. Along the lines of "comment on the Christological work of either Maximus or Charles Gore", which basically means I can write anything I like about whichever of them I chose, as long as it's vaguely intelligent. Given that I'm a big fan of both Maximus and Gore, that was a real pleasure. Add in a fairly standard "quest for the historical Jesus" question, one on the historicity of the resurrection, and some Bonhoeffer, and you've got a pretty good paper as far as Giles is concerned.
And releasing the tension of the past month or so involved getting walking-into-trees drunk on cheap champagne in a punt full of theologians... a good way to end a day.
Although results didn't come around til the end of May Week, I think they fit more into this story than that one. They're posted up in class lists at the Senate House in the middle of Cambridge, but despite that I felt remarkably relaxed as I went to get mine - I don't really know whether I thought I'd done well, or whether I'd finally come to accept what I'd been telling myself all year, that it didn't really matter what I got, as long as I didn't outright fail. Whatever it was, I have to say it was a very nice surprise to see my name among the four that had been awarded firsts this year! Equally pleasing is the fact that the 2 people with stars next to their firsts (even better than an ordinary first...) are friends :-). The mark breakdown which arrived a few days later helpfully reminded me that I know nothing, though - my second highest mark was in philosophy, and the two lowest were new testament and sociology, both of which had felt fairly comfortable. I should probably give up forming any judgement of how I've done in any form of assessment, since I'm always wrong...
*See, you learn something new every day ;-)
Giles' political discontent blog
18/5/2009
It's been a busy few weeks here - my first mainshow in a design role, lots of exam stress, and some lovely Cambridge in summer moments - but I'm not going to tell you about that, of course... No, in what is rapidly becoming the Giles Fleming Political Discontent Blog, I bring you this story. In essence, the chief constable of the Avon and Somerset police has decided that his force doesn't have to follow court orders. If they seize an individual's personal property unlawfully, and the individual fights through the courts - the only means available to him - for redress, and it's shown that the individual is in the right, so the police must return the property, what happens? Why, they just refuse... They ignore the law... Cos who's gonna stop us, huh?
PS - if anyone knows what the state of play is with the G20 investigations, please let me know. I haven't found anywhere that's still covering it.
Apparent confirmation of the worst
7/4/2009
Another piece of footage has emerged from the G20 protests. In it, a man who died a few moments later from a heart attack is violently pushed to the ground by an officer of the Met., despite having his hands in his pockets and walking away from them (so, unless my interpretation is way off, posing no threat at all to anyone).
Given that Mr Tomlinson walks away, apparently unharmed, from the fall, it's likely that the Met will escape any blame for his death - and I haven't the medical knowledge to say whether the events in the video are likely to have contributed to his death. But whether or not there's a link, this footage taken in isolation would be enough to confirm my fears about the behaviour of the police on that day. It was not simply, as I'd suggested in the previous post, that they antagonised protestors non-physically, and waited for an excuse before getting aggressive; they clearly instigated violence in at the very least this one case. It seems likely that this piece of footage has received public attention as a result of its tragic aftermath, and that other examples of police brutality will have gone less noticed.
I was listening to a few minutes of Heresy (a light-hearted panel comedy on radio 4) earlier today, and one of the pannelists said something to the effect of
No one really believes that democracy works, that their vote changes anything. I reckon the only way to make a change is if we have a revolution.
(heavily paraphrased, I suspect). This wasn't said in a very serious tone, but it was the audience's response that interested me. It wasn't a laugh. It was a small round of applause that gave the impression it was congratulating him, not for his silliness and humour, but for his valid insight. It once would've been ridiculous to suggest that the first to raise the red flag would be radio4, but I'm becomming less sure...
No April fools
1/4/2009
It's been quite a day in central London, by the sound of it. If I'd been thinking before, I'd have liked to be there... Hasn't exactly been the best example of our democracy, either, with police seeming to keep protestors trapped in as small an area as possible, waiting for any excuse to charge in and make their presence felt. To quote one BBC reporter:
16:08 BST, Wed 1 Apr: From Ben Brown in the City
There was a sudden flare-up. The riot police had been penning in these demonstrators, then a few minutes ago they charged the demonstrators - we don't know why.
