Alphabetical Characters

I'm naturally enthralled by the prospect of constrained writing using only one vowel for each story, but one detail on the BBC's page perplexes me a little, and I hope I shall find out in the end how the author addresses it. Reportedly 'Mr. Bok believes his book proves that each vowel has its own personality'—but it's well known that English vowels' pronunciation slips all over the place, and frequently slurs into a schwa: 'the sound of a in alone and sofa, e in system, i in easily, o in gallop, u in circus' (dictionary.com). So on the one hand the personalities cross over; on the other, they can be plain erratic, as shown in Bok's words 'Arab lads fawn and hang, athwart an altar'. He also takes advantage of the double-e in needs (though of course most diphthongs are off-limits).

Now of course human personalities can be diverse too, and traits can be shared; but how do you pin down the personality of a vowel, when the sounds are so nebulous?

Maybe I should try writing a story using no vowel sounds but the schwa...

Do Not Disturb

Please imagine that here I have inserted a vigorous though incisive tirade against lazy use of the word 'inappropriate' of the sort that makes me think prescriptivism was ahead of its time, thus saving me the effort of actually doing it. My energies can therefore be diverted straight into observing that the new anti-description du jour is 'disturbing'.

Not that the linked article fails to offer any more precise categories of the 'disturbing'; commendably, it does offer them, which makes me wonder what journalistic or propagandist imperative would lead with opaque rumblings about 'the accessibility of potentially disturbing material'. The problem is not only that disturbing material doesn't look like anything; it's also that it's far from obvious that being disturbed is automatically a bad thing. Potentially disturbing works of art abound: 'Guernica', for example, or Bosch's 'Fall of the Damned Into Hell'. In these cases it seems plausible that their disturbing quality is integral to their aesthetic and perhaps also their moral significance.

If the disturbing is to be treated as a unitary category, then such works presumably are held to be of 'upsetting or even dangerous', and therefore unfit for children, in the exact same way as 'adult sex scenes' or 'people self-harming' (how one would tell whether to the same degree I know not). Yet on the face of it this strikes me as questionable even where a child's limited faculties are concerned. I doubt it's what the sources had in mind; but I can't adequately tell what they did have in mind, because this sloppy terminology is in the way.

Miscellaneous Diary-Esque Jottings of a Postgrad.

So punishing is my academic schedule that even reading lists of imaginary books give way to perusal of nonexistent philosophy journals.

Tutor; Conference Co-Organiser; M.C.R. Chair

Lacking a deputy to keep the post rate up, I've been distracted by academic life recently, and principally by the fact that I now have occasional tutoring work in the Philosophy Dept. For genuine coin of the realm, indeed. For my first sessions I was naturally anxious to brush up quite thoroughly; now I've begun to gain practical experience of the task, I should feel able to bring that back down to a simmer, and spend more time with my research and miscellaneous rambling.

With a couple of sessions over, mercifully non-disastrously, I'm beginning to learn arts like realising when you're pitching the question too high (although it did serendipitously help me find one group's ceiling of comprehension), and keeping discussions more-or-less on track without killing them outright. Not to mention that of working out what should be covered when the lecture content is diverging markedly from the projected schedule.

The Durham-Bergen Conference turned out well, without any further arguments behind the scenes; we had about as good a time as we could have hoped for on a shoestring budget (which precluded our giving the Bergen people any real hospitality beyond a wine reception and restaurant evenings). The Bergen delegates were really nice, and somehow I ended up learning lots about the history of the Norwegian temperance movement. Conversely, faced with an understandably perplexed query from a delegate who'd visited Durham Cathedral when for some bizarre reason morning prayers were being said for the Conservative Party – for which I can come up with no better explanation than that maybe it was something extended to whichever party was holding its conference at the time – I ended up finding myself invited to explain the outlines of British political history, from Magna Carta to the Irish Question to the development of the party system, to a very pretty Norwegian lady—proving that my endeavours during A-Level History were not wasted.

I have no idea what's happening with Proceedings beyond the impression that I'm not to be involved, or not to be very much involved, with the 2006/7 edition; for the 2008 one I don't think there's even the outline of a schedule yet. The conference papers, at any rate, were generally good; it was the kind of affair where usually the worst I could say was that I found myself so often in agreement with the speakers that it was hard to think of questions. We did have one totally unfocussed paper which I greatly enjoyed, but everyone else condemned as a waste of time; I look forward to seeing what the written version looks like.

The College M.C.R. got off to the usual shaky start to the year, this time because we're running out of Exec. members who are still here, and the one who's in charge was injured on the night of the inaugural meeting; the person she sent to deputise arrived five minutes early (before I did), decided to take the other people who'd arrived to show them the Postgrad. Room, and for some reason gave her introductory speech to them there and then dismissed them instead of bringing them back—with the result that the meeting unintentionally split into two. Currently we're waiting to see how many expressions of interest in officer positions turn into candidacies. I'm standing for Chair again, so with my fellows' blessing we shall at least still have a guardian of constitutionality.

Whoever updated the College Postgrad. Handbook forgot that (for reasons outside our control) the M.C.R. membership fee is no longer a fiver for the year but about four times that; and having been the discoverer of this error, I'd really like someone else to be the one to make it generally known...

Complete With a Pushable Red Duck-Thing

The earliest known debug room turns out to predate 1994, since Secret of Mana was first released in August 1993 (Japan).

It turns out the maker of this video isn't the first to discover it – a French site has the code – but I hadn't heard of it before. Considering that the map format is well enough understood for someone to be making an editor, I'm mildly surprised that this hasn't been more widely noted.

Make Up Your Own Soundtrack

Rusty recollections of what little German I learnt in my schooldays are unequal to the task of establishing what this is all about, but maybe that helps me appreciate the raw, dramatic expressiveness of it all.