I have discovered the work of PJ Harvey.
Recently been enjoying To Bring you My Love. Good album.

Computing (again)

Partly because I think it's important to keep my readers informed, and partly in order to delay the process of thesis-writing for as long as possible, I take this opportunity to make a post and to inform you all that, further to my previous post, I have inherited a Mac. In case any of you are interested in what it looks like, here's a picture:


And here's my current desktop:

Overall, the switch from a PC has not been too irksome though I have had to convert some music files from .ogg to .mp3. It's nice to use and I have a distinct preference for this machine over the previous one. Today, I discovered growl. Open Office helps keep me as free as I can be from the clutches of Bill Gates.

I've booked tickets for this satirical operetta in London. It will be interesting to see Armando trying his hand at something new. I recall that he used a similar idea in one of his TV shows. Now he's actually written one!

And finally, here is a song by Hugh Laurie (who is apparently now very popular in America (and a Selwyn man - hurrah!)) which will get stuck in your head all too easily. Enjoy:

2009

Happy New Year!

Here beginneth 2009. Thus far I have been getting up not exactly 'early' but in time to listen to Melvyn's In Our Time (Darwin Season). His (Darwin's, I mean) biography is very interesting - not least the time he spent training for the priesthood in Cambridge and the intellectual oppression he must have experienced. Much of this morning's programme was conducted by Melvin in what he called several times "this extraordinary museum" which is just round the corner from my house. I shall have to go and have a look at the bodies of some of the creatures he killed on his various expeditions. I saw Bill Bailey's latest performance in London during the festive period. Focusing on a specific aspect of Darwin's biography, he made us all (by which I mean the audience) say 'barnacles'.

Thinking about when religious people talk about 'the soul' and pray for "all who are ill in mind body or spirit". This must surely be based on a Cartesian view but the puzzle is that Descartes never distinguished between 'mind' and 'soul'. Whatever it was that Descartes thought was distinct from the body and which could potentially survive the destruction of the body was 'thinking substance'. So not only is a questionable dualism built into the fabric of Christianity but a bad version of it, in which a third term is invented, apparently for little more than rhetorical effect. Can anyone out there tell me what a 'soul' is meant to be and how it is supposed to be different from a 'mind'? It's maddening, the degree to which religion depends on bad philosophy.

Very sad to hear of the death of Harold Pinter on Christmas Eve. Bought Michael Billington's biography of him today, together with Wordsworth's Prelude, in all its papery loveliness.

Macquarrie

Well, I've been carrying on with the work. I've been reading a lot of John Macquarrie this week who was an early influence on my thinking (and the writer who first got me interested in Heidegger). It is good to read a mainstream philosopher of religion and systematic theologian denying that the statement "God exists" is strictly true. It's this line of argument, and Tillich's religious symbols, that I'll be writing about in Chapter 4; I hope, over Christmas.

I've reached the conclusion that there is some good stuff in theology but you have to be very careful. Or perhaps I'm just reading philosophers of religion who deceptively call themsleves, or were deceptively called by others, theologians.

'Muffin', Language Use and Beards

I have just eaten a muffin and this led me to reflect of the meaning of the word 'muffin'. Some web searching reveals that what I've eaten is called an 'English muffin' in North America and is also known as a 'hot muffin' or 'breakfast muffin'. Like toast and crumpets, it can be eaten with sweet or savoury accompaniment. But there is no way, in the UK, of distinguishing the two kinds of thing that are called 'muffins' - people hardly go around talking about 'hot' or 'breakfast' muffins in order to distinguish what I've eaten from the sweet, cake-like muffins which are baked in muffin tins. Yet another instance, I reflected, of language use being determined by an ongoing practice of reference and by the context in which words are used. Would the context invariably make it clear what kind of muffin I'm talking about? I rather doubt it.

On a different note, I came across this chap's website today. I was frankly alarmed! He surely cannot be serious when he writes

I suggest that a better test would be to shave half a person's beard off, but not tell them which half.

I love the fact that he is careful to use terms that are non-gender-specific. And if you do as he suggests, and click on the link at the bottom of the page to see him six weeks later, it becomes even more obvious that he has no regard for how other people might perceive him. Not only was he content to perform 'outdoor activities' (presumably in public) with half a beard, but was not at all worried about staying like that until the shaved half grew back and even then without trimming it so that the halves were even. Perhaps he imagines that the shorter half will 'catch up'.

I have found some evidence here and here that such things are considered fashionable but it's not at all clear that these people are not taking the piss.

Lakes

Yes, yes, yes: here we are in Wordsworth Country! It makes me want to read The Prelude: I hope some kind soul will buy me a copy for Christmas. The wedding was delightful, and the 7hr drive tolerable, though we stayed in a pub called the Swinside Inn which I cannot recommend for two reasons:
a) it was shit
b) they turn the central heating off at 10pm.

I wanted ear muffs and some kind of nose-warming device! I had to buy a cumbrian jumper to keep me warm during the night.

Here is me enjoying the Wordsworthian atmosphere:



















And here is my favourite kind of cityscape- humanity vs Nature all the way!:















And here's a picture of the Happy Couple:

The Lake District

More reading: voracious reading! Human potential is more than we give it credit for.

On a different note: Choral Evensong tonight, followed by drinks. Then, I'm off to Keswick tomorrow for a wedding. I shall return with a detailed account and, no doubt, some pictures.

[Edit: I'm hoping for some visitors from California. I suspect that the mere presence of the word 'California' in this post may attract some.]