I'm firmly of the opinion, at the moment, that the government aren't nearly scared enough of the population - as Jefferson put it, "when the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty". I'm hoping that today's events might effect some small change on that score, tho it would have been nice if they'd been left to carry on peacefully... Doesn't look like you can embed videos from the BBC site, but these are the words I'd like to leave you with.
Slightly silly
27/3/2009
As part of my new obsession, I want to install the OLE for the ADC's lighting desk. (We've just got hold of an ETC Ion, which is quite whizzy, and the OLE [off-line editor] lets you experiment with the software and interface that runs the desk from your own computer - so you don't need to go out and buy an Ion yourself ;-)). Now unfortunately ETC haven't seen fit to release a linux version yet*, so I'm trying to run it with WINE. After a few false starts, I managed to persuade the update server that I'm running the testing version of mandriva, so they gave me the newest version of WINE (I may have slightly broken the software management system in the process :-S), in which the OLE installs and starts perfectly.
However - here comes the silly bit - the F-keys are supposed to do some fairly crucial jobs in the OLE (switching between displays on screen, for instance, which is very important since the desk is designed to run with two monitors), and they don't seem to have been properly mapped under WINE. Fortunately, the OLE has an on-screen keyboard which has the same keys as the desk itself, so all the options are available. Unfortunately, that means that the most useful bit of the screen is taken up with a keyboard, so I'm trying to fit the contents of two monitors onto half of one. Fitting two onto one works if you're prepared to switch between things occasionally; fitting two onto half really doesn't.
I wonder if you can see where this is going?
I'm going to try to set up my computer to run with dual monitor support :-)
This, sadly, will not be straightforward, since my desktop only has one graphics card (with a single output), so the process is going to go something like this:
- Install slackware and all the server stuff onto a different computer from the current server (usually a few days' work).
- Disassemble the current server to take out its graphics card - it seems to be the only computer around the place that has a PCI graphics card (which means it's the only one I can easily add to my desktop).
- Add this second graphics card to my desktop
- Find out how to make 2 graphics cards work simultaneously in linux
- Find out how to make 2 graphics cards work simultaneously under WINE
- Run the OLE and be happy
You may think this is a little over the top, when I could settle for reading the manual and only playing around once I've actually got to the desk itself (after all, that's how I approached the old desk), but I'm going to have FUN :-)
*Though come to think about it I wouldn't be that surprised if a few polite emails persuaded them... I shall give it a go
Downtime II
16/3/2009
This one is my own... I always feel kindof dead after a term at Cambridge, so for the next few days I don't intend to do anything at all. Which is kindof a pain, cos things like unpacking actually involve a surprising amount of concentration (for me at least). But I can at least give myself some respite before I address the matter of Kant.
The Chairs went pretty well in the end - at first I thought I'd just managed to avoid obviously screwing it up (there were no moments during performances when I really had to grimace, at least). Since then, though, I've kindof become proud of it after the fact, as various people have told me they thought it looked good. The really big news, though, is that after the second night of the show, one of the producers of ETG asked me if I realised that applications to design their show closed on the following day. I basically said "yeah, but what's it got to do with me?", and she told me to apply. 72 hours later I was appointed LD for the coming year's ETG tour.
That, to me, is a huge deal. I've been hugely excited by the idea of ETG since the moment I first heard about it - essentially you tour a Shakespeare play around European cities in the snow in December, putting on a show in a different venue each day, and just living theatre for 3 weeks. When they return for a home run at the ADC in early January it's always one of the best shows of the year (I mentioned how impressive their Hamlet was this year), and I'd been desperate to find some way onto the tour, but given that The Chairs was my first design I'd assumed I was at least a year away from being able to LD such a major and important show, if I'd ever be good enough. But here I am - slightly terrified, partly that I'm simply not capable of a good enough design, and partly that we'll be doing stupid things with wire-ins to random foreign electricity, and I need to understand all that, or I'll kill people... But far greater than the terror is the joy and excitement. Come and see our production of A Midsummer Night's dream - I'll let you know the dates ;-)
Downtime I
16/3/2009
Apologies for the absence of this site for a couple of days - my ISP was changing some shizzle, which took them longer than they expected, and resulted in a change of address for the server as well. Hopefully, things should now be swishier and happier. ;-)
Errr....
