A Don’s Life

OBE?

Let me say straightaway that I am damn delighted to have been given an OBE, for "services to classical scholarship". You'd have to be a pretty curmudgeonly old soul not to be very tickled.

You'd also have to be oddly unreflective not to wonder for a day or two whether to accept, for all the obvious reasons. Do I really think that an Order of the British EMPIRE is quite what I should be putting my name to? And isnt the whole honours business a bit silly anyway?

Well, yes, it is a bit silly in a way .. but here are the reasons for me accepting and being damn chuffed.

My Christmas Puzzle

 

Help please! One of the don's many excellent presents this year was a nineteenth century cartoon -- of a general in a (slightly odd) Roman triumph (why is the triumphal chariot being pulled by bulls, for example?). But our question is: what is it satirising?

We think that the guy is the chariot is Disraeli (we have found some other examples of Dizzy with a little beard). But what is the occasion?

Why, for example, is he holding a bunch of flowers (husband's bright idea was that -- if it is Disraeli -- it was drawn to commemorate his little-known prize at the Chelsea Flower Show). And what is the scene of crowning on the banner?

Happy Christmas

 

I always like to do a post on Christmas Day, which I am not sure is entirely to my credit. I mean it's nice to extend Christmas wishes etc, but I suspect that I am also trying to prove to you that I am still awake and blogging (your faithful blogging don never stops, as it were). Not to mention the little brag about my trees, which I'm rather proud of  glimpse above -- you can just spot Santa in a yellow New York taxi, acquired by the son last year, first prize for splendid bauble bad taste, closely followed by Santa in a stars and stripes hat).

Anyway this year we have both kids back from being away, and -- also a pleasure to say -- we have Samuel from South Sudan staying with us, and Weimo a Newnham student from China coming for Christmas dinner. And, yes, I've really got into the spirit of it: wreath on the door, mistletoe over the stairs, holly on the pudding, chestnuts on the fire (there's not a tradition that goes uninvented down our way).

Time wins the race (and dying of laughter)

I have been having a little race against time this week. That is to say the idea was that by Christmas day I would have finished the penultimate chapter of my laughter book -- which would leave one chapter to be written by 12th Night (the final target, and not so unrealistic as it might seem, as I have quite a polished lecture-version of what I want to say). 

So every day I have been lighting the fire in the sitting room and sitting in a big armchair wired up to my laptop, books around my feet, typing away (something you couldnt have done before the age of JSTOR, I reflect -- almost every journal article I want, I can just call up onto my screen). It has been quite fun actually, but the fact is that I'm not going to make it by Christmas Day. Time is going to win by about 1000 words. (OK I could just keep slogging at it right up to midnight on Xmas morning, but there the presents to wrap and the cake to ice and the bird to stuff....)

How useless are cctv cameras?

 

One of the things our South Sudanese friend has found very puzzling about the UK is all the notices about cctv cameras, and how you are being surveyed for your own safety, etc etc .

Quite reasonably too. Just imagine how mad/sinister our own surveillance culture would look from anywhere else on the planet.

That said, the one good thing about the whole camera culture is that it is, by and large, so inefficient. I remember years ago that there was a nice full page spread in the Cambridge News with camera mug shots of local villains, who were either clear as day, but unrecognisable on any list of criminals -- or blurry and equally unrecognisable (whether on a list or not).

And you couldn't want a clearer indication of how useless cctv cameras are than the sequel to Plebgate.

E-Christmas card? No thanks

I have a soft spot for Christmas cards . . . both sending and receiving. As for sending, I rather take pleasure in choosing the right card for the right person (all mine are from the Fitzwilliam Museum this year -- as you can see above) -- the nice Madonna for those I know or suspect are religious types, the Quentin Blake of the choristers, for those who would like a bit of a Cambridge feel, etc .