27/2/2009
I don't really know how to explain myself here... It's been six weeks since I last said anything at all. Coincidentally, it's been 6 weeks since I got back into life at uni ;-). There's been plenty to say, but no time to say it.
First up, a few absolutely wonderful moments in supervisions - I've had the two best papers this term (philosophy and doctrine), and have had the chance to argue deep magic with some of the finest minds in the world. The philosophy supervision on Descartes was a particular highlight, and I think I even managed to persuade Dr Re Manning that the cogito stands. Or at least, he let me leave thinking I had, which is good enough ;-). Kenosis in doctrine was a pleasure as ever :-D.
Then comes theatre, in great quantities. It seems to have become What I Do. (Not that I'm neglecting the choir that caused such excitement last, but simply that while that stays at a constant level of commitment, I fill more and more of my time with theatre). As well as seeing a couple of really outstanding shows (in particular the ETG's Hamlet), I've got involved in a couple of good'uns: 42nd St was the big one, at the (professional) Corn Exchange, with a 4:30am start to the get-in, and a rather big job for the LXs. Death of a Salesman was a much less major commitment, but if anything was a better show to watch. And now comes the big one, for me at least. It's a small show, hardly noticable amongst the flurry of student theatre in cambridge, but The Chairs (next week's lateshow at the ADC) will be the first real cambridge show I've designed lighting for. Indeed it's the first show I've done serious LDing for at all. I'm beginning to see quite how much goes on under the surface, and some of it I ain't liking so much (mostly the forms - the rest is, as ever, overwhelming but exhilarating).
So that's where the next week will go...
Choral news
15/1/2009
Exciting news from the land of Robinson Chapel Choir: the summer tour to Hong Kong has been confirmed. And, what's more, the climax is gonna be a particularly massive concert (an expected audience of around 2000), with us, Hayley Westenra and Yundi Li* :-D. We're going to have to be pretty good by September to justify all this, but I can't wait.
And, as if Hong Kong in September wasn't exciting enough, we're going to Peterborough in a couple of days as well. Bet Kings Choir don't have as much fun as that :-P
*I'll admit that I hadn't heard of him before, but just have a look at that bio. I'm fairly convinced now that I'm more excited about him than about the person I had heard of...
There is a war going on for your mind
7/1/2009
I was introduced to Flobots by Pip's blog a few months back, then got the album for christmas. It's some good stuff, and it's adding to the growing chunk of whatcha might call "urban" music on my music box... Rap and related genres seem to be very good at occasionally producing people who take political awareness seriously - to the extent that I suspect all my urban music is political. There's no official video for this, one of the finest songs on the album, yet, so just turn up the volume, press play and turn the monitor off for a few minutes:
This particular track, it has to be said, does set out their ideology, whereas perhaps they're at their best when simply exhorting you to think for yourself. (As it happens, I agree with much of their ideology as it's expressed here, which does help ;-)). It sometimes shocks me awake to realise that there are so many bits of music - and indeed art, radio, even the odd bit of television - the sole purpose of which is to persuade their audience to think. It seems odd that this should be necessary... Then of course I realise that they are but a lone voice crying out in the wilderness, compared to all the forces designed to stop people thinking.
There is a war going on for your mind
If you are thinking, you are winning
Worst. Lie. Ever.
28/12/2008
We all know politicians lie, and quite possibly never stop lying. Usually, however, you get some sense that maybe they hope you'll believe them, or they've achieved such self-deception that they believe it themselves, or something. Something to redeem them from the sheer obvious stupidity of this.
It's a pretty dull story, really - Bishops accuse Government of not doing enough to help the poor (hands up if you're truly surprised), Government says "oh no, we're wonderful people really". But in amongst that was this little wonder, courtesy of Lab. MP Sir Stuart Bell:
It is also nothing short of nonsense to say that the government's policies are designed to win a future election.
I'd like you to take a moment to think about that. Imagine hearing him say that. Imagine watching him keep a straight face whilst claiming that government policies aren't aimed at re-election.
WHAT... THE... FUCK?
Christmas [hug]s
24/12/2008
If you're someone who stops by here, then I'm almost certain I want to send you a [hug] for Christmas, along with the fervent wish that you enjoy a peaceful, joyful few days... and aren't related to a vicar ;-)
Much love
Not impressed
21/12/2008
Many apologies for the extremely intermittent availability of this site for the last few days... As of late the reliability of the electricity supply around here and my ability to concentrate on work have been battling it out to see which is the most abominable. I think I'm winning, but it's not by much: there've been at least 3 power-cuts of over 2 hours in the last 48, and one or two smaller ones; meanwhile I fell asleep reading one of the sociology texts yesterday.
Unfortunately, we don't really know why the electrons keep ignoring our house (and others around). There are some men digging up the road nearby, so it might be something to do with them, but the last power cut started late saturday night, which seemed an odd time for them to be working. If it's not that, I haven't any ideas, which means that I'm completely in the dark as to when it might start being trustworthy again. If I turn up in Baghdad, you'll know I wanted some reliability in my utilities provision.
In happier news, tonight I'm heading off to London to see some of the wonderful people I met in Tanzania. Can't wait :-)
Dusting
16/12/2008
Heavens... I know I said it would go quiet, but I didn't expect the silence to be quite so absolute. The problem, of course, is that I'm veering from one extreme to another. In cambridge I do lots of things that it'd be fun to write about, but have no time to write. Now that I'm home, very little has happened at all (save me doing lots of greek homework and starting an essay), and I've either forgotten the things I would have written before, or they've lost their relevance.
There is one exception to the nothing much that has happened so far this holiday: a couple of days after getting back, I went to see my old gang playing at the Oxford Centre for Music. Flute choir were as good as ever, and I have to say that Emma and Amy raised a big smile inside me, when the group first came in - I could see Amy whispering "is that Giles?"... It's always good for the ego to notice people who're still pleased to see you ;-)
And I suppose the odd interesting thing happens to me, even when I'm just reading. The essay I'm reading for is on religion as a badge of identity for immigrant communities in the UK, and one of the issues that keeps coming up is marriage. To what extent is arranged marriage the norm, and importantly for today at least, to what extent do people in these communities feel the need to marry within their own group? Generally, the answer to that second question has been that it's the norm - and not just because parents/elders say you should. I've struggled to understand that: I can see why you might want to marry someone who shares your religion, cos that's a commitment to a set of values you want to live by, and being married to someone who disagrees would make living by those tenets difficult. But why does it also apply to race (and the literature agrees that it does)? Then I realised that it's for just the same reasons. Also evident from the studies I've read is that there's a widely held view among, for example, the Pakistani community in London, that their white peers don't share the same moral values in every respect - a common example being that western women are "too promiscuous". Whether this view of fundamentally different values is true or not doesn't matter.
The existence of that perspective makes it possible for me to understand why a young Pakistani Muslim would feel unable to marry outside that community. I've worked through to an empathy I just couldn't manage before. Now, it may be that I'm slow to have missed this. It may, on the other hand, be that I'm entirely wrong in my assessment - that the motivation for "internal" marriages is entirely different (this analysis the result of me putting 2 and 2 together from the literature, not a fully-fledged position set out by anyone I've read). If the first is true then big deal: I'm slow sometimes, and I've lived most of my life in scarily white bits of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. If the latter is true then.... I guess I'll have to start all over again, not really able to empathise after all :-S.