Quite who is on my "Christmas card list" is a question that would keep an anthropological analyst of gift-exchange going for an hour or so. I exchange cards with some people I see often (and yet there are others of my day to day mates that I would never dream of sending a card to . . . I guess in part we have mutually decided, probably years ago, whether we would have a "card" relationship or not). But there are, of course, also a large number of people with whom the only contact I now have is the Christmas card. It's what lets us still claim we know each other -- giving the card up, and that would be that.

I'm not just talking about the more or less distant relatives. In my case it's the girl from my village I used to play with 50 years ago. Why not let her go? you ask. The simple answer is that I dont want to, and the fact that we think about each other once a year, as we put our cards in the envelope, is well worth the couple of quid it must now cost. (As I was writing this, I just heard someone on the radio saying how useless it was to write "Hope we catch up in 2013", like one has written ever since 2001, and never got round to it. Well true, but better than not writing it all, I say.)

Carols at King's

I have lived in Cambridge for more or less 40 years now, and had never been to a Christmas carol service at King's -- until last weekend, when we went (thanks to a generous and lucky invitation) to the recording of the tv version of the service. I had always been puzzled in fact about the relationship of that tv version, recorded mid December and broadcast sometime over Christmas, to the live "9 lessons" version broadcast live on Christmas Eve afternoon -- and now I know the answer.

They both start off with "Once in Royal David's City", and there is a bit of overlap in other bits of music and lessons. But in fact after the opening, they do each go their different ways. The tv one we went to has only 7 lessons, and some of those are "secular", like a bit of Laurie Lee this year. (See how quickly the erstwhile ignorant become expert!)

A new painting and a new director for the Fitzwilliam

We went to see the Fitzwilliam's great new acquisition on Thursday -- Poussin's Extreme Unction (one of his series of Seven Sacraments).  There was a little party to celebrate its arrival.

The painting has been owned by the Duke of Rutland but has now been "saved for the nation" in a tax deal (to set against the profits said Duke made by selling another of the same Poussin series to the Kimbell Museum in the US), and thanks to a hefty contribution (c £3million) from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and another million from other donors. The Fitz has great plans for it (including borrowing some of the rest of the series to display side by side, and giving it a little tour round the country, so it's not only us Cambridge types that get to enjoy it).

It is, as art historians say, pretty damn good. But I found myself uncharacteristically doubtful about whether the traditional title was doing it any favours. It refers (of course... as every reader of this blog I am sure knows) to the anointing of the dying immediately before death, as part of the last rites. But in a world where "extreme" is an adjective that more often goes with "sports", I fear it is close to meaningless for most people. And I don't think that the alternative "final anointing" is much better.

It's not that many of the seven sacraments of the church have a particularly sexy ring to them. But at least it's still common knowledge what "baptism", "marriage" etc are.

Anyway, it's a nice present for the new director, who -- as chance would have it -- was announced on the same day as the welcome party for the Poussin.

The TLS on the move

I know that most people who read this will think of the TLS as a newspaper (or, at least, I hope you do... and I'm pretty sure you'll be already planning to give several gift subscriptions for Christmas . . . it would solve the present problem those awkward literary types, wouldn't it!). 

Well (plug over), this post is to remind you that it is also an office. For the last six years we have been in Grays Inn Road, which has been extremely convenient for me (as it's in walking distance of both Kings Cross station and Profilebooks, my publishers) ... but a bit of a temptation too, as its also in wlaking distance of the restaurants in Exmouth Market. Anyway, we are now moving back to Times HQ in Thomas More Square (picture on the right..more reports to follow, I havent actually been there yet). 

Last Friday was the last day at the old office. And at the top you have the TLS equivalent of the "survivors' photo". There's (ed) Peter Stothard making sure his assistant and office suprema Maureen Allen doesn't escape from the picture. You can also see me, Alan Jenkins (propping up the door), David Horspool, Robert Potts, Rupert Shortt, Toby Lichtig (at the very back) and Anna Vaux! (Some of those links are a bit aged ... let that be a lesson to you TLS people to keep your online presence up to date.)